DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER

Good morning all ~

Okay, so to supplement the “virtual game table” pics and battle reports in in previous posts, here are some pics of live “Darkstar” tabletop play we’ve had with community members @gladesrunner and @aras.

I apologize for the quality of some of these pics – the game mat I bought wasn’t quite the quality I expected, it’s pretty glossy and thus very hard to photograph well with a digital camera.

So the first game is to playtest a newly-designed Japanese heavy cruiser, the Katana class (all ships in this class named for ancient Japanese hand weapons, obviously).  A smidge of backstory:

One of my most veteran starships, the sleek and sexy Japanese light cruiser Sendai (Taiho class) has recently been destroyed outright in a battle.

I wept, I raged, I drank my way through the five stages of grief.

Anyway, the captain of that ship made her survival roll and so now needs a new ship.  Ironically, she’s accrued enough campaign points to earn a promotion (even though she just lost a ship), so I’m comforting myself through the grieving process by designing and playtesting this captain’s new and even better warship, the heavy cruiser Naginata.

The thing is, captains taking command of new ships (either surviving ship destruction or just transferring from one ship to another) get to keep the campaign upgrades they’ve purchased so far.  Not all upgrades effect tactical tabletop game play, but those that do increase the scenario point cost of the ship.  These new Katana class cruisers are friggin’ expensive as it is, and when this ridiculously high-powered captain takes command (and her command bonuses are all applied to the new ship design’s base cost) … well, this heavy cruiser winds up costing more than some pocket battleships or battlecruisers.

It’s time to see if these new points stack up.  So she and another ridiculously-upgraded ship (i.e., I should really retire this ship and her captain) – which just happens to be named USS Oriskany (DSGN-791, Valcour class destroyer, see posts below) head out in a scrimmage game to see if they can take on a much larger, but more normally-experienced force of British warships.

The idea is to ensure the campaign upgrades are not over- or under-powered for their increasingly exorbitant point costs … and test whether the “asymmetrical” aspect of this game design is actually balanced.Picture One – the battle space

Picture One – the battle space
Picture Two – the Japanese-American allies
Picture Three – a British heavy cruiser (CA), light cruiser, and a frigate (behind)
Picture Four – the battle begins.