Monday 19 February 2018

Imperial Skies (First game)

I sent 1 ship to the right and two to the left
Clearly seeing that a broadside
was better than an bow to bow engagement.
Yesterday at the club I had my first game of Imperial Skies. I played against Matt and as neither of us had played before (at all) we decided to start small with just 300 points. Disclaimer: Matts Ships are all painted, mine are not. Matt also has better bases (2 of mine broke on the day), the results being my ships MOSTLY just sat on the table top and were not played on Stands. IN THE FUTURE THIS WILL CHANGE. But before we even had a trial game I did not see a huge point in expending either time or money on this as a project. Truth to admit Matt even bought me 1/2 my ships!

Matt responded by sending his biggest ship
(Battle cruiser I think) to meet my Light cruiser on the right and
the remaining 3 ships to meet  my light and heavy cruiser
to the left
In all we played 2 games and the second was faster than the first! As you might expect.

For the first game Matt selected 4 ships to make up his Flotilla. While I selected 3. A heavy Cruiser and 2 light cruisers.




matt first realised he had problems when my heavy cruiser
opened fire at his lightest ship even at long range.
but damage was light at this stage


I was quickly able to destroy matts ship
when medium range was engaged.
And Matt lost his first ship.


Over on the right my light cruiser
was able to out turn matts ship and
through a combination of DUMB LUCK
and bad dice from Matt took almost no damage.
At least to start



matt did try to double team my Other Light Cruiser (on the left)
But my heavy cruiser could not be forgotten.
And soon while the light cruiser of mine was in trouble
so were both of matts ships on the left

Meanwhile on the right I was seriously lucky with the
gunnery of the light cruiser, and was able to inflict a shocking
11 points of Damage on Matts Battle cruiser in one turn.



matt manages to shoot down my other light cruiser
but at least it went down fighting


I was able then to finish off both of matts other ships
with another massive broadside rom my heavy cruiser

The first game ended with a German Victory

A misplay by me in turn 1 (you are not surprised)
I put the ships in the wrong order
The plan was to use the small ships as a screen to protect the
battleship.




















































































































GAME 2
Selecting different flotillas each this time I went for a battleship, 2 frigates and a patrol craft












I wanted to screen the battleship and that was the plan
and it worked for the first 2 tunrs.
After 2 Turns though Matt was happy to shoot the 5h!t
out of my minnow ships and take no return fire from them


Matt had 3 ships this time while I had 4.
he had learnt the value of Cruisers.
While Clearly I had not!
















Son I just had the battleship left against 2 of Matts Cruisers





























Despite my best efforts and a huge amount
of fire power I was out manouvered















And out gunned.I did all the repairs I could but
each turn I was getting weaker
I headed for home,
my own board edge.
Badly damaged engines now down to a 2" move
Not enough crew to fire the light guns
and all to few to fire the medium guns
And then all of a sudden Matt was able to kill the ship entirely
yes I know you thought I would pull it
out at the last minute
I DID NOT!

A Glorious Victory to Matt
(Curse his name!)























































All in all the rules worked very well. better then I would have thought. hats of to you Robin (who wrote the rules), I have met briefly once. And hope to meet again.

I have emailed Matt today and we have agreed on another game both saying we enjoyed it. The rules are simple yet at the same time do allow for some tactics (except when I play). For the next game I need to paint all of my ships and make some better stands as I feel that will add to the look of the game. I also want to get a few more ships and some Digs (dirigibles) so expect to see Aeronef on the blog again.

Overall a very enjoyable game and worth playing again and with finished models.

18 comments:

  1. Marvellous stuff, Clint, with plenty of photos too. The game sounds great fun and I'm looking forward to seeing more AARs in the future, as well as painted models. Top stuff :-)

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    1. Thank you Blax. I will try not to disappoint. I find the more people the less photos. Probably because I get too engrossed. There will be more AARs of Aeronef in the future I am sure. And on Sunday an opportunity to buy more models as well.

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  2. Great AAR's Clint seems like you had fun even with it being a small game

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    1. Thank you Dave. yes we went for small games knowing that we did not know the rules and had to learn them. But we can expand in the future (and plan to).

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  3. Although it is not a game I would consider buying it still looked like a lot of fun. It is nice to see you trying out something so different.

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    1. Thank you Bryan. I am usually happy to try Victorian Science Fiction and although ship combat is not really my thing nice to do something out of the ordinary every so often. Maybe some 28mm figs next time as it has been at least a week since I finished any.

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  4. That looked and sounded fun, despite your mishaps (rules, stands etc,) and a 1-1 result. If you had time for two games then these mustn't have taken too long to play and you must have enjoyed the games too,.

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    1. Thank you Joe you are of course right on all counts. I think there will be a big or even multi player battle soon.

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  5. Nice looking game Clint very different to my useful stuff so interesting to see thanks 🙂

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    1. Thanks Matt. I realise not to everybody's taste. I must say however that the rules worked very well, I was impressed.

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  6. I think it looks really good and it sounds like it is fun to play too!

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    1. Thanks Andy. 1stly HOPE to see you at show on Sunday (Cavalier). 2ndly It will look better when I get my act together and make some bases for it. I am pretty sure I have worked out best way for me. And Yes it was fun to play, great fun in fact.

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  7. This looks so cool, Clint.

    I was looking at the Aeronef range at ROBIN the other weekend and the models look really nice in real life.

    Definitely I enjoyed this post. Top stuff!

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    1. Thank you Roy. I suspect you will like some planned future blog posts as well. (More Aeronef planned)

      Placed a small order with Stu to pick up on Sunday. Just things I KNOW I want and not impulse buys!

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    2. Yeah, there's a downside to working for Stu; I end up buying lots of stuff that catch my eye from off the stall. ROBIN show the other weekend, I ended up buying more from Col. Bill's than any other traders - I was meant to be selling to other people, not to myself!

      I saw some 28mm MDF Victorian scifi flying boats the other day at Bournemouth show - from Blotz mdf company - and reckon I'll be buying one in the future. If you can convince Dave Doc and the other members of the Old Guard club to play Imperial Skies I'd jump at the chance to collect those Spanish models from Brigade. I think they're lovely.

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    3. Thank you Roy. I know Boltz they make some good inexpensive stuff. I would not go for the Spanish fleet. They look good but no STATS in the book. You can always get them and use them as another fleet of course and as long as you have sympathetic players not a problem Dave Doc should be OK doing that. Just saying it is easier with the more established fleets

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  8. Ohh nice post. Bummer that you're opponent learned the lesson of the Cruisers and victory was turned into defeat but it sounds like you had a great time.

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    1. Thank you Warrior. I must say although I lost for bigger battles I have learnt a lot. You are correct my tactics did not work well in the second game but winning is not everything and fun was had. I also worked out how to use screening ships (the hard way)but first games are ever such.

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