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.