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Had Mark over yesterday for our sorta-monthly FtF session. It was my choice this time, so the venue was Federation & Empire. We’ve been playing (or failing to) this game for quite some time now, but Mark’s been struggling with a lot of the details, of which there are many, and which are different from pretty much any other game.

So, today was mostly for getting into the flow of the game, with a fair amount of mucking around going on.

We’ve been playing a part (or sector) of a revised version of the third scenario from the original set. Sector C, or the northern Klingon-Federation front. The full scenario is ten turns, starting on turn 10; three turns after the Klingons invade the Federation and at the time the Romulans join in. The major fight is in the southern portion of the front, leaving this as a low-intensity backwater. Mark gets to be the ‘good guys’, while I have the Klingons and a squadron of Lyrans that are on loan to the front.

We’d been halted a bit less than halfway through combat for the first turn. But this time, we got through the rest of that, and through all of Mark’s turn to the beginning of mine. Not at all bad with the number of explanations going on, and a pretty short day. He had to leave at 4, and we had a couple things to talk about outside the game.

My initial strategy for the first turn was a main thrust up the south border of the sector. There’s a couple planets along that line that would be valuable locations to take, or at least devastate. As it was, it was a little too transparent, and I was pinned out for an open space battle. The main fight ended up being just north of there in 2308, where I was able to take out a Battlestation.

After combat, I realized that my own bases to the north were a bit vulnerable, and I had to pull units out to protect the area. Mark was fairly conservative on his turn, preserving EPs and and just pushing my fleets around a little in open space battles. We’re at the start of my second turn, and I need to figure out what my goals are going to be. He’s got everything fairly well protected, but there’s a lot of targets and I should be able to find my way to something he can’t cover.

From the looks of things, next time we get together will be Spartacus.