Back to Conventional Star Wars Risk

Pre-Game Show. While in Walgreen's picking up beer for tonight's game, Kent came face to face with an "exciting situation." A police officer and some loser on meth were facing off. The officer kept amazing restraint with a very confrontational (but luckily unarmed) and aggressive male. Kent helped flank the man and slowly they herded him into the liquor area.

There, seeing that he was cornered, the desperate man grabbed a bottle and whacked it on the counter, thinking to attack Kent with it. Considering that the policeman had a drawn weapon, this was probably some sort of meth-induced version of clever thinking. That said, he had grabbed a plastic bottle. When it bounced instead of breaking, that gave everyone a chance to move in and take him down.

Shortly afterwards police back up arrived and all was well. Kent tells us that he's retiring several of his "sure fire" martial arts moves after they failed to deliver in the crunch. Even so, its obvious that enough of his moves worked.

Game 1. Storm Troopers had a strong game going but ignored the Hutts once, thinking the Rebels would beat them back. Instead, Rebel Leader came after the Emperor and the Hutts swept to victory.

Game 2. A very strong set of Star Bases (garrisoned with four troops each--almost impregnable) plus the Death Star on Gamorr left the Hutts in a weak starting position. High Rebel casualty rates sustained while attacking the Star Bases made it possible for the Empire to button down the Wild Spaces and eventually clear the Hutts out of the Ison Corridor.

The Death Star destroyed a large Rebel garrison in the El'Rood Sector and Storm Troopers made strong in-roads among the resource planets of the Mid Rim. Hutts and Rebels capitulated shortly thereafter.

Looks like everyone is a winner this week.

Here be Pirates

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, this Thursday's gaming event was 4-handed Pirates of the Caribbean. Kent brought over his large collection and step-son Nathan joined in for grog, ship's biscuit, and broadsides.

In Game One yours truly played British, Kent came in as Chinese, with Ric and Nathan as pirates. The Brits dealt Ric's pirates a mortal blow early on with a hit-and-run from the Algeron. Nathan and the Chin duked it out, leaving them both too weak to fend off the largely untouched Union Jack. Outgunned, they struck their colors.

Game Two saw Ric change over to the Spanish and Kent to the Americans. The Spaniards closed en masse on the Brits. Clever use of Ignacio Diaz led to unacceptable causualties, even after the Brits finished off the Spanish fleet. In the end the Americans accepted a truce with the pirate fleet.

Arrr!!

Don't Ever Forget to Check Captured Star Bases

Three quick games this week. And some insanely rare dice rolling. Ric rolls a '1' defending some planet. Kent, with as close to a sure thing as he will ever see, manages to roll three 1's and loses. Later, Ric rolls three 6's but Karl holds him off with a '6' for defense.

In the first, the Rebels clobbered the Empire right out of the starting blocks and the Hutts followed up. Then the Rebels whacked on the Empire some more. Unfortunately, that left the Hutts with an easy shot to victory.

Game Two was fascinating, only in that the first Star Base contained the Emperor. The Storm Troopers tried a bluff by placing it within easy reach of Rebel forces. Unfortunately, they attacked with extra forces and took the base. Doubly unfortunate was the fact that I quickly removed the base from the board and Kent didn't bother to check, assuming it was merely a defensive Star Base. The look on his face ten minutes later when I revealed the token was that of a pole-axed Rebel Leader. He absolutely couldn't process the facts. Hilarious.

Game Three. Despite a strong showing from the Empire this time, the Hutts were able to eek out a slime victory by overrunning a couple well-garrisoned Star Bases. Can't turn your backs on those Hutts, even when you've got the Rebels on the run.