Firestorm Armada Battle Report - Make New Friends!

Game 3 of our club's narrative Firestorm campaign saw the Aquan fleet stumble upon an inhabited world in the Archadian Gate. Eager to make allies in this disputed region of space, the Aquans would need to be careful with how first contact was handled. Not wishing to provoke the world's inhabitants with a display of force, it was decided that the majority of the fleet was to be held in reserve. The flagship and a modest gunship squadron would make for a space station orbiting the planet.

Suddenly, an enemy fleet of the most reviled Directorate was detected in a patch of anomalous gaseous beyond the space station! (Relthoza ship used as proxy for the station)

Before the Aquan commander had time to understand the nature of the attack it was already over. The Directorate hit the Aquan battleship with a torrent of cyber warfare. Sensors that monitored temperature and pH levels inside the ship began receiving erroneous data and responded by attempting to compensate.

The results were catastrophic.

The crew inside the Aquan flagship, so intent on making contact with the space station, had been caught unprepared for what any more experienced Aquan officer would recognize as basic Directorate tactics.

In less than 30 minutes, Directorate forces boarded the Aquan flagship unopposed. The crew had been incapacitated, some dead, others dying. The lifeblood of the ship had been poisoned...

A monstrous Directorate battle station emerged from the veil. Some smug corporate hacker aboard would be getting a raise and promotion by day's end. The local system inhabitants had witnessed the entire scene, and must have been horrified. For they proceeded to answer each of the Directorate fleet's hails with volleys of torpedoes.

The remainder of the Aquan fleet shunted in at this point. The scene unfolding before them gave even the most stalwart among their crews pause: their flagship dead in space, Directorate forces swarming the gunships, and a battle station looming in the middle distance.

The local inhabitants and their world were an afterthought-- set dressing-- to the greed and ruthlessness of the Directorate.

And moments later the Aquan reserves were crushed as yet another capital ship fell to the Directorate onslaught!

Appalled, the Aquan corvettes turned their torpedoes on the captured ship to deny their enemy this one satisfaction...

Aftermath: It was a rough game for the Aquans. I was outmatched by a superior opponent, and realized this pretty early on. At that point I decided to go into learning mode and see what could be salvaged as events unfolded.

On the list of pros, I managed to make first contact with the inhabitants of the planet. They must have felt sympathy for me because my opponent kept failing his contact rolls!

Looking to the future I'd like to get my guardian shoal fleet painted up soon and hopefully take a run at landing on that planet...