BOYL 2017: Space Fleet Spectacular

Bloody hell - how did it get to be October?!

And I never got round to finishing off the last of my BOYL 2017 reports! Apologies to my most excellent gaming buddies Paul (of Golgfag fame on the Oldhammer forum) and JB Asslessman (Crosser of Channels and painter extroadinaire!) with whom I shared that last balmy Sunday afternoon engaged in a little fleet action!

Thanks to some slight confusion about when we were supposed to be playing this game (no doubt my fault as I'd managed a couple of other mix ups during the weekend as well!) I had been worried that JB's beautiful Imperial and Tyranid fleets had crossed the Channel to no avail. much to my surprise, relief and excitement I was accosted fairly late on during the Sunday afternoon and steered towards the Space Fleet table. It seemed that the fates had conspired to let the three of us game after all!

JB took on the combined might of his and my Imperial Fleets.

Paul slid gracefully in to the Wraithbone command chair of his lovely Eldar Fleet.

And I rubbed my tentacles gleefully over a massive Tyranid armada made up of all three of our collections!

The board was made of up of three sets of tiles and Paul had very kindly reproduced data sheets, tokens and all the other useful stuff needed to play the game without too much flicking through four or five copies of White Dwarf whilst trying to track down that elusive special rule!

The game kicked off with Eldar ships streaking across the board with a favourable solar wind in their sails.

But true to form the Xeno hating Imperial Forces turned their guns on the Eldar's vulnerable flanks despite the need for cooperation in the face of the massive Tyranid threat! Actually I think there was a bit of confusion over whether we were playing a three way game or Eldar/Imperial V Tyranids as JB and I had thought!

We were pleasantly surprised at how well the rules stood up to the ridiculous number of ships we threw at the table and we got through each player's turn in pretty good time.

I'd opted to limit the the Tyranids action cards to a maximum of 18 but with the amount of Tyranid ships on the board a lot seemed to be left sitting ducks with no action points. Tyranids seem to be the tricky ones to get right in terms of game balance as they operate totally differently to the Eldar and Imperial fleets, drawing action cards depending on the number and type of ships they have in play.

There were many highlights to the game - finally seeing an Eldar fleet in action, gaming with two absolute gentleman (once we'd figured out the sides!), getting to use some of the Tyranid Kraken in anger that I don't have in my own fleet... yet and just the sheer scale of it!

We didn't really reach a conclusion to the game - unsurprisingly given the lateness of the hour and the size of the game! I must say Paul's Eldar were holding their own very well while My Tyranids and JB's Imperials were looking a little battleworn towards the end.

Thanks again to both my opponents for a fantastic finish to a brilliant weekend's gaming and here's to a whole load more Space Fleet action in the future!