Bandit Lords III

Report on Bandit Lords III
Scenario: Invasion, 50 points
My Race: Lizards

This was my first invasion game and I was really excited about trying out this new ruleset. Personally I much prefer a system that rewards attacking over simply building up a massive autoscore. My time to finish this game was limited so I decided to go for a fast and furious race, the Lizards.

The game didn't start off all that well. While I had quite a few natives on my initial planets, they were either of very primitive government or living on artic worlds. (Hot I can change, cold I can't). Luckily as the Lizards I had every advantage for building a huge economy. I started off building with 2x LDSF, 1 Eros and an LCC. While the LCC scouted. With the LDSFs I loaded up and placed 3 more starbases by turn 6. With these I started cranking out hissers (Serpents or Eros), LCCs and freighters, with a couple reptiles for scouting and towing.

The map was a spiral galaxy with one arm for every race. I was lucky in that I figured out my neighbour above me was the Fascists by turn 5. (sensor sweep) By turn 8 I knew my southern neighbour was the Feds (ship in deep space).

Turn 13 I had an LCC in Fascist space scouting out potential targets. Turned out his closest planet was 2 turns away from my homeworld and his homeworld right next to that one. This is also the turn the Feds colonized all their ships, (they only had 4, never really got into the game). I figured out later this was because the Borg were moving through their space and so identified my next neighbour.

Turn 15 3 LCCs full with 200 clans and 50 mk7s and a reptile for freighter capping headed into Fascist space. Began construction of 3 T-Rexes.

Turn 17 the LCCs and Reptile attacked taking 3 planets and a freighter. 3 T-Rexes were dispatched, 2 turns from his homeworld.

Turn 18 LCCs take 3 more planets and lay their mines.

Turn 19 3 fascist cloaked ships are destroyed or crippled by the minefields

Turn 20 T-Rexes reach Fascist homeworld destroying it without casualties.

From this it was a quick cleanup of his remaining planets and bases. He had a number of warships, but I really surprised him and he never got a chance to organize a defence. It was then I spoke with him by email. He seemed a little shocked by the attack and very graciously conceded the location of the rest of his ships and planets.

By now I knew the next race above me was the Crystals. While at this time I greatly overpowered him, I simply didn't have the sweeping power to take his webs, and reinforcements were too far away. It seemed like a lose-lose situation trying to attack him so I messaged him to make peace. It also occurred to me that if I were to face the Borg in an all out war, the Crystals might be a nice ally to have. Especially since with sphere they weren't all that far away.

By this time I had pretty much figured out the location of all the races around the map from distress messages from combat. Turns out around the other side of the sphere were the rebels and privateers. The privs were already under a relentless assault from the birds. I considered sneaking in and snatching up the homeworld, but they were allied with the rebels, and the last thing I wanted were rushes moving into my space, so again, I made peace with them. Nothing much became of this alliance except I got a falcon out of it and I never made an attack that way.

With my flanks covered it was time to move into fed space.

The feds were pretty much out so this was more a battle versus the Borg.

LCCs were deployed immediately for scouting and ground pounding. Realizing I was up against Bios now I started putting out Madonzillas and T-Rexes.

Turn 25, first LCCs arrive.

Turn 30, first battleship arrives. Guerrilla tactics with the LCCs succeed in damaging the bio with random minefields but that's not so much of an accomplishment since they can repair for free. Nonetheless it did slow them down while the T-Rexes moved in to capture the homeworld. At the cost of 2 battleships the Bio was destroyed.

>From this point on, getting 2 invasion points a turn, it was simply a matter of keeping my allies happy and keeping the Borg away. I sent a couple LCCs to aid the privateers but nothing much became of that. I made a few trades with the crystals, LCCs for Onyxes, and also arranged to get them to web up fed space to keep the Borg out. The Borg didn't amass a new attack fleet until turn 40 which consisted of 2 bios, 2 annis, and 4 misc support ships. I had already captured and cloned a few fireclouds, by this point, and chunneled in 12 T-Rexes and 6 Madonzillas, in defence. I arranged to get the crystals to throw up some webs down there as well, but that fell apart when a massive ionstorm swept through my space destroying most of my falcons. The result of that was the loss of around 40 ships (mostly hissers), and also tossing around anything that wasn't destroyed. By this point it was turn 45, the Borg player quit the game, and the rest was just sitting back and waiting to hit 50 invasion points.

Summary:

Turn 1-12 build up economy, scout

Turn 13-20 conquer Fascists

Turn 21-25 mobilize ships to other border to attack Fed space

Turn 26-33 conquer Fed space and drive out Borg

Turn 33-48 build up defence for Fed space and wait out the rest of the game.

Three things contributed to my victory here. Blitzkrieg/Guerrilla tactics, diplomacy, and of course luck :). I snagged my first homeworld very early on, and then secured my borders with diplomacy, so really, taking the second homeworld was merely to speed up the process and secure my position on top. My natural enemies, the free fighter races, were all occupied or one of my allies, and never posed much of a threat. The enemies that could have posed a threat were eliminated early or negotiated with. My only regret is that my allies the Crystals and Rebels never got much of a chance to take a homeworld and didn't make the top 3, honestly guys, you may not realize it but you really helped! Kevin and Roy, I'll join your team anyday :)

Thanks for the game everyone, hope to play with you all again soon!

Adam Zakreski a.k.a. Arctic Phoenix

Canada