Tag Archives: First Turns

Planets Mag 2022: A Year In Review

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I blinked and missed 2022. If you shared that experience, I wrote this article for you.

Amidst mental and physical fatigue, Planets Mag continued to produce thoughtful and helpful material, and I felt it was worth travelling back in time to see what exciting things happened. Unfortunately, my Lorean Class Temporal Lance was broken and ex-Emperor Darth Balls was missing in action, so I settled for opening the cabinet of published posts and re-read our content. As I flipped through the files, several pieces caught my attention. Our Articles of War project grew, our science fiction collection added some new adventures, the magazine’s invitational games grew more popular, and our strategy guides continued to support Nu‘s growing population. In all, it was a successful year.

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First Turns: The Missing Colonies of Man

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Most games are won or lost in the first few turns. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Colonies have a powerful yet limited ship list, remarkable for not only its low-cost heavy carrier, the Virgo, but also the fuel-generating Cobol. They lack low-cost endgame sacrifice ships and their best shield-scratchers are the Cygnus (against battleships only), the Tranquility, and the Iron Lady, which sets them at a late-war disadvantage against any powerful foe. However, their ability to sweep space mines from a distance with fighters alone balances the entire field in their favor.

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First Turns: The Solar Federation

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Solar Federation fields a wide variety of top-end battleships, battlecruisers, and utility vessels. They lack a heavy carrier, but their diplomatic advantages, broad ship list, and above all crew combat bonus more than make up for this.

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First Turns: The Robotic Imperium

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Most games are won or lost in the first few turns. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Robots have a powerful and unique, yet limited, ship list. They are remarkable not only for having not one but two effective heavy carriers, the Golem and the Automa, but also for their ability to control vast swathes of the battleground using their mass minelaying advantage by way of their lone minelayer, the Cat’s Paw. The inexpensive and relatively low-tech medium carrier, the Instrumentality, is the cherry on top.

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First Turns: The Cyborg

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Cyborg field not one but two of the strongest warships in the Echo Cluster. The Annihilation is the most massive and powerful battleship, and the Biocide is a carrier nearly as huge as the Empire’s Gorbie — and with a larger cargo hold to boot. The Firecloud permits instantaneous travel across any distance, and there’s also a passable hyperspace probe that, when coupled with the Cyborg’s ability to assimilate natives, grants them the ability to expand rapidly across any cluster.

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First Turns: The Rebel Confederation

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Most games are won or lost in the first few turns. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Rebels have a powerful yet limited ship list, remarkable not only for its heavy carrier, the Rush, but also the Falcon, the only efficient hyperspace transport in the Echo Cluster. Their best shield-scratchers are the Tranquility, the Gaurdian, and the Iron Lady, which sets them at a late-war disadvantage against a more balanced race. However, their ability to undermine even the best-defended starbases through Rebel Ground Assault more than balances any slight disadvantage they face on the field of battle.

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First Turns: The Crystal Confederation

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Crystals have one of the worst ship lists in the Echo Cluster. They share the record for weakest battleship (the Diamond Flame) with the Fascists, but they do supplement that with an inexpensive third-rate fleet carrier. A wide variety of minelayers, tenders, scoopers, sweepers, and tow ships all contribute to the primary Crystalline mission of covering the Cluster in a continuous field of vibrant Web.

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First Turns: The Lizard Alliance

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

While the Lizard fleet technically has the weakest battleship in the T-Rex, this is more than made up for with the increased ship durability granted by the Lizard Crew Bonus. Similarly, the too-light Madonzilla can act as a support carrier in fleet battles, and the undergunned Lizard Class Cruiser fights as well as a battlecruiser in most situations.

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First Turns: The Empire Of The Birds

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Bird Empire, like the Crystals, has the weakest economy of any race in the Echo Cluster. For their survival they rely on the justly dreaded Dark Wing, the only cloaking battleship; however, absent extreme luck, they will rarely produce enough before the Ship Limit — and, even if they do, the ability to cloak gives a battleship no extra survivability against heavy carriers. The Birds have little hope in direct combat.

Which is why their ship list and abilities were designed to excel in indirect tactics.

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Threat Assessments: Preface

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This series of anonymous reports was intercepted in transit to an unknown force outside the Echo Cluster. After emergency review by the Senate Committee on Military Classification, these redacted versions were approved for immediate publication. They should be read by commanders of each respective race so they can review their own vulnerabilities in the face of this new and unknown external threat.

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