Recently, on a brisk Saturday night, Charlie, John Burke, and I piled into Kirby's van for a ride up to Phil's house for a close encounter of the violent kind with Phil's Battlefleet Gothic Armada. The arrival of John Lesko brought the group to six and we diced to choose teams. I wasn't too pleased to find myself on a team with John Burke and Charlie.

John was on an uncanny bad luck streak when playing this game, and Charlie's penchant for abandoning his allies when the going gets tough at Battlefleet are well known. But you play them as they lie, as the golfers say. We decided to allow each player three ships, one of which could be a battleship. We diced to determine our draft positions. The heavy carriers went first, with John Lesko choosing a Battle Barge (good choosing John). I blundered badly by selecting a Desolator Battleship a crummy, undergunned, ill-designed and overvalued piece of rust that I would learn to hate. In the second round the two battlecruisers were snatched up quickly, and we filled out our fleets with the remaining cruisers.

We determined our entry points with more dice rolls. Poor Phil was forced to enter the board directly between John Burke's fleet and my own. On the other end of the board Charlie had to enter with Kirby and John Lesko on his flank. The game would develop as two separate battles as Charlie and Phil tried to dash past a superior enemy force and reach their allies. Although the battles were decidedly uneven the game turned out to be a lot of fun thanks in part to good sportsmanship by the "victims." Phil didn't act like a victim on turn one. I blundered in my maneuvers and got off a weak volley, and John Burke was still at long range so Phil escaped turn one virtually intact. His return fire burned my favorite ship to a crisp, leaving it crippled with just a single remaining damage point. The next few turns were less kind to our host.

John Burke played his best Battlefleet Gothic game ever and ravaged Phil's ships turn after turn. I was able to contribute very little, but at least I didn't take any more hits since Phil was forced to spend most of the turns braced for impact. Phil's cruiser and battlecruiser were blasted into fragments leaving his wounded heavy carrier to make one last, desperate dash for safety.

On the other end of the board Charlie wasn't faring much better. He decided to run for his life, harassed the whole way by swarms of bombers and assault craft. But Charlie proved to be bomber proof. Cruising under a brace for impact order and enjoying some stunning luck he swatted away scores of bomber squadrons with only minor damage. Kirby and John Lesko chased him but were hampered by a slow fleet and some bad rolls that deprived them of badly needed reloads for their launch bays. As the fleets rushed into a final confrontation in the middle of the board Phil found his escape route blocked by one of Charlie's cruisers. The upstart cruiser was incinerated but not before inflicting three critical hits on Phil's flagship. John was happy to finish the job as Kirby and John Lesko caught up to Charlie and blasted his fleet to pieces. Although I was eager to take on Kirby's cherished carrier John and I feared the Battle Barge so we decided to disengage.

In our eyes we had achieved our objective (punishing Charlie for his past treachery). John Lesko and Kirby had also had their fill of battle, and besides it was getting late, so we declared the game a draw.