Game: Battle Platform Antilles

Thread: First Play

Elsairon — 2007-03-30T03:58:29+00:00

This first game my strategy was to blip all my Paladins south of the Antilles, and use vollies of fusion blasts to knock down the station while the mass of Paladins could (maybe) cover each other and take down any stray bolts that got too close. This didn't work out quite as I planned.

I lined up my paladins in a half circle at range three and began my bombardment of the Alien Station. First turn the Antilles didn't do so well. Two bolts blew each other up and two more shot off into the northern section, far from my squadron of assult ships. A strong volley of blasts from my Paladins knocked out all the shields. (the +3 stationary Paladin fire bonus helped here.) Next round 2 paldins got blown away. Again a steady stream of fusion bolts hammered the Antilles and the armor was destroyed along with one bolt turret. The next round I lost a couple more paladins, due to one of the Antilles guns firing off a volley of three bolts... At the beginning of round four, the Antilles had 2 bolt casters left, while I had 3 remaining paladins. One of the casters let off a volley of two shots and took down another paladin, the other fired off harmlessly into space. My remaining paladins both hit, finishing the game. With a decent turn bounus (round 4), and +10 points for 2 paladins remaining I cleared 75 points, netting myself a Decisive Paladin Victory.

All in all I got lucky. There is almost no predictability for this game, reducing the Paladins options almost to blind luck. I relied on parking my paladins fairly close and keeping them stationary so each round I would get the +3 firing bonus. This strategy paid off. I might play it again sometime I want a quick solitare game.

Thread: Anyone come up with an alternate Paladin movement?

ezra40k — 2006-08-08T21:53:26+00:00

Has anyone tried some kind of alternate movement for the Paladins?

Thread: Re: Movement and turn radius versus blip movement

ctalbot — 2005-10-24T20:46:20+00:00

I'll have to give that a try.

Chris

Thread: Re: Movement and turn radius versus blip movement

castiglione — 2005-10-24T19:43:18+00:00

I was thinking of this myself - the blip movement really bothered me.

How's this for a quick and dirty method of movement?

Each Paladin has 3 movement points...it takes one movement point to move one hex FORWARD...and it takes one movement point to change facing by one hex-side; there is not limit (beyond the movement point limit) to the number of hex sides that a Paladin can move in a hex. A Paladin need not expend all its movement points.

Also, each Paladin has a very narrow firing arc...it can only fire at the row/column of hexes directly in front of it!

I think this would make the game more enjoyable and make it more a game of maneuver whilst keeping things simple.

Thread: Third play

ctalbot — 2005-09-29T21:07:39+00:00

After giving Battle Platform Antilles a rest for a couple of weeks, I came back to it today and decided to try a different tactic. In this case, I set up by putting all of my Paladins in the hexes surrounding the Antilles. However, there is one more Paladin than the number of hexes available, so I put one just behind the Paladin at the number five area.

The game began, I didn't move the Paladins from their starting positions. The Antilles fired off a volley of bolts and wiped out three of my Paladins. I expected these kinds of losses, though. I had hoped I would get lucky and only lose one, but I figured that the Antilles would likely take out half my force in the first turn.

I made my shots, and the only Paladin to miss was the one at a two-hex range. I got lucky and took out two bolt casters, and the last point of damage went to the shields.

In the next round, I only moved the Paladin that was at the two-hex range and moved him in close. Unfortunately, that Paladin (and another) got blown away. The Antilles repaired one damage to its shields, and then it was my turn to fire. Both Paladins hit bolt casters.

Game over. The Antilles was destroyed.

With the Antilles destroyed (50 points) on turn two (+28 points), and with two surviving Paladins (+10 points), my final score comes to 88 VPs, which is a "decisive Paladin victory."

I quite honestly don't know if I'm capable of getting a better score than that, so maybe it's time to pack this game up and find another solitaire game.

Chris

Thread: Second play

ctalbot — 2005-09-16T16:44:24+00:00

My second attempt to play this game went slightly better than my first attempt, but by the fourth turn, all but one of my Paladins had been wiped out. My surviving Paladin kept close to the Antilles, firing away, until the end of round seven, when I realized I couldn't do enough damage to the bolt casters to actually win. I aborted the mission and took my 10 VPs (five for one surviving Paladin, two for damage to the shields, two for damage to the armour and one for a destroyed bolt caster).

In this attempt, I started off by putting all of my Paladins at the lower left corner of the map to wait and see where the initial bolts would go. After they had been launched (one of which flew true and destroyed one Paladin right off the bat), I saw that the space in the top-right corner of the map was clear. I blipped the entire attack squadron up there, keeping them really tight and getting right up close and snug with the Antilles (three were actually one hex from the Antilles and the rest were lined up right behind the others -- technically, the game doesn't cover line of sight, so I don't see any rule that says I can't shoot through hexes; I should triple-check this, though).

This proved to be a fatal error. An explosive bolt that launched from the Antilles hit in just such a way that it wiped out four Paladins. This was on turn two. In turn three, I was reduced to just one Paladin. I had just watched my entire attack fleet get almost massacred. With only one Paladin left, I kept it within two hexes of the Antilles, blippin occasionally but always firing right at the Antilles.

A bit of luck was with me, and I managed to take out a bolt caster in turn four, reducing the number of bolts each turn. By the end of turn seven, I had damaged the shields twice and the armour twice. With three more bolt casters to go, though, I couldn't do enough damage to win by the end of turn nine (which is the end of the game) ... even if I rolled extraordinarily well. I aborted the mission and took my 10 VPs, which is (quite clearly) a crushing defeat for the Paladins.

Chris

Thread: Movement and turn radius versus blip movement

ctalbot — 2005-09-15T16:38:44+00:00

It seems (based on my observation of the few ratings of this game) that some people don't like the blip movement of Battle Platform Antilles. I only played the game for the first time this morning, and it didn't really bother me that much.

However, I think the game would seem a lot more space battle-like if the Paladins had a movement rate and a turn radius (possibly ala Star Fleet Battles, but at a much smaller scale/rate) and an arc of fire. Has anyone tried this?

What would be a good movement rate for the Paladins? Two hexes per turn with a turning radius of 60 degrees, maybe? A forward 180-degree firing arc?

Chris

Thread: First play

ctalbot — 2005-09-15T15:21:56+00:00

I spent a bit of time last night printing out and doing a really cheap job of constructing Battle Platform Antilles. This morning, I decided to give the game a try, so I laid out the game and the counters, picked a d20 from my dice collection and then place all of the Paladin ship counters on the map. Not knowing what the best strategy would be for this game, as this was my first time every playing it, I postioned one Paladin at each corner of the map, putting all of those out of range of shooting the Antilles, and then I placed my last Paladin four hexes off to the left of the Antilles (just within range to shoot at it).

In the first turn, the Antilles' fired out a normal and an explosive bolt from its first bolt caster, a fast bolt from the second (which shot right off the board and was taken out of play), a fast bolt from the third, and a fast bolt from the fourth. A couple of bolts narrowly missed my Paladins. Since I technically didn't move any of my Paladins this turn, I wasn't sure whether to count the +3 to hit rolls, but I decided to err in the Antilles' favour and not give them the bonus. After a round of firing, one fast and one explosive bolt were still operational.

Second turn: I moved all but the one Paladin that was already in range of the station closer (to within two or three hexes). The fast bolt that was in play shot off the board, but the explosive bolt continued to fly around in play. The Antilles fired off three normal bolts and then a fast bolt. While none of the normal bolts hit any of my ships, the fast bolt struck one of my Paladins, taking the ship and itself out of play. The Paladins fired, took down one normal bolt and hit once right on the Antilles' armour.

Third turn: I moved some of my Paladins in, and then the existing bolts (two normals and an explosive) moved. While one normal bolt moved out to the very lower end of the map, the explosive bolt thankfully hit the normal bolt, and both were removed from play. It was bad luck that turn, though, as the Antilles launched a normal bolt that destroyed one of my Paladins, a couple of explosive bolts that took out two more and a normal bolt that didn't hit me at all. The only saving grace here was that the fourth bolt caster didn't fire anything, but instead recharged defensive shields (which weren't damaged). My three remaining Paladins fired and hit for two points of damage against the shields.

Fourth turn: I figured that the reason so many of my ships were gone is that I had risked too much by moving too many ships in within a range of two hexes. With one surviving ship at a range of three and the others at a range of two, I moved the two closer ones out. Two normal bolts were on the map at the beginning of the turn. The one on the outskirts of the map circle back towards me, almost as if it knew where I was. The other fired off the map. Unfortunately, the Antilles fired off a normal bolt and then three explosive bolts. While one of the normal bolts was taken out by an explosive bolt, that explosive bolt also took out a Paladin. Another explosive bolt took out a second Paladin. The last explosive bolt fired off into an area of the map away from me. My last remaining Paladin fired at the station and blew another chunk of armour off. With only one Paladin left, I prepared for the next turn.

Fifth turn: I figured I needed a good shot, so I jumped my sole remaining Paladin over to the 1/2 spot at a two-hex range. The existing bolts moved around the board, with the explosive bolt taking itself and one of the normal bolts out. The Antilles fired off three normal bolts, two of which collided with each other and the last just narrowly missing my last Paladin. It also fired a fast bolt, which shot right off the map. A roll of one meant I didn't hit anything.

Sixth turn: I chose not to move the Paladin, which turned out to be a bad idea. I rolled lucky for the Antilles, and it fired off two normal bolts from its first launcher, three from its second and then another from its third. While some collided with each other, that last bolt was a direct hit. Game over.

Since all Paladins were destroyed, victory points were calculated based on how much damage I was able to do to the Antilles before the end. All I was able to do was two hits on the shields and two hits on the armour ... for a grand total of 4 VPs. Shameful.

Chris

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JediDragon — 2005-04-04T14:34:06+00:00

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JediDragon — 2005-04-04T14:34:05+00:00

Thread: User Review

castiglione — 2004-10-26T21:18:08+00:00

Battle Platform Antilles is a FREE solitaire wargame that can be downloaded from the website of its publisher.

It is essential OGRE in space - one gigantic, automated killing machine versus a handful of smaller ships trying to stop it. The idea is not exactly new - assymetric games of this nature have been around forever (one need only look at the traditional game of Fox and Geese) but the idea has a solid grounding in science fiction, the examples that spring to mind being the episode of Star Trek (TOS) where Kirk and crew must defeat a cigar shaped planet eating behometh and the Berzerker series by Fred Saberhagen. Unfortunately, while Battle Platform Antilles has plenty of theme, it falls short in execution.

Essentially, the player tries to swarm the automated ship with beam weapons while the automated ship fires missiles at them. The missiles move randomly, which isn't entirely a bad idea since having the board fill up with randomly moving missiles does make for an interesting situation. Where the game falls flat is in how the player's ships are moved - they basically teleport all over the map. Thus, some atmosphere is lost - there's no possibility of getting "cornered" by several of the randomly snaking missiles and realizing that you've backed yourself into a hole from which escape is very unlikely - instead, you just pick up a counter corresponding to the "trapped" ship and drop it somewhere else on the board. This is disastrous in terms of both atmosphere (it's more atmospheric for space ships to zoom about rather than blink in and out of existence all over the board) and game mechanics (it kind of moots the entire point of having game system controled missiles on the board at all).

The biggest pitfall of any solitaire game design is that when the theme is stripped away, it is revealed to be nothing more than an exercise in dice rolling. Battle Platform Antilles doesn't fall into this category but it comes very close to crossing that line.