I ran the final event for the Dominion Wars at my local venue this past Saturday. Decided to have a little fun with the event. Here's my alternate set up and rules.


The devastating loss at Cardassia Prime has forced the Dominion to surrender or fight to the last ship. After lengthy negotiations, the Dominion leaders decided that surrender was the only option. The war is over and the last of the Dominion fleet is to be pushed back to the Gamma Quadrant.

Prior to the surrender, however, a small splinter group of the Dominion fleet attempts a last attack on DS9 in an effort to reclaim the station and regain control of the Wormhole. And with most of the Federation Alliances’ fleet in Cardassian Space, little is left to stand against them.

During the course of the war alliances have been forged and broken. As the war nears the end, each side must decide who they can trust and for how much and how long before they have to make the last grab for control of DS9 by themselves to regain the upper hand for control of the Wormhole and the Alpha Quadrant.


Play Area and Set Up:
-The game will be played on a 4’ x 6’ surface. (4’ on E/W edge, 6’ on N/S edge)
- The DS9 token will be placed in the center of the board with one Pylon facing directly north. The Federation Nor-class Space Station side should be face up.
-Players will set up in in a 4” x 6” area along the E and W edges of the play area. Starting area will be at least 6” from one another (modular depending on # of players – accommodates 8 players)
- Highest ranked player based on Battle Points from Months 1-5 choses a starting area first. Starting area choice falls to the next highest ranked player.
- After starting areas have been chosen, in turn starting with the highest ranked player, each player may choose one map element from the following Dominion War Organized Play series and place it on the map per that element’s placement rules: Self-Replicating Minefield Token, Orbital Weapon Platform, and Space Debris.
- When any neutral feature (DS9, Orbital Weapon Platform) would need to roll for attack or defense, the player to the left of the effected player will always roll those dice.

Special Rules:

All Special Rules for Month 6 are in effect with the following changes:
- Once a player beams an away team to the Station, the Shields are repaired. Other players may still beam an away team to the station.
- If multiple players have away teams on DS9, they must choose a specific player’s away team to attack.

Objective:

Destroy all of your opponent’s ships.

NOTE: You DO have to destroy DS9 if it is controlled by an opponent in order to eliminate that player’s fleet.

The last player standing will be awarded Deep Space 9.



TERRAIN SPECIFICS

Self-Replicating Minefield Tokens:

The Minefield Tokens may not be placed within 4” of any edge of any player’s starting area or any other token. In addition, they may not be placed within 8” of the DS9 Token.

A ship whose base or Maneuver Template overlaps a Self-Replicating Minefield Token must roll 1 attack die.
*On a [Hit] or [Critical Hit] that ship sustains 1 damage to its Shields (or Hull if it has no Active Shields).
* If a ship is damaged in this way, it must immediately roll another attack die. On a [Hit] or [Critical Hit] that ship sustains 1 more damage to it Shields (or Hull if it has no Active Shields).
* The ship continues to roll attack dice and take damage until it does not roll a [Hit] or [Critical Hit] result OR it has suffered 4 damage from the Minefield Token.
* In all other respects, the Self-replicating Minefield Tokens are treated as Obstacles.


Orbital Weapon Platforms:

No OWP may be placed within 4” of any other token or within 12” of any player’s starting edge. In addition, they may not be placed within 8” of the DS9 Token.

*Any ship that overlaps an OWP Token at the end of its movement must move backward along its chosen Maneuver Template until it no longer overlaps the OWP Token. This ship cannot perform any Actions during that round.
*A ship may pass through the OWP Token the same way that it would another ship.
*The OWP Token is not considered an obstruction for firing purposes.


Space Debris:

Players may not place a Debris Token within 4” of any other Token or the edge of any player’s starting area.

* Debris Tokens are treated as Obstacles.

For such a large prize, I would hate to have it be a multiplayer free-for-all. How did it work out for you?

It went well, if a little longer than anticipated.

Basically, three players on each side who made a situational alliance: KO the other players then duke it out. The alliances held until there was only one ship left on side A, then side B turned on one another. Even once it got to that point, the strongest target was usually getting fired upon. I truely think in this type of event, you HAVE to have equal numbers on both sides of the table. Otherwise, there's someone's going to be odd-man-out.

I've always had an issue with how awarding DS9 was suggested. There can be issues with players being mathematically eliminated for DS9 thus giving them little incentive to attend later events if you have a run-away leader in the early months. I also knew some of the players were getting a little worn out of the usual head to head tournament format.

I will say most of these "Events" have been very much a "blow you up before I get blowd up myself" and some of the months I didn't bother with trying for the extra points as it wasn't worth the effort to do the "Beam action" and have my shields disabled.

I think for the DS9 and beaming down to planets, you should be able to have your shields be up after the action personally. The OWP were sort of a joke in month five since they could be destroyed, I think they needed to have the full stats to be effective.

I generally don't like "free for all" usually because I get ganged up on and feel it's never fair to be like that. I think your idea had merit, maybe like the first 5-7 rounds teams couldn't fire on each other, afterwards, it's open season.

You know I like this idea and I might see about stealing it for Borg wars

Did you take pics?

Yes. I'll upload into an album later tonight.