Dice Ready for Launch Captain

I was able to make it Newcastle where i was lucky enough to get not one, but two (relatively) introductory games of Battlefleet Gothic played.

Both games were Imperial Navy (me) vs Chaos Fleets.

First game was against the resident BFG guru and had mixes of cruisers and escorts at about 500pt.

Second game was Cruisers and Escorts vs (Chaos) Battleship and Cruisers (with our guru pretty much DM'ing for us) with a point limit of about 1000pt.

Being familiar with x-wing the concept of continued momentum was not as novel or weird as it might be to some. Familiarity with '80s era' GW games, plus multiple (but casual) read-throughs of the rules meant there weren't too many whatThe moments, though there were obviously bits that needed clarifying (escorts lurk in groups only, shields come back once you move out of blast marker areas, etc, etc, etc).

Generally, i'm not a huge fan of UgoIgo games but there was enough interaction as the 'defending' player to keep the Ugo interesting (saves, to brace or not to brace, everyone does ordinance etc) until the Igo.
Probably more importantly (and this might just be an effect of beginner-level...ness) but the resilience of the ships in generally meant that from turn to turn you weren't necessarily losing half your army/fleet in casualties, and although you might have taken some hits you still had formations available to then counter (i.e. going 2nd wasn't an immediate death sentence).

There were a number of other fleets (and factions - orks, ad mech, marines) floating around and another table rolling BFG dice too.

I'm vaguely considering putting together a Rogue Trader fleet, mainly for the 'fluff' perspective of things. Still have some markers and effects and so on to put together (will print - if i can), but the Imperial Fleet is pretty usable as is... which is nice.

Overall impression of the game was 'positive, intend to play again.'

And as usual the Newcastle lads provided a great setting for gaming. Thanks fellas.

Until next time...