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With six victories, and two defeats, I had no trouble passing to the second defense line in Mark and I's modified Admiral's Game campaign.
No ships were destroyed, but three bases were. Five of my ships were damaged (including two out of eight armor on USS Mare Serenitatis), and five of Mark's were. Most of these just lost their armor, but WND USS Battler, and WOD USS Dunelle don't have armor, and "merely" took enough damage to not be fully repairable. One base was left behind as the fighting shifted up a defense line, and Mark left WCA Wolfclaw and WDD Vainglory there, forcing me to screen it with at least five ships (three plus two to match his two).
That passes the action to Y78, and new ships are built, including an obligation for two destroyers and two frigates. Carnivon construction had no extra ships this year:
Federation construction:
With a Year In Service of Y79, I get to build the YCA as a prototype this year, and just have the budget for it (my calculations say I should be able to build a second one in Y80, but other concerns may put it off). It is the earliest available 'early' (Yxx) ship, so it will be noticeably faster than everything else... which means it will need to hold itself back in a fleet. Also, our command system works off of EPV, so it will be 'expensive' to include in a fleet other than as a command ship.
Y3 introduced leader variants for the Terran frigate and destroyer, and after noting them, I decided to switch out my Terran destroyer for the leader version, which gains a transporter, two cargo and a point of armor for one BPV/EPV. (My next Terran frigate, in about two years, will be the WFL, which gains three armor, and was the primary motivation for trying them after USS Marengo got smacked last year.)
And now we have the full line up of ship assignments ready (names in brown text have previous damage that can only be eliminated by going into Reserve):
The new Battle Stars column is pure fluff to show which ships are the veterans of the campaign. A ship gets a battle star each time it's in a region where we put counters on the table, even if very little action results like in a couple of our fights last year. (Conversely, the ships in region 3 last year were assumed to have fought it out, but we didn't actually play it, so no battle stars were awarded, including for two ships that got damaged.)
Four of my ships were forced into reserve because they retreated out of battles last time. This means I only have one more ship to work with than last year, but USS Battler and Dunelle are too damaged to put into battle this time so they also are in Reserve for repairs. Ferocity and Marengo are less valuable, and so I put them in to fill out minimal groups, and are effectively sitting out this year and next when they will be in Reserve.
Meanwhile, the defending Carnivons only need to put ships in Reserve for repairs. Mark has gone ahead and put them on the line anyway to fill out his forces, with the exception of the dreadnought I damaged in region 1 last year.
Not wanting to leave any more bases behind if I didn't have to, my first plan was for two high-power fleets to go after the docks in regions 2 and 5. As we resolved more Y77 fights, I had to trim that back, and went to plan 2—take out the left behind base and go for one of the docks. That would have worked better if there weren't any ships left behind at it, or at least none as big as a cruiser.
Region 6 got a slightly large pair in case I caught Mark also putting out a minimal force to concentrate elsewhere, but he has good density everywhere, so that and region 2 have been declared as losses with my forces retreating into Reserve. I will have to win all four remaining battles on this defense line to advance to line 3. Even if I do it, I might be too beat up to continue.
Region 5 promises to be an epic base battle with our biggest forces (by BPV). The WVC has special sensors, which should help a bunch. The other three battles are all about 40 BPV off of each other (with me disadvantaged in two of them), or around 15% tilt, and should get exciting, and probably bloodier than anything last year. We are starting in Region 3, where my YCA is leading a fleet against his undamaged command cruiser. Hopefully, the extra power on it will help make up my technical 35-point deficit.
A blog for all subjects related to the Star Fleet Universe from ADB Inc. Talking about the games, the background, or its relationship with regular [i]Star Trek[/i].
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Sun Jun 18, 2023 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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Mark and I spent a little time with a "modern" SFB scenario away from our Early Years campaign, with a Y162 scenario. This one features an early ISC force trying to rescue a colony (troop) transport from a pair of curious space dragons from Captain's Log #34. Both elements lent interest, though this doesn't really give you feel for what the ISC is typically like.
They get a police flagship cruiser (CPF), a CL with the major weapons removed (in favor of more utility facilities like cargo, barracks, a special sensor, etc.), and two local defense frigates (LFF). These last are early frigates (YFF) converted up to modern technology, but are still lacking in power and other systems. They are coming to the aid of the remnant of a colony convoy (one LTF) that fell afoul of an ion storm, and is now considered the "toy" of a pair of adult space dragons that have never seen a constructed object before. As the ship is failing anyway, the goal is to rescue the 78 crew units of passengers.
I had the ISC for this, and the first thing was discovering a few oddities in the space dragons rules. Notably, they can cancel their own movement, so you just really declare the fastest possible speed, and move when you feel like it. (They are tied to their toy, which is locked to speed 4 and no maneuvering, so this is a big help.) Being human-controlled monsters, they don't use MCIDS, but their tail can destroy up to three shuttles or seeking weapons per impulse. By verbiage, that includes plasma torpedoes, which seems a little surprising (especially as it is similar to MCIDS, which only works on shuttles and drones), and ended with me having to rely on phasers, since there's only two plasma launchers to begin with (on the LFFs).
The ISC ships start 20 hexes behind the main action, and the CPF came in at 27, while the two LFFs followed at 21 (near their maximum speed). On Impulse 14, I was eight hexes away, and the dragons launched plasma torpedoes (their 'breath weapon'; for this size, a plasma-G each), and fired 'phasers' (eye beams) at the CPF, denting its front shield.
This left me with a rapidly escalating dilemma. The plasmas were coming on fast, and they quickly turned away from LFF-1. My guess was that they were targeted on the CPF, since chasing it off was the obvious goal, and he'd fired at it with the eye beams. LFF-2's speed meant it would not be able to outrun a speed-32 plasma torpedo anyway, so it went in to knock a few points off the torpedoes.Turn 1, Impulse 20, showing movement from Impulse 14.
And both impacted on it's #2 shield on impulse 20. This resulted in 28 internals, knocking out nearly everything on the ship, including all power. (Ironically, the one transporter did survive, not that it would ever be able to get to the LTF to transport anyone off it.) This disrupted a lot of plans, since that showed that the remaining LFF was at best a distraction, and all the real work had to devolve on to the CPF.
LFF-2 launched both the real and pseudo plasma torpedoes before it ran out of steam at the end of the turn, which is where we discovered that the tail can just kill those on a 5/6ths chance at range 1. While that was running out, LFF-1 and the CPF got to range 5 and transported crew units across from the LPT at the end of the turn.
I had a scheme to get the CPF's heavy transport shuttle onto the LTF, but that ran into trouble too. Notably, the eight-impulse delay between launching and any possible voluntary landing of a shuttle. Even starting a few hexes away, the dragons got back to the LTF and destroyed the shuttle before it could land. That ended my last attempt by that method, since the round trip was going to be nearly impossible to arrange.
I realized what really needed doing was shooting up the dragons. Hurting them too badly is a problem, as if either take 50% damage to any location, they'll both be free to attack anything, including the freighter. At 75%, they run off. So, carefully managing damage between those thresholds is a possibility, but would probably end with a wrecked FTL and a lot of dead people. But, I could make sure to stop before the 50% mark and let damage to the wings slow them down and limit maneuver. So LFF-1 hit range 0, taking seven internals from claw and bite damage... which knocked out the transporter, while the LFF's phasers did 23 damage in return to dragon #2.
The dragons chased the LFF, and the CPF circled around for a range 2 shot at dragon #2 for 22 more damage on impulse 25. The dragons mostly need to stay close to their "toy", and the LFF used that to start opening the range, while the dragons shadowed the CPF's movements around the freighter.
This reduced #2's speed to 18 for turn 3, and the CPF pushed up to 31 to get away from likely breath weapons, transporting more passengers over on impulse 1. One plasma was launched at the LFF, which thankfully already had a good lead. The CPF turned to parallel the freighter at range 15, and the other plasma launched on a leading track to keep me away, and it soon impacted for four damage after I phasered it down.
This time, my two ships approached on opposite sides of the LTF, and dragon #2 kept the LFF from getting too close, while the CPF did 13 damage to #1 at range 1, while taking five damage to the #4 shield. This drew #2 back to it, and hit transported another four crew units over on impulse 25 of turn 4, taking three internals through the down shield from dragon #2, who was off beyond the LTF (thankfully just hull and cargo).
Conclusion
We actually went through nine turns before quitting the scenario. Mark was getting better at parrying my attempts to get at the LTF and transport people off of it (keeping me off completely on the last attempt), but it was taking a lot of very dry maneuvering to do, and it all gets less exciting as it goes. By that point, I had rescued 22 crew units, and I needed to get over 40 just for a marginal victory. It looked possible, given enough time. It was also possible to potentially do it a lot faster by charging the CPF straight through the dragons, but with smart play, that also meant eating a pair of close range plasma-Gs and gambling on getting through without taking too much damage to be able to do it again.
The scenario didn't really live up to its promise, as the smart money really is on doing a bunch of high speed passes to dodge plasma torpedoes. Other possibilities include trying lots of shuttles, but I think that's probably a fool's errand with the tail able to instant kill them, and the eye phasers likely to destroy them at a slightly longer range. The last option is docking to the LTF, but such a process is slow, and while wild weasels could help with negating plasma torpedoes, the explosion period isn't long enough to get through the entire sequence (though the CPF does carry a bunch of shuttles...).
While it was technically good to see the ISC and dragons in action, this is a very atypical ISC force. They are of course known for their echelon tactics centered around the PPD, but that's fleet tactics, and just doesn't apply here. Outside of that, the CPF still isn't anything like the ships you would normally see alone (they are more in line with traditional 'big plasma' outside of fleets), and the lack of plasma torpedoes on the major ship gives the CPF a different feel than what you'd see in a duel. On the other hand, it was good to see how the space dragons operate. They're very flexible in movement, and otherwise quite capable (especially with their breath weapon being every two turns), and very simple to run.
Tue Jun 6, 2023 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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So the big mess next to an exploding star was the last scenario we were doing in Y161, and it's time to look at the next year in the Star Fleet Universe:
Post-TOS: The initial scenarios for SFB tend to be set in the 5-year mission of the USS Kongo a Federation heavy cruiser commanded by Captain Kosnett right after Enterprise's famous five-year mission.
The Four Powers War: This winds down to a close during this year. Both sides are exhausted, and settle for a status quo antebellum peace while looking for technical solutions to various problems. (The Klingons develop the 'B refit' to help against hellbore torpedoes, the Lyrans develop a capacitor system for their ESGs, the Hydrans develop holding for fusion beams, and the Kzinti develop better fighters.) Everyone knows a rematch is coming and starts developing improvements to nearly all ship classes.
Scenarios:
SH127 (S2) My Brother, My Enemy Gorn Plant
SH128 (S2) A Pirate's Surprize Orion Kzinti
SH169 (F1) Incident at Morkedia Federation Jindarian
SL60 (CL3) The Flight of the Audacity Federation Klingon
SL255 (CL34) Dragons at Large ISC Dragon
SP222 (CL13) Eradication Klingon Kzinti
Mark and I have already played "Dragons at Large" which will be reported on soon. It's a couple of space dragons against a small ISC force.
"Flight of the Audacity" is the further adventures of Kosnett on the Kongo, and features an interesting chase through an asteroid field. I'm not sure of balance, but I kind of think we'll try this out.
"My Brother, My Enemy" has looked interesting to both me and Mark since we spotted it in S2. A Gorn base and ships have been taken over by mind controlling "plants", and a couple heavier units have to stop them from spreading it while finding a cure.
We've had one prior play with Jindarians, so I hope we get to "Incident at Morkedia" which has one of their asteroids raiding a Federation colony.
"Eradication" is a scenario to show off the rarely-seen Klingon D6F (anti-fighter cruiser). It's a secondary pick, but seeing that and the Kzinti AS in action would be nice.
I'm not big on pirates, and "A Pirate's Surprise" actually features fairly big fleets for such a scenario, so we're likely to skip this one.
Technology:
Enveloping plasma torpedoes are developed by the Romulans this year, and nearly instantly copied by the Gorns. The extra power requirement makes them difficult to use, but a few hits from them can leave a ship without shields.
Naval developments:
Klingon D6F FD7
Romulan SNP SNA FLG BH K5C WE KRT
Hydran LB
LDR FF DD
Eagles: Full tactical warp refits get applied to Romulan ships. The results are still a bit slow, but much more dangerous. The SNP is the 'police' version of the SNA, and only differs in not having a cloaking device.
Fast: The Klingons develop the first (tactically and strategically) 'fast' ship with the FD7. Tactically, it has more warp, and lower power draw (phasers in place of disruptors), and strategically it goes seven hexes in F&E instead of the usual six.
Fighters: Worried about the appearance of Kzinti fighters, the Klingons test the D6F, using a pair of E-racks for anti-drone and fighter work. Other, later, solutions would be preferred in the long run.
Gatlings: The Hydrans start delivering gatling phasers to the LDR in return to them staying out of the Four Powers War, and closing their shipyard to Lyran repairs. Pairs of these replace ph-3s on LDR FFs and DDs.
Hellbores: The Hydrans finish the deployment of the hellbore torpedo with the 4xhellbore, 2xfusion variant of their command cruiser, the Lord Bishop.
Kestrals: The Romulans receive some F5Cs and TGBs (T6) which turn into the K5C and KRT.
Wed May 31, 2023 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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A little bit ago, Patch and I finished our play-through of Y161 scenarios. The finale was a fleet battle of the Four Powers War. Patch initially looked at it and refused as it had far too many ships for what he wanted to handle. Then, I started reading off the terrain effects going on, and he changed to, "I gotta see this."
Basically, the Hydrans attempted to hide a fleet concentration with the emissions of an unstable star. The Lyrans find out anyway, and send in a fleet, and just as the battle begins in earnest, the star goes supernova. This simplifies the scenario, as the blast wipes out all the fighters. On the other hand, supernovas are a combination of terrain types: nebula, radiation, heat (which we did wrong, as it only extends 20 hexes from the wave front...), pulsar, and asteroids (representing stellar debris flung out by the star). The Lyrans have the bigger force (eight ships, ranging from a pair of CAs down to three DDs and a SC—that last is nearly useless here), but the Hydrans have some hellbores and can take a hit (six ships, LM command cruiser, RN and DG, and three Lancers).
The scenario specifies that the initial pulsar burst (with an assumed base strength of 60) happens on impulse 0 (or impulse 32 of turn 0, if you prefer), so you resolve that, and then do EA for turn 1. It does not say if the nebula rules should be in force at that point, or if that's supposed to follow right after the initial blast hits. I kind of suspect the latter, but what language there is more implies the former, so shields were at minimal levels (thanks to the nebula) when the initial blast hit, and rolling the damage on fourteen ships took the entire first session. The three Hydran cruisers came out of that in relatively good shape thanks to the unified hull and Hydran ability to take the first hit.
I still lost two out of six hellbore torpedoes on that first round, and they're the ones with the best reach thanks to their 2d6 to hit roll, and the nine points of ECM caused by the nebula (+3 shift, easy to lower to +2, but getting down to +1 is hard). The Lyrans were hit a bit harder, and all the smaller ships had trouble, including one of my Lancers being Out of Control (all three one-box control spaces were knocked out).
Once that was resolved, this is what we were looking at over the next turn: Impulse 4: heat and radiation damage, Impulse 5: random movement from the nebula, Impulse 12: heat and radiation, Impulse 15: nebula, Impulse 16: supernova wave front advances, Impulse 20: heat, radiation, and pulsar burst, Impulse 26: nebula, Impulse 28: heat and radiation. In addition, every impulse two new seven-hex asteroid clusters are generated at the wave front (in a bit of 'neat game physics trumps reality', these move across the map at speed 20, warp 2.7). Patch managed from speeds 14 to 16 with his ships, while I was going speeds 11 and 12 (largely with reinforced #4 shields, planning on turning them to face the pulsar blast on impulse 20).
The fleets start about 20 hexes from each other, so terrain worries were uppermost in both our minds. The heat damage on 4 (since the first blast had helpfully knocked down a shield for everyone) largely hit weapons (or a battery on each of the three Lancers as the initial volley had taken out all hull). Then the nebula movement on impulse 5 caused havoc. This always moves a ship one hex in a random direction, and will often turn the ship 60° (leaving turn mode status where it was, so you can turn back immediately if it's already satisfied). Most of my ships did not turn, but largely got shoved backwards, while Patch's ships ended up pointing all over the place, including the two CAs pointed back towards the wave front, who then started turning further in that direction to keep the down shield away from me.
Turn 1, Impulse 5 after all movement.
The Lancers started taking APR hits on the second round of heat damage, while everything else was taking warp damage (the Lancers are center warp only designs like the Fed DD, they can often avoid warp damage, but other things are vulnerable). On Impulse 14, I tried a pair of hellbore shots at a CA, missing with both (one of them purely because of the ECM shift), and on 15 the second nebula movement happened. I had largely sorted myself out again, while Patch's fleet was all over the place, but most of my ships were hit by turn results this time, but the DG was still able to get the remaining hellbore fired, which hit CA-1, getting through reinforcement for five internals. (I had one hellbore left after this, a LF+L on the DG, which would never get a chance to be in arc.)
Turn 1, Impulse 15 after all movement.
Impulse 20 saw last-second adjustments as the pulsar roll was... 5! 50 base damage, or 25 for most ships, with a few past the 20-hex mark to take a mere 13. This turned into about fifteen internals on all my cruisers, and worse on one of the Lancers with predictable results on heavily damaged ships. The Lancer was in dire straights with center warp starting to evaporate. The other two Lancers, thankfully, were at range 21, and only took six internals each. Patch's CAs each took seventeen internals, while one CL took eighteen, and the other was far enough to only take seven. One of the DDs took nineteen internals, two further away took eight, and the SC, with the down shield towards the blast took twelve even at range 21.
Heat damage is per down shield, so while some ships escaped it by being at range, most ships took two damage from it. The nebula couldn't do too much more to our formations, but by now the 'asteroids' were catching up to us, and becoming a real hazard.
Turn 1, Impulse 26 after all movement. Bottom is the edge of the map.
Asteroids caught up with CA-1, knocking down the rear shield and doing five internals. DD-2 exited on impulse 28. The next impulse, the asteroids hit CA-1 as it turned to get out of the way, taking six damage through a down shield, but managed a zero-damage roll next time and then was out of the path of that cluster. CA-2 was still much further back, and entered asteroids on impulse 31, rolled zero damage, but then got clobbered by a max roll of fifteen damage which crashed the #6 and did ten internals. DD-1 managed a single disruptor shot at this point, hitting (needed a 1!) LN-3, but the shield could take the two points of damage.
With us concentrating on getting our ships off before too much more could happen to them, speeds actually picked up some for turn 2. CL-1 went 22, while CA-2 went 20 and CA-1 went 16. Most other speeds were 12-14, but DD-3 could only manage speed 6. Unfortunately, all the havoc and multiple different speeds meant I didn't set up my impulse chart correctly, and some ships missed a few moves. On impulse 4, LN-1 was forced into some of the debris, but managed to avoid hitting any of it. The impulse 5 nebula movement caused its usual chaos, though it helped the SC get towards the exit (and CL-1 did exit), while the RN and DG ended up inside a debris field. The DG took maximum collision damage, but had reinforcement and batteries back, and held the damage to four internals, while the RN took nothing.
Turn 2, Impulse 5 after all movement.
LN-1, in the middle of asteroids that were faster than it, slipped towards the back side of the cluster, and again dodged damage, but then took a max damage hit on the next impulse, putting it in critical condition with two excess damage hits (but 6 center warp left). And then, it took another 15 on impulse 7 before it could exit into clearer space. We didn't bother rolling, as was far more internals than it had left; odds were that it'd still have a couple center warp when it blew.
The third pulsar blast went off on impulse 8, and thankfully rolled low for 20 base damage, with most ships taking 5, but the DG and both CAs took 10. CA-2 took it on an intact shield to absorb half of it, but the other two took nearly all of it in. LN-3 exited on impulse 10, and DD-1 was caught by the debris on 13, but dodged any damage.
Turn 2, Impulse 15 after all movement.
DD-1 dodged the asteroids one more time, then took a 3-point hit just before exiting. (It could have probably taken even a 15-point hit at that point, but if the previous two rolls had not been 0s, it would have been in big trouble.) The SC got off the map at the same time, while the LM had to dodge asteroids at the edge of the map, taking one last internal before exiting on impulse 21.
The impulse 26 nebula movement actually saved the DG, which had started the turn with barely enough speed to exit, and then had to shift out of the way of oncoming debris after taking a lot of damage on a pair of asteroid hits. This was going to leave it one hex short on impulse 32, and I was wondering if it'd manage a speed that could get it off the board before anything caught up. But the shift put it a half-hex closer, which was just enough to allow an exit again. CL-2 exited right after the nebula movement, and the DG and RN managed to dodge more debris, but CA-2 took another ten internals.
The DG took a small hit on 27, and both it and the RN big ones on 28. The pulsar burst on that impulse was another '2' for 5 damage on the few ships still on the board. The RN took more asteroid damage on 29, and then exited on 30. The two CAs exited on 30 and 31, and the DG exited on 32 with two warp and two APR left.
DD-3 ended the turn two hexes from exit with no power left. With no shields, either more asteroids or the next pulsar blast would finish it off on turn 3.
Afterword
So, both of us actually had a lot of fun with this. Surviving the burning house took just about all our attention, but the crazy combination of deadly terrain types makes it a real spectacle to see. It was mostly solitaire as we barely got any shots off at each other, but that doesn't detract from the fun here.
Survival is the main goal here, and the points work in reverse for getting ships off the board. So surviving with damage gives you 90% of the value of your ship, but the enemy only gets the 10% for it taking internals if he caused some of it. So, I got 10% credit for CA-1, and that was it. On the other hand, the LM is the only thing that got off-board without being crippled, so all the other survivors are worth 50%. This works out to 352 VP for Patch and 316 VP for me, with a marginal victory to Patch.
The Lyrans have a bigger fleet worth more BPV, so this kind of largely even result is going to favor him. I assume the thinking is that the Hydrans can take the punishment better, and those hellbore torpedoes are pretty much free points if they can hit, since they'll always put damage onto a down shield.
As for as a more... active play of this scenario, the main idea I have is plotting for a decent speed and trying to get to close-ish range before the turn 1, impulse 20 pulsar burst goes off. Following the other fleet off the board would give plenty of opportunities at down shields, but stick you with more pulsar damage. And that is risky. Patch was lucky both his CAs got off the map. If you assume that the nebula effect starts in between the initial pulsar burst and the start of turn 1, that would give full shields and make the initial situation one you can do more with.
- [+] Dice rolls
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Last November, Mark and I played the final battle in the first year of our SFB campaign. This was our second open-space battle, and we stuck to the same terrain choices we'd had last time, but this time the dice came up with "Empty Space", so we had a clear board to work with.
Our setup areas were both in the back center of our respective sides, and I set up as far forward as I could, while Mark set up on the edge of the map. Ironically, I ended up at WS-I while Mark was WS-III. Speeds started low, with the Carnivon WCL going 8, and everything else at 6. The two Carnivon ships put up 2 ECM each, but I, with photons to load, had no energy for such luxuries.
Naturally, at that speed and distance, nothing happened the first turn, and the second was similar, with the WCL dropping to speed 6, while it put up a point of ECCM. While we had opposite courses, closest pass was still going to be quite distant, so I turned to cut across his path on my first move of turn 2. Everyone boosted to speed 9 on turn 3 with the WCL dropping EW to 1/0, and my WRD put up 1/1. Courses stayed constant, and on impulse 29 WCL, Devastator (801) fired on my WOL USS Kayah (SF-93) for two damage at range 34, which I absorbed on batteries. After that, he turned in, putting us on courses 8 hexes off from each other. WRD USS Ravelin (SF-69) fired phasers on 32, doing 1 point which bounced off reinforcement.
My plot was the same for turn 4, while the Carnivons boosted to speed 10, and the Devastator dropped ECM. I turned left near the start of the turn, looking for more of a direct pass. Mark sideslipped the opposite way during the turn, and death bolts were launched on impulse 23. I turned back on 29, and both Carnivon ships fired phasers on 32, while Ravelin returned fire. Only one phaser out of all that hit, which bounced off of reinforcement.
My speeds scattered between 9 and 11 for turn 5, while the Carnivons went 12 (WFF) and 14 (WCL). EW was minimal, and the Carnivons turned away from the pass. This broke me up a bit as I turned to follow as turn modes cleared. On impulse 15, now in a stern-chase with the faster Carnivons, WRF USS Seeker (SF-86) fired its photon torpedo and a phaser at Devastator, missing with the former, and seeing two more damage from the phaser bounce off the rear shield. She then turned off to avoid the death bolts, which did turn out to be targeted on her. On 19, Kayah got onto Devastator's #4 shield and missed with a photon and all bearing phasers.Missing all the shots. Turn 5, Impulse 19, showing movement from the start of turn 4.
Seeker ended up separated from the action thanks to the death bolts chasing it as the chase turned clockwise as turn 6 started. The Carnivons continued crowding the speed on and Ravelin manged to get up to speed 13, while Kayah was stuck at 10 as she reloaded the torpedo. Range opened up a bit during the turn, but the right edge of the map started looming again, and Mark turned down and dropped fire control for turn 7, getting to speeds 14 and 18(!). My speeds were largely the same, and Ravelin tried a range 7 photon shot, missing again on impulse 15.
At the end of the turn, the WFF turned across my path, and I sped up a bit on turn 8 (Ravelin didn't bother to reload the torpedo, and got to speed 15). Devastator also turned to get out of the corner, and on impulse 9, Ravelin got a range 3 shot on her for 13 damage, which took out most of the armor. The next impulse, Kayah got one hit with two photons to finish off the armor and do seven internals, which took out one power and two weapons.
After that, Mark turned back to disengage off the edge of the map. Kayah fired her last phasers at the down shield, but missed. After that, I was basically dry, and both ships got off map by the end of the turn.
Afterword
With fairly minor ships, and the last fight of the year, I decided to press for a close engagement. For a moment, it looked like Mark was going to accept a fairly close-range pass, but then turned off.
This time, it happened right before the turn break, and I didn't need to contemplate having anyone go slow in anticipation of that close pass. I was hoping to take out the WCL, even if I had to sacrifice something to do it. As it was, I didn't get hurt, and while Devastator is out her four armor, everything else was repairable.
My rolls were way under par all game, and if my photon luck had been reversed, Devastator might have far more serious repairs to make. It's possible I might have managed a kill, but I doubt I could have slowed it down enough for that.
Not that it would have been that big a loss. It sounds like Mark has found light cruiser slot just as lackluster as I have. They're nicely bulky compared to a destroyer, but are power starved. YCLs should be a bit better, but I kind of doubt either of us will build any, and USS Texas (SF-1) is the only one in the campaign that can be converted up.
This finishes the first year of the campaign, and we're tackling one of the 'modern' scenarios now before returning to the campaign for Y78. We'll be on defense line 2, so there's only six regions to worry about, plus the base that I skipped in region 7. Mark will have all his ships (minus whatever he decides to repair armor on), and a pair of YDKs. It's going to be a fight.
Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:00 am
- [+] Dice rolls
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Back in August Patch and I played the next Y161 scenario, "...And Settle Their Hash". A Kzinti squadron is performing drone bombardment when a Klingon squadron arrives to spoil the fun. The Klingon ships are much heavier, but with 18 drone launchers on three ships, there's a lot of free firepower for the Kzinti. The cost is they're loaded with all Type-IIIXX drones, which are two spaces, and so will run dry fast if just thrown out as fast as possible. I took the challenge of the undersized Kzintis, and played a little too conventionally.
The Kzintis set up in a line on the right side of the board, and can gain points by continuing the drone bombardment, i.e., launch drones ballistically in directions B or C, and they they get away. (They get 2 VP per such drone under Modified Victory Conditions.) The Klingons are on the left, just entering the (floating) map, but more paralleling the bombardment course than aimed right at the Kzintis.
Patch determined to close range with opening speeds from 21 (E4) to 28 (D7), while I went speed 24. I launched one set of bombardment drones on impulse 1, and a second set on 3. Even at these speeds he had not caught up to the drones by the end of the turn, and increased speeds to 27 (E4) to 30 (D7) while I stayed at 24 for turn 2. I turned across his path near the top of the turn, and launched a new set of bombardment drones on 10 while Patch started engaging the first two sets. On 16, the D7 turned towards me, with only one drone destroyed, while the F5 and E4 continued after them. On 22 I started turning off, but he turned in to pursue on 25, at which point I launched four drones at it. The D7 fired two disruptors for four damage to DF-77's #3 shield, and followed up with a drone launch on 26. The SDF had sensor channels powered, and turned off the tracking on the Klingon drone, while Patch destroyed a drone and damaged another with phasers.
Meanwhile, the other two ships cleaned up most of the rest of the first turn's drones, and the E4 hit with a range 12 disruptor to do 2 damage to the SDF's #1.
While I went up to 27, Patch downshifted for turn 3, with speeds from 27 (E4) to 24 (D7). Once I looked at speeds, the SDF loaned the F5 two offensive ECM. I turned towards where the F5 was hunting drones, and it knocked one out with one its drones and boosted ECM to 1, and on impulse 6 the D7 fired on the SDF to do 7 damage to the #5 shield with a pair of disruptor hits and mixed phaser rolls. The F5 and E4 turned away from me, and on impulse 10 the DFs fired disruptors, but both missed. I tried phasers on impulse 14 at range 5, and got 3 internals through the rear shield - phaser #3, disruptor, and drone (power hits would have been nice, but I can't complain about three weapons in three hits). On 18, I blinded the one active scout channel to fire the SDF's phaser-1 into the down shield for two more damage, including a warp hit.
The D7 sped up to 26 for turn 4, while the E4 and F5 were stuck at 22, and I stayed at 27. Much of the turn was us running on steady courses as we tried to recover power, but on 25 the D7 collapsed the SDF's #5 with a disruptor hit, and followed it with a third disruptor and 3xph-2s to punch 4 internals through the down shield, getting the bridge and a drone rack. Then on 27 the F5 hit with both disruptors to do 6 damage to the SDF's #6.
I stayed at 27 again for turn 5, while the D7 matched me (since it was in moderate close pursuit, this was not welcome news), the F5 went 25, and the E4 28 with minimal shields and fire control off. I loaned the D7 a point of O-ECM. Not getting any better opportunities, I started turning on impulse 2 to try and get a point-blank pass on the D7 (I should have gone for this much earlier). Sadly, even with the speed and maneuvering advantage, I couldn't make it happen.
In fact, by the second half of the turn, the D7 was getting behind me at increasingly close range, when it and the F5 both launched a drone on impulse 19, and each of my ships launched a pair on 20. And then on 21 the D7 expended power to counter the O-EW and put up 1 ECM, and fired all four disruptors at the SDF, with two hitting the #3 shield for 7 damage. The F5 followed up on 24, hitting with both disruptors to collapse the SDF's shield, and do three internals for a drone hit. It responded by emptying out the rest of the drone racks to add some distraction.
For turn 6, the E4 went up to speed 30 and turned on shields and fire control (good for him, as I was now headed for it at about range 10), the D7 went up to 29, and the F5 was 30. I slowed down to 21 to try and recover power for a heavier engagement, which I could now longer avoid. The DFs split from the SDF (which was having major shield problems...), and the D7 and F5 chased after the SDF. On impulse 29, the D7 opened up at range 1 for 23 internals through the #5 shield. This crippled it, but there was 8 warp left, which meant that disengaging by acceleration was still possible, if there was at least 6 warp left at the end of the next turn.
The SDF didn't really have any good options though. So instead of trying to put everything into an immediate getaway (@ speed 21), it did a HET on impulse to in the hopes it might get away before the D7 could get the weapons up again and turned after me. Unfortunately, this meant going by the F5, which rolled 1s on the three rear phasers for 15 internals. This gutted it to six internals plus excess damage. Worse, he beamed over boarding parties from both the F5 and D7. At the end of the turn, boarding combat was 7 boarding parties to 4, and we did two damage to each other. With more enemy boarding parties on board, the SDF plotted for self-destruction, and successfully accomplished it for turn 8 EA.
Afterword
The two DFs had tried to come back around to help during turn 6, but couldn't get close enough in time. Once the SDF was effectively dead, they plotted to disengage on turn 8. This was an Astounding Victory for Patch (actually, nearly double what he needed for that), as my only points were for doing internals to the E4, and all the speed-12 drones he took.
We both agree that this one is an interesting scenario. The Kzintis have the tools for a much better showing, but I didn't use them that well. When the D7 got separated from the other two, I should have resolved to take my lumps and try to overrun it. Failing would have been possibly even worse than this was, but a range-0 pass with maximum drone launches is something the Klingon has to be afraid of, because that will overload the defenses. (And of course, surrounding the D7 with 18 drones is likely to cause more than a few problems.)
This would presumably be a slightly different scenario in a group that is not quite so "speed is life". I was giving up a lot of options in the mid- to high-20s, but I didn't want to encounter a D7 on its terms, and the high speeds meant that overloads were never a worry. With frigate shields, I can't take hits from those. But, the lower the speeds, the more important those drones get. The biggest weight in my calculations is that two volleys of drones empty the racks, so I was doing my best to get drone swarms out in a measured fashion so I could refill the racks from all the cargo stowage. That was somewhat successful, but my efforts to get drones through for actual bombardment did not.
- [+] Dice rolls
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In mid-July, Mark and I returned to our SFB campaign, dealing with one of the small open-space fights we had generated.
But first, we took care of other business. Mark was not really wanting to fight out the last base battle, but didn't want to let it go without a fight, either. So, we skipped it. We assumed there would be a fight, and it would go much like the last two had: I win, destroying the base, Mark lost all the armor on his large ship (WCC), and I would take a dozen internals on one random ship selected from the two CLs and two FFs present (this would either cause unreparable damage to a frigate, or knock out the armor on a light cruiser).
The roll selected WAL USS Ferocity (SF-84), which took six armor hits, and then would have no trouble repairing the other six. So, another ship that's perfectly serviceable next round, but less protected, which will be a continuing theme in the campaign.
After that, I also conceded Region 6, putting my two ships into Reserve next time, rather than risk them being crippled and destroyed against a superior Carnivon force. (A light cruiser, given previous experience, may not be that big a deal. But then, neither are my frigates.)
After that, it was time to set up, starting with the terrain rules for the campaign. All bases are automatically far from any kind of terrain, so this is the first time it's come up. The general idea is like the advanced 'local conditions' rule in (S5.4), but without monsters, pirates, and the like, and an initial 2d6 roll with empty space (no terrain) being a 6-8. Both players choose what terrain they'd like to see, with the defender having a better chance of actually getting it. Mark declared for asteroids, I declared for a gas giant, and then the roll went to the actual asteroid field entry. (Getting it on your choice—instead of the normal entry—can give you a greater say in setting it up, though that doesn't happen with asteroids.) A secondary roll made it a 'heavy' field with more asteroid markers than normal.
Set up areas on the large campaign maps are also random (when not at a base), and while I set up fairly forward in one of my central zones, Mark set up close to one edge of one of his rear zones. This put us about 50 hexes away from each other. Longish closing distance for normal ships on a clear map. A bit more of a challenge with asteroids and these more primitive ships.
Weapon status came up as I for both of us, so we had the added challenge of charging everything up too. I wasn't going to skip the initial volley of photons, but most of these ships can only do speed 0 if you try charging all the phasers while loading photons. I settled for partial charges and going speed 6 (which takes no damage from asteroids), while the Carnivon ships went 8. I sideslipped to go around the cluster directly ahead of me anyway (I'd just be stuck inside it during a turn break anyway, forcing decisions during EA that I didn't want forced.)
The Carnivons boosted to speed 10 on turn 2, and near the end turned down to avoid a cluster and a direct path to me. Turn 3 saw Mark stay at the same speed, while I went to speeds 8 (WAC) and 9 and some EW as most of the phasers were charged and the photons were all being held. I turned to thread my way nearer, and midway through the turn Carnivon WDD Vainglory (277) turned away, separating from WCA Wolfclaw (106).
On turn 4, Wolfclaw boosted to speed 13, and Vainglory to 16, while I scattered from speeds 12 to 9. On Impulse 3, WAD USS Demolisher (SF-71) and WVL USS Stalwart (SF-65) had fairly clear shots at Wolfclaw (two asteroid hexes, negated by ECCM), but three phasers at range 22-23 only did 2 damage, which did not register on shields.
Turn 5 saw Wolfclaw go down to speed 10, while Vainglory went 17 (with minimal shields and fire control off), and I tightened up my speeds to 12 and 11. Vainglory had continued turning, and now was headed up, far away from the larger ship, while my slower speeds meant my main advantage was the center position I had taken, but now I was slightly faster than Wolfclaw (if 20 hexes away, with lots of asteroids in between). Vainglory started a turn towards the middle of the map, and right afterwards, I turned in that direction too. Mark assumed I was switching to paying more attention to Vainglory, but it was actually just meant to clear the double-mass of asteroids between me and Wolfclaw. Better yet for me, Wolfclaw then turned to parallel me, instead of turning the other way and ducking behind the asteroids I was maneuvering around.
Turn 6 had Vainglory turn everything back on while going 15, and Wolfclaw got back to speed 12, while I continued at 11 and 12. Wolfclaw turned back down, towards the corner instead of heading towards Vainglory. I finally split up during this turn, with Stalwart going one way around an asteroid cluster, while the other two turned to go on the other side of it. As I did so, Wolfclaw launched two death bolts.Turns 1-6, showing the full map. Normally, asteroids are in every hex within two hexes of an asteroid counter, here we show them directly.
On turn 7, Wolfbite slowed down to speed 8, while putting up 4 ECM, while Vainglory kept at speed 15. I increased speeds slightly to 12 and 13. The death bolts were forced to move into an asteroid hex on impulse 4, but took no damage. On impulse 8, they were able to slip clear of them, confirming they were targeted on WAC USS Norica (SF-73). Norica kept its distance while the other two moved to chase Wolfbite, which now turned around in the narrow confines between asteroids. On impulse 28, it ended up in the corner cluster, taking 6 damage, none of which registered on the shield (I don't know if that was all a brick on the #1, or if he blew his four batteries to make up any difference). On 32, Stalwart fired the bearing ph-1 at range 8, but missed Wolfbite.
Wolfbite accelerated to speed 14 on turn 8, while everyone else stayed the same. On impulse 4, the death bolts got to range 1 of Norica, which started downfiring ph-3s at them, finishing the second one off the following impulse. On impulse 10, Wolfbite reached the edge of the map, and launched another pair of death bolts on 11, presumably targeted on Stalwart, along with the bearing ph-2s to do one box to the #1 at range 5. I was waiting for her to turn, and the range to get a bit lower, but instead Wolfbite disengaged, eliminating tracking on the death bolts.Start of Turn 8, showing movement from 7-24 through 8-11.
Afterword
With a WDD alone, it was obvious I'd force it into a corner and disengage, or it'd get destroyed, and probably do nothing in return.
So, we exchanged a few shots, a few shield boxes were hurt, and nothing else. In a campaign, this is going to be a more common result. Full-on committing to an engagement can lose ships fast, and you're going to want them later. I would have loved to kill a heavy cruiser, which of course was why Wolfbite was my primary target. I think Mark's idea on splitting up was to try and get on my rear with one while the other held my attention. Or to get me to split up. I refused to that, and Mark's split would have worked a lot better if his ships had stayed in supporting range of each other. Instead, the range between them grew too great, and Vainglory couldn't get close to the action when I finally cornered Wolfbite.
With this little action, there's no "MVP" for the fight, though the WVL is a nice ship. With 12 warp on move cost 2/3, it is capable of speed 18, which puts in between W- and Y-ships, and with the usual 4 impulse on a Vulcan ship, it is close in power to a 2/3 MC YCL (which would typically have 18 total to the WVL's 16). It had at least some EW up the entire time
There is now one fight left for the first year of the campaign, and it is something of a repeat of this one in that I have three ships to Mark's two. Just put in CLs for CAs, DDs for CLs, and FFs for DDs. This was also my fifth win, so it is now certain that I'll get to defense line 2.
Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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At the start of April, Mark and I returned to our SFB campaign. This time, we went to the battle at Mark's third base, in Region 5. This features one of my two main 'base busting' fleets, led by a WDN. With it, I had two heavy cruisers and a light cruiser, plus two frigates. With 25 EPV left in my command limit, I could have put in another frigate (the WNF is only 21, though everything else is too big at 31 and up), or used destroyers instead, but I was out of any of those. Mark, limited by the first turn rules, only had a WCA and and WFF with his base, making it a notably smaller force than last time.
Mark set up next to his base rolled low for weapon status 1 again, while I set up behind the ships (at range 35). I came in at speed 10, while the Carnivons went 7. At that speed the WDN and WVF were running with good EW, though the WRL had a minimal 1/0 and the WFF couldn't manage any. Only the base put up EW for Mark (it is easy to suppose that charging phasers was more than enough power drain as it was).
On turn 2, the Carnivons picked up to speed 11, while I split between 11 and 12. The Carnivon WCA Wolfbite (201) put up a point of ECM, while I generally reduced mine. On impulse 9 the base launched a pair of death bolts at the oncoming fleet. The Carnivon ships slowly turned clockwise, and on impulse 24 I turned towards their new course at range 17 from the base. The Carnivons immediately turned off, presenting a stern chase. On turn 3, he slowed down to 9 and 10, and then continued counter-clockwise, putting the base between the fleets. I had increased everyone's speed to 12, and on impulse 11 broke off to turn for a run at the base, which fired its disruptor cannon at WVF USS Intrepid (SF-68) on impulse 17, but missed, thanks to ECM it was running.
On impulse 32 the lead two ships reached range 8 and unloaded. WCA USS Mare Serenitatis (SF-25) and WRL USS Gatherer (SF-70) each hit with one out of two photons (fairly good with a +1 shift, and it would have been all four without it), while the seven phasers from the two ships rolled horribly to do 3 damage. This left the base's #6 at one box (I regretted that one box, as knocking it down would have forced him to use general reinforcement only on that shield).Initial maneuvers, turns 1-3.
My speeds dropped down to 9 (the frigates) and 10 (all others) on turn 4. The base had been loaning offensive EW to WDN USS Venus (SF-38), so it countered with 4 ECCM, even though it would still suffer a +2 shift if the base kept at full EW (4 ECM + 4 self-loaned, or used as O-EW). However, the base apparently was now short of power, as it dropped all loaning (presumably to reinforce the #6 shield), though it kept up 4 ECM.
The Carnivon ships came around to rejoin the base as my line continued running to range 8. On impulse 4 the base fired all four ph-1s at Gatherer, doing seven damage on mid-range rolls (after reinforcement) to the #2 shield. Simultaneously, Venus fired all three photon torpedoes and six phasers into the base, with a mix of high and low rolls for one torpedo hit and nine phaser damage to get one internal (hull) past the shield and armor.
The base rotated before the trailing ships could get to range 8, but Serenitatis got to the shield boundary on 13, put a battery into ECCM to reduce the shift to +1, and fired three phasers into the down shield, for two damage, taking out cargo and hull. After this, I turned away to avoid the Carnivon ships, outrun the two sets of death bolts the base had launched, and start rearming for the next pass. On impulse 25, the Carnivons were ten hexes from the base, and Wolfbite launched a pair of death bolts.
The base repaired one shield box at the end of turn 4, while his ships increased speed slightly to 12 and 10. I increased speed to 12 (frigates) and 11. This was needed to get a little more distance on the death bolts, but did constrain my rearming efforts a bit. My plan had been to spend two turns looping around counterclockwise, and hit the base again as the #6 came around (and be working off my left side instead of right), but Mark interfered with this plan, his ships cruising by the base near the end of the turn. On impulse 26 the base and WFF Sharp Claw (25) each launched a death bolt, and on the next impulse Sharp Claw and Wolfbite fired phasers at WFF USS Marengo (SF-23) in the 9-15 bracket, doing 5 damage to bring down the #1 shield (which technically has six boxes, but since that last box is the only benefit of full-power shields, it was running with minimal shields all battle). On 28, the base launched a second death bolt and fired the disruptor cannon all four ph-1s at the Marengo, to do ten internals through the down shield, knocking out a warp, all impulse, the only bearing phaser, and the photon torpedo. She turned away while the rest of the fleet headed in, and did a point to Wolfbite's #5 with the rear phaser.
For turn 6, Marengo couldn't do better than speed 6 (after housekeeping—turning off fire control—and repairing the #1), while Intrepid stayed at 12 (with 1 ECM) and the heavier ships all went 10. The Carnivons sped up, with Wolfbite going 12 and Sharp Claw doing 15(!), with the base loaning ECM to both ships. On impulse 4, the base's phasers recycled and fired at USS Gatherer, doing two points to the #6 shield (after reinforcement), while Venus and WRC USS Rover (SF-72) fired at Wolfbite, hitting with one out of three photon torpedoes, and moderate rolls on six phasers to do 14 damage, punching through the #5 to do four damage to the armor. The next impulse, Serenitatis and Gatherer fired, missing with two photon torpedoes, but good phaser rolls did four damage to finish off Wolfbite's armor. On 6, Rover fired on the base, and knocked the two repaired boxes of shield #6 down with great rolls (after reinforcement).Turn 6, Impulse 4, showing movement from T5-I24 to T6-I8.
After that, I turned off, plotting to make another run at the base in about three turns, since the two-turn turnaround of this one had proven much too short to get all batteries and phasers recharged while rearming any photons. Wolfbite went down to speed 7 for turn 7, while Sharp Claw stayed at 15, and my speeds stayed the same (other than Marengo dropping shield repair to recharge the phaser capacitor and go speed 9). Marengo headed towards a far corner, while the main fleet started circling around, with the Carnivons circled in the opposite direction, and well inside of me, passing by the base headed away from me near the end of the turn.
Speeds were the same for turn 8, except that Marengo (now ~20 hexes from the base and enemy ships) went back down to speed 6 to start repairing the #1 shield again, and it was a quiet turn of maneuver. On 9, the Carnivons dropped to about half speed (5 and 8), while my main group dropped to 8. While the Carnivon ships were coming around again, those speeds meant there would be no immediate interference as I lined up my next shot at the base. Wolfbite fired a pair of death bolts on 13, and the base fired the disruptor cannon at Gatherer's weak #2, but missed (he would have been advised to hold it until I came closer, but Mark seems to have been mystified as to my plan at this point). On 28, the lead of my line started turning in to hit range 8 to the base early next turn, when the #6 shield would come around to face me.
My fleet speed went back up to 10 as I endeavored to get my timing right, and most of the big ships were finishing the reload of their last photon torpedoes (Gatherer was holding one of two, and not even trying on the second, which I'll get into below). The Carnivon ships sped up for turn 10, with Sharp Claw going 14, and Wolfbite 10. To my surprise, the Carnivon ships turned off in the first impulses of the turn, but I was a too busy to really think about Marengo out by itself, and still going speed 6. The base's latest round of death bolts (and last ones until he could get the ready racks reloaded) got out to my line, and forced Rover to sideslip out as they seemed to be targeted on her.
On impulse 10, I got to my range 8 shot, and the base loaned two offensive ECM to Venus and fired the disruptor cannon and two ph-1s at Mare Serenitatis, doing eight damage to her #2. The next impulse, the other two phasers fired for six more damage, cracking the shield and doing two points of armor damage. Meanwhile, Venus and Serenitatis fired, getting four out of five photon hits, but only seven damage with eleven phasers on horrible rolls. This was still enough to punch a shield reinforced to sixteen strength and do 23 internals. On 14, Gatherer made range 8 and missed with both phasers, but hit with its photon for another eight internals. All of this wrecked the base, taking out all "weapon" systems other than 2 RX ph-1s and 1xspecial sensor. Power wasn't touched, but all hull was gone, and a combined total of 21 repair and cargo hits were left.
As I started working back away from the base, I realized that the Carnivon ships were after the Marengo, but at the end of the turn I was still getting the fleet turned around to chase after them. This wasn't bad, as she was leading them from the base, and towards the edge of the map, where I might force a disengagement. By the end of the turn, Marengo was ten hexes from the edge of the map, Sharp Claw was nine hexes behind her, and Wolfbite another seven back. Turn 11 was obviously going to be a chase, and Mark turned up the speeds to 14 on Wolfbite and 15 on Sharp Claw, while Marengo had just repaired the warp engine to go 12 (with fire control on), Intrepid went 15, and the heavier ships went 10 and 11.
Towards the end of the turn, Marengo reached the edge of the map and turned to skim along the edge, able to sideslip and disengage if it took too much damage. By impulse 30, range from Sharp Claw was down to 5, and she fired the rear phaser to bounce a point off Sharp Claw's reinforcement.
For turn 12, Sharp Claw slowed down to 12, while Wolfbite worked up to speed 14. Marengo stayed at 12, Intrepid dropped to 12, and the big units stayed at 10 and 11, except for Gatherer, which dropped to 9 to start loading a second photon torpedo now that her batteries and phaser capacitors were nearly full. On impulse 3, Sharp Claw launched a death bolt at Marengo, and fired phasers to do two damage to shield #3. Two impulses later, Wolfbite followed suit with her four forward phasers to do five damage (at range 10) causing two internals, Aux Control and the warp engine, and also fired a pair of death bolts back at Intrepid.
After this, Mark turned the opposite direction from Marengo, following the map edge up as the rest of the fleet gave chase. I had anticipated him trying to destroy Marengo, or at least force a disengage (which would force her to sit out a turn), and then disengage himself. Instead, he went for the option that preserved distance to shake pursuit.
On turn 13, Sharp Claw went back to speed 15, while my speeds continued to fragment. The frigates both went 12 (Marengo still had fire control off, and was headed away from all action), while Venus and Rover went 11, Serenitatis went 10 (it could have done 12, but I was still repairing the #2 shield), and Gatherer was still at 9. Mark skimmed along the map edge until impulse 20, when he started turning in. I was actually still angling at the map edge myself, and plotting when I wanted to turn to parallel him with my slower ships: too far out, and he might turn around and get past me, too close and he'd get past me by turning in. I had been getting close to where I wanted to be (about a dozen hexes out), so turning to intercept was no problem, and on 28 he turned away to parallel the map edge again.
Turn 14 saw Mark run for distance as both ships turned off fire control, and Wolfbite hit speed 15, and Sharp Claw got to 18 (a WFF's theoretical maximum speed is generally 19, but they usually don't have the power for life support and shields at that point). All my ships went speed 12, except Serenitatis, still at 10 to repair the shield, and Marengo, which dropped to 3 to repair the #3 shield, and recharge the phaser capacitor. On impulse 15 he turned in from the map edge again (with only about a dozen hexes to go up), and then turned away again on 29, now with 8-10 hexes between him and the right edge.
On turn 15, the Carnivons slowed down to turn on fire control, going 14 and 16. Intrepid went back to 15, and Venus dropped its one point of ECM to get up to speed 13 (while holding three photons!... and a suicide shuttle I'd had from the beginning). Mark started turning towards the board edge, presumably looking to turn around and slip by me. On impulse 11 he launched three death bolts, possibly at USS Venus, which was closest. On 20, Sharp Claw fired her bearing phasers at Intrepid, but missing entirely at range 11, and then slipped off the map to disengage on the next impulse. Intrepid maneuvered to intercept the death bolts, doing 5 damage to one on impulse 28, and Venus downfired the left-side and rear phasers to clear all three DBs. At the same time, Wolfbite fired on Intrepid, doing five damage to knock down the #2 shield after the battery took care of the fifth point. Then Wolfbite sideslipped off the map to disengage.Turn 15
Afterword
With the YBS Clutch of Dogs already a mess, we figured I'd have no problem going back to it and slowly pounding it while using reinforcement at slow speed to take it down without any more damage. The following ships came out with permanent damage:
USS Mare Serenitatis has two armor damage.
USS Marengo is out all hull, the transporter, auxiliary control, and the photon torpedo.
Wolfbite is out all eight armor.
Since I had bigger ships, and Mark smaller, I figured this battle would go faster than Region 1. In a way it did; while both took 15 turns, there was more "dead time" in this one with no firing, so we didn't need as many sessions to fight the battle. I think Mark was not expecting me to abandon Mahanian principles and go after the base first, but I figured that he'd probably stay under the guns of the base this time, so I'd need to take care of it sooner rather than later. I did have trouble getting used to a fleet that needed energy for photon torpedoes; I tried going at the speeds that the Andorian ships could do last time.
MVP goes to USS Venus (SF-38) this time. The Federation WDN is a very solid design, and the ability to go speed 14 while holding photon torpedoes is impressive. The five photon hits against the base on turn on turn 10 was lead by the Venus, and let the battle enter its final phase.
On the other hand, it has been shown that I have something of a "frigate gap". I happened to have the two frigates with the smallest shields here, but Mark's general plan was obviously to hit these fragile ships hard and force them to at least need repairs. USS Intrepid was saved by the fact that it has two extra impulse (I don't think there's any other 1/3 move cost ship that has four impulse) that allows it to keep ECM up and running when other ships are dry. Looking again, I realize that Federation ships have high crunch power and weak shields, while Carnivon ships have better shields and low crunch power, so this is an overall balanced match up. But my frigates will be vulnerable in any large fleet action, and when there's bases with disruptor cannons.
This is only going to get worse, as the Carnivons get YFFs long before the Federation does, and the primary change is trading out the point-blank heel nipper for the moderate-range disruptor cannon. Thankfully, that is the major change, with only a modest increase in power and minimal shield improvements. The eventual Federation YFF is a much nastier ship, but its BPV is just below the YDD's, which with our EPV/BPV based command system is going to be another headache for me.
WRL USS Gatherer (SF-70) was notable for having problems rearming after a battle pass. Some of this was the fact that it too was singled out as a Carnivon target, so it had shields to repair, but it had major problems recharging batteries and phasers, never mind loading photon torpedoes. Since pretty much all WCLs have the same power and demands as the WRL, I am concerned that the others will be just as bad. Or worse, since the Carnivon WCL, Terran WCL, and WAL have a 3/4 MC instead of 2/3.
Thu Jul 14, 2022 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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Last December, Mark and I got going on a large project that is going to take us a while: Playing a modified version of the SFB Admiral's Game campaign from Advanced Missions. Once sorting out the basics was done, we decided to try the first region... first. It features his largest base defense force, and my smallest base assault force, "merely" being lead by a CC (it was also the only force where it was not theoretically possible for me to add another ship). It would also serve as a test of just how tough these early bases were going to be for me. We had the following available:
This was about the only fleet where I tried to stick with one particular member navy. The Andorians (xNx ships) use drones instead of photon torpedoes as heavy weapons, so I figured massing them against a static object for a bombardment would be one of my better options for them. (In this era, speed-8 drones are relatively faster, but still slower than what ships can actually do, so base bombardment is still a good option.) It also features my only 'pair' of ships, as the only classes I have more than one of are the four that I built new ones of this turn, and the other three all ended up split up from their sisters.
Mark set up with his two ships a few hexes away from the base, but pointed towards it, and a poor roll left him at Weapon Status-I (with his bonuses, the lowest possible). The rules give the attacker an automatic WS-III, but I have to set up at least 35 hexes from the base, which with these ships is over two turns travel at best speed. With my mix of designs, I ended up with my fleet speed scattered from 11 to 14 even at the beginning, while Mark went 12 (WDN) and 9 (WDD). EW was minimal, with only the base and Mark's WDN opting for any at all. I set up opposite of the Carnivon fleet and headed in, while they passed through the base's hex and turned right. On impulse 32, the base fired its two bearing phaser-1s at WND USS Battler (SF-75) at range 25, doing one point to its #1 shield.
For turn 2, I kept to the same speed range, though Battler reduced speed to 11 to repair the shield damage, while the WDN dropped to 8, and the WDD boosted to 13; the WDN boosted ECM to 4 (the maximum in this era), and the WNC and WNL started generating 1 point of ECM. On impulse 12, the base fired on Battler again (range 21) and missed. By impulse 24, the WDN was ten hexes away from the base, and turned towards my oncoming fleet, followed by the WDD on the next impulse. I started slipping that way, and then turned to intercept over the next few impulses.Turn 3, Impulse 1, showing movement from impulse 24 of turn 2, to impulse 8 of turn 3.
Mark picked up speed for turn 3, going 13 and 15, near their maximums. I had worried about us being about to go to short- (or at least close moderate-) range combat, so the WCC USS de Gaulle bricked the front shield, and shifted down to speed 4. Everything else went from 11 to 9, generally picking up a little more EW, while the WDN had to drop its ECM. All his units launched death bolts on impulse 1, and the WDN Cerebus and WDD Glory Seeker fired a total of eight ph-2s at WOD USS Dunelle (SF-94) to do five damage to its #1 (after batteries). After that, he turned off, and I volleyed ten ph-2s at Cerebus from three different ships on impulse 5, to do two damage to the #5 shield (out of eight damage done, so at that speed, that was the batteries). The next impulse, Dunelle hit range 8 from Cerebus, and fired its photon torpedo and three bearing phasers, doing five more damage to the #5 with good phaser rolls, but the photon missed.
I had suspected that the death bolts were targeted on Dunelle, and on impulse 16 it became obvious this was the case. My first thought was to 'thread the needle' between the ones from the ships, and the two coming up from the base, but a careful track of movement showed I couldn't quite dodge both. Thankfully, the Orion design has a turn mode of A and is nimble (on a destroyer!), so she was able to do a U-turn to get the entire set running behind it. Mark was surprised by how fast she was able to do this (well, so was I), and on impulse 27, the base fired the disruptor cannon, and all four ph-1s at Dunelle at range nine to do eight damage, and exactly collapse the #5 shield. The next impulse it fired both ph-3s to do one point of damage through the down shield, and hit the left warp engine.
For turn 4 Cerebus dropped from 13 to speed 12, while my speeds were 8 or 9, except for Dunelle, which kept at 11, as she prepared to get some distance before re-arming. Mark's ships continued turning clockwise, and as the turn began were running in direction C, while my remaining five ships pursued. Glory Seeker made a further turn to D, and Mark launched another full set of death bolts on impulse 17, while I turned to intercept the WDD/parallel the WDN. Over the last few impulses of the turn, I launched three drones targeted on the death bolts to start clearing them out of the way.
On turn 5, Glory Seeker dropped to speed 13, while I shifted up to a mix of 9 through 11. On impulse 11 the base fired the disruptor cannon and 2xph-2s at Battler, and thankfully it missed with the former, while the phasers did a point each to the #3 shield. Glory Seeker had gotten out in front of my main force, and turned back in to the base, but Cerebus was still on the far side of her from the base, but turned across my path near the bottom of the turn, and we ended with nine hexes between Cerebus and WNL USS Govar-Jarot (SF-81).
I largely sped up to intercept Cerebus on turn 6, with de Gaulle and Govar-Jarot hitting speed 12, while Dunelle dropped to speed 3 so she could start repairing shields, charging phasers, and loading the photon torpedo. Cerebus turned back away from my oncoming ships, giving me a stern chase, and then started trying to shake me, with some success. On 8 she launched another pair of death bolts, and then turned back left on 16, leaving me to deal with the incoming death bolts as I tried to stick with it. I ended up split into two groups, one of the WNC, WNL, and a WND, the other of de Gaulle and Battler. The death bolts went after (I think) WNC USS Targ-Glast (SF-76), forcing her to slip away from them and Cerebus' course. Then Cerebus turned back to the right, with both groups further away from her, and the larger group out of position and five hexes away from the other two ships.
I sped up again for turn 7, with the two Andorian destroyers hitting speed 13, while everything else made 12 to match Cerebus' speed. Dunelle stayed at 3 as it continued rearming. Despite getting a good position last turn, Cerebus was now contending with the edge of the (large) map, and needed to turn again to avoid that, with de Gaulle and Battler on a converging course. On impulse 25, WND USS Gladiator (SF-53) got to range 8 from behind, and fired a ph-2, but missed. Two impulses later, Battler and de Gaulle volleyed phasers at Cerebus with only one hit for 2 damage, which was absorbed by reinforcement (or batteries). On impulse 28, Cerebus launched another pair of death bolts pointed towards the leading ships, and on 30 she turned in, across their paths, and away from the board edge, and the turn ended with the range dropping fast, and Battler launched a drone at Cerebus and fired another phaser, which missed.Flight of the Cerebus, showing movement during all of turn 7.
Meanwhile, Glory Seeker had flown back to the base and continued in a clockwise circle, ending the turn six hexes from isolated Dunelle. Needing to maneuver, she boosted to speed 5 for turn 8, turned on EW (1 each ECM/ECCM), and finished charging the phasers while going into the final turn of repairs on the warp engine. The rest of my speeds varied between 9 and 12, except for de Gaulle, which dropped to speed 4 again to push up EW and reinforce the front shield. Both of Mark's ships went 11. Cerebus was forced to range 4 from de Gaulle (unsatisfied turn and slip modes) on impulse 3, who fired both photon torpedoes... and missed. On 6, Cerebus and Battler fired on each other at range 2, the latter doing two damage to the #1 shield with a single ph-2, and the former doing 12 damage with 6 ph-2s on horrible rolls, and missed with the in-arc heel nipper. Battler lost the #5 shield and armor for nine internals including two warp, a bridge, aux control, and the bearing phaser.
We had a session break right after that, and as I was setting up the next time, I suddenly remembered that Battler was one of the few ships I had manged to buy T-bombs for, so she dropped one out the hatch on impulse 7, and then spent time guiding the incoming death bolts over it, and Cerebus had to turn aside to keep from being in the blast radius when it went off (which it did on impulse 12, just after Battler got out of range). To my surprise, Cerebus kept running "south", putting me back on a stern chase, when I expected he'd head back to the center of the board and make me deal with her and the base at the same time. He did start slipping away from the board edge, and into my path, so that Gladiator got a range 3 shot with phasers to do 2 damage to the #4 shield on impulse 30.Turn 8, Impulse 6, showing movement from impulse 1 through 17.
Glory Seeker and Dunelle did a range-2 oblique pass on impulse 9, and fired into each other. Glory Seeker's heel nipper also missed, and the phasers did eight damage to almost knock down the #2 shield (after spending the one charged battery on it), while Dunelle's photon hit and the bearing phasers had good rolls for a total of twenty damage, which turned into nine internals, to take out a warp, two phasers, the heel nipper, and the battery. The next impulse, Glory Seeker's remaining ph-3 fired to finish off the shield and do two internals, getting the left warp again.Turn 8, Impulse 9, showing movement from impulse 1 through 13.
Mark boosted to speeds 13 and 14, trying to shake my pursuit, while my speeds were a mix from 11 to 15 (Govar-Jarot didn't need to arm anything...), while Dunelle went 10 and was following Glory Seeker, and Battler went 6 and started repairing the shield. Only de Gaulle, Targ-Glast, and the base had any EW up, and Glory Seeker turned off fire control to get more speed. On impulse 6, Gladiator's phasers recycled, and good rolls did eleven damage, which punched one point through to the armor after reinforcement. On 12, Cerebus launched another set of death bolts (her last until he could break more out of storage and put them in the rack). I launched a counter-drone from Gladiator and stepped around the other. At 20, the edge of the board was starting to loom again, and Cerebus turned across my path again, and over the next several impulses I turned to parallel her.
On turn 10, Mark pushed Cerebus to speed 17, turning off fire control and shields to do this. My speeds in the shadowing group were 9, 12, or 15, as I had expected a race, even if not one that desperate. Gladiator and de Gaulle immediately fired into her (range 4-5), missing with the photon de Gaulle had just reloaded, and doing eight damage with six phasers to finish off the armor and knock out a heel nipper. Glory Seeker had been circling the base, and that fired on Dunelle on impulse 12, hitting with the disruptor cannon and mixed phaser rolls to do twelve damage on the #5 shield, causing nine internals to take out two more warp and a phaser. Dunelle then turned off, looking at heading for the board edge and disengagement. Cerebus got to the bottom edge of the map around impulse 24, and skimmed along it before disengaging off the board on 29 rather than face the chasing group that was still able to intercept.
Down to 7 power, Dunelle turned off everything but shields and life support on turn 11 to go speed 11 and continue gaining distance. Battler turned shields down to minimum settings as it started repairs on the #5. Speeds ranged from 8 to 12 as the main group all turned towards the base to get into position for a bombardment. Glory Seeker was now chasing Dunelle at speed 13, and the base fired at Dunelle on impulse 4 to do two damage to the #4 at range 18. Glory Seeker tried a phaser on 15, but missed at range 6.
Glory Seeker backed down to speed 11 for turn 12; Dunelle (and most of the rest of the fleet) went 9 as fire control came back on. Dunelle reached the top edge of the map a bit over halfway through the turn, and started skimming along the edge, having fired two phasers back at Glory Seeker to do one damage to her #1, and see how far Mark would be drawn away from the base that the main force was starting to approach. Glory Seeker eventually turned the other way instead of being forced to stick close to Dunelle, and Dunelle started cautiously turning back onto the map.
At the end of the turn, I was starting to shake out into a ragged line coming in towards the base, and started launching drones. Turn 13 saw me backing down to speeds 5 to 10 to get everyone more concentrated, and allow the drones to start running ahead. Since the closest ship (Targ-Glast) was still 12 hexes out, this was a turn of slowly tightening the noose. The base went to switching off drones with the special sensors, and launched a shuttle at the top of the turn, followed by death bolts a few impulses later. On impulse 24, the base fired the disruptor cannon at Battler for a hit that did 1 damage through the reinforcement I'd put up. The special sensors rolled slightly better than average, the phasers fired at incoming drones, Targ-Glast fired at incoming death bolts, and the turn ended with four drones in flight (range 6 or 7), my ships largely in one hex at range 7, a death bolt a hex away, and the shuttle three hexes away.
My speeds dropped to 3 to 5 for most ships on turn 14, with a couple exceptions. Sensors turned off more drones, I destroyed the death bolt, and crippled the shuttle, which then turned out to be a suicide shuttle aimed at one of the early drones. This time, a pair of phasers fired on Targ-Glast to do two damage to the #1 shield. Drones started impacting on impulse 28, followed by a range-2 pair of photons from de Gaulle, which both hit, to bring the shield down and take out the base's armor. I fired phasers on the next impulse with awful rolls and a +2 shift to do four internals, followed by another shot on 30 for another five internals, another on 31 for four more, and then four drones hit on 32 through the down shield for 32 internals.
Turn 15 was mostly just accounting as I continued the bombardment and phaser barrage. de Gaulle flew through the base's hex, getting a range-0 shot with a phaser that had recycled, and then turned to go after Glory Seeker, which was still skulking around. The base was battered, losing another shield, but survived the turn, with half of its excess damage hits gone. We called it at that point, as de Gaulle should be sufficient to get Glory Seeker to leave, and once the base blew on turn 16, the the others would get up to speed, and join in hunting her down.
Afterword
After repairs, the following still had damage:
USS Battler still had a bridge, tractor, and transporter out, as well as its armor.
USS Dunelle is out a bridge, forward hull, both rear hull, and two cargo.
Cerebus could easily repair the one internal it had taken, but is out all of its armor.
Glory Seeker is out three center hull (of four), and auxiliary control.
Knowing how weighted this was in my favor, I didn't think it'd take 15 turns; 12 would have been closer to my guess. The base didn't get a chance to do a lot; thanks to the fleet action largely traveling away from the range-15 limit on special sensor lending, and then I made sure it was quite busy at the end. Mark had an opportunity to get past me with Cerebus on turn 7, and should have taken it. My primary goal was to herd it off the map edge, though getting to do real damage would have been a bonus as long as I didn't end up trading something important like a command cruiser for the privilege. He nearly got through with his maneuvering at that point, but backed off, presumably judging I'd do too much damage at the ranges we'd get to.
He needs to remember the lesson of "Lone Gray Wolf": it takes a lot to seriously harm a dreadnought. On the other hand, he couldn't outrun me, because I had the inside track, and the bulk of my ships didn't need to spend energy on heavy weapons, which is what let a couple stay really close, while his power drained away from defending against the occasional good phaser shot.
WOD USS Dunelle (SF-94) gets MVP from me. It was an early target, and took internals on three separate occasions, one of which was me getting overconfident near the base. The quick duel with Glory Seeker showed the crunch power of the photon torpedo, even without overloads, and it had managed to patch everything together just in time for that pass. The shields are a little thin (I notice that overall, Federation shields are thinner than Carnivon), but the maneuverability of a nimble "A" on a destroyer is amazing. Its sister ship is in region 4, which was where I had a large advantage in an open space fight, so it was surrendered without a fight from Mark. That one will be back in Y78, and may get in a real fight, but Dunelle may be in the shop next year.
WND USS Battler (SF-75) also did well, surviving getting too close to a dreadnought in relatively good shape. Armor tends to go with extra-thin shields, so it's even more likely that she'll sit out next turn to get the armor repaired. Having a pair of identical destroyers was a help, though they ended up with different allocations most of the time.
Overall, the Andorian ships are not bad. The lack of crunch power from no photons is made up for by low power requirements, but it did put something of a burden on de Gaulle and Dunelle to provide the heavy direct firepower. (Taking a look at early Kzinti, which have much the same pattern, does not make me excited to fly them.) The massed drone tactics here were not bad, but in future my thought is to instead sprinkle them throughout other member's fleets and use the drones as death bolt defense. Death bolts have a low rate of fire (1.5 turns at best), and take more damage to kill than normal, but a single drone is all it takes. Just one or two racks, at the right place (the hard part), can probably get rid of whatever single death bolts are the biggest problem.
Sat Apr 30, 2022 6:00 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
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Last December, Patch and I kicked off the group's SFB adventures for Y161 with an early historical scenario featuring USS Kongo in its five year mission under Captain Kosnett (last seen here in "Coming of the Meteor", and is now a CAR). Patch took the Klingons, who are holding a Federation trade commission hostage at the local base station. Kongo has shown up with the commando cruiser Okinawa to rescue them by coup de main.
I made a number of errors in this scenario, and the first one was not appreciating that the base station and accompanying F5 start at weapons status I. This allows them to charge phasers on the first turn, but of course while the base's ph-4s are really dangerous, that's a large power drain on something that size (12 out of 22 total power in fact, and another four is needed for housekeeping). The Federation ships enter together, 20 hexes from the station, and the F5 is parked adjacent to it. I planned to force-dock the CMC Okinawa to the base and engage the base directly in a boarding action to get the hostages, and started it with a wild weasel while the CA had a suicide shuttle prepped. Both ships went speed 8, with full ECM up (again, because I didn't appreciate how power-strapped the base was), while the F5 went speed 12, and the BS lent two ECM to the F5 (making it effectively 4ECM/2ECCM), and lent ECM to itself for 8/0 EW.
Patch launched a pair of shuttles on the first impulse; the BS's stayed out for possible point defense, while the F5's landed aboard the base, presumably with boarding parties; the F5 circled behind the base while I cautiously approached. Turn 2 saw a bigger mistake from me as the CMC picked up to speed 10... but was 12 hexes from the base (I honestly don't know if I hadn't thought far enough ahead during EA, or if I miscounted the range...). The CA stayed at 8, and F5 stayed at 12. I stayed at full ECM, while the F5 shifted to 3 ECCM and the base to 6/3 EW. During impulse 5, Patch dropped non-facing shields on the F5 and BS, moved to bring the gaps to bear on the next impulse and transported boarding parties from the F5 over to the BS.
By mid-turn the base was starting to loom larger, and the F5 turned in to come in behind my approach course. On impulse 19, the base fired into the CMC at range 7, getting bad rolls at +1 to do seven damage to the #1 shield (I had bricked that as best I could...). On 27, the F5 got to range one of the CMC and unloaded on it, hitting with one disruptor, and poor phaser rolls to knock down the #5 shield and do two points to the armor. Then it slipped into the CMC's hex and fired a drone and the RX phasers to knock down shield #4 and do two more to the armor. I shot down the drone before it could impact, but the BS launched a second one on 31.Turn 2, Impulse 27, showing movement throughout the turn.
At this point, I should have been at range 1 to start the docking procedure (which would have forced a range-2 shot at the new drone on 31...), but I was still two hexes out, and the BS fired again with more poor dice to take out shield #6, the last two armor, and do eleven internals, knocking out two warp and a phaser. The CA fired on the F5's #4 shield with good rolls to do 18 damage, half of which went in to take out two power and a phaser.
For turn 3, the F5 dropped to speed 8, while the CA dropped to 5, and the CMC went 1 as it started it's extended docking procedure. I kept to full ECM, the F5 went for a 1/3 split, and the base continued loaning to itself for 4/3 EW. The CMC turned off fire control in EA and launched its wild weasel first thing (giving the CMC 12 ECM for as long as it would last...). Patch fired a ph-3 to cripple the shuttle, but kept missing with shots from the BS's ADD. On two he launched his own shuttle, and then hit with the ADD on 3 to do one damage to the shuttle before his original base shuttle finally killed it with it's shot.
The F5 missed its overloaded disruptor shot vs the CMC, sideslipped past it, and fired the remaining FX phasers into the CMC for seven damage on a down shield. Only one got in after general reinforcement, and then the explosion period ended and the base fired two ph-4s to do 29 internals (after spending the batteries to stop one damage...). This gutted the CMC (no surprise...), knocking out the barracks and the bulk of the boarding parties, and almost all the shuttles (with more boarding parties on board; another mistake: I should have been launching them, where they'd be separate targets that needed more damage to kill), with the HTS surviving crippled in the bay.
The next impulse, the next pair of ph-4s fired for 30 damage, which nearly did for the CMC (I estimated 9 damage to kill it; more if there were sensor/scanner hits in there). A ph-3 took it down to two excess damage boxes remaining. Meanwhile, the CA had launched all its' shuttles and the ADD and fire from the Klingon shuttles soon cleared most of them out, and they merely crippled a single Klingon shuttle. On impulse 28, the CA burned batteries to go to 2/4 EW, and fired on the BS at range 2 to do 16 damage with an overloaded photon to shield #5. The next impulse was another photon shot for 16 more damage and 11 internals, which killed one of the hostages. I tried a pair of hit and run raids to rescue a couple of hostages, but got 'boarding party returns' results against the guards.
Patch managed a phaser-1 shot against the CA (lack of power) to do 3 damage through the lowered shield for one warp hit. The CA headed back out, trying to de-fang the BS on the way (it did get the disruptor mount) and firing on the F5 at range 1 on 32 to do 14 internals after crashing the #6 shield.
Afterword
We called it there, with the CA too close to the base, but headed off the fixed map. At its max acceleration, it could go 15, which would bring it to about four hexes from disengaging. If the BS is smart enough to counter any ECM the CA puts out, four ph-4s at the top of the turn will do 40-80 damage at range 4, with a 20-point shield and about five power available to boost it. Fifteen internals isn't too bad, and the CA would certainly get off without too much more trouble. Sixty-five internals on the other hand.... The F5 would be a serious complication at that point, though it would hopefully still manage to crawl off on the next turn.
Among the other mistakes I've mentioned, a big one was letting the CA fall too far behind the CMC. When the F5 did its turn two pass, the CA wasn't close enough to make it pay, or to distract it. The CA should have been what the F5 encountered first, to act as proper cover for the troops. The general plan for getting the CMC up close and docking looks workable, but you have to do the homework first, and both ships need to be there, and make the Klingon worry that if he fires too much into one ship, he'll dock the other one, and perhaps transport BPs from one to the other. Still, this a tall order at best. Ph-4s are things I really don't like messing with at close range.
One question that came up is how the hostages are counted for H&R purposes. By the scenario you can rescue them that way, and they can be guarded, like various non-system boxes. But is each hostage it's own "box", being it's on legal target needing guarding? Or are they all one target, and you can only rescue one a turn (as you can only target an individual SSD box for an H&R mission once per turn)? We considered them two groups of five for these purposes, which seems reasonable.
- [+] Dice rolls
