In anticipation of starting an ongoing campaign very soon where damage to ships carries over from game to game, we arranged a 1500 point game. Although I don't often engage in 'trash talk', I couldn't resist emailing Admiral Woods a picture of my freshly assembled fleet, along with a taunting message:
SUBSPACE COMMUNIQUÉ
TO: FEDERATION COMMANDER "PINE OVERCOAT"
FROM: KLINGON THOUGHT-ADMIRAL "INEVITABLE DOMINATOR"
GAZE IN ALARM AT THE FORCE THAT AWAITS YOU IN THE TAU EPSILON SYSTEM. THE KLINGON EMPIRE AND ITS LOYAL NAVY PROMISE SWIFT AND MERCILESS DESTRUCTION FOR ANY VESSELS ENTERING ANY IMPERIAL DOMINION WITHOUT OUR LEAVE.
HAVE YOUR CREWS MAKE THEIR PEACE WITH THEIR GODS AND BID THEIR LOVED ONES FAREWELL, OR TO ABANDON THEIR POSTS. THE EMPIRE WILL REWARD THISE WHO SEEK OUR MASTERY OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.
NONE WHO ENTER TAU EPSILON WILL BE SHOWN ANY QUARTER.
TRANSMISSION ENDS
He sent the following response with as much officiousness as he could muster:
TO: Unauthorized Klingon Incursion Force
FROM: United Federation of Planets Task Force Echo
The Federation does not recognize the Klingon Empire's claim to the Tau Epsilon system, which you annexed in contravention of interstellar law only days ago. This task force is responding to a call for aid by our allies, the Sirena Concordat, whose home planet you mercilessly bombarded during your invasion.
You have eight hours to withdraw your forces from the Tau Epsilon system. We urge you to take this opportunity to salvage a peaceful resolution to this outrage. Otherwise, we will free the people of the Sirena Concordat by any means necessary.
We didn't start this war, but we will finish it.
Regards,
Commodore Dinah Wayne, Commanding
USS Entente, Flagship, UFP Task Force Echo
To which I could only respond:
KKRRRRSSSHHHH [Nothing But static]
When he arrived Friday evening we spent a few minutes arranging things for the campaign, including leadership rolls for all our ships, which we decided we would use that evening in our non-campaign game, in hopes of getting acclimatized to them. Thankfully neither of us rolled Cadet crews, and after supper we assembled our fleets on the tabletop.
The scenario we played is called "Rescue", but it might as well have been called "King of the Hill". The centre of the table contained the objective, in this case, a stricken ship (i.e. a tragically trodden upon resin model) which would grant 100 bonus points to the fleet who had a ship within 6" of it at the end of the game.
This objective was sub-optimal for the force I had chosen, so I elected to disregard it in favour of destroying the opposing fleet instead, and wandering over in that direction once I had established control of the quadrant.
My opponent is a sharp cookie, with a deep understanding of the source material, but whose gaming experience tended towards RPGs and boardgames. When I won the initiative roll, he had to deploy his entire force along one table edge, and when he did, he tried to encompass as much area as possible.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it an oblique line or anything, but as far as refused flanks went, I figured it would do the job, especially with one of his (many) Constitution class heavy cruisers needing to navigate his way around a density 9 asteroid field he had toyed with using for cover..
If I could concentrate my fire, I might be able to take out a couple of ships before Earl got his fleet into knife fighting range; once where my agility wouldn't make it easy, but his photon torpedo batteries would punish any missteps I made with lethal finality, so the fewer of those I had to face, the better!
Sure enough, he moved pretty much straight ahead, contracting slightly towards the objective, while I inched ahead slightly, leaving my scout ships in the rear. We had started just outside drone range (36"), so once he moved forward at all, I had my shot.
Scout ships are a fascinating later addition to the rules: if you have one and your opponent doesn't, you get a +1 to your initiative rolls to reflect the recon and intelligence they have garnered for your side. More importantly they can serve in an electronic warfare capacity, limiting the effectiveness of the enemies weapons, making a friendly ship harder to hit, etc. If the opposing player has a scout ship, he can limit some of this jamming, but since Earl did not, my 'wild weasels' had pretty much free reign.
After jamming up some of his counter weapons, I threw multiple salvos of drones at his leftmost heavy cruiser, the U.S.S. Potemkin (a model I had lent him due to one of his own needing repair). By the time my drone cruiser the T'Kondroga threw a volley of six at him, his shield were down and defenses spent, and the multiple heavy criticals these devastating weapons wrought were too much for the cruiser to take, and it was soon dead in space, doomed to explode the following turn.
Now, it is important to note that this is unlikely to ever happen again, most importantly because the seeking weapon rules have changed significantly, and they only hit automatically at short range now - more than 18" requires a dice roll now, same as any other weapon.
Secondly, as mentioned, Admiral Woods is nobody's fool and I am unlikely to catch him out this way again! It was fun while it lasted, illegal though it was.
Next turn, he cagily sent his two heaviest vessels, the dreadnought U.S.S. Entente and Kirov-class heavy battlecruiser the U.S.S. Eris to secure the objective. I sent a cruiser and frigate up the left side in hope of overwhelming the endmost war destroyer, the Sargon. The scouts turned in place and the remainder of the line moved back 4" to extend the engagement envelope. My own dreadnought stayed in position as a deterrent and because he lacked the speed and agility to get back into the fight quickly if he withdrew.
Meanwhile at the far end of the table, the U.S.S. Eagle slowly made its way around the treacherous asteroid belt.
Back where the action was, the Sargon and heavy cruiser the Constitution were the only Federation ships within effective weapons range, and moved to attack.They traded fire with the frigate Argoth and heavy cruiser Ravenous, but jamming from my scout ships blunted their fire and the standard issue reinforced front shields soaked up the remainder. Their own phaser and disruptor fire was more effective, and they had very little in the way of shields left by the time my second wave of drones entered the fray, taking two more ships out of the battle.
Seeking to even the numbers a little bit, Earl concentrated his remaining long distance weapons on the Kukri, a light frigate in the main line of battle. The combined fire of the Entente and Eris soon sent the plucky little ship to the Black Fleet, but I was still up seven to his five, only 4 of which were in effective range.
On turn three, Earl's own frigate, the Encounter, followed the Exeter, yet another Constitution class, in to square off against the Argoth and Ravenous. The heavy battlecruise Eris gallantly moved into effective range of my main line despite being outnumbered, supported by the Entente who took its place on the objective. If we both had ships on there at the end of the game, the tie went to the player whose closest ship was worth more points, so it was a canny strategy. The Eagle had diverted additional power to its engines and was at last now tantalizingly close to flanking position, albeit still out of range with everything except its drones.
Now that we were at last in knife-fighting range with the majority of the Federation fleet, I really had to watch my step, and once again the scout ships showed their worth. The Revenant's jamming turned four dice worth of photon torpedoes from the Eris into two, meaning the front shields of my own heavy battlecruiser the Fiery Crown only had to deal with 8 points of damage to deal with instead of 16, and her front shields halved that to 4, much to Admiral Woods' frustration.
The Exeter's shields soon withered under the concentrated fire of the Argoth and i, after which the 8 drones from Revenant and T'Kondroga finished her off. The Encounter, being a secondary priority, survived for another turn, the first Star Fleet ship to do so in that part of space.
Meanwhile my heavy line ignored the dreadnought in favour of tackling the Eris, and it too succumbed.
Turn 4 would be the final turn, as Earl decided to practice the better part of valour and get his remaining ships out of there, something that will no doubt be a common occurrence for both of us once we start playing campaign games. He issued the "Maximum Warp Now!" special order to all three vessels and moved them 6" straight ahead in anticipation of taking them off the map next turn.
Unless I did something about it.
While my scouts continued to hang back, the rest of Task Force Karn'j moved in like a pack of interstellar sharks smelling blood in the vacuum.
Unable to maximize his DN's firing arcs due to his attempt to escape, Earl's considerable firepower was not optimally lined up, and bad dice did the rest.The Entente soon lay crippled, unable to make the jump to warp.
The Encounter almost took her attackers down to Hell with her when her dilithium chamber failed, and the resulting explosion damaged both the Argoth and Ravenous, who had closed to point blank range - a lesson against that kind of behaviour!
Even the hapless Eagle, finally in range to take one spiteful stab at the Klingons, fell under the final volley of 12 drones from three different ships, including 6 from the T'Kondroga.
In the end, the Klingons had dominated,eliminating 3/4 of the Federation ships outright and leaving the remaining two crippled. But who knows how differently things might have gone had we been using the updated drone rules, cutting their effectiveness in half? (A change, by the way, that would normally enrage me, but having now witnessed their lethality I am quite in line with!). And at least it wouldn't have any effect on our campaign, except for Admiral Woods being far more wary of drones in the future, and probably already prioritizing the T'Kondroga for destruction.
Still and all, we now know the rules better prior to beginning our campaign (ALL the rules!), have become far more familiar with the different weapons systems, and have begun using markers to signify which ships have moved and shot, making our games that much more efficient. Call to Arms still calls for a fair bit of record keeping, especially with regards to defensive fire, where weapons you didn't fire can be used to target drones, something now of critical importance to both of us).
Most importantly however, a couple of allegedly grown-ass men had a whale of a time pushing model starships around a table playing make-believe until well after midnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment