Klingon Armada BatRep

Since it was my last day of vacation I decided to set up a Klingon Armada game to play with the boys before going back to work. Also gave me an excuse to use the C8 and Fed NCL. The scenario was that a Federation patrol consisting of light cruisers and frigates encountered a Klingon dreadnought and its escorts as it was en route to reinforce a squadron about to engage in a planetary assault. We used Klingon Armada using the simple movement and damage control optional rules.

Here's the starting positions:

I controlled the Klingon group with the C8 and two F5 frigates for escorts. Zachary had a New Light Cruiser, to Old Light Cruisers, and two Frigates. Zachary had about a 30 point advantage. Victory conditions for the Federation were to destroy the C8 and for the Klingons to exit the C8 off the opposing edge.

In the opening turn the Federation squadron split into three, with an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate on each flank and the NCL coming up the middle. I moved to the side in an effort to move forward maximize the number of weapons bearing on the NCL as I saw it to be the biggest threat. That and I was hoping to take out a couple torpedo tubes before making my run.

Combat for this turn involved the NCL connecting with a single long range phaser-1 shot, and a couple shield hits on the NCL from the C8. Zachary launched a couple shuttles targeting the C8, but I held onto my drones waiting to get a little closer to keep him from having a chance to shoot them down.

Both sides moved forward in the second turn.

This turn Zachary managed to score some really good hits on the C8, but what really did me in over the course of the game was that he learned his lesson about concentrating fire. The NCL was taken down to about half of its hull, but the torpedo launchers remained unharmed. During the fighter launch phase I launched what amounts to a Macross Mega Missile attack at the NCL. Zachary launched two drone flights targeting the C8.

These are the ships after movement in turn three but prior to the fighter phase.

Now, this is were I'm still getting the hang of flying the F5s. I had intended to use them to screen the dreadnought from drones/shuttles, however, after movement the drones were too close and I couldn't engage them before they impacted on the C8. Most of the drone hits were absorbed by the shields, but a couple got through and created openings in the shields. With all the drones that hit the NCL it was destroyed, but it took almost all of the drones to do so.

In the combat phase Zachary very nearly destroyed the C8, leaving only two hull boxes left. I destroyed both the old light cruiser and frigates on the side I was advancing.

The next turn ended up with the F5s flying by the remainig Federation ships which had finally closed to medium range and the C8 trying to advance further. Unfortunately the C8 was destroyed by an overloaded photon torpedo.

So, in light of the fact that the C8 was destroyed but all that remained of the Federation squadron was an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate we called the game a slight victory for the Federation.

Starmada still continues to provide extremely close games at roughly equal point values. I could have played it a little different, possibly trying to position the C8 between the limited arcs of the photon torpedoes. I don't think that would've worked though because we were using the simple movement optional rule. With an engine rating of 4 the C8 wouldn't have moved far enough forward to get out of the forward arcs of all those torpedo tubes. I'm starting to think that it's time to teach Zachary the standard movement rules for Starmada. He's starting to get the hang of thinking tactically.

I'm thinking the starmat is going to stay out, that was a fun game and I'm feeling another Klingon/Federation battle is in order.