Battle Station Assault!

Finally got around to playing the final battle of the Day One campaign today. Took a lot longer than I thought it would, but that was mostly due to outside distractions.  At any rate, after replaying the third battle the two side were relatively closely matched, with the Federation having the advantage. The victory condition was destroy 900 points of enemy models. The forces were...

Federation
Battle Station
NCL
oCL
2x Frigates

Klingon
C8 Dreadnought
D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
F5 Frigate

I controlled the Klingon cruisers, Phillip the C8 and F5 (until later when he ceded control of the F5 to me). Zachary flew the Federation.

Zachary set up the station in a corner with ships forming a defensive line three hexes in front of it.  I set up the cruisers on the near side of the station while Phil set up further out. (sorry about the fuzzy pictures, getting used to a new camera)

First turn saw Zachary dress his gun line while Phil moved forward and I did as well, but more cautiously to see if Zachary would come running out or not. Zachary hit the C8 with a couple Phaser-4s, did a couple points of hull damage but not much else.

Phil must've gotten spooked by the big guns on the station as he turned the F5 around and launched drones at the NCL. I moved forward just far enough to plink at the NCL with disruptors.

One of the D7 got hurt enough for me to pull him off the line while the other cruisers moved up to get into the edge of the Phaser-1s range. The damaged D7 only took a few points of hull damage, but his shields got chewed up pretty bad. So I figured I could make some repair rolls and have it catch up with the dreadnought. Zachary kept his gun line in place (for most of the game) and tried to score some lucky hits with proximity fused photon torpedoes. The NCL accrued damage steadily.

I decided it was go time and move the undamaged cruisers up to take out the NCL after the drones did some more damage to and Phil focused on the station. The NCL went out in a fireball, but the C8 was starting to show some stress on her hull, but systems remained largely unaffected.

With the NCL gone I was able to focus fire on the station, which was all I needed to win. The C8's shield were still holding out so I was confident in a victory even though it was down to about 5 hull at this point. managed to take out a FF with the D7 in the back, it couldn't range the station yet. The other D7 that had been the D7C's wingman was taken out by the combined firepower of the Federation ships.

And here's the end game. All but one of those blue drone tokens hit the Battlestation for the SFU version of the Macross Mega Missile attack. It left the station with 8 hull left. The C8 took it down to 3, and the D7C finished it. Unfortunately the C8 also bought it with the stations dying onslaught of Phaser-4 fire. I tried to take out the oCL before the end of the turn, but couldn't get enough hull hits.

At this point I had scored about 1040 points and Zachary had scored 893. The Klingons with the game by victory condition.  If Zachary had destroyed another ship I would still have won by points. For the campaign, having won two of the earlier games and this one the Klingons achieved a major victory. They may have lost their dreadnought, but with the station out of the way further fleets will be able to push into Federation territory freely. If Zachary had won the scenario I would still have gotten a minor victory for the Klingons.  The most he could have gotten was a minor Federation victory by winning this game with a higher victory point total than me.

The game was enjoyable despite some issues involving trying to game with an active 8 year old.  I'm debating picking up the new version of Starmada and going through and converting the SFU ships to that format, though supposedly that will be done for us. I like Starmada Admiralty edition well enough, but the new version is supposed to streamline some of the die rolling. It gets time consuming waiting for the kids to pick out the dice that were successful for the next iteration of rolls.

Next game will probably be me teaching them how to play FUBAR with either 15s or 28s.

Q'apla!

Played the second game of the Day One campaign today instead of watching the Super Bowl. Myself and sometimes Phillip were running the Klingons and Zachary the Feds. This game was anyone's game until something seemingly insignificant, a few lucky rolls at the right time, turned it in my favor. Unfortunately we didn't take pictures this time.  Forces were:

Federation Division 2:

2x Heavy Cruiser
1x New Light Cruiser
1x Old Light Cruiser

Klingon Division 2:
1x D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
1x F5 Frigate

Zachary started by keeping his CAs in the center with lights on the flanks. Phillip and I kind of split them between us, but he scored some early lucky hits on one of the CAs. We both spent a couple turns saber dancing, but had a hard time landing hull hits, so most of the hits would just get repaired in the end phase. Finally in a position to push into overload range, Zachary moved his NCL forward and in two turns it was destroyed. The seemingly insignificant error he made was that while he did destroy the F5 that got the killing blow on his NCL (overloaded disruptors at 2 hexes). He should have split his fire and let the torpedoes finish the F5 instead of starting with phasers (which due to an untimely bad roll for him all missed, all 2's and he needed 3's) then finishing with torpedoes which generated about 10 more damage points than were needed to destroy the tiny ship. He may have gotten lucky with the phasers on a damaged D7 and taken it out along with the F5, which would have left me with a huge firepower gap. Even if he had focused on the D7 instead of the frigate he would have put me in a hurt. In the second to last turn he took out a D7, but left me in a position to destroy both CAs by turning to repair when he probably would've been better off turning about and unloading photon torpedo hell on my ships. End result was the Fed squadron only had a lightly damaged oCL remaining while I had a D7C and D7, both with hull integrity at about 50%. So, while damaged and having lost a couple ships, I still consider it a fairly big win for the Klingons that will set us up to have fairly close point values for the station assault in the last game.

The Klingons seem to have had some bad intel on the next objective though. They allocated two D7s and a D6 to engage a squadron that turned out to consist of a Command Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, New Light Cruiser, Old Light Cruiser, and a Frigate. He'll have to destroy all three of my ships to claim victory, while I'm going to have to take out the FF, the oCL, and a third ship. If I manage a win on this one it's going to be by the skin of my teeth.

Day One Campaign, First Game

We played the first game of the Day One campaign included in the Klingon Armada rulebook. For the first game the victory conditions are to destroy 400 points of the opposing fleet. We used the movements rules posted in the Majestic XII forum that will be the movement system in the upcoming new version of Starmada.
We also instituted a house rule that allows a ship to repair a shield facing by taking a point of damage to an adjacent facing. (The Chief Engineer diverting power from one to the other)

Zachary and Michael, playing the Federation, chose their Division 1 (CA, NCL, 2x FF) and split them up. Zachary took the cruisers and Michael took the frigates. Remembering how the C8 was destroyed by light cruisers and frigates I kind of went overboard and took the Klingon Division 3 (C8, 2x D6). This gave me around a 300 pt advantage over the boys, but means the next couple games are going to be closer affairs as I'll be at a points disadvantage. I figured though that by over powering them in this game I can make up the difference in points for the final game if I lose the next couple. When I use the Klingon Division 1 (2x D7 and a D6) I'm going to be at a disadvantage, but I play it right I think I can make a good showing.

So we set up the models, the Feds put their ships in the center of their edge with Zachary putting his cruisers on their port flank CA on the outer edge. I tried to establish a refused flank by putting my squadron on starboard side of my edge. This would allow me to fly across the back edge of my side of the board and take pot shots with disruptors. This also good for the C8 because it Phaser-1s are strongest in it's broadside arcs.

In the first turn, the Feds cautiously advanced while I turned to port. The Feds were out of range while I was at extreme range for my disruptors and got a few hits on the NCL. If I could take out the NCL and CA that would be the game. I was hoping to get some lucky hull hits. I held onto my drones, while Michael launched both his and Zachary launched the one on the NCL. Zachary is getting better at holding onto his drone for defense when playing the Feds, but Michael still launches them first turn.

In the second turn the Feds continued a slow advance, with the NCL pulling slightly ahead. Well placed disruptor shots took about half the NCLs hull and seriously depleted the shields. I managed to mostly stay out of the Fed's range but a lucky Phaser-1 hit got through to one of the D6s.

In the third turn Michael decided to do a full burn across the table with his frigates to engage the lightly damaged D6. Zachary, seeing his NCL losing shields and weapons, decided to turn back to allow the damage control parties to make repairs and let the CA take the lead. Michael's drones got close enough for me to swat down one flight and reduce the other to 1 die. The C8 opened up with Phaser-1s and four distruptors on a frigate and it quickly became an expanding cloud of gas and debris. It also took a couple pot shots at the CA and took down it's front shield arc. I was hoping to take out some torpedo tubes, but shield damage makes it easier to get later hits in. One D6 was busy shooting down drones and the other nearly destoyed the remaining frigate. One D6 launched two flights of drones at the frigate figuring it would take it out and let the cruiser focus on the larger ships with its guns.

Zachary had his NCL come about as he had some good repair rolls and had gotten his forward shield arcs back up and his weapons on-line. I moved the damaged D6 forward outside of the CA's photon torpedoes arc of fire, planning to use disruptors on the NCL and the side facing Phaser-2s on the CA. The ploy worked, but as I expected I lost the D6. In return though, combined with the other ship's efforts, the CA was left heavily wounded with it's forward shield arcs down and the NCL with its shield completely down but by some providence with little additional hull damage. The C8 took a single overloaded photon torpedo hit that damaged the engines and a single weapon. I decided that the range was close enough for a mass drone launch and launched four flights from the C8 toward the CA and one flight from the D6 toward the NCL.

In what would be the final turn the CA only came forward enough to get in medium range of its main weapons and Zachary advanced his NCL. I moved the remaining D6 forward in the same manner as the previous one, thinking that if the drones didn't destroy the CA they would at least hurt it enough that it would survive and I wanted to try to get both ships out in this turn so I could claim the full point value of their squadron for this game. The drones took out the CA, meaning it wouldn't get to lend its firepower during the combat phase. The single flight against the NCL removed the shields that had been repaired in the previous turn's damage control check. Despite all my best efforts, enough hits had been made to destroy the NCL, but not enough resulted in hull hits. At the end of the turn the NCL had two hull points left but few weapons and no shields. The D6 lost a fair number of weapons, but was still in good fighting form and the C8 was relatively unscathed.

So the first game was a resounding victory for the Klingons, but given the point values that is really only to be expected. The next couple games will be much more closely won affairs.

Day One Campaign Set Up

After playing last week's game of Klingon Armada I decided that a campaign would be fun now that the boys are getting the hang of the game. So, rather than coming up with something convoluted I opted for the simple Day One campaign that is included in the KA book. The Day One campaign is a series of four games with the last game being a battlestation assault that is set on the first day of the General War from the Star Fleet Universe setting. For those of you not up on your SFU history, the Klingons started the General War with a series of surprise attacks on the Federation which grew to include all of the known races.

In this campaign the Klingons and Federation each create a 3000 point fleet then split that fleet up into three divisions of 800 to 1200 points each. For each of the first three games each side secretly selects a division for each game without reusing a division. So, it's possible for one side to have an 800 pt fleet and the other a 1200 pt fleet. The games have a set number of victory points (the point value of enemy ships destroyed) that rises each game. The first game's victory condition is 400 vp, the second 500 vp, and the third 600 vp. In the final game the Klingons assault a Federation battlestation with the point values allocated to each side dependent upon the results of the previous games. So, if the Klingons do well in the early games then they get more ships for the assault, if the Feds do well, they can better defend their station. That's how it works in nutshell.

So I set about setting up the fleets using the miniatures I have available and painted (no counters for this) and came up with these

Federation
Division I (819 pts)
Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
2x Frigate

Division II (1007 pts)
2x Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
Old Light Cruiser

Division III (1170 pts)
Command Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
Old Light Cruiser
Frigate

Yes, I know, the New Light Cruiser didn't exist on Day One, but I wanted some variety and wanted to get a new toy on the table. Next time I do this my Battlecruiser and Dreadnought will be ready for the Feds to use.

Klingon
Division I (821 pts)
2x D7 Battlecruiser
D6 Heavy Cruiser

Division II (1040 pts)
D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
F5 Frigate

Division III (1125 pts)
C8 Dreadnought
2x D6 Heavy Cruiser

Too be honest, the division with the C8 worries me a little. It's point value means that it's loss means losing that battle immediately, and after the last game where it was taken out by light cruisers and frigates I'm concerned for its well-being.

I'm looking forward to this as I think it will be a lot of fun, especially that last game. I'm actually kind of hoping that Zachary will pick the Feds as I want to try my hand at taking down a battlestation.

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.

The Mighty Hood Goes Down

Here are the pictures from "The Mighty Hood Goes Down." I think I could've held out for the full 10 turns if I hadn't started to get bored and charged in to try to take out Zachary's D6.

 The short version is that I spent the first few turns repairing lucky long range disruptor hits, got bored in turn five (it was getting late too) turned in so I could fire some overloaded torpedoes in an attempt to take out the D6 (which I did) fully expecting to be taken out as well (which I did).

Klingon Incursion

Sunday the boys and I played a game of Klingon Armada. I'm really liking this rules variant for the SFU setting, though I am a bit biased as I also enjoy Starmada: Admiralty Edition which KA is based on.

The game was a Federation vs. Klingon 1000pt game (I don't have any of my other SFU ships painted yet..it's only been about four years now). On the Fed side I had a Command Cruiser (CC) represented by the USS Constitution (I know, the Connie isn't a CC, but I don't have a proper CC and the other heavy cruiser doesn't have decals on it so it was the easiest way to distinguish), an as of yet to be named Heavy Cruiser (CA) that we'll imagine for now to be a certain ship that isn't to be named in the SFU, and two Old Light Cruisers (oCL). For the Klingons there were two of the iconic antagonists to the CA...the ever present D7 battlecruiser and two F5 frigates.

RAdm Micheal commanded the CC and an oCL and Capt Zachary commanded the CA and the other oCL. I commanded a D7 and an F5, whilst Phillip commanded the other pair. The first turn was closing and long range phaser-1 shots that amounted to minimal damage, though the CA did lose a number of weapons. Michael advanced his oCL while moving his CC only one hex forward. Zachary was a little more ambitious, moving forward as much as his ships would allow. Phillip, embracing his inner Klingon charged forward while I maneuvered around the edge for a little saber dancing. Phillip fired four drones and I added another one all targeted at the CC.

In the second turn Phillip charged head long into the oncoming cruisers which led to his brothers focusing fire on him. This led to one of the challenging aspects of playing with younger children who haven't developed a sense of sportsmanship yet. He got upset and stormed out because his brothers were obviously being unfair. Though to be honest, they weren't being very sportsmanlike either. This was addressed over the course of the next half hour before we could continue play.Michael advanced each of his ships one hex forward while Zachary cautiously advanced to within overload range. I continued to advance around the edge coming within overloaded disruptor range of Zachary's CA since he had already taken some damage. The drones were a few hexes outside of reaching the CC this turn. Phillip concentrated on Zachary's closer CA and I finished it off (despite some abysmal dice rolls on my part). Michael destroyed Phillip's F5 and put a hurt on his D7. My D7 weathered a few pot shots, but the F5 remained unscathed. In the end phase a new wave of was launched targeting Zachary's CA.

Turn three saw the continued rush of Phillip's D7, which didn't survive the turn. The The drones caused an amount of damage to be expected for five flights against an undamaged CC, though they did a good job of reducing the forward shields. The oCls continued to be pretty much ignored as killing the larger cruisers were sufficient to remove a player from the game from a victory condition point of view (destroy half or more of a player's total point value).

In turn four, I turned to get the CC into a broadside arc and Michael obliged by turning into a head on course to my ships, effectively crossing his own T...with severly depleted forward shields (they were at 1, meaning as long as I rolled a hit it was fairly certain to cause damage). The second wave of drones were spectacularly ineffective, and poor rolling on my part only barely destroyed the CC. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory as overloaded torpedoes rendered my D7 into so much space debris. Had we continued with the oCL and F5, the game would've gone to Michael as the F5 had lost too many weapons to cause any significant damage to the light cruiser. But victory conditions what they were, we called it a tie. (No photo, my chief of photography again ran off, I may need to request another person to fill the billet...)

Even using the simplified movement I think Starmada may be a bit overwhelming for the boys, especially Phillip, but they had fun. I think next time will be a three-way NSL vs FSE vs Mauridians in an effort to use some less complicated shielding rules. Or who knows, I might play a first game of Silent Death, having had that on the shelf for about two and half years now. One thing I do know is that I need to get some F6 Frignaughts and get my D5W done and on the table. Stinking F5s just irritate the heck out of me with their shorter ranged disruptors and laughable phaser-1 array. Speaking of Silent Death, I need to get some X-Wing and TIE Fighter models to use the Star Wars variant of those rules. I've pretty much given up on the idea of finding suitable Zentraedi fighters to do a Macross battle.

I've gotten a little bit of painting done on the GZG High Tech Grav Tank. The turret and top half of the hull are base coated.

Here's a look at the rest of table with a few projects in progress and a few waiting to enter spacedock.

Starmada With the Boyz

Played a game of Starmada with Michael (12 going on 13 in a little over a week) and Zachary (10) last night. This was their first time with the game. It started out as a Klingon Armada game between Michael and I, but Zachary came down to the Man Cave and wanted in on the action. I didn't have any of the ships printed for the Kzinti so I grabbed some of the sample ships from the core rules for him. You'd think he'd be the one to lose not having any of the fancy bells and whistles, but in fact, he almost won! So, for ships, I had a C8 dreadnought, Michael had a Federation heavy cruiser (CA) and two frigates (FF), and Zachary had the sample battleship (BB) and a CA. We used the D1 (basic movement) optional rules to simplify things for them. Michael and I used Federation Commander counters for our vessels while Zachary got to use the NSL BB and an escort cruiser for his CA.

Michael had my usual luck with the dice, he just could roll a hit for anything. He kept going after Zachary's BB since it was over half his point wrapped up in it, but it's high shields deflected all but three points of damage from Michael. Zachary on the other hand, started out with insanely lucky rolls. He wiped out Michael's CA in the first turn and a FF in the second, putting Michael out of the game.

I knew that the difference between how KA faceted shields and regular shields worked wasn't going to work out well for me unless I could damage that BB some before closing the range. So for the first three turns I danced around at long range for my distruptors taking pot shots at Zachary then turned in once he turned to deal with me. I caused some minor damage this way, dropped his shields to four. What really helped was following two waves of drones when I closed the range. The first wave took out a bunch of weapons, the second knocked his shields to 1. After that it was just a matter of taking out the last few boxes of damage. Unfortunately my C8 did not come through this unscathed. The BB and CA opened a hole in my forward port shields, which (admittedly, with a little coaching from myself) Zachary exploited in turn 5 by maneuvering his CA into position just off my bow. At the end of turn 5 his BB was gone, meaning I'd accomplished the victory condition, but I only had 1 hull point remaining. If we had played the next turn or he had rolled one more odd number for damage, that C8 would've been gone.

It was fun teaching them how to play. They were having some problems with the plotted movement, but were starting to get the hang of it by the end. Next time though, if I mix 'regular' Starmada and Klingon Armada ships the KA ships will use the standard faceted shields rule rather than the KA version. Hopefully that will make them last a little longer. The only reason the C8 lasted long enough for a second turn of intense fire was that it had comparatively much more hull than the other ships, but it's shields were flimsy. I have a feeling I'm going to get several requests to play again today.

New Shipment

Received my order from ADB today! One each Federation DN, BC, NCL and one each Klingon C8 and C7. Always fun opening new minis. Now just waiting for the much anticipated Cold Navy ships to arrive from Ravenstar Studios.

Day 1, First Battle

So, I got KA, made some data cards and decided what better way to try the game than to straight into the Day 1 mini-campaign. The Klingons have decided to attack an ill-prepared Federation and have staged a series of near simultaneous attacks in order to cripple Starfleet ensuring success for the Klingon Empire.

The Day 1 campaign has you select two fleets from the Federation, the Klingon Empire, or the Kzinti. I'm sticking with the traditional Feds vs. Klinks. Each side splits their fleet into three groups and selects a group for each of three battles. Each battle has a progressively higher victory point threshold. In the game I played, both sides achieved this threshold in the same turn, so in the absence of anything specifying what to do in this situation I awarded "victory," however pyhrric, to the side that killed more points. The fourth battle is a base station assault with point values determined by the total of victory points earned by each side throughout the campaign.

The fleets were arranged as thus if marked with an * it means I don't have a mini and am using the 1" counter from Federation Commander:

Federation
Division I
Dreadnought*
Light Cruiser
2x Frigate

Division II
Battlecruiser*
Heavy Cruiser
2x Frigate

Division III
Command Cruiser*
Heavy Cruiser
Light Cruiser
Frigate

Klingon
Division I
C8 Dreadnought*
D7 Battlecruiser
F5 Heavy Frigate

Division II
C7 Heavy Battlecruiser*
D7 Battlecruiser
D6 Heavy Cruiser

Division III
D7C Command Battlecruiser
D7 Battlecruiser
D6 Heavy Cruiser
F5 Heavy Frigate

For the first battle I chose the third division from each fleet as the point cost the largest ship in both fleets was just under the victory threshold meaning that at least two ships would have to be destroyed to win and with the force make up, one of them had to be a heavy cruiser or better.

Deployment consisted of the Feds forming a group in the center while the Klingon's had the D6 and F5 in the center and the D7's on the outer flanks, hoping to force the Fed's to split the heavy cruisers between them.

(click image for larger pictures)

Federation Division III


Klingon Division III


Deployment



Turn one saw the Federation escorts move ahead of the heavy cruisers to screen the expected drone wave while the heavys pulled alongside each other and laid in a course for the D7C. The Klingon D7s moved slightly forward to get the Feds into the long range band of their disruptors. The D7C fired and established what would be a trend throughout the game for that vessel, no effect. The Klingons launched a wave of drones, 7 targeting the CC and 3 targeting the CA and that was the end of the turn.



In turn two the Feds accelerated towards the D7C, who realizing he was going to be in range of far too many overloaded photon torpedoes the captain decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Unfortunately this didn't leave him with many targets in his available fields of fire. The F5, with its annoyingly short ranged disruptors charged forward in an effort to close within short range of the frigate hoping to take it out as well as absorb shots that would otherwise have been used against the drones. The D6 maintained station and the D7 bolted forward in an effort to come at the Feds from behind.



The drones moved inexoribly closer to their targets, but during the firing phase, the Federation escorts destroyed two flights, concentrating all but their photon torpedoes on them. The Light Cruiser hit the D7C with both torpedoes and crippled her engines...not good for the D7C who needed to get away desperately. The F5 and Frigate engaged in a game called Mutual Assured Destruction, except the Fed frigate was saved by the fact that the Klingon rolled one less hull hit than needed to destroy it. The D7 finished the Frigate, and took a few pot shots at the CC, causing marginal damage. The Fed heavies concentrated on the D7C and took out a good number of weapons and several hull boxes, and to add insult to injury more engine damage. The Light Cruiser launched two shuttles targeting the D7C and its drones targeting a Klingon flight. The D7C fired its remaining drone and all the remaining Klingons launched suicide shuttles, all targeted at the CC. This did not seem to be going according to Klingon High Command's plan.



Turn three, the Feds moved further forward concentrating on the D7C, the D6 maintained position again as the targets were expected to move into range of overloaded disruptors, and the D7 continued its flanking move.


The first wave of seekers hit their marks, the CC was able to either destroy or weather the attack well, only taking a couple of damage points. The CA wasn't so lucky, it took several hull hits and it's photon torpedoes were gutted. The CC opened up on the D7C and it blossomed into a cloud of gas and debris. This satisfied the victory conditions, but I figured that since damage is simultaneous and doesn't occur until the end of the combat phase that the rest of the ships should get their fires in. The D7, sensing a kill fired overloaded disruptors and all phasers at the CA. She almost went down, but had two hull remaining. The CA fired at the D7, doing minimal damage. The D6 then finished off the CA, and the CL fired at the D7 almost taking it out.


So, three turns, two ships dead on each side, and a slight victory for the Federation. The Emperor will not be pleased. VP totals are: Federation: 478, Klingons: 430.

What did I learn? Well, the weapons on the F5 are annoying. You have to get into range of the Feds to use them. It should've stayed with the D6, then the ships would've most likely ignored the F5. Klingons need a lot of manuevering space. I may need to take my mat upstairs where I can spread it out to full width on the dinner table. Overloaded photons are brutal, have to time them right though. If escorts focus their phasers on the drones launched beyond their movement rating the Feds can weather a fairly substantial drone wave. Vice versa, Klingons should wait until they are with in the movement envelope of their drones. This is problematic though as this is inside the overload range for photon torpedoes. This was great fun and played quickly despite my having to go pick up the kids from school in the snow. Looking forward to the next game, hopefully I can get my wife to run the Feds next time.