This game offered me a chance to play-test a new scenario and Some Star Trek Ships against The Colonial fleet. The Colonials were played by one of our newest folks using his own designs. The star trek ships are actually toys made by a Japanese company that our LGS sells.
The scenario was fairly simple. Each player had to keep half of their fleet off the table in reserve. The largest and or slowest ship must be included in the reserve fleet. For the Federation that was going to be enterprise and the defiant. The colonials kept the Galactica in reserve. On turn 3 each player could roll one die and on a 5 or 6, bring in one ship. On subsequent turns player would roll an additional die for reserves, for ex: turn 4 would be two dice, turn 5 three dice etc. Any ship arriving from reserve would roll for what part of the players deployment zone it deployed in. 1-2 left corner, 3-4 center and 5-6 right corner.
This left me in at a slight disadvantage as the colonial player would be deploying 6 ships to my three though individually my ships were larger.
The Federation
The Colonial Fleet
Federation formation. I chose to keep the ships fairly tight together with the weaker Oberth in between the two Nebulae cruisers. I was pretty sure Oberth would be destroyed fairly quickly no matter what I did.
The colonials spread out probably trying to out flank my fleet. A good idea in theory but it would prove to be a mistake.
A small flotilla of strike frigates deploy behind a large asteroid colony.
Overall picture
The first turn the Feds got the initiative. Oberth and Nebulae #2 accelerated and moved slightly to port while Nebulae #1 turned to starboard to take on the two small Caracal Destroyers.
One would be fairly well wrecked when the cruiser fired all of its available weapons at it.
The return fire from the undamaged Caracal was fairly insignificant only damaging two hull boxes. The Nebula on the left fired at the wrecked Caracal at long range and got lucky- destroying the small ship.
The next turn the Feds won the initiative again and moved the fleet to encircle the asteroid field, hoping to keep the colonials separated and destroy them before the smaller frigates coming around the field could engage. Worse yet, the Galactica might show up before its support ships had been dealt with.
The colonial strike frigates swing wide around the asteroid base.
Nebulae #2 and Oberth take on the colonial Tiger class cruiser at almost point blank range as both side rounded the asteroid field at the same time.
The The feds fired first and while they didnt do much damage a threshold check was achieved resulting in both the Colonial ships fire controls to be knocked out.
On turn three we started rolling for our reserve ships and neither side received any. The colonials got the initiative and both sides maneuvered to keep as many weapons as possible on the enemy. The colonials have many of their weapons in turrets – an advantage to be sure.
One colonial Caracal managed to get right in Behind Nebulae #1, while the colonial frigates continued around the asteroid looking for what I had no idea. Maybe signs of Earth?
The Caracal following Nebulae #1 fired and caused a threshold check.
The damage was minor tho the AFC was out. Not good news if that battlestar were to show up and start spitting out Vipers.
Oberth fired at the damaged Tiger and with a string of runaway 6s nearly destroyed her. Tiger had not been able to repair either of her fire controls and could not reply. The crew abandoned ship as a phaser strike from Nebulae #2 finished her.
Turn four- Reinforcements arrive!
Enterprise finally makes it to the are with news that the Defiant is close behind her. Unfortunately for the Colonial frigates she arrives practically on top of them. Three 22 mass ships are no match for the 200 mass Federation Flag ship!
On the colonial side the Galctica jumps in and immediately begins launching vipers and raptors. The battlestar jumped in the exact opposite corner from Enterprise. It would be some time before these two monsters would be able to engage on another.
The Vipers and raptors closed on the feds. It should be noted that the raptors were armed with missiles and would not be able to launch them until next turn. One viper squadron made an attack run on the lead Nebulae only to be destroyed by combined PDS fire.
Enterprise fires and damages one frigate and destroys another. Their return fire was completely ineffective.
Galactica fired its weapons at long range on one Nebulae and missed with most of them.
The next turn would get desperate for the feds. Two Nebulae cruisers (one damaged) was no match for a fresh battlestar. Oberth could hardly be considered a front line combat vessel. The defiant also finally arrived and came in at the same point Enterprise did.
Both sides closed while galactica launched her remaining planes. The raptors fired their missiles and started to head back to galctica to rearm.
Oberth took the brunt of fire from the Vipers and missiles. Despite everything the fleet could do to protect her she was crippled.
Enterprise fires at medium range and, with little effort, destroys the damaged frigate.
The caracal destroys what was left of Oberth and the galactica finished off Nebulae #1 but not before she inflicted some serious damage to her armor belt. Nebulae #2 fired and obliterated the rest of galactica's armor and began to inflict some minor hull damage.
The battlestar began recover operations as the surviving nebulae closed to point blank range hoping to buy time for Enterprise to get into the fight.
The Feds had the initiative again which is probably the only thing that saved the Federation cruiser. She fired all of her weapons and inflicted enough damage to force a threshold check. The colonials had a terrible run of luck and lost three of galacticas four main guns plus other damage. to make matters worse her hanger bays took hits destroying one of the raptor squadrons as it was rearming.
Galactica's return fire damaged the Nebulae but not significantly. The crew earned the title 'luckiest ship in the fleet'.
Enterprise easily dispatched the last Caracal.
The beginning of the end. The fleets maneuvered closer to one another. galactica was unable to repair any of her damage from the turn before and was at a serious disadvantage against enterprise. The Nebulae attempted to put some distance between her and the giant battlestar but was unsuccessful.
Enterprise fired all of it available weapons and scored massive damage.
Defiant was still too far away to be of much help.
To the last…
Galactica tried repairing its damaged weapons again but it was too little too late.
Enterprise and defiant closed to near point blank range while Nebulae #2 finally managed to pull away from battle.
Galactica fired what she had and her planes made attack runs but all for naught. Defiant fired all of her weapons virtually gutting the ship and Enterprise finished her off with a well placed torpedo strike.
Lessons learned: Missile armed fighters (the raptors) look like a cool idea on paper but are difficult to coordinate with regular fighter strikes and should probably not be used by newer inexperienced players. The star Trek ships played fairly well and probably only need a tweak here and there. the greatest weakness is in fighter defense. With no fighters of their own its difficult to counter them. I have some small Runabout models on the way that may make for suitable gunboats. We'll see.
The colonial player made one critical mistake – divided his fleet and allowed it to be destroyed in detail. If the initial ships had maintained a tighter formation and worked together chances are my fleet would have been wrecked before any reinforcements arrived.
All in all a good game with only minor adjustments and clarifications needed for the scenario rules. We plan on running it at Pensacon in February 2014 as part of the Full Thrust "Fleet Bash" informal tournament.
Any and all comments or questions welcome!
