This game saw action between The Colonial Fleet the Federation from the original series Star Trek. Humans from 150,000 years ago, fighting humans from 300 years into the future. Quite the error in the time ‘Continuum' …heh.
The BSG Fleet is from Ravenstar Studios and the Federation fleet is from Amarillo Design Bureau. The models are for use in their game Star Fleet battles and the SSDs are loosely based on the ships in that game.
Mat and stands by Corsec Engineering
The Colonial Fleet
Federation Fleet- battle group, carrier group and Police cruiser group
Set up was pretty straight forward with the federation fleet setting up first. The scenario would be a simple slug fest.
Turn one
The fed carrier group launched its first wave of fighters while her deck crews got the second wave into position.
the colonial longbow cruiser launched a full spread of missiles at long range. The federation was confident the carrier group with its escorts could handle a missile barrage without difficulty but battlegroup was a different story. I chose not to send the fighters to help so I could keep their fuel consumption to a minimum and I didn't want to lose any fighters to chasing missiles.
All ships moved next and predictably the fed dreadnaught ended up practically on top of both missile counters. The group managed to destroy all but two of the missiles even tho most of the groups Phasers were fired in PDS mode. The two missiles wreaked havoc on the DN but failed to cause a threshold check.
The colonial fleet had also launched fighters (those are the green tokens- the player was thoroughly berated for not having fighter models heh) and they took up screening positions on two ships. The fleet split into two groups with the Chargers turning to engage the fed battlegroup and the rest turning to engage the carrier group.
The chargers fired on the fed heavy cruiser doing considerable damage but falling short of a threshold check.
The federation shields, as was to be expected, were useless.
The colonial elements facing the fed carrier group fired all their guns at long range at the escort frigate. One K-gun round tore through her small bridge, killing everyone there, and rendering the ship out of control.
The federation return fire was fairly light with only slight damage inflicted on two colonial ships, one charger and one caracal.
turn two
The colonials definitely had the advantage with longer ranged weapons. If things were going to turn my way I would have to close the range take advantage of my superior maneuverability.
Oddly enough closing the range is also what the colonials had in mind and we ended up nearly at point blank range.
The carrier group had to continue moving forward, unable to maneuver, so it could launch its second wave of fighters. The escort frigate was unable to transfer control to the emergency bridge in time and impacted on the closest moon. A third of the groups fighter defense went down with it.
The police cruiser squadron had swung around wide the previous turn and was now picking up speed to get into the fight.
The colonials launched another spread of missiles but miscalculated where the fed fleet was going to be and only one counter was in range to attack
The colonials sent their vipers (the green counters) and one Raptor squadron (the blue counter-armed with torpedoes) and were intercepted by the federation fighters.
The results were a federation victory. All the attacking planes were destroyed at a cost of 11 fed fighters. No ship took any damage in the brief engagement.
Now the big guns started firing-
The chargers were stuck in between two federation battlegroups but didn't go down without inflicting some painful damage
The colonial Battlestar and her esprts fired on the fed carrier group concentrating most of their fire on the escort destroyer.
When the dust settled both chargers were destroyed and the light Battlestar had taken some moderate damage to her armor belt. The federation lost the escort destroyer and the heavy cruiser Saratoga.
Moderate damage was inflicted on the carrier and command cruiser as well
Turn three "hard to starboard!!!"
The federation command cruiser and carrier turned hard using their maneuverability for all its worth. The carrier had to lay on some Emergency thrust to avoid getting pulled into the planets gravity well but her engineers were well trained and the ship easily passed the roll to make the maneuver. The fed police cruiser picked up speed again and barreled in looking for a soft target. The dreadnaught, not nearly as maneuverable chose to orbit the planet, hoping to come around behind the colonials.
With most of the colonial vipers destroyed the federation fighters decided to make a run at the Battlestar and were wiped out.
The fed carrier poured nearly all of its fire into the Battlestar saving two pahser shots for the caracal who unwittingly found itself under the carriers nose. The damage to the Battlestar was considerable.
The Battlestar returned fire and at point blank range only needed 2's for its K-guns. OOOPS!!!!
The rest of the colonial fleet was more than enough to do what the Battlestar could tho and the great ship was holed and left adrift to slowly be pulled into a decaying orbit around the planet. The police cruisers finished off the Battlestar while the command cruiser put several holes into two caracals but not enough to destroy them.
The next turn saw the two fleets temporarily break contact while they re-grouped to go after each other again.
Turn five
The colonials tried to accelerate but again the federation took advantage of their superior maneuverability and swung around trying to cut them off.
The problem was the command cruiser had a mood between it and the caracals so the police cruisers had to go against them with no cruiser support. Something ships the size of corvettes were never designed to do. They managed to destroy one caracal however and seriously damage one more but were all destroyed themselves in turn.
The command cruiser was in a good firing position however to fire all of its weapons on the longbow, hitting with both its torpedoes and rolling 6's for each of them.
The command cruiser took a fair bit of fire in return but fell short of a threshold check by one point!
The last turn
The longbow, despite her damage, only lost two K-guns. Despite that however there was very little the colonial player could do to stop the federation. The caracals could not turn around to engage the command cruiser and there was still that dreadnaught to worry about.
The longbow turned hard to avoid the asteroid field that was looming ahead but unfortunately that placed the ship in a perfect firing position for the fed command cruiser.
The cruiser fired her starboard side phasers at the trailing caracal and all it forward weaponry at the longbow, destroying both ships.
At that point the last caracal jumped away. (we called the game)
All in all this battle did not go at all like I expected it would. With the federation ships equipped with just standard shields I figured it would be a short game, resulting in a total federation loss. I think I got lucky or just made fewer mistakes than my opponent. The phasers, despite the enormous point cost in mounting them, were well worth it in terms of their flexibility of being able to fire as a PDS. The downside of course is they can't fire on ships the same turn.
Any and all comments welcome!!!
were the Fed. police cruisers doing in a major fleet engagement? Were they lost or something :-) ? They should have sat back and left this to the big boys of Star Fleet.