SPACE VOTING RESULTS:
Voters, By Region - Western Pacific

StarFleet Battles. 2 Constellation Class cruisers vs 2 Klingon D7's, upgraded with missile packs. A few asteroids for terrain (10..all moving 1 hex per turn in the same direction). The two Federation ships concentrated their fire on one D7 until it exploded. The other then left rather quickly. I like the detail of the game, but many ships in an action slows the game down greatly. Its also hard to get a "kill", since a badly hurt ship can usually get up enough speed to get off board. [15 Sep 1999]

The last game I played was a six-way Full Thrust game pitting the forces of the NSL/OUDF against the might of the might of the ESU/FSE. The game was fun for all involved as we had small ships fighting to the bitter end, while much larger ships we "striking the colours" after only minor damage. Those smaller crew sure are brave! The highlight of the game was when our ESU Dreadnought came into range of the OUDF Heavy Cruiser. The cruiser fired a missile volley and then opened up with all the other weaponry it could. In the end, our brand-new Dreadnought had been reduced to a smoking hulk, with the threat of a reactor core breach and the crew running to the life-pods. A victory to the ESU in the end, but very, very close (only 2 ships left per side, out of a total of forty!). [15 Apr 99]

The FSE (Federal Stats Europa) under the command of Admiral Fulton entered a so called friendly system to find an ESU (Eurasian Solar Union) fleet orbiting the gas giant. In a moment of sheer lunacy the FSE frigates and corvettes raced in an break neck speed only to disappear in clouds of expanding gas before doing much beyond minimal damage to the dasardly ESU. Then the main FSE group (carrier, heavy cruiser etc.) swung around to the port and proceeded to pepper the ESU escorts with SMs (missiles) while some torpoedo fighters went in for the kill... unfortunately the ESU have damn fine PDS and Interceptors (fighters made to dogfight) so not too many SMs made it in and only two (out of 42) fighters made it to their target. Then the ultimate insult... Admiral Fultons penchant for rolling ones surfaced and zip damage was inflicted. At this point the ESU were slowly plodding forward (and had to get home for dinner) and the FSE was fast running out of munitions and table...erm solar system so the FSE made the decision to gracefully withdraw (and buy some dice that know what a 6 looks like!) [30 Mar 99]

Competition: 2750 pts Full Thrust each side, My Star Fleet Battles Andromedans (masquerading as Neu Swabian League) vs New Anglian Confederation. The initial missile strikes were dissipated by my opponent's excellent temporary withdrawal of the anti-missile ships outside my beam-armed ships range, followed by a swift advance exactly at the time they were needed. Having shot my bolt, my opponent methodically dismantled my fleet in a war of attrition I couldn't win. Good game, I enjoyed it immensely. [29 Mar 99]

Currently running a FT PBeM set in the Star Wars universe. An ambush scenario in which a rebel fleet is brought out of hyperspace by an Interdictor & ISD taskforce. Situation after 3 turns: Turn 1:

Interdictor SD 'Impassable' is attacked by 12 squadrons of rebel fighters, taking major damage & losing the bridge for 5 turns. Carrack DDE 'Pandora' seems to have crack gunners, taking down 12 fighters with only 5 PDS.

Turn 2: 'Impassable' is attacked again, taking heavy damage & losing shields & all firecons, but more TIE/In squadrons arrive to assist, taking down a lot of rebel fighters. ISD 'Nemesis' takes a double threshold check as the entire rebel fleet concentrates it's forward firepower. It loses life support & both shields as well as most of it's secondary weaponry.

'Nemesis' TIE squadrons are freed up & attack Mon Cal cruiser 'Libertys Sword', dealing light damage. Disaster of the turn goes to the TIE/bomber squadron, which hits with 3 torpedos... and then only scores 3 points of damage (out of a possible 36)

Turn 3: 'Impassable' is finally finished off by rebel fighters, but not without a fight, as the rebels have now been reduced to 13 fighters (from 78), leaving the imperial forces with fighter superiority. They use this to advantage, heavily damaging the bulk carrier 'Hornet'. ISD 'Nemesis' loses the rest of its turbolaser batteries & hyperdrive in a point blank gunnery duel. It's now reduced to a single broadside turbolaser (class-3).

The Nebulan-B frigates 'Endor' & 'Morning Star' are destroyed. 'Endor' simply ceases to exist as it becomes possible to walk across the turbolaser fire targetted upon it (from 20 hits to -22 hits in one turn). [29 Mar 99]