Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through December 28, 2010	13		12/28 05:43am
	Archive through October 24, 2011	25		10/24 12:33pm
	Archive through December 09, 2019	25		12/16 11:45am

From Mars Attacks:

'Do not run, we are your friends!'.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - 10:20 am: Edit

Also from Mars attacks: "why can't we all be friends?"

BOOM!!

(As the person asking the question gets shot in the head.)

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - 10:29 am: Edit

LOL @ all y'all.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, December 15, 2019 - 08:40 pm: Edit

I won a decisive victory for 2 reasons. First, I rolled a 6 for the starting turn. Second, two-space swordfish drones set to fire at range 3 don't care about ADDs.

It was interesting, but not one I'd play again. Way too dependent on a single die roll.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Monday, December 16, 2019 - 11:45 am: Edit

I tried that scenario once and would agree. It either needs sliding victory conditions or a set number of turns (or maybe a roll between 3 and 4?).

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, December 16, 2019 - 07:10 pm: Edit

That's one of the listed variations.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 12:30 pm: Edit

How well does Juggernaut (CL #1) translate to the current rules?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Ginger McMurray:

The Juggernaut was essentially updated in Captain's Log #33.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 01:32 pm: Edit

Thanks! I see that wargamevault splits CLs and puts SSDs in a separate file. SJ Games doesn't mention SSDs in their product description but only have one #33 listed. Do you know if it contains everything needed to play the scenario?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Ginger McMurray:

The scenario in Captain's Log #1 is its own scenario. In Captain's Log #33 was a "new Juggernaut," with a new Fiction story (the cover story again as it was in Captain's Log #1). and thus a new Juggernaut scenario. It is a Juggernaut that arrived later than the first one, and Juggernauts have "grown" to be something of their own empire, including the Juggernaut Dreadnought (Captain's Log #1), the Juggernaut Missile Dreadnought, the Juggernaut heavy Cruiser, the Juggernaut Light Cruiser, the Juggernaut Destroyer, the Juggernaut Frigate, and (obviously in an effort to give Captain's Nightmares) the Juggernaut Battleship (no, I am not making a joke).

The Juggernaut DN was in both Captain's Log #1 and #33 (in Captain's Log #33 the Juggernaut DN has some seeking weapons called Shriek Missiles), the Juggernaut CA and CL were in Captain's Log #35. The Juggernaut BB, DNM, DD, and FF were in Captain's Log #41.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 03:30 pm: Edit

There is also a scenario (and associated fiction piece) in Captain's Log #41 called Fire in the Deep, which sets a force of Juggernaut Empire warships against the Seltorian Hive Ship Star of Redemption. The fiction piece refers to a separate set of Juggernauts - Primus, Secundus, and so forth - to the ones which arrived in the Alpha Octant; though the scenario itself is not clear as to whether or not the ships being encountered by the Star were in fact Juggernaut types.

In additioo, there is now a range of Juggernaut Empire miniatures available on the Shapeways storefront.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Wednesday, March 04, 2020 - 03:55 pm: Edit

Thanks, everyone!

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 11:49 am: Edit

Looking at (SH6.0) Assault on the Holdfast. Looks like a real stinker for the Klingons; has anyone ever successfully assaulted that base? OEW from the F5S, ECM drones, MRS might help some of the Klingon units survive for a bit longer, but to me it looks like they'll be haggis flambe even before the Tholian reinforcements turn up!

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 01:49 pm: Edit

From what I remember (played it many years ago), the Klingons didn't seem to have enough ships to realistically take the base down.

If the Klingons concentrate ships at one or two points to overwhelm any Tholian ship response, the Tholian ships just fly to a blind spot and keep the outer web layer at full strength and let the base pick the Klingons apart.

If the Klingons spread out to prevent this, the Tholian ships inside the webs can conversely concentrate against the individual smaller Klingon forces and finish them off.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - 10:48 pm: Edit

In my opinion, the problem with this scenario is that the rules have changed (in ways that favor the Tholians) since the scenario was published, and the scenario itself was not adjusted to reflect these changes. The most important such change is in the web degradation and reinforcement rules. Once upon a time web reinforcement, simply to maintain the web at a constant strength, was one point per hex. Thus the Tholian defenders had to spend a total of 48 points per turn to prevent degradation (for the outer two web rings). But under the current rules, at the time of the scenario (Y167), the Y160 efficiency improvement has gone into effect and the Tholian ships need only spend 32 points per turn. This extra 16 points available to the Tholian ships supporting the outer two rings makes a big difference. Not only do the ships themselves fight better with the additional power, they can keep the webs up longer, which means the Klinons suffer more turns of phaser-IV fire before they even reach the base itself.

There have been some other rules changes since the scenario was first published that also help base defenders generally (so of course they help the Tholians specifically in this scenario). But the reduced cost of web reinforcement, for the time period specified, is the critical change. I believe the Tholian forces need to be reduced, or the Klingon forces need to be increased, for this scenario.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Thursday, February 06, 2025 - 03:12 pm: Edit

I have played assault on the holdfast. As the defender twice and attacker once. I won the first defense. We used the ships presented in the scenario. I lost the second defense. The Klingon added up the BPV of the force. Then bought one of that BPV. He ditched the small ships and brought a mauler.

He circled the outer web with his ships. When I went out to strengthen the web. He jumped on the ships. Then used the mauler to pull them out. There were no mines used in that battle. No t-bombs as well.

The attack I played Romulans and had a D6m as well. same tactic circle and dive in. I managed to breach the second layer but ran out of time. I disengaged all I could as the Tholian reinforcements showed up.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, February 06, 2025 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Vandar,

I hesitate to post this because it sounds like I am bragging and belittling you. And that is not my intent. But given your description of the second scenario, I think you used the wrong tactics, and that better tactics would have easily won for the Tholians. I can't go into details because I don't know the exact Klingon force. But even more importantly, I don't know how far from the outer web the Klingon ships were stationed and what their movement plot was. The Tholian tactics will vary depending on the answers to those questions, but the crucial issue is this:

How far from the web should the Klingons be circling? If they are too close, the Tholian phasers can tear them up without the Tholian ships exposing themselves to danger. But if they are circling further out, that makes it much easier for the Tholians to run out, put some reinforcing energy into the outer web, and get back behind the middle web before the Klingons can "dive in" and engage them.

Let's look at some numbers. If the Klingon ships circle at one hex from the outer web (six hexes from the base), how much damage do they take? A phaser-IV at six hexes does 12⁵/₆ points on average: minus 4 points per shot for shooting through the outermost web leaves 8⁵/₆ x 7 (the number of phaser-IVs on a Tholian base station), or 61⁵/₆ points. Three PC plus a CA will have 18 phaser-1s between them. At four hexes a phaser-1 scores 3⁵/₆, minus two points for shooting through the outermost web, gives 1⁵/₆ x 18 equals 33 damage, added to the 61⁵/₆ from the phaser-IVs. But wait, there's more! The Tholians have 6 Spider-I fighters and 11 admin shuttles (CA(4), BS(2), 3xPC(1 each), 2xsmall freighters(1 each)). I can place these in the outer "void" ring between the outermost and middle webs. They will inflict 3 points each, or 51 points total for my "combined squadron" of Spider-1s and ordinary admin shuttles. In one turn I have just inflicted about 145 points of damage on one of the Klingon cruisers. Not too many Klingon ctuisers have much left after that... True, I haven't reinforced the outer ring. So at the end of the turn it decays to strength... 34. Klingons can't get through a strength-34 web. So I do the same thing again next turn...

Obviously, I've oversimplified things. I haven't considered EW or shield reinforcement to reduce the damage, nor have I considered the fact that the damage may be spread across several shields. And the "combined squadron" could be attacked by a ship diving into the web. But destroying the combined squadron will cost the Klingons more than one cruiser all by itself. The ship will have to dive into the outer ring to engage the shuttles and, since the Klingons will have to spread their forces all around the web and I am doing this on the side opposite the D6M, that ship will never be able to pull it out of the web before my weapons have recycled.

The Klingon could take less damage by circling the web further out. But the further out they circle, the harder it is for them to prevent a Tholian from darting out to reinforce the outer ring and then diving back behind the middle ring before a Klingon could catch it. This is especially the case with PCs, which are nimble, a capability that proves to be extremely useful in this situation.


Again, I apologize if this post sounds insulting a belittling for suggesting you lost that scenario because of the wrong tactics. Rather, I suspect you may have made some of the same errors I made when I first started playing Tholians. Many of these revolved around not really understanding the timing issues of a wedding cake assault, which isn't really like anything else in SFB that I can think of. As I gained experience with Tholian defenses, I became more convinced that BPV costs for Tholian web at start of a scenario need to be increased to reflect improved energy efficiency in Y160 and Y175. If you try to fight "Assault on the Holdfast" but with web reinforcement costs not reflecting the Y160 improvements (as the scenario once was), the Tholians have a much tougher time.

I might post more later if you are interested.

By Steve Stewart (Stevestewart) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 10:42 am: Edit

Thanks guys, really interesting views. Like Vandar, I think it doesn't sem to be too bad for the Tholians to keep the web at full strength, except the outer one. If the Klingons manage to drive the defenders behind the middle layer of web, it's still going to take some time before the trapped ships can move in, during which time the base PH-4s will be tearing them into tiny pieces. I think I might ask for compassoinate leave if I were assigned to this mission as a Klingon...they have that, right?

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 12:57 pm: Edit

The problem is that Tholians will use a ship in the middle ring to tractor the one in the porch (between the middle and outer ring) and with clever speed calculations can move them rather quickly back under cover.

So ship A is cruising along in the inside hallway with its shields down. Moves out from inside hallway (between the inner and middle ring) into the middle ring with an appropriate speed change if needed. Uses transporters to put some tbombs with radius 0 triggers in the outer ring to greet the aggressors. Raises shields the next impulse into the porch when it moves (hence the speed changes) onto the porch. Dumps energy into the outside ring.

Ship B moves from inside hallway to middle ring and tractors A. Speed change (if needed) and turn. Now combined Pseudo speed pulls A into middle ring. tractor released if needed) and they are back into the outside hallway in about 5 impulses or so.

You can get Tholians up to impressive speeds via "speeding up" while you are tractored by your pal in a web with "stick on." They release you and you slingshot forward.

Actually, I am too imcompetent at the speed changes, but I bet the Rated Aces out there could combine web pass on/ off, speed changes, turns and slips, tractor pseudo speeds and such into a roller coaster of move, change speed move, pseudo speed move, move... It might take 3 or 4 ships playing pseudo speed tractor tricks in succession...

So the question is whether any ship outside waiting to dive in can do so before I'm back into the hallway. All while I amuse myself blowing up a ship every turn if you are close to the outer ring. I WILL have a minefield or three outside. Good luck breaching that at range 8 from my base while we poke along on the porch. We can cripple a ship every turn if you guys don't just dive into the minefield (HELLO, NSM!).

Seriously, I think the attackers are going to lose big.

Late war with slower degradation and PFs, you have no chance. Web recharging via PF is quite hard to counter. Their speed and ability to turn make them great at the above games.


Home Base hex, inside ring (radius 1), hallway (radius 2), middle ring (radius 3), porch (radius 4), outside ring (radius 5)...

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 05:51 pm: Edit

Mike,

I think there is a minor problem with your idea; using transporters to place T-bombs in the outer web ring. The problem is that mine detonations are weakened by the strength of the web, except in the mine's own hex. So the Tholian ship transports a T-bomb into a hex of the outer ring and the approaching Klingon ship triggers it when it reaches an adjacent hex, still six hexex from the base. The 10-point blast is reduced by the strength of the web (35 if the web is at full strength) and does nothing to the attacker.

Of course, there are some variations. The approaching Klingon may be traveling too slowly to automatically trigger the T-bomb when it enters the adjacent hex. But then it moves into the mine's specific hex in the outer web, causing another triggering role. This time the mine triggers and does it full 10 points of damage to the Klingon, now in the same hex. But, since a mine placed by T-bomb is known to all participants anyway, is that likely to happen?

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Thryn

It was many, many years ago that I played those battles. I do not remember the range nor speed of the circling ships. I do know that the mauler burning a lot of BTTY pulled a ship out using tractor rotation. Not sure if that is legal now are not. We were not using mines of any kind. Knowing from experience mines and web well is lethal. I am sure I made a lot of bad decisions on the one I lost. As well as the other player.

Also you can set a mine with a single hex detection. The hex it is in only. So, moving next to the mine does not trigger the mine. Only when You enter the hex it is in.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Even so, the location of a mine placed by transporter is always known. And it can never be set for command detonation. So the Klingon moves adjacent to the web hex in question with a "brick" on the front shield. But the mine is set up to explode only when a ship enters its (web) hex. The Klingon proceeds into that hex at speed-7, too slow to suffer adverse effects due to web deceleration but fast enough to trigger the T-bomb against the brick.

I agree that web plus a minefield, set up before the scenario starts, is deadly. But I'm less of a fan of T-bombs in wedding cake defense. I think there are generally better things to spend the points on.

Rules for using tractor to pull a ship out of a web are covered in (G10.56) PULLING A UNIT OUT OF WEB. Note that while a trapped ship cannot move out of a strength-35 web hex (at least, not by normal movement; a trapped Andro with Dis Dev can displace out of the web), it is perfectly legal to use a tractor beam (at least equal in strength to the web strength) to pull a trapped ship out of the web, and a mauler with full batteries can generate a strength-35 tractor.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 07:13 pm: Edit

By the way, I advise anyone planning to fight a wedding cake assault (either as attacker or defender) to carefully study (G10.56) PULLING A UNIT OUT OF WEB; not for the rules about pulling trapped friendly ships out of the web but for the rules regarding the attacker tractoring a Tholian and using tha link to pull itself out of the web. The interactions in the rule are a little confusing and can save the Klingon (or other attacker) and really hurt the Tholian; if the Klingon knows those rules better than the Tholian defender does.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, February 07, 2025 - 11:06 pm: Edit

To change the subject a bit (since this is the "Specific Scenario Tactics" section rather than the "Tholian Tactics" section), I wanted to bring up the scenario "(SH9.0) TOMCAT TERROR VERSUS GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY". Does anyone have a good method of winning that scenario as the Feds? Neither my opponent (at the time) nor I were ever able to defeat the Klingons in the standard scenario.


I do think that the advice in the Tactics: paragraph:

---

Quote:

If you are going after the fighters, drop the dangerous booster packs and arm weapons.

---

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, February 09, 2025 - 07:53 pm: Edit

No comments on the scenario; (SH9.0) TOMCAT TERROR VERSUS GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY? I really am curious whether someone has a good way for the Feds to win, especially if the Klingons don't follow the recommended tactics but instead keep their booster packs (which I believe is usually almost always the better tactic for PFs, in the great majority of scenarios).