Stacy mentioned the case of "a gazillion fighters vs a wedding cake." in the RWM thread.

I think its a battle the fighters could NEVER win vs a wedding cake and a squadron of PFW (sans leader or scout).

Thoughts? I asked Stacy to propose a year and BPV that he thinks is fair.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 02:46 pm: Edit

How many fighters in a "gazillion"?

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:27 pm: Edit

Michael
OK now you're being cruel to an old man. I wrote that scenario back in the late 80's when I was the Tholian JCF I think it may have been published in a Captain's Log although which one it has been too long for me to remember (Anyone know? I'd like to see it again).

And you have to realize I wrote it to make a point which was the Tholians COULDN'T be beaten! At the time I was lobbying (As the Tholian commander-much like Loren's job today) to WEAKEN web! Or make some nips and tucks to not make the Tholian advantage so overwhelming!

I proposed a number of things-the Jericho Bomb for instance. Based on the ship explosion rules AT THAT TIME a large freighter filled with shuttles themselves set up as scatter packs would make an explosion SO large that it would reach all the way through 3 layers of web and destroy a battle station.

This resulted in the rules being changed concerning ship explosions. A mistake IMHO as building one of those beasts was so HIDEOUSLY expensive they couldn't be abused. The only time they'd be of use is in an assault on a wedding cake as casual weapon fire would set them off before they go close enough to do any good. And in a Tholian assault you'd have to figure you'd lose most of them before they got there—and they were DANGEROUS TO BE TOO CLOSE TOO.

My strategy was to have bunches of freighters. Some as Jericho Bombs others NOT. It only took one to to destroy the base.

A number of other proposals I made fell by the wayside. Allowing weapons fire to penetrate web after subtracting the web strength from the damage inflicted was one (Which would have made Maulers useful. And would have made sense as SVC invented the D6M after trying and failing to reduced a Tholian wedding cake).

The rules changes that were finally made were what I considered the MINIMUM needed and were pretty close to what I proposed

• A relationship between weapon status and web strength

• Assigning a BPV value to standing web

• Requiring Tholian ships to stand next or into a web hex a longer time to add reinforcement and/or maintenance energy. It used to be dump and run

Now without checking I think web decays a bit faster than it used to. Which I am less thrilled with but accept.

One rule that I wish they hadn't added was the limit on how much standing web can be in a scenario. I would have rather seen web easier to beat AND easier to use.

So I submitted the scenario KNOWING the Tholians could not lose except through stupidity (Go read my article on Tholian tactics in the original SFB tactics manual).

The OB was derived from the way the Pleadies Turkey Shoot was originally presented or the Bargentine Campaign with continuos reinforcements based on a die roll.

However on a tactical level even after the rules revisions it is STILL impossible to beat the Tholian in such a scenario IF the Tholian plays intelligently. In fact in MOST Tholian scenarios where there is a wedding cake this is STILL true.

Which is why I created the Seltorians.

Again things didn't end up the way I proposed. The Seltorians were like the Mirror Universe Tholians as I presented them originally. They had web too, it was just a DIFFERENT FREQUENCY and it and regular web could NOT coexist side by side. And Seltorians could bring down web by using THEIR generators to add COUNTER-reinforcement which would NULLIFY the Tholian energy.

(SVC & SPP I am mentioning this NOT to reopen old debates but merely as a historical context for this discussion)

SVC felt that if the Seltorians had web there was NO way the Klingons wouldn't get it. I questioned the logic of that then and still do-why didn't they get Web & Shield breakers then? But I digress.

I will say I would take the Klingons in the original Swarm if I was playing a cocky and or impatient Tholian player. But I would not play...well ME. I KNOW better.

In wistfully looking back on it I wish SPP had been more receptive (IE actually hear me out ALL the way through) to the overall package I was presenting of web that was EASIER to beat but also EASIER to use. If he had we would have had Tholian strategy and counter strategy which would have been more dynamic and fast moving rather than the more slow paced and dare I say tedious battle it is now.

Again I want to reiterate they instituted the minimum web revisions I requested I think they are sufficient. I am immodest enough to say I am not at all sure they are BETTER-and I wish that SPP had at least been willing to try my ideas in playtest.

I think he felt it would have rewritten the game- whereas I felt we were heading into Doomsday anyone why not? And my motives were to make people more willing to fight the Tholians in campaign play

SPP I still think if you had heard me out ALL THE WAY THROUGH you might have decided differently. But perhaps I presented my ideas badly.

I WOULD like to throw out the idea of Counter-Phasing web frequencies as a possible notion to allow Tholian intramural war gaming and/or a Tholian civil war scenario. It would be interesting. Using that web casters of the Blue Team would reduce the strength of the wedding cake of the Red Team. It would still have the strategy of chess that web sieges always had but it would up the speed to more like checkers.

regards
Stacy

PS If memory serves me correctly the Swarm was set at the start of Operation Nutcracker the Klingon fighters arrived in waves from off map with some ships and scouts to offer support. I don't remember what the Klingons end up with BPV wise but it was huge and the advice I gave them was to accumulate the fighters as much as you could. Tempt the Tholians to make a sortie outside the web and not start the siege(diving into the web)until you had accumulated a HUGE number of fighters.

regards
Stacy

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Michael,

I mostly agree with you on this one, but with a few comments and reservations.

1) I assume when you say the fighters could "NEVER" win you actually mean "assuming equal BPV". Clearly, if the attackers out-BPV'ed the defenders by enough, they could win. But, yeah, with equal BPV the defenders are very strongly advantaged.

2) In your original RWM post you specified an outer ring of strength 20. I believe that is too weak for optimum efficiency if the year/BPV allows warp boost packs or megafighters, especially given how weak your inner two rings are. I think you should at least make the outer ring strong even though it costs you more points. Note that a speed-15 megafighter can, with speed changes, get through a strength-31 web.

3) I understand why you want all "-W" Arachnids, with no leader or scout. But that seems slightly "munchkinny" to me. The base isn't there for the purpose of defending itself. It is there to (1) act as a logistics support node for the fleet, and (2) exert influence in an area of space. The latter role requires something that can actually go out and take the fight to the enemy since, in the big scheme of things, even phaser-4s don't range very far. If an enemy raider is harrassing Tholian shipping in the area but the base itself is under no threat, the commander might want to scramble the PFs to engage the raider. For that role, you do want the scout, and probably the leader as well. So, in a campaign, I would use a normal PF flotilla even though it's less efficient for the pure base defense role. And I personally prefer to fight my battles as if they were part of a campaign, even when they actually aren't. That's why a flotilla consisting of nothing but Arachnid-PWs strikes me as a bit munchkinny. But fighting the battles "as if they were part of a campaign" is kind of a personal quirk, and I agree with you that for a purely efficient base defense, 6 Arachnid-PWs is the more efficient use of BPV.

4) Since your flotilla won't have a scout, consider buying a PAM for the base to give it more power for EW-lending. My personal opinion is that this is important for a BS, but arguable for a BATS and unnecessary for a Sector Base (I don't remember the abbreviation for that one) or SB. So it depends on the BPV level you have for your forces.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Michael C. Grafton:

If you ignored command limits on the fighters and just fed in however many it took, they would win.

Ultimately something inside the Tholian web has to come out and power the outer strand. If a hundred phaser-3s jump into a web strand and fire at a dreadnought, you are talking about 300 points of damage minimum.

Dreadnought go boom (fighters that did the job get shredded too, but if you have an unlimited number of fighters, that does not matter).

Since anything that comes out to power the outer web dies, the outer web will collapse.

The fighters then repeat this on the middle strand.

The fighters then move onto the inner strand of web, and a gazillion phaser-3s at range one means the starbase goes bang.

Stacy was not stating a specific scenario, all he was doing was noting that enough phaser threes at short range will kill anything, and if anything trying to power a web dies, the web dies.

One of the oldest Starbase Assault Tactics involved attacking the starbase with nothing but a huge mass of plain old vanilla admin shuttles. Enough of them, even starting at range 100, will defeat the starbase. It just cannot kill all those phaser-3s fast enough to survive their attack. (That is one you can check, take a 600 point Starbase and attack it with 300 Admin shuttles, even if only a 100 of them survive to reach range zero, you are still talking about 300 points of damage per turn that they fire, the starbase gets gutted pretty quickly.)

This fact about numbers of phaser-3s at point blank has always been what made the phaser-G the frightening weapon that it is, and why it is referred to as the vest pocket overloaded photon.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:37 pm: Edit

I should mention a couple of factors:

There was a time limit before the Tholian big boys came. I believe it was a DN and a CVA battle group) This was based on Assault. on the Holdfast scenerario

And at the time this scenario was written (PreDoomsday) as in Assault on the Holdfast web was always presumed to be UP and at FULL strength.

And it was written BEFORE command rating limitation. So no limits on fighters

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:40 pm: Edit

SPP
It was a specific scenario that I submitted. And I THOUGHT it was published. But I could be mistaken.In fact I thought it was the ONLY one of mine ever published.
regards
Stacy

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:47 pm: Edit

SPP
I should mention that had we had the BBS or even e-mail medium to communicate through at the time I was at the JCF we might have arrived at more of a meeting of minds. But phone conversations which were far too short and typed proposals at a time I was using a Remington manual portable just made me give up.
regards
Stacy

By Joseph Riggs (Junior) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 03:54 pm: Edit

SBB -

I do seem to vaguely remember something about a Klingon fighter swarm attacking Tholians. But I can't remember if it was an actual scenario, or merely something that ended up on a historical timeline somewhere. I'm leaning slightly toward the latter option, but I'm not really sure.

Edit: Actually, now I'm starting to lean more towards a scenario. As I recall, the background was that the local Klingon commander had managed, through careful hoarding of fighters, getting his hands on more replacements than he was supposed to have, and possibly mistating fighter losses, to amass a large swarm specifically for the purpose described.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Joseph
That sounds familiar. I had just gotten the fighter supplement (first version) and was inspired by it to some degree
regards
Stacy

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Joseph
Here is the citation from the timeline.

"Y177 Vulkalis Kurlak, commander of the Tholian Border Squadron, finds himself as a fleet commander without ships in a backwater of the war. Amassing hundreds of fighters, he attacks the Tholians, exposing their weakness. Exploiting his success, the Coalition launches “Operation Nutcracker” to destroy the Tholians once and for all. Besieged, the Tholians allow ships of their allies to enter the Holdfast, but only those of the Gorns and Kzintis (since they would not pose as much of a threat
after the War)."

That's pretty much the scenario I submitted way back when. If it wasn't published it was obviously read.

regards
Stacy

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Well, I think even with TWICE the THolians BPV the attacker can't win.

And I didn't know Stacy's History and Seltorian background. I thought he was argueing FOR the attacker to have a chance...

A fighter isn't going to pop through the outer web before the outer web is reinforced to strength 35 plus (strength 20 to start, 6 PFs dump 12 points reinforcement each on turn one into the outer webring (zip over there, turn around and use deccels to stop again at the base, perhaps 2 energy spent on movement, phasers are already charged up and so is the battery).

And as for getting fighters to close range, I think I can kill enough in ONE AREA to get 6 PFs out to the web to dump with 100% of the bases fire support every turn.

Say we have 700 BPV, thus the Klingons have 1400BPV divided by 10 per fighter for 11 squadrons of 12 average fighters sans magapacks. How exactly does ANYONE think the fighters (given the above) will be able to deploy to be able to respond to the Tholians...

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:00 pm: Edit

Hell Michael I think in the original scenario it was WAY more than twice the BPV. I think it went toward 4-5 times more. Bearing in mind it was hitting a FULL strength wedding cake.

I believe part of my strategy was simply to hover and wait for the reinforcements from Tholia-kill THEM then kill the BATS at my leisure.

And I STILL didn't think it would work.

Oh yeah. I think it required using dogfighting rules. As I mentioned I had just bought the original fighter supplement.

But this scenario went a LONG way to illustrate WHY standing web needed to be factored into the BPV balance.

Also note by the date in the above post it was PRE P/F (Which I STILL think of as Pseudo-fighters!)
regards
Stacy

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Michael,

I'm not sure how you figure the megafighters can't get through the web.

1. By your reckoning, on Turn-1, PFs dump a total of 72 points into a strength-20 web. Since PFs are in play, it's clearly post-Y175 so the power counts "2-for-1". In other words they have just effectively increased the aggregate strength by 144. The web is now strength-24 and only needs a bit more energy to reach strength-25. But it decays to strength-23 (almost 24) at the end of the turn.

2. Also on Turn-1, the megafighters move into the web at speed-20 (to avoid damage from web impact) with a mid-turn acceleration to 30 timed for immediately after they enter the web. (This acceleration above speed-20 after they are already in the web will not damage them.)

3. On Turn-2, the PFs dump 72 more power (144 aggregate strength points) into a strength-23 web. Since the web was almost to -24 anyway, the 144 aggregate strength points will raise the strength to 28. But the fighters are moving at speed-30 and will therefore be through the outer ring about midway through Turn-2. Because the middle and inner rings are so weak, the base will die either later that turn or very early on Turn-3.

Starting from strength-20, you would need to be able to dump about 195 points of power into the web in the first 2 turns, and you can't quite get there with only 6 PFs. I think your basic concept is sound but with all due respect, you need to crunch the numbers a bit more carefully.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:38 pm: Edit

Alan<

Yah, I was spouting off the numbers.

I suspect that at 700 BPV the Tholians have some other support there. Like a couple PCs with tbombs? Or a web tender. Or even strength 25 (which your calculations show the PFs can bring to strength 31). I agree I should crunch the numbers more clearly...

As for munchkinism, I think the tholian PFs should nearly always be web equipped. 2 snares for 2 Phaser 3? And I would NEVER buy a leader PF or scout if I was the THolains. You can get a PC, PC scout or PC PFt for the same $ more or less. Leaders and Scouts are overpriced when you can get PCs.

EVEN with my PF instant globular web tactic disapproved as illegal, 6 web equipped PF are amazingly versatile. Plus they can do a heck of a job against seekers with a little coordination of snare placement.

By Joseph Riggs (Junior) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:39 pm: Edit

I'm now 99.9% confident that there was a scenario, but I never personally owned the product that had it. I'm guessing that it was in Captain's Log #4 (which had the fiction featuring a Klingon D7 and F5 trying to run down a Dragoon after the very first combat useage of the Hellbore), because I didn't own it or #5 - and #5 mostly had the Day of the Eagle stuff. But I did manage to get a look at someone else's copy of #4, which is when I would have (theoretically) been exposed to the scenario.

Suddenly I feel very old...

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:48 pm: Edit

Old, heck I remember CL #1 WAY back in the day...

I have all but one CLs and when it gets scanned...

I wonder if there is a "master" list of all contributors to the SFU. Like Graham Cree the guy with the photographic memory that was supposed to be the only guy that knew the entire rule set at one point. That is the name, right?

By Joseph Riggs (Junior) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 05:59 pm: Edit

I actually owned #1-#3. That's part of why I made the comment.

:P

Then there was a gap until #7, which I think was the next one I purchased.

Good to see the Juggernaut return again to terrorize players everywhere.

^_^

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 06:00 pm: Edit

Or Rev. Ron Wheeler the creator of the Tholian background and the compound hull design. Or Michael Woodcock USN the creator of the 312th Neo-Tholians.

Or Tony Medici who brought the Andromedans to their full potential (And his oh so VERY cute g/f whom I met at Origins).

Or Mark Shultz Hydran commander with whom I discussed the wormhole war the Hydrans and Tholians should have.

Or Alan Gopin the very amiable commnder of the Kzin.

If we ever could get some of these guys together at Origins I might go again. I'd especially like to meet Rev Wheeler and Mike Woodcock.

regards
Stacy

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 06:04 pm: Edit

I think "The Swarm" was published sometime AFTER I left the JCF would have been around 86-87. So yeah that would be around CL#4 or so.
regards
Stacy

By Jeff Laikind (J_Laikind) on Saturday, June 16, 2007 - 04:12 am: Edit

Captain's Log 4, page 51
The Swarm
Stacey Brian Bartley; Ohio

Tholian:
BATS with 3xcargo, 1xpower, 2xhangar modules
6xSpider I, 6xSpider II
Three belts of 35 point web
CVA (12xS-I, 12xS-II), DD, PC, WT within 6 hexes of the base. May be docked or at speed 4.
The base is WS-II, ships are WS-III.
Reinforcements are 1xPC every even turn with no limit.

Klingon:
D5H with CVA pod (12 Z-2, MRS, 2xAdmin), D5C, F5V (8xZ-2), F5B, E4B, G2C, 2xG2.

The Klingons start with 3 dice rolls for fighters, get 2 squadrons on turn 2, and 1 squadron turn 3 and following. When the total number of fighters (including those on the carriers) equals or exceeds 200, stop rolling.
Each group of fightes also has 2xadmin shuttles, which can enter armed as SPs or SSs if there are enough control channels to handle the seeking shuttles.
Fighter groups are:
12xZ1
12xZ2
12xZV
6xZY
6xZD
6xZH

If brought to Doomsday rules, the two carriers (Tholian CVA and Klingon F5V and maybe D5H-V) would have escorts replacing the standard ships. The Tholians have a DDE and a PCE.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Saturday, June 16, 2007 - 11:27 am: Edit

Yeah, that's a more modest Klingon force than I remember. I don't think they can take the Tholians.
regards
Stacy

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Sunday, June 17, 2007 - 11:58 pm: Edit

OK looking at the OB in the published scenerio the best strategy I can see is for the ships to wipe out the PCs as they come on board. (What portion of the map are reinforcements supposed to come in?)

Accumulate the fighters. Don't dive except to kill a ship. Tholians can afford to lose fighters but NOT ships. No ships no web. Except the first layer adjacent to the base.

Don;t waste fire on a Tholian fighter if there is a ship to kill and don't risk your fighters unless it kills a ship or protect your own.

Unclear is the limit on Klingon fighters 200 TOTAL or 200 on the board at any one time? If the latter you can afford to spend fighters. Don't risk Klingon ships except to kill Tholian ships.

Use ECM out the wazoo.

Are there T-bombs? Sowing them in the web to deter Tholians charging their web is a good strategy. Although then there are Tholian T-bombs to contend with.

Another lost proposal I made to beat web: The Breakthrough Carrier. Fill a freighter with armed fighters. Have a cargo transporter under each. Dive in the web drop shields energize transporter launch the fighters via transporter.

SVC didn't wanna go there.

regards
Stacy

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, June 18, 2007 - 12:50 am: Edit

T-bombs? Stacy, re-check G10.72 and G10.76. T-bombs won't do any good.

An attacker outside the web could transport a T-bomb into a hex of the outer ring. But when a Tholian moves adjacent to the outer ring to reinforce it and detonates the T-bomb, that T-bomb will be reduced by the strength of the web. The only way it could damage the Tholian at all would be if either the outer ring were already below strength-10, or if the bomb didn't detonate when the PC moved adjacent and the PC then moved into the same hex as the bomb, which did trigger it. Realistically, neither is going to happen in this scenario.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, June 18, 2007 - 12:59 am: Edit

I'll have to recheck the rules. And it's possible they changed post Doomsday but what used to be true when the explosion CROSSED the web not when it LEFT the web from WITHIN the web.So I'll have to check.
regards
Stacy