I thought it was 8 impulses to land your fighters, then reloading/other deck crew actions start next impulse. So that with double deck crews it'd take 41 Impulses.

I'm probably misremembering that. But I don't have my rulebook with me right now.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 11:07 am: Edit

See the first part of this rule:

(J4.8172) Loading cannot commence until the impulse after the fighter enters the bay; the fighter cannot launch until the impulse after reloading is complete (unless the deck crew in interrupted). A fighter could land during Impulse #10 of Turn #2, be reloaded (by two deck crews) with two type-I drones, and launch on Impulse #11 of Turn #3.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, October 31, 2009 - 12:05 pm: Edit

I need to reread a lot of rules it seems.

John

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 09:53 am: Edit

Part three of the battle of Andro fleet vs. Hydran fleet completed and the battle is over.

Current Forces:
My Fleet / Andro: IMP, INT, MAM, COB, COU
His Fleet / Hydran: Battle Tug, 1x Knight DD, 1x Earl Destroyer Leader, 1x Lancer Scout, 7x Fighters.

From the previous impulse of firing, I destroyed his Paladin dreadnought and he destroyed my ASP mauler and filled up both banks of the Imposer (again). After destroying the Paladin, I continued to move forward and side slipped to bring my LS weapons to bear against his Lancer scout. I fired with 3 TRH beams and a mess of phaser-2's and destroyed it.

For the rest of turn 3, my Imposer took a longer circle while the Intruder, Cobra, and Mamba took a tighter circle towards his ships. For his part, he brought his two groups together and took some pot shots at my Cobra and my Courier (as they came into arcs and good ranges through his maneuvering).

On turn 4, the Hydran player decided to split his fleet up and attempt to disengage, but because he slowed down to speed 10 for the last half of turn 3, he was stuck on speed 20 for turn 4, which allowed my ships to keep close to his. My Imposer couldn't do any panel tricks on turn 3 (too much damage done to the panels and not enough room in the batteries), I was able to do some fun tricks on turn 4 and get enough space on the panels to be a significant threat.

I split my forces up into two groups with the Imposer and the Courier chasing after the slow and damaged battle tug and the Intruder / Mamba / Cobra group closed in on the Earl Destroyer Leader. The other knight had moved in such a way that I didn't think I could catch it, so I ignored it.

By the beginning of turn 5, my ships had very little battery power left (the intruder had the most and it wasn't much). I was forced to slow down and not recharge phasers for the Cobra and the Mamba and my Imposer even had to slow down to speed 11. But I was close enough that I used my displacement devices to close the Intruder right next to the Earl and the Imposer much closer to the battle tug. I waited the 4-5 impulse of disrupted fire control and when I could shoot, I unloaded with all that I could (included the TRLs from the small ships on the Earl, at 8 hex range). I destroyed the Earl and crippled the Battle Tug beyond belief.

His remaining ship (the Knight DD) escaped the battle without damage, but this was a decisive victory for the Andro fleet.

While I had an initial advantage speed advantage, I think his primary problem was his low faith in his phasers coupled with his choice of targets. My Imposer was my most powerful ship in the fleet, but it was also my most important and the one that the Courier protected the most. Nearly all of his weapons fire was directed against it and it had the highest EW shift of any of my ships. On his first turn attack, he downed the front PA Panels, but never fired phasers at the Imposer despite being at range 4-5 from it with 10 or so Phaser-1's.

To make matter worse, the Imposer is a power hungry beast and it could far more easily drain its batteries to make room for panel dumps than the Intruder could. Also, on the off-turns, he failed to keep firing at my ships with his phasers, so I was able to get two turns on uninterrupted panel dumps and dissipation on the Imposer.

Do you think his target selection was a good idea or should he have been more focused on destroying the Cobra and the Mamba earlier in the battle since they are not as good at panel dumping and can be crippled / destroyed far more easily than the Imposer?

By Tim Longacre (Timl) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 11:22 am: Edit

Standard anti-Andro doctrine is to shoot at the ship you can blow up in 1 impulse and do it. Otherwise you get the situation your Hydran opponent fell into. That said, no, he did not select a proper target. The MAM or even the INT would have been a better choice.
It might have been a LOT different had he fired his phaser-I's in the initial shot at the IMP, but he was most likely keeping them in reserve to deter a P-2 overrun by you.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 12:39 pm: Edit

Well, I think the Hydran made a big mistake by not firing P-1's at range 4-5 at the Imposer with full panels. Massed P-3 fire will do some damage at this range.

The Hydran could have used his fighters better.

My question is: Did the Hellbore option work for the Hydrans? Would the Fusion Beam option(and thereby more fighters) have worked better? I would think that PF's would be an excellent choice for the Hydrans.

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 02:20 pm: Edit

There were a few problems that went on. My opponent made several mistakes, which allowed me to get away with a number of mistakes on my own.

The very fact that on the first turn, I closed to range 3 with most of my ships and allowed myself to get in a position to be severely damaged by phaser fire is a bad move on my part. I was quite lucky that he held his phaser fire or else the Imposer would have taken some severe damage.

However, I think his primary mistake was his low speed:
Turn 1, he was flying 10 in reverse.
Turn 2, he was flying 10 forward.
Turn 3, he split between flying 10 and 20.
Turn 4, he was flying 20.

During this time, my flying speed was between 27 and 31. This allowed me to control the pace of the combat and get roughly where I wanted to be.

On the first turn, he fired all of his heavy weapons too early, including from his fighters, and he fired at the ship with the highest EW. After firing once, his fighters split off, took too long to land back on his ships, and 8 of them died on the Paladin when it got blown up on turn 3. At the speeds he was traveling, he wasn't in danger of leaving them behind, but he tied his thinking of his fighters into their fusion weapons and not their phasers.

His hellbores would have prevented the Intruder from using stupid panel tricks, but on the Imposer, with its amazing ability to eat battery power (thank you five TRH beams), they weren't as effective on that ship. With the speeds he was flying, I don't think fusions would have been a better choice for him since I could easily stay outside of range 2 of his ships. Of course, by the same token, his hellbores make every facing easier to fire through, which should have helped him, but he never used follow-up phasers when I turned away from him.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 11:09 am: Edit

Rolling for Weapon status makes for an interesting game. I do not blame him for going 10 in reverse.

Question, at the Hydran's low speed, did he use the extra power for shields, EW or both?

Did the Hydran have booster packs for the fighters?

If the Hydran did fire phasers at range 3 would the Andros have been severly crippled? This may have given the game to the Hydrans. All those gatlings become photon torpedoes as far as average damage dissed out.

John

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 11:21 am: Edit

I'm really not sure what he used his power on in the early turns. I think it was mostly EW (he had quite a bit for some ships).

During that first turn, before the Imposer turned away, its forward panels were down and it had taken about 9 internals (2 warp, a TRH, some hull, and some cargo). That was from his fighters (fusions and phasers) and his ships' hellbores firing at range.

After they did that (and this is where my mistake came in), I continued to close, then the Imposer fired its weapons and then turned away. He never fired his phasers from his ships at the Imposer, even after it turned away with a nearly full back panel (stupid hellbores).

I would tend to agree that not firing at the Imposer during that first turn made a huge difference in the battle.

I mean, look at the battle passes:
1st Pass: He lost a KN destroyer and took moderate damage on the Battle Tug and he crippled the ASP mauler.

2nd Pass: He lost the PAL dreadnought and a Lancer scout and he destroyed the ASP mauler.

3rd Pass: He lost the Battle Tug and the Earl destroyer leader.

The Imposer was a big part of my firepower during the subsequent second and third battle pass.

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Saturday, November 07, 2009 - 01:12 am: Edit

Other thing I saw you mention as occuring once but not capitalized as a tactic was a lack of T-bomb use. First turn, if I'm moving backwards speed 10 you gotta expect I probably just dropped out every T-bomb I had. Sounds like you ran afoul of one but I'm kinda surprised it was only one. Maybe you just had better angles to deal with it but if he used them right you could have had your ships taking a good 50-80-ish damage alone on the first run through. I bring it up because I often forget about dropping them out of the hatch when I'm being chased myself. Waaaaay too often actually (Other than my Juggernaut campaign. No one ever forgets a single system when that thing is coming in). ASP would have been a big target for me. Especially with the slow speeds he was going as letting it survive more than one impulse is just begging for the ASP to get all its batteries out. Then all it's panel energy back out at you. After that obvious target I'd probably go for the Sat Ships. Just how I've fought Andros so far, stomp the sats, easiest way to cut thier firepower.

Course if I was campaigning against them I'd probably go for the Mothership just like he did. But that's Strategic Ideas (Strand the Sats, let them die off without the support hanger, just make sure the infestation doesn't spreads).

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 07:23 am: Edit

Does anyone have any experience playing with MWPs in a fleet battle?

I was thinking of playing a squadron of twelve of them either as the full complement of an Intruder or as half the complement of a Dominator, but I'm not sure how they play in a real battle.

MWPs have a maximum speed of only 20-21 and have only two phaser-2's, but they look like they are very tough little ships. Are they good only for attacking enemy fighters and/or PFs, are they good for anti-ship work, or maybe they are just not good enough to use.

Any experience would be helpful.

By Jacob Karpel (Psybomb) on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 09:50 am: Edit

They actually do have slow speed cap, but this can be overcome in most cases (think of them as drones with more control and reusable phasers).

And you're right, they are unbelievably tough for their size. Each and every one of them can take 22 damage without losing any combat power whatsoever. Even when you get past that, check out (G35.622). YOU get to choose where incoming damage goes. Their big drawback is damage control, as you will be unlikely to repair enough PA Degradation to matter in the long run.

The weapons aren't great, but the darned things deploy in sets of 12-18. That is a LOT of Phaser-2s incoming, and killing them all before they fire is an exercise in futility unless it's a fleet action. Plus, their facing does not matter at all to them for shields or weapons, so you can take your time and overfly/slip into position to hunt down weakened shields

The things are superior at hunting down Fighters and any lone ship upwards of the Cruiser+ range (assuming you can come in from a direction they can't easily escape from. Against faster ships, you're better served as guarding bigger fish.

In Fleet actions, hold them with your main units until you start getting close, then have them take off and go hunt the biggest thing they can kill this turn (might just be fighters or PFs, but then again it might not). They are attrition units like any other, and their toughness here makes them invaluable for diverting fire.

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 08:26 am: Edit

Thanks for the advice on the MWPs.

For my next question, my group is playing out a base assault against an Andromedan Battle Station (played by me).

In my group, I have a BATS, a minefield, a Conquistador, and a Cobra. The minefield has 23 large explosive, 60 small explosive, 15 trans-captor mines, and 6 sensor mines placed wherever I want.

My opponent is a Romulan with a KCR, KRC, 2x K7R, and a KRT with two conjectural battle pods.

Personally, I think I will lose this battle, but I don't have a lot of experience playing as the defender in a base assault, especially an Andro base. I know I can use the Temporal Elevator to get "further" away from his ships, but if I expect my opponent to simply fire plasmas and cloak, is moving up the elevator a good plan? Is there some way to use my mobile ships effectively, or would they just be targets for his fleet to destroy?

Any suggestions or advice would be welcome.

By Jacob Karpel (Psybomb) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 10:53 am: Edit

I don't have TOO much advice to give here, but there are a couple of things.

1) Remember that he will have to be uncloaked to fire, and will be at best in the "fade-out" state for 4 impulses thereafter. If he lets loose the Plasma, open fire at the weakest shield that did so with every Phaser-2 and half the TRs inside of 15 hexes immediately. Those Phaser-2s should be fired every turn if they have any possibility of inflicting even a single point of damage, there is just no reason not to for you.

2) Every Romulan weapon, especially Plasma, needs to be launched from relatively close to work. This means that he's treading a very fine line to attack you due to your own firepower and the minefield, and this exposes him to a couple of tricks and WILL end up exposing him to plentiful return fire.

3) Use the Elevator to mess up range breaks, and you probably want to castle up the two mobile units with it. This simultaneously lets the base help them with the Elevator at need and will save your minefields. Your DisDev attempts can be used rather aggressively, since a Romulan who gets ported a couple of hexes closer than he wanted to be will likely end up suffering in a major way, and will likely be killed or crippled before his disrupted fire control is back to normal.

4) Remember the PA Mines! Those Trans-Captors each translate to 100 points of lost Plasma damage, your explosives are quite bountiful enough as-is.

5) Make sure to set up some spin on your base and get some Tac turns going on the mobile units. This will let you cycle your TRH platforms through the proper firing arcs and disperse the incoming damage over several PA banks.

6) Don't be too overeager to fire every TR at your disposal. Keep about a third in reserve and fire them only if you KNOW you won't get another chance to do so for those two turns. Charged TRH units tend to make enemies very leery about getting too close for some reason.

7) Lastly and for emphasis, remember that while you can afford to take damage with no ill effects, he cannot claim the same thing. He can't go for the slow chip-away, since it just doesn't work on Andros. Along these lines, don't be scared to let a few points of Plasma strike your panels, as long as you have the room for it. You save double the power by doing this: some Phaser energy and the battery power from the PA. He can ill-afford to come charging in either, since he MIGHT kill you and WILL die horribly in the attempt from explosives and TRH fire.

That all said, if he wants you to die there is probably little you can truly do about it, but you can make it VERY expensive to do so. If luck is on your side or he makes one too many mistakes, though, you may be able to hold him off.

Quick question: Is this just a scenario to get the last one standing, or is it part of a campaign with lasting effects from casualties? Keep that in mind, as in the former he might just decide to go for the overrun but will not in the latter case.

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 12:54 pm: Edit

This is just a scenario for the last one standing. Although I would expect my opponent to be a little realistic, by which I mean, if he gets to the point where he could not realistically defeat me, he'll give up and not fight till the very last ship and shuttle is dead.

For the minefield, how close or spread out should the mines be? As for castling the mobile units, too bad there's no really good way to use all that extra power they'll have with no moving.

But, in general, if my opponent doesn't care about the future of his force, he's probably better off just overrunning me or would that have too high a risk of failure?

By Jacob Karpel (Psybomb) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 01:40 pm: Edit

I honestly don't know. I don't have all the SSDs for the Romulan force, so I don't know the kind of punishment they can take. The reason I said to castle up was specifically to force him to come to you and to make that minefield essentially a solid, dense ring starting just outside of detection radius from your ships and extending perhaps 2-3 hexes beyond that. Force him to face the obliteration of a ship (or worse, the loss of multiple Plasma tubes) if he comes to range 5.

In essence, if he manages to get on top of your base with more than about 2 of those ships intact (read: still containing a full Plasma load), said base is probably dust. A given facing only has 6 panels, and 60 points of damage at point-blank is no big trick for even a single ship holding multiple Torpedoes. You have a lot of internals to soak damage with, and you have no fear at all of Cascades due to the multitude of other panels and batteries... but you can only take about 60 points internal without being forced to lose combat capability (and even one good hit can take out a DisDev or TRH). He only has 5 ships total, though, so that kind of rush is a serious gamble (and anything other than point-blank won't do for the Alpha Strike, since you can break weapon locks, phaser them down, and use PA mines if given even a single impulse to work with).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 02:05 pm: Edit

The enemy ships are the Kestrel versions of the C7 (KCR), D7C (KRC), D7 (K7R) and Tug (KRT). As such, they're not all that durable once you break shields, but don't expect to ever decontrol them.

We're talking lots of LP/RP plasma. The KCR has three D-racks and IIRC the KRC has 2 more. those will be the big worry for the MWPs, especially if Sabots are in play.

Actually Sabots are a huge issue. Andros ships are well-equipped to run plasma out. One doen't really want slow units fighting plasma *because* they can't run and gun. Sabots make this harder. Facing plasma, you want a mobile, speedy force. Facing sabots, doubly so.

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 04:15 pm: Edit

I fully expect my Romulan opponent to have Sabot. Also, John Trauger is right in that the KCR has 3 D-Racks and the KRC has two more.

Fortunately, I know my opponent doesn't have any fighters and/or PFs of his own, so I can safely set all the explosive mines to be set for his ships. Even if he tries to close some shuttles at me, I certainly have enough Phaser-2's to take them out.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Are you using small support units? Don't forget the Andros got a wild weasel type decoy toy in those rules.

By Kevin Humar-Barrett (Cheethorne) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 04:58 pm: Edit

How could a Battle Station use one of those with the base?

I thought only mother ships could use them, or at least the base would have to have hangers in which to hold such units. I know the star base has hangers, but since the Battle Station doesn't, I just figured that it couldn't use them.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 06:52 pm: Edit

(G35.633) Andromedan Base Stations, Battle Stations, and Desecrators can have up to two Mobile Weapons Platform Hangar Modules (R10.55). Presumably you can swap MWPs for decoy SSUs? I have never actually used them yet.

(G35.524) A given decoy SSU can only be used by one Andromedan mothership or base in a given scenario,

so yes, bases can use them.

And I assume that:

(G35.512) No Andromedan ship can have more than two decoy SSUs.

applies to bases as well.

By Tim Longacre (Timl) on Monday, February 22, 2010 - 01:14 pm: Edit

And decoy SSUs take 25 damage to destroy, which is considerable. Even better, if you can whittle the plasma down to and "acceptable amount" you can beam it aboard something that can use the energy, AND you can drag it around at any speed without it being "death-dragged" or voiding it.

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 11:26 pm: Edit

The SSU (0.25) is bigger than the MWP (0.167) so it's not a 1-1 swap...

By Steven J. Hecker (Stevehecker) on Friday, May 28, 2010 - 11:31 pm: Edit

Playing the Mini Campaign in CL 21, though we've updated the points from 600 to 700.

SL 185 is up first, Orion Bats with 475 defnses (DBR, 3xDW, 2xLR).

Having defended the base once against ISC, I decided I needed 6 PAs as the Orion ships have no trouble generation 40 points.

I was thinking Intruder, 2 Mambas and either a Python or the Anacanda. I like the idea of the scout, but worried I may need the extra TRLs of the Python.

I also thought about the eliminator and simply dropping it in front of the Base...

I'd also take any adivise on how to play this as I haven't taken a base out with Andros. And since its a fixed map, concerned I won't have room to play with the PAs.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 12:02 pm: Edit

Pretty simple, actually.

With TR's, you are not going to snipe well. So plan on the standard range-3 battle pass and just get it over with. Have just enough energy in your batteries at start to power your weapons and such, go max speed, and DisDev out from the BATS once you shoot it.

Whether you lead with the Intruder or the smaller ships is up to you, but I would have the sat ships go in first to draw fire (its their job) and if you lose anybody, sat ships hurt the least.

After the BATS dies, you can decide if its worth it to try and kill the rest of the Orions.