I have to apologize. I was expecting an E-mail if anyone was having problems. I am currently trying to fix this, but the fault is entirely mine for not more aggressively supervising.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Saturday, February 06, 2021 - 06:38 pm: Edit

I am also available to re-enter if need be.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Saturday, February 06, 2021 - 06:39 pm: Edit

Since Seth killed me dead and all.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Saturday, February 06, 2021 - 09:59 pm: Edit

I would re-enter if there was a slot free. I lost in R1 to Peter Bakija.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Saturday, February 06, 2021 - 11:45 pm: Edit

A few wanting to re-enter, perhaps roll a die and pick someone randomly?

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 08:31 am: Edit

1.07 Spartan (RKR) vs Droid (WAX,11G1)

Turn 5 - RKR has run from the WAX (who chased through an EPT Turn 4), beginning the turn about 6-7 hexes apart, chased by four drones. Having run out of steam, RKR plots speed zero, PFC, launches 50 pts from B&D, cloaks and weasels drones. WAX gives phaser alpha to plasma, takes a shield down with ~2 internals? circles around at high speed. RKR begins to creep at speed 4.

Turn 6 - RKR is cloaked, rearming, moving speed 4. WAX circles and gets to range zero on an undamaged #2 ... fires phaser alpha for about 9 pts (the cloak charts were not kind), launches a manned shuttle to pursue the RKR, and circles around at high speed. Late in the turn, the RKR uncloaks, brings up AFC and phasers shuttle (that's 3rd from WAX). 4 drones launched on imp 32.

Turn 7 - RKR moves 14, WAX is on a 24-31 split. Early on, at around range 10, the RKR does HET to bring #6 to bear (without giving shot at weak #1), launches 50 pts from A&C, and turns off. WAX launches 2 drones to get a six drone wave, phasers plasma with ph-3s, but still takes ~25 internals through a four-box #3. WAX chases RKR at 31, and ultimately gets to range 1 and tractors RKR. Psuedo speeds are 7 for RKR, 12 for WAX. Phaser strike is timed to mizia, but DAC is kind to RKR, losses are 1xplas-F, 3xph-3, some warp, all btty, all impulse, both bridge, both tractor, but did not get into aft hull or APR. RKR is down to 28 power. WAX pushes the RKR ahead of drone wave. WAX declares emer decel, launches last shuttle speed 5 but it does not move immediately, so RKR labs it and it is manned. RKR has saved most phaser file until is is clear that drones will not impact on this turn (3 end at range 1 on imp 32), so fires 7xph-3 at WAX on imp 32, chewing into the power. WAX ends the turn with 22 power.

Turn 8 - hypothetical. There is a discussion at the end of the turn, about what the RKR has. After it is clear that RKR has a WW ready, has 50 pts of plasma coming online and in arc, and can defeat the tractor auction due to more available power, WAX concedes.

Thanks for the great game Andy!

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 08:35 am: Edit

BTW, thanks for the tournament tree on SFBOL.

I believe game 2.02 is actually MadJack vs Kingzilla? And kingzilla's RFH is already victorious over Madjack's WBS?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 07:22 pm: Edit

2.01 madman (THN) over bakija (VUD)

Another game that was not a particularly good playtest, in terms of "what typically will happen".

T1: I move 16 all turn, overload my ICs, have 8 reinforcement on my #6. Dana moves 21/28/26 with a couple OLs. I turn right immediately, he turns left to match me immediately. I move towards the East wall, eventually turning North again. THN turns South to match me. At about R11, he throws up a web that will be solid on impulse 32 bewteen us. He turns in behind the web, shoots my #6 with 2xOL, 2xP1 at R6 on impulse 32, hits with 1xOL, does a couple points of damage after my reinforcement.

T2: I move 24 all turn, have 2 in HET, 2 in tractor, hold 4xOL IC. THN moves some sort of 15/26 plot. He slips behind the web, I turn in. He pokes his nose through the web by running into it and immediately speeds up to 26. Next impulse, I HET towards him at speed 24, so he HETs away in the opposite direction, at speed 26, behind the web. I have the ability to slip around his web and catch him at exactly R5 if I speed up to 26 on the impulse that 26 doesn't move and 24 does (the next impulse), so I do these things. Dana casts a web in front of him, but it will be immaterial. I speed up to 26, get around the web, get a perfect R5 shot, my #6 facing his #3, clear of web. I alpha strike here with 4xOL ICs, 6xP1. My ICs hit on an 8 (i.e. 72% chance of a hit). I again, for the second game in a row, hit with 1 of 4 torps on my first volley (rolling, like, 12, 10, 9, 6). Gah. Phasers roll ok. I do, like, 7 internals after a couple reinforcement. I hit, maybe, a P3 and a power, and then a bunch of nothing. I turn off and run away, THN comes to follow me. I don't completely remember what happens here, but I think I get shot up by phasers and some disruptors during the turn, taking some sheild damage here and there. We end at about R6, me facing the N wall with not a ton of room to run, the THN behind me.

T3: I can run and get caught, or stop and hope I come out ahead. Or at least not fall too far behind.So I stop. I move 0 with TACs, speeding up to 10 late in the turn, front overload 3 of my torps, rearm my phasers, put 5 in tractors. Dana moves 28/15. He speeds up to me, I TAC my #2 shield to him. We both launch some shuttles. He gets to R2 centerlined on my #6. I blast him in the face with 6xP1, P2, P3, roll ok, do 40 damage, scoring another 8 or so internals (I think he used a couple batteries for reinforcement), hitting nothing real important (maybe a disruptor which was probably empty and a P3 or something). He slips off my #5 at R1 with his #6. He blasts me with 3xOL, web fist, many phasers (there were shuttles around, so I think he killed 2 of mine with phasers; I did 4 damage to 2 of his with my IPG!). He misses with 2OL, but I still take about 28 in, losing a lot of fluff, a couple phasers, an IC, a bit of power, but the IPG lives! Meanwhile, I tractored him at R1, which he did not fight. We spend the rest of the turn stuck in a tractor. I TAC again to face him with my up #6 (to his #6, I speed up to 10. We push each other around a bit. His 2 shuttles zing me with phaser 3's, maybe doing another few internals. I think I killed 1 of the shuttles with a phaser, and left one of his on the map with 1 damage left for the rest of the game. He killed 2 of my shuttles before they shot him, I launched a third, and he tractored it late in the turn. We end the turn at R1 in tractor, my #1 facing his #2.

T4: Well, at least I have guns this turn! I keep decide to tractor auction him to waste some power of his, and maybe he'll let me keep the tractor. He lets me keep the tractor at 1 power. I'm surprised. I plot speed 0 till 15 with some TACs then 8, finish overloading my 3xICs, rearm my phasers, have some extra tractor power and a bit of reinforcement. THN moves 0 till 25, then 5 (IIRC). Before the turn starts, I rotate him to R2, allowing me to push him to a hex where I wasn't in his FA anymore (as you can rotate to R2 and pick any of the 3 hexes in front of you when you do that). We had to check the rules so that everyone was on the same page so we were sure it was legal. It was. So impulse 1, we are at R2, the THN on the spine of my #1 and #2 and me on the spine of his #2 and #3. We all then realize that if I had been moving forward at any speed (other than 0), I would have been on his down #3 shield for fire on impulse 1. I am surprised by this, as I was sure his #3 was up and his #5 was down, so didn't move. 'Cause dyslexia. Gah. So I shoot him with 3xOL ICs, 6xP1 and a P3, he shoots some P3s at my shuttle and a P1 (which hits my #1 for 4 damage). This time, all 3xOLs hit, phasers do fine, he takes the damage on his #2 (due to us both being speed 0 and using the ambigious shield rules), takes about 30 internals, but loses nothing remotely important (no disruptors or P1s). Impulse 2, he TACs to face me, shoots me 3xOL, web fist, 4xP1, misses with an OL, does 2 internals after a bit of reinforcement. Nothing terrible happens. I feel ok here. We stay at R2 until I speed up to 8 on impulse 16, so I trop the tractor, and try and get around to his down #1. He launches 2 more shuttles (his last 2). I eventually get to R2 off his down #1, fire my last P2 into his ship for a few more internals. He shoots my #3 up with some phasers as I fly by, and his shuttles zing me up as well. He speeds up to 5 late, we end the turn at R4, my #4 facing his #6.

T5: I need to rearm my guns, move, and try to get off one of his 3 down shields (#1, #2, #3). Tholian moves 10, then 5, then 15 late. I plot speed 8 all turn, speeding up to 11 on impulse 16 when I can (that was batteries), overload 2 of my ICs, recharge my phasers, put 4 energy into my IPG, which strangely is still alive. Impulse 1, I IPG his 2 shuttles for 4, kill one of them with a rear phaser. He shoots my #4 for a few damage with one of the shuttles. I turn to try and get ahead of him, he casts a web that I get stuck in for most of the turn. He comes in, gets to R2, his down #1 facing my weak (and lightly reinforced) #3 with web between us, so I can't shoot him. He blasts me, does another 15 or so internals through my #3. He doesn't hit many weapons (possibly none?), but he hits my scanner again and more control. He gets himself stuck in the web intentionally to avoid getting shot. Impulse 27, he speeds up to 15. Impulse 28, the web drops. We move a couple times and end up at R1, my down #2 facing his full #6. I blast him with all my phasers, do not quite enough to take down the shield (26). He gets another 2xP3 on me, does 7 more in, decontrolling me and leaving me with a sensor rating of 3.

T6: I am decontrolled, so I can only fire on 1 impulse at one target. I have to roll for lock on. I plot zero, rearm my guns, put up as much general reinforcement as I can. I successfully lock on (on a 3), and on impulse 1, we both fire. I hit him with 2/2 OL ICs and a couple phasers, doing about 30 internals through his 4 box shield. He hits me for, like, 50 internals (I think he missed with his weak web fist and maybe one OL disruptor). After the smoke clears, he is mangled, but still has some guns and a dozen or so power. I have zero internal boxes left, and a couple excess damage left.

A wacky, very interesting game!

If I hit with 2xOL ICs (again, on 8's...) on my first volley, I probably would have won all other things being equal. If I had hit with 3xOL ICs on my first volley, the game was over at that point. But instead, I made the, what, 6% chance of missing with 3xOL ICs on 8's at R5. Again.

If I wasn't dyselxic on T4, I win the game when I push him out with the tractor, am moving a forward speed, and shoot his down shield. But then, if Dana had realized I could move him with a tractor rotation like I did, he would have fought the tractor, and that would have been all different anyway.

So yeah. A good, interesting, weird game. But again, not a particularly good "this is a typical result" playtest game, as again, missed with 3 of 4 torps on my first volley when odds were very against that.

The IPG got used twice this game, hitting shuttles. And weirdly, the IPG survived, like, 4 or 5 volleys before it was destroyed.

The Vudar apparently is also weirdly vulnerable to being decontrolled, as it only has 2xBRDG, 2xAUX, 1xEMER.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 08:59 pm: Edit

Thanks for the great write-up, Peter.

> The Vudar apparently is also weirdly vulnerable to being decontrolled, as it only has 2xBRDG, 2xAUX, 1xEMER.

This is kinda normal, no? KLG, RKR, RFH are all in the same boat, or worse. But, if you compare to FED, ZIN, HYD, LYR, etc ... sure.

> Before the turn starts, I rotate him to R2, allowing me to push him to a hex where I wasn't in his FA anymore (as you can rotate to R2 and pick any of the 3 hexes in front of you when you do that).

That is just awesome, a rule seldom used, and a big reason to not allow an opponent to hold a tractor across a turn break. Other things being equal, that might decide the game. In this case, it did not ...

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Intriguing

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Yeah, lots of weird dice rolls and strange luck. I knew this was going to be a tough match and I'd probably need some luck. Peter is consistently one of the top players.

T1/2 - I haven't played Tholian much recently and my web skills are probably weak. But my strategy was to let him shoot at 6-8 and turn off if he wants. Try to use web to evade a range 2-5 strike, and if he wants to exchange alphas at 1 I'm ok with it. Ion cannons don't really get better, but disr damage and hit % both go up closing from range 5 to 1. Then I have more and better phasers.

So that plan failed as Peter executed the well timed speed change to get around the edge of the web and shoot me in the back at R5. I got really lucky that he only hit with 1, which yeah, is a 6% chance. If he'd of hit with 3 or 4 the game was probably done. I don't know that I agree that 2 hits would have ended it as well. But it would have made the next few turns harder.

T4 - learned something new. I'm pretty sure I've never realized that if you held a tractor and go to rotate someone you can push them out at an angle to a hex spine. But yeah, I'm going to remember that. And if Peter had been moving speed 1 and dropped the tractor after pushing me he would have been on a down shield. Didn't try to fight the tractor but I could have. I had a few more points of power the Peter but I would probably have had 1 less overload to shoot after the auction. His pushing me out also caused me to have to spread some firepower on multiple shields.

T5 - Peter was going just a little faster than me but I finally used the web to help me. Just a couple points of power to catch him after he turned, hold him still and let me catch up and use my extra phasers effectively. Also let me turn a down shield to him protected by the web.
This is where I finally got a little ahead and made T6 work.

Really weird the number of 2's and 12's I rolled on the DAC. All his control and 3 sensor hits in 50 internals but I didn't hit many weapons. My heavy weapons didn't help me on T3/4 either as I went 3 for 6 on disruptor shots hitting on 1-5.

The Vudar isn't a joke ship. The IC's have an interesting chart, and a good chance to hurt ships at range 5. It feels like it's short a ph-3 or 2 to really be balanced. It doesn't have a great phaser suite and while the IPG is good on a big drone user I think if a the drone users separated the launches so the IPG can't kill too many at once, you'll just run him out of phasers for defence.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 07:50 am: Edit

Geoff wrote:
>>This is kinda normal, no? KLG, RKR, RFH are all in the same boat, or worse. But, if you compare to FED, ZIN, HYD, LYR, etc ... sure. >>

Seems likely; I know the TFH gets decontrolled pretty easily. I was just surprised that the ship for decontrolled when it did. But then, it basically lost no weapons at all for the first 50 internals, so that damage had to go *somewhere*.

>>That is just awesome, a rule seldom used, and a big reason to not allow an opponent to hold a tractor across a turn break. Other things being equal, that might decide the game. In this case, it did not ...>>

Yeah, I was just stupid, and in my dyslexic head, his #5 was down, not his #3. And I didn't check. I would have had to be moving some forward speed, push him out to 2 on the spine, and then drop the tractor, but that would have ended the game.

Paul Scott wrote a few paragraphs about using the tractor like this in an issue of Captain's Log when he won Origins in an Orion, so I remembered that :-)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 08:07 am: Edit

Dana wrote:
>> So that plan failed as Peter executed the well timed speed change to get around the edge of the web and shoot me in the back at R5. I got really lucky that he only hit with 1, which yeah, is a 6% chance. If he'd of hit with 3 or 4 the game was probably done. I don't know that I agree that 2 hits would have ended it as well. But it would have made the next few turns harder. >>

Oh, yeah, I don't think 2 hits end the game right there, but I think 12 more internals at that point probably put you in a significant hole, that, all other things being equal, probably ends up with me coming out ahead here. But given the way the DAC was going this game, who knows :-)

I think 3 hits probably is game over at that point, however.

>>Didn't try to fight the tractor but I could have. I had a few more points of power the Peter but I would probably have had 1 less overload to shoot after the auction. His pushing me out also caused me to have to spread some firepower on multiple shields.>>

Yeah, the tractor auction was primarily to waste power--at that point, I only needed to pay 2 power each for 3 of my torps (I front loaded the OL power on T3), but had left the 4th one empty, assuming it was gonna get blown off on T3 (and it did). so I could have survived on 4 (ship), 6 (3xICs), 7 (phasers), 3 (TACs) for 20 power more or less at that point, and had, like, 37 or something, so could have blown 17 power on the tractor and still had the same full alpha strike I had. If you spend 18 power fighting the tractor, I'm saved a few overloaded disruptors. So probably worth it, even if the tractor is broken.

>>T5 - Peter was going just a little faster than me but I finally used the web to help me. Just a couple points of power to catch him after he turned, hold him still and let me catch up and use my extra phasers effectively. Also let me turn a down shield to him protected by the web.>>

I was mostly dead here and knew it, and was just hoping you'd do something dumb (or forget to do something smart :-). I'm not quite sure what I could have done at that point to not have ended up where I did. I could have turned off in the other direction to try and get away to reload, but you still get to pen me in with a webcaster and catch me. But maybe if I tried to escape, you at least wouldn't have gotten that unanswered R2 shot through the web. Maybe? Dunno.

>>The Vudar isn't a joke ship. The IC's have an interesting chart, and a good chance to hurt ships at range 5. It feels like it's short a ph-3 or 2 to really be balanced. It doesn't have a great phaser suite and while the IPG is good on a big drone user I think if a the drone users separated the launches so the IPG can't kill too many at once, you'll just run him out of phasers for defense.>>

Yeah, I think it is *almost* kinda good, but again, if the ship misses 3 out of 4 ICs on every first volley, even with the beneficial to hit numbers (I'm not super good at figuring probabilities, but if missing with 3/4 torps on 8's to hit is a 6% chance, what is missing with 3/4 torps on 9's to hit like in the first game?), it is hard to tell. Like, for clarity, I'm not bemoaning my bad luck here and, like, not at all cranky that I lost; I'm interested in playing this ship for playtest results, and it is difficult to draw conclusions when the two playtest games are *both* extreme outliers.

The phasers on the ship are a little rough--that 4 of the P1's are FA make it hard to get phasers back in arc in a knife fight; the rear P2s already were widened to RA/L+RA/R from the original design (the regular versions all have just RA P2s) to help with damage mitigation and combat due to earlier playtesting, so I suspect that the ship isn't gonna get, like, 2 more P3s or anything. Maybe if the front phasers were like the LDR (2FA, 2FA/L, 2FA/R), that would certainly help it some. But again, that isn't real historical.

In this game, the IPG was marginally useful. I crippled all 4 of your shuttles with 2 IPG pulses, which was something, but I still got shot up by your shuttles a lot and still had to use some phasers on them on top of that. The IPG lasted until way late in the game by random chance, and heck, if it was hit on FLAG instead of DRN, it probably would have been lost on the first volley (and possibly saved me from being decontrolled :-)

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 08:55 am: Edit

(Paul F! The Tournament Results link doesn't have this tournament as an option yet, so I can't report my loss. Thanks!)

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 10:09 am: Edit

FYI, here are the probabilities I calculated for shooting with 4 weapons rolling 2d6. I think they are correct. I never calculated range 0-1 as I just assumed there would be 4 hits, but there is probably a small but real chance of missing with one. I'm also rounding, so it may add to 101%.

Numbers are 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 hits
Range 6-8 (hit 2-7) 3% / 17% / 36% / 33% / 12%

Range 4-5 (hit 2-8) 1% / 6% / 24% / 42% / 27%

Range 2-3 (hit 2-9) 0% / 1.6% / 12% / 39% / 48%

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 10:22 am: Edit

Helpful. Thanks!

So firing at R5, I had, like, a 70% chance of just winning outright (i.e. 3 or 4 hits). Jeez :-)

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 10:41 am: Edit

Yeah, that is why I was trying to avoid that 3-5 bracket with web. When you out maneuvered it I knew I was hoping for luck. Which, 30% of the time I'm still in the game.

I've got 3 more phasers and better arcs so even though first turn you have a heavy weapon advantage with stored energy I was perfectly fine with a game of exchanging alphas in close. But I felt you had a significant mid range advantage on the initial pass.

My other thought was not casting web, taking your range 3 or 4 shot with some reinforcement. Accepting 30 to 35 internals. Losing phasers on the left side and an unpowered disruptor and snare. But closing to range 2 on a back shield when you turn off with 3 powered disruptors and a web fist and the other side phasers and hopefully giving you 20 internals. Then seeing how it went from there.

I didn't choose that plan, but I was thinking about it.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 11:46 am: Edit

I offered it to Jason Gray but have not heard back from him.

I am now asking Jack Taylor to step up as Majead's opponent.

Corrected "not" to "now" in the above.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Peter,
I have fixed it so that you can report the loss.

Geof,
I have fixed the tree.

By Ronald J. Brimeyer (Captainron) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 05:26 pm: Edit

I would be interested in re-enter.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 05:30 pm: Edit

I have been resurrected from the dead.

Zombie MadJack (Shark) Versus Devil (Fed)

Getting started tomorrow at 9a.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Thanks, Paul!

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 10:08 pm: Edit

Yes, thanks Paul!

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Tuesday, February 09, 2021 - 08:55 pm: Edit

2.04 Spartan's RKR vs Cadet_Stimpy's HYD

Turn 1 - RKR starts at south, on a 28-15-21 split, HYD is north on a 17-31-26 split. Approach is direct until imp 16, when RKR launches 2x30. HYD turns out (west), RKR turns west (trying to use the reinforcement on the #2), and tries to stay out of FA, plasma pursues. The rest of the turn is running towards the southwest corner.

Turn 2 - RKR plots speed 26, HYD has a 27-26-27 ? split, eventually turns south, and finds one plasma is real and impacts for 5 pts on #5. RKR pursues, and on imp 16 launches 50 pts from B&D. HYD runs to the exact corner hexes, and turns to skirt the southern map edge. Eventually, the RKR turns out (northwest), to avoid hitting the west wall. At range 5 there is an exchange of phaser fire, 4 ph-1 from RKR scoring 14 on the #5, of which 5 is reinforced. 3xph-1 in return score 9 on the #3, of which 5 is reinforced. Plasma angles to try to get the weak #5, but must choose to get either strong #6, or #4. Ph-G mauls the F-torp for -7, so plasma hits #4 for 38, yielding 14 internals - 1xHB, 2xph-G, 1xph-1, two warp, one trac, one bridge ... RKR turns north and northeast with room to run across the map. HYD turns north and then northeast in pursuit.

Turn 3 - RKR plots 28-21, HYD plots 21-30, and the chase is on. Turn ends with RKR close to northern edge, 2/3 across the map towards the east wall, having used btty to keep speed 28 all turn. HYD is headed northeast, about range 8, angled to begin attack run.

Turn 4 - as allocation is in process, Stimpy decides to concede, since he could not plot speed 30 with only 28 warp. There was a discussion about what might happen, with the RKR getting ready for another 50 pt volley from A&C. HYD did not even charge HB this game, planning for the overrun from the beginning. His fighters in reserve were certainly as complication, remembering what happened to the Lyran last round. The good strike to take out both ph-G was certainly a factor that puts the Hydran behind in this situation.

Good Game Stimpy! Long Live the Fighters!

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 11:20 am: Edit

Zombie MadJack (Shark) over Devil (Fed)

Majead played an excellent game. Its uphill for the Fed against the Shark. I made more then one mistake so was lucky to escape.

Zombie Jack moves on. (barely)