Archive through November 02, 2022
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: General Tactics Discussion:
Hydran Tactics:
Archive through November 02, 2022
Question: you have a Hydran base with a small fleet of mostly fusion-armed ships. You have to defend it from a larger fleet of Federation vessels. It's a campaign so saving the base would be great but inflicting casualties while avoiding your own is also an acceptable outcome.
How would you go about defending it?
Your force:
BATS with 12 St-2
LC
RN
TAR
NSC
Theirs:
DNG
CC
2x CW
3x NCL
NSC
DD
The Fed force is huge. The Hydrans should flee, else generally they'd lose more than they kill.
It's a campaign. Meaning there are factors that I cannot assess that can influence your strategic decisions before you get to the tactical decision making level.
If this is the Admiral's game, I would have the fighters deployed around the BATS, maybe 10 hexes back. The ships like 18 hexes back. Fighters speed 14 on EM with EW loaned from the motherships. Ships medium speed flying in circles, staying out of proxy range if possible and max EW regardless.
If he tries to pound the BATS at long range with prox photons, go EW heavy. While the NSC can loan plenty of EW to 4 of the Fed ships, that's only 18 photons. Adding phaser 1's, that's something like 45 damage every other turn. With reinforcement the BATS can take that kind of punishment for a long time without taking internals, possibly long enough to force a stalemate under the rules. At which point as defender you win.
If he comes in for a closer range pass, then speed up and charge in. Hydrans take damage well. If you can reach range 10, fire everything at one ship and then leave. Only close to close range if he gives you an opportunity.
Assess your damage. Do not take too much. Be ready to give up the BATS, you're almost certainly going to lose, it's just a question of how much damage you can inflict before he wins. As he has the larger force and you have a fixed position, he has the initiative in this.
If this is the Admiral's Game, then go for kills. Crippled ships will be repaired reasonably quickly (1 campaign turn for the overhaul, then back on the line).
My two quatloos.
Yes, it's The Admiral's Game.
Good luck, Ginger!
It should go well for me. I'm the attacker looking for more thoughts on how he might defend himself beyond what I've already thought of. :-)
FYI, IMO Fed/Hydran is not a really good tech mashup for a campaign, at least not with Fed as attacker in the Admiral's game. YMMV in different campaign settings, as strategic rules are always critical.
In the Admiral's game, as attacker, the Federation always has the option to move slow at range 30 and bombard with proximity photons and long range phaser-1's. It's one of the Fed's greatest strategic strengths. With one ship this strategy does not work. With a fleet of Fed ships it can be devastating. A fleet of DNG, 6 cruisers/destroyers, and 4 FF can average 105 points of damage every other turn at range 25 - assuming no EW shift. Pow, there goes a cruiser.
As a fusion-heavy Hydran, it's hard to counter this due to range restrictions with your weapons. Even with Hellbores it can be "unfun" until you force the range closer.
That being said, I'm not trying rain on your parade. It's your fun! Just my own opinion.
Curiously, it turns out if the Hydran plays attacker against the Fed defender, the tech mashup is balanced again. Now a Hydran with short range weapons can do an all-out charge against a base. While they will face a storm of overloaded photons on the way in, the Fed can't kill them all, and a fleet's worth of Hydran stingers will simply sweep the base (even a SB) from space. Assuming, of course, you're not playing with mines. Even then. In open space, because the Fed is facing a charging fleet they can no longer afford to play the slow moving proxy photon game.
So, speaking only for myself only, when I fly in campaigns or run them I make sure opponents fight against traditional enemies. It really helps balance the tech mashup. It might seem boring, but when tech mashup favors one side the campaign tends to bog down and collapse because too many battles are lopsided in favor of one side because of tech - and that's not fun. If it's not fun for both players the campaign will end. That's just reality.
That's not necessarily bad, it just is. If the players want the campaign to last a long time, matching traditional enemies will make it more likely that the campaign won't be unbalanced too soon. There's still plenty of good matchups going with traditional enemies.
Anyhoo, make of it what you will. My comments are like a salad bar. Take what you want, and leave the rest! 
We're already underway and aborted one campaign when my Paravians conceded to his Hydrans before turn one. I'm cool with continuing unless and until he decides to concede. That would even us up at one win each and we can do the tie breaker with traditional enemies.
I'll post a link to our rules in the campaign thread when my laptop finally finishes rebooting.
Do the Hydran fighters have warp booster packs?
Is Electronic Warfare / Erratic Movement in play?
If so, then expect "my hydrans" to have maximized defensive EW. The Hydran ships/fighters will attempt to reach range 15 (but no closer than 13) of the Fed fleet by the end of the turn. They want the Fed to fire their proximity photons. Next turn, the Hydrans will go max speed (using batteries if necessary) and charge the Fed. The Hydran goal is to reach range 2 of the closest Fed ship and cripple/kill it, then move on to the next range 2 target. The Hydran firepower is awesome at range 2 or less. In theory, the Fed will be charging photons slowing down a bit because of the warp power drain.
Have fun!
It's Y178 with 2 turns per year so there won't be booster packs for quite a while.
Note that eight of the Fed ships can have at least one scatterpack each. Launch them in a huge wave and charge ahead of them with overloaded photons. The Feds can use ECM drones to help with their own EW (make these with ATG). Have some (not all!) photons at 10 points to deal with particularly pesky fighters.
Here is the thread for the campaign. It has the rules we're using and I'll update it with battle results as the campaign continues.
The Fed "CWs" are a typo. They're CMs.
Does the base have a minefield protecting it?
If so, and the mines are set to ignore anything smaller than SC 5, your fighters will have free defensive reign, their Gatling phasers ought to handle any drones, and the potential of massed doublecharged fusion beams at ten hexes is something not to be sneezed at.
Keeping your fighters away from his ships, relying on long-range sniping (well, long range sniping by fusion beam armed fighters at any rate), and utilizing the two "Swing EW" points for ECM more than ECCM will allow them to survive longer; long enough, potentially, for them to land for repair and rearming on multiple occasions.
As SPP pointed out to me a year or so ago, the base is also able to use its Special Sensors without worrying about them being blinded by their own weapons fire, so the snipers-behind-the-minefield tactic is highly viable.
Despite these tricks, I would expect you to take worse than you give. However, I would also expect him to wish to withdraw crippled ships rather than risk them being destroyed. He may also be more inclined to withdraw moderately damaged ships (like, say, a ship that's lost half its Photon Torpedo bank, or has enough engine damage that much more would leave it unable to disengage by acceleration). If that IS the case, he may withdraw enough of his forces that you'll be able to save your BatS.
My 0.02 Quatloos worth.
No mines.
With all due respect to Ted Fay, I do have to disagree with him a little*. He implies in his 9:46 AM post (if I am understanding him correctly), that the problem is the Fed/Hydran match up, and that campaigns against "historical" enemies work better. But I believe the real issue is that the Feds are simply attacking with overwhelming force in this battle (which is exactly what they should do, if they have the resources at hand). If you were to replace the Hydran force with a comparable Klingon force, would the base really have a better chance of surviving?
*I note that he is absolutely correct when he says
Quote:YMMV in different campaign settings, as strategic rules are always critical.
He is clearly aware that his misgivings about the Hydran vs. Fed is partly an artifact of the specific rules of the "Admiral's Game", with the Feds on the offensive.
There's another battle coming up with much more equal sides. This just happens to be the first one in line.
Goodness. No booster packs - ouch. Usually, EW is optional. Both players need to agree to play with EW rules. If so, use maximum defensive EW.
Well, the Hydrans are in big trouble at WS0 or WS1. So, best speed toward the base, arming weapons/FTRS as allowed.
Let us hope the Hydrans roll well (WS2 or WS3). I looked up S4.1. If a scout is present, they get a +1 on their die roll for Weapon Status determination.
At WS2 the speed is zero. Best finish arming the FTRS. The ships will use EM. (Drop EM on impulse 32 so that FTRS may launch on impulse 1 of the next turn).
At WS3, the speed 10 ships will move to position themselves 2 hexes apart from the base and other ships. (We do not want exploding ships to damage the base.) Once all of the FTRS are launched, all units will declare EM. This will give some ECM protection. Ships will have transporters powered and the facing shield to the Fed will be reinforced.
The base should rotate once per turn. This allows the facing shield to be reinforced.
So, the Hydrans are theoretically in position. Be sure to announce dropping EM the impulse before you want to fire.
The max speed for FTRS is 15 (14 with EM), so the FED is in the driver's seat as the Hydran FTRS cannot catch the FED unless the FED allows it. FTRS staying in the same hex as the ships allows easy landing to rearm.
What's stopping the Feds from a proxy barrage if the Hydrans stay on or near the base? There will be a shift of 2 for some of the ships but that can be partially mitigated because there are around 26 photons in the fleet and 18 of those can drop that to a shift of 0 or 1 depending on how much power the scout can provide. The Hydran NSC will be using a lot of power for EW and not be able to brick nearly as well.
What about scatter-packs full of dogfight drones? I did some quick math and the Feds could, with one scatter-pack per ship, get around 72 Type-VIs coming at the fighters. That's more that the Hydrans have gatling shots.
Another wave of Type-VIs could be targeted on the base . Thankfully for the Hydrans there won't be as many of them due to ammunition shortages. That would do a bunch of damage once the protection from the fighters is gone.
>> scatter-packs full of dogfight drones
How close would these shuttles get to the Hydrans, and how would you envision the submunitions would be guided?
--Mike
Dogfight drones are automatically self-guided if within 8 hexes of target at launch. FD2.56. They could, however, be guided if desired. Id.
Outside of 8 hexes, you have a problem. However, since dogfight drones have a maximum range of 12, you may have other problems if you release outside of 8 hexes.
But, it's possible you could have to guide them to within 8 hexes.
With 9 ships it would be fairly easy to control waves at range 11 or 12, let them get to range 8, and then send in the next wave.
@Ginger. Be careful when you do that. A mobile force can turn or move a few hexes and simply outrun the dogfight drones.
That tactic would work on a base, however. While only 2 damage per drone, you're likely to score a bunch of hits because it's not worth a WW or shooting them all down if all you do is like 12 damage for 6 drones at a time, for example.
Plus they're immune to WWs once they have their own lock on so you'd have to drop one when they're at range 9-12. Long before you know who they're targeted on.
Nine ships can put 54 of them on the board and still be within control limits. Slightly fewer if using ECM Drones. Six more if using scout channels for control. They may only be 2 points each but that's still a ton of damage.
Scratch that last part as there's no need to release them before they have their own lock on. Unless I'm missing something a scatter-pack launched on a ballistic course which is set to release at range 8 and randomly target size class 1 units will never be open to distraction.
The shuttles would have to be popped by long range fire. Manned decoy shuttles launched around the same time and on the same course will make that very difficult to do for a fleet which has mostly gatlings and phaser-2s.