TRANSCRIPT OF ACADEMY TRAINING SIMULATION: STARBASE TRYOUTS
Game 1 of 3
(SG8.0) ASSAULT ON A STARBASE Y168
PROCEED:
“Alright you space cadets! Today is Star Base assault training. And I mean assault! Grab your simulated rank and station cards and man your posts. It’s about to get uglier than a Blagoth slime beast in here.”
RED SHIRT TEAM:
FEDERATION STARBASE # 1-2-3-4-5, 2 POWER MODULES, 4 CARGO MODULES. HEX 2217, ROTATION SPEED 4, WS II
GOLD SHIRT TEAM:
KLINGON FORCE PER (SG8.61)
C9b Dreadfully Not, D7b Rattle, D7b Cattle, D7b Saddle, D6b Fee, D6b Hi-Fi, D6b Pho, D6b Fum, F5b Tab, F5b Caps-Lock, F5b Shift
Enter from any map edge, SPEED 15, WS III

SPEED 20 DRONES
NO ECM
FLOATING MAP

“Enough space chatter. Allocate!”

To be continued . . .


Query: How fast is the Starbase going to die? The Orion’s are taking bets.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 12:21 pm: Edit

Explode or concede?

I suspect it'll concede on turn 6. It shouldn't get far enough along in the scenario for it to actually explode.

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Monday, December 26, 2022 - 01:03 am: Edit

Red shirt team is a tenacious lot-and vindictive. If losing badly, I just - I mean they just might play to the end out of spite. The talk is that the Orions are giving 2 to 1 odds for a turn 6 concession. Payout is in the currency of emotional satisfaction. But at 2 to 1, it's a good bet.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Monday, December 26, 2022 - 11:05 am: Edit

At range 18-25 the StarBase narrow salvos. 6ph4 and 6 standard photons and rolls a 1. 72 damage to a F5B the explosion damgaes other ships and takes out a drone swarm. Who knew... of course it could be a D7 crippled...

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, December 26, 2022 - 11:45 am: Edit

The base dies once the Klingons have a "Drone Konga Line". Sitting at range 15 is also nice for Disrupters, P1s, P2s. 22 SPs are nice as well! Pace yourself. Do not launch them all at once. The Fed SB will run out of WWs soon enough.

Concede, Feds do not explode
Tho the Klingons may not accept concession

Eight turns.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, December 26, 2022 - 12:03 pm: Edit

If the Klingons are super patient they may even be able to capture it. I don't have SSDs handy so don't know how many boarding parties they can get aboard or how many a SB has (I know it's a ton). Every 10 internals past the first 40 kills a BP and a SB has a lot of boxes to hit. Send commandos if you can to make it harder to self destruct. Don't forget to also use commandos to do H&R raids on control stations before you start sending people over.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 09:46 am: Edit

Commandos are an unknown thing for me. I know they exist, but I've not used them before.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 09:58 am: Edit

They're basically slightly more expensive boarding parties. They have better odds on hit and run raids and make it harder for a ship to self destruct. You can buy up to 2 with commander's options by either paying one point each or converting boarding parties over for .5 points each.

I always get 2 unless those points are needed elsewhere (T-bombs and drone speeds take priority).

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 10:10 am: Edit

May I suggest the Gorn's take the BCB Base Buster (R6.J11) from CL28.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 12:10 pm: Edit

That would be very difficult to do in a Klingon v. Federation battle. J

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 05:01 pm: Edit

True, but what about Game 2 and 3?

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 - 09:25 pm: Edit

TRANSCRIPT OF ACADEMY TRAINING SIMULATION: STARBASE TRYOUTS
Game 1 of 3
(SG8.0) ASSAULT ON A STARBASE Y168
CONTINUED:
Red Shirt Team (the starbase): “I presume that crippling an enemy is as good as destroying one, as far as the Base is concerned. Don’t have the firepower to take kill shots anyhow, I don’t think. Not at opening ranges anyway.”
Turn #1, Impulse #1
Range to C9 Dreadfully Not = 27 hexes.
Range to Nearest enemy = 21 hexes, the F5b Shift
Speeds: C9 at Speed 18, all others at Speed 17
Klingons in Map Sector A
Spread out along the map edge on x and y axis
Weapons: hot and bothered
GAME PLAY:
Turn #1, Impulse #1:
Starbase launching 6 shuttles for drone defense
6 remain for WW use
Impulse #12: no shots fired, yet
Klingons are lining up at range 18 to 20 and circling counter-clockwise (base rotation is clockwise)
Impulse #25: scatterpacks!
Klingon attack force launched 11 scatterpacks (I’m assuming) spread across a 16 hex line at ranges 18 and 19

Query: It’s Impulse #25, Klingons launched SP’s only, no direct fire. Starbase has 6 shuttles on the map, no weapons fired. Good moves? Bad? How to finish the turn?
“Gorn Base Busters FTW!”
“Who said that? Put that cadet on report!”

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 03:04 am: Edit

If those are all scatter packs it's a horrible move. A single weasel shuts them all off.

Are the Klingons in a position to focus their fire. If not they need to form up quick and start shooting. Impulse 25 isn't as big of a decision step in a base battle so as long as they fire by 32 they're fine on that front.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 12:52 pm: Edit

Starbases have a smegload of Phaser-3s, a dozen tractor beams, ADDs with more ammunition than the entire nation of Russia (at this time ), and can use their Phaser-4s to kill ScatterPack shuttles at considerable range. Did the Klingons choose wisely to have so many ScatterPacks out on the board so soon?

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Having a night to sleep on it, and considering your comments, I think the Klingon drone assault is doomed in any case. Lacking Kzinti ships or drone armed fighters, the Klingons simply can't get enough drones on the map to threaten the base. They do have 40 disruptors. At range 15 they can probably smash a base shield at will. But like you said, they'll have to get better organized.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 03:07 pm: Edit

You could use the scatter packs to soak up some of the enemy fire. If they are not scatter packs but suicide shuttles & Phaser-3 platforms, they will also soak up some of the base's phasers, but they are slow, speed 6.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 07:30 pm: Edit

Gah... "Pace yourself. Do not launch them all at once. The Fed SB will run out of WWs soon enough." To the "Agonizer Booth" for you...

Ginger, thanks for the Commando explanation.

With a drone "Konga" line, the SB cannot fire without voiding the WW. One can always launch more drones after the WW explosion period wears off. If the SB does void the WW, all of those drones targeted on the WW will target the SB again.


When did the Fed SB get ADD's?

At Rotation speed of 4 and the Klingons moving counter to the Rotation allows many concentrated disruptor shots on a weak/down shield! Good tactic!

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 28, 2022 - 07:40 pm: Edit

If the base must weasel to avoid death by drones, it lets the Klingons close (firing weapons would void a weasel and be penalized). If they get to effective phaser range, the damage an 11 ship fleet can do is enormous. This will also facilitate getting close enough to raid the starbase with hit and run raids. Each D6/D7 has 5 transporters, there are more than 40 in the whole fleet. That's a lot of raids to target weapons or power or control spaces. Keep the F5s back, they're most vulnerable to being destroyed.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 09:20 am: Edit

NASTY!

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 01:41 pm: Edit

You are not using ECM, does this mean you are not using EW rules? Further, if EW Rules are not used, are you allowing the use of the special sensors at all? The Starbase has eight special sensors and while they can be an energy sink, one of their uses is as a range 15 ADD. Each special sensor can get three rolls to kill drones. which is before those drones reach normal ADD range.

The Klingon force presented can only control 66 seeking weapons. There are 23 drone racks, all told they hold 92 drones, a total with reloads of 184 drones. In short, the drones are not a problem.

The elimination of EW does present the base with a problem versus disruptors and phaser-2s. The option is to use reserve power to block as much of the damage as possible. Turn #1 that will be 65 points of damage (if I remember correctly). There are 40 disruptors, so on average they will score about 81 damage which leaves 9 points on the shield. So on average if they pound one shield, you will see internal damage on about the third salvo.

This assumes the Klingons stay at Range 15.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 02:45 pm: Edit

Boarding parties. Klingons have 112, plus 110 (each ship buys 10 with commander's options) plus 22, plus 22, (each buys also two commando and two heavy weapons squads with commander's options) for a total of 264. Base has 50, plus 10, plus 4 for a total of 74 boarding parties. HOWEVER. If the base intends to fight to the end, the base can access militia and it will be a blood bath.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 04:23 pm: Edit

Note that the Klingons can use ATG drones to increase their drone swarm size, to an extent.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Requires a certain amount of timing, and the drones do not lock-on until they are eight hexes away from their target.

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Thursday, December 29, 2022 - 09:59 pm: Edit

Game play was delayed today. We encountered a vicious little rodent in the house that seems to have a cloaking device. At first, phasers were set to stun, but we soon upgraded to rodent spray and expanding foam settings. The fight is ongoing.
The fireworks and main rodent assault have slowed for the evening so I'll try to cover where we are at in the Tryouts.
In the beginning, sometime near the dawn of time, we had discussed Game #1 as Standard Rules only. No advanced rules or commanders rules. Unfortunately, we made some assumptions in the haste of wanting to get started. And by we I mean me. Ultimately we settled on SPs, WWs, and everything else Standard Rules only. It's remarkable what one's mind thinks is standard vs advance after so many years. Basically we've been screwing up left and right.
That's really why we are doing 3 games.
To work out the bugs and get familiar with the base assault before we go all in.
Neither me nor my opponent have ever done a Starbase assault, and clearly we are a little rusty anyway.
So that is the very long way of saying, EW is out, Scout Functions are out, and think of this as the technical rehearsal.
I've tried to press the villainous Klingon for details on actions and tactics (to share). I cannot repeat the response given.
All parties concerned agree that the show will go on. No doubt, we have more mistakes to make and more learning experiences to garner from them. Not to mention the awesome advice y'all are donating to the cause!
In my case, I'm deeply divided on my next move. I can certainly take out several shuttles at range 18 with my phaser-4s. That may be enough that I wont even need to WW. But it may not. Depends on the rolls. It also means no p-4s against the Klingons on turn #1.
What to do, what to do?
Finally, I'm truly starting to understand two things.
First, the rules state that each level of rules is balanced against each other and cherry-picking rules can lead to imbalances. This rules-butterfly effect is proving very true.
Second, Steve Petrick recently warned that failing to know the rules can be very costly. That too is haunting me presently.
Anyway, I leave you with the question previously stated:
Do I smoke an F5 for New Years (Turn #1), or pick off the shuttles?

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Friday, December 30, 2022 - 09:04 am: Edit

I'd smoke an F5 and plan to weasel the scatter-packs. There are so many of them out there right now that you can kill an entire flock of birds with one stone. The risk is that they're set to be very staggered launches and you're unarmed for an entire turn. Or at least until several of them have hit.

Don't forget to check the impulse chart and set your WW for a speed that's going to move before impact. You don't want that much collateral damage and moving the WW towards the enemy will save you an impulse or 3 of being unarmed.

Are you giving the EW shift for WWs? Even the "no-EW" tournament rules gives that. If not then it's another one of those spots where the butterfly really hurts you because you're shutting off your offense for very little defense. The more rules you take away, the weaker the lone SB becomes. It relies on a lot of those rules for defense. Just taking away EW is a massive thorn in its side.