Heh, yeah. There are plenty of ways to scrape up EPs to get those ships out of mothballs.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 02:57 am: Edit

Well, the Klingon Chief Treasurer who failed to scrape the Ep's for 3 Mothball ships is the proud new captain of an E4.....

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 05:59 am: Edit

Real punishment would have been to make him captain of a D6M!

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 07:52 pm: Edit

Real punishment would have been to make him captain of an F5J.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 08:34 pm: Edit

No, in my games, real punishment is reassigning captains to garrison Zamyan (1001) in a crippled E4A (which was assigned after the previous crippled garrison ship was destroyed).

If one isn't needed there, then Zelkrat is next up on the list of 'garrison duties most likely to get unwelcome visitors'.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 05:23 pm: Edit

Well, Operational movement has been completed.

In the north - 902 is under strong attack and 1401 has the bulk the Coalition forces over it.

1304 was avoided.

In the south - 5 BATS are under attack as is 2 SB's (1 is certainly just pinned) and 617 has a light raid on it.

Alas - needed about 12 more ships in the south to do some real damage

Only 7 Hydran ship Equivalents (plus the Old Colonies Fleet - which is now released) are not in battle hexes.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 09:25 pm: Edit

Reserves are dispatched. The Kzinti sent the small reserve to the Count and the big one to Kzintai. The Hydran reserves were at Hydrax and each sent 2FF to a BATS, while otherwise staying put to defend the hex.

The Kzintai reserve is intended not to hold the hex but to provide entertainment to the guests.

At Hydrax, the Coalition have a pretty big edge in hulls (41-24), but their quality is not that high, and the Hydrans have nine CA/CC and also the FCP tug.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, May 09, 2019 - 08:16 am: Edit

William

My Laptop has probably died... and in the short term can't access my main e-mail account

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, May 10, 2019 - 02:40 am: Edit

First....Laptop is currently working (off to buy a new one today)..

Second - can messages (i.e. the above one!) be deleted?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, May 10, 2019 - 07:59 am: Edit

Being fair...I moan when the dice are bad.... and hopefully this will not jinx me... but the dice gods are being very nice.

First two rounds over Kzinti have been 6 v 2 and 6 v 1.... (although William did win the first battle roll over the other major planet 4 v 6!).

Due to the good roll - I was able to maul the second batch of 4 PDU's....even with 14 being owed!*

* And I found a very very sneaky way of increasing your compot during a battle.

Look at what you have! (I somehow counted 2 Lyran DN's when there was 3 there!!)

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, May 11, 2019 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Coalition turn 4 combat is moving along. Kzintai will fall. The Kzinti are taking the opportunity to kill a bunch of big ships. Victims so far are D6M, DN, and 2BC.

The Coalition is killing the Hydran BATS on the Klingon border for light casualties -- typically one crip. We have also resolved a closish battle over a BATS on the Lyran border. The Hydrans lost that, but winning it required the Lyrans to put a bunch of crips on the line, and the Hydrans killed a crippled Lyran CC in the process of losing the BATS.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Monday, May 13, 2019 - 08:44 am: Edit

I have to congratulate Steve Cole on the mauler changes from FE2010, which I have never before had the pleasure to use. They do noticeably weaken maulers, and I'm fine with that. They also make BIR decisions more interesting as there is frequently a guessing game involved. The side with the mauler wants to go high so they can maul, but if their opponents also go high, the BIR may get higher than they would like.

Twice now, the Kzinti have been the ones with a mauler, which they would love to use but obviously don't want to get blown up. The Kzinti had a lot of minus points, so the minimum Coalition damage percentage to kill it was 35% or 37.5%. The main thing for the Kzinti was therefore to make sure the BIR didn't end up at 7+. The Kzinti choice has been to go with BIR 1, so that Paul could get a small chance of killing it by picking BIR 4, which would also probably allow the mauler to be used. Paul has also gone low, leaving the mauler unusable on a VBIR other than "6" but also safe from dirdam.

But the main point is that the 2010 rules create some interesting dynamics.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, May 13, 2019 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Well, I must have jixed it!

Last round I did a net of 4 damage (13 with 9 owed!)

Dice have flipped -

5 v 6, 3 v 5, 2 v 6 nd 1 v 4 in the last 4 rounds!

SB is up to 4 SIDS (self inflicted) - but I would have expected another 4 or so Kzinti cripples at this point.

On to round 11!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 02:06 pm: Edit

And dice go from bad to worse!

I think William has rolled higher in 6 of the last 7 rounds over 1401 (and the same in the other on - over the capital planet average is 3.5 v 3.8, so not hugely different (I did roll well for 3 rounds).

and over 617 I rolled 1,1 & 4 v 6,3 & 4!

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - 10:41 pm: Edit

It's true. Lately, the roller sees Paul as Gollum sees Bilbo Baggins.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 08:43 am: Edit

I think it's because Paul gets so excited and fusses so much about his bad luck. The roller, the fates, what have you, they just like messing with him. Kind of like a dog that smells fear is likely to attack, or a cat who sees a bolting mouse and wants to play. Paul gets bad luck, despairs, and the dark gods of luck rejoice.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 09:42 am: Edit

See what sending out them negative waves did, Moriarty Raven?

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 10:47 pm: Edit

The Battle of Hydrax has taken an interesting turn. After the good Hydran rolls on round 1, they decided to take most of their damage on fighters and empty the SB, figuring he probably wouldn't come into the capital. Paul has responded by coming into the capital! He has even managed to scrape up a 100-compot line with a mauler. The Hydrans are down 30 fighters, so they won't have homeless fighters. In theory this will allow him to come in again next turn, though the quality of his remaining line would be an issue.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 03:00 am: Edit

Indeed - the horrible dice in round 1 over 617 has meant no planets (probably) will be devastated...

and with the SB without fighters, I felt 12 less compot was worth the risk.

And the dice were nice for once.

William and I have been bouncing the BIR around a bit and VBIR went up - and I got 32.5% (needed 30%) and so 4 PDU's have been Mauled.

Hydrans rolled a 1 (v my 4) and only did 57 damage....Mauler is probably dead.

Over Hoplishka though, roll was 3 v 6 - so my mixed battered force (including a cripple D7 flagship*) will get beat up.

* - I crippled the wrong ships in round 1 and to get to 100 compot over the capital I needed to have all my big ships there - and that meant the crippled D7 was all that I had left!).

The diversion did pull a few ships from the Capital attack though (/reduced the Hydran line - as William included 2 crippled KN's in it - which allowed him to use the mobile FF's in Hoplishka

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 07:02 pm: Edit

The Hydrax raid is over. Hydran losses are 4PDU over Hydrax plus a side PDU and 3 crips. Coalition losses are CC, 2E4, and 15 crips.

The Kzintai battle is slowly grinding towards its inevitable conclusion. Coalition compot has dropped. But the number of places the Kzinti have to put damage has dropped faster. The Coalition will have the hex.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 08:00 am: Edit

… I think we just got our first 50% damage....

and William got it.

Pinning battle and we both picked BIR 4.... roll is 656.

WIlliam had over 30 fighters and I needed 25% to kill an escort.... hence I went high!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 11:12 am: Edit

It would appear the Hydrans have full access to Coalition High Command Plans …

…as with the last two SB approach Battles - VBIR went up 2 and Hyrans rolled 6's!

The pinning battles have been brutal!

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 12:53 pm: Edit

….. News flash...

After 17 rounds of combat...Kzintai has fallen.

The evil Patriarch Pretender to the throne was seen fleeing to the Barony and as Coalition Liberation forces arrived on the system planets, they were welcomed as Liberators.

….end news flash ….

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 04:16 pm: Edit

And turn 4 combat has ended.

In the North, the Kzinti are split into area, Barony, Marquis and the two SB's at 902 and 1304.

Although it was a sub par defending force at 902 - my forces were about 6 CW's short of having a good shot at killing it - and it's pretty easy for the forces to get back into supply - I withdrew.

In the south - the Hydrans are split in two, the main area and a pocket around 714/716.

716 forces are down 6 Fighters but that's about it.

No real economic damage was done to the Hydrans

(and the two SB approach battles were truly brutal on the Coalition - the modest Southern Front battle damage to that point in effect got doubled )

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, May 18, 2019 - 04:33 pm: Edit

Summarizing the combat:

At the beginning of combat, it was already clear that Kzintai was doomed. The Kzinti chose to kill 7 big ships with dirdam and got a CC mauled in return. They stayed a long time to inflict max damage on the Coalition.

During the later part of the battle, the Kzinti were putting the captured mauler on the line most rounds, then going low on the BIR as they didn't want the mauler to get directed. I figured that even if Paul also went low on BIR, which he did, sooner or later the VBIR would be 6 and they could maul something. That never happened. No big deal as a starting BIR of 2 with a bunch of minus points did not allow any chance of getting the mauler killed, either.

Coalition dead: 3DN, 2BC, and 2D6M.
Coalition crips: 76EP
Kzinti dead: CC, 12PDU, SB. Of the PDU, eight were on Kzintai.
Kzinti crips: 41EP

Including all fronts, the Coalition has roughly 100 crips total.

It appears that the Coalition wants to turn its focus South and may not be hitting the Feds on turn 7. I'm not sure yet, but that's how it looks right now. With major Coalition fleets in the North and also a Coalition repair problem, it looks like the Hydrans should be able to defend themselves reasonably well on Coalition turn 5. If he does go South, that is likely to change on turn 6 and certain to change by Coalition turn 7.