Historically, during several periods of "peace" between the Romulans and Gorns, the former would launch a series of "privateer" raids across the border. These would be either outright denied by the Romulan government, or explained away as rogue actors who did not act on behalf of the Empire itself. (That said, it has been noted that the Romulans' hold over the outermost regions of the Empire can be a somewhat tenuous one, as there simply aren't enough Romulans to fully colonize these regions, and fewer viable worlds per map hex for them to colonize than can be found in Federation or Klingon space.)

On the Federation-Romulan border, this kind of "privateer" activity was somewhat rarer than on the Gorn-Romulan border, until the number of such raids rose sharply in the years leading up to the Day of the Eagle. There's an historical monograph in Captain's Log #39 and in Away Team Log which depicts the increasingly convoluted means by which the Romulan ambassador on Earth sought to deflect a growing tide of accusations levelled at his government by the Federation Foreign Minister.


In Federation and Empire terms, I wonder how, or if, such "privateer" raids could, if players so wished, be integrated into an historical campaign, or perhaps run as a smaller scenario setup in and of itself.

One could detach ships from the appropriate border fleet (or from elsewhere in the Empire, so as to provide a degree of "plausible deniability") in order to operate such raids. One could even go so far as to portray a "rogue" operation the way the Romulan Ambassador would have you believe it as being: with a "neutral" world in Romulan space (such as Revlis, an Orion-influenced "free planet" in F&E hex 4018) as a base of operations for the "privateer" forces.

For one thing, this might allow Romulan players to have something to do before Turn #10 of the historical Grand Campaign - and Gorn players to have something to do before Turn #12, if one allows for "privateer" raids into Gorn space.


In short, would the pre-existing rule and scenario options be enough to account for these Romulan "privateer" raids in F&E, or might there be some further means of enabling them to take place?

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Rule 314.3 allows exactly that. The Romulans are allowed to conduct a limited number of raids in Fed space after the Klingons invade.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 04:54 pm: Edit

Such rules already exist...

From the F&E scenario 'Winds of Fire':

---

Quote:

(314.3) PRE-WAR RAIDS.
The Romulans conducted a series of "privateer" raids into the Federation during the period before their invasion. These rules reflect this campaign.

(314.31) ASSIGNMENT: The Romulans may assign ships from the Home Fleet to their Raiding Pool starting with Turn #7. No ships of size-class 2 can be assigned until the Romulans are at war. (The Shrike DNL is the only sizeclass-2 Romulan ship that could be sent on a raid as of the publication of this product.)

(314.32) TARGETS: The Romulans can conduct raids into the Federation (only). They cannot raid Tholian, Gorn, or other territory.

(314.33) LIMIT: The Romulans may use a maximum of three ships per turn for pre-war raids.

(314.34) REPAIRS of damaged ships, if made, would have to be paid for by canceling PWC to raise money.

(314.35) KLINGONS: If the Klingons do not attack the Federation on Turn #7 (triggering Federation Limited War to support the Kzintis) but are still at war with the Kzintis, the Klingons may use the above rules to raid theFederation. As the Klingons are "at war" they do not need to cancel PWC to repair damaged raiders. They may NOT use ships of the East Fleet for these raids.

---

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 07:15 pm: Edit

On (314.34), if there is diplomatic income, can the Romulans use that instead of cancelling PWC?

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 07:26 pm: Edit

Stew, the Romulans could use their diplomatic income for repairs.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, April 17, 2020 - 09:30 pm: Edit

Thank you for the clarification regarding the pre-existing rules.

That said, I have a few follow-on comments:

*(314.33) as quoted above limits "privateer" raids to three ships per turn. However, (SH20.0) in Star Fleet Battles Advanced Missions features one such raid in Y172 involving four Romulan ships at a time. I don't recall if there are any other "privateer" scenarios in a published SFB module, and/or in an issue of Captain's Log. In any case, if a three-ship limit isn't quite enough to account for the historical scale of these raids, should the limit be raised? (Perhaps it could be set on a sliding scale, increasing in number the closer one gets to the invasion proper.)

*(314.32) bars the Romulans from raiding Gorn or other (non-Fed) territory. However, (SH20.0) also refers to similar raids being launched against the Gorns in this time period. (Perhaps this was a case of the Romulans keeping their options open...) Might there be a case for adjusting the F&E rule to account for this - or even providing a similar rule to cover the long history of "privateer" raids against the Gorns?

*Over in any of the "Mapsheet P" timelines to be explored in the proposed "lost empires" module, might there be a means of accounting for similarly regular raids by the Romulans against the Gorns and/or the ISC?

*To expand upon the previous note, the "lost empire" Paravians had a similarly hostile posture against both the Gorns and the ISC; they may not have necessarily used the "privateer" excuse, yet the absence of Limited or Full War did not mean the end of hostilities for them either. So, could (or should) the above rules be opened up to cover "peacetime" raids by the Paravians - or, for that matter, by other empires with similarly hostile borders (Kzinti and Lyran, either empire and Carnivon, etc)?

By Alan De Salvio (Alandwork) on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 02:37 pm: Edit

I would suggest that such raids (small Rom vs Gorn) are below the threshold of F&E. Much like the constant harassment of the Tholians by the Klingons - there is constant low level activity, but not enough to merit the attention of the player in a strategic game.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, April 24, 2020 - 12:31 pm: Edit

There was a proposal quite a while back made by Chris Fant and myself to try and add a few flavorful raids of significance straight out of the SFB history. Specifically The Surprise Reversed and various other the early notable raids. If forget them all.

While fun, they were also deemed too granular and beneath the scope of this game level (despite our comparison to other granularity items such as individual admirals, special PF groups, one-off ships, and the E&S team missions as a few examples). A line has to be drawn somewhere I suppose.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, April 24, 2020 - 01:11 pm: Edit

I was thinking of the Tholian Border Squadron, as well as other forces on hostile borders.

There are a number of notable attacks on border bases featured in various SFB scenarios, such as (SH6.0); as well as others featuring successful Orion attacks on border bases, such as (SH8.0). They seemed more common back when the borders were lined with base stations rather than battle stations, as those were easier to target and more awkward to replace.

Might those "peacetime" attacks be notable enough to perhaps account for at the F&E level?