Archive through October 10, 2021
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Archive through October 10, 2021
CT8 (I keep accidentally writing "CT7", but it is actually CT8).
Battle is now underway over 0617 and the Hydran homeworld (there are no fixed defenses, just ships, but Hydrax is currently undevastated).
A couple rounds in, the Klingons are hovering around 125 compot (including a command point and drone bombardment and Lyran BCs); the Hydrans are in the mid 130's. On the first round (non approach) round, the Klingons hit a 6 (Hydrans got 3), but instead of taking the free autokill, they vaporized the Hydran TGS (leaving the Hydrans with only an LAS and some PGS/SC in the hex); the Hydrans in return shot down the Klingons D5S. Next round, the Klingons again rolled better than the Hydrans (a 3 vs a 1) and they'll probably start burning down cruisers.
The Hydrans started the fight with 137.5+[39] fighters; the Klingons have 89 (a bunch of Auxes; this time we'll remember the actual slow retreat rules if it comes up :-)
CT8
The battle over 0617 is now into R10. The Coalition have been dutifully blowing up Hydran cruisers, and the Hydrans have been blowing up whatever big ships the Coalition put on the line.
The Hydrans have lost, so far, like a TGS, 6DG, HR, and currently have RNs on the line for the first time. The Coalition have lost something like 3BC, 2CC, D5, D5S, STJ. The Hydrans have lost over half their (140+) fighters; the Coalition still have over half their ~90 fighters and have taken about 10 cripples, but are running low on ships over compot 8.
Probably in for a long haul here.
CT8
And...at the end of 13 rounds of combat (and a declined approach), the Hydrans fled the capital, losing their homeworld and shipyard.
The Coalition blew up the Dragoons, and then when the Dragoons were gone, they blew up a RN (and then I decided I didn't want to lose all of those), and then they blew up HRs, and then I decided to keep some of them alive, and then I ran out of fighters, and wasn't planning on fighting till I was demolished anyway, so left the system, leaving 3 Auxes to die (LAV, LAS, SAS; the rest moved to SB 0215 recently).
In all, the carnage over Hydrax was:
Coalition lost 3BC, 2CC, STJ, 2CW, D5S, 2D5, F5L, F5 and took 14 cripples. And burned up about 60 fighters.
Hydrans lost TGS, 6DG, RN, 4HR, SC. And lost 140 fighters. And also the LAV, LAS, SAS, and an unused MB that never got moved.
On the down side, the Hydrans no longer have a shipyard. On the upside, their fleet is still largely intact (if down a lot of cruisers), and in supply on planet 0718 (they still have a path to the Old Colonies as well). And SB 0215 is still alive. And I made a mint on salvage?
Dice were pretty even, and the Coalition rolled a little better; they got a few more 6's than the Hydrans; they had the opportunity to take 2 free autokills, but declined them to kill big ships instead; the Hydrans did score a free autokill and took it when it showed up.
Any chance 617 can be recaptured or targets deeper into Coalition space threatened from 718?
(Although Coalition nearly has as many fighters as the Hydrans - they might need to spread them out).
Not huge - but could the Hydrans have self killed the LAS and SAS during normal the normal battles?
Maybe? Depends on what the Coalition leave in 0617? The whole Hydran fleet can get there on AT8 if they are inclined.
Self killing the LAS/SAS/LAV before running wouldn't have accomplished much; it would have saved a few fighters that I ran out of anyway, and unless I missed a rule on salvage somewhere (which is certainly possible), them dying alone over the homeworld on the last round still generates salvage, so mostly irrelevant.
Wow; just wow. The Hydrans definitely took it on the chin there.
Well, I mean, they can put cruisers on the line, or not. If not, they have a compot of, like, 60. I saved every cruiser I had till the battle for the capital, and kept it a turn longer than usual.
I could have dropped damage instead of directing ships back, and that probably would have saved me a shipyard for another turn, but, well, then I still would have lost 8+ cruisers, and not killed a comparable number of Coalition ships.
If the Hydrans are fighting with cruisers? They are going to lose cruisers. The Coalition had a compot in the 105-120 range the whole fight (even after I sank every ship in the hex with an attack factor over 8 that wasn't the C8 on the line), they were going to hit 22-24 damage every round (and often did way more than that).
There really isn't a way that something else was going to happen here :-)
Did the Hydrans get good return for losing the cruisers though? I'd say, not really. Might have been better just to do a single round and get out, keep the Coalition worried about all those CAs.
Maybe, maybe not. Seems like giving up the shipyard after 1 round is a terrible idea, however, especially as having a lot of cruisers doesn't do anything if you never put them in a fight.
Exactly. If Peter saved his cruisers his COMPOT would have been very small and I would have taken the Capital with minimal losses.
He still has a bunch of RN which will end up on 0215 and I will again have to take large losses to get rid of it.
I think all those cruisers would have been better at 0215 where destroying them would have exacted a higher price than fighting over 0617 with no defenses. YMMV.
I didnt have the numbers to take out both. Every turn I look and see if I can get 0215 and the Capital... and every turn I realise I would be slaughtered.
Next turn he will have 5xRN plus an HR/LN battlegroup on 0215 dealing out ridiculous amounts of damage. I dont think his defence of the Capital hurts the defence of 0215.
I mean, I guess the question is whether the Hydrans were ever going to want to put up a durable cruiser line of their own on an Alliance turn. There are enough cruisers left to make 0215 painful.
But one has to think that maybe the Kommandant at SB 0411 is reading the reports of this engagement with barely disguised relief.
The Hydrans still have 3PAL, 2LGE, BT, 5CC, 5RN, 5HR, 9TR, plenty of KN/LN, and 5 or so CVs. I think they'll do fine over 0215 if the Coalition come to kill it any time soon.
It wasn't at all impossible that the Coalition were going to blink first and I'd keep the shipyard another turn by fighting those 13 rounds and losing cruisers. It was a reasonable gamble.
Standing there toe to toe while a bit suspect is one thing trading directed damage adds another level.
I mean T8 Hydran fall means the Alliance is likely (winning might be too strong a word) on other fronts. For sure the new OffMap Hydran SY will not see a shiny new ship off the rollers until T15 at the earliest. That said, if the Hydrans started MinorSY (Say a CW yard or two successive FF yards) on 4 they should be up and running already.
We aren't using minor shipyards in this game (this is 2K10, FO, CO, AO, minus a few fiddly rules mostly to make PBEM easier and to balance out the missing ones).
The Hydran's new shipyard will be up on T14 (start on T8, finish on T13), so they'll get *two* turns of, ahem, "full" econ builds :-)
CT8
On the Fed front, Fed starbase 2211 went down in 5 rounds; the Feds had about 35 ships, but not a ton of damage absorption; the Klingons had twice as many ships. The Klingons opened with a high BIR 6 and they dropped an autokill on us, while the Feds rolled a 1 in return, which wasn't a great start :-)
The Klingons just dropped a lot of damage, the Feds crippled some stuff, lost fighters, and steadily self hit SIDS a pair at a time till they were out of frigates to cripple and fighters. In return they killed a handful of ships (including a spite D6S on the last round) and escaped with most of their fleet intact.
Maybe one or two minor battle hexes left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkBPP5c63q0
Excuse me this was a great moment for the Coalition !!
Peter normally does the losses and cripples, but I will have a crack (he is WAY better at this than me):
Cripples
Klingons: 2xD7, 3xD5, 3xF5L, 2xF5, AD5, F5E
Lyrans: 2xCW, 2xDW
Federation: 6xFF
Hydrans: None
Kzinti: None
Losses
Klingons: D6M, D6S, D5S, 6xD5, F5L, F5
Lyrans: 3xBC, 3xCC, STJ, 2xCW, CL, FF
Federation: SB, BATS, 2xPDU, CL, 2xFF
Hydrans: Capital Shipyard, LAV, LAS, SAS, TGS, 6xDG, RN, 4xHR, SC, HN
Kzinti: FF
The Neutral planet in 1910 was also taken by the Klingons.
I think it is quite clear that the Kzinti are not carrying the load for the Alliance. If I were the Supreme Commander Allied Forces I would very much consider dropping the Kzinti from the alliance.
In addition to the above the Klingons did 16 rounds of DBB so have a 19.2 EP bill for drone bombardment too.
Losses are not too bad for the Coalition then - number of cripples is certainly manageable.
You need to read the Kzinti Media more though as no doubt 'thousands of brave Kzinti Fighter Pilots' also died in defending Alliance territory 
The Hydrans do have a problem though - where can they now use a second (or third) Pal or the LGE's?
They are far too valuable to be directed on over a SB - and it's going to be a long time before they will get to build any more of them ('never', is never good for you?*)
Converting the Pal's to ID's will protect them in due course - and it also allows a LGE to go in form (or raid)…. but I can't see them being used in normal battles unless the chance of them dying is very minimal (which means the VBIR and the Coalition roll will always be good enough to kill them ).
* - Yes, when the Shipyard is built, new ones can be made for the equivalent of 22 Ep's is pretty much a turns of income - but which do you want, 1 x Pal or 2 x RN and 1 x HR etc?
In my last game I went with as many CU as I could build, so that the Coalition had to keep sending ships to the Hydran Capital and the 0411 SB.
I think I ended up with over 150 CU. Possibly more. And the Coalition had to have a similar number of FF and E4.
Eventually I took 0416, held it, then attacked 0411 and destroyed it... on T34. The Hydrans did nothing between T7 and T33. Except multiply.
Having 3PALs means you can field 3 solid nuisance battle lines (i.e. PAL+2 carrier groups+FFs).
Paul wrote:
>>Losses are not too bad for the Coalition then - number of cripples is certainly manageable. >>
Oh, certainly. Lots of ships exploded, not a ton got crippled, but that is generally what happens in our games anyway (i.e. lots and lots of ship death, less "I drop damage"). The Coalition were pretty conservative this turn, focusing on a couple big fights, rather than lots of small fights where more things get crippled.
The Hydrans could have dropped damage over the homeworld, probably saved it another turn, but would have lost 8+ cruisers anyway, so I wanted to keep ship number loss similar. The Feds could have dropped damage over SB 2211, but the SB still would have died, and the Coalition were dropping damage, so I took the extra hull kills instead (and on the last round when the SB was ending up crippled with 2 SIDs left, I scored enough damage to spitefully kill a D6S in scout box, so I did).
CT8
Combat is over!
Just to reiterate what Jason wrote above:
In Hydran space, the Hydrans lost their capital and shipyard; rescued planet 0718 (only 'cause the Coalition decided after the fact that they wanted me retreating there, so I killed an FF when I got there); got an FF killed in southern Lyran space, and still have SB 0215 unharmed.
In Kzinti space, not much happened. The Lyrans moved a lot of ships to planet 1504 and were repulsed from planet 1001 by timely reserves.
In Fed space, SB 2211 went down, the Klingons captured planet 1910, recaptured planet 2106, killed BATS 2612, captured planet 2715, and were scared away from BATS 2414 (by a modest reserve showing up).
Ships Killed:
ZIN: FF
HYD: 6DG, RN, TGS, 4HR, HN, SC, LAV, LAS, SAS
FED: CL, 2FF
LYR: 3BC, 2CC, STJ, 2CW, CL, FF
KLI: D6M, D6S, 6D5, D5S, F5L, F5
Feds lost a SB, BATS, minor planet (2PDU). Hydrans lost their shipyard (and an inactive MB that never got moved).
Alliance lost 18 ships, 3 Auxes.
Coalition lost 21 ships.
CT8
The turn is over!
On the Hydran front, the Coalition pulled most of their ships back to the 0815 staging area, leaving only a token occupation force in 0617. They spent 36 EPs on field repair in 0815 and sent a dozen ships as 2 reserves there as well. 0815 has about 150 SEQ in it capable of reacting out to pin a Hydran incursion. There are also 43 Lyrans at SB 0411, protecting it from attack from the Hydran 2nd Fleet at SB 0215.
On the Kzinti front, most Coalition forces are in/around planet 1407. There are about 110 SEQ in/around 1407, including 3 strong reserves. Planets 1105, 1504, and a lot of provinces are held. 2 Kzinti capital planets (Zaforma, Strikus, both minor) recover this turn.
On the Fed front, the Klingons again mostly pulled back to the Klingon border, leaving small occupation forces on planets 2106 and 2715, and holding a bunch of provinces. There are large fleets at BATS 1811, BATS 1813, BATS 2215, and BATS 2416. There are moderate reserves at BATS 1807 and planet 1916.
Map:
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/SCD4CT8end.html