To answer your question about other targets, at least in the base game, the Klingons should be able to do it all. A well-planned strike will have at least 200 ships entering the Federation on turn 7, and hopefully more like 220. This should be enough to kill all 3 SB that are in range, kill at least 10 BATS, and take planets 2715, 2106, 2306, and possibly 2403.

If you fail to get enough ships on the border on turn 6, I'd rather give up on some BATS/Planets than on an SB. Hopefully you have more ships soon to follow, and they should be able to kill the BATS you need to kill on a later turn. But on later turns, SB can be tough targets.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 01:56 pm: Edit

I think that's a rather overoptimistic goal. Taking both 4th and 3rd SB on turn seven would seem to require that the Coalition did _really_ well in the early game.

Generally, in games I've been in, the Coalition doesn't have the forces to take three Fed SB on turn seven.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 05:03 pm: Edit

>> thoughts on taking out the Federation starbase in hex 2211 during the initial turn 7 attack?

I generally like the idea of trying to take 2211 on Turn 7. Turn 7 is a tailor made opportunity for the Coalition attack since the Feds have by rule limited ships deployed to defend the SB, so why not take advantage of it? Those SB will probably be much better defended if you wait.

That being said, as Richard mentions, it can depend on the overall situation, the skill of your opponent, and what rules sets you are playing with.

If things went well vs the Hydrans and Kzinti, then the T7 Fed attack follows naturally. Or, if the Coalition player didn't push the Hydrans and Kzinti all that hard, and conserved strength specifically for the T7 Fed attack, then that can work too.

There is also the school of thought that it may be better for the Coalition to wait until Turn 10 to attack the Feds, to allow more time to attack the Kzinti and Hydrans.

Lastly, sometimes players may attack T7 but simply pin out a Fed SB and bypass it, and then come back for it later. If the Coalition can put heavy pressure on inner Fed resources, then the outer SB may just naturally become easy pickings later on.

It all depends on what happens in your particular game.

--Mike

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Richard, for me it happens routinely. The key is to ruthlessly pull forces from the Kzinti front, starting on turn 3, in order to kill the Hydrans on turns 4-5. I play basic game, which I think has a pro-Coalition imbalance. With the expansions, I imagine it's harder.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 09:25 pm: Edit

Do you play against a lot of different people or just Paul? :p

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, December 24, 2022 - 11:43 pm: Edit

Only played the Coalition vs. him once. Other games vs. various. Have yet to meet the Alliance player who is willing to lightly defend Kzintai on A1, who boldly attacks with the Kzinti on turn A2, or who gives up Hydrax in order to put up a stout defense at the SB near the Old Colonies. Any of which I have to admit could lead to unpredictable results.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 11:44 am: Edit

I think I agree with Rich, but the main reason the Coalition can't take three Starbases on Turn 7 is that they need to take the fourth one (Kzinti Marquis Starbase) more than they need to take 2211 or 2204 and they will have problems holding the area around 2204 anyway, while the Marquis area is a natural expansion.

So in any game that isn't out of hand already, 2211 and especially 2204 are luxuries.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 12:53 pm: Edit

Merry Christmas to all at ADB and the F&E Universe… I wish you all the best in health, life, luck, finance, and matters of the heart in the years to come. May all your dice be better than average.

Cheers!

Lar

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 01:13 pm: Edit

As Graham said - 2211 is nice, but probably not the most important SB to kill?

The Marquis one has to go - if it doesn't and the Kzinti are off map, the Kzinti can massively support the Federation..... which also means 2204 needs to go.

2915 is practically undefended on Turn 7 - and also guards Orion space.... so that probably also has to go.

2211 is 'well' defended (it has enough forces to make killing the SB, not easy) on Turn 7 (or should be) - and so is neither Cheap to Kill - or a 'Must die' target.

So, you leave it for the second wave of forces to destroy and when Sol is being defended?

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Yeah, it's worth pointing out that in the initial discussion post about "Should we kill SB 2211 on T7?", the reference to the Hurricane scenario, where they just surround the SB, kind of glosses over that the Klingons in the Hurricane scenario, as presented, have 100 fewer ships than they would if they played the game from T1 up. So don't think real hard about what the Hurricane scenario presents. As it is wildly different than how an actual game plays out.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Oh.

By the way, Peter and anyone else, I would be up for an email game now that "WTTH" is on hold, if someone is interested. Would prefer ANFSCD/WTTH type rules, but flexible.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Hmm. I may take you up on that.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, December 25, 2022 - 07:43 pm: Edit

The Kzinti SB . . .that's what Lyrans are for! Alternatively, after the turn 7 massacre of Fed bases, pushing deeper in on turns 8-9 tends to be challenging. It could be reasonable to kill it then. But it depends on the situation.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, December 26, 2022 - 11:04 am: Edit

>> kill all 3 SB that are in range, kill at least 10 BATS, and take planets 2715, 2106, 2306, and possibly 2403

In my experience this sounds like a real A+ T7 assault. It effectively paves the way for both a northern and southern strategy simultaneously. If these opportunities present themselves then by all means take advantage of them and head for Earth. For the Glory of the Empire! But I don't think all games will consistently present such opportunities?

--Mike

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Tuesday, January 03, 2023 - 11:56 am: Edit

Peter, just shoot me an email if you are interested. I changed jobs and so I have a lot of travel before February 20; that would probably be the most reasonable start time so we have some lead time to think about it if you are interested.

G

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, January 09, 2023 - 10:02 am: Edit

Graham,

Lemme see where I am in February; I may or may not have the mental space to take up a new F+E game at that point, but certainly in the near future if not then!

By Benjamin Lee Johnson (Jedipilot24) on Friday, February 03, 2023 - 01:21 pm: Edit

What is the "Errant Wind" scenario? It's mentioned in a few issues of Captain's Log as a scenario where the General War is delayed until Y173, but no details are given as to why the delay happened or how this would affect the starting OOB's.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Tuesday, February 07, 2023 - 03:27 pm: Edit

I am not immediately seeing LDR Fast ships?
Did they not have them?

If they exist, are there any counters for them (printed)?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, February 07, 2023 - 06:00 pm: Edit

Lawrence, no fast ships have been published for the LDR (including in CL). My F&E Civil Wars countersheets are at home so I can’t check them at the moment, but I’d be surprised if there are any on there - historically they wouldn’t not have been able to produce such engines, and were focused more on creating the opposite if anything: overgunned ships with less operational range. Not to the extend of the WYN, but the LDR’s strategic posture was entirely defensive and for a very limited area, so a fast ship would have been of no value to them.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Tuesday, February 07, 2023 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Did a quick check of my counters; I don't see any LDR fast ships.

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, February 07, 2023 - 06:46 pm: Edit

They didn't have fast ships. They never had a lot of cruisers, and being only three hexes wide in F&E don't really have a lot of need for any.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Friday, February 10, 2023 - 12:18 pm: Edit

I already know that the answer to my question is "it depends" because my question is really about where the situation is along a continuum rather than a black/white situation.

That aside, assuming the Klingons are still relatively bogged down in Hydran and Kzinti space, what are people's thoughts on whether the better option is to launch an offensive with limited resources against the Federation on turn 7 or to wait to be able to launch a stronger attack on turn 8?

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, February 10, 2023 - 01:19 pm: Edit

An attack on turn 8 loses you the chance (on C7) to hit Fed targets before they can reinforce their defenses with Home Fleet, elements of the 5th Fleet and A7 production.

It all depends, but generally you are probably better off squashing the Kzintis/Hydrans and just hold off attacking the Feds until C10 (when you can do a joint massive attack with the Romulans). At least the Feds cannot then use overbuilds or do survey until A10 in such a case (and are limited to 75% eco).

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Thought since they had a raid pool it would be nice for the LDR to have a fast raiding ship. Just in case they wanted to reach out and touch someone 7 hexes away.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Thursday, March 16, 2023 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Is there a scenario index for F&E? I thinking something similar to the SFB scenario index where it lists basic details like title, product, number of players, empires involved, range of years the scenario covers, etc. along with a short description? I know there is a table of contents scenario index that gives the titles, product and rule numbers but it's difficult to remember what a scenario covers just on the basis of that info (especially when it's "Winds this" and "Winds that").