Federation Commander

[Klingon of Gor]

I'm told in SFB they had to come up with purpose built ships for this, but then I gather bases back then were tougher nuts to crack.

This seems to be the justification for the Klingon dreads, which seem less useful to me otherwise than an equivalent weight of cruiser and battlecruiser sized ships. The extra hull and system boxes make them harder kills, which is necessary when closing with something armed with phaser 4s, and the extra power is useful for suicide shuttles, which you will want.

Kzinti, who can put out a blizzard of drones, would seem to be well advised to come in with or behind a drone wave, to occupy the enemy's weapons. Klingons can't put out quite as many drones, so with them an approach under EM seems more promising, in order to mitigate the damage caused by the phaser 4s on the way in. You can't dance around with a base, the phaser 4s out you on the clock, so you have to close, and disruptors aren't the best thing to close with. The C7s and up have large banks of phaser 1s, which are very useful at close range and hit more reliably than disruptors. So get to range five or less, where you can transporter raid, accept that you're going to get bloodied, and get to work. It looks to be a simple and brutal problem.
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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Philip K Dick

[Sneaky Scot]

I think what you're referring to is the apocryphal tale of the G.O.D in his Klingon Commander role assaulting a Tholian Base hidden behind webs. Many of the conventional tactics don't pan out here, so it is rumoured that the mighty Mauler was born to trash the base in a single devastating but glorious burst of energy!There are some playtest rules for Maulers somewhere, but i think they are a definite BoM product.

In rough terms, a mauler ship replaces the majority of its weapons with batteries that are tied into the mauler weapon. It then packs further batteries into whatever space is available,and for a final bit of fun, ties the engines into the mauler as well. The batteries discharge in groups to the weapon, and some of the engine boxes used to actually fire the mauler would be destroyed. In SFB, the mauler was often targeted by enemy fleets in an attempt to get it to explode in the middle of your formation for a fair bit of damage. However, if you got close, you could trsah your tagret with a single shot of mauler fire.

In SFB the Klingons, Romulans, Lyrans and Andromedans use Maulers. The WYN built one as part of the Usurper's plan to reclaim the Kzinti throne.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......

[jmt]

[Bolo_MK_XL]

New Light Cruiser Drone ships are available in a Booster, along with Escorts for Empires without Drones ---