Venue: Boardgames club meeting at Clifton Road Games, Exeter, UK
As you will no doubt have gathered from my other thread at http://www.starfleetgames.com/federatio ... php?t=1256 , we played this scenario with the rules interpretation that the Romulans had to stay cloaked for the first four impulses of the game, and had been 'Stopped' at the start, thus limiting their maneuver options.
The game is basically three Romulan War Eagles [WEs] vs. a Federation CL. The Fed has to survive for four game turns while remaining within 20 hexes of a small planet at the centre of the board. The Roms have to try to kill him. Simple.
Each Romulan War Eagle was played by a separate player, two of these players were veterans of several games of FC, one was a new player. The Fed player was also a veteran of several games of FC.
The game began with a bit of smart maneuvering by the WE that begins the game under the Fed's guns; moving out of the Fed CL's primary weapons arc [not that he was going to fire his photons at the cloaked ship anyway!] while the other WE's closed in. I had one of the WEs; I decloaked in Impulse 5, stupidly, only one hex behind the CL and facing in the wrong direction. Idiot - I'd forgotten he carries drones
. Drone impacted at the end of the fade-in impulse, for 9 damage on the #4 shield. As I wasn't planning on pointing that shield at him anytime soon, I elected not to reinforce.Both of the other WEs decloaked at the same time as I did; the CL also hit one of the other WEs with all bearing phasers, causing minimal damage, and turned off to extend the range.
At the end of the turn, the Fed CL had reached Range 5 from our group of WEs, which were bunched pretty close together; we each fired all Phaser-1s at him and dropped his #4 shield for about 8-10 internals after armor hits.
At the start of Turn 2, we suspected he'd go Speed 24 because our Plasmas would be ready to eat. One of the WEs had six power in his batteries so we set him to speed 24 and the other two to speed 16.
This was because we knew that he couldn't run forever because he had to stay within 20 hexes of the planet, so we were reasonably sure of catching him sometime this turn, despite us being only Speed 16. The Speed 24 ship would give us some tactical flexibility.
What actually happened was that the Fed selected Speed 16 and HETed back towards us. The plan was elegant in its simplicity - blow through our group on the first impulse and be outside our plasma arcs by the Launch phase.
Perhaps if he'd selected a higher speed, or begun the maneuver a couple of hexes closer, it would have worked. However, we just used decels to hold position and finished the first impulse at one hex range and facing the CL's #1 shield. The Fed unloaded his alpha strike on one of the WEs, for a good few internals including the R-torp. Hwever we remembered the 'launching from a disabled launcher' rule and, although the torp was only armed to 'S' strength, it was launched nonetheless - a tractor applied by the launching WE anchored him with no reply as all of his power had been used in his alpha strike.
My R-torp followed; the CL was gutted with only a couple of boxes remaining, and with the third WE loaded and ready to fire with the CL anchored, so the Fed conceded.
The Fed's HET and blow-through trick was a ballsy idea which might have worked had he had a bit more power to spend. Our Turn 1 phaser fire had reduced his power slightly, but enough to the point where it wasn't really going to have much chance of working, unfortunately. Still, in other circumstances, it might be a viable move....
Lessons:
1) Keep speed up around plasma-armed opponents;
2) This scenario could perhaps have been won by the Fed, but he'd have to keep out away from the Roms and at a decent speed
3) Rom WEs are not very well powered if you want to go fast. The Fed could have won the speed race, had one occured.
4) Should be Rule Number One for all FC players: NEVER run out of power!!
5) Same as 4) above, but it is so important that I thought I'd better mention it twice
PS - Sorry there's no photos of this battle, but Davec_24 has taken his miniatures home with him
!!Paul, I hope this summarises the battle adequately. Please feel free to chip in as you want!
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