Federation Commander

Scenario: Adaptation of 'Attack on Battle Station K3' [Klingon Attack, (8K3)]

Venue: Boardgames club meeting at Clifton Road Games, Exeter, UK. Perhaps we'll have to call ourselves 'Battlegroup Exeter' or something

For this scenario we went with the recommendations in the 'Force Dynamics' section of the scenario, and used the following forces:

Defender: Kzinti Battle Station [BATS] [Variable weapons: 3xDisr, 2xDrn, 'slow' rotation], 1xMedium Cruiser [CM], 2xlarge freighter [F-L].

Attackers: Gorn ships - Light Cruiser [G-CL], Battle Destroyer [G-BDD], Destroyer [G-DD], and one small suicide freighter [SF].

Players: Jon, a veteran FC player, took the G-DD; Rob, an ex-SFB player playing his first game of FC, took the G-BDD; James, a newcomer to the SF Universe, took the G-CL; Me [Tony, vet FC player and rules lawyer ] as all the Kzinti ships and base; and Paul [vet FC player] administrating the game very efficiently.

Scales: Squadron, large hexes.

Objectives: Gorn: destroy Kzinti base, Kzinti: defend base. If base destroyed, use victory points system to determine victory; if not, Kzintis win.

Turn 1 opened with all the Gorns doing speed 8 while they warmed up their plasmas. I decided to play aggressively: the CM went off obliquely towards the Gorns at spd 16 and the F-Ls went off on the other oblique at speed 8. My objective was to get at least one of the F-Ls past the Gorn warships and into a position to tractor the SF.

The Gorns put all three of their warships into the same hex and advanced slowly towards the base. I sent the CM on an attempt to get in behind them; for a couple of impulses, the Gorns pointed their ships at the CM forcing it to turn off, but once they had resumed their original course, the CM simply turned back in again.

For this part of the turn, I was hoping to draw off one or two of the warships and divide their forces, but they decided not to let this happen. Had they done so, I would have enjoyed the chance of tying up all their Phaser-1 fire in defending against my drones.

At the end of Impulse 7, the freighters were about 5 hexes from the Gorn warships and about 11 hexes from the base, so the CL dropped an F-L's shield with phasers and scored phaser, hull, battery hits. All Gorns then transported Marines on to the freighter in a capture attempt, something I hadn't thought of !

All Gorn ships then turned away from the freighters on Imp#8 to turn the dropped shields away from a) the freighters, which still hadn't fired, and b) the BATS. At this point, all direct fire weapons were fired, the Gorns scoring damage on my previously undamaged freighter, and the BATS, freighters and CM all concentrating on the G-CL, scoring modest internals. The BATS launched a 4-drone wave at the SF, whilc the CM launched a 4-drone wave at the G-DD.

On Impulse #1 of Turn 2, the Gorns sped up their SF to speed 16, while their main warships went at speed 8. Their objective was to get into plasma range by the later part of the turn [they discussed this quite openly among themselves!]. My CM was spd 16, the freighters spd 8. At the end of Impulse #1, I launched another two drones from the BATS and two from the CM, at the same targets as before, so all the CM's drones were on the SF, and all the BATS drones were on the CL.

Impulse#2 saw my freighters get to range 1 on the SF and one of them tractored it; the SF did not have sufficient power remaining to counter the tractor due to baseline speed and accels used.

A couple of impulses later, the drones arrived at their targets. The six drones on the CL were neutralised by a combination of phasers and tractors at Range 1, by the Gorn squadron as a whole. Good defence in numbers. The SF was completely destroyed, my anchor preventing all movement and maneuver by the SF. Meanwhile the CM got in behind the CL and hit it with overloaded disruptors and three phaser-1's, scoring moderate internals.

However this was all to no avail. The Gorns had reached range 8 from the base and decided that this was the correct time to launch plasma. Five torps ran in and impacted for a total of 116 [1xF, 2xS, 2xG], reduced to 62 by combined P-4 and P-3 fire. Quite a reduction, in fact. This was further reduced to a mere 18 internals by 30 shield boxes, 7 reinforcement and 9 armor. A plasma strike of over 100 points reduced to 18 internals. Impressive; most impressive. But you are not a Jedi yet.... This however was of little comfort as the Gorn ships got more torps in arc and lobbed 4 Pl-F's - 2 for 32 damage and then another 2 for 40 damage. This time, the base survived, but only barely - all reactors destroyed and only one P-4 left operational. Once again, the ability of the BATS to absorb damage is tremendous. Finally two volleys of phaser fire, one for 23 points and one for 21, left the station in a pretty bad way.

Now we had got to the end of Turn 2 and although my ships were intact, the BATS would most likely have been clobbered good and proper by phasers next turn.

It might have survived, it might not - there was still a lot of cargo and hull to destroy, and five of the shields were still untouched, since all of the damage had come in through the single downed shield. However I would probably have been able to cripple or destroy one of the Gorn ships - but only one - so the Victory Points margin would not have been good enough for me, so I conceded.

Lessons learned: Priority of targets. Should have targeted the warships first; if nothing else, the SF could have been tractored by the base on impact.

Also, the idea of the SF having a 250-point warhead was sufficiently scary to make me hedge my bets - both going for the anchor, which could conceivably have held the SF indefinitely if the warships were tied up attacking the base, AND launching lots of drones at it. Looking back, those drones would have been better all being launched at the CL along with the CM's drones.

Therefore, once again, drone firepower needs to be concentrated, especially when attacking an enemy ship in close formation with others. The 12 drones of the first two 'waves' of six should all have been targeted on one of the warships, preferably the CL. Destroying or crippling one of the warships on Turn 1 would have made the difference between life and death for the BATS. The BATS is a surprisingly tough target, even for plasma. The P-4's can shred incoming torpedoes; the BATS suffered so badly mainly because there were so many torpedoes fired and it couldn't turn a fresh shield to the attack.

Phaser-4's can be used on plasma just as well after impact since their Range 1 damage is the same as Range 0 damage.

The attackers did the right thing in concentrating on the base. This is the main objective after all. And Plasma is very effective against a non-moving target, my above comments notwithstanding.

Finally, perhaps setting the base for fast rotation [2 facing changes per turn] would have better complicated the attackers' approach.

About the game itself. Our two 'novice' players picked up the game quickly, partly due to its relative 'simplicity in complexity', and partly because of Paul's effective training style. Either way, the guys were able to concentrate on their tactics - where they wanted to move and what they wanted to do - rather than the mechanics of actually dong it.

I myself don't necessarily think that the scenario is that unbalanced. I would have achieved the win had I been the Gorns but I may well win as the defender next time, as I have more experience now.

However, I did not like the fixed map rules - it severely hindered my movement and, in the face of potential plasma attacks on my ship, this is not a good thing. The scenario should specify a floating map; we will play it as such next time. For the information of those readers who do not have Klingon Attack, the map is fixed, and any ships leaving the map within 25 hexes of the station [which is in one corner] are considered destroyed.

Kang wrote:However, I did not like the fixed map rules - it severely hindered my movement and, in the face of potential plasma attacks on my ship, this is not a good thing. The scenario should specify a floating map; we will play it as such next time. For the information of those readers who do not have Klingon Attack, the map is fixed, and any ships leaving the map within 25 hexes of the station [which is in one corner] are considered destroyed.

Well, in defense of the scenario, the idea of a "location map" (which is really what you are wanting) was not created until Romulan Border.

There is nothing wrong with changing the scenario from a fixed map to a location map. That will let you have the full 25 hexes in all directions.

Kang I may be wrong but I remember reading where when facing a Plasma Chunker you have to use a Fixed or a Location Map and can not use a Floating map.

Dal Downing wrote:Kang I may be wrong but I remember reading where when facing a Plasma Chunker you have to use a Fixed or a Location Map and can not use a Floating map.

It's actually the other way around--don't use a fixed map, this increases the power of the plasma since you can't really run away from it. Instead used a floating or location map.

Kang, great battle report! The "unbalancing" issue of that scenario might just be from the presence of plasma, rather than just being unbalanced with any empire.

mjwest wrote:Well, in defense of the scenario, the idea of a "location map" (which is really what you are wanting) was not created until Romulan Border.

There is nothing wrong with changing the scenario from a fixed map to a location map. That will let you have the full 25 hexes in all directions.

Dal Downing wrote:Kang I may be wrong but I remember reading where when facing a Plasma Chunker you have to use a Fixed or a Location Map and can not use a Floating map.

Yeah, you're right - I hadn't thought of that. That would work well. Thanks!

I don't play Kzintis, so my advice may be suspect, but some things that I might try...

1.) As you pointed out, you can grab the suicide freighter with a tractor beam from the base. Once the Gorn kindly lower your shields for you, you can also transport boarding parties over from the base in a take over attempt. This deals with the suicide freighter in a fashion that doesn't involve firing weapons that would otherwise be spent blowing up Gorn warships.

And speaking of which, something just occurred to me...

Mike, there's a possible rules problem - if a suicide freighter impacts, has its shields knocked down by defensive phaser fire, and gets grabbed by a tractor beam in the defensive fire phase, then can the base beam boarding parties over? And if the boarding parties successfully take control of the freighter (as they should - it doesn't have anyone defending it), then can the freighter subsequently be "unimpacted" from the base?

2.) The cruiser is expendable (seriously - if he launches plasma torpedoes at your cruiser, that's a GOOD thing; it means that he's not launching them at your base). All that matters is the base. Plasma tactics against a base are designed around the idea of getting as close to the base as possible and launching torpedoes. And furthermore, any torpedo hits are essentially "wasted" hits since he can still launch the torpedoes until the end of the turn. If you knock down the forward shield on one of his ships, then he's going to have serious problems the next time he gets an approach set up (and if you're going to win this thing, then you need to force him to make a second approach). Kill the forward shield on one of his ships. Launch as many drones as possible that will impact his #1 shield (he has the same number of phasers facing in every direction, so coming in at another angle is only going to allow him to use off-arc phasers against the drones instead of phasers that would otherwise be used against the base). Launch suicide shuttles. You know his angle of approach, and you know that he's going to want to get as close to your base as possible, so the fact that the shuttles are only speed 8 isn't going to be as much of a problem as it normally is. And he can't use a single phaser-3 to kill a shuttle (even a single phaser-1 isn't a guaranteed kill). Don't forget that the base has shuttles as well. In short, throw everything AND the kitchen sink at him.

3.) Use the CM to put a tractor beam on one of his ships (his biggest, if you think you can get away with it). Even if he ends up controlling the movement, you'll still have slowed him down significantly opening a gap between that ship and the other two and causing the plasmas to strike at a different time (and possibly a different shield). Even better, if you can kill plasma torpedoes on that ship, then he'll be forced to either launch the torpedoes from further out, or lose them at the end of the turn. And if you lose the auction, then you still win because each point of power spent on the auction is another phaser-1 that he can't fire at your base.

4.) Not likely to be an option, but keep an eye out for it anyway... When his ships approach your base, they're in transporter range. He'll probably kindly lower your facing shield for you, and you'll probably do the same to one of his ships. At the very least you should be doing hit and run raids. And if the opportunity presents itself (for example, if he sends enough boarding parties off after one of your freighters), then there's nothing to stop your base from sending the marines in to attempt to capture one of his ships (or at least threaten to - at the very least a credible capture attempt will make him reluctant to bring that ship back in close).

5.) If one of the base's tractor beams survives the initial volley and he makes the mistake of closing to range 1 (to maximize his phaser firepower - yes, I know this one's iffy), then have the base tractor one of the ships. You'll probably win the auction. Then you rotate a fresh shield in to face the ship while it will be forced to keep the same shield facing you allowing you to pick it apart at your leisure with your phaser-4s.

6.) Once again, once he's too far into his approach to pull out, throw EVERYTHING at the #1 shield on his ships. Suicide shuttles should be launched as frequently as possible. Massed drone strikes should all be focused on the same ship (prefereably, timed so that the drones don't all end the impulse at one hex away from the target - that allows him to effectively use his other ships to kill the drones). And get that CM in front of his ships. Every weapon that they fire at it is a weapon that they can't fire at the base. Make sure that the CM makes its initial alpha-strike pass on the same turn that the plasma-chuckers will be in their optimal firing range. Hit and run raids should target phasers during the approach turn, and plasma launchers (if he's in range) on other turns.


Hopefully that all helps.

because a base can't run from plasma, it will likely take the full brunt of it. Base defence is difficult against plasma ships.

Hit and run raids on the attacking ships is definately a good idea, especially if they've just dropped your shield for you anyway! As for concentration of drone firepower, huge volleys at a single target are definately more effective than splitting up your drones, especially if the target is isolated from friendly units who could help phaser the drones. if you hit attack a single target with 8 drones at once, it's either going to do some damage or at least force the target (and/or other enemy ships) to move so that he can defend himself from the drones.

I think plasma torpedoes have to be one of the best weapons to take out bases with, since (as you found out) they can deal a lot of damage to a single shield, maximising the internal damage. Their only real weakness when compared to conventional weapons in this way is that they can be phasered down, but only really if the base uses its phaser 4s as well, and then these can't be spent hitting the attackers, so they will probably stay alive for long enough for a second launch.

Just a couple of things about the suicide freighter: rule (4H3) says that "When a suicide freighter enters the hex of the enemy base, there is no Defensive Fire (it is too big to stop)." This would mean you couldn't use phasers in the defensive fire phase to knock down a shield. It also says later in the paragraph that "You could only tractor a suicide freighter if it ended an impulse in a hex adjacent to the base or some other friendly unit." This would mean you also couldn't tractor it in the Defensive Fire phase of the impulse of impact, so essentially once it enters your hex you can't do anything about it.

As for capturing the freighter, you technically can capture it but rule (4H2) says that "even if captured by Marines (3E2), [the suicide freighter] will continue on [its] deadly course as there will not be time to unlock the controls." That would mean that, even if you did capture it, you couldn't steer it away or distract it from its target.

Hope that helps!

Davec_24 wrote:As for capturing the freighter, you technically can capture it but rule (4H2) says that "even if captured by Marines (3E2), [the suicide freighter] will continue on [its] deadly course as there will not be time to unlock the controls." That would mean that, even if you did capture it, you couldn't steer it away or distract it from its target.

He's right. Annoyingly, he usually is. Dave, I didn't know you had Klingon Attack?

[Edit] Ah - it's in the main rulebook. He's right again

OGOPTIMUS wrote:The "unbalancing" issue of that scenario might just be from the presence of plasma, rather than just being unbalanced with any empire.

Well, there's two points I'm thinking of here.

Firstly, the scenario was written mainly for Klingon Attack. I'm not sure if the rules for, and effects of, plasma torps had been fully thrashed out then. Adjusting the opposing points values may indeed be a good idea.

Secondly, for those who think that this scenario is unbalanced, did you ever try the scenario Base Defense in Star Fleet Battles?

For that scenario, you had an ordinary Base Station [like the one in Tholian Attack], with no defences apart from its own, and it had to survive like 4-5 turns against similar opposition to my BATS in this game, before a heavy cruiser came charging in gallantly to rescue the wreckage of the base station. I have never seen the defending side win; it's usually all over in 2 turns.

In fact I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who did manage successfully to defend the station, and learn how they did it

I'm sure the queue won't be very long.....

junior wrote:The cruiser is expendable (seriously - if he launches plasma torpedoes at your cruiser, that's a GOOD thing; it means that he's not launching them at your base). All that matters is the base.

Yes, in one way I agree, but if the cruiser gets toasted in the first two turns, the base still has to survive more or less on its own for another 8 turns - this time without the cruiser.

I figured therefore that if I lost the cruiser it would only prolong the inevitable, so my strategy was to keep the cruiser alive and let it cause as much harassment as possible - which it did - but my drone tactics were faulty. Had I toasted one of those warships on Tn 1 then the outcome would likely have been very different.

Your other ideas make a lot of sense, particularly the drone wave timing and the tractoring and hit and run ideas. However some of these depend on the base being sufficiently functional to allow them, something which didn't happen. But it would have been possible had I popped one of them darn ships....

Davec_24 wrote:Their only real weakness when compared to conventional weapons in this way is that they can be phasered down, but only really if the base uses its phaser 4s as well, and then these can't be spent hitting the attackers, so they will probably stay alive for long enough for a second launch.

Yes and no. Granted they will be expended on the plasmas, but then the plasmas will take 2 or 3 turns to rearm. If they've closed to range 8, like they did last night, then if the base survives with any reasonable firepower, those P-4's are going to get at least 1, probably 2 turns of shooting at the attackers before the next plasma strike, and the early part of that time will be within lethal range.

If it was me playing the Gorn I'd probably steal the Kzinti "scream and leap" tactics. I'd have spent turn 1 closing a bit and arming plasma, turn 2 jumped to speed 24, lobbed plasma at range 8, then followed them in. At this point the base has no ships defending it AND the choice: do I shoot plasma or ships? If the Gorn had any extra power, I'd put it into a few SS as extra pain for the base. Turn 3 (assuming there was much left of the base) and I had a down shield facing I'd use F-carronades to get some more internals.

Good idea with the carronades. Fast-load type F torpedoes could also work well (on turn 4 of course) if you're in close to the base, providing the base isn't about to rotate that shield away from you. On the other hand, you know when it's about to rotate and since it isn't a moving target, you could actually time the launch so that the plasma hits the target when a downed/weak shield is rotated towards the incoming torpedo.

Kang wrote:

junior wrote:The cruiser is expendable (seriously - if he launches plasma torpedoes at your cruiser, that's a GOOD thing; it means that he's not launching them at your base). All that matters is the base.

Yes, in one way I agree, but if the cruiser gets toasted in the first two turns, the base still has to survive more or less on its own for another 8 turns - this time without the cruiser.

Remember, though, that you've got Phaser-4s on that base. And those can "reach out and touch someone" (to borrow the very old AT&T catch-phrase) at fairly long range. Meanwhile, your opponent is going to have to wait until turn 5 to have his plasmas re-armed. The simple fact is that with the phasers on your base, the only reason that the game should last ten turns is because the Gorn are hanging out at range 26 and refuse to move within weapons range of you. So if your cruiser ends up sacrificing itself to draw the plasma salvo from your opponent (and obviously, once that plasma salvo is launched at the cruiser, then it should HET and run like mad), then you've effectively just bought yourself three more turns to blow holes in his ships (I'd encourage you to prioritize weapons as targets, for obvious reasons - at least early on). You've got 5 Phaser-4s in arc at all timies. If the CM ends up turning into a torpedo target after drawing the Gorn in close, then you've just converted those phasers from the "plasma defence" role to the "ship killing" role. At range 8, those phasers will average nearly 50 points of damage. That's enough to knock down the facing shield and do some internals on the CL, or seriously hurt one of the smaller ships (particularly the DD, which should probably be prioritized over the BDD as they both have the same plasma loadout).

Oh, and NEVER play against that Gorn force in Fleet Scale unless your opponent offers some serious bribes. The small Gorn ships get a nice points boost in Fleet Scale...

Speaking of that and the BDD/DD similarities...

You may also want to try swapping out the CL for the HDD. It's only a five point difference, but the HDD carries 1 S Torp and 2 F Torps. And iirc, the CL carries 2 S Torps and 2 F Torps (same as the Gorn Battlecruiser). That should cut down on the number of torpedoes coming in and make things slightly more survivable.



Edit -

Good idea with the carronades. Fast-load type F torpedoes could also work well (on turn 4 of course) if you're in close to the base, providing the base isn't about to rotate that shield away from you. On the other hand, you know when it's about to rotate and since it isn't a moving target, you could actually time the launch so that the plasma hits the target when a downed/weak shield is rotated towards the incoming torpedo.

Do you REALLY want to stay that close to the base and its Phaser-4s? Carronades require close range work, and a Phaser-4 can do 20 points of damage out to range 6.