Rom v Hydran Challenge

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 4:17 am

With apologies to storyelf and mojo jojo, here is a scenario from their discussion in my Romulan thread on this same page "Am I doomed..".

I thought it might be an interesting puzzle so I am pulling it out so that folks who have lost interest in that thread might contribute.

Given the following scenario:

Impulse 5. Romulans are in fade-in having dropped cloak on Impulse 4.
All units speed 16. All weapons fully armed. Turn modes, slip modes, etc etc are satisfied. No HETs have been used.

Not pictured are 2 Mohawks and a Gendarme. They are two hexes directly behind the 2nd, 3rd and 4th stacks of fighters, facing 1, also spd 16, turn mode satisfied, etc. No units are maneuvering evasively. Map is a location map (just so we don't have to know how far we are from each map edge).

EDIT: Note each Stinger counter represents 3 stingers.

Post ideas that give the Romulan the best chance of surviving this turn and the next full turn with the most ships intact. Damage to the Hydran ships is irrelevant for the purposes of the exercise, but obviously they must be avoided or they will exact horrid damage. For damage assumptions, use average damage.

Go!

Savedfromwhat · Post by **Savedfromwhat** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:45 pm

The romulans here are in very very good position. If the hydran allowed himself to get here he is in trouble. During the direct fire phase of this turn the romulan will still be" phasing in" so the hydrans will still suffer from a+ 4 range shift, which we know is not optimum for their weapons. The Romulans here can fire any of their Rp/LP plasma F's to kill the fighters before they will ever get off a good shot and at the same time launch the plasma R's at one of the hydran ships knowing that it will be destroyed. This is a very lopsided scenario and the Hydran commander either miscalculated was seriously out captained by his Romulan opponent. I I had my druthers I would have gone faster as the hydran and dropped my fighters in front of him overan with my ships and Het'd behind the Romulan line, resulting in a point blank shot on the next impulse and my fighters be dammed so to speak.

Edit: firing on the stingers is of course predicated on the option of tractoring and death dragging them being off the table, but it is definitely a strong possibility with the map as it is.

mojo jojo · Post by **mojo jojo** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 3:36 pm

Savedfromwhat wrote:The romulans here are in very very good position. If the hydran allowed himself to get here he is in trouble. During the direct fire phase of this turn the romulan will still be" phasing in" so the hydrans will still suffer from a+ 4 range shift, which we know is not optimum for their weapons. The Romulans here can fire any of their Rp/LP plasma F's to kill the fighters before they will ever get off a good shot and at the same time launch the plasma R's at one of the hydran ships knowing that it will be destroyed. This is a very lopsided scenario and the Hydran commander either miscalculated was seriously out captained by his Romulan opponent. I I had my druthers I would have gone faster as the hydran and dropped my fighters in front of him overan with my ships and Het'd behind the Romulan line, resulting in a point blank shot on the next impulse and my fighters be dammed so to speak.

Edit: firing on the stingers is of course predicated on the option of tractoring and death dragging them being off the table, but it is definitely a strong possibility with the map as it is.

I think you should be aware that each stinger counter contains 3 stingers, so there are a total of 18 stingers, not just 6. The Roms should all die horribly in this scenario as long as they wait until the fade in is finished. At most they can kill 12 stingers with plasma, so 6 stingers plus 3 motherships with move advantage would annihilate the Roms in impulse 6. And Mohawks are extremely durable with 100+ internal boxes. If the KEs aim just their R's at them, it's not going to do much since a Mhk would take them on separate shields. Plus aiming R's at Mhks means that more stingers live which should add to the carnage. If you calculate how much damage a stinger, Mhk or Gen can do at 0-2 hex range, it should be very clear what the outcome should be.

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:21 pm

mojo jojo wrote:
I think you should be aware that each stinger counter contains 3 stingers, so there are a total of 18 stingers, not just 6.

My bad, I should have added this to my description. Editing the OP.

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:44 pm

mojo jojo wrote:The Roms should all die horribly in this scenario as long as they wait until the fade in is finished. At most they can kill 12 stingers with plasma, so 6 stingers plus 3 motherships with move advantage would annihilate the Roms in impulse 6. And Mohawks are extremely durable with 100+ internal boxes. If the KEs aim just their R's at them, it's not going to do much since a Mhk would take them on separate shields. Plus aiming R's at Mhks means that more stingers live which should add to the carnage. If you calculate how much damage a stinger, Mhk or Gen can do at 0-2 hex range, it should be very clear what the outcome should be.

I think 2-3 Romulan ships can escape. The key is not how many Stingers they can kill, but which ones.

terryoc · Post by **terryoc** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:53 am

So the question is, "How do the Romulans escape"?

Shoot the idiot who uncloaked, re-engage the cloak, and underrun the Hydran force. When you are behind the Hydrans and facing away, drop cloak and accelerate (this will void the cloak, but the Hydrans will be waddling around trying to turn towards you) and run for the map edge. Next turn, plot Speed 24 and accelerate each impulse until you have disengaged.

If you want a serious answer, I suppose the answer is "cripple as many Stingers as possible with Type-F and Type-G torpedoes, while launching Rs at the Mohawks to intimidate them while you run." Each F and G should probably kill, or at least cripple, one Stinger, so I'd try to take out the Stingers on the edge of the formation to buy running room for the Snipes and a KE. You should nail ten stingers or so. An R-torp on a Mohawk, if it impacts at full strength, should seriously damage #1 shield. (50 points, a bunch of damage from phasers - 25 points' worth best case, maybe? couldn't be bothered to work out the exact numbers. So the Mohawks' #1 shields should be down to 12-15 points.) That will suck up a lot of phasers and make it hard for the Mohawks to chase you, which is what you want. If they take it on a side shield then they will suffer even more damage. Then HET and run like heck to the end of the turn. You and the Hydrans are all at the same speed, so if you both accel. then they won't get any closer, and the Stingers will lose ground.

dharras · Post by **dharras** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:07 am

terryoc wrote: Shoot the idiot who uncloaked, re-engage the cloak, and underrun the Hydran force. When you are behind the Hydrans and facing away, drop cloak and accelerate (this will void the cloak, but the Hydrans will be waddling around trying to turn towards you) and run for the map edge. Next turn, plot Speed 24 and accelerate each impulse until you have disengaged.

That might not work if the stingers have their HET available.

The idiot who disengaged the cloak is probably the same as the one who allowed 18 stingers to end up in close formation to his 4 ships...

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 8:34 am

Sure it's a difficult position for the Romulans and one which would have taken a special level of bad skill to get into.

I would say the priority is to escape the current situation with as minimal damage as possible, and then come back in to attack again under the Romulans' terms.

So how about this simple trick: HET all ships away from the fighters, with acceleration too. At the end of the impulse, the range will be a minimum of three hexes, effectively outside of really nasty crippling range. Then extend more, and pick off the fighters at your leisure.

And try not to get so close to the critters next time.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 9:44 am

As the person posting the original situation (in the other thread) I would agree with a couple of posters - if you uncloaked in this position you deserve what is about to happen. Kang beat me to what is probably the best answer whilst I was driving to work this morning (if the question is get away as best as possible, as opposed to damaging hydrans). Accel and HET, you should end up with one badly crippled WE and everthing else pretty fine, or maybe one damaged SN and a just crippled WE. The cripple may still survive to recloak for next turn depending on how the damage allocation fell. Depends a bit on the HET rolls - if you succeed the HET roll then you can decel to avoid voiding for another impulse and see what the hydrans are chasing after, and the snipes may be in a position to chuck out a couple of plasma from the sides if the hydran focuses to much on the WEs.

That said there are still some pitfalls the hydran can fall into that can turn the position somewhat around for the romulans. 6 stingers will survive a range 0-2 plasma volley, the other 6 are no where near as nasty if the stingers have just advanced in a line from the position shown, in that case the romulans can kill 2 stingers in each stack, leaving 1 stinger per hex. At that point the hydran will find that he can't bring as much useful firepower as he may think on a ship - 3 stingers can hurt a WE unless they are firing through different hexsides - in which case they score 3 burnthrough. There is at least one other move a less experienced hydran player not thinking far enough ahead might make which could also allow the romulans to get away lighter than he may think.

The initial post in the other thread was to try and start a discussion on uncloaking in front of stingers alone, and how good or bad that was. If the carriers are out of the equation temporarily (be it position/energy/direction or whatever) then the situation shown is an excellent position for the romulan.

If the romulan wanted to uncloak in front of the hydrans with motherships still in the picture then he should have done it 2 hexes further back. At that point the hydran has to choose between chasing the romulans from a longer range (the hydran damage still drops off significantly) or trying to protect the stingers from mass cripples/kills.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 11:24 am

terryoc wrote:So the question is, "How do the Romulans escape"?

..., re-engage the cloak,

Is it legal to switch the cloak back on in the same subpulse that the fade out wears off, effectively putting you straight into fade again (assuming you meet other conditions)?

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 1:48 pm

I might even go play this one as a scenario....

mojo jojo · Post by **mojo jojo** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:06 pm

If the Roms stay and fight and they target the mks with PL-Rs, I probably wouldn't bother firing my phasers at them except maybe the PH-2 since I'm probably going to lose a couple anyway. I can do much more damage when I get to range 1 to the Rom ships.

If the Roms HET and run away, each stinger averages about 6 damage at 3 hex range and the mhks do about 15-18 damage at 4 range with PH1 + fusions depending on whether they overload them or not. It's probably better for the mhks to save their PH2 and PHG in case the Rom ships decide to turn around and fight, although you may want to fire the PH-2. The Gendarme does about 4-5 average damage with fusions depending on overloads. It should be trivial to centerline the Rom ships given that you have the move advantage. Also, accelerating means that the cloak is immediately voided.

Don't forget to send H&R raids on the KEs once you've knocked down their rear shields! If you take out the Cloaking Device or the PL-R launcher, the ship probably isn't going to last much longer.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:18 pm

mojo jojo wrote: Also, accelerating means that the cloak is immediately voided.

Accelerating doesn't immediately void the cloak, moving 3 hexes in an impulse voids the cloak, so you have until subpulse 4 to decide whether to void the cloak or decel.

Savedfromwhat · Post by **Savedfromwhat** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:29 pm

In this Situation then with 18 Stingers the Romulans lose... Period.

There will still be 6 Stingers with range 0 shots from P3s and fusions beams. about 90 points in P3's and what another 55 in Fusions. That is 2 mission killed King Eagles and we havent factored in the actual Hydran Ships yet. This is an unwinnable position for the Romulans and if they were this bad to begin with I would not be surprised to see the snipes get tractored and destroyed next turn.

This is a moot point.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:41 pm

Savedfromwhat wrote: Their will still be 6 Stingers with range 0 shots from P3s and fusions beams. about 90 points in P3's and what another 55 in Fusions.

Barring a goof from the Roms there will be no stingers at range 0. Under most scenarios the stingers will be no closer than range 2.

The Romulans can guarantee range 2+ from the remaining stingers even if they stay and launch plasma. The MHKs are a different issue, the Roms could put the stingers at range 2 only to find the MHKs on top of them in one possible scenario. Having muliple stingers at range 2 is 'good', it means that if more than 3 want to shoot the same Rom ship then they are definatley across multiple shields.