Federation Commander

So, I am going to be playing a short game tomorrow. A friend and I will be getting to together to play, but we will only have about two and half hours to play. Any ideas on what to run? Would a basic crusier duel work well for this?

Some backgroud. This is my friends second game of Fed Com. His first game involved him and another friend taking a pair of Fed CAs vs me controlling the Planet Killer. I'm thinking maybe giving him a Fed CA or CS and taking a Rom KE, to introduce him to plasma. Or perhaps a Fed NCA vs an ISC CL/CS. Which brings up a question. Can the CS operate by itself, as it has 2 PPDs? Or can someone give a suggestion for a small game, maybe multiple ships but no more than 300 pts each? He will probably play Feds, and I want to try a new race, like Hydran, ISC, or Andro. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

If you're looking for fast, I would not involve plasma just yet.

If your friend is a decent tactician, he'll quickly see that plasma favors the long-game (especially in Romulans, with their cloaks).

Kzintis with their disruptor/phaser weapons can be fast, but their drones add complexity that may (or may not) yet be appropriate and can also slow things down.

The quickest game can probably be had from the classic Federation CA versus Klingon D-7 duel. Orions can also be configured for fast (direct-fire) fights, especially without cloaks.

Kzintis are fast? That's news to me I tend to play the long game using Kzintis.

I've had fast games with Kzintis. Depending on how you play them, they can be just Klingons with less disruptors and more drones.

You're right though that Kzintis also tend to favor a longer game, if you're going to play the "come-get-me through my wall of drones" approach.

You mean there's other approaches than "Nah Nah, I'm behind my drones!"

I played a guy who insisted on using his Kzintis as "close-range drone-spammers". It actually worked for him, some of the time.