From: Lonnie Foster <tribble@s...>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 17:31:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [FT] After action report: Ring Around the Starbase
Mark Shurtleff and I played an amusing game last night. It was a fairly
standard even-sided battle, with a twist: a neutral space colony in the
center of the map that was only interested in defending itself. We played the
game using Fleet Book rules and cinematic movement, with forces composed of
1200 points per side. We set up on either end of a 4' x 6' Starscape mat, with
the colony starbase in the center of the map.
Mark's forces, from the ill-tempered feline K'rathri Empire,
consisted of a BB, 2 CHs, and a widdle bitty gunboat. I had a detached NSL
carrier patrol wing, consisting of an escort carrier, a CH, two CCs, and a FF.
Full details of the fleets are at the end of this posting. Mark picked up a
Battlestar Galactica Cylon Base Star plastic model kit for the starbase. He
assembled half of it, leaving the other half to be made into a second base
later. After looking at the kit and thinking it seemed awfully familiar, we
took a look through our Full Thrust books. Sure enough, on page 22 of More
Thrust, the same Cylon Base Star, albeit with a few CMD parts tacked onto it,
was used by the GZG folks for their starbase. Even unpainted, it looks
fantastic, and with a couple of merchantmen docked around the edge, it's
pretty impressive.
The starbase was composed of five 100-mass sectors. Since it was a
civilian colony, it didn't sport anything larger than Class 1 beams and PDS.
The starbase would only fire on ships in range (12"), and then only on a high
roll on one die. If it did decide to fire, it would fire from one to three
beams,
determined by another single die roll: 1-3 = one beam, 4-5 = two, 6 =
three. These were only to be warning shots; if either side were really insane
enough to fire on the station, any of that side's ships would be taking fire
from everything the station could throw at it (10 Class 1 beams and 10 PDS per
sector) for the rest of the game. We figured that if anyone managed to
actually run into the station, it would fire everything it had at *anyone* who
managed to get in range; space colonists don't really like massive hull
breaches... For purposes of line of sight, only the center 2" of the station
actually blocked, but the station's whole 12" diameter was used for
determining whether ships would actually ram into it. The scale is a bit off,
but it played well.
I started the game off by rolling two dice for our initial velocity; we came
in at a very cautious 5. On the first turn, we both turned our fleets two
points to port, which set us up for a nice "Ring Around the Rosie" for most of
the game as we chased each other around the starbase. I launched the heavy
fighters and one wing of regular fighters in the second turn, sending them off
to starboard to wait for Mark's forces to run into them. the next turn, the
remaining group of regular fighters left the carrier and joined with the
others, just out of range of the starbase but in good position to ambush the
K'rathri fleet.
The shooting started in turn four as we passed the starbase on either side.
The NSL fighters descended upon the K'rathri BB like an angry swarm of angry
swarming things. Half of them were promptly swatted out of the sky by *very*
effective point defense, and the rest were so shaken they pretty much missed
their attack runs; only four points of damage to a very heavily armored
battleship. We were still at extreme range, so no serious damage was done with
beam
fire, but the colonists started to get a little nervous as high-energy
particle beams flickered within meters of their home in space. I had stayed
well out of range of the colony, skirting the edge of the map, while Mark had
gone for a close pass; he took a couple of ineffective warning shots from the
starbase.
By turn five, it had occurred to me that with our current velocities and
distances from the station, Mark was going to be on my tail and shooting at
the unprotected rear of my fleet in no time, so I tightened my turn and dove
toward the starbase as Mark's fleet continued its close orbit of the colony.
All but two of the fighters met their demise this turn, and the beam and
torpedo fire heated up a bit as the range closed to less than 24". Mark's
gunship was the only element of his fleet not tightly grouped with the other
ships; it made a
wider, much higher-speed turn, avoiding the light guns from the starbase
and the heavier guns from my fleet.
The remaining fighters bought it in turn six; all-in-all, a terrible
waste of lives, ships, and taxpayer dollars. We continued around the station,
with Mark
having the advantage of good firing arcs from his nearly-on-my-tail
approach vector. His gunboat dove in toward the station and within firing
range, taking an ineffective potshot at my trailing cruiser. Not very
impressed by this little display of aggression, the crew of the Northampton
returned fire with a 2 and a couple 1s, completely obliterating the little
gunboat. That would teach the cats to tailgate...
By the next turn, my fleet had come about 180 degrees from its original
starting course, and I'd swung wide of the station again due to excess
velocity. Mark's K'rathri continued their close orbit of the starbase,
receiving fire from its inhabitants fairly regularly; I guess they weren't too
happy to have a group of aggressive aliens flying that close in large
warships.
A good concentrated long-range beam spread from Mark's fleet damaged
the Northampton's engines at this point (the cats weren't too keen on losing
their gunboat, apparently), which looked like it would be problematic a few
turns down the road, since it was headed toward the edge of the board at a
velocity of 15. The carrier and heavy cruiser managed to interpose the the
starbase between themselves and the opposition, and avoided any further fire.
The
frigate Dart, moving at a distant by high-velocity orbit from the
station, took a few hits and lost its only Fire Control, which it would never
regain for the rest of the game.
We continued circling the station ("Here we go round the mulberry
bush"),
taking long-range potshots at each other. The Dart managed to catch up
with the rest of the fleet (and consequently get out of range of the
K'rathri's guns, much to the delight of her crew), but the Northampton
continued to have engine trouble. By turn 8, the cruiser was within milimeters
of the edge of the table, but flying parallel to that edge. Almost half the
stand was off the side of the table, but the helmsman managed to keep her from
leaving the engagement for now.
In turn eleven, the Northampton, still unable to repair her damaged drives,
left the battle from the edge she'd entered it at a velocity of 11. A valiant
attempt by both damage control parties and helm, but she just couldn't stay
with the rest of the fleet. By this point, the fleet was once again flying
past the port side of the starbase, having completed a full lap around the
colony. The K'rathri had stopped turning around the station, though, and were
decelerating rapidly in preparation to come about.
Faced with superior firepower from the opposition, and the fact that they were
about to turn around and offer us the full force of their forward batteries, I
decided to attempt one last high-speed pass through their fleet. If we
survived the encounter, we could turn sharply, orbit the station again, and
come back for another pass. If not, we could just fly through the center of
the K'rathri fleet and disengage from the side of the board. The Dart, still
unable to get its FireCon online, took a sharp turn to port and left for the
opposite side, still badly damaged. The carrier, CH and CC approached the now
stationary K'rathri fleet at an average velocity of 18. One turn of heavy fire
from both sides was enough to let the NSL fleet know that it wasn't going to
survive this engagement if it continued. The CH Noble was heavily damaged,
losing both FireCons and half its drive power, and the CC Essex was left with
a single remaining damage point. The fleet applied maximum thrust to zip
through the opposition and disengage.
The carrier Cambridge, the Essex, and the Dart made it off-table the
next turn. Its engines damaged too badly to accelerate enough, the CH Noble's
tail
was exposed to one last point-blank barrage, and the mighty ship was
lost with all hands.
The K'rathri held the field by the end of turn 14, making the denizens of the
colony very, very nervous. The cats took a fair amount of fire from the
station, and they're not known to be a very forgiving race...
Throughout the game, we rolled two dice apiece each turn to see if the two
merchant freighters docked with the station would panick and attempt to run.
On a 2, they'd give up the relative safety of the station and flee for the
edge of the map. The rolls got progressively lower as the game progressed; in
turn 14, both ships rolled 3s. They're not likely to stick around much longer.
A fun game, even if the NSL were soundly defeated. Thanks, Mark!
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Here's a rundown on the ships used:
K'rathri Empire (Mark):
[GHA] Kru'thanii Heavy Assaultship
TMF:12, NPV:41, Thrust 8,
1:Class 2 (6-arc), 1:FiCon, 2 DP, 1 CF
[CH] Gr'kaa Heavy Cruiser (2)
TMF:84, NPV:286, Thrust 4, 25 DP, 5 CF
1:PTorp (1-arc F), 2:Class 3 (3-arc FP/FS), 2:Class 2 (3-arc
FP/FS),
2:Class 1, 3:FiCon, 2:PDS, S1, A3
[BB] Fr'krekh Battleship
TMF:134, NPV:454, Thrust 4, 40 DP, 7 CF
1:PTorp (3-arc F), 4:Class 3 (3-arc FP/FS), 1:Class 2 (6-arc),
2:Class 1, 3:FiCon, 4:PDS, S1, A5
NSL (Lonnie):
I'm using mostly NSL miniatures right now, so I'm calling my fleet NSL, but
considering the wide range of designs I'm experimenting with, I need to come
up with a completely different national background. (NSL == "No Such League"?)
[CVE] Sa'krekh Escort Carrier (out of Mark's K'rathri designs)
TMF:110, NPV:376(*), Thrust 6, 33 DP, 6 CF
3:Fighter Bays, 1:Class 2 (6-arc), 2:Class 1, 2:FiCon, 4:PDS, S1
NPV:442 with 2 Standard and 1 Heavy Fighter Groups
[CH] NSL Markgraf Heavy Cruiser (the only stock NSL ship I used)
TMF:82, NPV:271, Thrust 4, 25 DP, 5 CF
2:Class 3 (3-arc F), 2:Class 2 (3-arc FP/FS), 2:Class 1, 2:FiCon,
3:PDS, A10
[CC] ESU Beijing/B Escort Cruiser (2)
TMF:60, NPV:201, Thrust 4, DP 18, 3 CF
1:Class 3 (3-arc F), 2:Class 2 (3-arc FP/FS), 2:Class 1, 2:FiCon,
2:PDS, S1, A5
[FF] NAC Tacoma Heavy Frigate
TMF:24, NPV:81, Thrust 6, DP 7, 2 CF
2:Class 2 (3-arc FP/FS), 2:Class 1, 1:FiCon, 1:PDS
We took photos during the engagement; they're a little on the
low-resolution
side, but do a good job of showing ship positions at various portions of the
game. Mark should have them scanned and up on his web page soon.