[GZG] Battlereport from August 31, 2005

This is actually a new topic (somewhat) so I'd better post it in a
seperate mail as well - sorry for the confusion ;)

http://www.twins4ever.dk/cougarscorner/index.php?showtopic=139

Another good report!

Don
[quoted original message omitted]

1) You play, and often. 2) You write charming intro's. 3) You write scenrios,
and share them. 4) You take piccies! and post them.

The only improvement I could suggest would be to point out AAR's usually

have a turn-by-turn breakdown of action, but I'm too ashamed to really
ask that, and we certain get most of it from the pictures. Hell, you post in

English! You wouldn't be surprised how little Danish I know.

If you played on dried goat droppings, you'd have no reason to apologize

here.

Well done!

The_Beast

PS I'm warming up to the new ESU designs, but still fond of the brooding

hulks Komarov and Konstantin...

> Claus Paludan wrote:

> This is actually a new topic (somewhat) so I'd better post it in a

A comment to the question at the end of the report: if you used the Komarov
stats for the Elizaveta, her only hope for survival is to repair the engines
and come to a full stop before the Kraks begin to tear her up. Most of her
weapons are concentrated into the three forward arcs, and with
thrust-2 drives (once she manages to repair them!) spinning in place is
the
only way she can bring them to bear against a well-handled Kra'Vak
squadron...

So no, it isn't the K-guns that are too powerful. It is the scenario - a

single ship which can't manoeuvre and has very few weapons facing backwards
is dead no matter what the enemy attacks her with :-/

Later,

> Claus Paludan wrote:

> This is actually a new topic (somewhat) so I'd better post it in a

A comment to the question at the end of the report: if you used the Komarov
stats for the Elizaveta, her only hope for survival is to repair the engines
and come to a full stop before the Kraks begin to tear her up. Most of her
weapons are concentrated into the three forward arcs, and with
thrust-2 drives (once she manages to repair them!) spinning in place is
the
only way she can bring them to bear against a well-handled Kra'Vak
squadron...

So no, it isn't the K-guns that are too powerful. It is the scenario - a

single ship which can't manoeuvre and has very few weapons facing backwards
is dead no matter what the enemy attacks her with :-/

Later,

> Doug Evans wrote:
We try... we try!

> 2) You write charming intro's.

Thank you:)
> 3) You write scenrios, and share them.

Yup - that's the fun part! - look around twins4ever and you will see
more reports and pictures from various places and games!:)

> 4) You take piccies! and post them.
Yup:)

> The only improvement I could suggest would be to point out AAR's

Well I know that.. and that what I used to do, but the time it takes..
well you know - what should I call it instead :) ESU Propaganda probably
:p

> that, and we certain get most of it from the pictures. Hell, you post

Lol - I could start posting in Danish, but....
> If you played on dried goat droppings, you'd have no reason to

Actually.... I am not apologizing and I might actually be playing on dried
goat droppings... who knows with these club tables:)

> Well done!

Thanks!
> The_Beast

I am very fond of the new design.. and the larger ships have that lovely

brute force look:)

> Oerjan Ariander wrote:

> A comment to the question at the end of the report: if you used the

> up. Most of her weapons are concentrated into the three forward arcs,

:) well let me give you a bit more info here then. (was writing the batrep at
work so time was an issue...) This was our first game with anything larger
than a BC so we were really testing out the endurance of

the SDN. It took quite a while for the engines to be repaired but in the

first game the Kra'vak came in waaaayyyy too fast:) (see the dream position).
But when you roll 14 dice and only 3 of them is a 4,5 and 6 you don't do much
damage to anything:) The second game was much better

in that respect - all guns were on-line  and the drive came back to full

speed fast as well - but even facing almost frontal to the enemy didn't
do a lot (bad dice again).

> So no, it isn't the K-guns that are too powerful. It is the scenario -

When I say powerfull I mean that when "on target" they tend to produce a

bit more damage than beams does, thus the usual evasive action is to move
around a lot evening out the odds. So too powerfull here only means

that in the scenario the slow moving/turning SDN doesn't stand much of a

chance (rather what we suspected and calculated with - either it would
be too powerful and blast the Kra'vak off the table or the other way around).
We didn't plan on an equal game. The interesting part with
turning the table is to see if beam weapons can remove 14-18 hull points

per turn (as the K-guns did).

But no matter what - the large ships SHOULD have escort ships to protect

them - no question about that :)

Thank you  - we aim to please!

> Don M wrote:

Sorry for the double-posting, folks... there seems to be something wrong

either with my computer or my ISP <sigh>

> Claus Paludan wrote:

> So no, it isn't the K-guns that are too powerful. It is the scenario -

They inflict more damage *per die* (obviously), but the beams fire a lot

more dice. If you compare beams and K-guns mass for mass or cost for
cost,
the K-guns only inflict more damage than beams do IF the target is
heavily screened (which a Komarov is) or the beam dice roll exceptionally low
(which you seem to have done in your game).

> So too powerfull here only means that in the scenario the slow

But like I said in the previous post, it isn't the *K-guns* that are
"too powerful" for the scenario.

It is the *scenario itself* that is the problem: a single ship which can

neither manoeuvre nor point its main weapons backwards is extremely vulnerable
to any enemy with better *manoeuvrability*. It doesn't really

matter what *weapons* that enemy is using; you would've had essentially the
same results if you had replaced all the K-guns with beam batteries or
P-torps.

> (rather what we suspected and calculated with - either it would be too
We
> didn't plan on an equal game. The interesting part with turning the

> K-guns did).

Unless your beam dice continues their extremely low trend, removing
14-18
hull boxes per turn shouldn't be any problem whatsoever for the beams.

14-18 hull points per turn against level-2 screens requires 30-40 beam
dice with normal die rolls (as opposed to your unusually low ones). If you
simply replace all the K-guns on the KV ships in the scenario with the
same
Mass of 6-arc Class-1 or 3-arc Class-2 beam batteries, you get 52 beam
dice at close range or up to 26 at medium. While you lose a bit of range, you

also get much wider fire arcs which dramatically improves your chances for
avoiding the Elizaveta's main weapon arcs by making your movements less
predictable. (You also reduce the cost of the KV squadron by 52 pts, but

that's irrelevant in this case since this scenario isn't points-balanced

anyway.)

> But no matter what - the large ships SHOULD have escort ships to

Large ships with more powerful - and intact! - engines and more
all-around
armaments are *much* better able to protect themselves against Kra'Vak than a
crippled Komarov is, though...

Perhaps the way to improve the scnenario is to give the crippled SDN a small
escort ship. Give it an initial velocity of 0 or have it drift with the SDN
like it is trying to help in some way.

--Greg

An update from the Kra'vak side:
http://www.twins4ever.dk/cougarscorner/index.php?showtopic=139&st=0&#ent
ry332

@Gregory - I don't think there is much to add to this scenario - it was
only a test of ship capabilites - why we wrote up a whole scenario for
it..?? Well that's just us.. Don't put too much into it.. try it out
(only takes 4-5 turns lol) if you like, but better and real scenarios
will turn up later:)

@Oerjan - don't go too deep into the weapon statistics - it doesn't
really matter for us. We have played 3 games now with the Kra'vak - the
first one pretty equal (same size of fleets, almost same type of ships) and
that evened out ok. The second and third game had quite another objective
(testing rather than gaming) in order for us to assess the ability of a
dreadnought. We will fiddle and tamper with the support for

it later on as well as switch sides (could be that my beams would be a turn or
two longer in destroying the Kra'vak SDN). As to judge whether some weapons
are more powerful than others, ship designs better than others and stuff like
that.. well we have played far too few games to judge that, and even if we had
played a lot more it still wouldn't
matter - we are not aiming for strictly balanced games - just fun. And
even though the dreadnought was wiped out fast we still had fun both games..
and we probably would make the same type of unbalanced game
later on - just to have fun..

We have played a lot of WW2 on the eastern front (both early and late)
and we are quite used to more powerful weapons/commanders or what ever
on one side - that's the way it was then, that's how it is if you play
other battles as well - rarely do you have equal forces on both sides..

So sit back and relax, read our reports if you like, don't read them if you
don't feel like it.. The endeavours of Vladimir will continue (he
probably WILL survive each battle in a true Honor Harrington/Horation
Hornblower way while we try all sorts of battles and setups..

Don't take it too serious nor dwelve too much on our findings regarding
weapons:) Statistics won't work on me anyway... I played WH40K when I started,
never won a single battle bar one, many, many of those battles were most
likely lost due to really bad dice rolls. My opponent who was working every
day with statistics stopped wondering about my continous
bad dice rolls in the end - he just accepted it in the end :) But we had

fun all the way - the most important part :)

Stay cool and may the FTL be with you all. (if you paid the points and mass
for it that is:D)

> Claus Paludan wrote:

> @Oerjan - don't go too deep into the weapon statistics

I'm trying to point out what the real balance problem with your scenario

was, since you were looking in the completely wrong direction.

> We will fiddle and tamper with the support for it later on as well as

If the KV SDN has crippled engines, it will die even *faster* and inflict even
*less* damage on the enemy than the Elizaveta did. Fewer hull boxes to start
with, facing more powerful enemy weapons (ie. beams rather than
K-guns), and with an even more forward-facing armament than the
Elizaveta...

Regards,

**snip snip snip**
  we are not aiming for strictly balanced games - just fun. And
even though the dreadnought was wiped out fast we still had fun both games..
and we probably would make the same type of unbalanced game
 later on - just to have fun..

 **snip snip...*

So sit back and relax, read our reports if you like, don't read them if

you don't feel like it.. The endeavours of Vladimir will continue (he
 probably WILL survive each battle in a true Honor Harrington/Horation
Hornblower way while we try all sorts of battles and setups..

Claus... I like that attitude:) Play the game and all that. I also like the
report and the photos! Those new ESU ships look great.

All the best, Dave

> david garnham wrote:

> **snip snip snip**
I agree with you on the scenarios. We try to make balanced and fun scenarios
for gaming conventions, but it's quite alright to play unbalanced games with a
group of gaming buddies simply for the fun of it. Play on and keep taking
photos.

The ESU ships do look cool too. I already have far too many old style ships.

> Oerjan Ariander wrote:

Point is - there isn't a balance problem at all... we were testing stuff

out and merely provided a scenario to set the atmosphere. Only thing left to
test is to turn the tables and see how the Kra'vak SDN will fare..

The scenario is exactly as it should be for our purpose.

> david garnham wrote:

Cheers:) we lost track of who won which WW2 battle many many battles ago, but
we do tend to remember little infights during a larger battle that was really
intense.. who won the overall thing didn't matter and still doesn't:)

Glad to hear of more who likes the new ESU ships..

> Jon Davis wrote:

We will - and yes the convention games should be more balanced in either

forces or objectives:)

> The ESU ships do look cool too. I already have far too many
Seems like I am building up a small force of those as well:)

Let's put this to rest.... please.. it has become way to serious a discussion
seen in the light of the scenario...

> Oerjan Ariander wrote:

> To which I reply: How can you possibly get a feel for the power of an

> started?

> way you did in this one can be very misleading - just like it seems to

> have been here...

> Claus Paludan wrote:

> I'm trying to point out what the real balance problem with your

Quoting your post-battle comments on your web page:

"We plan to play it again in reverse roles to see if it's the K guns that
kicks too much butt or if its just lone mastodonts that can't fight for them
selves."

This explicitly states that

1) you found the scenario *unbalanced*, and
2) you are looking for an explanation to *why* it was unbalanced -
you've even provided two potential explanations.

Whether or not you consider this imbalance to be a *problem* is irrelevant to
me. What *is* relevant is that you obviously noticed that it *exists*, since
you commented on it in your AAR.

*My* point is that BOTH of your suggested explanations for this imbalance
are false: K-guns are far from the most powerful weapons in the game,
and
lone mastodonts can be *extremely* capable to fight for themselves -
provided that they are both DESIGNED to do so (which neither the Komarov

nor the Yu'Kas are) and ALLOWED to do so (which the Elizaveta wasn't, since
she started the battle badly crippled).

> On the SCN forum, you wrote:

"It was more of a test scenario to get a feel for the would be power of a
SDN."

To which I reply: How can you possibly get a feel for the power of an SDN if
you *remove* nearly all of its power before the battle has even started?

Don't get me wrong: I like scenario games just as much as you do. However,
trying to draw conclusions from the outcome of such games the way you did
in this one can be very misleading - just like it seems to have been
here...

Regards,