Sunday Star Fleet Battles

Bill and I met at Morningstar this afternoon to drive space ships and blow stuff up. I set up a very basic scenario earlier in the week - one player most escort a small freighter across the map. The other player needs to destroy the freighter before it can leave the map. We use the Cadet rules (16-impulse turns) since they are so much quicker. Bill drove a Fed Cruiser and I used a Romulan War Eagle.

I began withe WE cloaked, waiting to get close enough to fire the torpedo so it would be successful. No use firing at long range just to have it run out of steam by the time it got to the Fed.

I sent out a shuttle early, more as a nuisance than anything. Better to use it before it gets destroyed.

A bit later... Things are going swimmingly. All of our shuttles are out - Bill had outrun his and they weren't very useful for shooting the Plasma Torp. I'd been hit by both Photon Torpedoes and my #6 shield had been downed. I had also taken a few internals that really didn't matter much. My Plasma Torpedo caught up with the Federation scow and caused quite a bit of damage after crushing his #3.

Meanwhile, the freighter was hauling much butt, cutting out hard to my right to stay away from the Fed.

I fired my Phasers at range 0, killing his #6. A bit later, I was able to get a shuttle into his hex and scored a handful of internals through the down shields. We played through turn 3, but the freighter was able to get away and the Federation attacker was soundly thrashed!

Since the game went quickly, we played again, but this time Bill would escort the freighter and I'd attack!

My starting position. The red marker on my sweet ride is a "cloaked" indicator.

I didn't take many pictures of the second game. The cloak worked very well and caused Bill to hold his fire on turn 1. He also made a steering mistake with his cruiser, turning towards me late in the turn. This allowed me to pass to his starboard side on impulse 1 of turn 2 when I dropped the cloak and set speed 16 and prepared the Plasma Torp to fire.

It set this up... He only had one Phaser in arc and I was going to chase the freighter until one of us got tired. I fired my Plasma-S and the torpedo and I began the pursuit! I fired my phasers just 'cause and scored only one internal. It was an ENGINE HIT! Nice. Next turn there was no way he'd be able to keep his crazy speed up!

Initially, Bill didn't realize that he could keep the torp at range 1, made a bad turn, and the freighter exploded when the Type-S hit it with 22 internals.

I then showed him that if he'd just kept running, he could try to outlast the torpedo so we time-warped back a few impulses and tried it the other way....

This time, he was able to wear the Plasma Torp down, through endurance and phaser fire and only suffered 10 internal hits. Nasty, for sure, but he was able to exit the map and get a win. My Romulan high-tailed it for the opposite edge and evaded Federation retribution.

We both had a good time. I enjoy the heck out of SFB and small scenarios like this are great for learning the game and trying out ships. I was very worried about taking the War Eagle, but it actually holds up pretty well, and a week ago I called my shot with it. I was honor-bound to give it a go. Its biggest deficiency it that it only has three weapons, so it can be neutered pretty easily. Otherwise, the cloak and decent shields make it quite useable.