Gold Digging - A Star Fleet Battles Report

Last Saturday the Space Cadets re-convened in Brunswick for another game of SFB. This month's scenario was one I put together called "Gold Digging." It features ISC and Gorn exploration and scout ships snooping around a recently abandoned pirate base. Of course the two groups arrive at the same time and are displeased to find competitors.

The two sides' scores are based purely on scientific research points they can accrue snooping around specific points on the map. Combat is not essential to winning, although the right hits can reduce your opponent's score and ability to perform further research. The order of battle:

ISC
    R13.73 HPL Heavy Police Ship Ruleslawyer (Ziggy)
    R13.18 SC Scout Impartial Observer (David D)
    R1.26A FE-S  Small Exploration Freighter  Goldstar III (Ziggy)
Gorn
    R6.4 DD+ Destroyer Ridgeback  (Anson)
    R6.13 SC-F Scout Basilisk  (Mike B)
    R6.13 SC-F Scout Slither  (David S)

So there's the map. ISC start in the yellow hexes, Gorn in the red. The grey rings are asteroid clusters and the green spots are the research locations. There are also twelve mines of various description hidden in the area. Yours truly GM'ed the scenario and was the mine controller. Bwahahaha!

Action is pending.

Action occurs! Anson's Destroyer quickly locates a large captor mine packing Plasma-Fs. Buh-bye, shield.

Having been kind enough to locate the mine on Turn 1, Impulse 26, the mine was able to fire at him again in short order. Buh-bye other shield.

Besides me having a lot of fun hammering a Gorn Destroyer with a mine, the players were studiously trying to rack up the research points and scanning for mines.

Look at all of the pretty little shuttles!

Mike's Scout locates another captor mine and gets an F-torp as a prize. David Drake's ISC Scout continues its push across the map determined to score ALL THE POINTS.

To my amusement, Ziggy's police ship and Anson's destroyer finally dance. They lob torps at one another. Ziggy eats one after phasering it a bit and Anson runs for home, having lost a handful of shields.

After four turns, the ISC was firmly in control and the Gorn had no practical way to catch up. We called it there.

Final Score: ISC  442    Gorn  304
David D's ISC Scout was a beast racking up 236 on its own. The ISC aux exploration ship scored 160 and the HPL was good for 46.

David S's Gorn Scout led that side with 120 points. Mike's had 108 while Anson's DD scored 76.

Mike forgot to charge his Probe on turn 1 ( proceed with a middle-school giggle ) so he missed an easy 20-point opportunity. The Gorn team was completely miserable at scanning for mines while the ISC were significantly more successful. It didn't help that Anson triggered two plasma-launching captor mines himself and Mike hit an explosive mine and triggered and was hit by both a plasma and phaser captor.

The scenario was a hit, particularly since it was a lot different than the typical shoot-em-up. I was fully expecting the ISC auxiliary ship to get crushed, but because Zig played it cautiously with that ship, it was able to score and keep a lot of points that the Gorn had a tough time keeping up with. If I'd been driving the Gorn, I'd have told the DD player to get up to speed 30 or 31 and go hunt that damn thing down. Oh well, that's what makes it fun!