Star Fleet Battles AAR - Swap Meet

The Space Cadets got in a final SFB game for 2017 last Sunday at our preferred location - Pizza Hut in Brunswick, GA. Edward joined us for a second time and is now in danger of becoming an actual member of the Space Cadets.

The scenario was of my design. It starts with a Klingon and Romulan ship meeting up to transfer two items from the Klingons to the Romulans. There is also a cloaked Romulan frigate nearby. Two Federation destroyers zip in, attempting to disrupt the exchange.  We pick up the story there.

So, here's the setup. Ed and I drove the Feddies (green circle). David ran the Romulans and Mike helmed the Klingon (orange). The Romulan Snipe is cloaked using hidden deployment.

Ed and I, commanding the Fast Destroyers Silverhawk and the Usain Bolt, charge in headlong at speed 27. The initial plan was to quickly punch the freighter, then get away, recharge photons, and then zip in and hit it again. Mike's LD5 has sent a couple of drones towards us and the Snipe is decloaking.

Things really get squirreley for the Feds as the Snipe pushes two plasma-F and one plasma-G out its tubes. Rather than "manning up" and soaking 60 points of damage, I suggest to Edward that we run for a bit.

If there's anything a Fast Destroyer does well, it's run! The blasted Freight Eagle takes the cargo and begins cloaking. Not very sporting at all. Edward and I turn things into a game of "Kill the Klingon" and empty the tubes into the LD5. Mike's ship loses the #5 shield and takes a handful of internals. Meanwhile, the Klingon and Romulan ships have been pelting Ed and I with phasers and disruptors. 

The Bolt is hit with three plasma torpedoes. After 13 impulses of running, the damage isn't terrible at all though.

Time warp past through much of turn 2... After Ed and I completed our orbit of the asteroid cluster, we began pursuing the Freight Eagle. I turned to distract the Snipe and Klingon while Ed continued the chase. My ship was savaged by direct-fire weapons and my return fire was wildly poor. I set a course for home being crippled at this point. Ed did catch up with the Freight Eagle, but between the cloak and its great shields, the alpha strike that was dealt to it at the start of turn 3 was ineffective. A solid win for David and his pointy-ears and a best supporting actor for Mike and his Klingons.

The Federation Fast Destroyer is a miserable ship. It's shaped like an arrow and performs like one. It goes very fast, straight ahead and hits whatever is directly in front of it. It was quite interesting (frustrating) to drive something this one-dimensional. Little wonder that in the flavor text it says the Federation only ever built one.

It was a fun way to kill an afternoon and we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Thanks guys!

Happy TANKSgiving - Two AARs

Over the weekend, Mike hosted his annual Tanks-giving gaming get-together and of course David and I had to make the 120 mile trek. On the menu this year were Dystopian Wars: Fleet Action and Blitzkrieg Commander.

DWFA was set up first. I'd brought two forces, French and Prussians, allies in the DW alternate history. Opposing them would be the British and Russians. Being a tank-themed event, it was a land battle with the minor exception of an Eclipse Company airship recruited by the Brits to pad their numbers.

So, managing the Brits and Russians were Mike, Alec, David and Lee. Ace and I split the French while James and Sarah led the Prussian contingent. I won't attempt a detailed battle report because most of what followed over the next three and a half hours was a series of insults and jeers as we all settled into our national stereotypes for a bit of roleplaying with our wargaming.

Our battlefield and two of our opponents.

Our patient host.

The French mobile airfield moves towards the hill in front of it, accompanied by many smaller tanks. It may be worth noting that one of my two artillery pieces, in the extreme foreground, had already been destroyed by the British arty.

At some point during turn 2...  Lee and Sarah showed up a bit late, but better late than never. After turn 1, the Anglo-Russian alliance were ahead 9-2. The Prussians had made a deep push on our right flank but appeared to be getting pulled into a Russian trap. The Brits in front of me and Ace were content to focus fire on my Danton landship.

Hey, it still has two hull points!

Sarah's small tanks get up the hill and begin flanking the Russian trap as the big Russian drill surfaces and disgorges its cargo of three more tanks.

Blimp's-eye view.

Big Stompy charges into the Russian line, destroying a couple of tanks. James knew the writing was on the wall for the big guy and wanted to get in a few extra kills before his big 'bot was destroyed.

I wanted to do the same with my Danton, except that Ace had parked a tank in front of it, restricting my movement.

 Mike's artillery then cut loose like a deuce on the ol' Bastille on wheels.

And it was no more...

Smiling faces of our opponents.

This was followed quickly by David putting paid to the Metzger. Two heavy hitters gone in the blink of an eye. To add insult to injury, when Ace rolled his airfield right up to the death zeppelin, he whiffed with every attack!

The final insult as Dave's drill smashes through a tiny stand of Prussian Walze tanks.

So, from that last picture you get a good sense of the class and graciousness of our opponents. I jest. It was a terrific game, marred by horrifying dice rolls on our side and good, if not great, dice rolling by our opponents. James was the only player on our side whose dice weren't completely miserable. Final score - 50 to 30 in favor of Mike, Alec, David and Lee. Congrats, and on to the next!

For BKC, we switched up teams a bit and a bit of a staffing change. Ace, Mark and Alec were on team Germany with me, while David, Mike, Matt and James for team Soviet Union. Though the game was technically set in 1944, we had a motley collection of equipment fielded and the battle amounted to a line-up and shoot. Given the feistiness of the players, it was just as well. Nothing too complex.

Most of the players... Matt has brain damage and can't control what his hands do.

My lovelies. I was to just hang onto the right flank as best I could with a mere seven Panzer IVs, two blobs of infantry and two PaK40s (in the wheatfield).

SU152s, T-34s and KVs across the map from me.

James' (behind the field) and David's (behind the buildings) tanks.

The battle began in earnest on our left flank with Ace and Alec pushing up the hill opposite David's 85s.

In the hour and eighteen minute-gap since the start of the game, I had passed exactly one command roll and my slackers had moved almost nowhere.

I was presented with some targets atop the central hill and began firing with my tanks. Finally, some fun!

Mark's Tiger IIs in our center, behind that pond, absolutely dominated the gumball alley in the middle - a good thing for us because I wasn't doing anything and about 2/3rds of our forces were on the left side cut off from us by the hilltop and woods.

Mike and Matt eventually got their tanks to the ridge in front of me and began hitting my position. My Mk IVs didn't stand up well to the challenge.

My two functional tanks hit the gas and re-deployed to the field to join with the anti tank guns that had actually been complete killing machines.

The far side of the table. Alec and Ace had made a significant push forward and made quite a mess.

By 10:00, with a two-hour ride home looking at us, we wrapped up the game. We tallied up kills and the Germans had won by a roughly 2:1 margin - quite shocking but I needed a win after the beating that was Dystopian Wars! I rather enjoyed BKC and am sure I'll be playing more of it in the future. David liked it as well. We've both purchased the 2nd edition rules PDF.

Another great Tanksgiving come and gone. James has a post on his blog too, here.  I'm psyched for Memorial Day now!

October Star Fleet Battles AAR

The Space Cadets + 2 got together for an enjoyable, if loooong, game of SFB Saturday afternoon at our preferred locale of Pizza Hut in Brunswick.

I put the scenario together in bursts over the last couple of months. Concept. Ships. Balance. Mike is a fan of both Kzinti drones and fighters, so I included those specifically for him. Loads of fighters and drones does tend to slow down a game which is why I don't go to that well very often. Opposing them were Jindarians, a tough direct-fire only race. I really wanted to see how their bombers performed in a game situation so they were essentially auto-includes.

Y170 Kzinti-Lyran Border
The Kzinti have located a rogue planetoid in an asteroid field near the border. It has been identified as a fine location for a base station so construction was started. It didn't take long before the Jindarian occupants of the asteroid field noticed the continuous activity and decided to take action to send the cats packing.

The Jindarian have sent out two Destroyers, the Rock Lobster and the Dwayne Johnson as well a cluster of four Meteorite heavy bombers to deal with the Kzinti.

Kziniti forces included the Frigate Constable's Daughter, Auxiliary Light Carrier Heroes' Home and an Auxiliary Cruiser Unwieldy. There were also two non-combatant construction freighters in the area.

Mike, and new players Max and Edward took command of the Kzinti, while David and I split the Jindarian.

Deployment. David and I feared the wall o' drones that would be forthcoming so thought it prudent to dart over to the next asteroid cluster, manipulating said drones into smashing themselves on the asteroids.

 

The plan seemed to be working pretty well. We sent the bombers out to take some cheap shots at the cats.

 

The squadrons of fighters are fully deployed from the carrier. There are six older AS fighters and six SAS streak fighters.

 

The Jindarian bombers knock down half the front shield of the Unwieldy with some long ranged railgun fire.

 

So, at the end of turn 1, the Jindarians had successfully make the trip to the target cluster of asteroids and drawn a decent number of drones off Kzinti launchers. The Cats, however, had many many launch platforms ready and moving in on them would be difficult.

 

David and I planned to follow the yellow path for turn two, drawing out more drones. We ended up following the orange when...

 

The Unwieldy got close and presented its thin front shield. David and I unloaded four Phaser-1s and two railguns each into it. The freighter took 12 internals. The Jindarian destoyers then HET-ed and fired their remaining railguns into the unshielded face. Nothing like pouring gasoline on the fire!

 

Ze bombers do an admirable job of also drawing out some drones. The asteroids continue to be our best friends!

 

To start turn 3, David and I agree that speed 24 is the way to go. We can outrun the speed-20 drones and continue to fence. These Kzinti are a real hassle. It's like trying to wrestle a porcupine and getting in close is just impossible!

 

It took little time for the AS squadron to send a collection of drones our way.

 

These were followed by masses of additional drones. The destroyers were in good shape with their speed up, but the bombers who'd drawn the attention of the frigate and some SAS shuttles were in deep kimchi.

 

Between the rear-firing phasers and chaff, only one bomber was crippled! The other three prepared to do battle with the pursuers!

 

Before we called it quits, the Jindarian destroyers put a big dent in the frigate's front shield. That would discourage any pursuit!

 

It had been three full turns and about five hours of play. The Kzinti were running low of drones in the racks and the Jindarian destroyers were still in great condition. We awarded a minor win to the Jindarians, only because they'd done more real damage. The bomber/fighter fight that was about to develop would have been interesting.

 

A see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil shot of the Kzinti captains. That's Mike, Max and Edward.

A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and a difficult scenario for both sides for sure! I was quite happy with how it turned out. The new guys did well. SFB is overwhelming and we had a LOT going on with all those fighters and drones on the table. I hope they join us in the future.

Dystopian Wars Fleet Action: First AAR

So, about a week before Spartan went under, I started looking through their quick-play rules - Dystopian Wars Fleet Action and Firestorm Taskforce. DW and FSA are terrific games but the fiddly nature of the rules limit how much of a game can be played in three hours. The new rules simplify things significantly but do a fabulous job of retaining the flavor of the original.

Ziggy and I got together for a battle Saturday evening to give DWFA a thorough workout. I used my Honorable Eclipse Company which have been in a box, painted, for quite some time but only minor elements of which have ever seen the battlefield (two years ago!). Zig used his British navy. One unintended matchup problem that Z didn't consider is that his ships rely heavily on torpedoes, which are useless of course against flying machines which make up 85% of an HEC force. Point values were just over 1700 each.

I'd have decorated the islands a bit more, but the decorations would have just gotten in the way of my fliers. Witness yet another bizarre deployment by Ziggy.

After a turn, there had been very little destruction. Lots of moving out and getting lined up.Oh, that white square on the left side was a minefield. I suppose I should craft a couple, more elegant.

A squadron of Hades interceptors takes a run at some frigates.

I'll note at this point that we were listening to 80's heavy metal and Slayer "Raining Blood" came on as I was getting the bombers lined up for a bombing run on the destroyers below. Just one of those fun memorable gaming moments. My bombers whiffed and we quickly turned the song into "Raining Dud."

The noose continues to tighten around the British. Their only element outside that top-right pocket is a corvette squadron visible (barely) on the left in front of the mines.

Turn 3 - I remember to launch the little guys from my undersea bases. Assault submarines make for the Hood battlecruiser and give it a good thrashing.

A view from the top. The immobile killing machine had just mashed up something or other in the distance. Pretty sure the gin & tonic inspired this picture.

Remains of a Hades squadron try to make an impression on the Monarch-class heavy battleship. They'd have done just as well lobbing water balloons.

The mini-subs finish off the Hood. During turn 4, Ziggy actually racked up a lot of kills but it wasn't enough to overcome the deficit. We called the game there.

The final score, just raw kills was 46 to 27 in favor of my HEC. I really do think that the lack of suitable targets for torpedoes was significant. Nineteen points different? Who knows? Next time I'll use something a bit more naval.

We're both very happy with the DWFA rules and they'll continue to be used. The game just plays better with less confusion, fewer rulebook dives and more toys on the tabletop.