Star Fleet Battles AAR: Slim Pickings

The Space Cadets re-assembled in Brunswick last Sunday for a bit of the 'ol SFB. The scenario of my design featured three Orion LR+ trying to load up with loot while dealing with a passing Tholian flotilla that had responded to the distress calls.

We had six players this month - me David and Mike as well as Max, Caleb and Mike's son Anson. Ships were randomly assigned and interestingly, all three of the veteran players ended up on the Tholian side while the trainees commanded the Orions.

Mike drove a Black Widow carrier.
David commanded the fighter squadron from the BW
I commanded three Arachnid PFs.

All three LRs were identical with a single Distruptor-22 in the A position and two C-racks in the wings. Drones were speed 32.

The setup map. The Orions are in the blue hexes. The BW is in the red and my PFs are in the orange hex. The green blob is a planet and the gray hex is a moon. The bone hexes contain wrecked ships that the Orions must retrieve 10 loot from before leaving.

We join the action. The Orions started lobbing drones early. We Tholians countered this volley by crossing our paths behind the planet, forcing the drones to lose tracking.

Reasonably sure this was the end of Turn 1. On turn 2, I really hit the gas to go "catch me a pah-rit!"

I was pleased to see most of the drones get targeted at the carrier / fighters. I traded shots with Max in the red LR. The other pirates also took some long range shots at my flotilla and one of my PFs suffered some serious internals.The carrier and fighters were able to handle the drones with few problems, although one Spider III did succumb!

To start turn 3, we had to figure out how to keep the Orions from getting away with the loot. I had pulled up right behind Anson's ship by the end of turn 2 - it was simply the easiest to get close to. I overloaded the disruptors I had left (having lost two on ship #3 earlier) . One alpha-strike later, the LR suffered 49 internals. It blew up.

A few impulses later, David got most of his squadron to range-0 of Max's ship. Predictably, 11 phaser-3s did what 11 phaser-3s do. Max's LR was toast, but amusingly wiped out the Spider IIIs in return and severely damaged the Spider IIs.

Caleb got out with as much loot as he could carry, with a clean sheet! A good individual effort, but overall, the Tholians won handily. We discussed Orion options and they probably should have held all their drone launches until we'd cleared the planet and they'd have done well to get positioned at the end of turn 1 to make a mad dash to start turn 2. I was surprised that David elected to launch his fighters so early, but the Orions were traveling slowly and it ended up working out OK for us - I was worried they'd get left in the dust. I was quite happy with the Tholian PFs' performance. They're good ships that were well-suited to this kind of low-end encounter.

August Star Fleet Battles - Fortune Hunting or... Thar She Glows!

The Space Cadets met again at the McDonald's at exit 36 in Brunswick on Sunday afternoon for another riveting game of Star Fleet Battles! This makes it a year now that we've been convening to do battle in the vast vastness of spaaaaaaace! I have to admit, I didn't think it would last this long! I'm very pleased that it has though.

This month's mission: raiding the wreck of the Titanic IV. Rumor is that there is a McGuffin* on the wreck of the Titanic IV worth zillions of space bucks. As soon as the wreck was spotted a few days ago, every scumbag within spitting distance was ready to go loot it. The four ships that arrived first are the Battle Wagon, the Rattlesnake, the Black Sun and the Final Elvis - four Orion ships crewed by men who care very little for other pirates.

The ships:
Battle Wagon (James) -  Battle Raider w/ 2 Photons, 1 A-Rack, 2 Ph-1 and a Stinger-F replacing a shuttle.

Rattlesnake (Mike) - Heavy Raider w/ 2 Plas-F, 2 Ph-1 and two F-16s replacing two shuttles.

Black Sun (David) - Double Raider w/ 2 C-Racks, 3 Disruptors, a F-20 and Z-V replacing shuttles.

Final Elvis (Me) - Medium Raider w/ 2 Plas-D Racks, 1 ESG, 1 Ph-1 and a Gladiator FSF replacing a shuttle.

The ships are a real mixed bag. The Double Raider is the joke of the bunch, having paper shields. I had a blast putting the ships together. There were seven to select from and all were randomly assigned, as were starting positions on the map, which leads me to...

To start with, me, Mike and David plotted pretty conservative speeds - in the 12-16 range. Mike had his two F-16s out and tractored - lots of gatling phasers for defense. James however popped off with a speed 27! Obviously he'd get to the wreck first and get dibs on what part of it to search first.

I skulked out to the right edge, wary of Mike's F-torps and really bothered by the damn F-16s that would neuter my little D's before they could do their work. His ship > my ship. I play better as a skulking sneak anyway... no sense rushing towards my death!

Mike and James sandwiched the Black Sun and caused considerable damage with phasers and photons.

Mike and I tentatively agreed not to wreck each others' ships - this is about boarding and grabbing the Coure de Mer or whatever it is we're all after.

It should be obvious that James succeeded in landing three BPs on the Titanic long before anyone else got to it.

It's officially a mess. Mike is closing in on the wreck, James is running as fast as he can from plasma and drones and I've decided that skulking is still a worthwhile tactic.

A bit further in, Mike sends a short-lived shuttle** to the Titanic. I've left the shadows and turned towards the target. James continues his long hook maneuver in the interest of staying alive.

 The scrum hits its stride. I've launched my fighter, hoping to bag the Stinger. Mike and I manage to not shoot each other - it wasn't easy to restrain. The Stinger manages to stay alive due to some truly miserable shooting by David's Z-V pilot.

The Black Sun approaches Battle Wagon's Stinger and slaps a tractor on it. Comedy ensues. Mike and I beg him to pull it into the shuttle bay, repair and rearm it, then send it back out to give James a taste of his own medicine. As GM, I ruled that this was perfectly legal since everyone is a shady sell-sword anyway. David however wanted to death-drag the thing, so he kept it in tow.

The Captain of Battle Wagon fired defensive phasers at the Stinger to keep it out of enemy hands. Typical pirate scum move.

 Turn three quickly degenerated from this...

To this. I'd popped my ESG on impulse 28 of turn 2 so it was ready to rock! Time to go whump something! Unfortunately, me being a novice ESG user hit the Titanic and Battle Wagon at the same time, spreading the damage and only bonking James' ship for 7 damage. I also launched two Plasma Torpedoes (Ds) at James and unloaded five phasers into him. James' Battle Raider took a bunch of internals. He returned the favor, downing my #1 shield and getting one internal - a PHASER! Dammit!

Another shuttle bravely launches from a ship. It is quickly obliterated. I don't have a picture of my shuttle also being dispatched, by the Rattlesnake, the crook!

At the end of turn 4, this is where we were. Mike and I had landed 9 boarding parties each onto the Titanic, Dave had placed 7 and James, a lowly 3. David's and James' ship were pretty heavily damaged, I was without my #1 and a phaser and Mike was effectively unscathed, the bum.

The game was a lot of fun. It was great being stuck with unfamiliar ships and weapons. The addition of scavenged fighters was well-received. We like using them and for Orions having one or two in the hangar makes sense. The next game will begin with the boarding party combat and search for the treasure item. After that, it becomes a matter of getting away with the item. It should be wild!


* McGuffin
** no shuttles successfully landed on the Titanic.

April Star Fleet Battles Game

Three of the Space Cadets got together for a quickly-cobbled-together game of SFB. David texted me earlier in the week that he wanted to drive an LDR Police Carrier and Mike said he wanted in, so here's what I came up with...

The Jig Is Up!

The Arrow Poison Cartel has been operating from LDR and Lyran space for some time now. Since the recent fighter group battle and subsequent pursuit of their carrier, fleet forces have started to track down their bases of operation. The LDR got wind of a pair of ships on Vega III and sent a police carrier to hunt them down. Because the APC has been using Vega III for a few months as a "safe house," they've set up a makeshift minefield in the system.

The map. The two Orion Light Raiders, mine and Mike's, start the game landed on the planet. Mine had disruptors in the wing mounts and a type C Drone rack in the nose. Mike went the other way and put C-racks in the wings and a disruptor in the nose. Old Kzinti habits die hard. David had a full-refit LDR Police Carrier with six Z-Y fighters. The Orions also got 8 T-bombs (small mines) to place within 12 hexes of their planet. I placed four, as did Mike. See if you can spot my mistake in the picture above. All mines were set to trigger on drones and shuttles, ignoring ships.

Since during turn 1 the Orions could only begin lift-off from the planet, it was a very short turn. LDR Captain Fancy Feast moved at speed 20 and ended the turn 18-20 hexes from us.

Right at the start of turn 2 both David and I realized I fucked up the minefield and left a gap through it. Tragedy is in the works. Mike was not amused.

The po-po shoot the gap and start releasing fighters. Mike and I launch our shuttles since our ships are now airborne. We both start launching drones as well.

All of the fighters are out. David used O8 (picoarmor.com) micro fighters for the models and they are dead sexy. He also popped a 0-radius ESG, announced a few impulses prior.

One of the Orion highlights of the game. The Lyrans kick two shuttles out the hatch, inside the ESG. The carrier is going too fast to tractor the shuttles safely. The ESG is going to smash both shuttles. Mike and I are howling with laughter.

The carrier moves its next hex and smokes its babies. Hehehe. Too bad they weren't fighters.

Some Z-Ys blow up one of my shuttles. The three remaining shuttles shot poorly at one of the fighters and didn't kill it, but it was crippled.

By the end of the turn, all Orion shuttles had been killed and a six laden Z-Ys were loitering right next to our ships which were about to break atmosphere. Mike and I had a pow-wow and discussed how we were going to deal with the imminent 12-drone bombardment. We crunched some numbers and decided we could account for 10 drones, so we put lots of power into reinforcing our #5 shields (we were facing "up" relative to the pictures.)

David didn't realize that we were valid targets while in the planet hex and held fire. Our first move was to slip out, putting the planet between us and them. Our two ships are really in the same hex (0316).

It wasn't long before the fighters were in position and began launching drones at us.

We launched some drones at them as well and I managed a drone kill on a fighter. Mike swatted one with phasers and I bagged a second with an overloaded disruptor + phaser. Mike and I both tractored drones, accounting for four and I ended up getting hit by two drones in the #5 shield. An impulse or two later the fighters raked my #6 with phaser fire leaving my ship like this:

Not terrible, all things considered.

My ship was power-starved on turn 4, having doubled my engines on 3 and needing to recharge lots of things. Mike and I toyed with the idea of pushing our held drones into the mines but instead made a big loop around in pursuit of the fighters. We managed to kill off two more in the process while Mike's ship took some minor damage on its front shield.

With that, we were being kicked out of the game store at 7:00pm. An interesting and tense game to be sure. The gap in the minefield made things a hell of a lot more exciting than Mike and I would have liked, but in all seriousness, worked rather nicely from a scenario stand-point. Our next game will be a direct follow-up from this battle. We'll keep the damage as-is and have a pursuit of the Orions as they try to get away. The carrier is untouched, although it has lost its fighters. Both Orions have some damage and drones are diminished. The Orions will be in an extremely tough spot.

Thanks Mike and Dave for another tremendous game of SFB! Looking forward to the next one, as always!

StarDust Ground and Star Fleet Battles

I was able to get in some quality time with the ol' dice bag this weekend. Zig and I put SDG through its paces once again. The results of the play test were very positive and although we found two things that need specific clarification in the rules, everything was solid. On the other hand, we found a big ol' problem with the scenario which will be fixed shortly.

No full AAR, but I do have some pics.

Same scenario as last time. You can see immediately what needs to be fixed.

1. Enforce a 24" bubble for the ambushers. Ziggy started some of his troops right on top of mine.

2. I should have entered from the other corner. Move cover. My guys were very exposed right off the bat.

My small mechs smashed a hover tank in close combat. Quite a firefight develops on that side of the table.

Zig's mech goes full-Ginsu on an already beleaguered squad of Dogs.

My tanks become the next target of Stampy McSlice. His infantry squad has taken up a good position on the hill.

My last tank wises up and heads where he is needed - supporting the infantry advance. This also puts a lot of distance between the tank and that evil sword-swinging robot.

The hover tanks' plasma has a tough time finding its mark against the side of my barn with tracks.

My tank moves forward - I'm still efforting a result here - and the godforsaken turret immobilizes it with a missile. Gah! The tank gets some revenge and destroys the turret. 

In the end, the Dogs got wiped. Primarily, they were in a terrible position to begin with. I'm chalking much of the poor performance up to stupid terrain placement. Live n' learn.

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On to Sunday!

Sunday was our monthly Star Fleet Battles game. The scenario was a follow-up to the previous game which featured a whole bunch of fighters and drones.

Background - After the battle of Omicron Persei VIII, the Orion fighters beat a hasty retreat back to the pickup point. The Lyrans, feeling a bit betrayed by their mercenary allies, sent a Frigate in pursuit. The Federation and Kzintis, whose alliance was a bit more firm, also sent ships to pursue the fleeing pirates. The Orions were only interested in picking up their remaining fighters and getting away.

Although he's got the same goal as the Fed/Kzinti, the Lyran is not allowed to coordinate with them. They are mortal enemies after all.

We pick up in the middle of the action...

The Lyran (the big brown model) and Orion escort LR blast the tar out of each other at point-blank range. The LR caused a bunch of internal damage with its FOUR Ph-1s. (He put Ph-1s in all three option mounts) My carrier is making its way towards the fighters.

The Fed and Kzinti and a wall of drones speeds towards the pirates.

This month's collection of Space Cadets. We weren't expecting Bill, so we had to add a fifth ship for Alan, which unbalanced things a bit in favor of the Orions.

Four fighters tractored! Time to get out of Dodge! I've also sent s bucket of drones in pursuit of the Lyran. The Fed is breathing down my neck. The Orion CVL has jack shit for rear weapons.

Kzinti drone #33 kills one of the Z-Ys I have in tow and the Fed knocks down my #3 shield and caused a handful of internals with photons and phasers.

And then we stopped taking pictures.

The next turn I pushed the speed up to 26 and headed for home. James sniped one of the F-18s I had in tow, crippling it, which in turn killed it via death-drag. Another F-18 was killed by Mike I guess because when it was all said and done, I'd gotten away with one fighter (Z-Y) and a ship in decent condition. Alan's LR was in poor shape but survived. The Kzinti and Lyran ships both got pounded, particularly the Lyran. The Fed had a clean sheet. James could easily have killed off the fighters but just wasn't thinking about it when he made his attack run.

Bill's over-aggression with the Lyran was his undoing. Alan and I turned towards him, not wanting to close with the Fed's photons and Kzinti drones. Bill had set his speed to 30 which put him on top of the LR right away. If he'd been a bit more cautious and headed down field I think he'd have had an easier time.

Good game all, I enjoyed it tremendously!

Star Fleet Battles - DANGER ZONE!

The Space Cadets gathered for their monthly Star Fleet Battles exercise on Sunday afternoon. We had an extra help out as well, James who I play Shipwreck and other games with from time to time. He assisted David when Dave had to run an errand mid-game.

Our theme for the day was "Fighter School." We each put together a good-sized fighter group and split into teams - Bill and Mike (Fed and Kzinti) versus David and me (Lyran and Orion).

A large planet - Omicron Persei VIII - dominated the center of the table. Bill and Mike, the red-shirts, plot evilly.

Some stolen F-18s launch drones right from the get-go.

The two sides close. Lots of drones in flight, lots of confusion.

A pair of Z-Ys watch drones go past towards the Kzinti swarm.

A trio of Orion F-18s fire off three dogfight drones then turn tail back behind the planet to break any lock-ons. Shifty bastards, those Orions. Meanwhile, the Lyrans were having a hell of a time with the Feddies and Kzintis.

At this time there was a massive table-quake when James' hands misfired. It was pretty fucking tense for a few minutes, but we were able to recover after about 15 minutes using photos. We all had a laugh once things were sorted back out.

The reds laugh and James was forced to keep his hands in his pockets for the rest of the afternoon.

Orion Z-Ys pop off some more drones - these were targeted on the Kzinti TAAS shuttles - their good ones.

More drones are sent towards the Fed F-18s bringing up the rear of the alliance formation.

This was the last "action" pic I took. The Lyrans were wiped out. I think I got two kills - a HAAS and a TAAS and David/James killed an F-14(!) and I think a HAAS. We got handled big as shit. My Orions didn't take any losses but gave us a great jump-off point for the next game. I do try to stay in character when I play Orions - skulk, take cheap-shots and get away with your ship intact if possible! Allies are only allies while they're in front of you...

Our Captains...

The battle was a hoot. Lots of paperwork, lots of accounting, lots of smack-talk and plenty of blow-up crap. As I said earlier, it gives us a great follow-up opportunity for a couple of scenarios. We're all familiar with the ins and outs of fighter play and drone combat now and I don't think any of us will be hesitant to use them in later games.