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Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

The carnage from the Coalition Turn 4 offensives caused several difficult choices for me. Kzinti income is down to 2/3rds normal (and down 11 just from last turn), while Hydran income dropped 25 EP to the 2/3rds mark in just one turn.

The Kzinti navy is in quite a bind, with a lot of cripples backed up at the Capital and the Barony. I had to short the repairs quite a bit, repairing my maximum in the Capital with a CC, 2xBC, 3xFF and four escorts. In the Barony, I only repaired an EFF, despite more cripples than the facilities can handle.

The other problem is that this is the Spring, a dreadnought turn. I made the hard decision to downgrade the DN to a CV. I would rather have subbed out the BC for that, and I’m worried about losing a CR-10 hull, but it did drop the cost quite a bit. I also canceled four FFs, and produced one extra MEC, which will go to a CV group without an inner escort.

The Hydrans canceled all six of their FFs and one HR, but built a PAL, RN, TR, and HR while adding two PDUs to the capital. I would have liked to build the max four, but didn’t like giving up any more quality units than I had to. Also, a HN and TR were repaired in the capital. There’s a few other cripples around, but most were not on repair facilities.

On the Kzinti front, this was a less intense turn that I would have liked. Part of it, is that I don’t have that much experience with the game, and I’m still trying to figure out just what can be gotten away with. It is also a goal to keep cripples (and therefore damage) down this turn so that the backlog can be mostly cleared next turn, which would put the Kzinti navy on a very good footing indeed. I poked at two Klingon-held planets, but not with enough to force him off after reserves showed up.

In Hydran space, most of my effort went into moving the cut off Gold Fleet back towards the capital. I also poked at the planet the Lyrans captured, to pin his ships there as I attacked a lone DN and crippled CA in 0318. If I had been smart, I would have set up cordon to catch the fleeing DN, but then, I’m not sure I could have spared ships across three hexes, especially since some of them wouldn’t get to retrograde.

Kzinti front

Hydran front

Combats:
1105: Klingon: crip D5; Kzinti: crip CLE
1203: SSC – both sides retreat
1303: SSC – E4 destroyed
1202: Klingon: crip D5, E4; Kzinti: crip CL
1402: Lyran: dest crip CC; Klingon: dest F5
0301: Lyran: dest crip CA
0416: Lyran: crip 2xCW; Hydran: crip LM
0817: Klingon: crip 2E4A, dest D7C

The last fight in particular surprised me. It was a fairly massive open-space confrontation brought about by my efforts to pull the wreckage of the Gold Fleet back from the destroyed SB to the homeworld. Included in the fleet were 5 crippled HNs, which I figured would probably go up during pursuit. In the meantime, I was going to make it hurt. I put up my second best line with PAL, 5xRN, HR, and a 4UH group (best line would have had 3xHR in place of the UH), for 100 ComPot.

The real surprise was that even with a D6M on the line, there was no directing, and when I retreated, no pursuit. I had kind of thought that Belirahc had already figured out the secret of fighting the Hydrans. But now I’m going to spill it all:

The Hydrans love open space battles. They want to engage in fights where there’s nothing important. They take damage on fighters, and maybe a cripple or so until the enemy retreats, or they run out of spare fighters, then they retreat. In this fight, the Klingons took two cripples and lost a D7C (not common enough to be throwing away) in return for nothing. The way to keep the Hydrans from doing this  is to direct on the biggest thing that can be blown up by direct damage every round (preferably a fighter-heavy fusion-ship). DirDam is technically inefficient, but it’s far more efficient than letting it all fall on fighters, and the Hydrans can absorb a lot of damage just on fighters (that line had 42 fighter factors in it, and only counted 8 of them towards the three squadron limit).

This shuts down the fighter-sponge tactic of the Hydrans quite easily. The Hydrans do not have an overly-large navy to start with, and their economy is not capable of building everything on their schedule. Therefore every ship loss hurts. Worse, cruiser losses soon become terminal, and have to be minimized by the Hydrans lest they lose the very units that can make them so scary.

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

The Coalition turn left Kzinti space in a real mess. There were plenty of lightly-defended targets, but at the same time, the Hegemony Navy was not in the best of shape itself. I resolved to limit myself to a few important goals and concentrate on them.

Sadly, I didn’t take proper stock of the situation on the Hydran border. I ended up wasting any opportunities by spreading the fleet out too much, and not concentrating enough to actually achieve anything. Complicating matters was the fact that the reserves were almost universally in range of the Hydran border.

One error that thankfully only had minor consequences: Belirahc has been towing around some unassembled Mobile Bases for the past couple turns. He asked me about the timing of setting them up late in his turn. It was pretty obvious he wanted to set something up, but then nothing happened, but I forgot to double-check with him until a decent chunk of my movement was done. It turned out the Klingons were setting up a MB in 1304.

My goals on the Kzinti Front were clear: Keep the MB from setting up, kick the Coalition off of as many planets as possible, evacuate my cripples off the map, and hunker down to defend the remaining SB and the homeworlds. The Hydran front never got a clear goal, other than trying to raid a few BATS, and good maneuvering kept me from getting any freebies.

Activity on the Kzinti front.

Activity on the Hydran front.

All this led to a few fights where I’d had to pin him away from the real action, but neither of us really wanted to take casualties.

Combats:
1503: Klingon unopposed withdrawal to 1504
1203: Klingon unopposed withdrawal to 1303
1304: Klingon: crip D5, F5, 5xE4; dest D6D, MB abandoned
1004: Lyran unopposed withdrawal to 0905
1202: Kzinti: capture planet; Klingon: dest E4
1001: Kzinti: capture planet; Lyran: dest 2xCW
0413: Hydran: dest 2xCU; Lyran: crip 2xCA, FF
1112: Hydran: retreat to 1012
1013: Hydran: dest LM; Klingon: crip D6M, D6
1214: Klingon: crip D7
1014: Hydran: crip HN, Klingon: crip D5, F5

Things went well on the Kzinti front. After a couple rounds, he was forced to abandon the MB, though I was unable to generate enough damage to actually Direct Damage kill the tug responsible. I also forced him off of 1001 and 1202, pushing the Coalition further away from the capital.

The Hydran front did not go as well. Again, I was too spread out, keeping the Hydrans from getting good lines up, and not allowing any fighter reserves. Worse, I got forgetful, and forgot to put the command ship in formation in 1013, allowing the Klingons to kill a Lord Marshal command cruiser.

Everything retrograded back to defensive positions after combat. I used field repair on a couple of Kzinti escorts that had been damaged during the Coalition half of the turn and stranded away from repair facilities. This was part of the plan, but the Kzinti budget is stretched really thin right now. I’m likely to be canceling builds as it is, and this will make it harder. But I wanted the extra operational carrier group. Meanwhile, the Hydrans are setting up a MB in the capital, and have hauled one FRD to safety in the off-map area.

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

I started Turn 3 with a fair amount of confidence. Both halves of Turn 2 went well for me, and short of Belirahc slipping a large force into the capital, I was pretty sure I could hold what I wanted.

After some fencing with his initial attempts to reach targets, I started getting worried. He was getting much more aggressive on what he was targeting, and I was looking at losing interior planets. 1001 and 1504 were unsurprising; those are common Turn 2 targets for me. However, he hit 1202; first he moved some Lyrans towards it, which I intercepted, and then a force of Klingons, which I couldn’t stop. He also moved in a force against the major planet in 1502.

I had only one Reserve force available, as I had established one in 1604. I didn’t have enough ships eligible to form Reserves otherwise after my heavy raids last turn, and figured they’d do the job of distracting ships from other targets to pin them. That worked, and because he neglected to send a high enough command rating ship, I was still able to send out a CV to the starbase fight in 1304. The other one was forced to save 1502 instead of helping with an SB fight.

Situation at end of movement, showing major moves, reactions, reserves, and retreats.

The biggest mistake was forgetting to reinforce 1105 after a FF was pinned there by the defense fighters. So, that’s one planet he had no chance at this turn.

All of this led to a large number of battles, as well as the two large fights for the SBs.

Combats:
0802 – no casualties – Kzinti retreat to 0903
0906 – Kzinti: crip FF
1004 – Kzinti: dest BATS; Lyran: crip DD, dest FF
1805 – Kzinti: dest BATS; Klingon: crip F5
1105 – Lyran: crip FF, retreat to 1004
1504 – Kzinti: 2xPDU; Klingon: crip F5, E4, capture planet
1506 – Neutral: 2xPDU; Klingon: crip F5, capture planet
1202 – Kzinti: 2xPDU; Klingon: crip 2xF5, capture planet
1604 – Klingon: crip 3xF5
1502 – Kzinti: crip CC, MEC, EFF; Klingon: crip CVT, D6V, F5, 4xE4A
1103 – Kzinti: crip DD; Lyran: crip DD
1001 – Kzinti: 2xPDU; Lyran: crip DW, FF, dest DW, capture planet
0902 – Kzinti: 4 SIDS, crip CC, BC, CVL, CLE, 3xDD, 2xEFF, dest CLE, EFF, FF; Lyran: crip 2xCA, 6xCW, 3xCL, 2xDW, dest BC, 3xCL, 3xDD
1304 – Kzinti: dest SB, crip CC, 2xBC, CL, CLE, FF, EFF, dest DD, 2xFF, SF; Klingon: crip 2xD7C, D6M, D5, 2xF5 dest D7, 2xD6, 6xD5, F5L, 4xF5, FV, E4A, D5 captured

Belirahc went pretty methodically from the small battles to the big ones. The order of resolution can be important, but it worked out well for him. I was able to retreat my force on 1001 intact to the SB, so he had to face it twice, but he avoided a worse trap. I was considering giving up the SB in 0902 and retreating onto 1001 so that he couldn’t take it. But once he had taken it, there was little point, since it still wouldn’t produce income for me.

Surprisingly, everything stayed in supply after combat, other than the FF that had been province raiding in Klingon space, and managed to retreat into 1005 after merely being crippled by a CA.

The first SB battle, on the Lyran border, went well. I crippled more than I liked, but forcing him to fight the SB again with my fighters replenished will still cause a good amount of hurt.

The Duke’s SB (Klingon border) turned into a long, bloody affair, with both of us refusing to blink. Three rounds in, he used directed damage. In a close battle, this is often a mistake, as the inefficiency of directed damage puts you behind the curve on wrecking the enemy’s ability to resist. However, here, it was a good choice. He killed all my fighters on the line, and I had already burned through all my spares. This lowered my ComPot substantially and allowed him to stick it out much longer. Later I returned the favor by direct destroying an FV group. But that wasn’t done to lower his ComPot, but to permanently kill a carrier and its free fighter reloads.

It certainly hurt my chances to keep the SB. It came very close, with the Klingons only with about an extra six uncrippled ships left in reserve (small ones at that). But I had already wrecked too much of my fleet, and left a couple of rounds past when I should have.

My biggest disappointment was actually in the fight for 1502. It wasn’t to hard to drive him off. But, when he retreated, I had a choice: retreat myself, pulling back to the repair facilities of the capital, and allowing all the damage to be made good, or pursue and try to take out a few ships permanently. With two crippled Klingon carrier groups retreating, I chose pursuit. I, naturally, rolled another ‘6’ for pursuit, giving me neither option.

So, both sides forces are a mess. The carriers are generally intact, but the escorts took a pounding, and the Kzinti treasury is drained by all the drone bombardment I paid for. Another turn of this will see the end of Kzinti resistance outside the capital and the Marquis region (if he enters that area, the Federation will intervene). Belirahc did a very good job this turn, especially in having the fortitude to stick out the second SB assault, never an easy task. The main problem is that he left the supply grid intact, so there’s no partial grids splitting up the money, and making ship construction more difficult.

So, will he continue against the Kzinti, or turn his main attention to the Hydrans?