R vs B Alliance Turn 2 in Review

by on March 4, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

When on the strategic defense in games, I can be quite passive. Pull in, perfect that line, don’t make waves.

Give me a superb offensive weapon however, and I will start counter-punching. For evidence, I submit the number of times I’ve gotten the German panzers in trouble in A Victory Lost, even while the rest of the line is retiring with unseemly speed.

The Kzinti navy, with its reliance on deep carrier lines, is a great weapon indeed. However, if not used cautiously, it is a bit fragile, especially now that out of sequence repairs and conversions are gone with CEDS. Carrier-based lines can absorb a lot of damage without taking a permanent loss, but once they run out of fighters, they’re as vulnerable as anything else.


Situation at the beginning of combat. Both fights against his province raiders went well.

I noted early on, that with Coalition forces retiring back across the border at the end of their turn 2, there wasn’t much in range of the Kzinti Capital. That allows me to stay centered on the outer defenses with some confidence, and that puts me in range of Coalition defenses with most of the navy. There was one BATS in the line with no forces on it. The problem was that it wouldn’t be hard for nearby forces to react onto it. I determined to see if I could block them, or prevent them from reacting.

First, I went along the Lyran side of the station. I nearly stopped the force in 0805, but then realized if he didn’t react, I’d be stuck well out of position, since without combat, I can’t retrograde back to my defenses. So I plotted a move onto the target BATS just in case. Moving on to the Lyran BATS was out, since then he could react in forces from the next one over, freeing up the force there to react later. I then repeated the process on the other side, but he didn’t react at all, letting me onto the BATS unopposed.

I still expected to see the two Reserves (one Lyran, one Klingon) come in and contest it with me. It moves them closer, and he could make killing the BATS quite expensive to me if he wanted. I figured I’d be forced to quit without accomplishing it. I’d cripple some of his forces in the process, but it was a rare chance to fight me not only without dealing with my defenses, but with aid from his defenses. Short of a knock-down drag-out fight over a SB (which is no fun for the attacker), it may be the best chance he’ll see to hurt the Kzintis for some time. Or I could have just pulled out, and he’d keep the BATS.

As it is, he lost the BATS in 0906 for free, and I crippled two CLs for the cost of fighters in the open space battle.

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F&E Vassal Module 1.2.1

by on March 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog at BGG.

Well, about four months after I initially thought it would be done, the new version of the Vassal Module for F&E is available at starfleetgames.com.

http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/F&E_1.2.1.zip

Creating the Vassal module has always been an adventure, and this update is no less so than before.

Did you know that the Windows 7 version of Paint doesn’t recognize palette information in older gifs correctly? I sure found out when it did some crazy dithering to some Hydran counters. Of course it looked fine in Paint, it was only after I loaded the graphic somewhere else that the trouble became apparent. Most of the ‘art’ on the counters is done by me twiddling pixels. Paint is brain-dead enough that it’s relatively easy there, but now I’ve learned how to get Photoshop to behave in that mode.

F&E was my first Vassal module, and I’ve poured a lot of time into it over the years. It also turned into a ‘stress test’ for Vassal, as it wasn’t really able to handle that many counters being on the board and active at one time. Thankfully, Vassal 3.1 fixed the resulting load times, and I’ve seen the module go from a curiosity to actually having a decent number of users.

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Q: What does it take to have a great campaign?

by on March 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Crossposted from the SFU blog at BGG.

A: Two (or more) dedicated players.

For many people, tactical games eventually conjure the dream of a campaign game. A kind of “super” tactical game where the consequences of one fight are seen in further fights. ASL has long had a good answer to this dream in it’s various HASL modules.

Star Fleet Battles has a number of small campaign games. I have yet to try any of them, though some are certainly interesting. But, to the point of this post, there are some very good campaigns that have extensive AARs posted over on the ADB forums, that I recommend looking at, if you have a good amount of time to spare.

The first is “The Day of the Eagle comes early“, it’s a modified version of the Admiral’s Game from Advanced Missions played between two good players, and obviously good friends, Jeremy Gray and Dale McKee. At first they were farming battles out to other people, but now they fly every one themselves—when they have time, which has been short lately. There’s still a lot of good fighting reported in those archives.

Much of the reason they’re busy is the other campaign game: “The Farthest Stars Campaign“, Dale is running this campaign, and Jeremy is playing the Tholians. This one has several ‘admirals’, each running one empire, and battles are farmed out with the expectation that players will report in as to what’s happening. Lots of interesting reading in that one too.

Both campaigns use a concept from the SFB Campaign Designer’s Handbook: Flexible command rating. The idea is similar to the ‘command rating’ introduced in F&E and used in the normal SFB S8.0 rules: You declare one ship the flagship, and the rest of your fleet is limited to what it can command. However the ‘flexible’ system tries to encourage the use of smaller ships by making them ‘cost’ less. In addition, both of these campaigns use lower flagship values, so that a ‘full fleet’ is around 5-6 ships instead of 10-12, making the fights much more manageable.

And while I’m on the subject, I’ll point out there’s a long tradition of posting reports on F&E games at the ADB forum. Some of them don’t get a lot of reporting, but just stick to the higher post counts in the Active Scenarios folder, and you’ll find some war stories worth reading.

(Note that all these links don’t give the normal view of the forum, you’re missing a left panel where all the login controls are kept, but you can’t direct link anywhere and keep that window. -.-; )

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SH124: Kroal’s Illegitimate War – Part 1

by on March 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Crossposted from the SFU blog at BGG.

A little under a year ago, I played this ‘historical’ SFB scenario with my two main gaming buddies. I was playing the Klingon force, and Mark and Patch had the defending forces. It didn’t go so well for them.

In the aftermath of that, I actually started a solo play of the scenario based off of my thoughts about the defense, and adding some suggestions in the thread, to see just how differently things would go. I never finished it, but this seems like a good opportunity to pick it up again.

[For the rest of this post, I’m assuming you’ve read the AAR of the original play, or are otherwise familiar with the scenario.]

The main points were for all the defending LDR ships to buy as many T-bombs as possible, and construct an ‘instant minefield’ around the planet. The ships themselves would stay parked near the planet, offering a stubborn close-in defense. The base would activate some impulse as APR on all three Orions, so that they were no longer sucking down power just to get the shields up, and then start concentrating on the first LR.

The Klingon tactics were the same as before, but with an actual pre-plotted bombardment in place, and programming for if the target is not immediately found.

The Klingons entered from the bottom right corner, just as in the previous game, with the F5 squadron going 16, and the E4s at 15. This puts them near the planet at the end of the turn, ready to charge fully loaded for a overrun. The LDR freighters and POL sit and TAC. The CivBS blows the majority of its batteries to help generate 21 repair points, activating 4 impulse as APR (2 on the CR, 1 each on the LRs—they will all power their own shields on turn 2), and starting activation of a Damage Control Box on LR-1 (taking a chance on the only ‘4’ box; 12 points needed). If that can be activated (with a maximum of 5 repair per on a box per turn, that’s three turns) then the LR can start activating its own systems, however slowly. The first wave of drones started on the south edge, moving up directly towards where the base would be after orbiting at the end of the turn (though at speed-12, they’d still be three hexes short of that point), and programmed to look for the armed freighters.

The defenders dropped various shields on the first impulse and put up an arc of transporter bombs halfway around the planet at range 3-4 (out of explosion range of ships and base in orbit). The problem here is that there’s just not enough TBs to go around. Some decoys need to be put into the mix.

During the mid-turn the Klingons start side-slipping around. The E4s are going slower, but it’s been decided to put the E4J in front to clear the minefield—the hard way. On impulse 30, the drones reach the mines, and are immediately lost in a detonation. The F-AL transports a replacement mine out, and TACs the down shield away from the approaching Klingons.


Situation at the end of turn 1. The F-AL is in the same hex as the CivBS, underneath all the Orion ships.

For turn 2, the LDR stayed parked, the CivBS turned on the ECM, and trickling power back into the batteries, and only powering 5 repair to continue work on the LR’s DamCon. The Klingons announced speed 14 for the F5s, 15 for the E4Is, and 18 for the E4J. The second wave of drones enters at the same spot as the first, but is programmed for the CivBS.

With transporters available again, the ground base starts transporting Orion crew units up to the CivBS for transfer to the ships, and more transporter bombs are put out—directly in the Klingon’s path. This causes a change in plans, and on impulse 3, the Klingons start turning to direction A, away from the direct path to where the CivBS’s orbit is taking it, and trying to get to the upper flank of the minefield.

On impulse 8 the E4J makes contact with the minefield, but the TB does not detonate. (And the annoyance of solo play is that I knew perfectly well why, even as the Klingons wondered, I wondered if I’d subconsciously set this up.) On impulse 9, the F-AL transported another TB in the path of the the Klingons. On impulse 10, the Klingons, not wanting to take an even longer road around,turned in with the F5P and moved the F5Is adjacent on a different facing. M1 still refused to detonate (it could have done a lot of damage right there). On impulse 11 the E4J moved further into the minefield, but the new M10 did not detonate either.


No boom today?

The E4J launches a drone (due to move on the next impulse). On impulse 12 the F5P and one F5I move onto M1 while the other F5I continues north, and the drone moves forward. Neither M1 or M10 detonate. F-AS-2 fires on the drone at range one and destroys it. On impulse 13 the E4s move. On impulse 14 F5I-1 continues north, skirting the minefield with the two E4Is. The other F5I and the F5P move forward.

And M10, reaching its count of 2 Size Class 4 (frigate) objects, detonates.

To be continued…

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R vs B Coalition Turn 2 in Review

by on February 27, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

[Adapted from an old BGG Geeklist posting.]

The Lyrans came in again and hit the remaining two battlestations on their border, and sent respectable force against the starbase at 0902. The Klingons came in and hit the majority of BATS on their border, but none of the three minor planets in reach (including the one in the neutral zone), leaving the small detachment I left on minor 1504 with nothing to do. The released portion of the Marquis’ Fleet reacted to his last moves and defended 1605, and my Reserves reinforced the SB attack and 1205.


(Only a general sense of movement. Operational movement = green. Reactions and Reserves = blue. Retreats = red. Retrograde = purple.)

Full losses for the turn:
Kzinti destroyed: 5xBATS
Crippled: CVE, 2xCLE, EFF
2 SIDS on SB 0902
Lyran destroyed: CC, 3xCA, 3xCW, CL, FF
Crippled: 3xCA, CL, DD, 3xFF
Klingon destroyed: D7, F5V, E4, E4A
Crippled: D7, 3xD6, 3xD5, F5L

The big SB battle only went three rounds, but played havoc with the Lyran fleet, which struggled to absorb all the damage. Worse, I finally succeeded on a pursuit roll, and killed a crippled CC. I’m still amazed at all the self-killed cruisers.

Review (for Belirahc’s benefit as much as anything else): There were a number of problems with Coalition play this turn, though lessons are being learned. After the shortage of scouts on the first turn, some four new ones were created this time (three Lyran, plus the extremely versatile D6D), which isn’t bad, as long as constructing them at this pace doesn’t continue. Scouts are handy to have around in F&E, though the advanced rules in Combined Ops can make larger numbers worthwhile as the EW-war heats up (but the lack of offensive power means overproducing them is no good either).

The Coalition generally sent much greater force into BATS-busting missions than was called for. This siphoned away forces from doing much else. While the two places I defended I could only do a round or two of damage before withdrawing because of the size of the Coalition forces, I should really be defending more important things than the border BATS. For instance, concentrating force on the SB-assault in 0902 would probably still not made that fight any better, but it would have attracted both Reserves, instead of letting one go to 1205. With leaner BATS-busting forces, the Klingons could have hit another 2-3 BATS or planets or put just enough on the 1304 SB to give me a real choice on what I was going to reinforce.

The Lyrans showed great intestinal fortitude at the SB, by sticking it out for three rounds against great Kzinti lines (though any line backed by a SB is pretty deadly; two 3CV groups are just icing on the cake). This is a good way to extend a close battle, and overload a defender. Things were close enough, that it could have worked. However, using Directed Damage all three rounds worked against this. The use of DirDam against fighter factors on the second round could have really paid off if the Lyrans were going to stick around a while (and I’ve had SB battles that went 8+ rounds…), but on two rounds DirDam was used to score SIDS. This is a particularly painful way to kill a base, and should only be done with both fleets have plenty of reserves to handle a protracted battle, as at that point it is the only way to force the defender to kill the base. Letting the damage fall on the first and third rounds would have forced the Kzinti to dig deep into their fleet to keep going, crippling most everything, self-killing ships, wrecking carrier groups, and taking voluntary SIDS. As it is, the Lyrans are out some very good ships, and most of the Kzinti damage (including the SIDS) will be repaired on the next turn.

Which brings up the point of crippling: Crippling almost everything can be a problem as it will flood the available repair facilities. On the other hand, you can only build so many ships, and they are much cheaper to repair than to build. Every killed ship is one that you will not have later. Since fighters are replaced for free, the use of carriers as damage sponges is especially important. Due to the cost of fighters, carriers are big investments, but taking damage on fighters is how the Alliance stays in the game, and the Coalition needs to follow suit as best it can (the Lyrans never do get much into the fighter game). The escorts make it hard for the other side to get rid of these valuable targets.

The Klingons got to see a D6M in action at 1605 (the last battle of the turn), and immediately got the idea. Maulers are essential to have on the attack, and help ease the pain of facing lots of fighters. I’m sure I’ll see a flurry of construction and conversions now.

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