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When the plot resulted in a coup (which failed), the Hidden Dagger County declared war on the DDSC and attacked. Larkahn’s son Larzhak, now Duke, supported the attack, as did the White Stripe County. They were unable to use their full combat power, however, due to the ongoing Fourth Lyran-Kzinti War and a “convenient” demonstration of power by the Hydrans.

The Battle of Vandaha was virtually a reprise of the Battle of Long Claws, but the DDSC (soon to become the LDR) forces were proportionately much larger.

Me, Mark, Patch, and Paul got together on Saturday to play this scenario from S2. Like the earlier Battle of the Long Claws, it has three sides (with two teamed up). However, our roles were shuffled: I was the DDSC, Mark had the Emperor’s forces, and Patch had Duke Larzhan, with Paul assisting him.

I hadn’t looked things over in detail, and was surprised to see that the battle was bigger than the previous one. It did not help that every single ship in my fleet was different (CA, CL, DD, FF, Pol, Pol-S, FAL, FAS).

The opening setup was like last time, and Patch’s plan was like mine: turn, and go after the DDSC first. My initial plan put the freighters up front, with everything else running faster. They were expendable, and durable, and the FAL, with two overloaded disruptors, had a fair punch.

EW was interesting, as we generally just allow scouts to play with it, and there were three different platforms available. Patch put up +1 ECM each on his four lead ships, while Mark put +3 on one of mine, +3 offensive ECM on Patch’s leading CA, and I put +6 on my CA. Considering that that adds up to a +3 die-roll shift if his CA fired on mine, I think it did affect where Patch went in somewhat.

Speaking of which, that did not go as I thought. I had vague notions of a point blank skirmish and put up reinforcement on nearly everything. But I figured it’d be dead ahead, and the two fleets ended up going by each other’s left, so everything hit the #6 shield.

The initial parts went very well. Both sides started getting ships taken out of the battle, but I gave better than I got at first. Mark showed up in time to really help out, but towards the end of the turn, Patch/Paul had more unengaged ships than we did, and at the beginning of turn two, that started to tell.

We didn’t get far into turn 2, and there was definitely some major carnage to come as the two untouched elements were just getting to grips with each other. But it was decided not to continue it later – so: marginal victory for Duke Larzhan. At least I can say I did better as the DDSC than Mark did previously.

The current plan is to do a battle to show off a couple of the early Dreadnoughts currently in use next time, and see if we can get a good group together for Soldier Kings the time after.

Well, internet here has been really flaky since about last Thursday. Apparently a contractor for Comcast has not been cleaning up after himself, and leaving much of Sunnyvale in poor shape. I imagine they’re getting coal in their stocking.

Last Saturday was the last wargaming meet of the year. The four of us did the two-team SFB fight that had been scheduled for last time. Me and Patch are the stronger players, and were on one team, while Mark and Paul were on the other with a sharp BPV advantage.

Y153:

The actual BPV difference can be attributed to all the Hydran fighters. It was kind of nice to just pick ships by classes and not worry about what the Hydrans do to the BPV calculations. The idea was for each side to have four cruisers with one on each side being a command cruiser.

Mark and Paul played a good, solid, conservative game all the way through. Patch and I tried being a bit fancy and could not quite get it to work. We actually split our forces early, in the face of united opposition. The general hope was for one of us to get a good opportunity while they tried to deal with the other one. If I had been playing up to par, it might have even worked, but I out-thought myself on several occasions during the fight.

The main new feature of the battle was the use of several transporter bombs. Both Patch and I took full load outs (which probably violated the 10% rule) of TBs. I tried using them for the ‘instant minefield’ effect, but wasn’t remembering all the rules (should have set most of them for just anti-fighter work) and gave myself quite a headache just maneuvering around my own stupidity.

In fact, the long-term implications of the entire deal was a wrecked Lyran cruiser. Until this point, it was looking like we might see some saber-dancing for a while, but this forced me in closer. In the aftermath Patch got the Hydran Ranger, but most of the opposing heavy weapons hadn’t fired, and they did a number on the D7C.

This gave us the reloading turn we needed to try and do something in return, but it wasn’t to be. I had forced myself too far away, and even going faster than everyone else, I was still two hexes away from the Feds at the end of the turn (who were also still in the same hex, which would have made one ship’s ESGs not nearly as much of a killer weapon). The Feds HETed and wrecked my remaining cruiser. One Fed CA was crippled in return, but that was not nearly enough. The day ended with our remaining forces scattering to attempt to disengage.

Oh, and Patch had to fire a single drone on the way out at the D7C to destroy it. For the first time ever that I’ve seen, both security stations were destroyed, and the crew successfully mutinied.

The final percentages gave Mark and Paul a Marginal Victory. The fight through the points generated by the BPV differential kept it from being much higher.

The next meet is going to be the “Battle of Vandaha” from S2. We might manage to sneak it in mid-January before Further Confusion, but it will probably be early February.