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In Y143, the Klingon Empire successfully rooted out and destroyed a Jindarian caravan operating in the asteroid belt of the Selnar system. Unfortunately, the Klingons did not know that they had missed one Jindarian ship, although they had badly damaged it in the campaign. Deprived of the support of their caravan, and with a virtually inactive warp drive, the Jindarian crew decided on a hideous act of revenge. They placed their crippled ship on a collision course with the main Klingon colony in the system. The Klingon governor called for assistance, and the nearest imperial units responded.

Me, Patch and Paul played this scenario from module F1 yesterday. I recently got it and wanted to see what the Jindarians (the new race presented in the module) are like, and this scenario was pretty easy to split up into three players.

The Jindarians have been in space for thousands of years, and are adapted to life inside of asteroids that have been converted into warp-capable spaceships. This scenario pits their largest class (with an intimidating amount of armor) against three Klingon ships, a D7, F5C and F5.

Since I was the one who had gotten to read the rules ahead of time, I got the Jindarian, while Paul took the D7 and Patch took the two F5s. Patch was very worried about the Klingon’s ability to take on the rock, but I don’t think he was really giving enough weight to the scenario restrictions on the Jindarian: all power was available, but only one point of movement could be generated. So it could either move one hex or do one tactical maneuver per turn. This extreme lack of maneuverability plays to the strong points of Klingon ships, which an maneuver to battle passes fairly well. Also, while the Jindarian heavy weapons are fairly fearsome, they’re spread out for better coverage and have a two-turn arming cycle.

And indeed… I made it a little over halfway to the planet before blowing up. The thing is very sturdy, but really needs just a bit of maneuverability to keep one shield arc losing armor from becoming a major problem, which is precisely what happened. And while it does deserve to be called a DN, it has 43 power, which is less than the amount of warp power on most DNs. Once internals started happening the relative lack of power and weapons told very quickly.

I did turn aside at one point to get some temporary relief and put other weapons in arc, but was impatient to close the range with the planet and turned back the next turn. It worked, especially as put the other side’s weapons in arc as I turned back. But the real thing to do at that point was probably do an impulse Tac right after the turn, to put even more distance between them and the down arc, and then go into reverse the following turn. (The ‘backing into the planet’ idea is mentioned in the scenario tactics, but stopping for three turns and tacing around didn’t appeal, and this method didn’t occur to me until now.)

After the initial volley from the heavy weapons, the Klingons closed in and got most of the way through the armor on a good volley of overloaded disruptors that hit 8/8. I could have grabbed one of the F5s in a range two tractor (and in hind-sight should have), but I wanted to grab three drones in tractors and didn’t have the power to do that and grab a ship at range 2.

As it was, the F5s presented themselves as a target first so early fire was concentrated on the F5C (and the only Klingon ph-1s present), switching to the D7 later. The F5C was crippled, and lost all of its weapons at one point (I believe some were repaired), the D7 took some serious damage, but there just wasn’t enough left to seriously hurt it by the time I started working on it.

So, another loss for me. But, a very fun one, and at least I don’t have wiping out an entire colony on my conscience. Looks like the next meeting will be in about 6 weeks, and I need start figuring out what we’re going to do.

Had more SFB goodness yesterday, with Patch, Mark and Paul over for a two-team battle. Me and Mark were one team, with me trying the Lyrans and Mark with Klingons, with Patch and Paul on the other with Kzintis and Federation respectively.

Y153

Paul got one, slightly larger ship so that he wouldn’t have to deal with two ships on his first time out. We also opted for no terrain to also keep things simple. We started in opposite corners and sped out to fight.

Both groups stuck together fairly well, making sure they had similar speeds across allies. I tried letting Mark dictate some of the course by letting him pick what he was doing and following. However, he kept to a longer distance that I really wanted, so while he started a couple hexes in the lead, by the time the real engagement started, I was in front by virtue of taking a more direct path. I also ended up with my FF closest to the enemy, which wasn’t really what I had planned at all.

The FF took a couple points of shield damage the first turn from long-range disruptor firing. Our volley did substandard and bounced off of reinforcement. During turn 2, we got close enough to start peppering a Kzinti CL at moderate range and the Fed CL fired two overloaded photons… and missed with both. With six phaser-1s it still commands respect, but it was as good an opportunity as we were going to get.

The problem that started showing itself was that Patch was tied down by the poor maneuvering class of the Fed CL (worst turn mode on the board), and the initial pass was off of each side’s port, and the battle started spiraling inward. Patch and Paul had been a bit late turning in if they wanted to keep us in front of the F-CL’s guns, and we were already getting onto the flank. I ended the turn with the DD dashing in, originally to use the ESG to take out a drone wave, but ramming a Z-CL instead.

The DD, naturally, was battered on the way in, and traded point blank alpha strikes at the top of a turn. I had the advantage of knocking down the shield with ESG first, so while our weapons fire generated the same damage, I did a lot more internals. Meanwhile, the other two ships scattered, destroying the DD on the way out. My FF and the remaining Z-CL ended up on a collision course, and I ended up putting up the ESG and ramming that one too. I hadn’t really expected to be using my ESGs offensively this early in either case, it just seemed to happen. Combined with earlier damage, and both Klingon ships coming up behind my FF, the CL was finished. The Fed CL had also been forced away to maneuver around some drones fired at it, and at this point it had no choice but to disengage. With freshly loaded photons it could easily maul any one ship, but it was outnumbered, with both Kzinti ships being drifting hulks by this point.

So, neither Paul nor Mark got fired at, and the decision was purely on the weight of the Kzintis taking much more damage than the Lyrans. I’d say victory rested a little on luck, with the initial photon volley missing 2 for 2 (with 50% odds) and the rest on maneuvering. I’d like to say I planned it all, but I only had vague ideas that seemed to work out well, and I kept remembering to turn the ESGs on just in time.

Mark’s second kid is due in about two weeks, so we’re expecting to be without him for a while, and I’m not quite sure what we’re doing next. There’s a three-player battle in the current year, but I think it’s more ship heavy than Paul is ready for.