After our latest fight in Hatten, Patch and I turned to SFB for our next main fight. Patch settled on an unusual fight with the Jindarians as our next scenario.
In “Incident at Morkedia”, a Jindarian caravan does a rare unprovoked attack on a small settlement, apparently after supplies. They have three of their asteroid ships (a CA and two CLs), while Federation forces show up for the defense at the start of turn 5 with a CA and CL. However, the settlement is well defended with a FF and pair of POLs on hand, along with a mobile base in orbit and a pair of ph-4 batteries, with a mining base and military garrison at the settlement.
The real goal is for the Jindarians to win control of the surface, bring a bunch of supplies up to their ships, and then get out again, with victory determined by how much they grabbed. I never even got close to that, and didn’t even get to the point of really worrying about it, because I had enough problems dealing with everything else around. But, we did get some practice with a lot of rules we’re not used to, starting with the Jindarians themselves. But ground bases, atmosphere effects, and the like are not things either of us is practiced in.
The Jindarians are pretty different on their own. They’ve been living in asteroids for millennia, and their ships are their homes. They only have minimal shields, but have lots of armor representing the bulk of the asteroid for each shield facing, and can even repair a certain amount of the armor during the scenario (and the shields at the same time, so they can potentially get a fair amount of protection back in one turn). The interiors of the ships are protected by special rules designating that none of them have a standard layout, and ‘anti-transporter fields’ that require power to operate, each cover one shield facing, and are hit on flag bridge hits. They have a few option slots, which are limited here to mostly cargo and hull, with one set of barracks. There’s extra fluff in fabrication and works boxes (destroyed on lab and cargo hits respectively). Shuttles are plentiful, and weapons are powerful, but few in number; movement costs are lower than expected of their class (and therefore much lower than you’d expect of a flying rock), but power is inadequate even for the low MC, making them overall power deficient.
Total armament across a CA and two CLs is nine WRGs (warp-augmented rail guns) and ten phasers. With those classes, I’d expect eight to ten heavy weapons (and the WRG is a good one), but a minimum of fourteen phasers, they have the Fed problem writ large, with a few internals compromising phaser coverage. Worse, they’re evenly distributed in various arcs, so there’s no good concentration of firepower to be had.
Once we sorted through a few difficulties in the rules (generally dealing with small base operations), we got going with my speeds meant to get me near the planet in one turn (20 for the CLs, CA 18), while the Federation ships cruised at somewhat lower speeds. Patch started with an instant minefield to interfere with those plans by putting three transporter bombs three hexes each from the planet, and then transported a fourth on impulse 3. The Federation ships then left, and later started swinging around onto my flank. The CLs stayed together and were on final approach to the planet by the end of the turn (taking a transporter bomb on the way in) while the CA cruised straight ahead all turn.
The two ph-4s fired on the CA as it dropped below the horizon on impulse 25. At range 7 they did 23 damage to punch through the #1 shield and do 13 to the armor (about a quarter of it). On 28 the two CLs each fired a WRG at the FF, with one hit through a +1 shift to do 17 damage (at range 4; the WRG has a scarily flat damage and to hit curve, with the to-hit dropping every ten hexes and the damage dropping every five, so that range 1-5 is all 5 or less to hit with 17 damage), and nearly collapse the #6. The next impulse another WRG fired and hit to do 14 internals to the FF, while two phasers from it nearly got the #5 shield of one of the CLs. On 30 a POL fired a photon at the CL but thankfully missed. On 31 the lead CL crashed into the minefield knocking out its #1, and the MB followed up with 2xph-1 for another 8 damage to the armor. On 32 the MB’s orbit brought it to range 1 of the lead CL, and it fired bearing ph-3s to do another seven damage to the armor, while the CL hit it with a WRG and 2xph-1s for 25 damage, leaving shield #5 at one box.
Turn 1, Impulse 32, showing movement from 16 on.
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As with other Ailette de Bodard stories I have read, this is a largely character-focused story with unfamiliar signposts.
