SH53 Border Incident

by on December 29, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG

After our last big game, Patch suggested we do an SFB game next. After rooting around in the scenarios for our current year (Y160) a little, we decided upon “Border Incident”, a scenario originally meant to showcase a miniatures boxed set, and featuring the new Romulan KR ships.

The Romulans created an incident designed to test their new ships in battle—a battle balanced well in their favor. An old “Warbird” ship attacked a Federation outpost and then fled into the Neutral Zone, drawing a Federation CA after it. The new Romulan ships Proconsul and Tribune were waiting in ambush, and the first test of these ships seemed well under control. Unfortunately for the Romulans, it did not go according to plan.

The scenario starts with the CA closing in on the WB+, with a KR and K5R showing up on turn 3. A Gorn CL shows up to help the CA on turn 4. Patch volunteered to take the ‘allies’ in the scenario, so he wouldn’t have to worry about reading the cloaking rules in detail (only the WB+ cloaks, the KRs don’t have them for this scenario), but ran into trouble. A 50-point plasma torpedo requires a lot of respect, but I don’t think he really comprehended just how limited a sublight ship is even with cloaking reducing damage. The WB has three choices, move one hex on impulse 32, do one impulse tactical move (turn) anytime from Impulse 2 on, or spend no energy, and get one free turn in place on impulse 32. This means where it is is a given, and only facing could be variable. With the WB+ facing away from the CA at start, staying out of arc of the Pl-R on approach is easy.

Studying the situation again now, I’d go speed 21 (the WB+ is 20 hexes away) to get into its hex on impulse 31. Assuming the WB+ goes, and stays, cloaked for this, 6xPh-1 at effective range 5 should do 12 points of damage (after reduction from cloaking effects). The Photons should be half full overload, and half standard (all allowed as prior arming for WS-III; no further overloading is done for flexibility and lack of energy), and then reserve power dumped into the photons to overload them for the point-blank shot. And that’s where this plan is iffy, since there’s a decent chance that all four will miss (1:16), but with full reserve power put in, there should be 2×16 and 2×12 point shots, and lucky rolls will easily kill the WB+ (average looks to be ~16, for a total of 28, or not enough to get through the armor, more’s the pity). No matter what happens (well, other than the WB+ blowing up), on impulse 32 watch the WB+ move first (if it didn’t Tac), and move into a hex it’s not in. On turn 2, go speed 4 and launch a Wild Weasel while reinforcing the shield facing the WB+. The WB+ probably started decloaking on Impulse 32, and fires (after Tacing to face the CA) on Impulse 5, and the WW moves on 6 before it impacts, so the only damage done will be from the phasers. If the WB+ doesn’t launch the R, there’s a problem, as you’ll still be ~5 hexes away at the end of the turn, and limited to speed 14, with the KRs coming on.

And it’s the KRs on turn 3 that keep this from being a walkover. With one more turn, the CA can counter anything the WB+ did to counter all of that, and two-three would allow another pass that can probably punch through whatever’s left on the rear shield and do damage that it can’t recover from. As it is, it should be noted that with 9 total power, shield damage is probably permanent, as there’s not enough to regenerate them with (I’ll note here we used the original Basic Set WB+, not the Y1 version with two more impulse power as the scenario was published ages before that came out).

As it was, I went speed 1 to get a little closer to where the KRs would show up, and Patch went speed 20, cautiously approaching from one side and behind. Not liking how things looked, Patch aborted the attack run on Turn 2, boosting speed to 22 and ejecting all four torpedoes to re-arm them as standard/proxes. He held to speed 22 on Turn 3, and I entered at the bottom right with the KR doing 21 and the K5R at 23. Patch basically went straight for the Gorn entry point, while I tried to close the distance. Towards the end of the turn, the CA started turning around, and hit the K5R with one out of two prox photons.
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Konya wa Hurricane Alliance Turn 12

by on December 2, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Konya wa Hurricane

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

My efforts to separate out the Federation 4th Fleet SB had finally paid off, with it being its own 5 EP grid, that spent 4.5 on repairs, with further ships needing work. However, Byron was able to call up POLs that restored a connection to that part of the grid, and got most of the Kzinti navy away from the capital back in supply, both of which meant the ships got their fighters replenished.

Builds:
Federation: CVA, CF, TG, 8xNCL, NCD, LTT, 9xFF, 3xFFE, 4xDD->DE, FF->FFE
Kzinti: CV, TGC, LTT, 3xMEC, 3xFKE, 3xFF, FF->FFK
Gorn: DNT, BC, CM, HD, LTT, TG, 3xBD, BDE, FCR, HD->CM, CL->CV, CL->CLE
Hydran: RN, CU, PGV

Hydran raids of course hit the same back-area Klingon provinces as always, disrupting the area, and crippling one F5, which is a marked improvement. There was only one Kzinti raid, which wiped out a garrisoning E4. The Federation raids similarly went after garrisons, though one was sitting on planet 2610, which was the only one to survive (crippled, and retreated off the planet), while the other two F5s died. Gorn raids both went after Romulan garrisons in Federation space, and for a change the cloaking devices worked, so the Gorns disrupted Romulan control of the provinces, but didn’t get the garrisons. (Maybe the Federation needs to share their cloak detectors with the Gorns.)

I was surprised to see a significant Fed force move even further away from the Romulan border, but it turned out that Byron wanted to pin the Klingon South Fleet so it couldn’t intercept his cripples as they headed to the capital (which was six hexes away and had to pass adjacent). This helped insure that the Romulans had sufficient pinning for most everything else that came in, and only one major target was hit (one of the captured Federation planets).

Meanwhile Hydran moves went fairly predictably. He sent forces to pin both reserves in the theater and moved to sweep the Klingons off all the planets in the area. However, I was set up slightly better than two turns ago, and managed at least local parity in a few places as he stretched to get at them all.

Bryon didn’t bother with the planets held deeper in the Federation at all, and concentrated on knocking out the Klingon border, and the planet closest to Klingon space, along with the northern NZ planet. At the same time, the Kzinti finally came boiling out of their capital to challenge Lyran control of the west half of their territory, taking out 1001, which I hadn’t really been trying to hold, while also going after the fortifications on 1105, which had become under-shipped with the pressures elsewhere.


The Kzinti strike back.


Dismantling the border.


Maneuvers towards and away from the Romulan front.


The Hydran Ulcer bleeds…


The Gorn prepare.

Battles:
0319: SSC: Mutual retreat
1001: Lyran: FF destroyed; planet captured
0519: SSC: Mutual retreat; planet captured
0718: SSC: Mutual retreat; planet captured
1203: SSC: Lyran: FF destroyed
1805: SSC: Lyran: crip DDG
1804: SSC: Lyran: crip DW
1803: SSC: Lyran: dest cripDDG
2003: SSC: Klingon: dest E4
2106: Klingon: crip D7, D5, F5; Federation: crip FF, capture planet
3707: SSC: Romulan: dest K4; Federation: retreat
3609: SSC: Romulan: crip K4 & retreat
3410: SSC: NE (mutual retreat)
2602: Klingon: dest F5L
2407: Klingon: dest F5; Federation: crip FF
2210: Klingon: capture CL
2608: Klingon: dest F5
0617: Klingon: dest E4; Hyran: capture capital
0517: Klingon: dest F5, crip D6M, D5, 2xF5, F5S; Hydran: dest RN
0518: Klingon: dest MD5; Hydran: dest TR
1202: Lyran: dest DW; Kzinti: dest EFF
1105: Lyran: dest BATS, FRD, DWE, crip 3xDW; Kzinti: dest 3xEFF; capture cripCW, planet
1802: Lyran: dest CW, DWE, crip CW; Kzinti: dest SF, planet captured
1702: Lyran: crip FF; Kzinti: dest POL
1809: Klingon: dest BATS, 1xD5, crip AD5; Federation: dest 2xDE
1910: Klingon: dest cripD5, cripAD5, E4, G2; Federation: dest FF; planet liberated
1707: Klingon: dest BATS, F5L, G2, crip D5S; Kzinti: dest FKE
1807: Klingon: dest BATS, F5J; Lyran: crip STT, DW; Federation: dest CC, NSC
3110: Klingon: crip D6, D5, 2xF5
3611: Romulan: dest SKE; Federation: crip 2xNCL, 2xFF
3610: Romulan: dest cripK4
3711: Romulan: dest KRC, SKE; Gorn: dest 2xHD, crip HD, 2xBD, BDS
3911: Romulan: dest SP, crip SP, SPB, 2xSK, CE; Gorn: crip CL, 3xDD, CL captured
3808: Romulan: crip FHF, SP, dest SEH; Federation: dest NCD, CC; Gorn: crip DD

The Hydran front featured a few SSCs where I had a disadvantage, but Byron didn’t roll better than 1 casualty. Because of working from the small outer battles in, I was able to consolidate into the larger battles, where either things were more even, or I could sacrifice one or two ships out of the combined fleet instead of losing 2-3 per battle.

1805 happened to have supply sources that pulled both forces directly up, turning it into a three-hex running battle, with the Lyrans taking 2 casualties each time, and never able to touch the Kzintis (I couldn’t do more than force a retreat which just continues the problem anyway). Even better, this was accidental instead of a purposeful set-up.

The pile of Klingon cripples from last turn were weathering in 2106, and I withdrew them out of the fight there. I thought that prevented them from being picked off in retreat (as the rules state to put them in the new hex immediately), but actually they do get pursued. As it was, it kept them out of the way, and the Federation pursuit roll failed, saving them.

The Romulans are still having trouble with the cloaking devices, with three out of three attempts to evade combat failing. At least in the last one, Byron rolled a ‘2’ allowing the SNB to escape unharmed.

The one unpinned Klingon reserve didn’t have anything pressing to do, so it went to a pinning battle, where Byron gave up a CL to retreat out a FF. My poor luck on captures finally turned around, and I got the CL. As I consider spending the money on conversion a good deal compared to overbuilding for pin count, I’ll probably keep it, and maybe turn it into an LSC (which would be one less D6S I need).

The Hydran capital area turned into a small problem for Byron, as we had a pinning battle in 0518. If he resolved that before the capital fight, I could retreat into there and have a lot more ships than he did. If he retreated after the capital fight, then I could still retreat into the hex (to avoid the fight in 0517, or because it was just as valid as 0517). And if he did it before the fight in 0517, I could still have a choice to go back into the capital. So he ended up doing 0517 without a proper command ship, which was stuck in the capital, and that reduced the pain on my fighterless fleet a little. Sadly, the D6M shocked, and I really wanted to have an operational 10-point mauler available in the area.

I’d been expecting an assault on 1105 from the beginning, when the Lyrans started fortifying the captured Kzinti planet, and it finally happened this time. Byron apparently expected me to leave after the first round, but even if the available fleet was inadequate, I finally had a chance to hit him from behind my fortifications, though as ever with the Kzinti it was impossible to kill anything other than escorts. I stuck some cripples awaiting their turn at the FRD on the line for the third round, and he promptly captured the CW he directed on to kill. It’s a pity I can’t be everywhere at once; the Kzintis ran through almost all of their spare fighters in the fighting that did happen. I’m happy he didn’t get the LTT that was setting up a PDU (also lost) on the planet (I just don’t have enough transports).

1809/1910 was a trap I didn’t see until too late. I knew that the Federation 3rd Fleet would inevitably retreat over NZ planet 1910, and thought to try to prevent that, only to realize too late that I would also have to retreat there. (I’m generally fine with the retreat rules, but keep feeling like I should just always be able to retreat towards my own capital, especially if I’m already within my own space, as I would in any other game.) I went around in circles with several different plans to get myself out of the hole I’d dug, all of which had their own problems before managing to get out with only a few destroyed ships (instead of wrecking the entire force).

I actually had a somewhat bigger fleet for the base battle in 1807, but didn’t realize that ahead of time, and let him into the base. He probably would have passed approach on the first try (he rolled better), but it would have been another round to wear the Federation down before he directed the BATS.

The Romulan battles all went fairly well. The Gorns can put out big lines more easily than the Lyrans can, which is a problem, and their ability to do field repairs at the normal repair rate means their cripples don’t stay that way for long. But while the Romulan carrier force is still getting itself established, almost all of the Federation carriers have passed out of the area, and the Gorns never have very many, allowing the Romulans some better ability to absorb damage.

I knew that Byron would be going after more of the line Klingon BATS on the Fed border this turn, but was hoping to save at least one, and failed. Now the entire chain of supply into my gains into Federation space is extremely fragile (I need to hold on to planets that I failed to this time), and there’s no immediately obvious way to restore it. Worse, a chunk of the Kzinti fleet retrograded to the 4th Fleet SB, making that area even more dangerous. The good news is that most of the plan in that area is already accomplished, and it might still be possible to make the supply grid to that SB purely reliant on devastated planets, which can be retaken each turn. The question becomes if that is currently worthwhile. I have a lot of ships semi-permanently out of supply, and I’m not sure that going further down this rabbit hole would pay off….

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Newbie Wind Alliance Turn 1

by on November 24, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

With a one-front war, it’s not impossible for the Kzinti to strike back, but there’s not a lot to do either, so my teaching game has already finished off my half of turn 1.

The first turn construction schedule for the Kzintis is limited, and after building everything, constructing defenses on the capital, and repairing the cripples, there’s still 30 EP in the Kzinti treasury. Sadly, I know that this will not last, and there won’t be enough EP to go around soon enough.

Builds
Kzinti: CV, CLE, DD, FF, FFE, 4xPDU (Kzintai)

I figured I’d take a stab at BATS 0705, and sent a force to pin his forces on 0504, so only the Reserve would be mobile and in range. But he reacted in the Reserve, meaning that the local forces were still mobile but the Reserve couldn’t do anything more. If I’d had more distant options, it might have been important. After sending in the main force to 0705, I moved an extra CV group down there, and Carl moved from 0501 to intercept, but I just sidestepped out of the way to avoid them (if I’d been less mentally lazy, I would have moved out of range in the first place to keep his ships from getting closer to Kzinti space for free).


Counter-raid.

Battles:
0705: Lyran: crip CA, CL, DW; Kzinti: dest CLE, crip CC
0504: Retreat after refused approach

At 0705, BIR went high, and I rolled a 1 while Carl got a 6 for 20 vs 34 damage. If it had been more typical, I probably would have had just a crippled ship, and with low damage, hopefully taken it all on fighters. In the event, I decided to retire a CLE early (they’ll slowly get replaced with the much better MEC, which I can start producing next turn), and just use a regular CL as an ad hoc escort next turn. In the meantime, the Lyrans took another three cripples on a stack that already had a bunch, and they refused to pursue a largely intact Kzinti force (which was short on fighters, only having the spares from a TTV).

So, we’re a turn in, and Carl is hopefully a bit wiser. The real challenge for the Kzinti starts next time, as the Klingons join in, more than doubling the number of ships invading, while the Kzinti have turned their Home Fleet into two reserves to help out on the assault.

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Newbie Wind Coalition Turn 1

by on November 16, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Back in July, Carl Herzog went on the ADB forums and asked for a teaching game of Federation & Empire. After a little hesitation, I accepted, and also ended up with my Konya wa Hurricane game with Byron Sinor. Since then, the game with Carl has been slowly grinding forward, with lots of rules questions, clarifications, and various delays. The best delay was this:

Carl works with the USS Constitution museum, and was fully occupied for a couple weeks with the ceremonies surrounding the finish of her refit and relaunch.

Carl took the Coalition in the standard The Wind scenario, and hopefully we’ll at least get to the end of that. After a little bit of confusion on what was allowed, he ended up with a build schedule adapted from one I used the last time I started as the Coalition:

Builds
Klingons: D7C, TGA, D6, 8xD5, D5S, F5L, 4xF5, F5V, 3xE4
Lyrans: BC, TGC, 4xCW, 2xDW, DWS, 3xFF, MB, PDU

The Lyrans naturally did the typical thing  of lining up on the border, and moving against the three BATS facing them. I had a small force (CVL group + CL & FF) set up on 0803 and, except for one DF, the rest of the Count’s Fleet in the reserve. The DF reacted to 0803 as well, while the reserve went to 0703 and the Duke’s reserve went to 0701.

The six Lyran Home Fleet ships allowed closer to the border in 0707 did set up there, but ended up not moving, and later used Strategic Movement to stiffen the border. However, much of the Home Fleet was on 0608, and did move in to hit 0803.


Opening moves.

Battles:
0701: Lyran: dest CL, DD, crip CW, FF; Kzinti: crip BC, CL
0703: Lyran: dest CA, FF, crip 2xCL, 2xDD, FF; Kzinti: dest BATS, capture FF
0803: Lyran: dest 2xDD, 2xFF; Kzinti: crip BC

The Lyran force in 0701 was an adequate BATS-busting force (six ships), but when the Duke’s Reserve showed up, it was completely outclassed. Carl nearly attempted to fight it out anyway, but took my advice to run while he could after I accepted the first round approach battle, allowing him to keep something.

The best Lyran force was in 0703, and it rolled well enough on the first round to direct-cripple the BATS, and then killed it on the second round. I retreated onto adjacent BATS 0803; most of the Lyran force was crippled, so I could have done a lot of damage if I stuck around, though he’d kept a crippled CA on the line, which I killed with DirDam.

After I retreated onto it, Carl was facing three Kzinti carrier groups and retreated out after the approach battle. He decided not to put non-cripples in his pursued force to prevent further ships from being crippled, but lost all his cripples that way. (I advised for putting more ships in, but he’s trying to work out for himself advantages of repairs vs replacements…. It might take another turn or two to sink in, but it is going to be expensive.)

A decent line of ships were held back, and formed the Lyran reserve on 0404, while new construction used free Strategic Movement to go directly to the line of BATS.

Overall, killing a single BATS is not bad for the initial Lyran turn; they just don’t have enough, close enough, to get through Kzinti defenses on the first turn. Carl is being nicely aggressive, and if he can keep that, he probably has a good shot at doing a lot of damage next turn when the Klingons come in. (I’ll admit I have trouble swallowing the damage necessary for a strongly-defended SB.) Watching everything he’s going through is a reminder of just how much is going on in F&E. I at least had the advantage of some solo work (ages ago) to figure out a lot of basics before I started on my Vassal gaming career.

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Konya wa Hurricane Coalition Turn 12

by on November 8, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Konya wa Hurricane

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

It took a couple days to entirely regain my equilibrium after the Alliance counterstrike on turn 11. But overall, the damage was limited, if still a problem. The Klingon economy suffered, thanks to the loss of a major planet, but the Romulan economy is still expanding, largely thanks to exploring their back area, though income has started coming in from captured Federation territory; overall the Coalition economy was 431.2, slightly higher than the turn 10 total, and 8.1 EP better than turn 11. We’ll see if I get to hang on to much (such as Hydran planets) to do even better next time.

Lyran survey rolls were horrible (3 on 3d6), while Klingon rolls were slightly below average. This was made up for by good B10 rolls, and it is probable (2/3rds chance) that B10-1 will finish next turn.

Builds:
Klingon: C8V, D6M, TGA, 3xD5, 4xAD5, MD5, D5S, F5L, 5xF5, 2xF5E, F5J, E4R, PDU, D6->D6S, D6->D6D, BS(f)->BTS(F), 2xVP2->2xVP3
Romulan: SUB, FHF, 2xSP, SPC, SPF, SK, 2xSKE, SEH, WE, SNB, PDU (4112), 3xWE->KE, BH->BHF
Lyran: DN, TGC, CVP, CWE, CWS, STJ, DW, 2xDWE, 2xFF, FCR, MB, 2xFF->DW, DDE->CWE

I had planned on not converting up the last pair of VP2 pods, but my forces on 2106 had been left out of supply, and with no fighters on several carriers. Part of the solution was to reestablish supply there and then swap out carrier pods on a couple of available tugs (thanks to the flexible tugs rules; under older versions of the game I couldn’t do this slight of hand). Since TAVs were going to be my main carriers, I wanted it to be a full squadron. The new TGA got the ’empty’ set as they went into a reserve (at which point fighters had been supplied to it). The Romulans built a PDU to stiffen the defense of the planet near the corner of Gorn and Federation space, while the Klingons built one to start rebuilding their major planet in 1611.

Raids went poorly. The Lyrans raided the Kzinti home province… only for the DNL to be driven off by the called up POL. The other Lyran raid, on a Federation FF blocking supply to 2106, drew a Kzinti DN reaction, which slaughtered the CF. The Klingons did successfully take out the FFE holding 1611 with a raiding D5, liberating it before movement. The C6 successfully disrupted a province, but another raiding D5 was driven off. The Romulans made one cloaked evasion roll to disrupt the province, while the other two raiders were driven off, though at least one of them crippled an NCL in the process.

I was planning on a more or less ‘general’ offensive, as a last hurrah before the Gorns join in, but decided to keep things calm in Hydran space from a distinct lack of maulers to take out decent-sized ships. A spare LTT picked up the new PDU in the Klingon capital. If he goes after that… well, he’s not going somewhere else.

The main goals were to try for the 6th Fleet (Romulan border) SB, and to cut off the 4th Fleet SB. Lyran forces mostly blocked Kzinti reserves from going to help the last Federation BATS on the Kzinti border (which is barely in supply/Strat Move range of the Barony), and helped show the flag against the Kzinti force left near the Federation border. Several moves and counter moves got me decent fights at much of NW Fed space, but I was worried about the Romulan side. Three out of four Federation reserves were in range of the SB, and the Romulans could only get at one. Of course, anything that went there would give the Klingons an easier time, and I was definitely giving Byron some decisions to make.

At the last minute, I saw a possibility. I was planning on taking on a pile of cripples + LAV at planet 2509, but he had ships that could react to that, so it was unlikely to draw a reserve (or to be taken without one). I realized the Klingon South Fleet could reach the BATS in 3209… which was undefended, and was directly between two reserves and the SB. He could still get a good number of ships to the SB and make sure it was save to continue being a big problem to me… but it would leave the Klingons nearly free to loot northern Fed space.


Traffic in Kzinti space.


Offensives deeper into the Federation.


Going for the 6th Fleet SB.

And, he ended up not reinforcing the SB at all. The reserve near the Romulans wasn’t quite pinned, and a CVA group headed out to planet 3210, while the other three all headed to face the Klingons. In a surprise, one of the Kzinti reserves went to ‘open up supply’ to the fight against the wandering Kzinti fleet (supply to the hex he went to would be lost once the Lyrans took planet 1802 from a single defending POL), giving me more ships in the area to worry about.

Battles:
1802: Kzinti: dest POL; Lyran capture planet
1801: Kzinti: dest POL
1701: Kzinti: crip CLE, FFK, FKE; Lyran: crip CW, DW, HDD, SC
2201: Federation: dest BATS; Klingon: crip F5
1906: Kzinti: crip 3xDD; Klingon: dest D6D
1705: Klingon: dest F5
2606: Federation: crip NCL; Klingon: crip D6, D5G, F5L
2505: Federation: dest FF, 2xPDU, crip 3xNCL; Klingon: dest F5L, crip D7, D6, 2xD5, F5L, F5, capture planet
2705: Federation: dest 2xPDU; Klingon: capture planet and retreat off of it
2603: Federation: dest BATS, cripCFF; Klingon: crip F5
3013: SSC: Federation retreats
2609: Federation: dest FF; Klingon: dest F5S
3508: Federation: dest BATS
3209: Federation: dest BATS
3611: Federation: dest DN, CA, SC, crip CA, CMC, 4xDE, 12xFF, FFE; Romulan: dest SP, K7R, 2xK5L, 2xK5, 2xK4, KE, 3xWE, SN, crip NH, 7xSP, SPF, SK, SKB, 2xSKE, SKF, KRC, 2xKR, KRM, 2xK5, K5S, 3xKE, 3xWE, CE, SE, 2xBHE
3509: Retreat after declined approach
3210: Federation: dest 2xPDU, 2xSWAC, crip ECL; Romulan: crip 2xWE, 2xWH, 2xBHE, SN, capture planet and retreat off of it
2107: SSC: Federation: dest POL

2201 was the last of the Federation border BATS near Kzinti space. I had hoped to kill it previous to this point, but got diverted by the attempt on the 4th Fleet SB last turn. Now there are no bases within six hexes of the Barony, and financial aid has to go off map (or 1802 will have to be held for a turn).

I had a fairly minimal base-busting force to take 2606 (all I could afford), so I was at a severe disadvantage when a full reserve showed up there, but we both retreated off after the first round as part of trying to maneuver to keep/deny supply.

The SB fight in 3611 went rounds, and started well enough with a 6-1 die roll split on the first round, which I used to kill the only Federation scout present. Most of the rest of the battle, Byron had to dial the SB’s EW up to 2 just to avoid an EW shift. We both had admirals, but he used a command point, which I forgot about, so I fought one ship down, which certainly did not help. I eventually killed the DN (the only CR10 ship present), which evened that out, but ended up waiting a while to do it (should have put a mauler on the line early, instead of trying to wait out his good chances of killing it). Mauling the CA before I’d gotten rid of the DN was certainly a mistake (made worse when the SPF shocked), but I didn’t expect the fight to drag on so long at that point. The second and fourth rounds had good Federation rolls against poor Romulan ones, round four being at BIR 10, and the Federation missed getting 50% only because of the EW shift. Both fleets are thoroughly wrecked, with the Federation 6th Fleet, naturally, in better shape, but not an offensive force by itself anymore. Most likely, the Romulans will have no real ability to mess around in Federation space on Turn 13….

And the fight for planet 3210 wrecked another fleet. It was a small Romulan force vs a partial CVA group that reserved over, plus a BATS squadron that reacted into the hex, for nearly equal compot. I killed the first SWAC on the first round to get rid of his EW advantage (missed killing a PDU by one), and the second at the end when the PDUs were gone. Since the BATS was dead, he lost that squadron after the first round as well. In fact, most of his ComPot was fighters, which allowed me to slowly sandpaper the Federation down while taking cripples over four rounds. He’d probably have done better to push the BIR high while he still had good ComPot, but I suppose he was worried about what might happen to the CVA.

Both the Klingon and Romulan navies have been roughly handled at the moment, the Romulans worse than the Klingons (though they have a local problem of a lot of cripples in and near north Federation space). This could be the high-water mark for the Coalition, or close to it, if the Federation and Kzinti can get a real counter-offensive going, and the Gorns can keep the Romulans busy. More likely, I will be able to push further into Federation space next turn, but I’m not going to take out four BATS and three planets again (they’re getting rarer for one thing).

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