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Last December, Patch and I kicked off the group’s SFB adventures for Y161 with an early historical scenario featuring USS Kongo in its five year mission under Captain Kosnett (last seen here in “Coming of the Meteor“, and is now a CAR). Patch took the Klingons, who are holding a Federation trade commission hostage at the local base station. Kongo has shown up with the commando cruiser Okinawa to rescue them by coup de main.

I made a number of errors in this scenario, and the first one was not appreciating that the base station and accompanying F5 start at weapons status I. This allows them to charge phasers on the first turn, but of course while the base’s ph-4s are really dangerous, that’s a large power drain on something that size (12 out of 22 total power in fact, and another four is needed for housekeeping). The Federation ships enter together, 20 hexes from the station, and the F5 is parked adjacent to it. I planned to force-dock the CMC Okinawa to the base and engage the base directly in a boarding action to get the hostages, and started it with a wild weasel while the CA had a suicide shuttle prepped. Both ships went speed 8, with full ECM up (again, because I didn’t appreciate how power-strapped the base was), while the F5 went speed 12, and the BS lent two ECM to the F5 (making it effectively 4ECM/2ECCM), and lent ECM to itself for 8/0 EW.

Patch launched a pair of shuttles on the first impulse; the BS’s stayed out for possible point defense, while the F5’s landed aboard the base, presumably with boarding parties; the F5 circled behind the base while I cautiously approached. Turn 2 saw a bigger mistake from me as the CMC picked up to speed 10… but was 12 hexes from the base (I honestly don’t know if I hadn’t thought far enough ahead during EA, or if I miscounted the range…). The CA stayed at 8, and F5 stayed at 12. I stayed at full ECM, while the F5 shifted to 3 ECCM and the base to 6/3 EW. During impulse 5, Patch dropped non-facing shields on the F5 and BS, moved to bring the gaps to bear on the next impulse and transported boarding parties from the F5 over to the BS.

By mid-turn the base was starting to loom larger, and the F5 turned in to come in behind my approach course. On impulse 19, the base fired into the CMC at range 7, getting bad rolls at +1 to do seven damage to the #1 shield (I had bricked that as best I could…). On 27, the F5 got to range one of the CMC and unloaded on it, hitting with one disruptor, and poor phaser rolls to knock down the #5 shield and do two points to the armor. Then it slipped into the CMC’s hex and fired a drone and the RX phasers to knock down shield #4 and do two more to the armor. I shot down the drone before it could impact, but the BS launched a second one on 31.

Turn 2, Impulse 27, showing movement throughout the turn.

At this point, I should have been at range 1 to start the docking procedure (which would have forced a range-2 shot at the new drone on 31…), but I was still two hexes out, and the BS fired again with more poor dice to take out shield #6, the last two armor, and do eleven internals, knocking out two warp and a phaser. The CA fired on the F5’s #4 shield with good rolls to do 18 damage, half of which went in to take out two power and a phaser.

For turn 3, the F5 dropped to speed 8, while the CA dropped to 5, and the CMC went 1 as it started it’s extended docking procedure. I kept to full ECM, the F5 went for a 1/3 split, and the base continued loaning to itself for 4/3 EW. The CMC turned off fire control in EA and launched its wild weasel first thing (giving the CMC 12 ECM for as long as it would last…). Patch fired a ph-3 to cripple the shuttle, but kept missing with shots from the BS’s ADD. On two he launched his own shuttle, and then hit with the ADD on 3 to do one damage to the shuttle before his original base shuttle finally killed it with it’s shot.

The F5 missed its overloaded disruptor shot vs the CMC, sideslipped past it, and fired the remaining FX phasers into the CMC for seven damage on a down shield. Only one got in after general reinforcement, and then the explosion period ended and the base fired two ph-4s to do 29 internals (after spending the batteries to stop one damage…). This gutted the CMC (no surprise…), knocking out the barracks and the bulk of the boarding parties, and almost all the shuttles (with more boarding parties on board; another mistake: I should have been launching them, where they’d be separate targets that needed more damage to kill), with the HTS surviving crippled in the bay.

The next impulse, the next pair of ph-4s fired for 30 damage, which nearly did for the CMC (I estimated 9 damage to kill it; more if there were sensor/scanner hits in there). A ph-3 took it down to two excess damage boxes remaining. Meanwhile, the CA had launched all its’ shuttles and the ADD and fire from the Klingon shuttles soon cleared most of them out, and they merely crippled a single Klingon shuttle. On impulse 28, the CA burned batteries to go to 2/4 EW, and fired on the BS at range 2 to do 16 damage with an overloaded photon to shield #5. The next impulse was another photon shot for 16 more damage and 11 internals, which killed one of the hostages. I tried a pair of hit and run raids to rescue a couple of hostages, but got ‘boarding party returns’ results against the guards.

Patch managed a phaser-1 shot against the CA (lack of power) to do 3 damage through the lowered shield for one warp hit. The CA headed back out, trying to de-fang the BS  on the way (it did get the disruptor mount) and firing on the F5 at range 1 on 32 to do 14 internals after crashing the #6 shield.

Afterword

We called it there, with the CA too close to the base, but headed off the fixed map. At its max acceleration, it could go 15, which would bring it to about four hexes from disengaging. If the BS is smart enough to counter any ECM the CA puts out, four ph-4s at the top of the turn will do 40-80 damage at range 4, with a 20-point shield and about five power available to boost it. Fifteen internals isn’t too bad, and the CA would certainly get off without too much more trouble. Sixty-five internals on the other hand…. The F5 would be a serious complication at that point, though it would hopefully still manage to crawl off on the next turn.

Among the other mistakes I’ve mentioned, a big one was letting the CA fall too far behind the CMC. When the F5 did its turn two pass, the CA wasn’t close enough to make it pay, or to distract it. The CA should have been what the F5 encountered first, to act as proper cover for the troops. The general plan for getting the CMC up close and docking looks workable, but you have to do the homework first, and both ships need to be there, and make the Klingon worry that if he fires too much into one ship, he’ll dock the other one, and perhaps transport BPs from one to the other. Still, this a tall order at best. Ph-4s are things I really don’t like messing with at close range.

One question that came up is how the hostages are counted for H&R purposes. By the scenario you can rescue them that way, and they can be guarded, like various non-system boxes. But is each hostage it’s own “box”, being it’s on legal target needing guarding? Or are they all one target, and you can only rescue one a turn (as you can only target an individual SSD box for an H&R mission once per turn)? We considered them two groups of five for these purposes, which seems reasonable.

Captain’s Log #43 had a very interesting idea for the main story and associated SFB scenario. The premise is that the Romulans tested Federation neutral zone defenses in two groups. One was a single War Bird which got chased down by the Enterprise as it picked off listening outposts (the episode “Balance of Terror”), while a larger group waited in ambush at the other end of the line. The USS Alfred the Great walked into the trap, and was lost with all hands, after destroying a War Bird with a photon volley.

The story/scenario is about the latter part, with six Romulan ships using hidden cloaking, and able to set up hidden mines. Since there’s no experience with cloaking devices at this point, there’s no tracking of ships at all (normally, with hidden movement, you regularly indicate the general direction of the ship(s)). Once one ship starts decloaking, it is placed on the board, and the others are also placed… somewhere within five hexes of its true position. The Alfred needs to go to a large asteroid (that used to have an outpost on it), and send down a landing party, and get it back a turn later (not 32 impulses, nor even 8, for that matter, just on a different turn), and get off the map, within 5 turns. The Romulans win a marginal victory for destroying the Alfred, with their level of ‘victory’ lowered by one for each ship they lose (two if it’s one of the larger ships, like a War Bird; historically the Romulans had a minor defeat).

This takes place back in Y154 (our group is playing Y161 currently), so Mark and I went back to give it a play. I took the Romulans, and set up my ambush. The King Bird (my command ship) was near the asteroid, with the WB a little further back, and the Hawk on the opposite side. The three Snipes, were further out near various possible approaches. One mine was next to the asteroid with two more five hexes further out (the minimum allowed) on the most likely approaches.

…And we had some confusion about that. Our instincts (and my setup) assumed entry from the top edge of the map, but it seems (and we went with for play) it enters on the left of the map, at maximum distance from the asteroid. This definitely puts time pressure on the Alfred to get there and exit in five turns, after hanging around the asteroid for a turn. Which, it needs to be mentioned, is an unusual ship. It is an “Old” Heavy Cruiser, which is the Federation light cruiser design grown up to heavy cruiser size. It has armor, but the shields are weaker, phaser coverage is better, and there’s slightly more power, but there’s not as much hull to take damage on (actually, it might about the same, but more of it is rear hull, which doesn’t come up quite as often as forward hull). Overall, its very close in capabilities to the regular CA (maybe too close), but it does fight a bit differently.

Mark entered at the lower corner of the map (…and I’d been expecting the upper edge…), at speed 25. (The Romulans are all sublight, and are either tactical impulse or speed 1, and they all went speed 1.) He largely sideslipped over, maneuvering to pass by the asteroid from below. In so doing, he passed a couple hexes behind one of the snipes near the end of the turn, who turned to face where the OCA was going (along with everyone else maneuvering similarly).

On impulse 17, the OCA turned to make its direct run at the planet, and two impulses later, the WB started decloaking, 7 hexes away from it.

At the moment of decloaking. The ‘outline’ ships are the sensor ghosts Mark got to see, while the others are the actual locations.

Mark dropped the forward shield as he came into range and beamed a boarding party down to the asteroid. Mark slipped away from the WB, which also had the effect of passing him directly through the KB’s location. The WB launched its plasma on 23 and immediately started recloaking. On 26, the KB and HK started uncloaking, the KB one hex behind the OCA, and the HK seven hexes in front.

On impulse 31, the KB and HK finished decloaking, and the HK launched both of its torpedoes. The OCA had gotten outside the KB’s firing arc, but it turned on impulse 32… and then held fire until the next turn so it could power the plasma-R torpedo in EA rather than out of batteries. The OCA dropped speed slightly to 23, and fired 2xphotons and the four bearing phasers at the HK on impulse 1, missing with a photon, and getting poor phaser rolls (two 6s) to do 14 points to the Hawk’s #6.

Point of impact

Mark slipped into the plasma-Gs from the HK, which also caused the R from the WB to impact at the same time. But they hit on different shields, and if he had dodged them, they would have all hit on #5 an impulse later. As it was, the #6 and #4 collapsed, going through the armor, for 29 internals. Nine impulses later, the plasma-R from the KB hit, knocking down #5 and doing another 17 internals. During the early part of the turn, he also dropped a shield and recovered the boarding party, getting the shield back up before the final plasma hit. Since the sublight Romulans have very limited range on their lasers, lowering shields around them isn’t a big deal as long as you’re not on top of them.

Afterword

And… that was pretty much that. Even after all the damage, the OCA could do speed 19 on turn 4. As he was still in 2502 (and needed to get to, effectively, 00xx), he wouldn’t get off the board, but he’d be in easy range of it for turn 5.

The OCA had lost all hull, half the lab, all phasers, two photons, all impulse, and ten warp, but still had two APR and 20 warp to work with. It couldn’t fight, but it was comfortably above the 10 warp minimum the scenario gives for disengaging off the map.

I still had the Snipes, but their plasmas didn’t reach out to where the OCA was. The WB was in plasma-R range, but was going into second turn of arming, so all it had was a fast-load F, which is worse the the G’s on the Snipes.

There’s no levels on a Federation victory, which this is. It looked scary while the plasmas were moving, but the OCA had the bulk, and I needed a to get the plasmas on two shields instead of three (which took fancy maneuvering). That said, there’s not a lot better I think I could do in the setup, but more extensive mining near the asteroid is must.