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Since I was still in an SFB mood after finishing “Border Incident” with Patch, I soloed my way through the third monster scenario during January as part of my Y160 games. Having just played the Romulans in KRs, and realizing I hadn’t played as the Klingons in a while, I took the D7 for this scenario.

The Moray Eel is the first monster not directly inspired by a TOS episode, though it is definitely a graduate course for the Planet Crusher. While there is an optional variant to use information gathering, the scenario is geared around combat to defeat a monster that is headed for an inhabited planet. It doesn’t do nearly as much damage as the previous monsters (5-10 points per ‘bite’), but is much nastier as it ignores shields, meaning that every attack is doing internals, and suffering too many attacks will destroy the ship in short order. The real twist is that the Eel only attacks after being damaged. After any impulse where it receives damage, it moves to the offender’s hex (instantly, even if that’s several hexes away) and bites that unit. If there’s several ships, and they all do damage at the same time, it moves to each of these hexes, and bites them all, in a random order, in a ‘biting frenzy’.

The eel is 100 hexes from it’s goal, and moves straight towards it at speed 12 (making it the fastest monster so far), which not distracted by a ship. It apparently used to follow close-by ships, akin to the Planet Crusher, but that was removed in Captain’s Edition to keep the time pressure up. Defeating it is also a problem, as the ship has to do 200 points of damage (reduced to 193 here for BPV balance), after which there is a die roll for each separate volley (which will involve a bite) that does 10 points of damage (9 after balancing), and the Eel is killed on a ‘1’. And as usual with these scenarios, the monster can’t be fired on from outside a six-hex range, and it has MCIDS to deal with shuttles and drones.

The D7 started 15 hexes away from the Eel in the direction of the planet, and I overloaded all four disruptors as part of a turn 1 alpha strike overrun to do as much damage as possible. I lined up an oblique shot for maximum firepower, and launched a drone as it entered my hex, which was instantly shot down by MCIDS.

One of the tricks with the Eel is to fire at range, and force it to move away from the planet, which is hard to do with the initial approach, especially as I went for a range-0 shot. But I fired just as we were both scheduled to move, so that it moved a hex further away following me, and it gave up its normal move to do it. The phasers rolled a little under average for a total of 77 damage (with 4 disruptors auto-hitting to do 40 of that), and the eel did a minimal 5 points to destroy one phaser and two warp.

For turn 2, I reduced speed from 12 to 9, so that the Eel could get a little in front of me, and be drawn back by my next volley of fire. I fired on Impulse 21 at range 4, hitting with two disruptors and doing three points with the boom phasers (everything else being out of arc) for a running total of 96 damage. The next Impulse, the Eel moved to the D7 and bit for 9 damage, knocking out one drone rack, a phaser, two warp power, and one battery after finishing off the forward hull. The D7 launched a drone from the remaining rack, and MCIDS missed allowing it to hit for 12 more damage the next impulse to bring the total up to 108.

Turn 1, Impulse 24, showing movement from Impulse 23 through Turn 2, Impulse 22. The paler arrows are the Eel’s movement to bite.

The D7 repaired the first destroyed phaser as of the end of Turn 2, and increased speed to 13 to get another close-range oblique shot. The Eel was sideslipping back to its original course (part of the robot rules), which meant the D7 was drawing slightly ‘ahead’ of it to make this maneuver, but the low speed differential meant it took most of the turn to pull off. The D7 launched another drone as they met at range 0 again, but MCIDS shot it down. On Impulse 31, the D7 fired all bearing weapons to do 40 with overloaded disruptor auto-hits, and the maximum 30 points from 5 phaser-2s for a grand total of 178 damage. On 32, the D7 sideslipped away, and the Eel followed to do 8 damage to take out another phaser, the remaining drone rack, two more warp, the remaining two batteries, and a shuttle. At the end of the turn, the second damaged phaser was repaired.

Turn 3, Impulse 31, showing movement from 25 to 32.

With power continuously dropping, the D7 only went speed 8 for Turn 4, while it prepared to do the last 15 points needed before it started rolling for destroying the Eel. On Impulse 7, the phasers cleared, and the D7 fired four of them at range 1 to do 17 points on poor rolls (grand total 195). On Impulse 8 the bite did 10 points to destroy two phasers, two more warp power, the remaining shuttle, an impulse, and an APR. The D7 turned and moved back into the Eel’s hex after it sideslipped out, and fired an overloaded disruptor on 13 to do 10 points and force a roll to kill the Eel, which failed with a 5. The next impulse, the Eel bit instead of moving, doing 10 damage, which destroyed three phasers, 2 warp power, 1 impulse and 1 APR.

The D7 tried another disruptor on Impulse 15, rolling a ‘3’ for destruction. On 16 it slipped away from the planet, drawing the Eel after it, which did 7 points to take out a disruptor, one warp power, and two impulse. On 18 the D7 fired a boom and waist phaser at the Eel to do 10 points, and rolled a ‘1’ to destroy the Eel!

The 1/6 chance of killing the Eel each time probably makes the end of many plays of this a bit exciting. Certainly the D7 was well through a lot of padding, and was down to 23 power at the time the Eel expired, and that was only on the third attempt. I was very lucky that I didn’t take any ‘torpedo’ hits until the very end, and had two more of those left to try once the D7 was facing it again. In addition to the more important systems listed above, the D7 had lost its bridge (but not any other control spaces), most of the lab, one tractor, and one transporter. Damage was getting up to about column F of the DAC, and another couple of strong damage rolls from the Eel would have been big trouble, with 7’s headed for the ‘phaser’ and ‘any warp’ entries.

The purely deterministic movement makes it less of a maneuvering challenge, though the higher speed adds some interest back there. The tactics section in the rules mentions dragging it away from the planet by firing, but doesn’t mention the fact that you can scrub little bits of movement off just by timing shots around when you are about to move (so you can move even further away), or especially when the Moray Eel is about to move (so it doesn’t move closer to the planet). This is a more interesting and challenging scenario than the previous two simply because the ship will take internals every time it fires, and you have to figure out how to survive the consequences long enough to play the odds.

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG

Somewhat to my surprise, after Patch and I finished up “Arctic Crossroads” he suggested an SFB game. He wanted smaller ships, and something other than Klingons, so I looked to a Kzinti-Lyran fight (appropriate as they’re also involved in the Four Powers War right now) with squadrons using ships smaller than CAs.

The Kzinti produce their first Destroyer in Y159 (our current playing date), and I certainly wanted to show it off, as I don’t think it appears in many scenarios. It’s mostly known as an ‘also ran’ ship, as production is halted in favor of the later Medium Cruiser, and it is relegated to second-line duty during the General War. But right now, it is brand new, and effectively the one of the most advanced designs around, and certainly the best ship the Kzinti have for the tonnage. At a Move Cost of 1/2, it has 24 power, 2xdisruptors, 4xph-1, 2xph-3, and 4xdrone racks. This is more power and firepower than the larger Light Cruiser class, which it is effectively replacing (the CL will be refitted to have more power, more disruptors, and bring its drone racks up to 4, but that’s a few years away still). It shows a shift from ph-3 to ph-1s, and an increase in drone throw weight (eventually, just about all Kzinti ships have at least four drone racks, but until now, that’s only been true on the much larger CS/CA/CC hull as well as the seven racks on the much larger DNE).

Then I chose a Lyran Light Cruiser to lead the opposite squadron. It has the exact same BPV as the DD (after adjusting for the lack of ESG capacitors), and while larger with more internals, and it has slightly better phasers (4xph-1, 4xph-3), coverage isn’t quite as good, and its shields are slightly weaker than the DD’s.

Both sides’ squadrons were rounded out by a pair of frigates, which also happen to have the exact same BPV, and fairly similar characteristics. Patch, as it turned out, went for a full load of Type-II (speed 12) drones, with no larger Type-Vs, for a total cost of 16 BPV. I vaguely contemplated taking some transporter bombs, and I should have, but neither of us took any.

We set up, and rolled randomly for Weapon Status (with a +1 for a war zone), and ended up with WS III. That was to my advantage, as the Kzinti don’t have any multi-turn weapons, and it meant my ESGs were already fully charged. I also had a suicide shuttle pre-charged on the CL. The Kzinti squadron went speed 15 for the first turn, as did my CL, while my FFs went 16. We simply closed the range for the first half of the turn, but the DD turned off at about range 25. During impulses 28-30, we fired as ships hit range 15. I stuck to disruptors, which all missed with six straight 5s. Patch launched half his drones on each ship, and volleyed all his disruptors, which all missed with three 6s and a 4, while four phasers he fired also missed on “better” rolls (two 3s and two 4s). On impulse 32, I turned towards the Kzinti FFs to see if could engage them separately from the DD.

With ranges coming down fast, I decided to put power into overloads on CL, and EW on the FFs, and went speed 9 for the CL and speed 13 on the FFs. Meanwhile, Patch sped up to 19 on his FFs while the DD stayed 15. Patch was surprised I hadn’t boosted speed as well, which I had considered, but I wanted to be prepared for a close-range pass (and the FFs stayed on regular disruptors in case something like this happened). Sadly, I only had slightly better EW than Patch, but it meant I would have even shots at his FFs while everyone else was at a +1 to fire at each other.

Patch’s FFs turned off on Impulse 4, confirming my fears that he would just dance around my slower-moving squadron this turn. On Impulse 10, I turned towards the gap between Patch’s forces and starting warming up an ESG to tackle the wave of drones that was in there. To my surprise, Patch turned his DD in shortly after, allowing me to get closer to it. Things started coming to a head on Impulse 15, when my FF-1 started sweeping the drones with its ESG, and my FF-2 and the DD traded shots. Both ships hit with one disruptor, and missed with the other, and had similar phaser rolls, though the ph-2s on my FF led to less damage being done.

On Impulse 18, I turned towards the DD, as it turned back away, launching its last two drones for the turn (the other racks had staggered fire over the previous few impulses). The DD scored another 4 points on the front shield of FF-2 with the 360-phasers, while the CL did 15 points to shield #3 of the DD, hitting with both disruptors and one good phaser roll (a second phaser missed entirely…). The next impulse, FF-2 announced its ESG, and I fired another three phasers at the DD. FF-1’s phaser missed, but the remaining ph-1s on the CL both rolled 1s to knock down the shield and do 5 internals, including a ph-3 and two power. That was pretty much it for the turn, though on Impulse 28, the two Kzinti FFs fired disruptors at my FF-1, with one hitting, and on the next couple impulses, they launched drones.

Turn 2, Impulse 18, showing movement throughout the turn.
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Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Last year, after running through the first SFB monster scenario, I figured I’d try to run through one of those each ‘game calendar’ year. Recently, Patch and I started up the ‘main’ fight for Y159 for us, so while I was down visiting my dad, I started up this scenario, which is loosely based on the original series episode “The Immunity Syndrome”.

It’s mostly an exercise in the lab and research rules. The ship needs to generate research points, and when it has enough, it rolls for a random method to win the scenario. Shuttles, probes, and special sensors can also aid in this (scouts and survey vessels have a fairly easy time with this scenario), and range to the monster matters for how much information is collected. In the meantime, the monster does damage to the ship by rolling on the same information table, but scores damage from it. It only does one point of damage to shuttles each turn, but it also has MCIDS, so they are unlikely to live at range 3 or closer.

This leads to some timing issues: You base information (/damage) off of your ‘closest pass’ during the turn, but don’t resolve it until after the impulse sequence is over (which is natural, under the circumstances), meaning you have to record that info, and update it as the turn progresses. In this case, you also have to keep track of what shield the monster was on when you first hit that range, as that’s where damage will be scored. The major question is at what point in the turn sequence is the damage done? If it’s step 8C, Final Records Stage (when information from the labs is rolled, using the same table), then it happens after shield repairs are done (8A).

The minor (nitpicky and technical) question deals with what part of the impulse is range for information gathering determined in? A ship could tow a shuttle into range three, and then use the Special Landing Procedure to get it back out again (or just get it into the ship, which is also at range 3). Since MCIDS is in the Direct Fire Weapons chapter, it should fire at that point, and would get the shuttle out of harm’s way before MCIDS fires (though it does specifically fire at anything about to hit it during the Movement step, so maybe MCIDS doesn’t ever fire in 6D?). The only lab function that takes place during an impulse, identifying seeking weapons, happens in 6B4, which implies to me that range for information purposes might be best resolved then, which is before the shuttle shuts down as part of the landing procedure in Step 6B8.

A year ago, I was thinking of just going with Kzinti cruisers each year, and watching them upgrade. But currently I’ve been playing as Lyrans (I’ve got a Lyran squadron in the current fight, and should be playing as them against Mark soon), so I thought I’d get some time in on their CA. That may have been a mistake. It’s a good combat cruiser, with a higher-than-normal BPV of 131 (reduced for being before ESG capacitors), but it only has two shuttles and four lab boxes, meaning it doesn’t gain information particularly fast, but at least it has good shields. This meant that I needed 419 points from the labs instead of the normal 400.

Another wrinkle is that shield reinforcement doesn’t work on damage from the amoeba, so the only way to resist shield damage is by using damage control to repair damage done. Finally, the entire scenario is on a timer, after 20 turns the amoeba splits, and information gathering has to start over on both of them. So retreating out of range for a while to repair shields isn’t really an option either.

I initially approached at speed 18 to get close to the monster on the first turn, and then went speed 12 for the rest of the scenario, as that is a handy speed for managing shuttles (going faster than 12 makes it possible to kill your own shuttle once tractored, though good timing can still avoid that). The monster only goes speed 4, but moves completely randomly, meaning that it can be hard to get exactly the pass you want. With only two shuttles, and one of the possible solutions being a suicide shuttle, I flew them very conservatively to keep out of MCIDS range, and then played lots deck crew games to repair the shuttles in rotation.

By the end of turn 7, every shield had taken significant damage. #3 and #5 were nearly down, and were out of action for the rest of the scenario. A range 0 pass on the amoeba caused a 20-point hit on shield #1 while generating 40 points of information, and then I took the damage on #4 the next turn, which took out about half the shield, but only generated 4 points of information. In fact, the monster tended to roll slightly better on the table than I did for much of the scenario.

After that, I tried keeping to further passes, accepting slower information gathering (and trying to rely on the two poor shuttles more) while working the #2 and #6 shields, and concentrating repairs on them (and eventually all on #2 after a bad turn put it most of the way down, but #6 held out for a while). Turn 8 saw the use of the last probe (the fifth one being kept in reserve, as it is needed for one of the possible solutions), and I was getting worried about the time limit.

Eventually, another close pass (range 2, closer than intended) got a good roll, while doing minimal damage to shield #1 (8 out of the remaining 13), followed by two more good rolls got me to exactly the 419 points needed at the end of turn 16.

Log of information gathered during the scenario.

The roll for the solution… 3! Do 200 points of damage to the monster to destroy it! …I was really glad to not get the ‘try again after another 100 points of information’. Between the damage and timing, that probably would have been a loss. I had already done 34 points early in the game (up to 50 points are allowed without voiding one of the other results), and now I overloaded the disruptors, released the ESGs, and did a range 1 pass that did 154 points of damage and knocked my #6 shield down to two boxes. The next turn, I went back and at range 1 finished it off with a second volley. That also collapsed the #2 shield, and if the damage should happen before the repairs, took two internals (F Hull and an ESG).

I spent quite a while on this scenario, playing one or two turns at a time. Once through the initial setup, and done getting into the groove, it was fairly tedious, and too much of an accounting exercise to really enjoy. I should also note that the random movement of the monster also tended to be biased in direction ‘1’. Over the course of 18 turns, it moved from 2115 to 2001. There was a fair amount of wandering back and forth (it went 14 hexes in 18 turns at speed 4), but it did keep drifting to the top of the board, and it was happenstance that I didn’t need to adjust things at the end. I don’t even recommend this as a good way to get used to operating a ship, as there’s too few demands on power. On the other hand, it is very good for getting used to maneuvering a ship, and possibly using shuttles more.