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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.

Captain’s Log #48 had another interestingly inventive scenario in it, based on the main fiction piece of the issue. About a week after the episode “Trouble With Tribbles” the Klingon ship involved is still having trouble. The non-Klingon crew is all down with… probably the common cold, but they’ve never encountered it before. And there’s a fresh outbreak of tribbles for the Klingons to deal with, while the ship is ordered to a border system to ‘show the flag’ while a Federation frigate is patrolling the area.

The story is actually pretty good, and winds up with what should be the normal one-pass showdown between two ships counting coup, but by now the tribbles have been chewing on the wiring, and the D7 suffers failures in several weapons. The scenario rather unusually starts on impulse 25 of the first turn, right after this happens. Two disruptors are shorted out, along with the wing phasers, and the scenario starts with rolling damage from the remaining two disruptors and the three boom phasers.

On the other side, the Federation has a FFG (yes, a frigate versus a cruiser!—also one of the first FFGs, and first refitted ship we’ve seen in action), with prox torps already loaded, and about to complete an oblique pass in front of the D7. All the FFG needs to do is knock down a shield on the D7 and get away to win. The D7 is wanting to avoid this and knock down a shield on the FFG. As extra handicaps, the D7 has minimal boarding parties, no damage control abilities, and any time a system other than power or the disruptors and boom phasers is used, it will fail on a roll of 6 (on one die).

Patch agreed that the situation looked interesting, and volunteered to take the FFG out for a spin. To generate uncertainty, there’s random draws for whether the Klingons have any transporter bombs (no), a scatterpack ready (no), or have any 2-space or moderate-speed drones (I got one of each, and took the allowed option for one type-V drone).

All my rolls for the initial volley were 3s and 4s, which let both disruptors hit, and did 2 damage with the phasers for a total of 8 points on the FFG’s #2 shield, only four of which registered. On the next (first of the game) impulse, we both went forward, putting the FFG right on the oblique, where he fired one proximity photon… which missed. Patch turned off the next impulse as the turn wound down to its end.

First pass, Turn 1, Impulses 24-32.
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[Scenarios 1 & 2]

Mark and I returned to the “Lone Gray Wolf” mini campaign a bit ago, as my C6 dreadnought continued making its way back to friendly lines. This time was a proper challenge, as the pursuit group came up ‘4’, which is the second-best Kzinti group. In the original, this is a CVL+ carrier group (basically modified BC, CL, FF with nine fighters); in this Y160 variant, there’s no fighters (of course), and the ships are their regular unrefitted equivalents of a CS, CL, and FF. By straight BPV, this is 195 vs 262 (and by F&E ratings 10-12 vs 17-18), though there are some serious advantages to having one large ship instead of three smaller ones (it being easier to punch through a shield to destroy weapons on a smaller ship being the main one).

As ever with this campaign, setup is the C6 in the middle of the board, with the Kzinti 14 hexes behind it; in this case Mark started his ships one hex apart, with the CS in the middle. I started at speed 20 and no EW, while the Kzintis all went speed 18 with 1 ECCM running. The first few impulses got us going, and I slipped and then turned on Impulse 5. The Kzinti generally slipped over to keep in line with me, and I turned in late in the turn, and used the good arcs on the ph-1s to hit the FF’s shield #1 for 8 points at range 12 (5 registered).

With the range staying closer than I might have liked, and Kzintis turning to intercept on impulse 32, I decided on a somewhat risky maneuver: going down to speed 12, and launching an ECM drone (actually done on Impulse 32). The Kzinti went to speed 21 (except the FF, which stayed at 18), and used varying amounts of ECCM, while I generated 6 ECM (with another three from drone when it came on-line during impulse 4).

I turned in at the start of the turn, and Mark tried to clear the ECM drone with a pair ph-3s on impulse 7, but failed to get any hits at range. He launched drones on 8, the FF slipped out, and the CS turned in for nose-to-nose confrontation. I tried tractoring the CS on 10, but gave it up after three points of power. The CS then launched from its remaining two drone racks, and I launched two drones, and then we unloaded into each other (with the CL adding in). Phasers knocked down all the just-launched drones and the ECM drone, and the CS and CL boosted ECCM enough to get the shift down to a +2. Two of four of his disruptors missed, and mixed phaser performance added up to 23 damage, or just over half my shield #1. One of my disruptors missed, but three overloads, 4xph-1 and 2xph-2 did a total of 50 damage, crashing through the #1 for 24 internals. This ripped through the forward hull, and took out the batteries, along with the usual scattering of weapons and power.

Turn 2, Impulse 10, showing movement for the first 16 impulses.
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“The Lone Gray Wolf” is an interesting mini campaign for SFB that I’ve had some desire to play ever since the days of Commander’s Edition. Back in Captain’s Log #41, there was an ‘update’ to it, positing that this situation could have happened before, maybe an early version was even the reason why it was tried at the height of the General War. This provided for alternate versions of the campaign in each Klingo-Kzinti conflict, which works out to a W-era, Y-era, two ‘middle years’, and late-GW variants of it. The fourth one happens to be set in Y160, our group’s current scenario date, so with our expanded Vassal playing time, I talked Mark into playing through it with me.

A Klingon dreadnought goes alone to the Kzinti capital to negotiate a peace. The talks break down, and the dreadnought is forced to make its lonely way back to Klingon lines, with Kzinti forces hunting for it. There are six Kzinti groups hunting for it, and the dreadnought must survive six scenarios to win through. But, this is not ‘face each force in turn’. Instead, each scenario starts with a die roll to determine which force finds the dreadnought this time. Repeated rolls of the same number will bring up the same ships (worse for wear from the previous scenarios, just like the dreadnought, and if the Kzinti ship(s) were destroyed before, this becomes a ‘free pass’ for the Klingons). The Klingons must conserve fuel, and must stay to speed 20 or below most of the time, and can only disengage by acceleration once in the entire campaign.

Mark volunteered to take the Kzinti, and after some pondering over drone choices (especially for me, as they have to last for six battles), and deciding to try MRS shuttles (which added more drones to the mix), we started in mid-August. The first roll was a ‘6’… the weakest Kzinti group, a single FA-L (drone-armed freighter; also about the only ship unchanged from the original version). Against a C6 early dreadnought (this is the second time I’ve piloted one), Mark’s main hope was to force me to at least expend consumables, either launching drones, or using T-bombs.

Setup is always with the Kzinti a half-map behind the C6, and Mark set up about six hexes off to one side. Initial speeds were 17 for me and 18 for the FA-L. I spent on 4 ECM and 1 ECCM while Mark didn’t spend anything on EW. I spent half the turn getting turned around, while the FA-L first turned to parallel my initial turn, and then turned in. As I started setting up for an oblique attack, Mark fired his two bearing ph-2s at range 7 with a +2 shift to do one point of shield damage, and then turned off. Three impulses later, just short of the oblique, I fired all bearing weapons (4xph-1, 2xph-2, 4xdisruptors overloaded off of batteries) to do 11 internals through shield #5 with below average rolls (phasers never rolled under a 3, and two disruptors hit on a 2/3s chance). Internals were all over, taking out two of three control spaces, and reducing the sensor rating to ‘3’ (making drones a really chancy weapon, as he had a 50-50 chance of losing lockons and all drone tracking next turn), but not taking out any weapons.

Turn 1, Impulse 23, showing movement from Impulse 17 through 32.

Two impulses later, the left waist phasers were in arc, and better rolls did three points through the down shield, for two hull, and one sensor hit, reducing it to ‘0’. By the end of the turn I was six hexes away in a stern chase, and it was obvious that Mark would be trying to disengage by acceleration. I went down to speed 12, overloading the disruptors and recharging the phasers and batteries, while the FA-L went its maximum of 23 (…okay, 31, we forgot about the freighter’s acceleration limits).

I immediately volleyed everything I had, trying to get it down to less than half its original warp power, and unable to disengage by acceleration. The phasers were a bit more mixed (with a 2 in the mix, but also two 6s), but all the disruptors hit, to do 17 internals through the #3 shield. This took out the last control space, two phasers, both impulse, and left just enough warp to disengage with. On impulse 4, I turned to get the right boom phasers into arc, and did two more points to take out the shuttle and a third phaser. After that, the distance opened up, and Mark got me off the down shields, so that I couldn’t do any internals, even if I got the waist phasers to bear, and he disengaged.

We checked what the next group would be after that. And it was… 6! again!

We set up and did a half turn in a short session, just to see if I could get internals before it fled. Between scenarios, all shields are regenerated, and limited repairs can be made (he repaired the sensors, a couple warp, and I don’t recall what else). However, he set up smartly in a far corner, and I couldn’t manage more than about two greater speed than him, and couldn’t do more than dent a shield.

We’ve started scenario 3, which should be much more of a challenge. (Spoiler: he got his second-best group.)

Mark was just too aggressive given the disparity in power between the ships. Of course, group #6 is probably best to see towards the end of the campaign, hopefully after something has done some real damage, and the Klingons have to be a lot more cautious. Catching me with a scatterpack could have been bad, but even that is unlikely to scare an intact C6 much (partially because of drone speeds, and partially because it doesn’t have to give much credence to the FA-L’s pop-guns).

The real goal would be to drag things out. It’s unlikely to go anywhere near twenty turns (at which point he rolls again for another group to show up), but if he can get me thinking about it, I might make a mistake. And of course, short of hoping for that, the goal should be to get me to use T-bombs or drones, but with a fresh C6, the FA-L just couldn’t force that either.