Warhammer Historical: Great War Practice

It's been an absolute age since I've played a game of Warhammer - 40K or Fantasy - so I am dipping my toe back in the waters with a few small games. I decided to try the Blitz scenario from the rulebook, with 1914 Germans trying to push through the BEF and reach the 4' marker of the table. About where the two British artillery pieces can be seen. For the BEF I took the bare minimum of infantry, a single company of two small platoons (E and D) and one Company Command Section (B, hiding behind two pillboxes of dubious historicity), and augmented them with 2 HMGs and 2 18lb artillery pieces. I fully expected the German to overrun the BEF without much trouble.

On the German side, I used the Guards list, which is superior in close combat, while every infantryman has grenades, aiding him in assault. Some of my choices here were influenced by the comparative paucity of German models in my collection. I deployed a Colonel with a General Staff Officer and a full Battalion Command Section (1), a single HMG (2) and two off-table 77mm pieces (3, marked on table in accord with the rules), with which to support the attack. The left flank (1st Company: two platoons, 4 & 6, and a Command Section, 5) and the centre (two platoons, 7 & 9, and a Command Section, 8) were to advance, hopefully soaking up some damage, while the right flank, featuring a heavily reinforced platoon (12), a normal platoon (10) and another Command Section (11) was what I was hoping would do best by virtue of its superior numbers.

It was a very instructive experience. Having been used to the Imperial Guard, I'd never been accustomed to regarding Flak Armour as useful ere now, but when your basic troops don't get a save unless they are in cover or accept being pinned (unable to advance) in the next turn, it really brings it home. The German right flank got shot to pieces by artillery, while the central machine guns knocked out most of the attacking force in that area. The left flank advanced almost to contact before I abandoned play, and was probably going to push through the BEF platoon on that flank. The German HMG was useless, mainly because of my spectacular dice-rolling abilities. Turn 1: eight dice in sustained fire, requiring a 4+ to hit. None hit. No lesson to be learned there, aside from not letting one's infantry block one's fire. Things improved slightly, but not by much.

The German artillery was ineffective, which was my own fault for trying to take out the two pillboxes with the HMGs. I should have been better served firing on the infantry behind the walls. I erred in taking the walls to give a 3+ save when it was a 4+, and in failing to realise until the very end that the German artillery, being off-table, gained the Indirect Fire trait, which meant that the infantry shouldn't have had any save against it anyway! One round did miss the pillboxes and take out most of the Command Section, the officer legging it back up the road toward the artillery for one turn before he regained his composure. German rifle fire was ineffective, which is to be expected. With one shot at 12" if infantry move, they were never expected to do much. The BEF infantry was predictably good at shooting as the Germans closed the range. The problem for the BEF is that their basic infantryman is so very expensive. I've never been sure if the points value is adequately reflected in battlefield competence.

I think when I come to replay this game I'll pare the Germans down to two large companies of troops and a pair of off-table artillery pieces. The artillery will engage in a bit of counter-battery fire, as the Royal Artillery did some murderous good work, then focus on the infantry. On the British side, I will either remove one artillery piece and spare crewmen, and buy a third platoon for the defenders, or just trim down the spare crewmen and slightly enlarge the two platoons. at 1,000 points for the Attacker and 500 for the Defender, there really isn't a lot of room for anything else. Next game will be a bit different, anyway, as I plan to use my newly constructed canals, which will give the BEF less to hide behind, but may cause bottlenecks for the Germans.

Star Fleet: Disaster/Victory at Attica Beta

It's been a while since I played a game of ACTA: Star Fleet. In fact, the last time we tried out the new drone rules, which were a bit burdensome. So I reverted to the old ones this time. I ran a practice game against myself, mainly to reacquaint myself with the rules, which worked. I totally dropped the ball on several things, as you'll see. The scenario was Call to Arms, which pretty much amounts to "You have eight turns to shoot one another to death. Terrain is optional." I fancied loading one fleet into a few high value ships, and giving the other an Initiative and movement advantage. One alternates movement by ship in this game, so if you have more ships, you can outmanoeuvre your opponent. The fleets were as follows.

Federation Taskforce:
Flag: USS Mars, Mars-class Battleship  (the large model with four nacelles
USS Farragut and USS Yorktown (to the starboard and port, respectively, of Mars), Constitution-class Heavy Cruisers
USS Carolina, Escort Cruiser

USS Reliant (a model from Shapeways, used because it's the Reliant, of course!), Discovery-class (?) New Scout Cruiser

Klingon Fleet:
IKS Revenge, D7C Command Cruiser (represented by FD7 model with a bullet-shaped prow rather than the other cruiser's standard curved triangle)
IKS Doom, D5WD Drone Cruiser (her third nacelle, located on the centreline on her rear hull, makes her stand out)
IKS Brazen and Bombardier, D6 Heavy Cruisers (the two identical other cruisers)
IKS Interceptor and Invidious, F5 Frigates (the larger pair of small ships)
IKS Mosquito and Gnat, E4 Light Frigates (the tiny wee things)

Having experienced severe frustration in previous battles because it's effectively impossible to fix ships when things break as a result of enemy fire, all the ships involved had high Crew Quality ratings. In practice, this meant everything was fixed at once, but these are most of the highest-rated ships in the fleet, so it seems fine. In terms of terrain, the only piece of any import was the dust cloud. It shaded the Feds and their opponents equally, but obscured the entire Federation fleet at the beginning of the battle. The two asteroid fields and planetoid never got a look-in. The Feds won the pre-battle Initiative roll, forcing the Klingons to deploy first. I placed the heavy ships on the left and the light ones on the right, having some misplaced idea about distracting the Federation fire with the light ships.

The Klingons won the Initiative roll for the first turn, and I advanced the right flank of small ships. The Federation force moved en bloc into the dust cloud, where it would contentedly remain for a while, doing nothing more strenuous than move a few inches or turn on the spot. USS Reliant proved her weight in gold by blocking a lot of enemy fire. She also did some illegal things, as I realised as I looked more closely at the rules. The Klingons aimed to take out the Mars, reckoning correctly that at more than one third of the cost of the fleet, her loss would gut it. However, I forgot that she was also the most heavily-protected ship on the board, defended by the Reliant's Scout functions, the Carolina's escort capabilities, and her own massive armament and shielding. The Federation instead elected to shoot at the closest targets, which saw the small Klingon ships bloodied and beaten. One F5, IKS Invidious, is destroyed by the Carolina's drones. An E4, IKS Mosquito, is blasted into dust by Mars' weapons.

As the disaster on the right flank became apparent, turn 3 saw the Klingons decide to get the hell out of Dodge before anything else went disastrously wrong. Federation sensors spotting the Klingons preparing to go to high warp, however, led to the Federation squadron charging across the battlefield, and unloading an obscene number of photon torpedoes right down the throat of the very expensive (and seriously under-performing) D5WD Bombardment Cruiser. A lot of the Federation ships' previously useless aft-firing phasers went toward the surviving small ships. The cruiser Yorktown destroys the second F5, IKS Interceptor, with rear phaser fire. Farragut fires the crucial shots that mangle the D5WD, two of her photons passing straight through the enemy's shields, and following up with some equally effective phasers, which demolished her shields and crippled her. Reliant did some tidying up, destroying both the E4 Gnat and the D5WD. Although the Klingons fired back with all they had, it caused nothing more serious all game than two criticals (both at once repaired) and some moderate hull and shield damage to Mars and the two heavy cruisers.

In retrospect, employing such small ships against an enemy battleship was a bad idea. I ended up trying to bring them into effective combat range, which is very low, thus endangering them. I should have either selected a mass of small ships or made everything medium-sized and capable of enduring some punishment. Putting them on the flank meant they were an even more distinct target than if they had been amidst a lot of cruisers. Finally, their separation from the cruisers and proximity to the Federation ships meant they were in a horribly exposed position when the final turn came. I should also have remembered that the Reliant and Carolina were force multipliers, and considered eliminating them before trying to damage the battleship. From the Klingon perspective, the best thing that can be said is that I was reminded of what not to do!

You can see the battle unfold approximately below. I tried to take photos as things proceeded, but a few of these are staged afterwards, so apologies for any continuity errors.

The Oops of War

Another couple of battles from 2012 here. In the first I thought it would be fun to throw a trio of Klingon C7 Battlecruisers at their Federation Kirov-class counterparts, while a black hole in the middle of the table pulled everything inward. As it turned out, the moving terrain rather threw out my brother's plans, so all three of my ships were able to get the drop on one of his, while his other two frantically tried not to crash into an asteroid field being sucked into the middle of the table. With one ship dead, and my fleet pretty much unharmed, it wasn't going to be much fun carrying on, so we called it a day.

In the second one I was still trying to use my laptop as a reference point for all the ships, which went disastrously when I tried to deploy about a thousand points of warships on either side, and foolishly tried my hand at a comparatively huge solo game. I ended up getting as far as the second or third turn, when the fleets had just started taking pot-shots at one another, and then gave up in utter befuddlement! Pretty pictures of a massed "battle", but that's about all that came out of this!

The Fall of Mandalay Gamma

I have a few battle reports and bits and bobs left over from the end of last year, so bear with me as I get through them. First up is this refight of a scenario in which the Attacker has to scan a planet for strategically valuable information. We had already fought this with the roles the other way round, so this time I led a Klingon assault force (4 D6s, an F5 and an E4) to investigate a planet mysterious protected by three Constitution-class heavy cruisers and a Lexington command cruiser. As I recall, I had my fleet divert power to the engines, and surged forward over two turns, reaching the planet in the third. I through out the E4 and F5 as distractions on my left flank, intending to have the D6s scan the planet. The Federation fleet was perhaps inadvisedly divided into a strong right flank and a weak left one.

As I approached the planet I had the advantage of more ships, and that the ships were themselves more manoeuvrable. So I was able to take advantage of the positioning of the left-flank Federation cruiser, and get ships all around it. It took a pounding, and, I think, went down with all hands that turn. As my ships scanned the planet, the rest of the Federation squadron moved in. I elected to distract them with a couple of ships, while keeping some more obscured by the planet. These distractions were probably unnecessary, and just got a couple of ships killed to no real purpose. Anyway, by the time the Federation squadron had cleared the planet, I was able to order my ships to warp in time to zip off back to the High Command with juicy, juicy information. I think it was after this battle (or just in the final turns) that I realised that each ship had to note what it had scanned individually for its points to count. We've played this scenario pretty much to death, so we shall have forgotten by the time we come back to it, no doubt! End result: Klingon victory.

The Embrace of Charybdis

We had a brief game of Star Fleet involving three Battlecruisers on either side, a table full of terrain, with a Black Hole sucking everything to the centre of the table.In the first turn the Federation won the Initiative,but both sides had nothing in range or arc, so we just swooped toward one another. The Black Hole sucked everything to the middle of the table The second turn saw my brother realise he had misdeployed, as I was able to bring all three of my ships to bear against USS Kirov, shielding two of them from the rest of his force thanks to the asteroid field. The Klingon C7 Red suffered Level 1 Critical hits to Weapons and her Dilithium Chamber, while Kirov suffered a Level 1 Critical to her Impulse Drive. In the End Phase everything on the table got sucked further toward the Black Hole, and the Red managed to repair the Critical Hit to her Weapons system. The third turn was the last. In an attempt to redeploy, Niall tried for a very minor High Energy Turn for the Kirov, which failed, leaving her exposed to the concentrated firepower of all three Klingon ships. She did not survive. Something of a space oddity occurred, as the dust cloud which had been hiding one of my warships touched the Black Hole and vanished, while my ship lay further away, and so didn't. Come the end of the turn, a planet, dust clouds and an asteroid field had all been sucked into the Black Hole, but more importantly, the Klingons were still in good fighting shape, while a third of the Federation fleet was gone. So we shook hands and called it a day.

These equal points affairs are getting a bit samey, so I think next time we might do an imbalanced fight. Another thing I have noticed is that I am drawing up bad fleet lists. They are bad in the sense that when a fleet concentrates fire on a single ship, it generally renders the rest of the battle badly imbalanced. Next time, if we don't have an imbalanced fight, we might have a go at using a large number of small ships: four Burke Frigates and two Callahan Cutters would be equal in points to two Klingon E4s and four F5s, so it would be unlikely that the loss of a single ship would drastically alter the nature of the battle. I am still not quite sure what the technique should be when fighting against Klingons with the Federation. On the one hand, going at them head on allows the use of Photons, which are potentially devastating, but on the other hand, Fed ships are generally less capable of turning, so I should expect to find Klingons glued to my ships' tails. Presumably the way to resolve that is by having ships turn repeatedly, so some ship always has an arc on the enemy. Anyway, for now here are the photos of this latest battle.

Battle of Polemos III

My brother and I decided to play the scenario Explore A Strange New World again, this time with a different array of forces, and on opposing sides. He took defensive side with the Federation: USS Lexington was his flagship, and three Constitution-class Heavy Cruisers, Enterprise, Constitution (marked with a pink D4) and Hood (marked with a ruby D8). On the Klingon side I attacked with four D6 Cruisers and two E4 Light Frigates. The Federation fleet, with a Command ship, Lexington, had the same opportunity for activation as the Klingons, but the superior numbers of the scurvy Klingons meant they had the opportunity to force the Federation ships into unfavourable manoeuvres, especially given that every Klingon ship was far better at turning than any of the Federation ones. I had a vague plan for once. I popped the E4s on the left flank, intending to use them as a distraction, while the D6s would scan the planet to fulfil the victory conditions. My brother's plan was to divide his forces with a weak left and a strong right, and envelop me when I reached the planet, catching me in a deadly crossfire. One of our plans worked out.

The first turn saw the Federation win the Initiative roll. All the Klingon ships ordered All Power to Engines! While every Federation ship launched a suicide shuttle. This was that I did last time we played this scenario, but I quite forgot to move them into range, and a blob of shuttles hung uselessly in orbit while the warships duked it out. That didn't happen this time. The second turn saw a Klingon Initiative victory, with some long range Disruptor fire at Enterprise from the D6s, while the E4s blasted a pair of shuttles. By the third turn my Klingons had reached the planet. I kept one E4 in close, and sent the other on a wide flanking manoeuvre, hoping it would provide a distraction for Lexington on my brother's right flank. USS Hood circled the planet, hitting the forward shields of D6 Silver (silver stripes, you see), damaging her hull and shields. Enterprise found herself outmanoeuvred by the Klingon D6s, and was eliminated with massed firepower. A few remaining shots hit USS Hood, the Lexington, and another couple of shuttles. In the End Phase Klingon Labs acquired three quarters of the information points they needed to about the planet. It looked as though the Emperor would be well pleased by this mission.

Turn 4 saw the Federation again take the Initiative, Hood reloading her photon torpedoes, while Lexington and Constitution boosted their shields. I elected to distract the Federation from attacking the main body of my fleet, and swung the slightly damaged D6 Silver around the planet as a decoy, and E4 Green to perform the same duty. Both were lost, but they did the job. In the End Phase the remaining Klingon ships managed to boost knowledge of the planet 20% higher than required, so all they needed to do was stay alive one more turn to win. In turn 5 the Klingons won the Initiative, and all bar the remaining E4 ordered Maximum Warp Now! This would see them depart in the End Phase, and the game end in victory for the Klingons. Every Federation ship boosted shield power again, the captains wary of suffering Enterprise's fate. A fierce gunnery battle ensued, resulting in the crippling of D6 Pale Grey, but by the end of the turn no Klingon ships had been destroyed, allowing them all to escape.

We shook hands, and I realised that I should have been recording Information Points for each ship, not for the fleet as a whole. D'oh! Still, we had a good game, and it was interesting to compare the  different fighting and movement styles of the two fleets. Federation ships tend to have weaponry that has boundaries at 0 and 180 and 90 and 270 degrees, whereas Klingons use 45 and 225 and 135 and 315 degrees as their boundaries. This is a bit of a change to get used to, and my first attempts with Klingons, trying to fly them the same way as Federation ships, didn't go well, as their flank and rear weaponry tended not to find a target. This time I was able to deploy ships so that they could bring to bear weapons on ships in different arcs, and I have a cinematic image of how the Klingons should operate en masse in my head. They barrel toward the enemy, reliant on heavy forward shielding to protect them, blasting away with all guns. Once past the enemy they use superior agility to turn and get on their enemies' tails, using their flank weaponry as they make the necessary turns. We should see that soon.

Star Fleet: Reinforcements Painted

I had hoped to be able to present a Batrep of Saturday's game today, but due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, there wasn't enough time to fit in a game of Star Fleet: ACTA. Maybe next time! We had a comic time playing Artemis. With slightly too few people, everyone behaved as though they and everyone else were captain. I failed to realise (remember?) that the Helm position also controls the Shields. So we got a bit shot up in our first fight. I bet this is why Kirk always used to shout it: it slipped Sulu's mind! Mawbs was our Mr Chekov, firing missiles in quick succession into the enemy, always bidding me to follow their tail. I sounded like Scotty: "I'm doing the best I can!" Then Nathan, controlling engineering, would divert power to manoeuvring thrusters so I could get behind them. Most of the piloting involved heading right at the enemy, and then zooming away at warp before turning about and trying to get behind them.

After beating someone, we'd get a new message that Outpost 7 (or something) was under attack, and Berni bid me set course 040. Then I'd behave as Captain, having noticed we'd run low on missiles and power, and head us to another space station to refit and re-arm. The last battle was the funniest. Having engaged several enemy ships, we'd taken a heck of a battering, with damage markers covering half the locations on the ship. We turned away, letting a friendly AI cruiser get destroyed protecting our flight, and that's when things went a bit Sink the Bismarck! The damage control teams had all died in the fires, so Nathan couldn't get them to repair anything. Our manoeuvring thrusters were out, but the main engine was fine. We could go to warp and maintain normal sublight speeds, but we couldn't turn at all! So Mawbs fired off some EMP warheads which were our sole armament, and the enemy squadron turned ponderously toward us. Nath decided we'd self-destruct in hopes of taking them out, but I think their combined firepower destroyed our ravaged hull before that could happen.

It was a great deal of fun. It's a bit reminiscent of Quasar or paintball: you throw yourself into it, wholly aware that it's ridiculous, and you have a great time. That is the key: one can't have a sense of self-importance if one wants to have a good time. A sense of the ridiculous is a key element in my enjoyment of almost everything, and an element in everything else. Remember Monty Python!

Having made the point that all is ridiculous, join me in welcoming the painted additions to the Federation and Romulan fleets: the War Eagle Cruiser and the Manta Ray-class New Fast Cruiser.

Star Fleet: Balance of Error - BatRep

Having received a squadron of Romulans, which you can see en masse here, how could I not take them onto the field of battle? So with malice aforethought the Romulans surged forth across the Federation border to terrorise and despoil. Did they succeed? Read on to discover the truth! My brother and I rolled for sides, and I took the Romulans, consisting of a Battle Hawk, a SkyHawk Destroyer and a War Eagle Cruiser, while he took the Federation, consisting of the renowned Enterprise, and a Ramius-class. This was represented by a Burke-class, as I'm still awaiting the arrival of the fleet box. Since the idea was to test out cloaking devices, I elected to start the game cloaked. In a sense, this was a bit of a mis-step, leading to the highest number of turns in any of our games so far!

In turn 1 the Feds got the Initiative. Both sides advanced, the Federation cautiously, and the Romulans at the maximum 6" speed. The second turn saw more of the same, but with Romulan Initiative. The third turn saw the Romulans continue to advance, while the Federation ships fired blindly at the Romulans. That 2+ save for being cloaked proved its worth, and nary a shot got through. The fourth turn was a repeat of this, but with slight damage to the SkyHawk. Turn five was another non-event, with more undamaging speculative fire. But come turn 6 I was at last in range.

Over eager, perhaps, I decloaked everything and fired all weapons. The Battle Hawk and Ramius were both crippled in the ensuing whirlwind of fire. When the Battle Hawk was crippled, I rolled for damage to her traits, and every single one was lost. My brother and I joked that a cascade failure had obviously hit the ship! The SkyHawk took some slight damage, and Enterprise launched a Suicide Shuttle. The War Eagle, which I had high hopes in, remembering the way Kirk retired from it at speed in Balance of Terror, proved rather a damp squib. You have the option to shoot down Plasma Torpedoes, and I have the ability to roll bad dice to hit! In short, the 7 dice were reduced to a couple, which didn't even hit my target. My brother suggested with a grin there should be a game mechanic for comedies of errors, with that missing torpedo hitting the damaged Battle Hawk.

Next turn the two undamaged Romulan ships cloaked again to reload weapons, and Niall sagely finished off the crippled Battle Hawk. Enterprise scored some slight damage on the cloaking SkyHawk, and launched another Suicide Shuttle. Next turn Federation accuracy had clearly improved, as Mr Chekov managed to hit both Romulan ships, although the first shuttle blew up without hitting the SkyHawk. The next turn followed the same pattern, and then the Romulans again decloaked, which went dreadfully. SkyHawk was crippled, and yet again the Plasma Torpedo from the War Eagle was shot out of the sky. A Suicide Shuttle crashed into the Skyhawk. Next turn another Suicide Shuttle smacked into the SkyHawk, destroying it. The War Eagle recloaked, and got hit by the ever-improving Mr Chekov. She then decided that with the other ships dead and Enterprise seemingly immune to her Plasma Torpedo, that discretion was the better part of valour. She decloaked and made to warp away, but the Federation warships blasted her to atoms. Another successful mission for the Enterpise!

Well, what can we say here? A Federation Heavy Cruiser is powerful enough to shoot down a Plasma Torpedo most of them time, provided it is the only thing attacking her. So as usual it's all about concentration of fire. I foolishly split my Alpha-strike between the two Federation ships. Even though I crippled one, I failed to finish her off, and she was still blowing things up at game's end. Niall, on the other hand, played a canny game, retiring toward the edge of the board to limit my opportunities to flank him. I am having a few folk over later today, and hope to get in a game of Star Fleet: ACTA at some point. I doubt I'll have a chance to write it up tonight, so if it happens, you can look forward to it appearing here on Monday morning.

The pictures below are not from the game. I forgot to take any, so I've reconstructed some of the more noteworthy moments.

Star Fleet: Battle of Acheron VI

Dropping out of warp as they entered the mysterious Acheron system, the two Romulan vessels accelerated toward the sixth planet, then gradually faded away, no longer visible to sensors or even the naked eye. Throughout the three Federation vessels on patrol in the system, alarms harangued crews to battle stations. Aboard USS Enterprise, recently returned to duty following a stay in spacedock, Captain Kirk surged onto the bridge. Commander Spock's measured tones conveyed a cool summary of events: two refitted Klingon vessels, a dreadnought and a  with working cloaking devices had entered the system, accelerated toward the planet, then disappeared from sensors. Some slight traces enabled Spock to have a general idea of their location, but nothing precise. Commodore Ross aboard USS Lexington had ordered all ships to hold station, and to deploy all shuttles, fitted with anti-matter warheads.

If the Romulans wanted to know what the Federation were doing in this out-of-the-way system, they would have to decloak and scan the planet's surface from orbit. If they did that, a host of shuttles acting like ancient fireships would hit their shields, weakening them before the Federation warships attacked. The minutes ticked by as shuttle after shuttle launched from the Enterprise, the Lexington and the Drake. Suddenly sensors registered an explosion near the Drake. Was it the Romulans? Had they decloaked and opened fire? No, one of Drake's shuttles, remotely piloted, had crashed into an asteroid. Moments later the Drake did open fire, as the Romulan battleship decloaked to scan the planet.

The message came through from the Commodore, "Now!" Enterprise slingshot herself around the planet, heading right into the teeth of a Romulan KR Cruiser and her barrage of Plasma Torpedoes, but her Photon Torpedoes and Phaser batteries silenced the hostile cruiser, smashing her shields. At the same time, on the other side of the planet, the Lexington likewise catapulted herself around the planet, and strained her engines to effect a High Energy Turn, ending her move just outside the enemy battleship's forward arc. The refitted Klingon's shields were strongest in the forward arc, and Commodore Ross unleashed every weapon he had into the weaker area aft. Explosions tore through the warship as Photon Torpedoes and Phasers did more damage than anyone could have predicted.

Aboard the battleship, damage crews were helpless to effect repairs as fires surged out of control. Yet discipline was retained, and a heavy barrage of fire struck Lexington and Enterprise. The scanning of the planet was proceeding well, with more than 86% of the work complete. Boosting shields despite the damage, the KC9R Dreadnought lunged to starboard, holding the Lexington squarely in her sights. But her targeting systems had been damaged by Lexington's devastating attack, and her weapons officers proved incapable of hitting the target with more than some glancing blows. Her engineers did better work, boosting her shields to provide some respite from the Federation vessels. The KR cruiser was hit by fatal blasts, and her crew began to abandon ship, knowing she could not survive long.

On the two Federation cruisers feverish crews worked to reload Photon Torpedoes, and Mr Scott managed to squeeze a little more power to the Enterprise's shields, while on Ross' flagship the helmsman demonstrated once again his deftness, executing another seemingly impossible turn to follow the enemy battleship. Sensors indicated that the enemy's engines were powering up for warp, and as the hostile cruiser exploded, the blast damaging Enterprise's scant shields, all three Federation ships poured their firepower into the battleship, which finally exploded with a catastrophic fireball which crippled and almost destroyed Lexington. The Federation had been successful in stopping the Romulans obtaining information on the sinister alien ruins of Acheron VI, but at what cost?

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It was a bit of an odd one, this. We rolled randomly for sides, as usual, and I took the Federation. Since I had a planet I could orbit to zip out from behind, I hid two of my ships behind it. My smallest sat in an asteroid field, whence I didn't dare move it, so thick was the field. Mm, great planning! The Romulans were thus denied the effective use of their cloaks, since they had to uncloak right beside the planet to scan it and complete the mission. If there were no time-limit, they could have swept around behind me and really smashed me up, especially the KR Cruiser, since it's a modified D6, with all the agility that implies. I was surprised to see that the Romulans go straight from being cloaked to having shields up; I even had to re-read the rules to reassure myself of it. The lesson there is for me not to try to understand rules based on a TV show and some films, I think!


When the Romulans did decloak by the planet, I therefore had almost perfect placing. My heart was in my mouth in case Lexington didn't make that turn, but she did, and then I rolled an unfeasible number of 6s for her and Enterprise. By the end of the battle the KC9R Dreadnought had taken maximum damage to her Shields, Dilithium Chamber and Impulse Drive, Level 5 Critical Damage to her Crew, and Level 3 to her Weapons. It would have been worse, but I forgot the Damage Control part of Turn 7. Owing to the loose wording of the rules, since I only added the last two levels of Critical Damage to her Dilithium Chamber, she could still go to Warp in the final turn. It seemed more cinematic and sporting to allow at least the possibility, too. Also more cinematic was the final torrent of fire from the three Federation ships that blew her to smithereens and which saw Lexington crippled and nearly destroyed! Commodore Ross might need a bit of retraining.