Federation Commander

[Sneaky Scot]

The Royal Air Force War Gaming Association runs 2 formal events every year, one of which is the Annual General Meeting, the other of which is the Annual Championships. Earlier this year, I ran a competition and choose Federation Commander as the system to be played. I wrote up the games for inclusion in Your Move 2, the RAFWA magazine. I thought that you might find it entertaining to see how the scenarios went.

All battles were fought in Fleet Scale.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed playing.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......

[Sneaky Scot]

Scenario #1: The Derelict.

A Romulan Condor-class Dreadnought on a pleasure cruise through the Neutral Zone suffers a massive systems failure, resulting in all the power systems being destroyed. The crew frantically attempts to make repairs, whilst the escort (a Snipe-class Frigate) stands guard. The Federation, with its usual eye on a chance for cheap salvage dispatches a Kearsarge-class New Light Cruiser to the area whilst the Klingons decide to send a D5 War Cruiser to seize what military intelligence they can salvage from the Romulan vessel. The objective of the scenario is for the Feds/Klingons to capture the Condor, whilst the Romulans want the ship to escape. Neither ship has enough marines to capture the ship on their own, so they have to co-operate. However, only one ship can claim the prize....

The Feds and Klingons drive towards the target, launching drones at the escort who promptly cloaked. The Fed executes a beautiful approach, staying in the Condor’s blind zone and closing to point blank range. A combination of photons, drones and phasers is used to bring down the rear shield and causes significant damage to the helpless dreadnought. Meanwhile the Klingon scores some minor shield damage on the cloaked escort. However, she can't bring enough weapons to bear on the cloaked target, and the Snipe under-runs her ship and positions himself for an attack on the now stopped Federation cruiser. The Condor manages to repair enough of an engine to execute a tactical turn in place, preventing the Federation from putting any marines aboard the ship. The turn also brings one of his 2 functional Type-F plasma torpedoes to bear on the Fed, and he promptly fires into the Fed ship, dropping the front shield and causing some damage. The Snipe uncloaks, and unloads both of his torpedoes on the stationary Fed, causing significant damage before slipping out of range and into cloak again whilst the Klingon cruiser desperately manoeuvres to engage the Frigate, but she can't get into a good firing position before the Romulan disappears off her scanners. Nevertheless she closes on the battered Fed cruiser and beams some of her marines on board the Condor, and hand-to-hand combat ensues through the corridors of the battered flagship, with the Romulan guards quickly overwhelming the Klingons, but taking casualties in the process.

The Dreadnought continues to make repairs, but only managed to get a tiny fraction of his power on-line. This is enough to allow the ship to make another tactical manoeuvre in-place, and brings the last remaining torpedo to bear on both of its tormentors. The torpedo smashes the Fed cruiser, which explodes. The Klingon fires into the Condor to bring down the facing shield and send more marines on board, but this time, it is too much for the dreadnought to take, and it quickly follows the Fed cruiser into oblivion.

The Klingons, having destroyed the object of interest, depart from the scene, leaving the Romulan Frigate to decloak and search for lifepods.

Overall result - no one achieved their victory conditions, but the Romulans scored most points followed by the Klingon then the Fed.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......

[Sneaky Scot]

Scenario #2: The Juggernaught

A massive alien starship, bristling with weapons is heading for a number of important colony planets. The Juggernaught is heavily armoured, and is fitted with a rotating shield that provides an additional 50 points of protection against weapons (a standard photon torpedo does 8 points of damage, a heavy phaser does between 4 and 8 points at close range, so it is a very formidable shield). However, the Juggernaught is not protected at the rear, and any damage scored from this direction goes straight onto his engines, giving him a critical vulnerability. A small scratch force from the Federation (1 Strike Cruiser, 1 Light Cruiser and a Police Cutter) and the Kzinti Hegemony (a Heavy Battlecruiser and a War Destroyer) are sent to intercept. The Allied forces had a slight points advantage, but that was offset by the positioning of the ships, with the Kzintis and Feds at opposite ends of the map and the Juggernaught in the middle, giving the alien an opportunity to defeat one force in detail before dealing with the other.

The Juggernaught headed straight towards the Federation force at a moderate speed, whilst the Feds trailed their coats for him to follow, hoping that the Kzinti would close fast enought to support them. A wave of drones are launched by the Feds to distract the Juggernaught, but he easily brushes them aside, and continues to close on the Feds. The Fed force maintains a moderate speeds. slipping left to keep them clear of the deadly phaser-4s carried by the Alien (each one can do 20 damage at close range - it is the most powerful weapon in the game), and pushing a burst of acceleration when he gets too close. Meanwhile, the Kzinti closes to extreme range with her disruptors ready. the Feds slip towards the Juggernaught, and he moves the rotating shield to the front to cover the Federation threat. Just at this point, the Kzinti fires with a well-timed disruptor strike. Despite the extreme range, she hits with every weapon she posseses, scoring a small but important amount of damage on the exposed engines of the enemy.

The Fed takes this opportunity and accelerates into attack range, blasting the Juggernaught with photons and phasers, and scoring some internal damage on the ship. However, the Juggernaught also fires, and the Fed Light Cruiser is gutted, losing all of his weapons and limping out of the battle, barely able to move. The Kzintis close on the slowed alien ship, and launch a drone attack, overwhelming the defences and scoring further damage with no reply from the alien.

The Juggernaught goes into a skillful series of desperate manoeuvres, using his superior manoeuvrability to deny the Kzinti a killing shot. The Feds turn back into the battle with their 2 remaining ships, and the game is almost up for the Juggernaught. Despite the skill with which it is being flown, he can't keep all of the ships away from him at the same time, and he turns on the Kzintis, catching the War Destroyer with a devestating barrage that cripples it.

However, now the Federation task force, who are closing with their photons rearmed, dive back into the fray. The Feds are going for the kill, and close to point blank range with a wave of drones for support. The Juggernaught uses his rotating shield to absorb the drones, and fires his main weapons at the same time as the Feds launch their photons and fire phasers. A massive volley, easily capable of destroying any of the Allied ships is unleashed. The chosen target is the Police Cutter, which simply vanishes in an expanding cloud of plasma and debris. However, the damage is done, and the Juggernaught is barely able to move or power his weapons. The Kzinti Heavy Battlecruiser launches another drone wave, and the Juggernaught is destroyed by their impact.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......

[Sneaky Scot]

Scenario #3: The Dilithium Crystal Asteroid (or there's dilithium in them thar' rocks)

An asteroid with high levels of dilithium scattered across the surface is drifting through space. Each player selects a fleet of 300 points, and charges in to recover as much dilithium as possible. The Klingon force consists of a D7 battlecruiser and a FD7 fast cruiser, the Kzinti force chose a New Command Cruiser and a Light Cruiser, and the Gorn force was composed of a Fast Battlecruiser and a Light Cruiser. Points are awarded for each crystal recovered, and for damaging enemy ships.

The Gorn and Klingon forces accelerate to their maximum speeds, and race towards the asteroid in the centre of the board. The Kzintis close a little more slowly, and launch drones, choosing to split their fire between the Klingon and Gorn ships. The Gorn reaches the asteroid first, and beams 3 crystals onto his ships before turning away from the pursuing Kzinti drones and the Klingon disruptors whilst his shields are down, and launching shuttles that will land on the asteroid and collect further crystals. The Klingon destroys the drones launched at him, and continues to close on the asteroid in a more sedate manner. The Kzinti gets into position and beams 3 crystals aboard, exchanging light fire with the Klingon force with no real damage to either side.

The Kzinti stays close to the asteroid, gaining the inside position on both of the rival fleets, beaming aboard another 3 crystals and launching a full drone strike at the Klingons. The Gorn turns back into the asteroid, closing with both forces. The Klingons charge headfirst into the drone wave and shred it, but can't get a good firing angle on the Kzintis. However, he has an excellent firing position against the Gorn shuttles, and in true Klingon style, he proceeds to massacre the helpless vessels. The Gorn closes again on the Klingons, but launches a massive plasma wave against the Kzintis, still close to the asteroid but moving too slowly to avoid the flaming death bearing down on them. The Kzinti fires all defensive weapons available, but the plasma crashes through the shields of the Light Cruiser and reduces it to a cloud of wreckage. The Kzinti commander snarls her fury, but is unable to extract her vengance against the fast-moving Gorns who add insult to injury by destroying the pursuing Kzinti drones fired at them last turn and manage to beam aboard another group of crystals. The Gorn then fires his last remaining plasma at the Klingons, forcing them to turn away from the asteroid. The Klingon takes a leaf from the Gorn playbook and launches shuttles to recover crystals from the planet, having beamed aboard his first group.

The final turn is a game of manoeuvre. The Gorn has no heavy weapons left, but continues to close on the planet in an attempt to gather a final group of crystals. The Klingon and Kzinti forces also turn into the asteroid, hoping to get close enough to collect further crystals and smack the Gorns whilst they only have limited weapons available to respond. The Klingon D7 takes damage from the plasma torpedo, but it is severely weakened by the Klingon phasers and only scores a few points of unimportant damage (except to the lab technicians who were unfortunate enough to be in the lab when it exploded). Both the Klingons and Kzintis attempt to plaster the Gorn force with disruptors, but their weapons are poorly aimed, and the Gorns take minor shield damage as they beam a final load of crystals from the asteroid, and return the Klingon's earlier favour by killing all of the in-flight Klingon shuttles.

Overall, a solid victory for the Gorns.

We all enjoyed playing Federation Commander, and it is clear that the game has a great deal to offer as a fast-playing space combat game that makes great use of the Star Trek/Star Fleet Battles background, but adds its own tactical twists and flavour. The game is easily picked up (as those who tried it at the AGM last year can hopefully testify) and has plenty of scope as the 3 different scenarios we battled through show.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......

[djdood]

These were well-written and fun to read. Thanks for posting them!

[Mike]

Very diverting!

[jmt]

Bravo! If you've got the scenario descriptions, I'd like to try them w/ our group.
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jmt

[Mike]

I think all those were published scenarios.

[jmt]

You know... they are. Sorry, but I was posting from work w/o my reference materials.
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jmt

[Sneaky Scot]

jmt,

Mike is of course correct. I twisted things a little with some of the detail, but as the scenarios were presented in their various products, they are definitely fit for purpose (i.e. having fun and blowing stuff up).

Glad you enjoyed the report!

What I really want to do is get "Would you buy a used fighter from this man?" into a Fed Cdr game. Clearly a lot of stuff would need to be adjusted as there are no fighters yet in Fed Cdr. However, the role-playing aspects make it (along with Harbour Patrol) one of my favourite scenarios.
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Nothing is quite as persuasive as a disruptor pistol on slow burn and a rotisserie......