There are several other points I'd like to add.
Part of the difficulty was getting the Tiger's Disruptor arc lined up. I say 'arc' because that's what it is - it's a single, fixed forward firing arc and in the close-in knife fight we had, it was difficult to get the Dragoon in that arc. Added to that the Dragoon's 'over-the-shoulder' capability meant that the Dragoon was getting heavy weapon shots where the Tiger was not. A D5 would have fared better in this regard, for example.
Power was not really an issue in close, or not all that much, because in the speed-guessing game we pretty much matched each other's choices. This illustrates a paradox with knife fighting. Up close, if you have too much speed, you end up being forced out in front of the enemy ship unless you do some heavy decel, and that means having less power than the enemy because you have already paid for more speed than he has - although you would have the initiative.
However, up close, you really do need the initiative, and a very interesting part of that battle was the up-close guessing game. That's the paradox.
These two ships are exactly matched in agility; only the speed affects the initiative in that case. We had probably three whole turns of guessing in close. Scary!
However that's not to say that the Tiger didn't land some pretty heavy strikes. I'd all but knocked down two or three of his shields, with the remaining ones damaged to some extent. It is a tribute to Dave's manoeuvring skill, and a bit of luck too of course, that meant that he'd spread that damage over more of the shields - that's what they are there for. But that's the problem with the Hellbore; being on the receiving end I mean - is that if you have a weakened shield then it's gonna take a hammering, which to some extent reduces the importance of the in-close guessing game. It's only going to get worse over the course of the battle. And that's where the Hellbore really decides the close-in fight.
The other thing is that he had to avoid Range 1, otherwise he would have taken ESG damage. The Phaser-G and other weapons on the Dragoon are effective at Range 2, just outside the range of the ESG. Because of this, I did not get the chance, due to Dave's clever manoeuvring, to use the ESGs offensively against his ship. I appreciate his generous statement that we are pretty evenly matched as players - we are - but I do think he has a slight edge.
As for using the ESGs to prevent Hellbore damage, well, I did later on, but for the first salvo I did not realise that you had to call anti-Hellbore mode before the dice are rolled. Not that the first salvo was especially critical, but I will know next time.
What did I do right? Well, my first Disruptor salvo combined with Phaser-1's scored very heavily on his #1 shield, a factor which influenced his manoueuvring for the rest of the game. It was about 20 or so damage from Range 10. Impressive. I wanted to follow-up on that but I did not get the chance as he turned the shield away and then I didn't get the Disruptors in arc again for that shield.
What would I have done differently? Firstly, more manoueuvring away from hex-splines during a saber-dance, using the hex-grid to get Disruptor shots while not losing the arc. I hope that makes sense. I think it's better to stay right away from hex rows when saber-dancing.
Secondly, part of my early strategy was indeed to saber-dance, but eventually you need to turn in again. Storeyelf is right - there was no saber-dance after Turn #1. With the Hydran's speed right up, as was mine, the turn modes are horrendous and the closure speed terrific. This does not go well with a manoeuvre-based strategy. True, I could have done a weaving pattern while running away; having battered his #1 shield like I did, I could have run and continued to pound his forward shields with six Phaser-1's, while he had only the 2 Phaser-1's and the Hellbores with which to reply. Of course, my rear shields would have taken damage, but once the Hellbores were fired I could have turned back in again for the ESG ram.
There are a number of things I would have done differently, and will do next time, but I don't want to give Dave too many hints
And here's another little tip too, that I have posted in another forum but got more-or-less put-down for - don't use decels until the end of the impulse or you will count as being slower, and thereby lose initiative. I have re-realised the wisdom of this. I was right. Tell your sister, I was right.....
[with apologies to Darth Vader]
And finally here's a shot of Dave's excellent miniatures as used in this battle, posed, of course, before the commencement of hostilities. At this point they were friends, but then someone said something rude about someone else's mother, and, well, you know how it goes....
