The campaign ended and rather to my surprise the Gorns pulled off a victory and took down the Flathead's starbase. I don't think they group will let me get away with that again!
A public thank you to the other players in the campaign for making me so welcome. Storeylf for running the campaign, Targ for hosting the games and Captain Jack for some memorable battles (and of course for letting me blow up his starbase
)
As a relatively newbie to FC it is interesting to read back over the campaign and see how my play has improved, from the first disastrous clash with the Federation in an asteroid field, to holding my own against the Andros (also in an asteroid field), to the final battle where my plan played out about as well as it could.
The highlights of the campaign for me were:
* chasing the Federation battle frigate 'Annoying' all over internal Gorn space before finally cornering it. It took a lot of my attention and resources to deal with that - I won't let one of those slip past me again.
* Fighting the Andros in asteroids - still have no idea how to do that - my advice is to just try and avoid it.
I think my fellow players have now noted my playing style: lots of dithering, plenty of pessimism and the occasional burst of unexpected decisiveness. Despite Storeylf's bravado in his post above there was one point during the final battle where he went from, 'You
will do this,' to, 'You
should be OK.' A comment noted by the defending and ever optimistic Federation commander
My only regret in the campaign is that I didn't face the LDR in battle - not sure my plasmas would have enjoyed playing with the gatlings but it would have been fun to try.
Finally a few thoughts about how the Gorn ships performed in the campaign. The power curve and firing arcs made the ships generally easy to fly. Storeylf made a comment during a battle regarding his displacement armed Andros and that regardless of where the Gorn ships end up after displacement they can still put down a fair bit of fire.
The standard BC made up the bulk of my fleet and performed its job well matching equally pointed ships from the other races. The heavy Gorn Scout, based on the CL hull, was very effective particularly against the photon armed Federation. The difference between the two battles we fought in asteroids, one in which I had a scout and the other in which I did not was very noticeable.
The standard Gorn CL also performed well despite being somewhat of a glass cannon - its initial firepower was most beneficial in several battles. It drew a fair bit if fire but I would be happy to fly them again.
The DNL served me well, although they lack some firepower their shielding and ample power reserves meant they just kept going - they were great for plowing through asteroids.
The ship that surprised me the most was the Fast BC, I built a couple because I needed to get somewhere fast, but they performed very well in battle. Despite its lack of a full complement of plasmas the extra phaser-1 were very useful in every battle it fought in. They always had enough power to undertake every mission they were called upon. They are a bit expensive but a very useful and powerful ship - I will consider using them again in the future.
Finally, the BB was of course just awesome. I don't generally like the really big ships, being an old SFBer I still think the Klingon B-10 should be the biggest thing out there. The firepower the BB put out was incredible, in the final run on the Federation Starbase it must of been responsible for over 200 points of damage just on its own.
Now to think about the race to take in the next campaign...
None of this shilly/shallying around, about lack of a lift 