federation commander campaign

[PallidaMors]

agreed, overall it was a very god engagment, and while the fed FF has the advantage of the photons, fast rate of fire for the F-5, the better power track, the better shields 22 versus the 18 ff, the better phaser arcs. I was perlexed in playin ghtis why anyone would think that the f-5 was an automatic loser. yes overloaded photons suck, and two of them hitting at the same time is not good, but in the same they have to hit. and at close range the F-5 still is a nasty little ship. and in a pass over the 3 rear firing p-2 in addition to the forward batteries are equal tot he fed ff in dmaamge potential. I would say it was more or less more equal. and I think this engagement shows the different need to follow the fighting styles of these 2 races more than any other 2 ships in thier arsenal. sabre fighting for the F-5, and obliques. FOrward arc hit with overload for the ff, and hope the alpha strike works.

also in this fight the klingon emerdec when he landed the trac on the FF, and dropped his drone and suicide shuttle. the federation did not so gained the movement upperhand, though by one less movement category, the ff went from 24 to 16. so the ff easily puled away from the shuutle and paced with teh drone while dragging the F-5. however the ff and the F-5 had thier rear arcs to each other when this started, and teh F-5 had just used those nast 3 p-2 on the #4 shield of the FF, so the FF had to HET to bring the forward weapons of the ff to bear. this caused the 2 linked ships to move back towards the shuttle and drone. which were easily dispatced with ADD and trac. this turn was made after gauging whther the drone and suicide shiuttle wre a threat and the fed lt commander determined them not to be.

all in all a very good fight!

"It was a good day to run" new kllingon saying!

[DArc_Tangent]

The, now infamous, C7 Decimator (aided by the D5W Oritos) engaged the dreaded Planet Killer as it closed on the Klingon planet Vorcha. A full spread of drones was launched and the 2 ships in close formation attempted to come around the PK's starboard flank as it appeared to be focused on reaching the planet. At just under overload range, the PK abruptly turned to engage the 2 ships. At that point the C7 captain ordered his ship to turn and engage the PK head on. The D5W followed suit and moved to extreme tight formation (same hex) as ships and PK closed at a combined rate of 6 hex/impulse.
At point blank range (1) both sides unleashed hell. The C7 was the unfortunate recipient of the PK's alpha strike (4xPH4's and 4 PH3's) and was badly damaged (down to 33 power from 55 and massive damage to all hull, aux control, and all other subsystems), with relatively few weapons (1 disruptor and 3 ph) disabled.
The PK did not fair as well as the combined volleys (targeted primarily at the PK's weapons arrays) punched through its shields and armor, taking 75% of the heavy weapons and 100% of point defense ph and 1 of the 4 tractor beams still holding 4 drones at bay, causing still more damage.
With no residual energy available to the PK, the 2 Klingon ships tractored the PK and started pushing it away from the planet Vorcha.
On thrusters alone the C7 managed to put a fresh shield to the PK. Dispite massive internal damage, the PK brought its heavy weapons back up to 50% and fired again at the C7, bringing the fresh shield completely down and scoring minimal internal damage, as the combined remaining weapons of the C7 and still untouched D5W spoke again...silencing the planet killing behemoth forever.

Perhaps 350 pv of ships vs 1 PK is overkill (or in this case 346). 300 would seem to be more of a challenge or even 250. At that level ONE defending ship is GOING to die.

[PallidaMors]

The second turn of the campaign has officialy started and it is off toa very interesting beggining.

1st all empires have collected thier incomes and used thier economies in a variety of ways. here were someof the unique buys.

The klingons spent EP's on repairing the damaged F-5 that fought the interceptor (fed FF)
they also spent 25 EP's hiring 3 orion CR's to raid the Federation, the Klingons rolled low on the raid results and only got 33 back but it was a small profit nonetheless. the remaining empires really eaither saved EP's or purchased ships.

After the empires had redeployed border fleets, assigned new patrol ships and radiers the start of the turn really got interesting, here is a brief sumary.

there were a total of 14 raids!

3 from tje Kzinti into the Klingons consisting of a Cl and 2 DW's

3 from the Klingons into the Federation all F-5's

2 from the Romulans into the Federation a We and a BattleHawk

6 from the gorns into the Romulans!!! alll6 were DD's (these 6 gorn dd commanders were pulled together to form a sqadron of raiders to hit all along the Romulan Border) they answer directly tot eh Gorn Admiral on the Romulan Border.

the Patrol vessels of all empires subject to the raids rose to the occasion!! and in many cases stopped many raides. we are currently resolving the raids battle by battle and in some cases the raider got to the freighter and no patrol vessel stopped the raider or in the case of the Federation they had used all 4 of thier assigned patrol ships to stop the Klingon raiders so that when the Romulans raided there were no patrol ships left to react.

this allowed the Romulans to find a large convoy (roll of a 5) consisting of 30 freighters..the romulans destroyed 8 of them.

The gorns were succesful in one raid destroying 22 romulan freighters

and on the kzinti side there was a great victory for the Kzinti!! FINALLY

one of the raiders a Kzinti DW the Halbred radied and found a convoy of 30 klingon freighters, the Klingons used thier patrol ships to intercept (2 F-5's) one of the F-5;s failed to intercept but the other F5 made it, the two ships battled. The Kzinti scored 25% damage on the F5 (all internals) and took no hits in return. The F5 withdrew and then the DW raider rolled the raid results against the 30 freights and scored a 6, which resulted in all 30 Klingon freighters being destroyed!!

all in all 60 freighters owned by the Klingons, Romulans and the Federation were destroyed.....the players had a valuable aha moments tonight......Raiders like the Uboats of WWII can be the pivot point in this game!!

we expect to start seing smaller border fleets and more patrol and raider ships being assinged.

there is also 3 major battles that are needing to be resolved..

the Kzinti invaded the Klingons in a counter attack ,

the Federation also invaded the Klingons...thier fleet is led by a massive Ares class BB with 9 ships, the Klingons are defending!! thier defending fleets flagship just happens to be the B-10....this will be an intersting battle

also the Seltorians invaded a Romulan sector with 4 ships, the Romulans repsonded wtih 6 ships from thier Fed/Tholian Border fleet consisting of a KRC a K7R 2 KR's and 3 Kf5R's...

this turn will be interesting!!!

[PallidaMors]

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[Pinkfluffychicken]

At last! Turn 11 is in and the Fed, thoroughly miffed after their, disappointment last turn are attacking the Klingons two hexes north of planet 68 with an NCC and six FFs. The Klingons have reacted with a D5W, a D5, 2 E4s and 3 E5s. There are various flanking moves by the Fed as well, which may lead to the entire area being cut off from the main Klingon Empire, but not for a turn or two. In BPV terms the Klingons have an edge, but BPV is only a rough guide to ship value anyway. Should be an interesting battle...

[PallidaMors]

We are eagerly awaiting the addition of the Hydrans, Lyrans and rest. th Klingon player and the Kzinti who are at a state of war that has become personal are trying to move to victory quickly before needing to worry about these other borders.

Does anyone know what will be included in the Distant Kingdoms??

Thanks!

[PallidaMors]

WOW turn 11? that is great how many players do you have in the campaign?

[dstancliffe]

I was perlexed in playin ghtis why anyone would think that the f-5 was an automatic loser.

Movement rate.

The FF can afford to zip round the board at speed 32 under EM, keep the power for a HET, and still put two (held) full overloads and (depending on battery state) between 1 to 3 phaser 1s into its opponent.

Basically, the FF gets to pick the time and distance at which serious shooting starts, and if the F5 tries to compete, it will always be outgunned.

For a fairer fight, use a 3/8 MC for the FF.

[Pinkfluffychicken]

Pallida Mors: Seven players. Each race in order (so you know who's next to whom): Fed Klingon Lyran Tholian Gorn Kzinti Hydran. Tholians are actually (20/20 hindsight) a mistake, but the players know the situation and if they let him win, it's their fault.

Chuckle. Every time I play Fed Com I downgrade how good at it I think I am! I was subcommanding for the Klingons and we lost bigtime. First two turns went well, as we crippled an FF (despite rolling 41 damage rather than the 61 average damage expected) and got a 24 drone drone wave on the map (which got eaten by the Feds for no damage. Not one phaser 3 or ADD missed!)

We then had a range nine shot and the possibility of turning away and stepping off the map, which given he was holding full overloads is what we should have done but got greedy and turned in. Result: 2xE5 KIA, one captured with two frame boxes and 23 damage on the D5W. Fed had one dead and two crippled FFs. Ok, we rolled really bad dice, but you can see why everyone always hates the Fed more than any other race including the Andros!

Fun game though, and we got it done in a few hours under Squadron scale. In SFB we'd have been lucky to get to the first fire decision...(ok, I may be exaggerating a little - but not much...)

[Pinkfluffychicken]

Distant Kingdoms is going to be Lyran and Hydran, or so I believed.

[mjwest]

Distant Kingdoms is going to be Lyran and Hydran, or so I believed.

Distant Kingdoms will be Hydran, Lyran, and WYN. Also, all of the Lyran ships will include a "box" for the LDR variant.

[PallidaMors]

removed

[Pinkfluffychicken]

Chuckle. Have realised gradually that getting players to actually READ the Guldamned rules is a serious problem! Am going to issue a Doomsday set soon and run a pub quiz with a jug of ale as the prize. That should get the bunch of alcoholics who play our campaign studying like finals!

[PallidaMors]

LOL and great thoughts My friend on the thames.

my next post will detail the restart of our nearly year long playtest of the original rules, and now the new 1.2 rules are in affect.

[PallidaMors]

well after almost 6 months of playtesting the group was ready and we did re-start our Federation commander campaign with the new 1.2 rules.

Using the new exploration and random map rules the players assembled and slowly began to explore out from thier homeworlds. The homeworlds had been randomly placed through dice roles on one of four blank hex maps. the maps once again are laminated and the same size as the FC space maps for minatures, this is good as it allows the players and game master to record information with grease pencils into the hexes on the map as needed.

after about 5 turns of exploration the borders of each empire begain to really take shape, and has placed some interesting races adjacent to one another.

during those five turns each empire spent thier production on a variety of endeavors.

purchasing a few extra small ships, but mostly expanding thier merchant marine by buying freighters to haul the production points from the newly discovered sectors.

One note of interest:
no bases have as of yet been bought and placed, though I expect that to happen soon, as some prelimary hostilities have
occured.

current empire fleet specs are as such.

Federation
3 ff
1 DW
2 NCL

Seltorian
2 FF
1CL
1CA

Romulan
2 Snipe FF
4 WE

Klingon
3 E-4
2F-5
1F-5W
1 D-5

Gorn

4FF
2HDD

Terran Star Empire (mirror Federation, ships replace photons with Particle cannons)

5 ff
1 ncl
1ca

Tholian

3ff
2dd
1pc
1nca

Kzinit

3ff
1 dw
1nca

at this time the Hydrans and Lyrans are on the map but frozen until the release of distant kingdoms.

the empires have grown and almost 60% of the map is explored and claimed..though not developed beyond raw production values.

the borders fleshed out as such.

The Kzinit are bordered by the:
Federation
Hydrans
Terrran Star Empire

The Terran Star Empire is bordered by the:
Federation
Kzinti
Gorn
Tholians

The Tholians are bordered by the:
TSE
Gorn

The Gorn are borderd by the:
TSE
Tholians
Romulans
Klingons
Lyrans

The Romulans are borderd by the:
Federation
Gorn
Klingon
Seltorian

The Klingons are bordered by the:
Romulans
Seltorians
Gorn
Lyrans
Wyn

The Seltorians are bordered by the:
Klingons
Federation
Romulans
Wyn

The Federation is borderd by the:
TSE
Romulans
Kzinti
Orions
Hydrans

So far the TSE (terran Star Empire) has taken over two major federation sectors both with a value of 6 (see 1.2 rules above)
the federation had 2 NCL on patrol but withdrew.

the Seltorians invaded a level 5 Klingon sector and destroyed a large Klingon Colony of over 3 million. they invaded with a NCA and CL.

The Romulans also contested a sector that the Klingons explored, and threatened war, the Klingons and Romulans quickly came to terms and have moved to a trade alliance.

The TSE and the Gorns contested 2 sectors on the federation border but instead of going to war they have declared the territory to be neutral zones, each empire can pull 50% of the trade value from these sectors but otherwise they are buffers between the aggresive Terran Star Empire and the Mighty Gorn Confederation, which has vast tracts of space under thier control.

In response to the aggresive Seltorin attack the Klingons responded with force.

a D-5 and F-5W were quickly forged into a squadron and counter atacked against the Seltorian Hive invasion.

since a level 5 sector needs a minimum of 2 ships to be able to both invade it and also to defend it (see 1,2 rules) the attacking klingons and defending Seltorians were forced to split thier forces to meet each other in battle.

The players secrety assigned thier ships to each battle map, here were the results:

Seltorian CA versus the F-5W
The Klingon D-5 versus the Seltorian CL

the F-5W withdrew before the powerful Seltorian NCA, bu the Seltorian CL engaged with and fought the D-5.

This battle lasted several hours and we observed some amazing captains pilot thier ships attempting to gain ascendancy.

at one point the Seltorian CL Reaver got the D-5 into it's powerful FA arcs and ripped into the Klingon cruiser dropping the shield and causing massive internal damage and loss of life.

but in the end the Klingon D-5 prevailed, it replied back with an impressive alpha strike and neutralized most of the Cl's weapons. Then as the Seltorian attempted to withdraw the Kligon pursued and destroyed the CL one hex away from the edge of teh space map with multiple drone hits.

the Klingons celebrated a major victory and the D-5 (IKV Basher)was awarded 20 victory points.

but there are more battles to be fought......