Re: [FH] Battle report

on 6/20/00 2:20, stiltman@teleport.com at stiltman@teleport.com wrote:

--->8--- (snip)

> And he died by it... I lured his superior fighter force numbers into a
> close-up fight and then plasma bolted the whole zoo after one round of
> fire exchanged between my fighters and his first wave of 48 normals. 
This
> left him with four heavy fighters and eight torps as his whole
striking
> power.  He had level 2 screens and thrust-4 advanced drives on the two
> front-line ships that were torpedo-armed, but that wasn't near
enough...
> within about a couple or three plasma barrages his heavy fighters
(which
> had been hoping to screen for the dreadnoughts) and his main AND FTL
drives
> were gone with both ships at triple threshold.  The two dreadnoughts
struck
> their colors, his carriers (which hung back a good 70 MU away while
the
> DPR stopped to spin on the SDN's) split up and FTL'ed out untouched. 
I
> lost my whole fighter contingent and took a whopping eight points of
damage
> to the DPR (four on armor).

Just curious...did you saturate the area the fighters were in leaving no
area within 12" of the fighters open for them to dodge into with their
secondary movement?  Did he try to shoot at the PBs with the fighters if
they couldn't get out of the area of effect?

> My fighters and missiles were useless, and with no screens against his
plasma
> though I was eventually worn down.  It came down to two of my ships
against
> three of his, I decided I didn't like those odds, so I went for (and
got) the
> "FTL bomb".  Ironically, the only survivors for either side were five
and a
> half squads of my (utterly useless) heavy fighters... my ships both
dumped
> core within 6 MU of his (individually smaller) three survivors, so now
there's
> this gaping hole in the lines of both sides where we took the mutual
fleet
> annihilation.  However, he was happy enough with how that ship design
came out
> for him (this is the first time in quite a while that he's even
managed to
> make me force a draw) that he commented that he'd keep that design for
the
> books... so I made sure to draw up a copy of it for myself and
cogitate about
> what I'm going to do against it.  I know that his gaming circles in
Seattle
> have come to really like pulse torps, and I imagine that once they get
hold
> of FB2 they'll probably go with plasma cannons and lots of point
defense mixed
> in with the pulse torps, just like he did this time... though it's
half likely
> that their games will have less fighter emphasis than when he plays
with me.
> Hard to say.

Each playing group has it's own preference on rules.  However, this is
one
of the reasons I hate the FTL spoilsport rule (as I call it), it makes
for a
lot more suicide tactics by the person that's on the downside of the
exchange.   Hmmm...there's another way to make the with the Dread Planet
Roberts quake with fear bring in a large number of FTL suicide vessels
that
have a drive value of 4 or more, then FTL out near the planet killer. 
Half
will cause a d6 damage while the 2/3 of the remaining ones go "boom"
doing
their DP in damage.  Of course this depends on how your group determines
if
all FTLing ships do so simultaneous or whether the kill each other
before
some have the chance to FTL.  I haven't done the math but I'll bet one
can
purchase enough FTL suiciders in under 2500 points.   What am I
suggesting
here?  ACK!

Kevin Walker
sage5@home.com