RE: FT Battles

Simon Campbell-Smith wrote:
>With only two players I think will Sam will agree with me that anything
  
>more than 8000 pts the game bogs down with the huge number of units.
>
>Has any body out there tried the following. Divide the table sides into
6   
>equal lengths and number them one to six. Divide the oposing fleets up 
 
>into squadrons or what ever takes your fancy. Roll a dice for each   
>Squadron and note down the value. During the fighter launch phase of
each   
>turn roll a dice for each squadron. If the result is greater than or	
>equal to the threshold the unit appears that turn. Then roll a dice to 
 
>decide on which table edge the ship will appear. The player decides the
  
>speed and heading of the ship. If both players get the same edge the	
>should be sperated by 2D6 inches along that edge.

Nifty idea!  This would add some fun not knowing eactly where ships
might
emerge from.  It might actually be neat to allow fleets to enter normal
space on top of each other, making for one quick start to an engagement.
 I
like the idea of timing as well which could also make for some
interesting
battles.  I thought of something like before, but I wanted to use a
dense
grid that would allow extermely random positioning without limiting the
start to the table edge.

>And this Friday Sam we will meet again across the black void do you
want   
>to try the scenario? Shall we say 8000pts? This is on the provision
that   
>my wife doesn't write off another car!!!

Try using some super-ships.  In order to speed up fleet creation, I
created
one last week for a game.  It was fun for a change since I am used to
using
maybe one capital, a couple of cruisers, and a couple of escorts.  I
fitted
it with the following systems:

4 AA Megabatterys
3 3-arc A Batterys
3 Heavy fighter groups
1 Attack fighter group
4 Submunition packs
2 PDAF
1 ADAF

I think it also had two 3-arc C batterys as well.

It shocked my friend Paul when the first firing phase commenced and it
unloaded four AAs at one target while none of his ships had range to
fire.
Of course with my luck one of the AAs overcharged itself.  The supership
was
able to wreak destruction on two opposing fleets with a point spread
twice
the supership before being destroyed.  

Mike Miserendino