MechaZone 556 Campaign report #1

If you're not interested in lengthy campaign/battle reports, press SKIP 
now...

You're still with me? Ok, here goes.

These were the first clashes in my MZ556 campaign. You can find more
info 
on MechaZone at http://www.swob.dna.fi/rpg/mz223/

Some basics

The campaign area is the solar system. Theoretically all of it, but in 
practice I don't expect anyone to go beyond Jupiter -- there's just 
nothing out there.

There are currently four competing fleets, all with different goals.
Some 
more may enter play later on.

This is NOT a PBeM game! Sorry.

This is fairly vanilla FT/MT. I decided to leave in the FTL drives as
"dead weight", simply to allow people to use vanilla designs if they 
didn't have the time to do their own. One nation (Norwegians) has a 
secret weapon in cloaking systems, others have nothing special.

We use MT fighter (panzer) movement, and simultaneous fire. We do not 
allow premeasuring anything. Fighters are allowed to attack missiles at 
PD odds, interceptors getting their bonus.

Lots of aces around...

Strategic movement

The solar system would be pretty boring without moving planets, don't
you 
think? Ok, so I made a simple Newtonian strategic movement system, where

4 Thrust equals 1 g constant acceleration.

Notes: At these thrust levels, the gravity forces are minimal except
very 
close to the sun. Might have ignored them all the same. Ok, now that
I've 
done it, I can chuck in the occasional comet...

First try. No one wants to do movement by hand. None. Nada. Zip. Not a 
single soul. And that's in a player base 50% technical students and 75% 
computer experts. So much for the perceived simplicity of Newtonian 
movement. 

Ok, so I made a small program for plotting out moves. Slightly better 
results: Half the players use it, the other half give various excuses
why 
they can't use it and still refuse to do very basic math by hand. I end 
up entering rough moves for them myself.

Strategic Moves

GUGES, Norwegian and AEUG fleets all approach Mars, from different 
directions. PanMa gets a distress signal from a freighter on a 
Mercury-Mars shipping lane, and sends a fast squadron to investigate.

Said squadron passes GUGES fleet, but evades.

PanMa sends out a striking force to intercept Norwegian fleet, about 30 
million klicks away from Mars. GUGES assaults the other half in Mars 
orbit. AEUG is still about 100 Mkm outsystem of Mars.

Note: PanMa had twice the fleet anyone else has, so this is not a major 
problem -- yet. They also have to protect Mercury and shipping between 
the two planets, which *should* result in splitting their fleet.

First Contacts

We play Norway - PanMa first. Norwegians decide to leave half their
fleet
outside the battle, engaging with a light carrier force consisting of a
CVL, 3 CA, 1 CA (Strike), 3 CA (Cloak) and a dozen escorts (cloakers) or
so.  All ships are Vanilla designs from the books, except the cloak
ships,
which as secret weapons were designed by me. 

PanMa has 2 BB, 1 CVL, 2 CA, 2 CE. All custom designed and extremely 
heavy for their class. They're also painfully slow. The points are 
actually fairly even because the cloak cruisers are so #%$&T#%"&
expensive.

Turn 1: Norway's normal ships enter play. The cloak ships enter cloaked 
to give a surprise edge -- no one else know they have the tech.

PanMa bluffs about a vast missile volley. The bluff actually works: His 
missile boats are elsewhere, but this scares the Norwegian player into 
entering the table too slow, which will prove to be a major mistake.
The Norwegian CVL deploys interceptors, which will prove to be unusable.
A 
sound defensive measure though. 

PanMa, OTOH, has no designs to stay and fight and enters at max speed 
allowed (10+thrust). He doesn't deploy panzers, because they'd be left 
behind. I think something needs to be done about this.

Early gunnery duel gives PanMa 1 point of damage (count 'em: ONE). 
Meanwhile, PanMa destroys a Norwegian escort.

Notes: This early gunnery duel shows painfully how undergunned the
vanilla
designs are against custom ships. A vanilla CA can muster 1d beam attack
at long range, while the optimized CAs put out 5d (AND they have two
screens to the one in the vanilla). Luckily for the Norwegians, PanMa
does
not try to maintain range. A gunnery duel would spell annihilation for
the
Norwegians. 

Turn two: Forces close. Norway loses another escort. The cloaked force 
uncloaks. The move hits the PanMa flank, but not rear. Norway loses 
another 2 escorts. But the pulse torps in the cloaked squadron tell
their 
grim tale -- one PanMa CA is sunk.

Notes: The Norwegian player had not had any opportunity to practice with
cloaked ships. He also entered the table too slow, giving the plodding 
PanMa force too good shots. The cloaked escorts are too vulnerable to 
stand a slugging match. They don't seem to be worth the points unless
the 
player is very experienced and can maneuver into enemy blind spots
before 
uncloaking. The one turn close range hit is not worth it if the enemy 
counterattack annihilates you.

Turn 3: PanMa fleet blows past the Norwegians, who turn to pursue. 
Relatively little fire results in just one Norwegian escort sunk.

Note: Norwegian player does not recloak. I think this will prove to be a

mistake.

Turn 4: Norway concentrates fire on one of the PanMa CEs. It is sunk,
but 
the counterattacks sink yet another cloak escort.

Note: PanMa formation is spread, and their greater range allows them to 
cover each others' vulnerable rears.

Turn 5: Lacking good targets, the Norwegians cannot concentrate heavy 
fire against anything. This results in no losses for PanMa (a CE is 
heavily damaged, though), but Norway loses a CA and a cloak CA... bad.

Notes: The cloak cruisers can't stand a slugging match either. They 
should have recloaked.

Turn 6: The PanMa CE is finished and telling damaged against the 
remaining CA is inflicted. However, the return fire gets a bit lucky and

drops the remaining two cloak cruisers... very bad.

Notes: The Norwegian strike cruiser can't turn fast enough to bring its 
torps to bear. While this saves it from counterattack, the more
expensive 
cloak cruisers eat space dust. Pointswise, this is bad.

Turn 7: The PanMa capitals hit FTL and escape. Norway finishes off the 
crippled CA.

Aftermath: After the dust settles, it turns out the losses in mass are
fairly equal (all PanMa cruisers just happen to be Mass 36...), the
Norwegian CVL escaped unharmed while the PanMa capitals took some damage
(not enough for threshold rolls, though). But in points, Norwegians lost
TWICE what PanMa did... 

In retrospect, while the Norwegian player failed to fully utilize his
cloaking devices, the minmaxed PanMa designs were just wayyyyy over the
heads of any vanilla ships. It's a good thing I gave the cloakers pulse
torps, or the superior PanMa shielding would have probably saved them
any
significant damage. 

The PanMa player was too cautious... he could have annihilated the 
Norwegian fleet if he had stuck around... maybe at the cost of a wounded

BB. 

Next up: PanMa vs. GUGES

The setup immediately tells me I should invent some sort of a mid-range,

abstract, pre-battle system. PanMa deploys his fleet across the board, 
GUGES takes one corner. Looks like he's going to run for it.

The fleets are larger, numbering six capitals for PanMa, five for GUGES 
and gobs of lesser ships. This will turn out the be inconsequential, 
however. 

Turn 1: Yup, GUGES turns to run, immediately exiting table with half his

force. Some long range sniping costs PanMa a DDG. PanMa deployes his 
interceptors, which will total 14 (yes, FOURTEEN) groups.

Turn 2: GUGES exits, PanMa missile boats turn to pursue. We think about 
it, and missile boats look like lousy pursuit ships... something bad 
about them.

Turn 3: GUGES trap closes. His missile boats enter the opposite corner 
and get a good flank shot at PanMa heavies before turning and exiting in

the other direction. 15 missiles begin their flight. PanMa returns fire 
and kills the rearmost DDG.

Turn 4: No GUGES forces are left on the table. PanMa decides not to 
pursue, foiling part of GUGES plans. The missile volley enters striking 
range of two gigadreadnoughts (mass 100 monstrosities), one fleet
carrier 
and some smaller vessels. The interceptors move in.

The interceptors easily dispatch all the missiles. The battle is over, 
neither side lost anything important but GUGES expended his missile 
volley. He is still in Mars orbit, though.

Note: I feel a bit divided about this. The interceptors totally defused 
the well-executed missile attack. OTOH, if they hadn't been allowed to
do 
that, the attack would have gutted 1500-2000 points worth of capitals. 
Considering that PanMa did have a huge force of interceptors just for 
this purpose and that this kind of "drop missiles and run" battle is
just 
the kind I do not wish to see on my tabletop... I guess I'm satisfied 
with the result even though placing 50 ships for a three turn "battle"
is 
kind of dull. Maybe this result will discourage others from trying 
cowardly missile tactics and we'll see some real battles.

The PanMa fleet designs are perhaps overoptimised. They are very, very
powerful as long as they can work together in coherent groups, covering
each others' weaknesses. It remains to be seen whether the strategic
situation can divide their fleet into bite-sized chunks... 

--
maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio) 	  | A pig who doesn't
fly
+358 50 5596411 GSM +358 9 80926 78/FAX 81/Voice  | is just an ordinary
pig.
Maininkitie 8A8 02320 ESPOO FINLAND | Hate me?	  |	     - Porco
Rosso
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