Indy hits with Pulse Torps!! A mini game report... (long)

(oh, damnation, I forgot those bloody email tags; amend subject line to
read:

   [GZG: FT/FB] Indy hits with Pulse Torps!! A mini game report...
(long)

thanks - Mk)

The other night I finally got an opportunity to head down to Wash, DC,
and get
involved in some FT gaming going on down there at the Game Parlor
outside
Fairfax. There turned out to be three of us that night playing: our
list-member
John Atkinson, another guy named Jason, and myself. Due to traffic in
B'more,
and having had to take a co-worker home because his car was in the shop,
AND
because I only learned that day my schedule was free to play so had to
dash
home to get some ships and ship sheets in case whomever was running
things
didn't have any extra, I ran a little late (okay, an hour :-/ ). Met the
infamous John Atkinson.

John and Jason were just setting up a 1500 pt reinforced cruiser
squadron
encounter (each side had 1500 pts of cruisers and escorts). They were
using
the FleetBook rules, and had ships designed by John (John's fleets were
a
curious mix of FSE and NSL minis; we already know John likes the FSE
minis,
but we also know his, oh, stance when it comes to the FSE nation ;-). I
had
a haphazard collection of ship sheets I just grabbed from my extras pile
from the 'aftermath' of Origins (one of these days I may actually clean
up/out
my living room - we'll not talk about the rest of the apartment!). John
came up with the thought that if I could take 3000 pts worth of ships,
he
and Jason would combine forces and we'd just have a larger encounter. So
I
started wading through my ship sheets.

I managed to come up with a 3002 pt force, a NAC and NSL mixed fleet (I
used
all FB standard designs; no modifications or sub-classes; no time to
make
anything else up). Had a mix of destroyers, cruisers, and heavy ships.
One
carrier (NAC light carrier), one super-D (NSL), a NAC BB and BS, an NSL
CA
and CE, a NAC CE, and a pair of destroyers from each (I think that was
it;
I had 11 ships to their 15-ish). We used Vector Movement (I need a LOT
more
practice before I get into any fancy maneuvering that one can do in
Cinematic)
and while John typically uses the Core System Rules, we opted not do (I
really
personally don't like them much, think they tend to unbalance things; a
friend
of mine, Daryl, in Colorado came up with a set of rules for 'lighter'
core
system his (such as 'Bridge' meant you had to write your movement orders
1 or
2 turns in advance, or 'Sensors/Scanners' making targets 'move' one
range band
further away for targetting and weapons fire purposes), but I didn't
bring his
write-up, so we opted not to use any). In games I run/play I generally
have a
starting speed set between 8-12 (granted, it's very arbitrary and I
could not
give you guidelines or concrete reasons as to why I'll have starting
speeds
set to 8 one game, and somewhere else in another game or scenario
starting
speeds set to 10 or 12; just one of those subliminal things with me
*shrug*),
but John said typically they do double the max speed of your slowest
ship.
For me, that was the NSL super-D, Thrust 2 (God, it's slow!!). My
starting
speed at the far end of the table was 4. John's was I think 8.

We began closing (me bein' pokey), and soon John & Jason were flying
towards me
at speeds between 16-19. I was coming at them at speeds 7-9. Fighters
were out.
I had opted to take 2 Interceptor squadrons and 3 Standard squadrons. I
had
toyed with taking a torp or attack squad, but not knowing the
capabilities of
the ships I was facing (just how MANY area defense ships were in there,
for
example), I opted to be a bit more conservative. Thus also my relatively
low
speeds, too.

Basically the battle was a 'classic' run up, smack your opponent as you
closed,
smack 'em again as your momentum carried you away from each other, then
either
slow to re-engage, or speed up to break off. No finesse in this pick-up
scenario. So we closed.

John got first shots on my lead destroyers, but failed to take one out.
Then
the next turn we were close enough for me to start using my medium and
long
range weapons...plus a few pulse torps (I was just waiting for the joke
rolls
to come up: "You need a 3+ to hi", and I would roll nothing but 1s and
2s...or
I would get a 3+ and roll crappy on damage). My NAC BB got a chance to
fire his
torps at a cruiser, so I did. I needed a 4+

I rolled a 5 and a 6! TWO hits in ONE try!! WAHOO!!!

Then I rolled the damage die: 1 and 2. Gah, geez oh pete, 3 whole
points.
Ting! Ting! Jason looked at me as if I were high for thinking these
things
were going to destroy him.

While John was concentrating all his fire on my NSL CA, I fired my NAC
CE's
pulse torp (in a desperate attempt to HIT something!). And...it hit!
That's
THREE in a row!! The damage die...came up 6! Wa-hooooo!!!!! My NSL CA
finally
died, but I didn't care - I hit with 3 pulse torps in one turn!  :-)

Then my one NSL destroyer fired into one of John's heavy cruisers with a
couple of Class-2 and Class-1 batts. I then proceeded to roll a small
metric
tonne of rerolls (what I term as 'teskes' as Aaron Teske was doing this
to
me almost regularly during the playtest stages in life). I inflicted
somewhere
around 15 pts damage from that lone destroyer! That hurt his cruiser. :)

>From there the game devolved momentarily into a clash of titans. The
next turn
found us flipped around, but mere inches apart from each other. The NSL
super-D
couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it's Class-3 batts (I haven't
seen
*that* many 1s, 2s, and 3s since I first started playing with pulse
torps!),
but the Class-2s gave a good accounting for themselves. From there I
started
smacking into several different ships, destroying a few in the progress,
while John and Jason concentrated on some of my destroyers, and a couple
of
my heavier ships (such as trying to sandpaper down the NSL super-D).

During that turn and the following I managed to hit with approx 60% of
my
pulse torp fire. That was very satisfying. 

In the end as John and Jason's ships broke off (while I tried to brake
to '0';
the super-D had suffered a significant number of threshold hits after 2
checks
which left it with no engines so it kinda drifted backwards away at a
speed of
5), I had lost ~4-5 ships and had a couple others moderately or lightly
damaged
(the super-D was heavily damaged). John and Jason had lost a few
cruisers (my
fighters were harassing Jason's one escort cruiser) and a couple of
destroyers.
I'm not sure what shape their ships were left in by this point. But they
conceded that I took the victory )and moving away from me at speeds
upwards of
19, no way in hell I was going to ever catch 'em!). Felt more like a
draw to
me; the super-D would be in spacedock for *months*! But I did 'control'
the
board in the end.

Dont' know when I'll get time to get down there again and play.
Hopefully
hook up with some of the other DCers and see what happens. Next time
I'll
remember to grab my starmat to play on. :)

Indy

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
During the run-and-fight-and-run-again battle through this forest of
horror,
she is finally cornered. Her weapons have been left deep in the bodies
of the
slain or broken against the granite-hard scales of these snakes that are
not
snakes. Her stand to the death must be fought here. Though her only
weapons
are her hands and her deep and wide knowledge of the slayers, she does
not
fear them. They will die. Of this she is sure.