Re: FB designs and SLMs

On Wed, 09 Sep 1998 11:00:28 -0500, Jeff Lyon <jefflyon@mail.utexas.edu>
wrote:

>It's good to hear that the FSE _can_ win a battle...at our group, so
far
>they are 0 for 2 in recent games.

Well, since we're talking FSE fleet wins...

Two weeks ago I played with a friend. It was the first time for him
using the
Fleet Book rules. I set things up ala the GenCon tournament: 1500 point
fleets, game ends at the end of the turn when a fleet has had half it's
points
destroyed, winner is the player to do the most destruction. We were
using
standard FT movement, not vector movement.

I took an FSE fleet comprised of 1 Roma class battleships, 1 Ypres class
battlecruiser, 2 Jerez class heavy cruisers, and 2 Ibiza class frigates.
On
the other side was a NAC fleet of 2 Excalibur class battledreadnoughts,
2
Huron class light cruisers, 2 Tacoma class heavy frigates and a Minerva
class
light frigate.

Starting speed was limited to 6, so I cranked up my fleet and
accelerated into
my opponent. I had my fleet as one big mass of ships. My opponent had a
Huron
and a Tacoma break away from the main fleet to try to hit me in the
flank. We
started off set from each other at a range of 40". 

The NAC fleet moved in very slowly, while I wanted to close the gap as
soon as
possible. While standing off is a good idea with the NAC fleet, it can
be
disastrous against SMLs. The NAC battledreads through up their fighters
to
screen the capital ships from missiles. I launched 7 salvos, two from
the
Roma, two from each Jerez, and one from the Ypres. All but one found a
target
amongst the crawling Anglians. I rolled MAGNIFICENTLY, taking out a
Huron and
a Tacoma before they could do anything. Another Huron was lightly
damaged, as
was an Excalibur. My opponent started to really sweat at the thought of
those
SMLs!

The second turn wasn't as one sided. His beams started to take their
toll as
the range closed. The Ypres lost her salvo launcher to a threshold
check.
Salvos went after the Excaliburs but with fighters acting as shields,
there
was little damage. 

The game devolved into a slugging match. I did all the manoeuvring as
the NAC
fleet dropped to zero speed and was content to pivot. Beautiful luck
with the
initial salvos was offset by rotten luck in threshold checks. One Ibiza
was
popped while another lost her bridge and started heading for the board
edge.
Likewise, the Ypres lost her bridge while a Jerez had a warp core
breech. 

In the end, the initial turn's damage was too much for the NAC. The
Minerva
flared up, followed a turn later by an Excalibur. At the end of the
turn, the
FSE win.

What was interesting is that I didn't do anything horrendously wrong,
but
still almost lost. The loss of bridge control resulted in an Ibiza going
of
the board edge and being classed as a mission kill. It was from this
that I
thought the 1D6 turns of lost control a bit too long. The Ypres was
following
in the frigate's footsteps, and a Jerez was near dead. One or two more
turns
and the NAC would have won due to a lack of FSE firepower.

Better use of the fighters would have protected a cruiser and the lead
destroyer for a vital turn. That would have thrown the balance of the
game in
the NAC's favour. Speed, too, would have helped. SLMs, while a fun
system to
play, seem to be all-or-nothing systems. They either decimate a target
or
merely annoy it. 

Still, an FSE win is an FSE win. As much as I enjoyed using the FSE SLMs
(with
Star Frontiers ships as the models) I have decided to build a NAC and
NSL
fleet, as opposed to NAC and FSE fleets.

Allan Goodall	       agoodall@sympatico.ca

"We come into the world and take our chances
 Fate is just the weight of circumstances
 That's the way that Lady Luck dances
 Roll the bones." - N. Peart