Mini-AAR[FT]

I just played a quick pick-up game Saturday night:

About 2K points a side, NSL vs. NAC. NAC force had 2 Hurons, 3
Victorias, another cruiser, and a Majestic. NSL had lots of BC-like
ships. No fighters present. Only ship with SMs was the Majestic.

Vector rules, fixed board. Card initiative (each ship has a card,
shuffle each turn and draw for firing order). Used the (I think)
Tri-planetary vector indicators - a trailing point (where you were
last turn), a counter under your ship, and another at the end of your
drift vector. Meant we didn't have to calculate drift vector lengths
and write them down each round. Pretty quick actually. Though better
markers than pennies would not have hurt. Small board - maybe about
42" x 54".

NAC entered lower right edge, moved along the edge. NSL entered center
top, moved straight downboard. Fleets exchanged fire from round 2.

Highlights:
Huron doing more damage in one round than a Victoria...
NAC forgetting about SM for first shot, then being close for next one
and watching missile boil under hail of PDS (GM lets all ship have
free ADFC).
NSL thinking NAC vector would take it offtable direction as the fleets
passed (moving about speed 10 ish) so NSL rotated to face behind them.
Instead, NAC braked and ended up off one flank - many NSL main guns
pointed out of arc. However, they won the card draws so firing almost
all ships before any NAC ship fired, destroying a Victoria before it
could fire at point blank and reducing the amount the NAC could punish
them for their error in judgement (if you can't be good, be lucky!).

Result:
A draw. NAC I think was in a bit better shape at the end (one Vic
damaged, another pristine, two slightly damaged hurons, one almost
moribund Vic) vs. three mauled NSL... but not mauled enough. But NAC
had a slight point advantage so we called it a draw.

A big victory for using cards for initiative. Talk about chaos of
combat. You could plot your moves, but fire was a random factor and
this preserved the 'fog of war' feeling... and gave us a good idea how
fleet admirals could factor in (by allowing card switches - ie the
scout card comes up, admiral says no thanks we'll fire the battleship
instead).

All had fun, look forward to another round. Hopefully I'll fix my PTs
(I didn't have Kochte-luck shooting - I rolled dual sixes at least
once... but they were manufactured by unhappy Scots separatists...
they did 1 and 2 points (and another later shot another 2)). :(

I can't believe I heard someone on-list talk about not taking the
Germans... in vector they seem to be quite deadly as their
sluggishness isn't a big penalty. But the NAC held its own thanks to
screens and some good manouvering.

Thomas Barclay