Two AARs--John Atkinson vs Laserlight

Both actions featured John's NRE fleet (which, for those of your
not familiar, is the New Roman Empire, ie
Byzantines-In-Spaaaaace!).  URL is
www.angelfire.com/va/basileus/Janes.html , CruRon5.

First action, vs Islamic Federation.  2 Mameluke DDH, 1 Saber
CL, 2 Qaws missile cruisers, 2 Ifrit CH (1500 points or so after
adding 10% to account for no FTL).

   NRE ships came on from clockface 9, IF ships came on from
clockface 5, inital speeds about 6, range about 65.  After a
turn closing, the Qaws split off thrusting direction 8.  The NRE
and remaining IF ships came head on, exchanging heavy beam fire.
First blood went to NRE, the Saber expired without firing a shot
(validating John's pregame remark "little yellow dice of
death"--one six led to three re-rolls...).  Next round, more
beam fire, both sides lightly scorched.
   Third round, the fleets passed through each other and both
reversed.  10 SMRs arrived, of which 6 on target among 4 ships.
PDS and ADFC did their job on two of those, but one Symeon CA
and one Thessaloniki CL were damaged or destroyed (John says "My
main opponents all use missiles, guess I should buy more PDS and
armor instead of shields--look for a redesigned CruRon5 when I
get a chance to post it.")  Heavy beam fire at close range
destroyed ships on both sides.	Next round, the cumulative
vectors carried opposing forces away from each other; beam-3
fire at max range was ineffective.  Both sides decided that
pressing the issue was too risky; the IF broke off and the NRE
elected not to try to pursue (particularly since several ships
had engine damage).
   Score:  IF retained a Mameluke and an Ifrit, both heavily
damaged (any damage on an IF ship qualifies as "heavy"), plus an
untouched Ifrit and the Qaws who had shot their bolt and broken
off (not "fled", John, thank you very much).  NRE kept a damaged
St Symeon, slightly damaged Connie I escort ship, the hulk of a
Thessaloniki, a healthy Thessaloniki, plus the DD's and FF's,
unscratched.  All in all, a draw.

   Second round, Kra'Vak vs NRE.  We placed an asteroid with a
damaged KV ship in the middle as the goal--both sides trying to
salvage it--but it didn't really have an effect on the battle.
KV ships were 3 Ka'Tak strike corvettes, 2 Vo'Bok light
cruisers, 2 Ti'Dak battle cruisers.  Again NRE came on at 9 and
KV came on at 5, both speeds about 6, initial range about 65mu.
   But this one turned out a lot differently.
   We closed for two rounds, just getting within Beam 3 range
(no real effect).  Next turn we closed and the KV strikers shot
out  ahead.  Striker MKPs destroyed a frigate and a destroyer,
K5 fire damaged a NRE CH.  Concentrated beam fire polished off
one Vo'Bok.
   Next round, the KV side slipped and the NRE line decelerated
and reversed facing.  Both sides intended to pass through and
turn to face, but it didn't quite work out that way, as the
lines were intermingled--everyone except the two surviving KV
corvettes was in 6MU of everyone else.	K5's took a CH through 3
thresholds and took about half the hull of the other one, both
CL's were crippled, and the CME was obliterated.  The KV fired
off all their Scatterguns at this point.  The NRE took one
Ti'Dak through two thresholds, almost through 3, and bounced a
torpedo off a corvette.
   The NRE wasn't very happy with the situation.  Four ships
survived, but 3 of those were within 2 hull of nebula-hood, and
the other had damaged engines and couldn't avoid being in
someone's F arc.  The KV had an untouched battlecruiser and
light cruiser, plus a BC whose weapons were off line and two
corvettes which could plink away with K1's.  The KV had a
convincing win on this one.

Lesson 1: "You'll lose if you are in the F arc of a KraVak
ship."
Lesson 2: "You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak
ship."

Oerjan mentioned that these were balanced for Cinematic; we were
(as all right-thinking, decent and upright people do) playing
Vector.  You can kinda tell that the KV weren't especially
balanced for vector....the limitation of "F arc only" isn't much
of a limitation.

John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
the provision for KV weapons doing double damage.  I suspect
that the right fleet and the right tactics can still pull it
off, but I suspect it may take a while to develop that.
Certainly as fleet that relies on shields (as the late CruRon5
did) isn't going to cut it.  Perhaps a "fake KV" fleet--just
take KV designs and replace the Kguns with Beam 3's or 2's.  But
no existing fleet was designed that way.    It'll be interesting
to see what develops.