Re: [GZG-WCC] Human vs Kra'Vak

John Fox wrote:

>Hello Everyone:
>I ran two games at the con
>1) 24K HvK game
>2) 6K HvK game
>   
>About the BIG one.
>Each side got 12K points.  Unfortunetly I gave the humans alot of
>fighters and carriers (2 CVL and 3 CV, 26 squadrons total, standard
>fighters). 

That's over a quarter of the points total used for fighters... and NAC
carriers too, with very few weapons of their own and poor protection
from KV weapon. Fleet selection seems to have played a major part in
the outcome.

>The Kra'Vak got 1 CVL and 1 CV (total 10 squadrons).

No fighters aboard the SDNs and DNs? Not that another 6 squadrons
would've helped the humans much, of course :-/

>The break down was then 2 of each capital ships for humans, roughly
>6-8 of each cruiser and 8 destroyers.	
>The Kra'Vak had 7 destroyers, 6 Light cruisers, 4 cruisers, 5 strike
>cruisers and 4 hwy cruisers, 2 BC, 2 BB, 1 BDN and 1 SBDN.

>   The fact that the table was the limiting factor meant that
>everything was roughly linup and go at it.  

This usually favours humans over KV - humans *usually* outgun the KV in
the (F) arc, so forcing the KV to attack head-on hurts them - but not
in this case.

>   The humans lead off by sending all but roughly 8 fighter squadrons
>down one side to get at destroyers and cruisers.  It took two turns
for
>everyone to get close to gun range.  At this time the fighters waded
in >and promptly got slaughtered.

When you're fighting KV, fighters need to wait until the KV formations
start breaking up due to casualties or maneuvers. One of the
differences from fighting FB1 designs, yes.

[snip]

>The humans lost a couple ships to fire.
>The next round the caranage started. 

I'm a bit confused here - first you say that the fighters attacked when
the
fleets reached "close gun range", but from the damage inflicted it
seems
that very effective little ship-to-ship shooting occurred until the
*next* turn?

>The humans lost roughly half the ships on the board.

Which means one of:
- The KV concentrated their fire on the NAC light units
- The KV managed to get virtually all their ships within 6mu of their
targets (so they could use their scatterguns in anti-ship mode)
- The KV didn't get that close but rolled *extremely* hot for their
K-guns, beating Aaron's average by a few miles...

If none of the above, the KV force you described above doesn't have
enough firepower to kill that much of the NAC force :-/

>Those K5 rail guns tend to make life horrible for anything but a
capital
>ship.	Saw a couple cruisers and one battlecruiser dissappear from
>one salvo. (4 X K4, all hit, 3 doubled, 1 normal and 3 K1, 1 double
for a >total of  39 points from one ship).

Hm. A couple of oddities here:

* You write 4xK4, the damage total and numbers of hits and doubles say
4xK5, and none of the FB2 KV designs carries either of those weapon
combinations. If you used custom ship designs, what where they?

* Even if the cruisers were Hurons, two of them plus a Majestic means
at least 65 points of K-gun damage to destroy all three ships. The
human ships must have taken at least some 20-30 points of damage before
that KV capital fired, or else the KV ship rolled very high for its
scatterguns.

I suspect that you saw a Yu'Kas SDN firing, in which case it was K6s
and the targets took 46 pts rather than 39. Still not enough to kill
three undamaged cruisers/battlecruisers though, and using up twice as
much Mass as the entire armament of a Valley Forge SDN :-/

>The humans took out maybe two ships.

Concentrated their fire on the KV capitals instead of on the cruisers
and
destroyers, lost all FCSs before they got to fire, or something?
Otherwise this seems extremely low - even light beams can hurt Kra'Vak
rather badly, and the NAC had a fair amount of those.

>Lessons for next time.
>1) If you are going to do such a large game get a BIG playing area.
>2) Humans need less fighters and more shooting ships.

Yes.  Throwing fighters at an undamaged KV formation is similar to
pouring water on a goose :-/

>3) A mix of nationalities would have been nice (I only had NAC).
>Had it been NSL or something else the results would have been a little

>different.

Any human fleet with less fighters, including NAC (their CL and CH in
particular are good anti-KV units if they can use their
maneuverability), would've been different. It is quite unusual for a KV
fleet to outgun an equal- or higher-points human fleet in a head-on
pass, but that seems to have been the case here.

>4) Get the rules for supporting scatter pack fire finalized.

<shrug> IMO they're only overpowering when unexperienced opponents play
straight into their hands. Again that's what seems to have happened
here.

>Game mechanics.
>1) Everyone gets roughly five minutes to write down orders for
>ships (each person had roughly 8 ships)
>2) Those without orders go straight

*Before* asteroids move?

>3) Roll a dice to determine which segment each ship shoots in.

Still adhering to the "sides alternate firing one ship at a time", I
hope? 

>4) After order written asteroid move then ships move. (That
>asteroid hit my ship!) 
>   
>Rough time elapse was three and ahlf hours.  Started rouhgly 10
>ish, ended roughly 1:30 ish.

Pretty good, considering that at least some players were unfamiliar
with the rules.
  
>Game Two
>   
>Two convoys, Human and Kra'Vak go to reinforce the same planet. 
>Both sides enter same side but oppisite ends.	Planet placed other end
>of board in middle 12 inches from side.  The commander has to decide
>to  defend or attack or both.
>   
>Sides (Humans, 6 transports, 2 med freighters, 2 light freighters,
>2 fleet aux, 1 hwy cruisers, 2 cr, 2 light cruisers, 5 destroyers, 3
>frigates, 2 cor roughly) 

About 1750-1800 pts warships and 2800 pts of freighters.

>(Kra'Vak, 10 freighters, 1 cr, 1 Lcr, 4 destroyers, 5
>Frigates, 3 corvetts, 2 light craft).

Assuming FB2 designs, this is almost 2000 pts of KV warships. Below you
say 3 frigates, which would make both warfleets around 1750 pts...
which was it?

>The humans split their forces somewhat.

Was that "left the freighters behind to intercept the KV", or "split up
an
already outmatched force"..? (depends on how may frigates the KV had,
though)

>The Kra'Vaks attacked with almost everything.	This one was more >even
with the Kra'Vak losing all but one cargo ship (one hold >damaged). The
Humans lost all their cargo ships. The humans lost all >their fighting
craft.	The Kra'Vak lost the LCr, all destroyers, half the 3 >frigates.

Here's where you say 3 frigates :-/

Sounds like a mutual slaughter, with the KV having the corvettes and
1-2  frigates left in addition to their single damaged freighter and
crippled cruiser

> Lessons learned
>1) Make time to enter orbit roughly four or five turns.  Other wise
>to much time to kill everything
>2) Give the Humnas about a 5:4 advantage in fighting points.

At least don't give the *Kra'Vak* a 200-points advantage... 

>3) Cargos are slow and sitting ducks.

Yep. They even have problems outrunning NSL capitals :-7

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry