Fighters, Canadians, and GZG-ECC CanAm

As author of the Canadian misfortunes at 
CanAm, I can say:

1) Fighters have a per unit value that is non-
linear (as Brian so rightly pointed out). Few is 
almost valueless, some is about right, lots are 
overpowering (value wise). Note that very few 
cannon ships have ADFC or enough PDS for a 
high fighter environment. 

2) I misinterpreted a piece of oblique 
intelligence provided by the ref which should 
have clued me in to the huge fighter assault. I 
thought I was being denied information, the 
truth is I was being given a fact in a roundabout 
way. Mea culpa.

3) Our fleet was based around ripping out 
everything that wasn't a beam 2 or 3 pretty 
much or a ptorp. The idea was to throw the 
max beam dice. One of my modified Komarovs 
could throw an entire BRICK of dice (or pretty 
close) at once. But the enemy took the fighters-
weak carriers fleet and correspondingly sent 
out the fighters and hid the carriers. Only one 
third of our fleet got within interception range, 
and it met the remainder of 25 fighter 
squadrons (about 15 or 16) and a few SML 
salvoes all at once. By this time, the fighters 
had killed our 6 squadrons of heavy 
interceptors (we had fighters and good ones, 
just not rafts of them) as well as about a third 
of the fleet. Once again we see the problem 
with ships only being able to fire at fighters 
attacking them... it was interesting to watch the 
fighters gnaw on them one at a time. 

3) We're ground pounders (except for Jim) so 
it was Adrian's first FT game and I've played a 
couple of times but always with canon ships. Jim 
had played before somewhat more, but always 
with canon ships IIRC. And he missed the 
slingshot around the planet. His fleet third took 
no casualties, but nor did it get in range to fire 
a shot. The guys against us mostly played FT 
more than we had (I suspect) and some had 
played with homemade fleets before. 

4) Even the US players (well Mike and Aaron) 
agreed the slaughter wasn't all that much fun. 
In terms of competition, it was paper scissors 
rock and they brought the dynamite. But they 
didn't enjoy their victory because they could see 
it wasn't much of a tense battle. If I hadn't of 
dived my fleet into planet-skimming depths to 
get inside engagement range, the battle would 
have ended with Team USA killing about 1/3rd 
of our fleet, taking only fighter casualties, and 
us hypering out. That seemed a wimpy way to 
end it, so I charged, all guns blazing, into the 
teeth of the enemy with fighters on my heels 
and destroyers, light cruisers, and such coming 
at my front. The end result was Jim got away, 
me and Adrian died grotesquely. But it wasn't 
the most fun FT game I've ever played (no 
one's fault, it just ended up that way). 

5) Had I understood what Chris was trying to 
obliquely hint at, the Komarov nearest the 
fighter swarm would have been a Komarov E 
with an ADFC and (yes, count them) 70 PDS. 
That plus the DEs would have let Adrian throw 
110 or so PDS dice versus the first fighter 
attack. That would have probably slowed them 
down significantly. Then our remaining 2/3rds 
(sans inept piloting from Captain Bell of Fleet 
Engineering Construction) could have beaten up 
the carriers and escorts fairly well. But, it didn't 
happen like that.....

I must admit the FT game that was just run at 
Campcon was (I believe) much more fun for all 
participants. Saw some exciting die rolling, 
things died, and it was more balanced. (Of 
course, we worked to make it so!). :) 

Better luck next time (in the rules setup for the 
CanAm - I'd suggest letting each team ask 2 
questions of the ref about the other teams 
designs then make some tweaks). 

And maybe next year Jerry "Papers? I don't 
need no stinking papers!" Han or one of the 
other Canadian FT players will come down and 
replace the Groundpounders since we were FAR 
outside our element. :) 

Tomb