First Battle of the Campaign

I've called this blog gratuitous for a reason - it's just an excuse to play loads of large, gratuitous space fleet battles. The first game is a bit of an experiment, since I want to see how my speedy fleet rules work. The photos aren't great since I was playing this indoors in the depths of a British winter, but I hope to be able to record the gist of it.

From behind the Kzinti fleet, we have the left wing of their initial deployment:

Two of their diminutive frigate types are deployed together: a Frigate and a slightly larger FFK-class Frigate. A couple of hexes to their right as you move towards the centre of their line is the Light Cruiser Mystic; the Kzinti don't bother to give names to their frigates, since nobody really expects them to survive for long. They just have numbered designations.

Their centre comes next:

Powerful. Two Battlecruisers, a Command Cruiser and a full Strike Carrier group with a dozen fighters deployed. A Frigate-class Scout follows behind the carrier, ready to lend electronic warfare support to the fleet's most precious (and expensive) asset.

The Kzinti right:

A Fast Cruiser is immediately to the right of the carrier, then a bit of a gap and a smaller CVE Escort Carrier with a Frigate-class escort with fighters out front. There are three too many of those in the picture; I removed them when I realised the error, so it didn't impinge on the battle itself.

Astute observers will notice the Red Alert logo on the mat, which is a sort of vinyl space terrain cloth that comes with the Richard Borg game - hence the shiny effect in the photos.The counters are a mix of Megahex full colour counters together with some free space fighters I found on Wargames Vault, covered in glorious sticky-back plastic to make them last longer. The counters aren't all quite correct (e.g. the main carrier is represented by a heavy battlecruiser), but they'll do. The basic idea is that one of the large hexes on this mat is equivalent to five hexes on the standard SFB hex mat. I wanted a field with large hexes to help my ageing eyes and brain cope with two fleets; too many small hexes generate clutter and I want to see how this experiment pans out overall as a way of making Star Fleet Battles playable solo. SFB is a great game for a single-ship match up to squadron size due to the intricacies of the system, but those same game strengths can become a major disadvantage when fleet sizes start climbing. A game like this could easily take five or six hours even with three players per side.

The Lyran fleet, from the Kzinti perspective, starting with the Lyran right:

From the left of the photo as you look at it, we see a Light Cruiser, two War Cruisers and another Light Cruiser. This lot is facing off against the two Kzinti Frigates and Light Cruiser. Just to the right of the photo you can just about make out the flagship, a beautiful Lyran Battlecruiser, with a Destroyer-class Scout for electronic warfare protection. 

A slightly better shot of the Battlecruiser, with a CA Heavy Cruiser and another War Cruiser to its left. This is a powerful central force.

Of course, what that means is that the Lyran fleet has to be weaker somewhere else, which is the photo above of their left wing: a Fast Heavy Cruiser links with the centre, then there are two Destroyers in tandem; a Heavy Cruiser; a Light Cruiser, and another pair of Destroyers. Unfortunately for them, the two sets of Destroyers are facing the Kzinti carriers and fighters.

I have a lot of experience with solo versions of various games, and I don't follow the usual advice, especially for large multi-vessel fleets like these. The reason for this is simple: if you try to do what is best for the two sides, and the ships within them on an individual basis, you lose track. I find that I end up second-guessing myself, then triple-guessing, and before I know it, I've lost the plot. The answer is not to have a plot. The fleets are pretty much set at the strategic level, which is good because I don't have to think about that part when it comes to deployment. I just rolled randomly; in fact, almost everything is randomly rolled, which means that all I have to do is move the ships and fire their weapons. The result is that the Lyran fleet is pretty much evenly spread across the board, with a particularly powerful concentration in their centre. The Kzinti are instead bunched up because of their carrier groups, and these are offset towards the Kzinti right. Carrier groups and some of the smaller ships can set up in the same hex to make movement logistically easier for me.

Fleet composition is not as powerful as it could be, for either side, as any veteran Federation & Empire players will realise. A good half of each force is comprised of the smaller ships (Light Cruisers at most); this is because the strategic game has changed a bit since I first played it. Basically, if you include enough of the lighter vessels, you get a free one to add to the force. This is where the two games show their naval warfare lineage, with Light Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, fighters and carriers. My memory of playing F&E the first time around is that both sides would max out on large ships only, so the smaller ones never really got onto the board. The damage dished out by fleets composed of War Cruisers upwards can be very impressive, especially with fighters added into the mix, but I want something that is a bit less beardy. Basically, I want to have a bit of fun, and if that means the Lyran Destroyers are going to be overwhelmed given the set-up here, so be it; they will take the drone missile hits from the carrier strike force, so freeing up the larger Lyran ships to go and hunt some Kzinti. 

I did total up the Lyran attack factors versus the Kzinti defence from F&E, and rolled on the standard part of the battle table to produce a morale rating for each force. The combat values of the two fleets are almost identical, but the Kzinti rolled a 6 (high) against a Lyran 4 (decent average), which translates to a highly motivated Kzinti force fighting a professional, workmanlike Lyran one. Basically, the Lyrans are here to make a demonstration against a particularly well-defended Kzinti Battle Station, and they will accept the loss of something like four Destroyers as a fleet morale point. The Kzinti will hang in a bit longer. The Battle Station itself is not present because the Kzinti are happy to offer an approach battle; basically, they are hoping to use their fighters to absorb as much of the pain as possible. 

Another thing that has changed in F&E since I last played it is the inclusion at the strategic level of admirals, who can have various levels of effect depending on how good they are on the day. Both admirals in this instance are of high quality, which translates to an extra ship on each side as part of the force composition. There are also some changes since I last played Star Fleet Battles, most notably here with the inclusion of the fast cruisers. One of the game's strengths at the lower levels of play is the difference between how the various ships operate as determined by their SSD sheets (ship's system display). The fast cruisers are rationalised in the given timeline as experimental; they are meant to be an attempt to give cruiser hulls more speed, while reducing their firepower somewhat, a sort of intermediate design step on the way from traditional Heavy Cruisers to the more attrition-orientated War Cruisers; they are mass-produced for warfare purposes, hence the name. I like these variations, but at fleet level they can be a pain in a standard game; it will be interesting to see how they play out with what I have in mind.

To make life easier for myself, some rules are either standardised or just removed altogether, kind of the the thing I've seen advocated on the web. Drone missiles will be standard speed 20, damage 12 types, and there will be no transporters or bombs. No weird shuttles - so no wild weasels, suicide robotics or scatter packs. This is going to be difficult enough for me as it is without bothering with the plethora of rules designed for individual ship combat. These are fleets, dammit!