The Hydrans strike

...and then just as quickly vanish again. In other words, the Hydrans have made their first appearance in the campaign, with lightning thrusts towards a couple of Lyran Battle Stations and two that belong to the Klingons.  I played the fist game today; Battle Mat here:

The Hydran Second Fleet is making a demonstration towards one of the Lyran border stations, so the cats have reacted with the Far Stars fleet. They have been half-expecting the Hydrans to make their presence felt now that the invasion of Kzinti space is well under way, and had already moved the Far Stars towards the Rimward part of their domains to act as a strategic reserve. As you will probably realise from the force compositions, the Hydrans really only have enough ships to make a single pass. But then that's all they need to do, because the plan is to force the Coalition to pay attention and take some of the pressure off the beleaguered Kzinti.

This is an interesting battle in comparison with what has got before. For a start, the Lyran fleet is almost entirely composed of older, tried and trusted vessels. The only two from the newer generation of ships are a War Destroyer and a War Cruiser; everything else is one of the classic designs. Their flagship is an early generation Dreadnought. The Hydrans are fielding a Hellbore fleet, because for some reason their fleets are initially deployed in Federation & Empire as composed almost entirely of either Hellbore ships or fusion craft; the latter have more fighters. Even so, they will have more of the attrition units than the Lyrans, and Hydran fighters are really nasty. I had no idea beforehand as to how this would play.

In the event, it is all over and done with very quickly, partly because of the relative deployments. My dice decree that the Lyrans will mostly be concentrated to the left rear of their Battle Station, while the Hydrans  are rather more spread across the board. Having said that, their main fighter contingents are close together. If I were a Lyran, I'd avoid those...

The game works nicely in two main engagements. A squadron of three Hydran Knight destroyers encounters the majority of the Lyran fleet (nine cruisers of various classes). The Hydrans take on the entire lot and then warp out, with all three Knights heavily damaged. Elsewhere, the Lyran station and its fighters cripple a Cuirassier Frigate, while the Hydran Stinger fighters wipe out half of the defending fighters without even trying hard. Then the Hydrans show why they are so feared; before warping out, their Battle Tug, accompanied by a Thoroughbred early Fast Cruiser, turns inwards and closes the range on a group of three Lyran Light Cruisers. Each of the Hydrans casually vaporises a cruiser before leaving. Point made.

Moral: even a Hellbore ship has enough gatlings to gut anything if it gets close enough!

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