Well, that was nasty!

 This time, the Klingons elect to meet the approaching Hydrans in open space just to make sure the vicious little sods take longer to get anywhere near a Battle Station:


The Battle Mat shows just how powerful is the Hydran fleet - and how relatively brittle. They don't exactly have much in reserve, while the Klingons do.

In the event, this took a whole hour and a half to play to completion, including set-up and pack away time. I got the chance to roll for some space terrain, but this time it's in the open. I'm looking forward to dust zones, asteroid fields etc. because they will add a bit of extra spice to a battle, but it doesn't happen on this occasion.

There are three main actions in this engagement. On the Hydran left,  their Lancer Destroyers go in as the initial wave, followed by the Ranger Cruisers. They meet the F5V Light Carrier and its E4 Escort, and vaporise the smaller of the two craft. At this point a Wing of D7 Battlecruisers intervenes, and each damages a Lancer so badly that all three of them have to leave. In turn, the Rangers roar up to point-blank range, and each cripples a D7. All this in the space of a few minutes.

In the centre, the Hydran fighters coalesce into a single large group, ignore the Klingon fighters, and go straight for the D6CV group. In a matter of moments, both of its E4s cease to exist and the carrier is crippled. In return, the Klingon ships and fighters wipe out the fighters from the Lancer destroyers.

And on the Hydran right, their frigate squadron meets the two F5 Frigates, crippling one and heavily damaging the other. The C5 Dreadnought takes its revenge by destroying both Hunter frigates. It actually hits each with a couple of drones because they have used all of their power against the Klingon frigates.

As the space dust clears, the Klingon admiral simply cannot believe his eyes. With all of the disengagements, crippling and things going BANG, he is left with precisely three ships: his own, the D6D Drone Cruiser deployed behind him, and the F5V Light Carrier. Oh, and all of his fighters.

The Hydrans have had almost all of their lighter vessels removed, which will make continuing to the Battle Station rather risky, and the Klingons watch as the Hydrans retire. The lack of Hydran numbers tells against them, while the Klingons realise that their decision to engage at a distance from the Battle Station has probably saved it.

In economic terms, the Hydrans lost 5 points. The Klingons lost 18.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fly me to the moon

Image
 And other places. These are resin pieces, 6" diameter, sold by Combat Zone Scenery in the UK, and very nice they are too. Part of their Armada scenery range, they are useful hemispherical planets of various kinds. Here's my attempt at the moon/planetoid/large asteroid one: In any tabletop space combat game the miniatures are going to be wildly out of scale when compared with model planets, but often we need something visual to do the job well. These fit the bill nicely. Jungle planet: I used gloss acrylics for the sea effect. You'll notice a couple of metallic building son the surface - the moon of Endor? In fact, the other two definitely show the Star Wars Armada theme:  Ice planet - aka Hoth. And yes, that is a representation of a dead Tonton at middle right. You can also see a destroyed At-At walker at the top of the photo. The details are fun, but they have to impressionistic. I think this one turned out well, to my surprise. Someone once told me a long time ago not
Read more

Jupiter IV SFB decals

Image
 I bought some of these. They took well over a month to arrive from Canada:  For the Kzinti: ship insignia to the left as you look at them, and ships' names in suitably off-looking script to the right. I've tried them out now on the model I put together as a Kzinti Starbase, and they are rather disappointing. The sheet of Kzinti names comes out very dark, too dark for use, in fact, even though I tried them on a painted stripe of white. The ship insignia are also dark, but those ones are usable. I'll probably paint a little white rectangle on the ships themselves to make the decals 'pop' a bit more. One thing to look out for is that the entire sheet is covered with transfer film, so you need to cut around the individual decals to make sure there isn't too much extra - that can become a bit awkward when you are trying to put them onto a ship panel. This reminds me of older transfer sets like the old Revo medieval ones. Overall verdict: worth getting the insignia s
Read more

The Lyrans are coming!

Image
 Well, not quite - this is my attempt at a Battle Station. It would actually do for pretty much any of the major powers, but I gave it a base sandy color and stuck some Lyran Homeworld Clan markings on it: The Lyran decals have come out much more sharply than the Kzinti ones did, possibly because of the lighter background tones. And for some reason my stations always look manky rather than Star Trek pristine, but I like the well used look. The second photo shows more of the detail, of which there is a great deal indeed. The model is six inches across by two inches high. It came with a flight stand, but being made of resin the station was far too heavy to balance safely so I simply glued it straight onto its base. In any case its relative height means it will still fit nicely with my spaceship models. I'm getting quite a lot of painting done at the moment. Teaching has finished for this academic year, although admin and my own writing will keep me busy. Doing a colour every so often
Read more