Autumn Y172: Coalition Attacks

 The Kzinti have given the Lyrans a hard time, and the Federation has had mixed results with their own limited counterattacks. Their 3rd Fleet has taken the formerly neutral outpost of Sherman's Planet from the Klingons, but the 2nd Fleet was heavily defeated when the Klingons used Reserve Movement to reinforce their other main neutral zone holding. These are important forward bases for the Klingons, so they are determined to keep making the Feds work hard for any gains.

Klingon forces are recovering on the Kzinti Front, with many of their damaged ships having been repaired. One stack still remains at the main Starbase that provides logistical support here, and you can see those at the bottom centre of the map above. The Klingons have created a temporary Northern Reserve Fleet from their fresh repairs, and used that to vaporise the Kzinti Battle Station that used to stand at the junction between Klingon-Kzinti-Federation space (hex 1805). The rest of the Klingons have concentrated to keep up their drive on the remainder of the Marquis' territory, attacking the combined Kzinti and Federation forces at another Battle Station. Just to the right of the photo is a large stack of crippled vessels at the Federation Starbase here, the result of unsparing Klingon efforts. The Lyrans have shifted extra ships to the Red Claw by Strategic Movement; the Pelt Hunter fleet is sitting on top of a Mobile Base that has just been converted to a Battle Station, with a Fleet Repair Dock also available. The Lyrans are beginning to clean up their logistics at least a little on this front.

The Hydrans are in trouble. Huge Coalition forces have converged on their homeworlds, and you can also see a stack of extra Klingon ships that have just taken the major planet next to the Hydran capital hex. More Klingon reinforcements can be seen at the right of the photo as you look at it, sitting on top of a tug that has been acting as a forward supply relay point. Another tug has arrived with a Mobile Base in tow along with a transport carrying engineers to start replacing the infrastructure lost in the early days of the Hydran attacks. The Hydrans have reinforced the Old Colonies Squadron with previously crippled ships from the main fronts; they are all sitting on a Starbase the Hydrans started constructing when they joined the war.


Fighting has quickly escalated on the Federation Front, with the Klingons making another two major attacks; the Feds have been forced to reinforce their successful, if depleted, 3rd Fleet in order to protect its CVA flagship, which is still the only one of its kind in existence. Side movements by smaller Klingon fleets of repaired ships are continuing to degrade the Federation defences, with the 1st Imperial War Squadron having just removed another Federation Battle Station. The Klingon strategy here is to keep the Feds' main forces busy while edging towards Orion space to 'persuade' the Orions to secede from the Federation. Of course, there is always the possibility that the Romulans might formally declare for the Coalition...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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