Gratuitous Federation & Empire

 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...

 Astyanax is the name of the Hydran character I'll be following through the General War, and his story begins rather auspiciously. I am Astyanax, son of Hectax, son of Priax Troiax. My grandfather is something like 100th in line to the Hydran throne, depending on which day of the week you are on, which makes me a typical Hydran officer: minor aristocracy with a touch of royal blood in here somewhere. I am Heavy Weapons Officer on the Knight Destroyer Inevitable , so I am Second Officer and third in command overall. Like everyone else, I have been watching the vidcasts of the Coalition attack on the Kzinti with mounting trepidation. We always knew the smaller cats and the boneheads would eventually attack either us or our erstwhile allies, and the big cats drew the small straw. They are giving up territory very grudgingly, using fighters in ways similar to us at fixed installations to make the invaders pay, but they are slowly losing ground. It is only a matter of time before we are...

 This is the first battle between the old enemies in what is going to become the General War. For no reason whatsoever, though, Blogger is refusing to include images at the moment, so there's no Battle Mat this time. The Hydran force is extremely powerful, while the Klingons have more ships overall. In the event, though, something I haven't seen yet occurs: the defending fleet breaks on morale, allowing the attackers (the Hydrans) to destroy the station. This is because an attacking Hydran fleet is very strong; it is also because I rolled the lowest possible score on Klingon morale. Serious ship losses aren't much across the two fleets, but the attrition works in favour of the Hydrans. They only have a Knight Destroyer crippled and the usual slew of destroyed fighters, while the Klingons lose an E4 Carrier Escort destroyed, plus an F5 Frigate and an F5 Scout crippled; several other of their light ships are heavily damaged and forced to disengage, while the Hydran fighters c...

 Now that the Hydrans have made their appearance in the campaign, it is worth some thought as to how they play in my solo fast fleet rules. This is because I had no idea how they would work out in practice, simply because their ships are so radically different from anyone else's; consequently, so too is my feel for their overall combat doctrine. It's made even more complicated by the fact that not only do they have three different kinds of ships (fusion, hellbore and command ships that carry both), they also have their fighters. These again are different from what has gone before because they use heavy direct fire weapons instead of drone missiles.  So far I've played with a fusion fleet and a hellbore fleet; it will be interesting to see how things develop as the war progresses, probably with mixed fleets starting to appear as the losses start to bite and tidy formations and organisations become a thing of the past - well, that's what happens when you are fighting for ...

 The second Battle Station combat of the Hydran attack is a real grudge match: their Home Fleet against the Enemy's Blood: Both fleets are very powerful, the Hydrans because of the sheer number of fighters they are carrying (this is a fusion fleet) and the Lyrans because of ship quality. And it gets nasty. There are two main points of engagement. First of all, it is worth noting that the Hydrans simply ignore the Battle Station's fighters, concentrating instead on the Lyran ships. The majority of their fighters, backed up by the three Ranger cruisers, take on three Lyran Heavy Cruisers; three Light Cruisers; and the two Frigates plus the Destroyer Scout. The Paladin and Horsemen stay out of the fight, content to feed fighters forward into the action. Every single Hydran fighter in this part of the battle is destroyed, but they wipe out an enemy Heavy Cruiser, cripple the two Frigates and scare off the Scout (heavy damage). In return, the Lyrans manage to cripple one of the Rang...

...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....

 ...but not on the Southern Front as the Hydrans make their move. The Coalition offensive for Autumn Y169 has finished, with the highlights being the destruction of the Kzinti Count's Starbase and the successful (albeit desperate!) defence of Zamyan against the Klingons. This is what the map looks like like after the Coalition retires to regroup, and the Kzinti try to shore everything up as best they can: Although the Kzinti border areas are now looking rather sparse, their economy is still in reasonably good shape. That will change, though, once the Coalition makes more inroads. In the meantime, the big cats have been busy, with a second Starbase almost ready to come online in their capital hex, and a Mobile Base being set up in readiness for further upgrading there too. Realistically, that one will probably end up as a Battle Station rather than a full-blown Starbase. Many of the crippled lighter Kzinti ships have been moved off-map to the Barony for later repairs, while the heav...

 Since we are on the strategic defensive, any lulls in the Coalition offensive are filled with logistics, re-organisations and refits. So far we in the domain of Count R'rorash have fought every clawnail of the way as we are forced inexorably back towards the homeward, and the same can be said of what is happening on the Klingon Front. Having lost our border Battle Stations and, most recently, the Count's Starbase, we are now in orbit around the major planet Zamyan. The steady trail of crippled vessels returning home to await repair demonstrates that we are in no fit state to mount a counteroffensive. Count R'Rorash oversees the minutiae of every tiny detail, while we pilots get a chance to try tune up our replacement fighters, as well as getting to know one another better. The destruction of our old Escort Carrier has saddened us, as has the lost of her crew complement, but we have now been assigned to the larger CVL Light Carrier Tempest , ably commanded by Captain M'...

 Containing the remaining Kzinti forces at their last three border Battle Stations has given the much larger Klingon navy the opportunity to mount one major attack. The chosen target is quite deep into Kzinti space and will be an important staging point for the Klingon drive towards the Kzinti home world. The big cats are of course determined to defend Lumien and, in conjunction with their overall strategy, even if they don't succeed in holding it, they will make the boneheads pay dearly: As usual, the Battle Mat shows the power the Klingons are bringing to bear. Their individual attack forces will not be as strong as the Kzinti defenders, but the Klingons are well able to outlast their opponents when it comes to attrition. So this will be yet another exercise in dancing with disruptors. And fighters. Oh, and planetary ground-based phaser-IVs.  One peculiarity worth noting here is that the demise of a previous Klingon admiral in the wreckage of his C8 Dreadnought has meant dra...

 Our F5 Frigate Axe  is repaired at one of our Starbases, converted to the first of a new generation of F5E Escort Frigates, and renamed  Axe Guard . The conversion is intriguing, and as primary weapons officer I familiarise myself with the new systems. Basically, our two disruptors are removed and each is replaced with two drone racks of a relatively new design, similar to those in use by the Federation. The Type-G rack is a multi-purpose weapons platform, capable of being armed with either four standard anti-ship missiles or eight anti-drone defensive projectiles. The improved anti-drone capability is better than the standard ADD racks carried by most of our ships, but not quite as good as the double-sized 12-shot racks carried by the smaller E4 Escorts. However, the dual function gives the ship a useful option should we end up fighting the Hydrans or, possibly, the Feds. We move forward to join the fleet as it heads into action again. The so-called 'molasses' strategy ...

 The Klingons head for the last of the Kzinti border Battle Stations. It takes a while, but eventually the thing falls. Klingon casualties are pretty much all of their fighters; a D7 and an F5E crippled; and heavy damage to their C8 Dreadnought, a D7 and an F5. The Kzinti also lose all of their fighters, plus a Frigate destroyed and another two Frigates crippled. The second and third fights are rather enjoyable, as the elegant disruptor fleets trade shots. The final act takes place when the Klingons pick off the Kzinti light ships one at a time, and the Kzinti CVS group cripples a D7C Command Cruiser. The Kzinti leave because they no longer have enough ships to defend the installation.

 The Klingons continue to try mopping up the three remaining Kzinti border battle stations. Admiral Ulorf has had an easy time of it with his target, but then he does have most of the Klingons contingents' fighters. The next one along is not so easy, because although the Kzinti forces remaining at these stations are something of a mixed bag, in this case it is a very large bag. Or, rather, a bag composed of relatively few, but large, ships. The result in the first pass is a very bloody nose for the Klingons. The Kzinti deploy in two main groups. One is close to the Battle Station, while the other is quite some way off. However, it is composed of craft capable of producing a stupendous amount of drones, and while the fighters and other ships hold off the Klingons, a massive missile bombardment materialises. The Kzinti lose some fighters, but an entire Klingon F5 Frigate squadron simply ceases to exist, and a D6J Penal Cruiser is crippled. The Klingons withdraw, prepare another Friga...

 An easy victory for Klingon Admiral Ulorf as he chases off a smaller Kzinti fleet and then destroys their Battle Station. Ulorf basically has the fleet stand off from the Battle Station, negating the defending fighters with as many of his own as he can muster. The fighters more or less cancel each other out, and the superior Klingon force cripples a Kzinti Escort Carrier before the tiger-men realise they really should leave.

 In common with many of our personnel, I watch the initial stages of our defence against the Lyran attack on the vidlinks. We are mostly assembled at a pre-arranged rendezvous point, ready to feed ships and fighters into the ongoing series of combats as and when they are required. Count R'rorash leads a rousing defence from the Flag Bridge of the Starbase itself, co-ordinating everything with flair and the calmness in battle for which he is famous. It turns out that Commodore (now Constable) C'rorish is his cousin, which explains the similarity in names; he leads the fleet from a Battle Tug that has just been assigned to our front, and which is easily the largest single ship we have available. The Count has no named heir, and the message is clear: he is intending to go down with the Starbase if necessary, and C'rorish will carry on the fight. My newly constructed and painted Kzinti Starbase, with its full complement of fighters. The first battle goes relatively well for us,...

 It took eight battles to complete the first major assault on a Starbase in the campaign. Losses are as follows, although I have probably missed some of the details: Lyran ships crippled: an Escort Frigate; four Destroyers; a War Destroyer Leader; three War Destroyers; six Heavy Cruisers; a Battlecruiser; a Battle Tug; and a Scout Tug. Lyran ships destroyed: three Frigates; two Heavy Destroyers; a War Destroyer; four Light Cruisers; a War Cruiser; two War Cruiser Leaders; and a Command Cruiser.  Kzinti ships crippled: an FFK Improved Frigate; a Destroyer; an Escort Light Cruiser; three Light Cruisers; a Fast Battlecruiser; three Battlecruisers; and a Carrier Tug. Kzinti ships destroyed: a Light Cruiser; an Escort Carrier; two Medium Cruisers; a Battlecruiser; and a Command Cruiser. Plus, of course, the Starbase itself (eventually). Another way to look at it is that the Lyrans have had five light ships crippled to two Kzinti; five Lyran medium ships crippled to five Kzinti; six...

 This is the full Battle Mat for the Lyran assault on the Count's Starbase, and pretty impressive it is too. It could take quite a few games to play right through to the conclusion, whatever that might be. As usual, the Kzinti are relying on the installation plus fighters to balance out the enemy superiority in ships. I have too many variations of bits and pieces for both Star Fleet Battles  and Federation and Empire , so I lost track of exactly who could build what and when. This means the Lyrans have a couple of light carriers on War Destroyer hulls a bit earlier than they should have, but then again they did pay the economic cost for them. Besides, I find it rather strange that they only have the two Jagdpanther variants until Y171 and then suddenly get to build loads, so I am going to pretend this is proof of concept. It certainly gives the Lyrans a bit more attrition capability. I also have a bit of a bonus: A Kzinti Starbase with its attendant fighters, plus a shield mar...

 The Lyrans and Klingons regroup, repair and reorganise, then go in again: It looks nice and clean right now, but this is sure to get messy. There is an enormous Lyran assault force attacking the Kzinti Count's Starbase, while the Klingons hit three Battle Stations and an important planet further into Kzinti territory. I have no idea how long these will take to play through...! I would love to have painted fleets to play these as ongoing battles, remaining set up for as long as they take, but I just don't have the resources. So I am going to start with the series of Lyran attacks on the Count's Starbase. The eagle-eyed will notice that another pirate vessel has appeared, a Battle Raider situated perfectly to disrupt the Lyran logistics network just behind their front line. The Orions are becoming active.