Gratuitous Federation & Empire

 The Kzinti mount a spoiling attack on the Klingons' main forward base, the planet of Lumien. The Klingons are quite happy to give this up, though, because they know the big cats will not be able to keep hold of it due to the strategic situation. The Boneheads are determined to make the Kzinti pay first, and this they do in fine fashion. As well as the usual slew of mangled and destroyed ships, the main events are the destruction of a Kzinti Strike Carrier by a close assault from a C8 Dreadnought in combination with a D6M Mauler Cruiser - the first major loss to the Kzinti carrier force in the war. The next engagement sees the Klingons ejected from the planet, and the Kzinti get their revenge by crippling the Mauler with a close pass from their own Dreadnought after the Mauler's batteries have been depleted blowing up some smaller ships. The costs the Kzinti too, though, because their Dreadnought is heavily damaged and old Admiral Mr'iarr killed in action.  From https://w...

 ... well, something like that. When I started to run some ship captain biographies as part of keeping my interest going, I half expected a couple of them to end up on opposing sides. At one point I had the bright idea of including a survivor from a neutral planet, Kooth the Bird Man, who ends up working as an Orion mercenary. The vagaries of space fighting have meant that he and my Hydran Hero Astyanax have ended up fighting in the same desperate battles at the last remaining Hydran Starbase before Hydrax against the Klingons. My imagination is telling me that after Kooth's rather grand entrance uncloaking an Orion CA and saving some Hydran ships, he and Astyanax would get together in the Starbase bar for some comradeship before heading out to war again. Kooth actually has a good experience in this campaign. The Hydrans are really up against it, and when his CA was repaired after its bruising encounter with a Lyran police flotilla, I rolled randomly to see where he would be deploy...

 The Coalition have finally made their move. Large numbers of Lyran vessels are converging on our outer planetary systems, while a large Klingon fleet heads directly for our home worlds. I am in the thick of it from the outset in my Knight-class Hellbore Destroyer, the Inevitable . We take up position well to port of the planet of Hyerark, the final staging point on the way to Hydrax itself. The Inevitable  is part of a light flotilla along with another Knight and a Crusader Frigate Leader; the combination gives us respectable Hellbore power. Off to our immediate starboard is a Caravan Tug carrying a Scout Pallet, accompanied by a Thoroughbred Heavy Cruiser. Next to them is our Paladin Dreadnought flagship, with two Ranger Cruisers. I assume that the rest of our fleet is stationed on the other side of the planet. We make rather a grand sight, especially with all the fighters escorting the Paladin and Dragoons, but we are well aware that the Klingons are going to try to degrade...

 It is finally time to strike directly at the Hydran home planets. The Klingons have amassed more ships than us, basically because we took out two Hydran Starbases while they destroyed one. So they are heading directly for the capital. Our fleets are tasked with the two other main Hydran systems, Anthraxan and Hydramax. As Captain of the War Destroyer Dark Fury , I am assigned to the forces tasked with reducing Hydramax. I see no action during the approach battles to the region, but I soon find myself in the thick of it in the vicinity of the second planet in our target area, Hypnokerm. Our initial assault is beaten off, albeit at the cost of large numbers of Hydran fighters. We should have the edge in attrition, though, because we have many light vessels. Due to losses in the war so far, our cruisers have taken a pounding, but like most Lyran fleets, we have extra command ships. This means that our fleets will be somewhat imbalanced in action, comprising whatever we can put togeth...

 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 ...