2300AD Invasion Part 2, Impressions Not Errata

[ottarrus]

My birthday present arrived today in the form of a pdf of Invasion 2. I was looking very forward to this title as I was very encouraged by Invasion 1, and I'm looking forward to The Relief of Novy Kiyiv in the next week or so.

I've given it my first skim and I must say that there's a lot to like here. Tanstaafl is given a bit more life and the Kafer Rot is looked at a lot closer, something the original material didn't delve that deeply into. But from there things take a bit of a turn for me. Let me explain.

The Invasion 1 adventure 'Glorysky' ends with the first Kafer invasion of Aurore. The PCs are refugees from the onslaught of Kafer troops. For intents and purposes this is a ground adventure and in the epilogue the PC get automatic entry into a military or naval career for one term. So far, so good. Invasion 2 picks up with the adventure 'Slash and Burn', which again puts the PCs back on Aurore and in Tanstaafl on a mission for the Tanstaafl Militia [there are two military organizations in Tanstaafl: the mercenaries of the TFL and the Tanstaafl Militia, which is made up of locals and refugees defending their homes] to go into the Kafer Rot Quarantine Zone and scout a route to uncontaminated towns that have been cut off by the invasion. So, ground adventuring again.

This encourages the PCs to generate ground military, colonist, law enforcement, and other non-starfaring careers. But then the narrative shifts to 'Mission Arcturus', which is largely a ground military adventure but then the campaign shifts to an almost entirely space-based campaign... one in my opinion the PCs are woefully unprepared for. The storyline concludes with the PCs and their involvement with the Battle of Beowulf.

This seems to me to be rather like 'Space Above and Beyond: 2300'. For those of you who remember it, S:AB was a pretty interesting and visionary sci-fi series that ran for one season [95-96] on US TV. A lot of Traveller fans liked the series, but for anyone with any experience in any military it had one major flaw: the show's protagonists, people the American government spent millions of dollars to train as fighter pilots, spent most of their time playing grunt games down in the weeds with rifles and face paint. Essentially you have lieutenants doing crap that any PFC could do. And this is how 'Invasion 2' feels to me. The PCs are stuck being either ground pounder having to fly spacecraft or spacers having to play grunt games.

There is a third option, that being a character whose skills are spread thin over a wide spectrum of professions where the highest skill rank the PC has is skill level 2.

I get the sense that the author tried to cram too much into one book and ended up 'mooshing' two campaigns [one ground, one spacer] into one with only limited success.

There are things I very much liked about 'Invasion 2'. I loved that Colin Dunn included some of the contributors and friends of 2300 as NPCs. That's good stuff. Each individual adventure is well-designed. The rationale for getting the jobs is excellent, and the flow of events works well in most cases.

I heartily encourage fans of 2300 to get this book, but I will also say that if I were to run this campaign I would divide it into two campaign narratives instead of one.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

It has all the hallmarks of Colin's writing, complete with random Pentapods where they shouldn't be, and anti-British sentiment.

As I go to the Battle of Beowulf*, it's bizarre. In prime canon the fleet at Beowulf is mainly British and French, with some small contribution from Germany, America and Ukraine. The British and the French fleet each have a CV, probably the only two of these expensive ships in existance. The critical moment of the battle is a strike from the British carrier that destroys the Kafer flagship. That carrier has disappeared and only the French one is there.

In prime canon, the fleet consists of:

2 CV's - one British and one French
4 BB's - one American (Columbia "pocket BB"), two British (Victory, flag of VADM Sir Charles Graham, and another) and one French
1 BC - British (there are three BC's in the human fleet listings, and both German BC's are at Aurore)
14 CG's - at least two British already there. There are 26 CG's at Earth in 2301 (5 UK, 8 FR, 4 GE, 7 USA and 2 Ukraine), and 12 of these have moved to Beowulf
20 DD's - of which 3 (1 UK, 2 FR) were already in place. 35 were at Earth (7 UK, 15 FR, 5 GE and 9 US (Cayugas)), but 2 went with the Franco-German squadron to Aurore
27 FF's - of which 2 British ones were already in place. There were 61 at Earth (12 UK, 19 FR, 8 GE, 12 US (Hamptons), 5 Ukraine and 5 Russian (Tulas)) and 3 went with the Franco-German squadron

Of the 7 capital ships, 4 were British, 2 French and 1 American, although the American "battleship" was much weaker and kept out of the battle line. Of the CG's 2 are British ships already in place, and the other 12, prorata another 2 are British, 4 are French, 3 are American, 2 are German and 1 Ukrainian. For DD's, they'd be 5 UK, 9 FR, 2 GE, 4 US. For FF's they'd be 7 UK, 8 FR, 4 GE, 6 USA and 2 Ukrainian.

Pro rata may overstate the French involvement, as it is noted in prime canon that they'd sent many more of their available ships to the front, leaving the British as by far the largest contingent.

Remember, some "frigates" are the size and capability of a Kennedy.

In short, i prime canon the fleet was approximately:

British: 1 CV, 2 BB, 1 BC, 4 CG, 5 DD and 7 FF
French: 1 CV, 1 BB, 4 CG, 9 DD and 8 FF
Germany: 2 CG, 2 DD and 4 FF
America: 1 BBL, 3 CG (Kennedy's), 4 DD (Cayugas) and 6 FF (Hamptons)
Ukraine: 1 CG (Konstantin class) and 2 FF's (Aconits)

The orbat includes ships that are elsewhere (Bismarck, Jefferson), destroyed already (Koln, Suffren and DeGrasse), not yet built (the third German BC) and the American cruisers don't match the names in the AEH.

There are three Columbia pocket battleships in the illustration on page 164, despite only one existing...

The smaller nations were explicitly not involved. Japan's entire space navy (1 CG, 2 DD and 3 FF) was at Joi. The Scandanavian Union had no starships. Canada only started building starships in 2291 and likely has no navy etc.

... and the Libertines?

This is very poorly researched. Colin once said he never bothered to check his sources when writing, and it shows...

* Which is explicitly not a crown colony. It is a dominion.

 

[ottarrus]

@Bryn the 2300AD guy

I didn't mind the more epic Battle of Beowulf myself. The players weren't gonna be involved in the main fleet action and Colin DID make the players part of TD's flank attack action as in the original canon.

Also, Colin's 2300 has a very hazy definition between a BB and a fighter carrier. And then of course there is the American Columbia-class that's a combination fighter carrier and drone boat with little armor... not the wisest choice in a milieu where main guns can still win battles for you.

I grant you the Pentapod and Pariah presence in weird corners and the addition of undefined 'other aliens' that are a new twist in the rope.

All in all I think of this a Grand Tour through a war torn French Arm and I think the narrative could use a bit more direction. Not 'leading them by the nose' necessarily, but clearer crossroad points and so on.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

There is no flank attack in the prime canon. Indeed, the concept of a flank doesn't really exist in naval combat.

In prime canon, TF X-Ray, under TD's command is at Kimanjano. There is the French led fleet at San Souci in one direction, and the British led fleet at Beowulf in the other. Both Terran fleets have scouts watching TF X-Ray, and have an agreement that if TF X-Ray moves against one of them, the other fleet will warp to either Kimanjano (Graham) or BCV-4 (Rochemont) to cut off their retreat.

At the operational scale, QAS system looks like this (excuse the 2D-ness and the slight skew):


At this scale, a warp 1 vessel travels a hex every 2 hours. Detection range is a matter of debate, as it is contested how far long range sensors can see. In this case, the original text is clear that gravity sensors can't see the enemy. In the main space combat rules it states that ships can detect each other (as "black globes") at 1 light-minute, or two hexes on this map.

TD moves against Charles Graham's fleet at Beowulf. Rochemont's fleet does cut across the back of them to Kimanjano. Warping into the Queen Alice's Star system, the Kafers split into two wings, one arriving at the direct co-ordinate, and the other in the direction of Earth. Both were detected by Graham's forces. The far wing was detected by a frigate watching that sector, which was overwhelmed but got off a warning. Graham calls in all his patrols and drove straight at the nearer Kafer force, overwhelming them before turning back to regroup near Beowulf as the other wing approached.

The Kafer wings regrouped, and they could have discharged their stutterwarps. Indeed, a few of their ships rebelled and after discharging at the outer planets before moving in the direction of Earth. However, they didn't. Graham drew them on to keep attacking his force rather than discharging.

As a note, whilst not covered in the rules, all the space combat scenarios assume a discharged stutterwarp. If a charged stutterwarp is hit, it should explode in a tantalum relaxation. No-one wants to fight with charged drives, as a drive hit turns the ship into HMS Hood.

With what was left after Graham savaged one wing and another group peeled off, TD approached Beowulf. It's a standup fight near Beowulf. The Terrans will get the advantages of their station based fighters as well as their carrier based ones. The Kafers are massively outmatched. The Columbia is deployed to reserve, notes one Kafer Delta hanging back and her commander makes a run at her. She engages the Delta for 5-6 turns before a strike from the British carrier's fighters hits her, killing the ship.

Without coordination, the Kafer ships start fighting more as single units. No-one is there to order them to retreat. Barely a third of their 24 ships escaped, and those were shot to pieces. Remember, the ships that entered the main fight had not discharged their drives, and so cannot warp out of the system. Where are the 8 escapees from? They must by the ships that peeled off to discharge rather than push on.

The Kafers had 2 Delta BB's (assumidly the flagships of the two wings), 12 Alpha BB's and Betas (a CG equivalent), and 10 Epsilon type CG's (really a DD equivalent) for 24 ships, in addition to 60 carried fighters. Only one Delta (TD's flag) makes it to the main fight at Beowulf, and so Graham must have destroyed at least that in his initial attack against the isolated Kafer wing. There are heavy casualties in that wing from the initial battle. Eight Kafer ships peel off. TD is probably down to 10 or 12 ships approaching Beowulf. It is massively outgunned.

Further, the idea that Edgetho has a listening post is nonsense. These worlds were all mined with sentinel stations. The idea Rochemont is warping from Joi is mindboggling. 2300AD doesn't have FTL comms. but that's by far not the biggest sin...