Well, the centauri and the narn bloodied their nose in a vicious fight before they arrived on the jump-gate. Though the Centauri win the day, they must suffer a pyrric victory, for the narn destroyed more then their weight in ships before they finally abandoned the fight.
The fight was near one of the lesser known moons of the system (rolled terrain) and close to the asteroid belt (no other terrain but asteroids), it was crowded, but somehow the two forces managed to find a clear path to each other.
The Narns were planning on using the jump point as a staging point to lock down the invadors of their system, and brought scouting vessels with a medium escort to the fight, including the G'quan battleship the 'Dar'Gor'.
Narn Fleet:
2 Sho'kar Scouts
2 Ka'Toc Light Escorts
1 Rongoth Medium Destroyer
1 G'quan Battleship
The Centauri were expecting a fight, no doubts they knew of the fleets advancing on the gate, and brought in a raiding force with heavy backup with the intent of devestating eveything in their path.
Centauri Fleet:
1 Primus Battlecruiser
1 Centurion Destroyer
4 Vorchan Raiders
As soon as the Narn saw the force arrayed against them, they knew they could not hold the system, their only choice was to make the centauri pay for every meter of space that they took.
The centauri were eager for battle, and pushed their engines to the maximum in their eagerness to engage the narn forces, and to bring their shorter ranged guns to bear. The narn were more deliberate, picking their targets, and hoping the superior ranges on most of their weapons would allow them to bloody the centauri's nose before they took too much damage. The scout's skirted the edge of the fight, and though they were not able to lock onto the enemies, they did escape notice for a while.
(First turn was just closing the gap. Narn brought their boresight around on the vorchan's and managed to do some serious damage to one, and the centauri guns were largely ineffective at that range, (mostly due to bad rolling on his part,) while the rest of his fleet CAFed to try and get into range.)
Things quickly degenerated into a massive furball, one of the Ka'toc escorts flew into the guns of the centurian to distract it from the Rongoth, and was obliterated. Two vorchons quickly vanished as well under the hail of pulse and beam fire from the return fire of Narn vessels. With the immediate threat of the vorchans gone, the Narn decided to try to create an opening and escape.
(Next couple of turns saw some fire back and forth, with the end result that the centauri lost a couple of vorchans, and the narn lost a ka'toc, while the frazi slowly picked apart the other vorchans.)
The Sho'kar and The G'quan both opened jump points to allow other ships to escape, while their escorts maneuvered to take advantage of them when the portals had stabilized. The centauri were not going to allow this to happen, they thought they had their prey cornered, and were ready to spring their trap and destroy everyone in their path. Beams and pulses struck home, damaging reactors and closing the escape routes for the narn fleet. It was then the narn realized with grim choice that one ship would have to stay back to delay the centauri advance, and the nearly crippled G'quan chose that task. The centauri ships did pay for this tactic though, as yet another vorchan folded under the narn assault.
(I opened a couple of jump gates, but two 3/6 crits exactly on the two ships that opened them spoiled that particular plan. Since the g'quan hadn't of course, and the crit meant it could, it managed to take out another vorchan while the rest of the fleet scattered.)
The centauri then closed in for the kill, ignoring all but the g'quan in their sights. This was their mistake, because they soon closed too near, and with a massive shudder the g'quan gave to in an explosion that caught the final vorchan in it's fire, and wiped it from the sky. The second ka'toc took the chance, and skirted away during the sensor flare, while the rongoth, the final sho'kar, and the fighter escort moved to cover their brethren.
(CAFed Primus on a badly damaged g'quan with 12 hits = big boom.
A 6/6 crit on a too-close vorchan took that one out as well, with a bit of collateral damage on the centurian that had managed to get too close as well.)
The narn realized with the g'quan gone, they had to protect the valuable scout vessel that had remained, until they could repair their reactor and run. The other Sho'kar and the Frazi continued to harry the Centurian until it finally ended up burned and gutted as the rongoth had come back around just as it had come around to lay the final blow on the crippled sho'kar. This heroic effort was just in time, for the crippled ship regained it's engines, and scurried away. All that was left was for the rongoth to endure the strong beams of the primus for a short time before it too managed it's escape.
(I managed to destroy the centurian literally just as it came around to attack the crippled sho'kos, if it had had the chance to fire, it probably would have obliterated it. All that was left was for the Rongoth to survive three rounds of centauri beaming before it left the table, it took some damage, but due to close-all-blast doors it did not end up crippled.)
The tally was a final, grim reminder of the damage that can be caused, even when one wins the day.
Totals:
Narn:
1 G'quon Lost
1 Ka'Toc Lost
All frazi's lost
Couple of near cripples, and other serious damage.
Centauri:
4 Vorchan's Lost
1 Centurion Lost
1 Lightly damaged Primus
now im ready for you drakh (triggy) :twisted:
