Gorn Vs Federation (1st Game using Plasma)

Lincolnlog

Mongoose
Played a game yesterday (Sunday 13th) Gorn Vs Federation, 1000point fleets. I had not errata'd my Gorn ship cards, so there were probably some errors on them. Also, I'm sure we did defensive fire against the plasma incorrectly.

I played Gorn. Force mix was 6 Gorn ships (1 DN, 1 CM, 1 DDB, 3 DD) versus 5 Federation ships (1 DN, 1 BCJ, 2 CA, 1 DWD). Movement and fire was by squadron.

For the first several turns, both Gorn Squadrons took the SA "Intesify Defensive Fire", so Federation drones did not have a significant impact early on.

Several lessons were learned:

1. If you are fighting plasma armed ships stay beyond 12"
2. If you are using Plasma armed ships try to get just under 8" for maximum impact.
3. When using plasma, movement by squadron works, but ship firing should alternate (firing by squadron gives the Plasma armed fleet a huge advantage.)

In the last turn I vaporized a famous Federation CA with one volley of plasma from 1 CM, the DDB and a DD.

The game was fun, and can't wait to match up the Romulan and Gorn (next game).

I do have 2 questions:

1. Can plasma be overloaded? and if it can, what are the rules governing overloaded plasma, does the 6" rule still apply?

2. When defending against plasma, ignore damage by phaser, it is 1 AD of phaser removes 1 AD of Plasma? and if that assumption is correct, what hit number do you use for the phasers in Def Fire against plasma or for that matter drones?
 
1) No you cannot overload plasma. The overload special rule specifies the weapon systems it works with - photons and disruptors. So no overload on phasers, plasma or drones.

2) Same number as always - 4+ base to suceed for each AD, modified by the accurate tag (+1 or +2 for phasers). Range is not an effector here as you are not at long range in any defensive fire, but Kill Zone is specified as not taking effect, so its 1AD off each plasma for each successful phaser roll, or 1AD of drones stopped for each successful phaser AD roll.

Yes that means Phaser 1s are 2+ to take off an AD from a plasma, Phaser 3s are 3+....


You hurt something with plasma by overwhelming it, use the multiple weapon systems in sequence. You auto hit with plasma (none of them can go beyond the 18" range point that requires seekers to roll to hit), so if that plasma R lands its on average 25 or so damage. That hurts most anything - roll high and it really hurts.

Remember that plasma R is accompanied by plasma Fs and others (Gs or Ss I cannot remember right now) - even though you declare all fire at the same time its assessed system by system, so fire the Fs first and the target has to decide whether to strip their defences by firing an extra phaser to ensure they block the thing, or accept a few damage points. By the time you get to the R, they are probably worried or drawing defensive fire from escort vessels - either of which is good.

Even if you are not packing a dreadnought, the variety of Fs, Gs and Ss allow for this process to run through stripping the enemy's defensive fire and letting you pack super heated gases into their superstructure. Then if your plasma doesnt go in, use your phasers to maul them a bit, or the next target of plasma.

Note: this works for Gorn ships.....they have mulitple systems and the ability to absorb enough damage to make this stick. The Hawk series of Romulans can have a go at this, but the Old series of Romulans are just too brittle to do this and have to use their cloaks much more, and the KRs are in the middle (IMO)
 
Overloads: We read the rule the same way and didn't allow overloading. But overloading seemed reasonable since you can in other SFU games. But, I conceed plasma is wicked enough without the ability (drones and phasers are not over-loadable iin other SFU games, so the assumption would have always been they could not be). But thanks for the clarification on Plasma, this will be a re-curring issue as other heavy weapons are added, since most heavy weapons in the SFU can be overloaded.

We were definitely performing Defensive fire wrong. But here is the problem. If you are the target ship, I can see how your defensive fire would be phaser, +accurate. But suppose you are a ship that is not the target defending the target using the IDF SA. Per the rulebook the defending ship must only be within weapons range of the ship they are defending. So, I'm firing phaser 1's in defense of a ship that is 10" away, I would think I would hit plasma or drones on 3+ versus 2+.

Also, I don't know about others, but when the drone rules were changed to no auto hit at over 18", we had to start dicing off each other, 1 die for the drone to hit, and 1 die for the phaser to hit or tractor to grab. It isn't fair to the drone player if the defender only rolls against known hits. What are others doing regarding this?
 
Lincolnlog said:
Overloads: We read the rule the same way and didn't allow overloading. But overloading seemed reasonable since you can in other SFU games.

You can only create an enveloping plasma torpedo in SFB; in FC and Starmada, there is no similar ability to "overload" a given plasma warhead.

Since ACtA:SF seems to use FC as its main filter for SFU-derived rules and weapons, the kind of weapon options seen there are the most likely to show up here. So plasmas can bolt and (in some cases) carronade, since those are in FC; but the likes of envelopers and shotguns aren't, so would be less likely to show up in the conversion process.
 
Lincolnlog said:
Overloads: We read the rule the same way and didn't allow overloading. But overloading seemed reasonable since you can in other SFU games. But, I conceed plasma is wicked enough without the ability (drones and phasers are not over-loadable iin other SFU games, so the assumption would have always been they could not be). But thanks for the clarification on Plasma, this will be a re-curring issue as other heavy weapons are added, since most heavy weapons in the SFU can be overloaded.

We were definitely performing Defensive fire wrong. But here is the problem. If you are the target ship, I can see how your defensive fire would be phaser, +accurate. But suppose you are a ship that is not the target defending the target using the IDF SA. Per the rulebook the defending ship must only be within weapons range of the ship they are defending. So, I'm firing phaser 1's in defense of a ship that is 10" away, I would think I would hit plasma or drones on 3+ versus 2+.

Also, I don't know about others, but when the drone rules were changed to no auto hit at over 18", we had to start dicing off each other, 1 die for the drone to hit, and 1 die for the phaser to hit or tractor to grab. It isn't fair to the drone player if the defender only rolls against known hits. What are others doing regarding this?

You measure range to the defended ship so yes you are right a target fired at a ship at 10" would be hit on a 3+ by a phaser 1.

We only roll to defend against those drones that are actually going to hit the ship - seems to work fine?
 
Lincolnlog said:
Overloads: We read the rule the same way and didn't allow overloading. But overloading seemed reasonable since you can in other SFU games.

Not for plasma that Im aware of in SFB - you can shotgun and envelop but not overload. FC is however the base game and I've only got the first Klingon set so I don't know it FC has an overload - I've not seen one talked about and it would be a big departure.

So, I'm firing phaser 1's in defense of a ship that is 10" away, I would think I would hit plasma or drones on 3+ versus 2+.

Yes, sorry, my example saying 'no long range for defensive fire' was assuming only your personal defensive fire - not IDF.

Also, I don't know about others, but when the drone rules were changed to no auto hit at over 18", we had to start dicing off each other, 1 die for the drone to hit, and 1 die for the phaser to hit or tractor to grab. It isn't fair to the drone player if the defender only rolls against known hits. What are others doing regarding this?

Well defensive fire occurs before calculating the attack, so we do it before any AD are rolled for long range drones stuff. Not sure if that is right or not, but there was an answer I think on this - just haven't looked at it yet.
 
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