Imperial Occupation Zone: Two AARs

[Requete]

The following are two brief action summaries from meeting engagements within the Imperial Occupation Zone. Both routine combat patrols met enemy patrols and engaged in simultaneous symmetrical aggression. I oversaw both actions against two different Federation admirals.

The first action involved IKV Targ (D5), IKV Curtain of Iron (D6), #497 (E4) and #726 (F5). They met and engaged USS Kongo (CC), USS Hood (CA) and an unidentified Ramius-class vessel (FFB). In this action our squadron broke to starboard and the swaggering capitalists, emboldened by their expensive and over-engineered technologies, pressed forward to intercept. The USS Hood sustained heavy fire during this process, as did Curtain of Iron. Our squadron made a battle pass to attempt to gain greater positional advantage. Curtain of Iron was destroyed in the ensuing melee, as were E4 #497 and USS Hood. USS Kongo tried to perform an HET and failed; she also sustained serious damage from Targ and began to run adrift. At this point Targ and #726 pursued and destroyed Kongo while the Raimius-class vessel escaped at maximum warp. A bloody but glorious victory for the Empire.

The second action involved IKV Counter-Riposte (D5), IKV Klingon Youth League (D6), #885 (E4) and #126 (F5). They met and engaged USS Jakarta (CC), USS Bombay (CA) and USS Kelly (FFB). In this action, #885 broke to port and #726 broke to starboard. The decadent bourgeois opportunists thought to pounce upon the lone E4 with their entire squadron, and devoted all power to their engines. As they chased her, the rest of our squadron positioned themselves on the flank and began to pound USS Bombay. The phaser fire against #885 continued to be surprisingly ineffective. Sensing an opportunity, the Federation admiral attempted to HET with both Jakarta and Bombay. However, because Federation engines are produced with neither a scientific dialectic nor revolutionary discipline, both HET maneuvers failed, leaving their ships of the line as so many "sitting turkeys" as the Humans say. Concentrated fire destroyed USS Bombay and fire against USS Jakarta began to weaken her. Subsequently, the arrogant plutocrats aboard the Jakarta attempted another HET and failed once again, leaving her engines a burning wreck. Since they clearly had a death wish, our squadron quickly atomized USS Jakarta and inflicted serious damage on USS Kelly. USS Kelly then struck her colors, preferring to live as slaves in our glorious Empire than to die for their crass and luckless guild. For this complete victory, which came at no loss or serious damage, I am recommending the award of our highest medal, Hero of the Klingon Empire, to the cruiser captains, to my ADC Commodore Krenn, and to myself. And may I say that I am honored to receive such an august award for the glory of our indomitable Empire.

Qapla'!

 

[bluebirds40]

great battle report.

 

[Democratus]

I was his opponent in the first battle.

And I was completely unprepared for how maneuverable agile cruisers are! It's hard to photon an enemy that refuses to stay in your forward arc.

This picture is from the second battle. The Feds have just used APTE to close with the Klingons. Next turn he will fail two HET orders, poor soul.

 

[Requete]

I was his opponent in the first battle.

And I was completely unprepared for how maneuverable agile cruisers are! It's hard to photon an enemy that refuses to stay in your forward arc.

You leaned into my squadron in exactly the right way. I think that if Kongo's HET had succeeded the battle would have turned out somewhat differently. I only had Targ and the F5 at that point; you had Kongo and the Raimius. A successful HET would have meant photon delivery plus lots of point blank phasers right into the front of Targ.

I got lucky in that my opponents failed 4 out of 4 HETs. That's like what, a 6% chance? Granted that HET is risky, but you got me into a scrum and that was key.

The second game went entirely my way. I don't think that 1 or even 2 successful HETs would have been decisive... all other things being equal, I think it was over when my esteemed opponent took the bait and went after the E4.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on that, Democratus.

 

[Requete]

This picture is from the second battle. The Feds have just used APTE to close with the Klingons. Next turn he will fail two HET orders, poor soul.

If I recall correctly, I have not yet moved either Counter-Riposte (D5) or Klingon Youth League (D6). They are both about to skitter 8" to starboard if I am remembering rightly.

 

[bluebirds40]

cool pics and minis.

 

[Democratus]

You leaned into my squadron in exactly the right way. I think that if Kongo's HET had succeeded the battle would have turned out somewhat differently. I only had Targ and the F5 at that point; you had Kongo and the Raimius. A successful HET would have meant photon delivery plus lots of point blank phasers right into the front of Targ.

I got lucky in that my opponents failed 4 out of 4 HETs. That's like what, a 6% chance? Granted that HET is risky, but you got me into a scrum and that was key.

The second game went entirely my way. I don't think that 1 or even 2 successful HETs would have been decisive... all other things being equal, I think it was over when my esteemed opponent took the bait and went after the E4.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on that, Democratus.

I agree that the Federation in the second battle was 'positionally deficient' after the APTE order. He dashed forward rather than try to isolate the closer half of your fleet.

It's a tough tactical puzzle for the Feds. You don't want to get in too close too fast due to maneuver inferiority. But if you stand off Klingon disruptors and drones have superior range.

Looks like the Feds need to exploit their Phaser-1s to pull off a win, utilizing the range 4"-8" Ph1 Kill Zone. The trick will be to do this while avoiding the Ph2 (< 4") Kill Zone.

I'd love to hear from some more experience Federation players as to how they handle the Klingons in smaller battles.

 

[locarno24]

And I was completely unprepared for how maneuverable agile cruisers are!

Indeed. "Stand still and let me shoot at you, you Space Mongol Gits!" is a recurring curse with our local Fed admiral. Usually followed by a malicious cackle from General Klang.

Looks like the Feds need to exploit their Phaser-1s to pull off a win, utilizing the range 4"-8" Ph1 Kill Zone. The trick will be to do this while avoiding the Ph2 (< 4") Kill Zone.

I'd love to hear from some more experience Federation players as to how they handle the Klingons in smaller battles.

The key thing to remember is that the Ph1 is the primary federation weapon. Drones are generally more use firing defensively, and torpedoes are an 'if they happen to be there' weapon. I've always been in the 'fire the bloody things early and hope' school - you can't rely on the Klink ships staying in arc long enough to get out of long range, and shots hitting on a 5+ are better than no shots at all. Especially since you still get the full benefit of a '6' at long range. The day a frigate fires its torpedo tubes and boxcars an undamaged klink frigate you'll realise how important that is. Overload heavy weapons is a bit of a red herring to my mind....

The successful battles have generally involved two groups of heavies pulling a thach weave. You have to close aggressively because of the klingon's long range advantage, but you can't afford to do so as a group because even at medium/close range, they'll beat you in an energy weapon smackdown as long as they keep their frontal shields pointed at you. The trick is to split up your forces - not so much they can pick on one element at a time, but enough that they have to flash their arse at the Ph1 elements of one group in order to attack the other. At this point, you can actually exploit the rubbish shields a klingon cruiser actually gets, which restores your advantage.

This goes double for Feds, because they are literally wrapped in Ph1s - think 'big stately cruiser formations' and manouvre as a close-packed wedge and you're doing it wrong. You want to turn the game into a massive furball, with every ship firing in every direction at once. If you can fire the majority of your Ph1s in any given turn, and fire a significant proportion at side or rear shields, a Klink fleet folds like a house of cards.

More than any other ship, the Ramius-class battle frigate is your friend. Better shields than cruiser-weight Klingons (including the magic 2D6 overcharge), enough phasers to provide a credible threat and the numbers and agility to match the Space Mongols, and enough torps to make people nervous when firing in groups (the fact that frigate mounted-torps don't half their range like frigate-mounted disruptors is a nice plus!) and it's tailor made for Klingon-hunting.

 

[billclo]

I have to agree with Locarno.

I find that putting the Feds into small groups, say 8-10" apart, and getting in fairly close helps. Try to stay out of the Klingon P-2's 4" killzone. It makes it much easier to flank the Klingons when you have groups spread out a little.

I also fly as if the Fed ships don't have Photons, and don't get fixated on hitting any particular target with Photons. Fly to maximize your phaser shots (Fed CA, 3 and 9-oclock are favorable positions to have a target in as you get 6 P-1s on him, not 4), and just blast whatever strays into arc with the Photons. If you can break away and reload fine, if not, go Boost Shields or whatever and continue to duke it out with Phasers.

Overloads? Not used very often, unless the enemy just meanders into your arc, or you can get there with a 6" move and 1 turn. Nasty when feasible, but don't count upon it. Now that said, I have seen 3 Feds go Boost Shields, move 6 ahead and the Klingons stupidly moved forward into overload range. A D7 went poof when a Fed CA rolled lucky and hit with 3 overloaded torps rolling a '6'. You cannot count upon this, so just consider such a fortunate occurrence as gravy.

Don't forget the goofy rule about splitting fire from phaser mounts vs Klingon front shields at longer ranges. If for example, you have 2 banks of Phaser-1 with 2 dice each, and 2 targets in arc at range say 9, who are giving you their front shields, consider this:

Instead of shooting 4 P-1 dice at one target, scoring 4 hits only to have them halved to 2 due to the half damage rule, try this:

Shoot one die from a mount at one Klingon, and the other die at the other Klingon. You hit with one P-1 for a point of damage, which is halved but rounded up. Halved to .5, round up to 1. So you scored 1 pt for that phaser-1 die. So each of 2 ships takes 1 pt damage.

Repeat with the other Phaser-1 mount with 2 dice, splitting fire again. In the end you end up doing 4 damage this way, not 2 if you fired them as a group at one target. This does not seem to work at range-8 killzone, by the way, but it does work well at ranges longer than killzone range.

 

[Democratus]

It's an interesting flip, having the Federation be the ones to maneuver with subtlety while the Klingons can be much more direct. Totally the opposite of SFB.

I'll keep all this advice in mind next time Requete is across the table. Thanks!

 

[Requete]

It's an interesting flip, having the Federation be the ones to maneuver with subtlety while the Klingons can be much more direct. Totally the opposite of SFB.

I'll keep all this advice in mind next time Requete is across the table. Thanks!

It certainly is different. Cue Alec Baldwin: ABC. Always Be Closing.

The more direct approach, always be facing the enemy feels fairly Klingon to me, even from a J. Mike Ford standpoint.

 

[locarno24]

The thing that drives the biggest tactical change - aside from assorted swearwords about drones which have been treated with enough bile-drenched rage and don't need repeating here - from SFB is that there is only one 'shield' on a ship.

Where multiple independent shield facings exist, you want to put as many phaser beams, torpedoes, drones, suicide shuttles, disruptor bolts and rabid space badgers through one facing as possible. The most efficient result you can get is a ship which has one shield facing collapsed and is massively on fire whilst the other (five? I think?) are still completely untouched. Which direction doesn't matter so much, even against klingons, as only hitting it from one.

In ACTA, fire from any direction knocks down a single common pool of shields, so you can attack from multiple directions without penalty.

Now against Fed flat-tops, the desire to slash in from a single direction still holds - they have Ph1s pointing in every direction, and all you achieve by surrounding them is letting them fire more of their guns at once.

Against a klingon ship, however, its side and rear weapons are just as much of a joke as its side and rear shields; if it's got its frontal guns pointed at something, the extra firepower it gets from getting to fire those Ph2 popguns is not going to significantly increase the turn's damage output, and the doubling of weapons effectiveness more than makes up for this.

Equally, since there is only one shield, you can in theory fire into a frigate's flanks with ships A and B, collapse the shield, then smack it in the face with C and never actually have to deal with the frontal shields rule.