NashCon 2012 - The Battle for Kh'rtis Rock - AAR

[scoutdad]

The Battle for Kh'rtis Rock:
In early Y172, the Klingon forces rolled across the Federation border outposts as the Coalition advanced towards Sol and certain victory. As a part of this campaign, the Klingons built several hastily organized repair depots to support the drive to Sol. As the Alliance war effort built, these depots were prime targets as one could often catch them with several partially repaired ships which were easier to destroy than fully functional vessels.

One such repair depot was located in the vicinity of a Class T world with several lifeless moons and moonlets scattered about. The Klingons built a battle station in orbit around the 3rd moon of the planet and this was the hub of the repair depot. The moon was named Kh'rtis Rock, after ESS Lt. Commander Kh'rtis. (It seems that so much territory was occupied in such a short time that that the intelligence officers took to naming locations after active duty ESS agents...)

This scenario reenacts the epic battle to destroy the Klingon forward supply base near Kh'rtis Rock during the Alliance counter-offensive. [Players are warned that this is the largest tactical scenario in Star Fleet Universe published to date, with a total of sixty ships in the order of battle. It is designed to be played using the A Call to Arms: Star Fleet rules, but players are welcome to try it in Federation Commander or even in Star Fleet Battles, if they so desire.]
Federation:
The Federation forces consist of three separate task forces, totaling 29 ships:
Task Force One (TF-1): Dreadnought, 3xHeavy Cruiser, 2xLight Cruiser , 2xDestroyer, 3xFrigate
Task Force Two (TF-2): Command Cruiser, 2xHeavy Cruiser, 2xLight Cruiser, 2xDestroyers, 3xFrigate
Task Force Three (TF-3): Heavy Cruiser, 2xLight Cruiser, 2xDestroyer, 3xFrigate
Klingon:
The Klingon forces consist of four separate battle squadrons, totaling 31 warships, several non-combatant ships, and a battle station; as well as several secretly located ground based defense platforms
Squadron Alpha: D7C, D7, 3x D6, 3x F5, 2x E4
Squadron Beta: 3x D7, 3x F5
Squadron Charlie:3x D6, 4x E4
Squadron Delta: 3x D7, 3x D6, 3x F5 (the ships in Delta have pre-existing battle damage and are docked to either the battle station or the repair ships and are undergoing repair.)

Turn One:
The Federation forces deployed along the SW edge of the map and slowly advanced towards the repair depot.
The Klingons moved into the gap between the BATS and the nearby Asteroid field to create a bottle neck.
Long range drone fire was mostly ineffective although a lucky hit on a repair vessel gave the Klingons a moments panic.

Turn Two:
The first of the Federation reinforces deployed along the SE edge of the map and went APE to close the gap.
TF-1 continued to advance and fired more long range drones at the now retreating Klingon repair ships.
The Klingons undocked the vessels at the repair ships and moved out to engage the advancing forces.
One more repair ship and a damages F5 were lost.

Turn Three:
he first of the Klingon reinforcements arrived. These entered the southern edge of the map and went APE as they attempted to swing through the gravity well of a conveniently placed planetoid to get in position to intercept the advancing Federation forces.
The Phaser IVs of the BATS came into play and several ate into the shields of a couple of Federation units.
Meanwhile, more F5s and E4s died or were crippled by the withering amount of fire they were subjected to.
The Federation player did fire long-range photons at the BATS for the first time... and all 4 missed.

Turn Four:
Turn 4 was more of the same. The Federation continued advancing, the Klingons pretty much remained in their defensive pattern and boosted shields.
More ships fell on both sides, but the Klingons were steadily gaining the upper hand.

Turn Five:
The last of the Klingon reinforcements arrived and as luck would have it, they entered the map almost directly on the flanks of the initial Federation forces.

Since it was getting late and the Klingons would decimate the Federation forces on the map before the final reinforcements would arrive - the game was called in favor of the Klingons.

Through the game, ten to twelve non-ACTA players came to observe and ask about a demo. They were all given some of the ships and allowed to take part in the battle. Much fun was had by all and we will do the same thing next year - with a few tweaks learned from this event.

 

[scoutdad]

The set-up is completed:

The Klingon Repair Depot:

 

[scoutdad]

The ongoing battle:

 

[scoutdad]

 

[scoutdad]

Even more photos can be found HERE!

 

[The Big D]

Now this is how the game should be played! Truly epic.

What rules were you using for the destroyers?

Geoff

 

[billclo]

Tony, a question.

How did you guys get so far along in this massive scenario? The reason I ask is that I'm trying to figure out what size scenario to run in November. I've been using a rough metric to determine how fast we have been playing games, called Ship-Hours (# of ships in the scenario x # of turns completed) / Hours to complete the game.

We started at about 9, then 12, and are at the 15ish mark now (9 ships vs 8 in 3.25 hrs). Using my formula, you guys got about 37.5 :shock:

How'd you do it? Does having more players handling fewer ships each seem to speed up the game?

 

[scoutdad]

Now this is how the game should be played! Truly epic.

What rules were you using for the destroyers?

Geoff

I stated out the ships from the Fed Comm ship card. Of course, my numbers will probably be slightly different than the official ones when and if they come out, but no one complained.

The only thing I did differently was list the DD as being "underpowered", ala the War Eagle. I figured limiting it to only two Photons a turn, or nothing else and move 6 inches would recreate the feel of the early war, FJD destroyer.

 

[scoutdad]

Tony, a question.

How did you guys get so far along in this massive scenario?...

...How'd you do it? Does having more players handling fewer ships each seem to speed up the game?

We cheated! :lol:
Actually, one of the Fed groups (TF-3) never made it onto the board and the final Klingon squadron only hit the board on turn 5.
There were 6 ships (3x D6 and 3x D7) that were docked to the BATS for repairs and they never un-docked.

Another thing we did was assign an experienced player from our group as fleet commander. He selcted the order in whihc each individual squadron was moved and fired. General orders were issued, such as; circle the planet to close on the Federation DNG... or head towards TF-2s flank as max speed.
Then firing orders were issued the same way. Todd, fire all weapons on D6 sqaudron Baker at the Fed frigate on you left...

The comanders were experienced enough to be deciding who should move / fire next while the other side was completing its action - so there was no down time as 5 players discussed which ship to move next.

Next year, it's going to go even faster. I've learned a few things and thought of a few tricks to help.
The biggest time consumer was finding the right ship card for the right ship:
Notice the Fed reinforcements in this picture:

I used color coded, post-it notes to flag the bases of the ships. TF-1 was blue, TF-2 was green, TF-3 was yellow, and so on.
Next time, the ship card will be printed on colored paper that matches the color of the tag on the ship. This should drastically speed things up.

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

Excellent looking battle you had there. Quite the fleet action. Especially nice to see a BATS in play as I've been wanting to try a scenario based on one. I'm not really sure just how powerful they'll be (they're massive and durable, but I suspect Dilithium crits could kill it if its not careful).

I am glad to see some Saladins in there. Though I really don't think they warrant underpowered. Fedcom Talk: 23 power undamaged is more than enough for basic operation of a ship with 1/2 movement cost and only 8 phasers, even with the cost of holding photons. She's a bit underpowered, yes, but everything that would seriously strain her is already a power drain special action. Having 18 Max Shields and Turn 6 (by my conversion estimates) would be weakness enough.

 

[bluebirds40]

great battle report.

 

[The Big D]

Now this is how the game should be played! Truly epic.

What rules were you using for the destroyers?

Geoff

I stated out the ships from the Fed Comm ship card. Of course, my numbers will probably be slightly different than the official ones when and if they come out, but no one complained.

The only thing I did differently was list the DD as being "underpowered", ala the War Eagle. I figured limiting it to only two Photons a turn, or nothing else and move 6 inches would recreate the feel of the early war, FJD destroyer.

I was giving mine the slow trait. When I was statting up the DD I realised it had exactly the same weapons as the NCL so I may end up using the NCL rules at a pinch, but it had significantly less power boxes and less shields. I reasoned that for combat operations for an overgunned ship they would as a matter of course sacrifice speed for firepower. It is a destroyer after all!
This would mean it has to take one of the weapon firing restrictions to reload the photons. Probably the phasers only dropping the drone. It also has to stop firing something to reinforce the shields. My only issue is how to point it up.
There is a great starting level of the NCL but slow is a significant trait and I'm not sure how profound the effect will be!

Geoff

 

[billclo]

Tony, thanks.
I'm surprised that a) you found an experienced player to head up each side, and more surprisingly b) that the other players followed his lead. My experience in Convention games is that it's every man for himself and it's rare indeed for players to actually have a command structure, let alone take "orders" from their nominal commander. :?

I think I may borrow your idea of color coding ship sheets. Rats, I've just had a bunch laminated...in white of course.

What distance apart did you start the forces? We used to use 48", but it just resulted in a waste of time. We then started using 36" apart, with no requirement to keep your forces together, ie set up anywhere on this side at 36" from enemy forces. This still results in a pretty much wasted turn as ships close slowly using Boost shields and/or IDF. Drone fire is pretty ineffective at over 18".

We may start at 24-25" next time to save time.

I was initially planning a 20 vs 23 battle, but may have to scale back slightly. Definitely will consider the squadron rules.

 

[SFU_FEAR]

I was one of the "experienced" players giving orders. I don't consider myself an experienced player as I don't get to play as much as I would like to be considered one. It was very difficult to wrap you head around that many ships. You needed to compartmentalize your goals. The biggest hinderence was what Scoutdad said, finding the card for the right ship. Color coding would be help.

Overall, had a great time with it. Just would have helped to have had a couple more players to run ships. I had upwards of a dozen under my control along with overall command, and it was difficult to keep track of everything and run them to their most effective use.

I also regret not being there from the beginning, but was under a hard deadline at work and couldn't get off for that afternoon.

My strategy was to delay the first force in time for the first reinforcements to swing around the planet to the other side of the planet to attack the Federation right flank along with the next reinforcements to roll up the Federation forces. The BATS and the beginning squadron would anchor up against the asteroids and hold the middle.

 

[billclo]

I was one of the "experienced" players giving orders. I don't consider myself an experienced player as I don't get to play as much as I would like to be considered one. It was very difficult to wrap you head around that many ships. You needed to compartmentalize your goals. The biggest hinderence was what Scoutdad said, finding the card for the right ship. Color coding would be help.

Overall, had a great time with it. Just would have helped to have had a couple more players to run ships. I had upwards of a dozen under my control along with overall command, and it was difficult to keep track of everything and run them to their most effective use.

I also regret not being there from the beginning, but was under a hard deadline at work and couldn't get off for that afternoon.

My strategy was to delay the first force in time for the first reinforcements to swing around the planet to the other side of the planet to attack the Federation right flank along with the next reinforcements to roll up the Federation forces. The BATS and the beginning squadron would anchor up against the asteroids and hold the middle.

Thanks for the commentary.

I think I could manage a dozen ships, but that it would be hard to try and coordinate the rest of the forces on top of that. Ideally, I think the commander should have a small but powerful detachment (maybe a DN and 2-3 BCH) to command, but spend most of his time focusing on the battle itself. Having a couple semi-experienced squadron commanders who can focus on the individual squadrons/individual ships would certainly help. But having this happen at a convention with total strangers is not really likely.

How did you guys manage the ground based defenses? I'd thought of including some in my convention game, but don't know the SFB stats of them to home-brew some. I might add some stealthed DefSats as well. It's likely the battle will involve transporting troops to a objective to try and take it from the defenders. I'd have to come up with some quickie combat resolution system for the ground combat though (probably something with only a couple die rolls).

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

How did you guys manage the ground based defenses? I'd thought of including some in my convention game, but don't know the SFB stats of them to home-brew some. I might add some stealthed DefSats as well. It's likely the battle will involve transporting troops to a objective to try and take it from the defenders. I'd have to come up with some quickie combat resolution system for the ground combat though (probably something with only a couple die rolls).

Could try something like the boarding rules in Noble Armada. To boil it down to its simplest "send over troops, each team rolls a d6 for each Marine team, 5+ kills an opposing marine team". Question is if want to keep track of the marines after the first turn.

Ironically I think that works out very closely to SFB's boarding to capture rules, but it has been a long time there.

 

[billclo]

How did you guys manage the ground based defenses? I'd thought of including some in my convention game, but don't know the SFB stats of them to home-brew some. I might add some stealthed DefSats as well. It's likely the battle will involve transporting troops to a objective to try and take it from the defenders. I'd have to come up with some quickie combat resolution system for the ground combat though (probably something with only a couple die rolls).

Could try something like the boarding rules in Noble Armada. To boil it down to its simplest "send over troops, each team rolls a d6 for each Marine team, 5+ kills an opposing marine team". Question is if want to keep track of the marines after the first turn.

Ironically I think that works out very closely to SFB's boarding to capture rules, but it has been a long time there.

That sounds workable enough to me. I suspect that enemy ships will be hesitant to drop shields to transport Marines while there are still defenses firing at them. Though I would allow a shuttle to transport a Marine.

Keeping track of Marines on each side is no big deal.

 

[scoutdad]

Ground defenses:
Once the bases opened fire, their location was openly known. It only takes a couple of phaser hits to take out the bases. We never bothered with ground assaults... although...

Maybe next year we'll allow some type of GroPos action. It's be cool to suddenly find out your ground bases defenses are now in enemy hands and are firing Phaser-4s at your ships!

 

[billclo]

Ground defenses:
Once the bases opened fire, their location was openly known. It only takes a couple of phaser hits to take out the bases. We never bothered with ground assaults... although...

Maybe next year we'll allow some type of GroPos action. It's be cool to suddenly find out your ground bases defenses are now in enemy hands and are firing Phaser-4s at your ships!

I had figured on the ground stations being hidden until they fired, and not being targetable unless the firing ship was at 5 inches or less. Probably a P-4, and 4 P-3 for defense, maybe 5 shields and 2-4 internals. 2 Marines per station for defense.

DefSats, can't see or fire at them until you get to 5 inches, and they're Stealth 4+ then. Klingon ones would be a disruptor or P-2, and 2 P-3 for defense perhaps. 3 shields, a couple internals. Not very powerful individually, but just a honking lot of them. :shock:

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

Some DefSat stats I cooked up a while back was 12 or 15 damage points (didn't decide which was better), no shields, 2AD of T-Arc Phaser-2s, 2 AD of T-Arc Phaser-3s and then two AD of the heavy weapons of the owning race (Plasma-Fs for Rom/Gorn, Photon/Drone for Feds, Disruptor-15/Drone for Klingons, Disruptor-15/Photon for Tholians and the usual Orion options). Immobile Trait and immune to impulse, shield and crew criticals.

Not that great. The can be nasty up close, but you can also destroy them safely from out of their range (unless they're drone satellites, but even those aren't too dangerous) which means they're a supplemental defense system that requires dedicated ships as well. Makes for good area denial though.