Lorcan Nagle
Mongoose
Last night me and my mate Vinny played a nice little 5 point Raid, Earth vs. Raiders. This was one of Vinny's first games, and the last time we played I hockeyed him out of it, tahnks in part to neither of us realising his ships had interceptors! So toniught was a much more ordered affair...
My fleet was 3rd age EA: 1 Avenger, 2 Hyperions, and 2 olympus. I had 4 flights of Thunderbolts and 6 of Starfuries.
His Fleet was 2 Battlewagons, 3 of the vree patrol level ship, and a ton of extra fighters.
In order to give him a fighting chance of approaching without taking missile and heavy laser doom, we setup 4 dust clouds across the middle of the battlefield.
As the fleets closed we launched fighters (each of the battlewagons had swapped a delta-V flight for a breaching pod as well), and the EA manouvred to engage the few ships not covered by the clouds. A solid string of laser hits on one of the Vree ships destroyed it in one volley early on, and after that the EA were jumped by fighters. The bulk of my fighters were caught up in dogfights while a large horde of Delta Vs and Double Vs closed in on an outlying Olympus, doing heavy damage in short order, before return fire took out about half of them. Of course, that olympus and its' accompanying Hyperion were about to go toe-to-toe with a battlewagon, but they pressed on regardless.
As the battle progressed, the Vree saucers died quickly, but by this time i'd lost one Olympus and the other was heavily damaged. My starfuries continued to take down the fighters, but there was so many of them it took some time. By the time they were all dead, I was down to one flight of Thunderbolts and three of Starfuries.
This is when the pain began, the battle looped back in towards the centre of the field, with the Hyperions engaging the Battlewagons, doing heavy damage but failing to put either one down. Eventually a 3-6 crit stopped one moving, and a hyperion went in to board it, sadly losing every single marine to a spirited defence. by this time one of the hyperions was taking a lot of hits itself.
As the Avenger rounded a cloud and moved in to try and board the still immobile Battlewagon, the hyperions turned on the intact one to try and take it down. And this took a while. Positioning made it hard to gain a boresight, and the Pulse and Plasma Cannons couldn't do enough damage to bring it down, even after it was reduced to crippled and lost interceptors! And then one of the hyperions took a brace of Crew crits that skeleton crewed it!
Eventually the Avenger's Marines took the immobilised Battlewagon, but only after losing more than 50% of their numbers. With the tide turning against it the skeleton crewed Hyperion ran for the edge of the field. the remaining EA ships did their best to force the Battlewagon to surrender, but fudged multiple Stand down rolls, and then the last Battlewagon decided to ram the intact Hyperion, making the roll, and taking both ships up in a massive explosion!
So the final butcher's bill for Earth was two olympus and a hyperion dead, with a second about 60% hull damage and skeleton crewed, and an Avenger with about 50% damage, also, 3 flights of starfuries and 3 of Thunderbolts were destroyed. The raider force was wiped out to the last man, and the EA did capture a battlewagon as well
It was a hard-earned victory, and I took some photos which I'll upload later.
My fleet was 3rd age EA: 1 Avenger, 2 Hyperions, and 2 olympus. I had 4 flights of Thunderbolts and 6 of Starfuries.
His Fleet was 2 Battlewagons, 3 of the vree patrol level ship, and a ton of extra fighters.
In order to give him a fighting chance of approaching without taking missile and heavy laser doom, we setup 4 dust clouds across the middle of the battlefield.
As the fleets closed we launched fighters (each of the battlewagons had swapped a delta-V flight for a breaching pod as well), and the EA manouvred to engage the few ships not covered by the clouds. A solid string of laser hits on one of the Vree ships destroyed it in one volley early on, and after that the EA were jumped by fighters. The bulk of my fighters were caught up in dogfights while a large horde of Delta Vs and Double Vs closed in on an outlying Olympus, doing heavy damage in short order, before return fire took out about half of them. Of course, that olympus and its' accompanying Hyperion were about to go toe-to-toe with a battlewagon, but they pressed on regardless.
As the battle progressed, the Vree saucers died quickly, but by this time i'd lost one Olympus and the other was heavily damaged. My starfuries continued to take down the fighters, but there was so many of them it took some time. By the time they were all dead, I was down to one flight of Thunderbolts and three of Starfuries.
This is when the pain began, the battle looped back in towards the centre of the field, with the Hyperions engaging the Battlewagons, doing heavy damage but failing to put either one down. Eventually a 3-6 crit stopped one moving, and a hyperion went in to board it, sadly losing every single marine to a spirited defence. by this time one of the hyperions was taking a lot of hits itself.
As the Avenger rounded a cloud and moved in to try and board the still immobile Battlewagon, the hyperions turned on the intact one to try and take it down. And this took a while. Positioning made it hard to gain a boresight, and the Pulse and Plasma Cannons couldn't do enough damage to bring it down, even after it was reduced to crippled and lost interceptors! And then one of the hyperions took a brace of Crew crits that skeleton crewed it!
Eventually the Avenger's Marines took the immobilised Battlewagon, but only after losing more than 50% of their numbers. With the tide turning against it the skeleton crewed Hyperion ran for the edge of the field. the remaining EA ships did their best to force the Battlewagon to surrender, but fudged multiple Stand down rolls, and then the last Battlewagon decided to ram the intact Hyperion, making the roll, and taking both ships up in a massive explosion!
So the final butcher's bill for Earth was two olympus and a hyperion dead, with a second about 60% hull damage and skeleton crewed, and an Avenger with about 50% damage, also, 3 flights of starfuries and 3 of Thunderbolts were destroyed. The raider force was wiped out to the last man, and the EA did capture a battlewagon as well
It was a hard-earned victory, and I took some photos which I'll upload later.
