CBF: Lair of the Dragon replay

[warchariot]

This is a Member Challenge post.

I couldn't get my pictures to post for some reason so here is a link to SCN where I post the battle report below with pictures;

www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6876&p=76293#p76293

I added a picture to help get you over to SCN. It was my photobucket issue.



We replayed Lair of the Dragon, a scenario from the new Man vs Machine supplement for Colonial Battlefleet. Robert's derelict Cylon OS Basestar was what inspired me to write this scenario in the first place.

The Colonial fleet spends its 2400 points on an Achilles, Agamennon, Wolf Assault R, Pharaoh M class, and two Marauder cruisers.

The Cyborgs (Cylons) countered with a Four Blade, two each Three Blades, Two Blades, and Harbingers, for a total of 2800 points. The Cyborgs had 40 Reaper Mk IIIs (Raiders) and 9 Hvy Reapers (Hvy Raiders) against the Colonial’s 22 Leopard fighter (Vipers) and 9 Tigers (Raptors)

The Harbingers are a Raider role ship which is new to MvM and allows these ships to micro-jump during the game as some fighter classes do. This meant they surprised the Colonials by showing up on the right flank.

Cyborgs win the first initiative, and go first as the aggressor, launching fighters, missiles and moving forward. Their plan is to swan the derelict, the objective of the game, and keep the Colonial Tigers from landing.

The Colonials have a great turn using their screen role CLs to ECM some missiles, fire Cluster missiles at/toward the Cylon fighters, and blow one from Harbingers into space dust, too bad it would be the only good turn they had.

The Cyborgs now press the attack launching more missiles and fighters, the Colonials close in around there Battleline ships to help keep the missiles and fighters off of them.

The fighters jump the light ships and the missiles finish them off at the start of turn 3. The Colonials decide the only option is to destroy the derelict and try to jump clear.

Only the Wolf Assault boat makes it out, all other ships is destroyed as is the derelict.

The game ended at the start of turn 4 as the Orion remained on the board facing the entire Cyborg fleet.

Note: Those of you who have the game may realize there is not a Wolf Assault R class, this is a variant we used replacing the Leopards with tiger gunships. We did this because of the scenario and it does lower the cost of the ship, but not enough to matter.

[TheDreadnought]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing!!

[fastgit]

Wow. The Colonials got smoked.

[TheDreadnought]

Yeah, found that interesting. Warchariot, care to comment on why?

[warchariot]

Well, it was a combination of things. First, we used the Tiger gunships poorly after the first turn. We kept them away from the battle so we would have them to board with, and never got close. The first turn we ECMed some missiles and on the final turn directed gun fire at the derelict assuring its destruction. We used the screen ships to screen the Orion and the missile cruiser to hold the right flank and shot Cluster missiles into the Cyborg fighter/missile area, all good, but not enough.

The main reason was our Cyborg player (Steve) is an expert at missiles. He had a total of 116 ASGMs and another 30 or so Cluster missiles. He launched at range (20+ hexes), mid range (10-15 hexes) and closed to using some at the can't miss range (eight or less and they move first). He also covered his missiles with Reaper Mk IIIs, placing them in the same hexes as his lead missile element so the Tigers couldn't move into the same hex, great use of his extra fighters as he out numbered us almost 2-1.

Steve also used his fighters to swam the objective and to jump on the small ships which worked wonderful for him.

At the beginning of turn 3, we had to decide what to do-leave the field, move away from the objective and take a minimum of 2 turns to get back in position, (we hadn't slowed enough) or close on the wreak and take it out. We selected number three and started to spin-up our jump engines and recover fighters. The Achillies went in to take out the derelict, but to have a shot had to move over 3 missiles and be in range of the Four Blade, both Three Blades and a Two Blade. She took out the objective, but sustained 20 missiles incoming, with 18 hitting, four penetrating her AV9 hull for 110 hits on a 95 hit hull.

So needless to say, if I had lived, I would have been canned.

[TheDreadnought]

Ouch. Do you think Colonials would have a better shot if played again?

[fastgit]

A perfect storm... and a lesson in the effectiveness of ASGMs deployed correctly: at range and in numbers.

[warchariot]

Jan 17, 2011 21:52:33 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Ouch. Do you think Colonials would have a better shot if played again?

Yes, I think they have a good shot, we just played badly in the face of a great game by Steve.