Post by captainquirk on Aug 15, 2011 15:17:32 GMT -5
Played this scenario both ways over the weekend.
In game one, I was defending. My opponent made some fairly bizarre choices in ships. Usually he takes ships with a high mix of railguns. Just when they were really important for the scenario he deployed a carrier. Wasn't very effective, and his fighters made very very little difference to the game. I have to agree with postings elsewhere saying that fighters in the core rules are very weak. He never managed to get into position for a clear shot at the planet at all.
The second game was more interesting. He defended with a couple of moderate sized battleships, and a rapid deployment force of three battlecruisers and a light cruiser.
My attackers consisted of a battleship, two battlecruisers, one of which was optimised for area denial using ASGMs, plus two heavy cruisers and an escort destroyer.
My force came out of the warp point, split into two groups with the battlecruisers going down the right, and the remaining ships going to the left, and accelerated away. The ASGM battlecruiser started lobbing out its missiles in hunter mode (16 of them per turn), while the intention was for the battleship and destroyer to split from the heavy cruisers to give the defender three separate groups to face, all of which being capable of planetary bombardment.
His battlecruisers came out of the warp point and elected to pursue my larger group of ships. He soon closed on the stern of the heavy cruisers, opened fire... and scored TWO reactor explosions! Unbelievable, the jammy ***!! The only reactor hits we've had occur in all of our CB games so far, and he gets them one after the other in the same turn!
That somewhat put a damper on my attack. On the other wing, the battlecruisers traded off with the battleships, one of my ships taking a bridge hit. I had enough ASGMs running by that time though to nail him with a dozen missile attacks on each ship, causing a lot of hurt. My battlecruisers also managed to launch 28 points of bombardment damage before they succumbed.
The poor destroyer on my left flank died quickly. My battleship almost managed to break away and lined up on the planet, but with battleship delta it simply couldn't accelerate enough to outpace the enemy battlecruisers. A shame, because it only needed two turns of firing to have met the victory criteria for bombarding the planet.
Was a wonderfully tense and close game. Might have gone differently if it hadn't been for those spectacular critical hits, but hey, these things happen. I guess next time I might forego the battleship in favour of something which has higher delta.
Sorry, no pictures, didn't think of it in time. Might take some pics of the grand fleet at anchorage though when I get the camera out.
In game one, I was defending. My opponent made some fairly bizarre choices in ships. Usually he takes ships with a high mix of railguns. Just when they were really important for the scenario he deployed a carrier. Wasn't very effective, and his fighters made very very little difference to the game. I have to agree with postings elsewhere saying that fighters in the core rules are very weak. He never managed to get into position for a clear shot at the planet at all.
The second game was more interesting. He defended with a couple of moderate sized battleships, and a rapid deployment force of three battlecruisers and a light cruiser.
My attackers consisted of a battleship, two battlecruisers, one of which was optimised for area denial using ASGMs, plus two heavy cruisers and an escort destroyer.
My force came out of the warp point, split into two groups with the battlecruisers going down the right, and the remaining ships going to the left, and accelerated away. The ASGM battlecruiser started lobbing out its missiles in hunter mode (16 of them per turn), while the intention was for the battleship and destroyer to split from the heavy cruisers to give the defender three separate groups to face, all of which being capable of planetary bombardment.
His battlecruisers came out of the warp point and elected to pursue my larger group of ships. He soon closed on the stern of the heavy cruisers, opened fire... and scored TWO reactor explosions! Unbelievable, the jammy ***!! The only reactor hits we've had occur in all of our CB games so far, and he gets them one after the other in the same turn!
That somewhat put a damper on my attack. On the other wing, the battlecruisers traded off with the battleships, one of my ships taking a bridge hit. I had enough ASGMs running by that time though to nail him with a dozen missile attacks on each ship, causing a lot of hurt. My battlecruisers also managed to launch 28 points of bombardment damage before they succumbed.
The poor destroyer on my left flank died quickly. My battleship almost managed to break away and lined up on the planet, but with battleship delta it simply couldn't accelerate enough to outpace the enemy battlecruisers. A shame, because it only needed two turns of firing to have met the victory criteria for bombarding the planet.
Was a wonderfully tense and close game. Might have gone differently if it hadn't been for those spectacular critical hits, but hey, these things happen. I guess next time I might forego the battleship in favour of something which has higher delta.
Sorry, no pictures, didn't think of it in time. Might take some pics of the grand fleet at anchorage though when I get the camera out.