Post by Jester on Jul 2, 2010 8:03:17 GMT -5
Ok, this is an AAR that Ciaphus (my buddy Joe) wrote for our game this past Tuesday. He dosnt have his login info (as he is at the beach now...poor fella 
) so I am posting this for him.
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Curtis (Jester) and Joe (Ciaphus)
Veteran players of other space combat games, including BFG, B5 Call to Arms and Full Thrust, Curtis and I recently purchased and downloaded Colonial Battlefleets (CB) and the ship building file.
Since then we have been bantering back and forth about the rules and indulging our personal compulsions, namely Curtis posting on the Forum at a pace that he’ll be a Rear Admiral by August and me playing with the ship building excel file into the wee hours building out 50 destroyer variants or something stupid. I’m not sure how many ship variants I have built. I think I was in a coma involuntarily typing new variations.
I mean seriously, I really like the Shipyard program but it’s like giving Dr. Moreau a gene-splicer and a case of Red Bull.
We’ve played two meeting engagement test games to get used to the rules and play with ship options to get a feel for the various weapons. We decided to use the default “all 5” faction setting so we’ would both have access to all tech and the option to try just about anything out.
Out first game we started at a speed of 5 and gradually moved forward. We had one big pass through in which Curtis got the initiative roll on the primary firing turn and his battleship blew up my flagship pretty much salting away the first encounter. We came away with a bunch of questions for the Forum and planned game 2.
The following is a rough summary of this game. The purpose was to try out some new ship features and continue learning the rules. We’re sticking with the basic 6-point missile movement. We agreed to 2,500 points/mass up front to save time on game night so we could have our lists ready to go.
We did not talk in advance about what we would try out in our lists. We were both somewhat missile heavy in game one and both of us wanted to try some other stuff out, so we have missiles in game two, but neither fleet was missile dominant.
As Curtis noted in an earlier post he likes to play the heavy gun line. He also likes fighters and carrier warfare. So Fleet Jester (2500) was built around a huge BB 1000 with heavy rail guns, max armor, missiles and no shields (we don’t need no stinking shields). There were two 348 point CA with some shielding, missile bays and turbo lasers. He ran 3 CL 90 screen ships with primarily PD and light weapons and one 449 BC carrier with 4 bays of fighters. He armed his interceptors with fusion missiles. He capped off the points with 2 small scout destroyers which he deployed with the fleet of 9 ships.
I enjoy playing light, fast, and agile space fleets. Going into the game I wanted to try a few things out. I wanted to have some RDF ships to test out their agility. I think grape shot is hilarious, so I wanted to use it. Even though stealth is limited to DD in CB I like the stealth attribute. Spatial distortion torpedoes sound like a hoot and I wanted to see how a cruiser and escort heavy fleet would fare.
The Ciaphus Fleet had 13 ships. I played 1 548 BC RDF ship with high shielding, armor 7, 4 Spatial Distortion tubes F/P/S and 2 A/P/S. The Scorpion also had 2 sets of 4 grape shot with 8 each in the magazine and 2 missile bays with 3 tubes. All the SDT and missile bays only had one salvo, so Scorpion was designed as a fly in, try and kill a BB and get out of Dodge ship.
Accompanying the BC were 5 cruisers. Actually one, Boxer, was the smallest version of a RDF BC at 360. It started on the drawing board as a 348 CA but I wanted to add 2 SDT tubes so I bumped it up one level. Besides the SDT tubes, it had a missile bay, fighter bay and some grapeshot. Two cruisers were mass 281 CA carriers with 9 squadrons of fighters each very little in the way of guns or beams. These I named Ranger class as they delivered a high number of fighters at a relatively low mass cost. I had two fighting CA variants. Magnum CA 325 was a battle line cruiser with low shielding, 6 armor, T-Marines and 8 mag-cannons. Beaufort CA 281 RDF had grape shot, 2 Ion cannons, missile bay and a fighter bay.
I had 5 destroyers. Four were a 40 mass class called Gnat. Gnats are scouts with advanced stealth and a missile bay with 3 shots. One was 53 mass “Louis” with advanced stealth, a missile bay and a fighter bay. As you can tell I had more fighters but I did not invest in fusion torpedoes for the interceptors.
We started in opposite ends of a 4x6’ hex map. Without posting a picture think of Fleet Jester being deployed in the Northeast corner and Fleet Ciaphus being in the Southwest. To keep it simple for a test we had mirror image asteroid groups from about 12-16 hexes from the table edge in our respective corners.
Rather than each start at speed 5 we thought we would try out variable speed writing down the speed of each of our ships. Curtis/Jester deployed in a large group in his section such that the 3 screen ships covered all his fleet from any stealth mines and began at speed 2 creeping forward. I decided to keep all 5 destroyers in stealth mode. I started all my other ships at speed 12 except for the two carriers which I started at 4. All my ships were pointed NE (hex side 2 if 1 is due North).
Turn 1 I zipped forward accelerating to 14 with my cruisers and BC with the carriers and their first launch wave lagging behind (not a great idea but amusing). I’m two turns from swinging around the asteroid field in Jester’s deployment zone at this rate. Jester slowed down and turned to intercept but slowed to speed 1, launching missiles and fighters on intercept courses.
Turn 2 Jester moved first setting up another wave of fighters and missiles up to intercept me if I continued to swing around the belt by turn 3. Basically all his fighter squadrons were waiting which looked awesome. His fleet was still moving slowly positioning to receive.
My turn two, I continued moving at 12-14, lining up on a path to swing around the North side of the asteroid field to attack his fleet. The Magnum was Delta 1 so I kept it slightly behind. All the other ships were either RDF or Delta 2. Did I mention I had grape shot? I positioned my two BC and two screen ships up front and after moving launched a cloud of 10 or 12 grape shot clouds in layers lined up nicely across a 5 hex wide wave lined up with about 80% of Jester’s fighter squadrons. “Sir, there seems to be some sort of cloud in front of the enemy fleet”…..
This is also about the time it occurred to me that I was traveling at speed 12 to 14 and my grape shot moves at 8 (insert from Jester: We laughed quite a bit about this as he had to change course next turn so he didn’t run into his own grape shot…hehe). This moving fast stuff is going to be tricky. Even though I had out flown my fighter cover (note to self, keep carriers up closer to main fleet) I was not that worried about the enemy fighters. I was hoping the grape shot would suppress them. My main concern was two waves of 9 missiles and one of 2 coming toward my fleet. Even with 2 screen ships is would not have enough PD to knock down a group of 9 missiles. This turn I also brought a Gnat out of stealth on my side of the asteroid field and it came in at speed 5.
Turn 3. I got initiative. The grape shot cloud hits the Jester fighters. A couple flights disappeared and about 70% of his squadrons took between 1 and 5 hits out of 6. It was time for evasive action. Backing down to a speed of 11-13 per ship I cranked up the RDF and took a hard right moving the bigger BC (Scorpion) the two CL and Magnum CA behind the asteroid field aborting the swing around the into the missiles and fighters. That still left some missile issues. Boxer is starting at speed 14 and has a Delta of 2 but is RDF. Boxer is staring at one 9 missile wave heading straight at it about and another that has turned into the asteroid field and is in position to hit the bulk of my fleet on the other side next turn.
Boxer drops speed by 2 and does a complete loop basically ending up in about the same hex. Curtis/Jester reminds me that spatial disruption torpedoes not only blow up ordinance in the target hex, they blow up asteroids too! So, I blast the 9 missile salvo that threatens the main part of my fleet, blowing a small planetoid into fragments as well. That rocks! Also a heroic Gnat receives the order to ram the other 9 missile salvo, sacrificing itself. Despite this sacrifice I’m thinking Boxer is in trouble.
Jester’s BB fires 12 heavy rail guns 14 hexes at Boxer. Happily the range is far enough that Boxer survives with minimal damage. Not so nice is that there is another wave of 9 heading toward the asteroid filed in line with my large BC. Missiles can go through the asteroid field and my big BC is exactly 8 hexes from the salvo, so I will get hit in Turn 4.
Turn 4 Jester starts turning his fleet trying to come around to the south side of the asteroid field reacting to my change in direction. His missile salvo hit my BC taking it down to about 35 hull points but it’s still capable. Boxer swings back over with the rest of the fleet using speed and RDF. One of his Heavy cruisers has moved outside of 4 hexes of the screen ships so I drop a stealth mine on it and roll a 9 so it hits. I roll a 2 so only 2 mines hit the ship but they do 2 FC critical hits largely taking that heavy cruiser out of the shooting phase. In my half of the turn I swing around the south side of the asteroid field and move all my BC, CA and CL right up onto his fleet. Jester let me go first so he would know where I was. He was still only going about 2-3 so if he moved first, I could have accelerated and probably got into “aft” positions. I popped 3 destroyers out of stealth to join in the attack and got first firing.
Jester’s BB has no shields so it’s now or never. Scorpion, my big BC, launches 6 missiles and fires 4 spatial distortion torpedoes. His BB is 10 armor. The SD Torps don’t care and do 40 points of hull damage and 4 criticals. The missiles will hit next turn.
His BB heavy rail guns are still active. I’m actually hoping he fires on Scorpion because even if it dies, Magnum is in position to fire 8 mag cannons and Beaufort is ready to fire as well. Beaufort had also launched missiles. Missiles from Beaufort and Scorpion will hit his BB next turn. Jester notices the mag cannons and lower shields of Magnum and fires at it, destroying it. Darn. I fire first in escort phase and do some more damage to the BB and one of his CA. His CA and other stuff do more damage on Scorpion. .
Scorpion is down to 15 hull points. It hit the big BB hard but did not kill it. It won’t be able to stand to-to-toe another turn but it is going speed 13 and is RDF Delta 2 so it accelerates to 15, does an about face and flies back behind the asteroids. In the missile phase, PD and supporting screen ships keep Jester’s BB alive but it is down to about 15 hull points. One of Jester’s 2 CA is about 50% damaged but without Magnum’s firepower I don’t have enough to stay in contact so I accelerate the entire fleet. The RDF ships are all back on the other side of the asteroid field and the screen ships are away. The destroyers move away as well and in the fire phase re-cloak.
At this point we end it as it is getting late and I need to drive 6 hours the next morning for vacation so we called it. I lost a destroyer and CA. Jester did not lose any ships. He lost a good part of his fighter force and the large BB was down to 15 hull points but not dead. Boxer still had 3 spatial disruption torpedoes in its magazine, so if we continued it may have gotten in position to finish off the BB, but we had accomplished what we wanted. Plus I had fighter superiority at that point.
The high speed is fun but can be tricky. The order sequence is still taking some getting used to.
I should have kept my carriers closer instead of slowing them down to protect them. My fighters would have been closer and joined in the attacks
Grape shot is a hoot. Spatial Disruption torpedoes are awesome for attacking ships and blowing up dangerous missile waves.
I made a couple bad rookie mistakes. One was not remembering that missiles drive through asteroid belts. I wanted to use the Ion cannons after hitting the BB hard with the BC to suppress return fire from Jester’s BB. The thought was Magnum, with 8 mag cannons plus the incoming missiles would finish it off. But like an idiot I did not put the ion cannons on a capital ship so the capital first then escorts rule messed up the sequencing. Boxer suppressed missiles with its spatial disruption torpedoes but in doing so I did not get it in position to do a coup de gras on the BB before we called it.
Personally I like missiles as 8 hex pseudo direct fire weapons. I purposely did not play as many missiles in this test game to try out other weapons, but all my missile shots were made within 8 hexes by RDF ships making them virtually auto hit (if they get through PD), 8 hex, shield ignoring heavy torpedoes.
Hope you enjoyed,
Ciaphus
) so I am posting this for him. -----------------------------------------------------
Curtis (Jester) and Joe (Ciaphus)
Veteran players of other space combat games, including BFG, B5 Call to Arms and Full Thrust, Curtis and I recently purchased and downloaded Colonial Battlefleets (CB) and the ship building file.
Since then we have been bantering back and forth about the rules and indulging our personal compulsions, namely Curtis posting on the Forum at a pace that he’ll be a Rear Admiral by August and me playing with the ship building excel file into the wee hours building out 50 destroyer variants or something stupid. I’m not sure how many ship variants I have built. I think I was in a coma involuntarily typing new variations.
I mean seriously, I really like the Shipyard program but it’s like giving Dr. Moreau a gene-splicer and a case of Red Bull.
We’ve played two meeting engagement test games to get used to the rules and play with ship options to get a feel for the various weapons. We decided to use the default “all 5” faction setting so we’ would both have access to all tech and the option to try just about anything out.
Out first game we started at a speed of 5 and gradually moved forward. We had one big pass through in which Curtis got the initiative roll on the primary firing turn and his battleship blew up my flagship pretty much salting away the first encounter. We came away with a bunch of questions for the Forum and planned game 2.
The following is a rough summary of this game. The purpose was to try out some new ship features and continue learning the rules. We’re sticking with the basic 6-point missile movement. We agreed to 2,500 points/mass up front to save time on game night so we could have our lists ready to go.
We did not talk in advance about what we would try out in our lists. We were both somewhat missile heavy in game one and both of us wanted to try some other stuff out, so we have missiles in game two, but neither fleet was missile dominant.
As Curtis noted in an earlier post he likes to play the heavy gun line. He also likes fighters and carrier warfare. So Fleet Jester (2500) was built around a huge BB 1000 with heavy rail guns, max armor, missiles and no shields (we don’t need no stinking shields). There were two 348 point CA with some shielding, missile bays and turbo lasers. He ran 3 CL 90 screen ships with primarily PD and light weapons and one 449 BC carrier with 4 bays of fighters. He armed his interceptors with fusion missiles. He capped off the points with 2 small scout destroyers which he deployed with the fleet of 9 ships.
I enjoy playing light, fast, and agile space fleets. Going into the game I wanted to try a few things out. I wanted to have some RDF ships to test out their agility. I think grape shot is hilarious, so I wanted to use it. Even though stealth is limited to DD in CB I like the stealth attribute. Spatial distortion torpedoes sound like a hoot and I wanted to see how a cruiser and escort heavy fleet would fare.
The Ciaphus Fleet had 13 ships. I played 1 548 BC RDF ship with high shielding, armor 7, 4 Spatial Distortion tubes F/P/S and 2 A/P/S. The Scorpion also had 2 sets of 4 grape shot with 8 each in the magazine and 2 missile bays with 3 tubes. All the SDT and missile bays only had one salvo, so Scorpion was designed as a fly in, try and kill a BB and get out of Dodge ship.
Accompanying the BC were 5 cruisers. Actually one, Boxer, was the smallest version of a RDF BC at 360. It started on the drawing board as a 348 CA but I wanted to add 2 SDT tubes so I bumped it up one level. Besides the SDT tubes, it had a missile bay, fighter bay and some grapeshot. Two cruisers were mass 281 CA carriers with 9 squadrons of fighters each very little in the way of guns or beams. These I named Ranger class as they delivered a high number of fighters at a relatively low mass cost. I had two fighting CA variants. Magnum CA 325 was a battle line cruiser with low shielding, 6 armor, T-Marines and 8 mag-cannons. Beaufort CA 281 RDF had grape shot, 2 Ion cannons, missile bay and a fighter bay.
I had 5 destroyers. Four were a 40 mass class called Gnat. Gnats are scouts with advanced stealth and a missile bay with 3 shots. One was 53 mass “Louis” with advanced stealth, a missile bay and a fighter bay. As you can tell I had more fighters but I did not invest in fusion torpedoes for the interceptors.
We started in opposite ends of a 4x6’ hex map. Without posting a picture think of Fleet Jester being deployed in the Northeast corner and Fleet Ciaphus being in the Southwest. To keep it simple for a test we had mirror image asteroid groups from about 12-16 hexes from the table edge in our respective corners.
Rather than each start at speed 5 we thought we would try out variable speed writing down the speed of each of our ships. Curtis/Jester deployed in a large group in his section such that the 3 screen ships covered all his fleet from any stealth mines and began at speed 2 creeping forward. I decided to keep all 5 destroyers in stealth mode. I started all my other ships at speed 12 except for the two carriers which I started at 4. All my ships were pointed NE (hex side 2 if 1 is due North).
Turn 1 I zipped forward accelerating to 14 with my cruisers and BC with the carriers and their first launch wave lagging behind (not a great idea but amusing). I’m two turns from swinging around the asteroid field in Jester’s deployment zone at this rate. Jester slowed down and turned to intercept but slowed to speed 1, launching missiles and fighters on intercept courses.
Turn 2 Jester moved first setting up another wave of fighters and missiles up to intercept me if I continued to swing around the belt by turn 3. Basically all his fighter squadrons were waiting which looked awesome. His fleet was still moving slowly positioning to receive.
My turn two, I continued moving at 12-14, lining up on a path to swing around the North side of the asteroid field to attack his fleet. The Magnum was Delta 1 so I kept it slightly behind. All the other ships were either RDF or Delta 2. Did I mention I had grape shot? I positioned my two BC and two screen ships up front and after moving launched a cloud of 10 or 12 grape shot clouds in layers lined up nicely across a 5 hex wide wave lined up with about 80% of Jester’s fighter squadrons. “Sir, there seems to be some sort of cloud in front of the enemy fleet”…..
This is also about the time it occurred to me that I was traveling at speed 12 to 14 and my grape shot moves at 8 (insert from Jester: We laughed quite a bit about this as he had to change course next turn so he didn’t run into his own grape shot…hehe). This moving fast stuff is going to be tricky. Even though I had out flown my fighter cover (note to self, keep carriers up closer to main fleet) I was not that worried about the enemy fighters. I was hoping the grape shot would suppress them. My main concern was two waves of 9 missiles and one of 2 coming toward my fleet. Even with 2 screen ships is would not have enough PD to knock down a group of 9 missiles. This turn I also brought a Gnat out of stealth on my side of the asteroid field and it came in at speed 5.
Turn 3. I got initiative. The grape shot cloud hits the Jester fighters. A couple flights disappeared and about 70% of his squadrons took between 1 and 5 hits out of 6. It was time for evasive action. Backing down to a speed of 11-13 per ship I cranked up the RDF and took a hard right moving the bigger BC (Scorpion) the two CL and Magnum CA behind the asteroid field aborting the swing around the into the missiles and fighters. That still left some missile issues. Boxer is starting at speed 14 and has a Delta of 2 but is RDF. Boxer is staring at one 9 missile wave heading straight at it about and another that has turned into the asteroid field and is in position to hit the bulk of my fleet on the other side next turn.
Boxer drops speed by 2 and does a complete loop basically ending up in about the same hex. Curtis/Jester reminds me that spatial disruption torpedoes not only blow up ordinance in the target hex, they blow up asteroids too! So, I blast the 9 missile salvo that threatens the main part of my fleet, blowing a small planetoid into fragments as well. That rocks! Also a heroic Gnat receives the order to ram the other 9 missile salvo, sacrificing itself. Despite this sacrifice I’m thinking Boxer is in trouble.
Jester’s BB fires 12 heavy rail guns 14 hexes at Boxer. Happily the range is far enough that Boxer survives with minimal damage. Not so nice is that there is another wave of 9 heading toward the asteroid filed in line with my large BC. Missiles can go through the asteroid field and my big BC is exactly 8 hexes from the salvo, so I will get hit in Turn 4.
Turn 4 Jester starts turning his fleet trying to come around to the south side of the asteroid field reacting to my change in direction. His missile salvo hit my BC taking it down to about 35 hull points but it’s still capable. Boxer swings back over with the rest of the fleet using speed and RDF. One of his Heavy cruisers has moved outside of 4 hexes of the screen ships so I drop a stealth mine on it and roll a 9 so it hits. I roll a 2 so only 2 mines hit the ship but they do 2 FC critical hits largely taking that heavy cruiser out of the shooting phase. In my half of the turn I swing around the south side of the asteroid field and move all my BC, CA and CL right up onto his fleet. Jester let me go first so he would know where I was. He was still only going about 2-3 so if he moved first, I could have accelerated and probably got into “aft” positions. I popped 3 destroyers out of stealth to join in the attack and got first firing.
Jester’s BB has no shields so it’s now or never. Scorpion, my big BC, launches 6 missiles and fires 4 spatial distortion torpedoes. His BB is 10 armor. The SD Torps don’t care and do 40 points of hull damage and 4 criticals. The missiles will hit next turn.
His BB heavy rail guns are still active. I’m actually hoping he fires on Scorpion because even if it dies, Magnum is in position to fire 8 mag cannons and Beaufort is ready to fire as well. Beaufort had also launched missiles. Missiles from Beaufort and Scorpion will hit his BB next turn. Jester notices the mag cannons and lower shields of Magnum and fires at it, destroying it. Darn. I fire first in escort phase and do some more damage to the BB and one of his CA. His CA and other stuff do more damage on Scorpion. .
Scorpion is down to 15 hull points. It hit the big BB hard but did not kill it. It won’t be able to stand to-to-toe another turn but it is going speed 13 and is RDF Delta 2 so it accelerates to 15, does an about face and flies back behind the asteroids. In the missile phase, PD and supporting screen ships keep Jester’s BB alive but it is down to about 15 hull points. One of Jester’s 2 CA is about 50% damaged but without Magnum’s firepower I don’t have enough to stay in contact so I accelerate the entire fleet. The RDF ships are all back on the other side of the asteroid field and the screen ships are away. The destroyers move away as well and in the fire phase re-cloak.
At this point we end it as it is getting late and I need to drive 6 hours the next morning for vacation so we called it. I lost a destroyer and CA. Jester did not lose any ships. He lost a good part of his fighter force and the large BB was down to 15 hull points but not dead. Boxer still had 3 spatial disruption torpedoes in its magazine, so if we continued it may have gotten in position to finish off the BB, but we had accomplished what we wanted. Plus I had fighter superiority at that point.
The high speed is fun but can be tricky. The order sequence is still taking some getting used to.
I should have kept my carriers closer instead of slowing them down to protect them. My fighters would have been closer and joined in the attacks
Grape shot is a hoot. Spatial Disruption torpedoes are awesome for attacking ships and blowing up dangerous missile waves.
I made a couple bad rookie mistakes. One was not remembering that missiles drive through asteroid belts. I wanted to use the Ion cannons after hitting the BB hard with the BC to suppress return fire from Jester’s BB. The thought was Magnum, with 8 mag cannons plus the incoming missiles would finish it off. But like an idiot I did not put the ion cannons on a capital ship so the capital first then escorts rule messed up the sequencing. Boxer suppressed missiles with its spatial disruption torpedoes but in doing so I did not get it in position to do a coup de gras on the BB before we called it.
Personally I like missiles as 8 hex pseudo direct fire weapons. I purposely did not play as many missiles in this test game to try out other weapons, but all my missile shots were made within 8 hexes by RDF ships making them virtually auto hit (if they get through PD), 8 hex, shield ignoring heavy torpedoes.
Hope you enjoyed,
Ciaphus
