CBF: Battle report: Vanilla CB

[kashre]

So, after a couple of smallish starter games to get a feel for things, my Girlfriend Clarita and I decided to do a fight using the official semi-campaign system given in the rules with the scenarios.

We decided to add some flavor by randomly generating the tech levels (up to 18 levels) of our respective factions. She got pretty even rolls when she rolled up the Federated Planets of Claritosity Inc. with her highest scores in antimatter (4) and fighters (4).

I got pretty lopsided results for the Theocratic Brotherhood of Camposians, with Antimatter 5, conventional weapons 0, and quantum and orbital manufacturing at 4. Conventional weapons 0 hurts, because your armor and your PD both suck. Although antimatter 5 did give me access to some nice weapons and cheap engines.

We built our fleet rosters first. She went with laser/disruptor setups and since she knew my PD would be weak, every design she made that wasn't a carrier had ASGM missiles. I went with laser/torpedo designs to capitalize on my Antimatter 5 tech, with a metric buttload of Gatling lasers on every design I could fit them on to help deal with her high fighter tech.

We rolled the scenario and got Convoy Raid. She took the defenders side with a 4 freighter convoy.

Forces:
Claritosity Inc:
1x CA Carrier Opie (3x interceptor, 4x strike)
2x CA Battleline Amorachius, Cousland
3x DD RDF Penny, Quicksilver, Bedlam

Camposian Brothers:
4x CA RDF Curse, Affliction, Burden and Calamity



The setup:

[Bluebear]

I'm looking forward to your Battle Report. Please remember that not all of us have a copy of the rules (I don't) and we want to evaluate whether or not we want to get them . . . so please voice your opinions of what you like or don't like about the rules.


-- Jeff

[kashre]

Turn 1:

Clarita wins the initiative and decides to move first. She turns her freighters away and tries to set up a roadblock with her warships between me and my targets.

I decide I don't want to run straight for the freighters as I'd be crossing my own T on all her forward firepower so I turn to keep the range open and try to work my way around her main fleet.



Turn 2:

Clarita wins the initiative again, and again chooses to move (and fire) first. She deftly maneuvers her roadblock with her slow (delta 1) CABs turned enough to get a fair amount of their firepower on my ships but leave themselves to option of turning onto my flank if I try to blow past them. She then focuses all her firepower on poor Calamity, inflicting several crits (including a bridge crit) and reducing it to 7 HP, on top of dumping a bunch of missiles out where they are guaranteed to hit my ships before they get a chance to move next turn.

My return fire dents up the CAB Cousland, but only gets me a single crit which she easily repairs. I fare a bit better against the DDR Penny with a bridge crit which doesn't get repaired before the ship sails off of a map edge giving me a few victory points. I did have quite a bit of success tearing apart her fighter squadrons with my Gatling lasers (9 on each cruiser!). If you don't have your own interceptors, that's definitely the best defense.

Last, Clarita rips up the shields on CAR #1 Curse, but since it wasn't the same ship her warships fired on it didn't accomplish much as I was able to regen all the shield damage.

[kashre]

Turn 3:

Things get really hairy here. Clarita wins the initiative (AGAIN!), but in my opinion makes her first of only two real mistakes, choosing to move and fire first. This gives me the opertunity to move into the middle of her formation, getting behind her Battleline Cruisers which have been putting the hurt on me.

She manages to get 8 of the 12 missiles in play onto targets, but spread out among 3 different ships... because of that, and some lucky rolls with my laughable PD only 3 hit, all on the Curse, which looses a couple Gattling laser hardpoints and half her hull value but is still doing ok. Then her other Battleline cruiser gets some lasers through the front shield of the Affliction and takes out her plasma torpedoes, which is the best freighter killing weapons I have.

[kashre]

Turn 4:

I win the initiative for the first time, and choose the tactical option. She moves her ships, doing her best to keep her freighters shielded by her two remaining cruisers, but the superior maneuverability of my RDF role cruisers means I Finally manage to get my ships through her fleet and next to her freighters (a requirement of the scenario is that I can only fire on the freighters if no enemy cruisers are closer to my ship than the freighter).

She does her best, finally finishing off the Calamity with her remaining cruiser, but I manage to kill 3 of her 4 freighters with Plasma torpedo volleys and massed laser fire.



Turn 5:

Again I win the initiative, forcing her to move first in order to get an ideal position against her last freighter and allowing my to run with me most damaged ship. I kill the last civilian and manage to escape serious damage, at which point we call the game. The way the scenario is scored, even if she managed to kill all 3 of my remaining cruisers I would have enough victory points to win.

[kashre]

So.. my thoughts on my first real game of CB using most all of the different rules:

complexity wise, it's comparable to Full Thrust, but I have to say I think I like it better.

Fighters are much better balanced in my opinion. Fighters are less powerful because you can not mass multiple squadrons against a single shield facing, and strike fighters lack the punch to knock out the shield of anything larger than a light cruiser in a single volley. In order to be used well, they need to be used in concert with ships firing down the same shield facing, which puts a premium on maneuvering your fleet.

I thought missiles kind of sucked on first reading the rules because they are *very* un-maneuverable compared to missiles in other systems... but in actual practice I find that they're actually fairly powerful, but only at close range. At longer ranges they're easy to fly around given their turning limits, but since they move and strike before ships move, if you line them up on a target well you can guarantee hits. It kind of feels like destroyers lining up torpedo runs in wet-navy games. Again, this puts a premium on flying your ships, you can't just spam missile counters all over the board like in FT and hope to win.

I really like the initiative system which lets you choose between moving first and firing (and having your fire take effect) before your opponent, or forcing your opponent to move first and giving you the chance to get superior positioning. It doesn't bog things down as much as I feel that pre-plotted movement does, but still adds some drama without the conga-line of ships that you-go-I-go initiative systems generate.

The design system is pretty robust... and it gives a decent balance, I think, between making it difficult to build "broken" ships by imposing artificial limits on things like hardpoints, etc and giving you the freedom to try new things. Firing arcs are very broad though, and I find it hard to really adapt a lot of different backgrounds to the system without a lot of tweaking... for instance, there's no narrow arc forward weapons to simulate spinal mounts. Although I really like the way it makes you balance between anti-shield and anti-hull weapons.

Still, I would reccomend this game to anyone looking for something fresh.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I also really like the fact that armor penetration is modeled somewhat more realistically than other games, where armor just adds hit points. Here you have to actually penetrate it with high-pen weapons or you do less damage.

[TheDreadnought]

Hey great report, and thanks for sharing. Sounds like you guys had fun, which is why I write them! The random tech levels was pretty interesting. That approach won't always produce a balanced game, but definitely offers some unique challenges for people who care more about "interesting" than "even".

Yeah at longer ranges, missiles become harder to hit with, but as you saw, they can be powerful when they do. That's why heavy salvoes are generally needed for effective long range missile barrages.

Different fire arcs is one thing you can expect to see more of as fleet books are released.

I'm glad you're contrasting the experience for people against some of the popular systems out there. It gives people more of a base to work from in understanding the game.

[warchariot]

Nice report, great job with the photos and fire markers. Thanks