Klingon vs. Minbari		Klingon vs. Narn

Hey Tyrel, decided to give your ships a whirl. Had one larger battle and then we started some big dispute over a number of issues which will be raised at the end of the playtest. Anyways . . .

Klingon Empire - 3325 (or so)

1x Vor'Cha Attack Cruiser
3x D7 Cruiser
4x B'Rel Bird of Prey

Minbari Federation - 3400

4x Tinashi War Frigate

Rules in use:
Secret EW
Fire declaration is not used; rather, each player takes turns firing all of their weapons first by phase. Then other player fires his stuff.

[Turn 1]

Forces close, Klingons headed about speed 8 (BoPs @ 12). Most break off in a pincer movement to protect their forward batteries. All are turtled (save for the BoPs which have only 2 DEW).

Minbari open fire with restraint (8 oew or so only); BoP#4 is hit by 1 NL, looses it's shield and takes some minor damage. A second neutron misses BoP#3. 3 Neutron Lasers fired @ D7#3, two hit. It looses its stbd shield generator and 1 Light Disruptor and some structure.

[Turn 2]

BoPs 1+2 fire a pair of Photons @ Tinashi#4, doing 17 and 10 damage to structure. They also fire about 8 Light Disruptors fired with 1 hitting taking out a fusion cannon.

Other Klingon ships are defensive as they close to use their torpedo launchers. D7#2 takes two NLs, only one hits. Destroying the foreward shield and a Lt Dis. Most of the Minbari beginning arming a NL for sustained fire.

[Turn 3]

Klingons fire a flurry of photons, 3 Heavy Photons at Tinashi 4 and 2 medium and 1 heavy at Tinashi 3. Tinashi#4 takes hits of 33, 40, and 23 to the rear. Hitting a NL, Thruster and NL respectively. Main thruster is destroyed this turn. Tinashi#3 takes two hits of 24 and 18, both hitting EPGs. Tinashi#4 avoids the Mega Disruptor from the Vor'Cha, taking 1 Medium disruptor. BoPs#1,2 close on Tinashi 4 and hit her with six Light Disruptors from range 1 and cleave her aft off. One of the D7s also fires at the Tinashi#3 with her Medium Disruptors and takes out a retro thruster after hitting with two.

The Minbari in kind fire 5 FCs @ BoP#2, two # 4. BoP#2 takes 3 hits, loosing her warp drive and about 15 structure. A NL @ D7#2 takes out 3 structure and damages the heavy photon.

[Turn 4]

Tinashi 4 is crippled, the Minbari move through the pincer and all of them pivot to bring sustained NLs to bear. It takes another Heavy and normal Photon from 30 and 28 damage. D7#2 closes and fires, and in the end Tinashi#4 looses her sensors, another EPG and takes reactor damage (but no crits) + some weapons. She's now nearly crippled but hits her target with the sustained NL. The other minbari hit as well. D7#2 looses it's rear photon. 2 NLs hit the Vor'Cha plus some Fusion Cannons from about 15 out and take out the stbd side.

[Turn 5]

Vor'Cha reinforces her downed shield, the BoPs close in from behind. A pair of them put Tinashi#4 out of it's misery. A number of other fire is exchanged. The Vor'Cha moves out of arc of one Tinashi, the other one hits her but encounters fresh shields so does minimal damage. At this point, arguements broke out.

Ship Status @ End of Turn 5 (undetermined victory)

Tinashi#1 - mint
Tinashi#2 - FC#9 dest; 5 rear structure damage
Tinashi#3 - Main Thrust + Engine @ 2/5ths damage. Fore structure @ 50%, both EPGs
destroyed. Damge to NLs 1 + 3. Both Retros destroyed. Minor aft structure damage
Tinashi#4 - destroyed

Vor'Cha - stbd side destroyed; stbd shield: 7/50 port shield: 25/50 aft shield: 30/50
D7 Cruiser#1 - I think any damage it took was minimal
D7 Cruiser#2 - Shield#12 destroyed; minor primary damage, fore photon damaged. Miscellaneous other damage
D7 Cruiser#3 - HPhot - 7 damage;LDis 7 + 9 dest. Phot#6 dest. Reactor @ 6 damage, Main thruster nearly gone, aft @ 85% damage or so. Port Nacel @ 60% dam. CnC dest. Fore shield fine, stbd shield @ 4/25, port down, at @ 21/25.
B'Rel#1 - mint
B'Rel#2 - photon dest; warp dest; 6 structure remaining (shield: 2/30)
B'Rel#3 - 1 structure gone (shield: 22/30)
B'Rel#4 - 2 structre gone

Basically, at this point we got into a big arguement as already stated. Points of arguement were in a nutshell:

-strength of photon torpedo + relation of it's stats to Vree weapon.
-sustained vs Shields
-shield balancing abilities
-point value of ships

I was playing Klingon btw; Jason was playing Minbari. I should also note that we were not playing with the rules that if the shield projectors are down, that the shields that they replenish are also down. We forgot. However, in the preceeding battle I don't think it would have been of relevance as it didnt really come up.

So anyways, I looked through my box and pulled out a new SCS. I erased the damage from two D7 cruisers and tossed them to Jason.

Battle#2

Klingon Empire - 800 points

2x D7 Cruisers

Narn Regime - 800 points

1x G'Qounth Heavy Cruiser

[Turn 1]

Both sides started to close, I think we were both @ speed 8 (we are allowed @ speeds 4 - 8). G'Qounth deactivates rear mounts for 9 sensors, locks 1 onto D7#1 and fires off both torpedos. Moving forward she away, showing one of her sides. Forward mounts are split to fire at both incoming torpedoes. Either one or two hits her, causing substantial structure damage. Both Ions hit D7#1, which may have gone mostly offensive. Forward shield goes down and she takes a bit of internal damage. Maybe loosing one of her light disruptors.

[Turn 2]

G'Qounth goes mostly offensive, shows possibly her front to the enemy but takes little in the way of return fire. 2 of 3 heavy lasers hit the now full front shield of the D7, destroying a Medium Disruptor, both shields and causing other structure damage.

[Turn 3]

G'Qounth rolls huge init and beats D7#1, two more torps head her way. She turns off to take them to either a side or rear shield (believe side). At least one hits, the G'Qounth laser also comes to bear. She fires through the downed shield and manages to concentrate most of it onto the thruster destroying it. Other damage is also to the engine, shield#13 and structure. No engine crits.

Both D7s respond in kind, causing more structure damage to both sides with their weapons. Defensive fire however prevents alot of it coming through.

[Turn 4]

D7#1 is crippled and heading off the board; she deactivates the majority of her weaponary to deal with the huge turn and decel costs. She is effectively out of the fight for the moment. D7#2 fires her Heavy Photon, the G'Qounth anticipates this and manuevers such that it is directly west of the launch hex. This allows (I think) for every secondary weapon to be brought to bear. In total, the to hit target is reduced from 19 to 1. The Klingons roll a 19 and miss. Both ships use the time to recharge their armaments.

[Turn 5]

The G'Qounth moves north, still at 8. The D7 on her tail about 15 behind. The G'Qounth is coming about to bring batteries HL 1,2,3 to bear. D7 is aware of this and is taking a cautious approach somewhat to the east.

[Turn 6]

Narns use additional thrust to decel from 6 to four, they then turn twice in the last hex. Unfortunately they loose initiative and the Klingons move out of arc of HLs 1,2. Klingons have neither photon in arc, so the D7#2 fires Medium Disruptors against the port hull. HL#3 is destroyed. The G'Qounth in truth was trying to fire the Ions and the HLs at the same time for a knockout punch, but it seems this wouldnt happen. D7#1 is slowly coming around @ speed 2. She's about 30 hexes off.

[Turn 7]

G'Qounth fires her two Ions at D7#1 and manuevers to bring the foreward HLs to bear on D7#2. Both Ions hit, but because of the mistake in rules it only takes minor damage to I believe the Heavy Photon (still recharging). Both Heavy Lasers and possibly some minor secondary armament hit D7#2 causing substantial damage to the foreward section, knocking out two Disruptors, 80% of the structure and damaging the photon. The D7 is still recharging her photons, and the charge armament is out of arc to fire.

[Turn 8]

G'Qounth manuevers behind D7#2, secondary armament removes the shields (LPCs) and HL#4 fires into the rear. The Thruster is all but destroyed, outlet failure. Damaging to either Nacel and aft structure takes about 35% damage. At this point, the game was called due to time.

Ship Status @ End (Narn Victory)

G'Qounth Attack Cruiser
HL#3, LPC#7, TA#12 destroyed; Stbd Thr @ 8 damage (no crit)
Stbd structure @ 22/70 damaged. Port structure @ 50/70 damaged.

D7 Cruiser #1
LDis#7,8 MDis#4, Shields #11,12 all dest; Thruster dest. Shield#13 @ 4 damage
Engine @ 6/12 damage. Fore structure 21/30 dest. Aft @ 2 damage.
Shields: Fore 22/25 (though should be down) Port: 4/25 Stbd: 13/25
Aft: 11/25

D7 Cruiser #2 MDis#2,3 dest. HPhot @ 7 dam. Main Thrust at 1 box left (outlet failure)
Either Nacel @ 5 dam ea
Fore structure @ 22/30 destroyed. Aft @ 14 dest
Shields: Fore: 25/25 Port: 11/25 Stbd: 25/25 Aft: 0/25

Quick Question -
Do impulse drives ignore the first effiency crit like Gravitic Drives?

Matters of Concern

Photon Torpedoes
Jason is of the opinion that these are quite frankly overpowered; due to their torpedo like nature the firing ship can devote hordes of EW and get huge to hit targets resulting in massive damage combined with the X system. He believes either that they should do less damage; or adopt a range penalty similar to what the Vree Antimatter Torps employ.

I'm of the opinion that Jason simply didnt concentrate and commit his fire. My torpedo range was cut in half vs the Minbari and I had little hope of hitting them at range yet he still held back OEW and failed to make contact with his targets with several of his heavier weaponary. At battles end (first battle) his ships were still in fairly good condition. I can see his point about them possibly being a little powerful, at the same time if that's how you feel Star Trek portrays them then so be it. Whether they should have a range penalty is up for debate. He also suggested even dropping the bonus' to hit on the Fire Control to +1 or something piddly. *shrug*

Shields
Jason has gripes with these as well; he either thought that regeneration rates were too high or that the amount that you could transfer between shields was too great. He thought that perhaps you could replenish a shield up to half of it's value or something instead of just throwing it all into the shield nearest the enemy.

He furthermore thought that Sustained weapons such as neutron lasers should ignore the shield on the second turn of firing. Pointing reference to phaser hits he apaprently saw during the series were a sustained burst eventually killed a target. So in other words, my Vor'Cha for instance took NLs to her stbd shield and lost it. They were sustained. He thought that I should not be able to move or replenish my stbd shield, although he thought I could turn into the beam (or away from it) and bring a fresh shield to bear. Again, I thought due to a lack of concentrated fire he allowed me to replenish my shields several times, most notably on the B'Rels. I do like his sustained fire idea but that's up for review.

Jason also generally thought that the D7s were perhaps underpointed.

Analysis of Battle#1

Basically I thought Jason made several errors. He didnt fully commit himself to firing at range when he had no chance of suffering retribution. He changes his targets frequently and didnt concentrate fire. He also readily closed the range. In the end he did kill a D7 and severely damaged both a B'Rel and to an extent the Vor'Cha. I felt that at that point the battle was still undecided. But he felt the power of the Photons would rule the day. He was most upset by his constant hitting to shields instead of internal systems.

Analysis of Battle#2

In my opinion, this is how the battle went. Forces closed, the Narns played well and in their first Alpha crippled one of the D7 by battle damage. The G'Qounth and the remaining D7 then danced to bring their recharged weapons to bear at which point the second D7 was badly mauled.

In Jasons view, the Narns fluked off by concentrating a lot of damage to the main thruster of D7 instead of to Nacels or other non-essentials. He felt that it ruined the playtest because his ship was effective a non-combatant of several turns and at that point the second D7 was outmatched. He furthermore said "well, the G'qounth is a good ship for 800 points. But how would a D7 do against a different 400 point ship??". (In other words, I dont believe the results, let's do it again).

I felt that both the Klingons and Narns were played well. Due to the lower number of units, each side was able to pay more attention to the details of manuevering. The Narns on many occasions lost initiative but did win at several key moments. I felt the loss of the thruster was merely part of the game, the D7's weakness being a reliance on one thruster. The Narns didnt achieve the Ion - 3 HLs knockout punch they wanted to destroy the second D7 but still managed to effectively win with relatively minor damage. But as I stated, Jason felt it was due to luck.

But if that is the case, looking at the G'Qounth. It didnt even loose a side. Should D7#1 remained in combat would the Klingons have won? The Klingons also didnt ever use their rear Photon. Which may or may not be of significance. The Narns were able to intercept fairly well.