Klingon/Romulan vs. Federation

Editor's Note: This battle report and the messages that follow it come from the b5wars.agentsogaming.com Forums. Many thanks to Steve Cross for writing up this massive battle, and for the feedback that was generated from its posting to the Forums.

Having downloaded the Star Trek B5 conversions ages ago we decided to give em a spin. The battle was going to be small at about 5000 points to give the races a spin. Unfortunaltly the small plan went out the window and the battle grew in size until it was about 20000 or so!!!!!!

On the bridge of the brand new Sovereign class battleship USS Avalon the Federation Admiral observed her fleet. The fleet present here was one of the largest Federation fleets assembled since the massacre at Wolf 359. True the fleet was some what hodgepodge with both modern and old Federation ships present. The fleet was to engage a combined Klingon/Romulan fleet (who would have thought they would become allies) that was moving in system.

Federation Fleet:

Command Sqn

1 Sovereign class, 1 Nebula Scout, 1 New Orleans BattleCruiser, 1 Akira Strike Cruiser

Battle Sqn

4 Excelsior class cruisers, 1 Excelsior Command, 1 Ambassidor Cruiser

2nd Support Group

2 Constellation (Stargazer type), 2 Refitted Consitution, 2 Centaur light Cruisers.

5th Frigate Group

4 Miranda, 2 Hvy Miranda, 4 Defiant class

6 Oberth Scouts

18 Runabouts

Thousands of kilomiters away the most unlikely of allies moved towards the waiting Federation ships, the Fed scouts were making the approach quite difficult, but the combined fleet was confident of breaking through the scout ring and killing the Fed ships.

K/R Allied Fleet

1 Neg'Var class Dreadnought
8 Vor'Cha attack cruisers
8 K'Vort Destroyers
6 K'T'inga Battlecruisers
12 B'Rel Bird of Prey
4 D-12 Bird Of prey (bigger guns)

4 D'deridex Warbirds
2 A'Vara Cruisers
8 D'riden Destroyers
4 Bird Of Prey (the Original ones!)

Slowly the 'allied' fleet advanced towards the Fed fleet, the Oberths although old were annoying as the allies could not approach too close to get the vital first shot in. Eventually the commander of 4 B'rel grew tired of waiting, and approached the nearest two Oberths. On the bridge of the USS Orion the Captain was just about to take a sip from his fresh coffee when the sensors gave a shreik of alarm, by the time the mug had hit the deck 2 Photon Torpedoes and 8 light disruptor bolts ripped into the tiny ship. The USS Capella suffered the same fate, their were no survivors from either ship.

The Federation ships immediatly responded, the New Orleans-class USS Babylon fired a salvo of torpedoes at the first two B'rels, both tiny ships desintigrated under the impact of the torpedoes. The Federation fleet re-deployed to meet the possible threat, the Commander of the Klingon force saw an opening, and forced the fleet into the breach.

The Federation ships shuddered under the impact of many torpedoes and disruptor bolts. The Constitutin USS Ohio was cut nearly in half by a blast from the Negh'Var Ka'Doth, the Excelsior USS Sovremmeny disapeared under the combined fire of two D'deridex class ships.

Return fire from the Federation fleet killed 3 of the old K'I'inga class ships and 1 Warbird. The Avalon culled 2 more B'Rel and obliterated a K'Vort in a few seconds of firing.

The surviving packs of B'Rels and D-12s ran through the Federation fleet, lashing out at any ship unfortunate to get in the way. Both Centaurs were killed but destroyed 2 D-12s. The Akira class ship USS Kongo was trying to launch her fighters when she recived a Plasma torpedo in her hanger. The blast gutted the hanger but more importantly caused the fully loaded strike fighters to explode whilst still inside the ship, the blast grew and grew until the ship was consumed by flames, and explosions as the Kongo drifted dead in space.

The Defiants were proving to be very dangerous opponents, with thick shields and superb weapons and impressive manuverability they ripped through the Klingon forces with ease. 2 Vor'Cha were killed by these small ships but 2 Defiants were killed in return. The Avalon was moving around the battle like an unstoppable giant, any ship that was targeted was eliminated.

Eventually the numbers of the Klingon & Romulan fleet began to tell, the crippled Nebula warped out followed by 1 Excelsior and 2 Miranda. The Avalon now became the target of most of the fire directed into the Federation fleet. Her shields resisted superbly but the sheer volume of fire broke them down and beguan to batter her hull. The mauled Negh'Var fired her one remaining mega disruptor (in peircing) at the Federations flagship, the blast smashed one phaser array, slammed into her reactor and mauled her port nacelle. The loss of the weapon and nacelle were minor, but the reactor hit caused massive power losses and the reactor began to overload. The engineering crew tried desperatly to shut down the warp core before it went into final stage failure, the blast of radiaton from the dieing core killed them where they stood.

Mere microseconds later the core exploded. The massive blast obliterated the ship, the Negh'Var and 8 other nearby ships. The blast essentially ended the battle. The surviving Federation ships warped out and the allied ships were in no state to persue them.

Now that was a nice fight, we found that the Star Trek ships are very tough with their sheilds are up, but once the are down they crumple like paper. The Fed ships are far more capable than any Klingon or Romulan ship and are way more heavily armed than their nearest equivalent. The Sov is LUDICRIOUS, it out guns a D'deridex with her broadside guns, but thats what you get for 2200 points. A few smaller skirmishes followed after this epic and, after much deliberation we are going to abandon our current campaign in favour of a Star Trek campaign. We will place a limit on the ammount of ships we can have in our fleets, and probably a limit on the ammount of systems we can hold.

Which ship was your fav.? (sphenoid)

I love the D'deridex, but for effectiveness I would say something like a Miranda or a Excelsior class, the others simply can't compare.