Full Thrust: The Pirate's Lament

Introduction

One of the other members of the local games club (Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association, HAHA) has recently purchased quite a large fleet of starship models from Brigade Models.  Indeed, I think that several club members may have dipped their toes into these waters recently.  Could it have anything to do with the games of Full Thrust that I have hosted there on Thursday evenings?  Maybe.

A Royal Navy cruiser squadron: heavy cruiser Conquest (?) in the background and light cruisers Crusader and Cutlass in the foreground.

Anyway, J. was keen to try out his Royal Navy and so I set up an Escalating Engagement game.  I've played this scenario once before (it's described here) and that encounter ended up being a very uneven fight.  Would it play out any differently this time?  Read on to find out...

The Forces

• Royal Navy: a mixed force of cruisers with a few destroyers and other escorts, using the stats for GZG's New Anglian Confederation fleet.  In other words, decent shields, a fair number of beam batteries and some torpedoes.  Also 1,000 years of tradition to uphold...
• Orion Pirates: An eclectic mixture of light and medium ships with quite a variety of weapon types: regular beams, needle beams, salvo missiles - and a pair of light carriers.
  I suspect that this group thought they were chasing a merchant convoy, rather than engaging in a stand-up fight with a regular navy.  Pirates aren't really about taking risks!

The Game

The thing about the Escalating Engagement scenario is that you cannot be sure which forces will arrive, or where they will appear.  The exit from warp/FTL is particularly hazardous; we were playing the optional rule that a roll of '6' could result in a very bad exit, way off the intended target.

So, here's what happened on turn one:

• A Royal Navy cruiser squadron dropped out of FTL in a commendably neat formation.  Their navigators were obviously on the ball as there was very little drift between the ships.
• The pirates were a bit more sloppy!  One of their corvettes was on target, but a light cruiser almost missed the table (and therefore would have been ruled to be lost, broken down, recalled or otherwise absent for the rest of the game).
  Worse (much worse!), the escort carrier Vengeance overshot the entry point dramatically and [a] took minor damage for hitting debris from a nearby asteroid field and [b] was now right in front of the surprised-but-delighted trio of enemy cruisers.

On turn 2, more ships warped in.

• A Royal Navy strike cruiser and her consort arrived a bit ahead of the previous squadron, nice and tight.
• For the Orion pirates, their second carrier misjumped and ended up in another sector (about 30" off the table!).  Her small escort ships did arrive pretty much at the intended point, though.

As the RN cruiser squadron turned towards her, the Vengeance was doomed - and she knew it.  There was no way that the light carrier could escape from 3 cruisers at almost point blank range!  Still, I wasn't going to give up without a fight: she started by taking evasive manoeuvres, though this had limited effect.

She launched her fighters; one pirate squadron attacked each of the RN light cruisers.  This was something of a disaster, as the first CL shot down 5 of the 6 attackers with a series of d6 rolls of '6'.  The surviving fighters caused only minimal damage.

Finally (and somewhat in desperation!), the Orions revealed that there was a traitor somewhere in the Royal Navy fleet.  There was only a very small chance that this would gain anything immediately useful; the gamble didn't pay off.

Finally, the RN cruisers took their shot.  With 3 cruisers firing at close range, the Orion carrier didn't have a hope and was blown apart.

On turn 3, there were more arrivals:

• A very welcome Orion heavy cruiser and her escorts popped out, somewhat apart from the other pirate ships.
• For the RN, a destroyer and frigate warped in, well out of harm's way [whew!  At least it wasn't their battleship!]

This gave each side 7 ships, with no more reinforcements to come.  However, the Royal Navy had heavier vessels on average and arguably they were in tighter formations and better positions.

Before these forces could get to grips properly, there were a couple more events:

An Orion light cruiser was buffeted by space turbulence and knocked off course.  Fortunately, she just missed the nearby asteroid field, though not by as wide a margin as had been intended.

...whilst on the other side of the table, a huge comet appeared [I was hoping that it would appear on the other table edge - in the middle of the RN fleet - and cause some chaos there, but it wasn't to be].

With no possibility of turning to flee at such a short engagement range, the Orion fleet had just one hope.  If they could cripple or destroy the RN's lead strike cruiser before their other ships came into short range then the odds would be a bit more even.  Failing that, they'd have to run through the Royal Navy's fleet to escape out of the other side.

At very short range, the Orion fleet did indeed inflict heavy damage to the RN strike cruiser and her accompanying destroyer, though not enough to destroy either ship.  The destroyer crew did abandon ship after a crippling life support hit, mind.

It wasn't enough: the Royal Navy ships also handed out a lot of hurt to the pirates.  Two torpedoes from the strike cruiser hit the Etna and scored 11 for damage (on 2d6); this left the Orion heavy cruiser reeling and out of control, with most of her weapons and other systems knocked out.  The Orion destroyer was also handled very roughly, leaving her barely spaceworthy.

The pirate fighters continued to harass what looked like the easier targets within the RN fleet, but found their numbers being slowly whittled down by flak for little gain.

As the pirate ships accelerated hard to try and escape, their last fighters made a desperate attack on the RN cruiser squadron.  In this they were aided by yet another Orion agent on the enemy ships, who tried to sabotage the point defence systems.  It was all for naught, though: the cruiser's security teams prevented the sabotage and the fighters achieved very little apart from losing even more of their number.

In the end, only the Orion light cruiser Manticore escaped, though she was somewhat damaged after charging through the RN fleet.  All the other pirates had either been destroyed already (some of them quite spectacularly, due to Warp Core failures), or were totally gutted & defenceless and were about to be destroyed.  It was a black day for that particular nest of villains!

Conclusion

Losses were very unequal in this game:

• Orion pirates: all ships bar two (the CL Manticore and the second light carrier which never made it on to the table) were destroyed.
• Royal Navy: no ships were destroyed, although a destroyer was abandoned and some of the lighter ships had quite severe damage.  From memory, their heavy cruiser didn't even take a hit.

At first glance, this suggests that the fight was very unequal.  Overall, that is probably true; the Orions were really hurt by the loss of both their carriers (albeit for two very different reasons).  However I felt that they did have a chance - a slim chance, but nevertheless a real one - of cutting apart one separated group of RN ships before they could be reinforced.  Or perhaps I'm just dreaming and there was never any realistic prospect of this happening...

Full Thrust: The End of the World

Introduction

Star-rimed space whale,

Cosmic nomad, absolute alien,

Devourer of planets, eternal wanderer, 

Beware!  The Kraken approaches!

I created a scenario for Full Thrust some time ago in which an uneasy alliance of starships attempted to destroy or divert a space monster that was intent on destroying a rich planet: http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2013/01/full-thrust-its-life-but-not-as-we-know.html .  Astonishingly, this was over 5 years ago and I haven't reprised it since - until now!

The Scenario

In short, 2 factions are rivals for influence at the neutral planet of Trondacolmakus.  The Magister of Trondacolmakus has made it clear that he will not be happy if either force should attack the other.  Peaceful negotiations are well advanced when an urgent message is received from a scout: a space monster is approaching and making directly for the planet.  Its intentions are unknown, but if it tries to siphon off the atmosphere, lay eggs on the surface or take a bath in the oceans then it would be a disaster for the planet's population.

The Magister begs the visiting navies to drive the monster away.  Together they have more than enough firepower to defeat it - but clearly the side with the most surviving forces will have an advantage in the continuing diplomacy.  Can the Ferengi and the Federation cooperate well enough to defeat the monster?  Or will narrow self-interest cause either side to hold back and give the monster its chance to ravage the planet?  Read on...

The Battle

The Kraken advanced steadily, only to be stung by early long-range phaser fire from a Ferengi vessel.  Infuriated, the monster launched a huge plasma bolt at the gap between two asteroid fields, hoping to catch 4 assorted cruisers in the huge explosion.

Sadly (for the Kraken, at least), only the Federation escort cruiser Phoebe was caught in the blast; the other targets were moving slower than anticipated.  Phoebe's shields did sterling service and saved the ship from total destruction; instead she was just badly damaged.

A smaller, but still potent, plasma bolt was fired from the monster's side at the Ferengi ships which were attempting a wide flanking move.  The opposing player was having none of that; he dissipated the threat with a handy Torpedo Malfunction event card.

The Kraken plodded on, swatting the occasional frigate without even really noticing them.  It reloaded its prow plasma and spat out a bolt at the collected cruisers in front of it at very short range.

This time, there was no mistake in its aim; all 4 of the enemy ships would be hit.  "All power to the shields!  Brace for impact!" roared the captain of the Ferengi battlecruiser Krayton [courtesy of a "Reinforced Shields" event card.  Honestly, the Ferengi player seemed to have all the good cards this game!].

It helped, but the shock wave from the class-6 plasma bolt was immense.  Endeavour disintegrated under the force, both Krayton and Danube were heavily damaged, while the already-hurt Phoebe only survived through a superb piece of damage control [a "Legendary Engineer" event card caused the warp core to be damped down instead of going supercritical and exploding].

The Kraken had a clear run between the asteroids now.  One of the cruisers in front of it was so heavily damaged as to be combat ineffective and the other two were facing the wrong way; they would have to turn laboriously before they could pursue the beast.

There were a pair of Ferengi warships (a light cruiser and a destroyer?) and several smaller ships hovering around in the distance, but these would need to move quite quickly if they were to engage the creature.

Of course, nothing is ever a certainty.  As the Kraken passed the Ferengi battlecruiser, a few weapons from the latter were able to bear.  A short volley hit the Kraken right up the backside and caused it to shudder with pain. [In game terms, the shell armour was penetrated and the damage caused triggered a threshold check.  This damaged the creature's "engines" and therefore reduced its available thrust]

A swift calculation revealed that with its reduced thrust, the Kraken was travelling too fast to be able to slow down before it hit the planet.  If its roll for damage control failed to repair its engine then it would have to turn slightly and skim past the planet at too high a speed to enter orbit - and therefore it would be unable to complete its mission.

The game therefore turned on this single roll.  Fortunately for the Kraken [not so much for the humanoids], it was able to repair the damage, or at least to overcome the pain and use the damaged system normally.

Now that it could decelerate as originally intended, the Kraken performed a 6" microjump straight forward [via a "Picard Manoeuvre" event card.  Hah - the Ferengi weren't the only ones to hold some interesting cards!].  This opened up the distance between the monster and its pursuers nicely, which was especially important now that it had its back to them [and therefore couldn't bring any of its weapons to bear].

The event cards were coming thick and fast now [indeed, I don't think I've ever seen a game of Full Thrust where so many cards were used!].  Firstly, the Kraken played an "Organian Peace Treaty".  A bunch of super-beings from another dimension turned out to be whale-lovers; they forbade anyone to fire at the injured animal.

This respite allowed the Kraken time in which to position itself near the planet's upper atmosphere ready for spawning.  The Organians soon lost interest in protecting the space beast, but before the monster could do anything else the Federation played a "Static Warp Bubble" on it, thus causing it to be time-stopped for a complete turn.

Initiative on the last turn was critical!  If either the Federation or the Ferengi beat the Kraken then they still had ships which could hurt it badly [especially as the Kraken was a mere 2 damage points off a further threshold check].  On the other hand, if the Kraken won then all it had to do was to "fire" on the planet to win the game.

This time, the monster won.  It spawned in the upper atmosphere and the thousands of eggs caused havoc on Trondacolmakus.  Large areas of the planet were rendered uninhabitable, whilst many others required a constant border watch to prevent infestation from the new badlands.  The resources needed to protect the population dragged the economy down to poverty levels unimaginable to the previously wealthy citizens and neither Ferengi nor Federation were particularly interested in trade deals with the inhabitants any more!

Conclusion

Sometimes you kill the monster and sometimes the monster gets you!  This was a very close-run game, where early losses didn't matter too much because the defenders could just bring in more ships.  Mind you, it wasn't really a place for corvettes or frigates; such small vessels had virtually no chance against such a huge attacker.

Had the monster been defeated then the Ferengi would probably have won, as they looked to have the larger of the remaining fleets.  But the monster wasn't defeated...

Full Thrust: Convoy RX-18

Introduction

There's a new club in town: the Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association (HAHA).  I'm very excited about this as it opens up the possibility of getting some regular gaming after a number of years without such a group nearby.  With that in mind, I attended the weekly meeting for my first time yesterday and took along Full Thrust; a couple of members had expressed interest in learning how to play.

So, here's a simple scenario for beginners: a Federation convoy is leaving a planetary system when it is pounced upon by Klingon raiders.  The Federation have some warships, but are outclassed by the attackers.  Will any of the merchantmen make it to the far end of the table, where they are deemed to have reached the hyper limit of the solar system and can escape by engaging their warp drives?

Federation Forces

The defenders have the following resources:

• USS Los Angeles (light cruiser)
• USS Endeavour (scout cruiser)
• USS Oryx and USS Antelope (large destroyers)
• 5 assorted merchant ships, from the tiny Peregrine (free trader) to the huge Pride of the Orient (bulk carrier).

For the warships, the decision is simple: do they stay with the freighters or advance to meet the Klingons?

• If they take the former path then the attackers might leave the Federation warships untargeted in favour of the merchantmen, thus allowing them to fight back for longer.
• On the other hand, if they attack the Klingons first then the smaller Federation vessels won't last long, but they might manage to disable or distract one or more of the attackers and thus buy time for the freighters to escape.

Klingon Forces

The Klingons have a very simple fleet:

• IKS Asgard (heavy cruiser)
• IKS Ragnarok (heavy cruiser)
• IKS Valhalla (heavy cruiser)

They have exactly the opposite decision to the Federation.  Should they target the escorts first and remove them as a threat (but risk the convoy escaping in the meantime), or should they attack the freighters first (and perhaps the Federation warships will be able to fight back unopposed)?

The Game

The convoy accelerated as hard as it could (which wasn't much; merchantmen are typically very sluggish!).  Their only real chance was to build up as much speed as they could and race past the raiders in as short a time as possible.  Even so, at least some of them weren't likely to make it...

Initially, the escorts kept station with the freighters, though when a Klingon warship appeared around the gas giant, Endeavour and Oryx peeled off to face it.

The IKS Valhalla fired everything it had at the light scout cruiser; Endeavour was raked from stem to stern and suffered a triple threshold check (for those readers who don't know Full Thrust, that's a very bad thing.  Each internal system only survives on a d6 roll of '1'!).  By the time the sparks had stopped flying, the only things still working on the Federation vessel were Life Support and the Warp Core.  Could be worse...

In return, the Oryx fired a stupendously accurate torpedo which hit the Valhalla square in the engine room.  This, together with damage accumulated from a long range torpedo the previous turn (Oryx again), caused a warp core breach on the Klingon ship.  Her damage control parties raced to contain the damage, but the reactor went super-critical before they could take any action and the heavy cruiser blew up rather spectacularly!

The other two Klingons were not so easily dispatched.  The Ragnarok curved in to a position behind the convoy, destroying the Lunar Conveyor as it passed.  The Asgard, however, manoeuvred perfectly into the very heart of the merchant fleet and began to fire at all the targets around her!

Asgard's left-hand beams did significant damage to the Marie Celeste, though not enough to be fatal.  At least, not ordinarily - for in a strange quirk of fate the freighter lost her Bridge, Life Support and Warp Core all from this one salvo (each requiring a roll of '6' to be damaged).  With the ship in such a bad way, the remaining crew decided to abandon ship.

Asgard also put some serious hurt onto the large freighter Empress of Orion, though this wasn't enough to stop the civilian ship.

At the rear of the convoy, all three of the Federation warships (discounting the crippled Endeavour) converged on either flank of the Ragnarok...

...while at the same time, the Asgard just about kept pace with the fleeing merchantmen (the convoy was travelling rather faster than the cruiser at this point, but the difference wasn't enough to increase the range significantly.  Worryingly for the Klingon, the burning, drifting hulk of the Marie Celeste was still alongside the Asgard; the freighter could blow up at any moment!

In fact, if the Federation got lucky then both the remaining Klingon cruisers might be crippled or destroyed this turn!

Fate works in strange ways.  The Klingons had the initiative and could therefore choose the first ship to fire.  They decided it would be the Ragnarok, as otherwise - surrounded as she was - she might not have a chance later on.

The Ragnarok split her fire between the two Federation destroyers.  At point-blank range, phasers chopped the Oryx apart.  In Full Thrust, a beam weapon that rolls a '6' to hit does damage (typically 2 points) and is then re-rolled.  The player just kept rolling '6's, one after the other, whilst the rest of us watched on, dumbfounded!  By the time the cascade came to an end, the poor Oryx had taken 15 points of damage; she was completely atomised.

Ragnarok then fired her other wing weapons at the Antelope.  Although the second Federation destroyer survived, she was reduced to a smoking wreck which was abandoned a turn or two later.

Asgard was equally lucky, at least from a Klingon point of view.  The Marie Celeste didn't blow up whilst adjacent to the cruiser, but instead drifted far enough away that the shock wave wouldn't be an issue - and then exploded.  Meanwhile, the Asgard had dispatched the Empress of Orion and was knocking chunks out of the large bulk carrier Pride of the Orient.

Bulk carriers are big and the attacker didn't manage to destroy the freighter before it crossed the edge of the table.  However, the Pride of the Orient wasn't in a good way; she had a lot of damage and (especially significant) a warp core breach.  She had a single damage control party (DCP) so the odds of them saving the ship were not great, but we diced it out anyway:

• First turn (after leaving the table): DCP failed to control the warp core (they needed to roll a '1'), but it didn't explode (which would have happened on a die roll of '5' or '6').
• Second turn: DCP failed to control the damage, but it didn't explode.
• Third turn: DCP managed to eject the core and thus save the ship.  Or at least, what was left of it.  At least they had functioning life support...

There were now just two Klingon heavy cruisers on the table (although the Ragnarok had accumulated quite a lot of damage over the course of the game and now had a lot of weapons knocked out) and only one Federation light cruiser.  That's discounting the crippled Endeavour, which was creeping away quietly on the other side of the planet.

We were playing with my Full Thrust Event Cards, though not much use had been made of them up till this point.  The Federation player belatedly tried a Confused Orders card on the Klingons; if the two big cruisers could be prevented from ganging up on the Los Angeles then she might just have a chance of taking out the more damaged Ragnarok.  It wasn't to be though; the enemy helmsman wasn't fooled for a moment.

In the dying moments of the game, the plucky Los Angeles came face to face with the almost untouched IKS Asgard at very close range.  This time, the Federation had the initiative; Los Angeles' strike was lucky enough to disable most of Asgard's weapons.  She survived the return fire from the enraged pair of Klingon vessels and fled into hyperspace (though not before taking a non-critical hit: her supplies locker was destroyed, flooding decks 2 and 3 with ankle-deep grey paint).

Conclusion

As expected, this was a bloodbath!  The convoy is basically there so that players can get the hang of the Full Thrust orders and movement system - which the Klingon commander seemed to do extremely efficiently.  It certainly helped that my Klingon cruiser designs are very maneuverable and have good, all-round firepower.  Once the Asgard was within the convoy and unopposed, she could just sit there and shoot in all directions.

Oddly, there seemed to be a lot of "extreme" dice rolls.  The Klingon player in particular was afflicted by this; sometimes a full cruiser salvo would produce virtually no hits and sometimes a penetrating hit would explode into a massive cascade.  Still, the Federation had their piece of luck as well: the destroyer Oryx taking out a heavy cruiser (Valhalla) with 2 turns of torpedo and beam damage was stupendous!

Klingon Status:

• IKS Valhalla: DESTROYED
• IKS Asgard: Damaged
• IKS Ragnarok: Heavily damaged

Federation Status

• USS Los Angeles: Damaged
• USS Endeavour: Heavily damaged
• USS Antelope: DESTROYED
• USS Oryx: DESTROYED
•  Pride of the Orient: Heavily damaged
• Lunar Conveyor: DESTROYED
• Marie Celeste: DESTROYED
• Empress of Orion: DESTROYED
• Peregrine: DESTROYED

We didn't really quantify any victory conditions.  It was stated that "some" of the freighters had to escape, but not how many, or indeed if different levels of victory would apply for different numbers of craft saved.  Both the warship commanders (and me, as umpire & convoy captain) enjoyed the game, so who won?  Does it even matter?  What do you think?

The Tesserae Incident: Part 2 (the Game)

Introduction

Last week, I described my reworking of a scenario for Full Thrust: The Tesserae Incident.  It's basically a Klingon commando raid on a secretive Romulan research base.  Initially, the attackers have overwhelming force, but the defender's reinforcements arrive steadily; how much time can the attackers afford to retrieve the secrets from the installation?

As I see it, the Klingons have a number of key decisions that they need to take early on:

• The Romulan plasma torpedos are nasty, area-effect weapons but they can be degraded with concentrated firepower.  Will the fleet split up and try to pre-position itself to attack any Romulan ships that uncloak?  Is it better to split up and limit the number of ships that could be hurt by a single weapon, or should the Klingons stick close together, guard the assault carrier and try to shoot down any incoming torpedoes?
• How much should the Romulan base be bombarded before the commandos assault it?  Too little and the base's point defences and security troops will still be at full effect; too much and there may be no loot left for the commandos to retrieve.
• The assault shuttles can carry either marines or loot.  How many should be assigned to each function?  Too few marines and the klingons won't capture the base - but there's no point in taking the research centre if the attackers cannot then retrieve anything of value.

For the Romulans, these issues arise:

• Should any of the early reinforcement ships drop their cloaks and appear on the table?  It might provoke a Klingon response and distract them from their task, or it might just sacrifice the Romulan ship.
• Assuming that the Romulan fleet wish to uncloak en-masse, in which turn should this occur?  Too soon and they might be outnumbered; too late and the Klingons will have accomplished their task and be heading for outer space.

Here's how it went when we played the game:

Turn 1

In our game, the Klingons decided to come in at high speed (typically 16" or so).  Shuttles were launched and the warships surged forwards.

There wasn't a lot for the Romulans to do on turn 1, but I realised with delight that one of the enemy frigates was just in extreme range for the base's heavy beam battery.  A runaway series of '6's ended up causing 9 points of damage to the tiny ship which was completely vapourised [in Full Thrust, a beam weapon that rolls a '6' not only inflicts damage, but also gets to roll again].  So, a bad omen for the Klingons, or just an extremely lucky shot?

Turn 2

The Klingons continued to approach at high speed.  Anticipating a bombardment, the base switched on its Reflex Field (thus prohibiting it from shooting).  However, the attackers also held their fire...

Turn 3

An ever-increasing number of "blips" was beginning to worry the Klingons,  Romulan reinforcements were arriving, but there wasn't much the attackers could do about this except carry on with their plan.

The main event of turn 3 was the ground assault on the Romulan base as the troop-carrying shuttles arrived at their destination.  Here's how it went:

• 12 Klingon shuttles (loaded with 10 squads of commandos) stormed the base.
• 3 shuttles from Red Group were shot down by point defence fire.  Remaining = 9 shuttles, 7 commandos.
• The survivors all attempted a combat landing on the base.  Red Group touched down successfully, but Blue Group suffered a disaster.  One shuttle clipped a hill when making a low approach; it somersaulted and exploded.  2 other shuttles attempted to avoid the flying wreckage and instead collided with each other [of 9 dice thrown for the 2 groups, 3 came up with a '1' - an appalling result for the Klingons].  Remaining = 6 shuttles, 5 commandos.
• The 5 Klingon assault teams engaged the 5 base security squads.  Honours were even and 3 of each fell.  Remaining = 6 shuttles, 2 commandos, 2 base security.

Turn 4

Still there were no Romulan ships on the board, though there were blips all over the place.  The assault on the planet was taking too long (and the outcome was too evenly balanced).

In an act of desperation, the Klingon battlecruiser "Relentless" fired everything it could as it flashed past the planet at high speed.  The base lost one living quarters (and the associated scientists), but more importantly the volley knocked out all of the facility's fire control systems and killed one base security squad.  At least that was very much in the Klingon's favour!

Things looked better for the commandos now that they had a 2:1 advantage in surviving troops.  However, the Romulan commander (i.e. me) then played a Vengeance! event card.  Sadly, even though the last base security squad fought with redoubled strength, they didn't manage to do more than trade losses with the Klingons.  Result = 6 shuttles, 1 commando squad left.  No base security remaining, so the last Klingon assault team captures the base (just)!

Turn 5

As the Klingon ships executed high speed turns away from the planet, the Romulan fleet decloaked!  The defending ships were travelling relatively slowly, hoping to sandwich the invaders in the middle of the table.  Whilst that wasn't quite how it turned out, they were still fairly well positioned.

Realising that the Romulan cruiser "Dragon" was perfectly positioned to attack his assault carrier, the desperate Klingon played an event card on her.  Normally, this card ("The engines willnae stand it!" would be used on a friendly ship, but the Klingon was hoping that the Dragon would break down.  It was an interesting gambit, but it wasn't to be; the Dragon's chief engineer was too canny to over-stress his engines in this manner.

The Klingon ships took evasive action, but it wasn't enough.  The Dragon's plasma torpedo just clipped the Ragnarok (the assault transport) and rocked the vessel.  Damage was severe, including a warp core critical hit.  Before damage control teams could react properly, the Ragnarok blew up in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics!

Turns 6 and after

The Klingons were in real trouble now.  Their battlecruiser (Relentless) had flown off the table; it's high speed and relative lack of maneuverability meant that it couldn't turn tightly enough to stay in the battle.  Even though the 6 assault shuttles left the planetary base full of captured equipment, technicians and documents, the loss of the troopship meant that they would find it extraordinarily difficult to escape.

Events were played on the Romulans whenever possible, at least until the Klingon player ran out of cards, but they only slowed down the inevitable end.

Finally, the Romulan battlecruiser Consul torpedoed the last remaining Klingon cruiser.  Although the Valhalla survived that attack, she was very heavily damaged and didn't have any realistic chance of either escaping or of fighting back.  We played another turn after this, but it was obvious that the Klingons could do nothing to change their fortunes.

Final results

• Romulans: only minor damage to any ships.  Research base heavily damaged and sabotaged.
• Klingons: Valhalla (CA), Ragnarok (assault carrier) and Victory (FG) destroyed.  Relentless (BC) and Warrior (FG) escaped.  6 shuttles still at large and filled with important data about Romulan weapons research, though hiding in a system deep in Romulan space.

Conclusion

Could the Klingons have won this scenario?  The game went quite heavily against them, yet they did suffer some bad luck:

• The flak from the base was probably average, but the shuttles' combat landings were spectacularly bad!  Had more commandos made it into the base then the Klingons might have captured it a turn earlier; this would have made their escape more likely.
• The plasma torpedos performed well above average (again!  I'm beginning to wonder if the Romulan's secret weapons research is really about increasing the yield from a torpedo, rather than anything else).  In particular, the troop transport was horrendously unlucky to take a double threshold check from 1 torpedo and thence pick up a critical hit which resulted in her immediate destruction!  Had she survived, albeit damaged, the game might have ended very differently.
• The Relentless couldn't manoeuvre enough to stay on the table; she was travelling too fast to turn in time.  That's not really bad luck, but rather a misjudgement on the part of the Klingon player.  Had their most powerful asset still been around when the ship-to-ship combat began then the Klingons might have put up a better fight!

So, could you do better as the Klingon?  Would you have changed the force composition (perhaps having 2 smaller assault transports might have worked better)?  What changes to tactics might have improved their odds?  I'd be most interested to hear your thoughts - and I'd be absolutely delighted if anyone else also played this scenario and reported their results!

The Tesserae Incident: part 1 (the Scenario)

Introduction

Some of you with long memories might remember a game of Full Thrust in which a Klingon fleet investigated a secret Romulan research base: here.  This game was played 2 years ago, almost to the day and I thought that it was high time we gave the Klingon fleet another chance (it was hammered in the previous game).

However, rather than replay the game exactly as we did in 2014, I thought that I'd change the scenario around a bit.  Rather than having a small Romulan force already on table, we'd have a much larger Romulan fleet arriving slowly over time.  This would give the Klingons an advantage early on, but they'd have to move quickly to achieve their objectives or risk being overwhelmed later on.  Additionally, I thought that this would be an excellent testbed for my half-baked revision of the Full Thrust boarding rules.  The original rules for marines are extremely basic; it has long been an intention of mine to experiment with something slightly more detailed.

The Scenario

So, the Klingons have to raid the planetary research base, steal whatever data, materials and personnel (scientists, technicians) they can and then make their escape before the ever-escalating Romulan response becomes too much for them.  Sounds simple, right?

Well, standard boarding (using transporters, short range pods or similar) in Full Thrust requires the attacker and the defender to match both speed and heading (to within 1 point of each) and to be within a fairly short distance (6mu, from memory).  This is so difficult to achieve as to be effectively impossible if the target is mobile; it's hard enough even when the defender is a stationary planet!

To overcome this difficulty and give them a reasonable chance of success, the Klingons have been given a fast attack transport equipped with assault shuttles capable of ferrying a generous complement of marines.  These assault shuttles are detailed in the Full Thrust: Continuum supplement, though I've modified some of the rules for their use here.

Forces

Klingons

• Ragnarok: assault transport/commando carrier.
• Relentless: battle cruiser
• Valhalla: heavy cruiser
• Warrior and Victory: frigates

This adds up to around 800NPV, excluding the assault transport (which the Klingons get for free).  The Relentless and Valhalla are capable, fast ships though the frigates are pretty useless.

Romulans

• Farside Base: military research station.  The "secret weapon" developed by this base is a reflex field, as detailed in the Full Thrust rules.  As well as the weapon, the base has 2 "P" passenger/living quarters for the research scientists & technicians and 4 "H" holds for their materials, workshops, computer banks and data archives.
• Consul: battle cruiser
• Dragon: heavy cruiser
• Decurion: light cruiser
• Lorica and Pilum: destroyers

The Romulans have about 1200NPV of ships (plus the base, which is free).  They outgun the attackers by about 3:2, though this is tempered by the fact that their ships arrive piecemeal and over a number of turns.  Fortunately, all the Romulan ships have cloaking devices and so early arrivals can hide until the fleet is ready, rather than risk being annihilated one-at-a-time.

Victory Conditions

The Klingons must capture the base and carry off research material.  There are a maximum possible of 7 points worth of such loot: 1 for parts from the reflex field generator, 2 from the "P" crew quarters and 4 from the "H" laboratories and stores.  Loot can only be captured if the system hasn't already been destroyed in the fighting!

Each point of loot is a full assault shuttle load or it can be transported as per the standard Full Thrust rules.   It must be taken to a warp-capable ship which must then escape in order for it to be counted.

Obviously the scale of victory is from 0 (the Klingons fail completely) to 7 (total Klingon success; every loot point retrieved).  All else, including casualties, is really secondary to this!

Deployment

Klingons

• The Klingon fleet is placed 48mu (4') away from the planet (i.e. outside of weapons range) at any speed and heading desired by their commander.  We used a 6'x4' table; the Klingons were allocated one of the short table edges as their deployment zone.

Romulans

• The Romulan fleet is divided into 5 groups as evenly as possible and each is assigned a unique number from 1..6 .  Note that since their are 5 ships and 6 groups, one of the groups will be empty.
• At the start of each of the first 6 turns, the Romulan player rolls a single dice and receives the group with that number as the turn's reinforcements.  If the group has already been used as a reinforcement then the player re-rolls until an available group is received.
• Once the reinforcement group is known, the Romulan player rolls for its entry point.  This should be the centre of one of the 3 "non-Klingon" table edges.  On arrival, reinforcements may have any desired initial speed; their heading is directly towards the table centre.
• If the reinforcement ship is to remain cloaked (including the group without any ship in it) then a suitable blip should be placed at the entry point and the Romulan must write orders for as many turns ahead as the ship will remain cloaked, as per the standard Full Thrust rules.
  The Klingon player may know that "group 4" has arrived, but will not know the composition of group 4 until it uncloaks.  Obviously, for the empty group any such orders will be a blind since in all likelihood it will never uncloak.
• Otherwise, if the reinforcement is to be uncloaked then the model should be placed directly at the entry point.

On average, Romulan forces on the table will have achieved parity with the Klingons by turn 4, but they might be lucky and receive heavy units early or they might be unlucky and only get small ships by then.  The Klingon will have to guess when (and where!) the Romulans will appear, whilst the Romulans will have to plan for the uncertain location and timing of their reinforcements.  Should they try for an all-out uncloaking & assault for turn 5 (say), or is it worth having a smaller number of ships uncloak earlier?

Special Rules

Assault Shuttles

• Unlike in the Full Thrust: Continuum rules, my assault shuttle can be reused - if they survive!  They can therefore be used to lift off marines as well as captured loot after an assault.
• Each assault shuttle can carry 1 marine or 1 unit of loot (captured personnel, secret parts, data crystals or whatever).
• When making an attack, the shuttle squadron(s) are moved into contact with the target.  The defenders may fire point defenses and class-1 beams as normal.
• Shuttle which survive point defense fire make a combat landing on the target.  This is a dangerous manoeuvre, so a dice is thrown for each shuttle: any score of 1 or less and the shuttle plus anything it was carrying is destroyed.  Modifiers: take the thrust rating of the target away from the roll [note that this makes assaulting anything other than the slowest freighter or static base a very risky plan].
• Once an assault shuttle has landed on the target, any marines it is carrying will disembark and fight the defenders.

Threshold Checks

• If a ship or base takes a threshold check whilst hostile shuttles and/or marines are present then make rolls for each of these as well as for the defending ship or base's systems.  Firing on a ship that has an internal battle going on is just as likely to hurt the invaders as it is to hurt the defenders!

Marine Combat

• Once per round, during the final phase (just before making threshold checks), all marines will fire at any enemies who are within the same ship or base.  To resolve this, roll 1 die for each marine and calculate the number of casualties as if a beam-1 was being fired at a level-1 screen.  In other words, a roll of '5' causes 1 casualty, whereas a roll of '6' causes 2 casualties and a re-roll.
• As an extra rule, not needed for this scenario: if firing on lighter forces (such as civilian freighter crews) then treat them as an unscreened target.  If firing on better trained and equipped troops (for example, regular army in armoured battle suits) then treat them as a target with screen-2.
• Re-rolls don't count as penetrating in the same way as beam fire against a ship, so the target's "screen" class remains the same.  However, if any further enemy squad is hit on a re-roll then the ship or base takes 1 hull point of damage as well.  Note that the re-rolls should be made even if all enemy squads have been eliminated, just in case such structural damage is caused!
• Whilst an assault is in progress, the defenders still control all systems on the ship or base.  The fighting occurs around the perimeter, not on the bridge!
• If at any time all the defenders are eliminated and at least some attackers remain then the base or ship has been captured.  Generally speaking, weapons, propulsion and other systems will be unusable by either side from that point on in the game (the defenders may have sabotaged them or installed lockouts, the controls could have been too badly damaged in the firefight, or perhaps enemy systems are just too alien to operate in the heat of battle).  Specific scenario rules may sometimes override this.

Coming soon in part 2: how our game played out => HERE!