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: Treachery!

Introduction

It's been over 6 months since I last posted a Full Thrust battle report, if I've calculated correctly.  Games (of anything) have been hard to arrange since the club shut down early this year.  However, yesterday afternoon my sons and I played a short, sharp little action.  Here's how it went...

The Scenario

Background

A Klingon flotilla is refuelling at a small space station near to the Cepheus Rift.  They've been tasked with anti-piracy patrols; the Klingons have already disrupted an Orion operation at an abandoned starbase, but these criminals don't give up easily.

As the Klingon commander contemplates how he will conduct this campaign, alarms go off!  Unidentified vessels have warped in, perilously close to his warships.  Immediately after this, all systems on the Klingon vessels suddenly malfunction and go off line.  It seems that a computer virus has been smuggled onto the imperial warships and has been triggered by the new arrivals.  The hunters have just become the hunted!

Setup

• The defending Klingons have a fleet of 800 NPV value.  They also have an unarmed refuelling station of 400 NPV; this is placed in the middle of the playing area.  All ships are stationary and are deployed within 6" of the station.
• The Orion attackers have 500 NPV to build their fleet.  Their ships arrive at the start of turn 1, 24" from the space station in any direction they choose.  Initial speed is 6.

Special Rules

The Klingon flotilla at anchor around the refuelling satellite.  From the top left, clockwise: Asgard (heavy cruiser), Conquest (frigate), Ragnarok (heavy cruiser) and Warrior (frigate).

The Klingon fleet has been caught napping!  Their ships are completely disabled by a computer virus and it will take some time for their experts to restore them to full working order.

Every turn, after writing orders, each Klingon ship (and the space station) rolls 1 dice and adds the result to its running total for "preparedness".  The ship can only operate systems when the total value reaches certain numbers:

• Preparedness 0 [all ships start the game at this]: the ship may not move or fire weapons.  Defensive systems such as screens and point defence do not work.  In fact, no systems at all will function!
• Preparedness 6+: Defensive systems such as point defence and screens operate as normal.  Thrust is available, but only at 50% of normal levels.
• Preparedness 12+: All systems work as normal, with no restrictions.

So, it is theoretically possible for a Klingon ship to be restored to fully operational status within 2 turns, but the average will be around 4 turns.  To counter this, the Orions have a much smaller fleet.  Can the attacking pirates kill half of the Klingon fleet within 3 turns?  If they fail to do this then they'll be out-gunned by some very angry warriors!

Our Game

The Orions attack!  From left to right: Pegasus (light cruiser), Etna (heavy cruiser), Buccaneer (corvette)

Right from the start, the 3 Orion ships accelerated towards the helpless Klingons.  They opened fire at medium range, inflicting moderate damage on one of the enemy cruisers and severe damage to the nearer Klingon frigate.

To add insult to injury, we threw for a "non-critical hit" for the damaged frigate.  She took two such hits and lost not only her video arcade but also the captain's prized collection of stuffed tribbles.  What a disaster!  The game had to be suspended for a few moments to allow the players to regain their composure...

In turn 2, the Orion ships advanced again at speed 10 or thereabouts.  Weapons were much more effective at this range and the Klingon cruiser Ragnarok was lashed with phasers.  The crippled frigate Warrior was finished off, though the sheer bulk of the space station absorbed all of the light cruiser's firepower without showing many signs of damage.

The Orion ships continued to approach; the lighter ships slowed as they approached the starbase, whilst the heavy cruiser went wide.  By now, some of the Klingon ships had started to move, though the cruiser Asgard was still completely silent [she had thrown a 1, 1, 2 for the first 3 turns and therefore had a total of only 4 preparedness points.  No doubt her captain was ranting at his technical and security officers as they completely failed to bypass the computer virus that was disabling his ship].

In a surprise move, the Klingon frigate Conquest brought weapons online and targeted the Buccaneer.  The Orion corvette suffered crippling damage, with her bridge smashed, captain dead and a warp core breach.  From now on, the tiny ship played no part in the battle; she coasted along, out of control, whilst engineers desperately tried to prevent an internal explosion.

Retribution was swift, though: the light cruiser Pegasus smashed the Klingon frigate with an overwhelming volley that tore the vessel apart.  On the flank, the Etna continued to pound the Ragnarok, knocking out several of her weapons.

In turn 4, the Orions surprised the Klingon commander by playing an event card: "The engines willnae stand it!" [we were using my Full Thrust Event cards].  The heavy cruiser Etna executed a high speed turn, coming round into just the right position to fire on the refuelling base [though I do have to admit that my heart was in my mouth as I rolled to see if a breakdown would occur - it didn't!].

Due in part to poor communication and the inexperience of the junior cruiser captain, both Orion captains fired on the station instead of either Klingon cruiser.  Whilst the heavily damaged Ragnarok was probably easy prey and could be left for later, the Asgard was finally showing signs of getting her act together.  The undamaged Klingon cruiser restored partial mobility this turn [finally!], though she still had no operational weapons.

Despite receiving the full firepower of 2 cruisers at point blank range, the stations shields served her well and the damage inflicted was not particularly serious.  [At this point, as the Orion commander, I began to wish that my ships were fitted with some torpedoes instead of phasers alone.  The beam weapons were just not effective enough against a large, fully-screened target!]

ThePegasus overshot the station in a way that left her weapons unable to bear on most of the enemy forces.  Between them, the 2 Orion cruisers finally demolished the reeling Ragnarok, just as the other, undamaged Klingon cruiser's weapons became operational.

At this point, I decided that it was time to leave.  As the Orions, we had destroyed a heavy cruiser and 2 frigates in return for the loss of a single corvette [technically, the Buccaneer wasn't yet lost, but given the severity of her damage it would have taken a miracle to save her].  We could have turned to make another pass at the remaining Klingon vessel, but she was quite a bit larger than either of the pirate cruisers and our current positioning would have meant coming at her one-at-a-time.  This didn't sound like a recipe for success...

The 2 Orion cruisers both accelerated at best speed, just heading for the exits.  Although the Etna was clearly going to get away easily, the Pegasus was still in the firing line for a turn or two.

The Asgard contemptuously ignored the crippled Orion corvette [which promptly blew up anyway] and leaped in pursuit of the small cruiser.  Although she was coming from a standing start, the big Klingon ship was very quick [thrust 6!].  Even so, I thought that the Pegasus was safe enough - until the pursuer fired 2 disruptor bolts and scored 2 direct hits!  Pegasus staggered and reeled under the impact, but kept on going.

The Asgard accelerated hard, though the Pegasus was still travelling faster and opening the range.  When the Orion ship was within a couple of inches of safety [i.e. the table edge], the Klingon fired again: 2 disruptors - 2 hits!  The bolts cut through the Pegasus's screens as if they weren't there and tore the Orion ship apart.

Conclusion

Those big Klingon cruisers and the station just kept soaking up the damage, even when their shields weren't operating!  I thought that the Etna [in particular] was very well armed, but it was all she could do to kill the Ragnarok over about 4 turns.

The Asgard had the most appalling luck early in the game when trying to fix the ravages of the surprise computer virus.  In the long run, this probably saved her though: the Orion captains didn't see her as a threat and instead concentrated on targets that were shooting back, or were just about to do so.  The last Klingon warship definitely redeemed herself at the end, though - her gunnery was nothing short of scarily accurate!

So, who won?  At the point where I decided to retreat, the Orions were definitely ahead.  However, the loss of their light cruiser makes this less clear cut.  The final tally is thus:

Klingons

• Ragnarok (CA): Destroyed
• Asgard (CA): Undamaged
• Conquest (FG): Destroyed
• Warrior (FG): Destroyed
• Refuelling Station: Moderate damage

Orions

• Etna (CA): Undamaged
• Pegasus (CL): Destroyed
• Buccaneer (CT): Destroyed

Whilst the Orions wiped out more material than they lost, a pirate force cannot afford to trade ships with an imperial navy, even at a 2:1 rate.  They also failed to destroy or cripple the starbase.  Overall, I think I'd give them a Pyrrhic victory - it's good propaganda and will safeguard their operations for a little while, but they won't win the war with escapades like this! 

Full Thrust: Rescue the Tanker!

Introduction

The Tholian Border Patrol (1 heavy cruiser and 2 corvettes) englobing the Minotaur with web

Amongst the Orion pirates, the MacTavish cartel (it's a long story) is known for taking risks.  This time they may have gone too far, though.  One of their squadrons, desperate for supplies, has arranged a rendezvous with the Minotaur, a large freighter carrying fuel and spare parts.  However, in order to avoid attention from Starfleet, the agreed meeting point is in a sector claimed by the Tholians.

Unfortunately for the MacTavishes, these xenophobic aliens have encountered the freighter already and have immobilised it with one of their strange energy webs while they await instructions from their leaders.

The Scenario

The MacTavish squadron: 2 light cruisers and 2 heavy destroyers

The Orion squadron must rescue their supply ship and escape before Tholian reinforcements arrive.  For their part, the Tholians are well aware of the wealth of materials that the freighter is carrying, as well as the possibility of useful data on the pirates' operations, so capturing the merchantman would be good!

Forces

Orion

• The MacTavish Squadron (500 NPV) arrives from one table edge on turn 1.  They have an initial speed of 10.

Tholian

• The Border Patrol (330 NPV) starts in the middle of the table.  They have already surrounded the bulk freighter Minotaur with web.
• The Rapid Response Force (400 NPV) arrives later in the game, from the opposite table edge to the Orions.  From the start of turn 5, the Tholian player may dice for the arrival of these reinforcements.  To arrive on turn 5 requires a roll of 5+, to arrive on turn 6 needs a 4+ and so on.

Victory

• If the freighter escapes off the Orion table edge whilst still under Orion control then the Orion player wins a major victory.
• If the freighter is in Tholian hands when the game ends (by agreement or when all forces on the Orion side are destroyed or have fled) then the Tholians win a major victory.
• If neither side holds the freighter (i.e. it has been destroyed!) then the side that was responsible for its destruction loses.  The other player scores a minor victory.

The Game

Seeing that the Tholian cruiser was outside the web and on its own, the Orion squadron accelerated hard. They planned to obliterate the larger enemy vessel before braking and turning sharply.  The smaller Tholian patrol craft could be mopped up at leisure.

When the Orion squadron reached effective range, things didn't go quite according to plan, though.  The Orion light cruiser Pegasus prepared to fire on the agreed target, but suffered a software fault in her targeting arrays.  Her entire volley was directed at the small Tholian corvette Topaz instead.  Even though the Topaz was partly shielded by the energy web, the tiny vessel took 3 damage points out of her allotment of 4 (a triple threshold check) and virtually every system on the ship went offline.  With the bridge wrecked and life support failing, the remaining crew abandoned ship.

This mistake didn't save the Lithos though, as the other 3 Orion ships all pummelled the Tholian cruiser.  In particular, the heavy destroyer Cyclone scored a runaway series of '6's, causing massive penetrating damage that (amongst other things) knocked out both of the Lithos' fire control systems.  Without these, she couldn't fire back!

Bizarrely, the Cyclone was then struck by a severe energy vortex which spun the destroyer almost back in the direction from which she had come.  Perhaps it was an effect of the over-charged phaser volley she had just fired, or maybe a spatial anomaly caused by the strange Tholian weapon?  Whatever the cause, the Cyclone didn't try to rejoin the rest of the Orion fleet.  A combination of asteroid fields and high speed would have made such a manoeuvre quite risky!  Instead, over the next couple of turns she sailed off the table.

The Orion ships were braking hard now, but they were still going to overshoot the freighter.  Almost contemptuously, the cruiser Manticore swatted the second Tholian corvette (Zircon), thus leaving the web without any power.  At the same time, the other Orion ships continued to hurt the crippled Tholian cruiser.  This time, the damage caused her warp core to go critical and her internal life-support atmosphere boiled away into space through the gaping holes in her hull.

As the web collapsed, the freighter Minotaur was finally able to move.  She started to accelerate in order to escape, but painfully slowly.  Meanwhile the Orion ships turned hard and the Tholian cruiser drifted away slowly, abandoned by her crew.  This was (I think) turn 7, and still the Tholian reinforcements hadn't arrived!

Finally, the Tholian battleship Tholos thundered on.  She was a long way from the action, but travelling at high speed.  Could she catch the Minotaur before the merchantman escaped?

In a bizarre mistaken order, the light cruiser Pegasus actually turned towards the huge battleship, though the other 2 Orion warships both fled.

Even though the range was moderately long, the Pegasus didn't stand a chance against the Tholian behemoth.  The Tholos' broadside scored multiple hits, resulting in a runaway warp reactor which exploded immediately.

Judging that the Minotaur had too great a lead, the Tholian Inspector General fired some long range warning shots at it.  He was hoping to scare the freighter into surrendering, or perhaps damage its engines.  Instead, a single phaser hit caused a series of explosions (the Minotaur was carrying fuel and engine parts, I suppose) which ripped through the containment field controls for the reactor.

At this point, fate intervened.  The Minotaur's chief engineer had been killed in the fire, but one of the deckhands stepped forward.  "I know what to do!" he exclaimed.  "I've got a feeling about this".  Before anyone could dissuade him, he activated the controls to flood the engine compartment with triclozine.  [With 2 damage control parties, I needed to roll a 2 or under to shut down the critical warp core.  By playing the "Use The Force" card I could halve the result of the dice, thus improving my chances considerably.]

Sadly, the crewman had chosen the wrong option [I rolled a '5'!  Even though the card allowed me to halve this, it still rounded up to a '3' and so the warp core was still critical.  We then rolled to see if it went supercritical and promptly came up with the necessary 5 or 6].  The Minotaur blew up in a spectacular fireball, thus ending the game rather promptly.  Actually, the 2 Orion warships that were still on the table were departing too fast to be caught by the battleship anyway, so there was little point in playing on for 1 turn until they made their "official" departure.

Conclusion

OK, that really didn't go as I had expected at all!  I think that the Tholian player made a bad mistake when he deployed the heavy cruiser outside the web.  Apparently he was hoping to draw off the Orion forces by manoeuvring, but this just wasn't realistic.  Once the Lithos was crippled, the Tholian corvettes were easy meat for the Orion ships.  If I had been running the Tholians, I think I would have tried to board the Minotaur and capture her instead.

The Tholian reinforcements took a long time in coming.  Because of the earlier losses, this meant that the Orion squadron was already on its way home.  Indeed, if the Minotaur had had Thrust-2 instead of Thrust-1, they would probably have been quite out of reach by the time the Tholos arrived.  As it was, an unlucky long-range shot wiped out the prize!

Technically, this was a minor Tholian loss, since they destroyed the prize freighter.  In any case, 3 of the 4 Orion warships escaped with only superficial damage.  The Pegasus would probably have made it also, if her captain hadn't blundered his orders.  The Tholians lost a heavy cruiser and a corvette destroyed and another corvette reduced to an abandoned hulk, so the Tholians would have lost on material as well.

I don't think there was anything much wrong with the scenario, but I do think that playing the Tholians will take a bit of thought!

Full Thrust: A Nest of Vipers!

Introduction

Pirate ships docked at Starbase-13

In a remote part of the frontier, Orion pirates have taken over an old battle-station (Starbase 13) and are using it to refuel and repair their privateers.  They have been a considerable thorn in the flesh of the Federation; twice the sector admiral has attempted to retake the station, with disastrous results on both occasions (here and here).  However, the Federation are not the only government who have been stung by the Orion raids...

[I seem to be getting very forgetful these days.  Last week at the Helensburgh club night, I forgot to take my camera.  This week I had the camera, but had forgotten my Full Thrust event cards and all my explosion & missile markers.  Oh, well - those are optional anyway, so the game can go on without them.  Annoying, though.]

The Scenario

"Commander, there's an unidentified ship approaching the station at high speed.  Looks like an ore carrier or something like that."
"A single freighter?  Must be one of our prize crews; they may have forgotten to re-tune their ID signal.  Now stop worrying and don't disturb me again."
"Sir!  Multiple warp signatures, inbound!  Emergency - we're under attack!"

Setup

Place an Orion starbase 18" from one end of the table.  It is surrounded by a thick ring of mines, 24" away from the station.

All the ships in the Orion fleet are docked at the base.  Until they undock, they cannot use any of their own weapons or launch any fighters.

The Klingon fleet arrives from the far end of the table at any desired speed up to 10.  The attackers don't have any minesweepers, but the resourceful admiral has commandeered a large freighter.  He/she may use this to force passage through the minefield or it may be filled with marines and used in an attempt to capture the base (good luck with that!).

We played with roughly the following size of forces:

• Klingons: 2000NPV
• Starbase: 1750NPV
• Orion ships: 500NPV
• Mines: lots!

Special Rules

The Orions are partying hard, as many of their raiders have returned from successful forays at the same time.  Consequently, they aren't as alert as they might be and are relying on their passive defences (minefield) more than they should be.
Every Orion ship and each sector of the starbase must track readiness for each of the following items that are fitted to that ship/sector.  At the start of every turn, throw a dice for each item on each ship; on a '6' the preparedness advances to the next level:

• Weapons - level-0: cannot use, level-1: class-1 beams and point defence may be used as normal, level-2: fully operational
• Engines - level-0: cannot use, level-1: may use 1 thrust, level-2: fully operational
• Screens - level-0: cannot use, level-1: count as class-1 screens, level-2: fully operational.
• Hangars - level-0: cannot use, level-1: fully operational.

The starbase rotates 90 degrees clockwise at the end of every turn.

Victory Conditions

This game is heavily weighted in the attacker's favour, due to the large element of surprise.  So, the Klingons must capture or destroy every Orion ship and the starbase.  None shall escape!  Any other result is an Orion Victory.

For a variant, the Orions could improve their readiness on a 5 or 6 (rather than just a 6) and then victory would be determined by a straight comparison of points value destroyed or captured by the end of the game.

How it played for us

The Klingon fleet approached rapidly, in tight formation.  They had sent the Minotaur (bulk freighter) on ahead with controls locked; the intent was that she would enter the minefield obliquely and thereby cut a wide hole in it through which the fleet would pass.

Consternation and confusion reigned on the Orion side as crews raced for their ships and tried to find their missing officers.  The corvette Pirate was more alert than most; she undocked from Starbase-13 and started to power up her weapons.  Slightly later, the cruiser Etna pulled away from the station on impulse power, but all her other systems were down.

Quadrant-3 of the starbase reacted much more swiftly than the remaining Orion forces; its big weapons were activated just as the station's rotation turned the quadrant away from the attacking fleet.  They did manage to launch a squadron of fighters, though.

The commandeered freighter Minotaur hit the minefield and the Klingons were delighted when she only took 3 points of damage from the first and second clusters of bombs.  This would be easy!  Their joy turned quickly to horror as the third part of the barrage scored a whopping 17 hits.  When the sensors had settled down again and the debris had cleared, it became obvious that the Minotaur had been destroyed before hitting the fourth and final set of mines.

Captains cursed and helmsmen sweated as the port half of the Klingon fleet turned even closer to the other ships.  The battlecruiser Relentless and the frigate Victory couldn't quite make it past the mines, though; these detonated with a spectacular "fut!", scoring minor damage to the frigate and none at all to the larger vessel.  Even as the first squadron of Orion fighters approached, the fleet was through the gap and racing towards the shocked defenders!

White squadron attempted to slow down the Klingons by making an attack run on the Admiral Kang.  However, the flagship's gunners were ready for action and jubilantly shot down 5 of the 6 fighters.

One of the Orion players commented, wistfully "It would be nice if the last pilot was Luke Skywalker".  He wasn't; the lone fighter achieved nothing against the enemy battleship...

Another set of Orion fighters (Red squadron) was launched.  It also made a firing pass on one of the Klingon capital ships, but again without much success.

By now, the Klingon fleet was charging forward.  The battleship Admiral Kang and the battlecruiser Relentless kept close together and concentrated their fire on the starbase.  Phasers did a moderate amount of damage, but almost all of the ships' disruptors missed.  Meanwhile, the cruisers and frigates split off to hunt down the few Orion ships which had managed to undock.

As the Orion battlestation rotated, the fully active quadrant-3 was able to open fire.  It could only bring weapons to bear on 2 over-eager Klingon frigates this turn, so these bore the brunt of the Orion's frustrations and were vapourised.  One of these ships took twice as many hits as were needed to kill it; the crew never even realised they were dead until they arrived in Sto'Vo'Kor to begin their afterlife.

In retaliation, the Klingon warships fired on and destroyed the plucky Orion corvette Pirate and the struggling cruiser Etna; neither ship had much chance against the weight of fire-power directed against them.

Due to some navigational errors, the Klingon frigate Warrior ended up well out of the fight, heading back towards the minefield.  On the Admiral Kang, the flag captain's staff noted this apparent dereliction of duty but were too busy to take action immediately.  Once the battle was over, the captain of the Warrior would probably be reassigned to some awful cargo run, I suspect...

In the final turn of the game, before we ran out of time, the Klingon fleet reached point blank range to the starbase.  Even as Quadrant-2 started powering up its heavy weapons, the Admiral Kang and the Relentless pounded it mercilessly with phasers (all disruptors missed, again!), inflicting heavy damage and knocking out both torpedo launchers.  In return, the fully active Quadrant-3 was rotated towards the attackers and it lashed out at the Klingon battleship.  The Admiral Kang was forced to take a threshold check, but luckily (for her!) only lost her warp drive and a single disruptor.

Conclusion

At this point, we had to pack the game away.  What might have happened next, if we had more time to play on?

The Klingon warships would have overshot the starbase quite dramatically, given the speed at which they were travelling.  This is especially true for the 2 capital ships, which weren't quite as nimble as the cruisers.

Had they been able to trade blows with Quadrant-3 for one turn from their current position, they would then have been faced by the useless and totally inactive Quadrant-4 (I guess that's where the party was being held!)  If this had happened then the massed Klingon fire-power should have reduced the base to rubble quite rapidly, though probably not without taking a few hits themselves.

As it was, it would be a race between the fleet slowing down and turning round, versus the remainder of the starbase (especially Quadrant-1 and Quadrant-4) remembering where they had left their weapon-arming codes and/or finding someone sober enough to man their tactical consoles!  When/if the battlestation woke up properly, the attackers would have taken some real damage.

The few, remaining Orion ships were toast, really.  Their chances of disengaging from the station and then escaping before being picked off were slim, I think.

Finally, I suspect that the Klingon admiral will dispatch a task force to hunt down that Ferengi trader who sold him all those "advanced" disruptor targeting controls, in order to negotiate a refund!

"Not-Star Trek" Orion Fleet (Irregular miniatures)

Introduction

Not long ago, I showed you my "not-Federation" starships.  This time, it's the turn of my second-oldest fleet: their "not Orion" opponents, also from Irregular Miniatures.  These are not canon Orions; they don't quite match the official ship classes from Amarillo Design Bureau (owners of the Star Fleet Battles copyright).  However, they're a great deal cheaper (especially since Irregular is on the near side of the Atlantic for me, so postage costs are also less) and that's good enough!

Irregular's Catalogue

For my Orion fleet, I'm using the "Dysonian" ships from Irregular Miniatures.  These can be found (with some difficulty) by going to the main site an choosing "6mm" from the bottom bar.  Then click on "Science Fiction and Spaceships"; the DYD codes are about 75% of the way down that page.  As before, it's probably helpful to republish the relevant extract of the catalogue here:

DYSONIAN FLEET

DYD1	Corvette, Blitzspear Class
DYD2	Frigate, Jarl Class
DYD3	Destroyer, Thor Class
DYD4	Heavy Destroyer, Wraith Class
DYD5	Light Cruiser, Javelin Class
DYD6	Heavy Cruiser, Loki Class
DYD7	Battlecruiser, Chieftain Class
DYD8	Dreadnought (Battlecruiser with 4 engines), Odin Class
DYD9	Light Carrier (Battlecruiser with 2 hanger bay modules), Raven Class
DYD10	Light Tug (Light cruiser with cargo pallet), Heimdahl Class
DYD11	Revised Blitzspear Class Corvette
DYD12	Rapier Class Gunboat

Orions in Full Thrust

As with my Federation fleet, I decided to base my Orions on an existing set of Full Thrust designs.  This was mainly to avoid the effort of creating an entire fleet of ships from scratch!

In this case, I chose to base the Orions on the ESU fleet.  Their design philosophy (from Full Thrust's Fleet Book 1) can be paraphrased thus "mostly beam armed, varied means of protection, optimised for long-term independent operations".  That fits my idea of the pirate fleet quite well and I'm not averse to swapping a few systems here and there to customise ships.  In particular, I've given many of the larger ships a needle beam; this should allow them to target the engines of a fleeing merchantman and thus be able to capture it without destroying the cargo.

The Fleet

2 things should be noted before we rush into the pictures:

1. These Orions use my own "Fireball XL5" colour scheme: large amounts of silver offset by red and yellow stripes.  That's not Star Fleet Battles canon at all!  However, I reckon that a pirate chief can paint his ships any way he likes; indeed he may even want to make his fleet very distinctive.
2. I started this collection with a "Fleet Pack" from Irregular Miniatures.  This came with no instructions and all the parts were in a single bag (note that I bought this many, many years ago; the way Irregular package and label items may have changed since).  While I'm reasonably confident in my identification of the smaller, 1-piece ship models, the larger ones may not resemble anything actually in the catalogue.  Basically, I took the collection of bigger hulls & separate engines and assembled them in ways that seemed good to me!

I've given the manufacturer's designation for each model where I'm reasonably confident that I have the right number.  However, please accept that I may have made some errors.  Update: I've filled in the missing codes, many thanks to Rich McGee and Irregular!

Irregular Designation	Picture	Full Thrust SSD
Update: DYD2 - Frigate, Jarl Class
DYD3 - Destroyer, Thor Class
DYD4 - Heavy Destroyer, Wraith Class
DYD5 - Light Cruiser, Javelin Class
Update: DYD6 - Heavy Cruiser, Loki Class
Update: DYD7 - Battlecruiser, Chieftain Class
Update: DYD10 - Light Tug (Light cruiser with cargo pallet), Heimdahl Class

So there you have it: my "not Orion" Star Trek fleet for Full Thrust.  These are all Irregular ships and they are all from their DYD range.  However, I'm not at all sure of many of the product codes; if any reader can help me to fill these in then I'll be very grateful!