Away Team Red: Romulans

Introduction

Those who know me well will know that I have something of a fondness for Star Trek.  I've published a number of articles previously about my "not Trek" starships and the games of Full Thrust in which they have been used.  There are reasonably good sources of such models from a wide variety of sources.

Until recently, there has been a scarcity of figure models, suitable for use in games set on board a ship or as part of an away team on a planet's surface.  There have been some that would proxy for Federation crew, but very little for other races.

Well, not any more!  There's a range of 3D-printable designs called "Away Team Red" that I've only discovered in the last 6 months or so, even if they have been around for a bit longer than this.  Physical specimens are available from a number of suppliers on hosts such as etsy.com .

The Away Team Red collection is obviously designed by someone who loves and respects Star Trek, especially the original series.  If I've understood correctly, the sculptor goes by the handle of Lost Heresy Miniatures.

The range includes several alien races (including a "not Gorn" set - something of a holy grail for me!) as well as a considerable number of "not Federation" crew and a few monsters.  Excellent!

After that long preamble, here are some Romulans!

Aquilons

• Firstly, they're not "Romulans" - the designer calls them "Aquilons".  Well, well.
• There are two variants of the 10-model Aquilon set: one with helmets and one without.  I have the bare-headed figures.
• The 10 models in the set include an obvious leader, but many of the rest are equipped with long guns.  Ideally I would have preferred a more diverse group, with some figures using equipment (scanners, comms...) rather than brandishing weapons.  But you get what you get.
• I've converted several of the crew in small ways, though this was not easy.  They're printed in a very hard, very brittle resin and the only way to cut this was with a razor saw.  Of necessity, my conversions have been limited to swapping the occasional hand (plus what it's holding) or shortening the weapons to make them pistols rather than rifles.
• These models are slightly larger than 28mm - maybe 30mm?  They're close enough for me to mix and match with other manufacturers, especially for other races.

The Crew

I painted the first four figures with coloured sashes; I suppose I'm thinking of these as officers or specialists.

Tomeet is obviously the captain and I imagine that Rukan is his second-in-command (since he's got the same colour of sash, albeit a lesser form).  The other two could be science, engineering, comms, medical or any other specialties I desire.

The next pair are in the "rank and file" uniform, with standard black sashes.  However, they're carrying pistols.  Perhaps they are ensigns - does the Romulan empire have such things?

Am I alone in thinking that the 3rd model's face looks like Leonard Nimoy/Spock?

Finally, we have the goon squad, security, mooks or whatever else you wish to call them.  I'm thinking that these are the equivalent of the Federation's "red shirts" - un-named characters whose chance of surviving an episode is low.

...except that I did give them names.  Does that create a paradox and break the universe?

Finally, here is the entire bunch all together.  Romulans aren't inherently evil; they're just very secretive and have their own honour code.  That should be plenty to bring them into conflict with my other Trek-like forces!

Conclusion

These are excellent models!  They're on the chunky side, but that gives them a lot of strength and they should resist handling damage well.  The hard resin does make it difficult to convert them, but that's too bad.

These aren't the first "Away Team Red" models I have bought - and I don't think they'll be the last, either.

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!

Full Thrust: The raid on Tessarae Major

Introduction

Tessarae Major.  The ground base is just visible as a blue atmospheric shield on the far side of the planet

Always secretive, the Romulans have established a large military research base on the K-class planet of Tessarae Major.  This is a backwater world well within their own territory, but remote from all significant trade routes.  The station would have remained secret, too - if it wasn't for an independent trader stopping in the system to flush his holds of illegal contaminants.  As soon as he realised what he had seen, the unlucky merchantman fled without being detected by the Romulans.  He was unlucky because he talked to the wrong person (a Klingon agent) at his next stop...

The Scenario

Victory Conditions

It's very simple: if the Klingons capture the base (and can therefore retrieve vital military data) then they win.  If the base is destroyed by either side then it's a draw.  Otherwise, if the defenders retain control of the base, then the Romulans win.

Klingon Forces

The Klingon raiding force consists of 1 battleship, 1 battlecruiser and 2 heavy cruisers.  Should be more than enough to deal with the base, right?  2 frigates are also available as reserves, in case any of the three players lost their entire command.  The attacking fleet enters from the far end of the board, with an initial speed of 8.

Note that in order to capture the base the Klingons must land marines by transporter or shuttle.  Either way, the standard, abstract "boarding" rules require the ship to be within 6" of the base and travelling at a speed of 1 or less!

Romulan Forces

The scientists at the base have been experimenting with a very unusual defence: the reflex field.  This is properly described in the standard Full Thrust rulebook, but roughly speaking it can "reflect" damage from beam weapons back onto the firer.  Whilst the field is switched on, the base cannot fire its own phasers, so the decision to enable it or not must be made at the start of every turn by the base commander.  Note that the reflex field isn't of any use against disruptors and doesn't always work as intended against standard beam weapons!

As well as the research base (which is approximately the strength of a battlecruiser), the Romulans have 2 heavy cruisers and 2 destroyers.  The Klingons don't know about these ships, either their numbers or classes!  The defending vessels are deployed, cloaked, as follows:

• There are 10 numbered "blip" counters scattered around the board.
• Each Romulan ship writes down the number of the blip from which it will begin.  Also, as per the rules for cloaking devices in Full Thrust, it must decide how many turns it will remain hidden and write its movement orders in advance for those turns.
• When a Romulan ship uncloaks for the first time, it will be placed initially on the chosen blip and then its pre-plotted movement will be executed; this gives it the final location for the uncloaked model.

Note that even though the Klingons are unaware of the defending squadron, they still have quite an advantage in tonnage over the defenders.

Our Game

As the game started, the Klingons played a Moral High Ground card.  Now the Romulans would only draw the game if they committed an atrocity, even if they held their base!

For 2 turns, the Klingon fleet came barrelling in, ignoring the occasional ripple in sub-space.  Perhaps they put these down to harmless local gravitational phenomena, or a lingering effect of the enemy's previous weapons tests?  Or maybe their sensor technicians were too junior to make their concerns heard?  Whatever the reason, the Klingons were completely convinced that they had taken the Romulans by surprise.  Victory was theirs for the taking!

The plan was that the 2 cruisers would race ahead, using their superior manoeuvrability to stop near the base and send in assault teams while the 2 capital ships provided fire support.  Some long-range fire was attempted on the Romulan hemisphere, but a freak accident sent energy back along the ionised trail of the phaser shot and inflicted minor damaged to the Admiral Kang.

On turn 3, everything changed.  The Romulan ships had been creeping in from the edges slowly under cloak.  Now they decloaked: the 2 destroyers and the cruiser Firebird were right behind the Klingon fleet, while the other Romulan cruiser, Dragon was in front of them, near the planet.

The Klingon ships hastily plotted evasive manoeuvres, but a couple of plasma torpedoes from the Romulan cruisers still landed right in the middle of their formation.  Taken by surprise, the Klingon point-defence systems failed to degrade either of the approaching warheads [they had a total of 10 dice, but didn't roll even a single '6'].  The torpedoes exploded with devastating effect [i.e. much higher than average rolls for damage!], crippling the cruiser Valhalla with a bridge hit, severely damaging the other cruiser (Asgard) and reducing  the battleship's engines to half power.

Since the Valhalla was out of control and heading towards the planet at high speed, the Romulans didn't waste time firing on her.  A few escape pods ejected from the crippled vessel before the Klingon cruiser smacked into the planet's surface and was completely destroyed.  She narrowly missed hitting the research base (by 50 miles or so), but the shock waves were felt across the entire hemisphere!

Phaser fire from the base destroyed the heavily-damaged Asgard quite easily.  Fortunately for the Romulans (bearing in mind the Klingons' Moral High Ground), the ship was only just out of action and at least some of the crew would have survived in sealed compartments within the wreckage.

To add insult to injury, the base's heavy phasers then fired on the retreating battleship Admiral Kang.  The base tried to play a "Match their shield harmonics!" to make the salvo even more deadly, but Klingon shield technicians were easily up to the challenge and stabilised their defences [i.e. they played a "That's not fair!" card of their own].  As it happened, the Romulans didn't need the extra boost; their weapons blew chunks out of the battleship's engines and rendered them completely inoperable.

Afterwards

We did play on for a bit after this, to fill the time.  However, the game was effectively over at this point; it was obvious that the arrival of 2 Klingon frigates wouldn't make any difference whatsoever to the outcome.  Instead of a slow, blow-by-blow account of that action, here's the final summary:

Klingons

• Admiral Kang (BB): drifted away from the fight with no engine power and few functioning weapons.  Warp drive still operational, so she can probably make it back to Klingon space.
• Relentless (BC): Unable to make a high-speed turn, so flew off the table.  Allowed to come back a few turns later only to be crippled by both Romulan cruisers.
• Valhalla (CA): made a big, smoking hole in Tessarae Major.
• Asgard (CA): destroyed by phaser fire from Hawk base.
• Warrior (FG, reinforcement): destroyed.
• Conquest (FG, reinforcement): undamaged, though next on the target list for the entire Romulan force.

Romulans

• Firebird (CA): Slightly damaged when exchanging phaser fire with Relentless.
• Dragon (CA): Barely scratched.
• Lorica (DD): Armour damage only.
• Pilum (DD): Heavily damaged by the Admiral Kang, but saved when a "Makeshift Repairs" card sacrificed the warp drive to restore control to the bridge, just in time to navigate around the planet and avoid hitting it! 

Last word: I don't think I've ever seen a game before where a single turn's shooting so completely changed the situation.  The 2 plasma torpedoes from the outclassed Romulan ships devastated the surprised Klingon fleet; not even a single defending ship was lost!

Full Thrust: Never Trust a Ferengi!

Introduction

Lat weekend I played a small game of Full Thrust with my eldest son, primarily so that we could try out my Romulan fleet and see how the cloaking devices worked.  I took an amended version of the same scenario to the last night at the games club; that will be reported in due course.  In the meantime, here's how the tester went.

The Scenario

3 Ferengi warships are escorting a small merchant convoy through a dangerous region of space.  Their goal is for as many of the freighters as possible to escape (by reaching an edge in the furthest 1/3 of the board).

3 Romulan warships have just appeared (they can setup on any table edge in "their half" of the board) and are determined to stop the convoy.  Let battle commence.

How did it play?

In the very first turn, the Romulan ships fired a couple of plasma torpedoes at the convoy and then cloaked [scenario adjustment needed: start the 2 sides a little further apart!].  Many ships fired on the smaller torpedo and it was successfully dispersed.  However, the larger weapon detonated with full force, inflicting minor damage to the destroyer Bractor and crushing the medium freighter Marie Celeste.

Nothing much happened for another turn, as the Romulans were hidden.  The remaining ships in the convoy continued to accelerate in their attempt to reach safety, but that was about all.

Then, the Romulan ships uncloaked and, sadly for them, each was virtually on top of their opposite number in the Ferengi fleet.  The surprised captain of the heavy cruiser Krayton immediately opened fire, with devastating results.  The Romulan cruiser Dragon was hit in the engines and, just as bad, lost her torpedo launcher, while the light cruiser Decurion took hits to engine and cloaking device.  Ouch!

In return, the best the attackers could do was to inflict minor damage on the large merchantman Empress of Orion and to cripple the light freighter Ivanhoe [she lost 3 of her 4 holds.  Oddly, all of these were determined to be carrying personal grooming equipment - I guess those Ferengi really love their ear-lobe polish!  Ivanhoe also suffered a non-critical hit, which came out as "make it up yourself".  I decided that her robotic loading system had malfunctioned and was busy unloading the contents of the 4th cargo hold - desk lamps - into space].

To add insult to injury, the Bractor then gutted her opposite number - the Lorica - leaving the Romulan destroyer just a drifting, lifeless hulk.

Things just continued to get worse for the Romulans.  The next turn, the damaged Dragon attempted to fire on a merchantman, only to discover that it couldn't lock its phasers on target due to scanner damage.  At least the cruiser's damage control parties had managed to repair the plasma torpedo launcher...

...or so they thought.  However, when the Dragon attempted to fire another torpedo, the weapon malfunctioned and flew off in completely the wrong direction.

In desperation, the cruiser's captain ordered his chief engineer to push the damaged engines to the limit.  This gave him just enough thrust to turn round...

...and come straight into the sights of 2 Ferengi warships at close range.  The Romulan flagship didn't even manage to shoot before she was torn to shreds by fire from the Krayton and the Bractor.

Conclusion

The cloaking device and the torpedo use up a lot of the mass in these Romulan ship designs.  That means they really cannot go head-to-head with an enemy warship of about the same size; they just don't have the same number of phasers and the like.  Instead, they must rely on hidden movement to position themselves where they can shoot without much return fire.  That's not what happened here!

[scenario adjustment - in hindsight, the convoy escorts should have had less firepower.  Perhaps 3/4 or 2/3 of the points value of the attackers rather than parity with them.]

Romulan status:

• Dragon (CA): destroyed
• Decurion (CL): limping away, engines damaged, warp drive and cloaking device inoperable.
• Lorica (DD): lost.  Drifting, bridge smashed beyond repair and all decks open to atmosphere.

Ferengi status:

• Krayton (CA): undamaged
• Letek (CL): undamaged
• Bractor (DD): minor damage
• Empress of Orion (large freighter): minor damage
• Marie Celeste (medium freighter): destroyed
• Ivanhoe (light freighter): destroyed - warp core breach.

The really sad thing is that the attackers even had a Romulan Ale event card.  My son chose not to use this, in case it gave me new cards that were more useful than those I held, but this wasn't likely.  When fighting against Romulans, is any card more useful than a Torpedo Malfunction?!

[Update: we ran this scenario again, with minor differences.  Will it turn out any differently?  See here: http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2013/07/full-thrust-klingon-honour.html]

Shapeways Models

Introduction

I've watched the development of 3d printing techniques with considerable interest over the past few years.  This is the technology where a 3d software design is downloaded from a computer into a machine which then carves or fuses those instructions into a real, solid item.
At the moment the equipment to accomplish this is beyond all bar the most serious private individual, but there are companies who will take your design and print it on their machines.  The best known of these is Shapeways.  Many people upload model starship designs to the Shapeways web site; most of these can then be bought by a 3rd party (such as me).  Recently I ordered a few such models...

White Detail

The first choice one has to make when ordering 3d prints is the material from which they should be constructed.  Shapeways offer 8 or 9 different choices for these items, but actually I believe that many of these are just differently-coloured versions of the same basic stuff.  There is, however, a strong price gradient between the cheapest, lower detail matrix and the most expensive, best detail material.

For these Tiberian Pugius destroyers, I chose the "White Detail" material; this is a compromise between definition and price (mind you, they still cost quite a bit!)  I'll use them as smaller, old-style Romulan ships for Full Thrust.  It's hard to see in these pictures, but the smooth surfaces really are quite smooth, though there's some roughness around the edges.

Undercoated

Here's another shot of a Pugius destroyer, along with a S'ten Vastam light cruiser.  This time, the models have been undercoated; the Pugius is looking quite clean.  However, the S'ten Vastam is distinctly rough; it looks as if it has a hairy fringe all round the model.  Note that this is definitely how it was manufactured; it's not a result of me undercoating the model in a dusty room or anything like that!

Bellerophon

Finally, this is a photo of a completed, painted Bellerophon class light cruiser; I've named her "Endeavour".  Not the Star Trek "Voyager" at all, no sirree!  Any resemblance is purely accidental, I'm sure...

Again, this model has some definite rough edges, although I suspect and hope that they won't be noticeable at normal viewing distances.  Still, they really annoy me!  Bear in mind, though, that all of these models are between 1.5" and 2" (4-5cm) in size, so they're really quite small.

Conclusion

I'm impressed at the variety of offerings that are available at Shapeways.  For starship models, there is a useful discussion here, though I'm aware that there are also many naval models and World War I aircraft for sale.  The detail is not as good on the finished item as I'd like, though they are getting better all the time.  The cost is still relatively high as well, so this isn't the way to construct your horde armies.  Metal, resin or injection moulded plastic are all better quality and cheaper - for now.  But watch this space: I'm reasonably confident that this technology is going to become very significant within the next 5 years or less!