Star Fleet: Balance of Error - BatRep

Having received a squadron of Romulans, which you can see en masse here, how could I not take them onto the field of battle? So with malice aforethought the Romulans surged forth across the Federation border to terrorise and despoil. Did they succeed? Read on to discover the truth! My brother and I rolled for sides, and I took the Romulans, consisting of a Battle Hawk, a SkyHawk Destroyer and a War Eagle Cruiser, while he took the Federation, consisting of the renowned Enterprise, and a Ramius-class. This was represented by a Burke-class, as I'm still awaiting the arrival of the fleet box. Since the idea was to test out cloaking devices, I elected to start the game cloaked. In a sense, this was a bit of a mis-step, leading to the highest number of turns in any of our games so far!

In turn 1 the Feds got the Initiative. Both sides advanced, the Federation cautiously, and the Romulans at the maximum 6" speed. The second turn saw more of the same, but with Romulan Initiative. The third turn saw the Romulans continue to advance, while the Federation ships fired blindly at the Romulans. That 2+ save for being cloaked proved its worth, and nary a shot got through. The fourth turn was a repeat of this, but with slight damage to the SkyHawk. Turn five was another non-event, with more undamaging speculative fire. But come turn 6 I was at last in range.

Over eager, perhaps, I decloaked everything and fired all weapons. The Battle Hawk and Ramius were both crippled in the ensuing whirlwind of fire. When the Battle Hawk was crippled, I rolled for damage to her traits, and every single one was lost. My brother and I joked that a cascade failure had obviously hit the ship! The SkyHawk took some slight damage, and Enterprise launched a Suicide Shuttle. The War Eagle, which I had high hopes in, remembering the way Kirk retired from it at speed in Balance of Terror, proved rather a damp squib. You have the option to shoot down Plasma Torpedoes, and I have the ability to roll bad dice to hit! In short, the 7 dice were reduced to a couple, which didn't even hit my target. My brother suggested with a grin there should be a game mechanic for comedies of errors, with that missing torpedo hitting the damaged Battle Hawk.

Next turn the two undamaged Romulan ships cloaked again to reload weapons, and Niall sagely finished off the crippled Battle Hawk. Enterprise scored some slight damage on the cloaking SkyHawk, and launched another Suicide Shuttle. Next turn Federation accuracy had clearly improved, as Mr Chekov managed to hit both Romulan ships, although the first shuttle blew up without hitting the SkyHawk. The next turn followed the same pattern, and then the Romulans again decloaked, which went dreadfully. SkyHawk was crippled, and yet again the Plasma Torpedo from the War Eagle was shot out of the sky. A Suicide Shuttle crashed into the Skyhawk. Next turn another Suicide Shuttle smacked into the SkyHawk, destroying it. The War Eagle recloaked, and got hit by the ever-improving Mr Chekov. She then decided that with the other ships dead and Enterprise seemingly immune to her Plasma Torpedo, that discretion was the better part of valour. She decloaked and made to warp away, but the Federation warships blasted her to atoms. Another successful mission for the Enterpise!

Well, what can we say here? A Federation Heavy Cruiser is powerful enough to shoot down a Plasma Torpedo most of them time, provided it is the only thing attacking her. So as usual it's all about concentration of fire. I foolishly split my Alpha-strike between the two Federation ships. Even though I crippled one, I failed to finish her off, and she was still blowing things up at game's end. Niall, on the other hand, played a canny game, retiring toward the edge of the board to limit my opportunities to flank him. I am having a few folk over later today, and hope to get in a game of Star Fleet: ACTA at some point. I doubt I'll have a chance to write it up tonight, so if it happens, you can look forward to it appearing here on Monday morning.

The pictures below are not from the game. I forgot to take any, so I've reconstructed some of the more noteworthy moments.