NEWS FROM THE FRONT

Description

The ships then get nose-to-nose. The Romulan launches 2 more 20 point torpedoes at the Klingon. The Klingon ignoring the incoming torpedoes opens fire with the rest of his phasers at the Romulan. And then the Klingon HETs to take the torpedos on a fresh shield doing 10 internals. phasers almost bringing down the Romulan's ship.

DESCRIPTION:

Turn #2: Romulan picks a slow speed of 4. And launches 2 Plasma-Ss at the frail Kzinti Scout Frigate. And phasers down part of a dogfight drone pack. Which go on to hit him for 14 points of damage (But no shield damage). Followed by launching a WW to distract the heavier drones that are coming his way. The Kzinti's recover their SP shuttles. While the heavier drones from the scatter-packs blow-up a defenseless WW. The Plasma-Ss strike the Kzinti Scout Frigate doing 18 internals. After which the Kzinti tries in vane to send another wave of drones at the Romulan. (who swats them down like gnats).

Turn #3: The Kzinti attempts 1 last attempt at victory by trying to overrun the Romulan. The starts his overrun with a wave of MW drones. But as the Kzinti ships close on the Romulan the KillerHawk tractors the Kzinti Scout Frigate at range 3. Not to be destroyed without a fight the Kzinti FF HETs and attempts to run. But the Romulan bolts his Plasma-R and hits the Kzinti FF doing 13 internals. And then the Romulan follows up his bolt with his remaining phasers and does an additional 22 internals. Not to let the Kzinti Scout to go unharmed. The Killerhawk launches 2 Plasma-Fs which do 38 internals to the Scout. And then he follows them up with some H&R raids on the remaining drone racks destroying them. And to add insult to injury the KillerHawk finishs the Scout Frigate with a Suicide shuttle. After which the remaining Kzinti FF continued to fight but decided it was better to live another day then to continue to fight.

Slayer used the terrain and his superior EW capability to nullify Lyle's massive drone swarms (that t-bomb on the leader helped too). The game lasted 2 complete turns with 3 Kzinti PF's being completely gutted and the leader being slightly damaged. The Andro leader and scout both received heavy damage and a 3rd PF got plinked. There were still several drones on the board but the Andro scout PF was about to go wild, attacting all of them to itself. At this point, the Andro possessed superior fire power and with it's 20 point panel capacity per PF should have been able to outlast the Kzinti who was nearly out of drones.

My only criticism was that Lyle should have concentrated his fire on the Andro scout from the beginning since he was always firing at a 2 shift. Eliminating that advantage could have made a huge difference in the outcome of this game.

Hat's off to Slayer who did a great job of drone defense.

DESCRIPTION:

Word has it that the LDR Galley Staff took over the Bridge weilding sharp knives, escorted the Bridge crew to the shuttle bay, and cycled the shuttle bay doors. Rumors indicate that the Galley Staff was not ready for the emergency stop, courtesy of the tournament barrier and the navigator. The Galley Staff then transmitted a quick surrender message to the Klingons with short PS "Please deactivate the drones!"

KLI D7TC Nick Ashman defeats LDR TCWL Rick Dykstra in a 2 turn tourney duel.

DESCRIPTION:

The Fed made a tight turn early in Turn 2 (slowing to make the turn), then hit the afterburners and chased the Expoiter at speed 31. The edge of the map limited the Exploiter's ability to run, and just before the Exploiter could displace again, the Fed hit range 2 and unloaded on the Andy's rear panels. 82 internals later, the Andy was no longer in fighting trim, powerless and weaponless.

I called the game at that point, though no doubt the next turn would have been 14 internals to the Andy as his panels went down, and if that didn't kill him, 10 more phaser 1s would.

There was some incidental drone and phaser interaction, but it had little to do with the outcome of the game.

HR II Tourney Reports

Game Started:11/7/96 --- Game Ended: 02/05/97

SYNOPSIS:

The Orion played an unusual first turn with no enginge doubled and moving speed 15 or so while the zinto moved out and closed. Because of the threat of orion cloak, the Zinti did not deploy long range scatterpack. The orion turned to starboard and began to move away from the zinti. The Zin launched 4 drones and a fake SP.

The Orion doubled one engine, moved moderate speeds and powered his cloak. The zinti moved into position near the rear flank of the orion pinning the orion to the edge of the map. The Orion's cloak neutralized the Zinti drones AND eliminated most of the overloaded disr fire.

On turn 3 the orion came out of cloak with both engines doubled. The zinti launched 4 M speed drones which proved too slow to keep the orion from looping out and using his HET to gain a point blank range 2 shot with fully overloaded photons, overloaded hellbore, and phasers. The less maneuverable Zinti was out of position to get a followup shot and conceeded at this point.

ANALYSIS:

The battle was wonderful with the orion employing unorthodox tactics in the early stages and using the threat of the cloak to prevent the typical Zinti "stack-o-ten" early scatterpack tactic. This gave the orion time to get photons fully loaded BEFORE the combat turn.

The Zinti got a good position to hammer the orion when he came out of cloak and in my opinion 3 mistakes were made by the Zinti, all in turn 3, which were crucial.

1> Speed. The orion was limited to speed 24 for most of turn 3 but the Zinti plotted 20 thoughout. If the orion is going to fight he will decloak immediately. A Speed 26 for half turn and speed 14 for half turn plot would have allowed the zinti to get to the orion during the fade period and costs 20 movements.

2> Drone choice. The zinti launched 4 medium speed drones at close range when the orion uncloaked. the orion was ALREADY moving speed 24. These needed to be FAST drones to cause the Orion LOTSA trouble in the fade period. The 20's eventually consumed Ph-3. Also the Orion does NOT have speed 32 drones and using 20's to intercept 32's is a little more difficult.

3> Timing. The Orion HETed to set up his firing shot BUT had to move after that to get to range 2. this gave the ZInti a full impulse to do several things now that the Orion was committed. the zinti should have EITHER HETed on the following impulse to bring forward shields to bear and set up a return shot OR committed that Reserve power to HET before the orion fired. Doing neither menat the orion fire killed battery/reserve power that was needed for an HET which is what left the zinti without a return shot!

HR206 - John Woods (Rom-TFH) vs. Scruffybeard (Neo-Thol NTC)

TURN 1: Rom and Tholian both started at moderate speeds, 16 and 15 respectively, with Rom slipping toward edge of board while Tholian slipped toward Rom. Rom sped up to 25 on impulse 9. Rom turned in toward Tholian at mid-turn, and Tholian responded in kind, turning toward Rom, then speeding up to 28 on impulse 19. Rom started launching plasma, lobbing two torps before Tholian cast his web. The web was straight north-south, forming a nice lance. The Tholian dinked the Rom's #2 shield with disruptors, while Rom dinked the Tholian's #1. Rom then launched an enveloper, such that his early plasma would go down one side of the lance while the enveloper went down the other. Tholian fired a bunch of phaser-ones, smacking the Rom #3 shield pretty hard, but doing no ints. He turned away from the Rom, then fired his snare on impulse 32, with the early plasma all caught in his web, and the single enveloper three hexes out.

TURN 2: Both ships started the turn at speed 15. The Tholian turned and ran through his snare, snagging the enveloper just as the snare solidified. In this way, the Tholian was able to snag EVERY torp the Rom launched, taking zero damage. However, he did such a great job of catching the torps, he had no way of telling if one of the S-torps was real or psuedo. Meanwhile, the Rom fled, making a wide left turn while speeding up dramatically (30) at mid-turn. On impulse 25 the Tholian fired two disruptors (range 17), doing 4 points to the Rom's #5 shield, as the plinking continued. The Rom, having seen web-defense of the highest order decided he needed to change his tactics at this point.

TURN 3: Both ships started at speed 15 (a-gin). Tholian sped up to 26 on impulse 9. Rom headed back in toward Tholian, who fired four standard disruptors on impulse 10 at range 7. One hit, doing NO DAMAGE! Thinks were starting to look up for the Rom! Rom finally sped up to 23 on impulse 18, and Tholian slowed back down to 15 on impulse 26. Tholian managed to make a tight right turn, getting the Rom back in FA on impulse 32. Both Captains fired their bearing phasers, (a little hack and slach action here), but at range 7, they only managed to dent shields slightly. More importantly, the Tholian slung some more web, three hexes in front of the Rommie.

TURN 4: The Rom, now in final turn of arming for too many torps, had severe power problems. The web-head wasn't much better off, having fired phasers and web almost non-stop. The Tholian started at speed 30, while the Rom began at speed 22. Closing to range 4 and fired his three overloaded disruptors on the same impulse the Rommie was bolting ALL FOUR PLASMAS! (Apparently, the web solification process affected everyone's aim, as the Tholian hit with only one disruptor, and the Rom hit with only a single S-torp. No internals!!!

The Tholian slowed to 15 on impulse 4, followed immediately by a Rom decel to 11. The Rom HETed, TRYING to get away from the Tholian phaser hose (and put his happy shields toward the web-head). But the Tholian was just a bit too quick, closing to range 2 and then announcing a speed change to 16, which would guarantee range 1 on the Rommie's #4!!! The Rommie, though, fought valiantly, throwing a complete shuttle swarm (all 4) at the Tholian, which forced him to alter his plan. After dancing around the shuttle swarm, the Tholian realized that range 2 was the best it was going to get, so he went ahead and fired 5 ph1s, 1-ph3 and a standard disruptor (armed off batteries).

The 10 internals the Rom took weren't bad, losing 2 warp and 2 ph3's. The Tholian tried to get a shuttle shot through the down shield, but the Rommie knocked the shuttle down before it could fire. However, the Tholian fired another pair of ph3s, doing 8 more internals. Again, the 8 ints weren't horrible, but the Rom lost a third warp box. Finally, the Tholian drained his last reserve power to fire a 2-point web-fist and his last 2 ph1's. The Rom lost another 2 power, and one F-torp.

TURN 5: Down 5 power, one torp and two shields, with an unscathed Tholian lined up on one of the down shields for an impulse 1 alpha, the Rom elected to concede.

COMMENTS: The Rom didn't really make any terrible mistake that by itself cost him the game. It was just that the Tholian did such a fantastic job stopping the plasma on the first battle pass while scraping shields that by the time the Rom went into bolt-mode, he couldn't afford to miss (and he did). A well played game by both participants, which was closer than the final snapshot might indicate.

Return to Commander's Brief Contents