Search for Spock - OP Report

Hello again!

Here is my quick report for our recent OP event: The Search for Spock!

I'll say in advance that so far, the movie based OP events have been the most thematic and well thought through events that I've attended.

In this event, you build a standard 130 point fleet and add an away team booster of no more than 24 points (6 crew members).

They start the game on the Genesis planet and must not only fight to survive the opposing force but also the planet itself!  In addition, deployment for this one is slightly different - one ship starts within range one of the planet and the others deploy as usual.  You can use an action to lower your shields to beam aboard one crew member provided you are within range 1-2.  If you are within range 1 during the end phase you may take damage, in addition your crew members left on the surface may be killed by the planet!  You can also give up your attack to allow your away team to attack the opposing one.

So, only two attendees at this event (very close to Christmas so to be fair, understandable).  This did give us the opportunity to try it out a couple of times though...

So, onto the fleet for this OP:

4th Division Battleship [36]
- Gul Dukat 8 (Captain) [5]
- Aft Weapons Array [4]
Ship Total: 45 SP

Dominion Starship (Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser) [32]
- Weyoun 8 (Captain) [5]
- Gul Madred (Admiral) [5]
- Additional Phaser Arrays [6]
- Corak [2]
Ship Total: 50 SP

1st Wave Attack Fighters [24]
- Support Ship [4]
- Galor Class Phaser Banks [7]
Ship Total: 35 SP

Fleet Total: 130 SP

Ezri Tigan - 4
Deanna Troi - 3
Nanclus - 5
Remata'Klan - 4
Montgomery Scott - 5
Miles O'Brien - 2

23 SP

Back to the Dominion for this one.  The combination of the Battleship handing off the action to the Cruiser just makes it such an effective combination I keep coming back to this type of build.  I did want to try and avoid the "Alpha Strike" build I usually go for so did not take my Flanking Attack for my attack fighters this time - opting to use the Galor Class Phaser Banks to give them the extended range.

The away team booster I wanted to cover a range of options to account for any type of opposing force - cloaking nullifiers through to tech stealers etc.

A quick shot of the two fleets:

I forgot to take a photo for the first few turns but essentially I picked up Remata'Klan with the Cruiser and flew the Battleship and 1st Wave straight at the Federation forces.

The Battleship and Cruiser teamed up to eliminate the Prometheus which reduced the effectiveness of the Equinox as Martok was no longer there to pass an action over.  Shortly afterwards, my positioning of my attack fighters caused the Voyager to lose its actions putting it in a very precarious position:

 A turn later the Equinox ended up bumping into Genesis:

 The Genesis planet claimed its only starship victim of the day:

The next turn the Voyager managed to eliminate the Battleship but taking return fire found itself in a now untenable situation, the Voyager eventually fell to sustained fire from the Cruiser:

A well fought game, won 155-55.

After perusing my opponents list, we amended it and dropped both the Voyager and Equinox adding in the Scimitar and the Defiant... Another run through was in order.  I started in the same position and as this was a play-test did exactly the same manouvers on the first turn.

The Scimitar did a 4 come about manouver and dropped Anti-matter mines on the Battleship, not doing a lot of damage but stopping my Cruiser from completing the swing-around that I had managed to complete in the previous game:

The Scimitar received an absolute hammering from the Battleship and 1st Wave but took enough of the focus away from the Prometheus and Defiant to allow them to have an unimpeded run at the Cruiser.  Weyoun 8's ability stopped the Prometheus from firing at it this turn, but after an unfortunate bump into my own fighters the following turn, the Dorsal Phaser Array from the Prometheus finished it off whilst the 1st Wave eliminated the Scimitar.

 The Battleship, now on 6 hull remaining began the long circle around Genesis, waiting for its date with destiny - Prometheus...

Prometheus fired first, taking the Battleship down to 3 hull left, not enough.  Dukat finished off Martok with a precise attack:

 All that was left to do was for the 1st Wave to kill off Defiant:

Another win, 130-65.  Much closer and if the Scimitar had not bothered with the mine attack early in the game I think it would have gone the other way.

In any regards, a good OP - far more thematic than the Corbomite Manouver.  I like the booster idea and the planet effecting gameplay as it did was very interesting.

Kruge and his Bird-of-Prey was the prize for the OP, which both players went home with - review coming soon!

Until next time - thanks for taking a look!

The Borg Incursion

A friendly game played a few weeks ago - 400 points Borg vs 200 points Romulan and 200 points Federation...

This was a game conceived to fill in the void between OP events as a change of pace - two players on either side, co-operating to achieve a set of objectives.  For the Borg team, the aim was to get as many ships off the far side of the board as possible whilst the combined Romulan/Federation fleet had to destroy or prevent this from happening.

The allied fleet would gain victory points from each Borg ship destoyed, whilst the Borg would gain a point for each ship leaving the area.

A view of the fleets:

I would be controlling the Assimilated Vessel portion of the Borg fleet (as I've never used them before the standard Borg movement scheme would have fried my brain).

The view from across the game area, firstly the Borg perspective:

 The allied view:

The allied fleet had a lot of cards that were used to buff each other, such as Hayes, Donatra and Holo-Communicator.  This led to the allied fleet deploying in the formation above - this would be a bloody battle.  As you can see from the photo - I placed my three ships in a position to flank the opposing force whilst they contended with the cubes in the middle of the area, then hopefully be able to make a break for it when the time came.

First turn movement ended up with no-one in range:

 Second turn in and the slaughter begins:

The allied fleet poured hit after hit into the cubes, eliminating Locutus' Cube and reducing the second one to a single hull point.  The Queen's Diamond received a hammering but continued to stay in the fight.  In return the Cubes had inflicted heavy damage on the front line ships and eliminated the Scimitar.

The Assimilation Target Prime was left unscathed and managed to drop Mutli-Kinetic Mines on top of three of the allied fleet ships.

 The effect of multiple detonations was devastating.  The allied fleet was cored, the remaining Borg cube was destroyed, the ATP was heavily damaged... utterly terrifying.

 The following turn everyone backed away from the mines, the Voyager went after the Avatar of Tomed, the Valdore went after the Type-03...

 The Voyager was destoyed shortly after.  The Prometheus flew straight through the minefield, destorying both itself and the ATP.

 With only the Valdore left to oppose the Borg, it was only a matter of time...

 The Queen herself fired the last shot, ensuring that the remaining Borg would be free to continue their incursion:

An enjoyable game finished, the effectiveness of the mines was astonishing.  Dropping the template on the three ships setting it off three times was soul-destroying.  Until that point the allied fleet was making short work of the Borg and if not for that one card the game would have had a very different ending.  As it was, the Federation player killed the most Borg ships, taking the moral victory.

Until next time!

The Corbomite Manouver - OP Report

Hello there!

Just a quick update today, unfortunately no photos for this one as I foolishly forgot to charge the camera!

On the actual scenario itself - whoever came up with this one clearly wasn't thinking straight.  Turn one of each game, every ship moves into range of the object and proceeds to throw everything they have at it, destroying it on the first turn.  This means that none of its effects take place, turning the event into a normal every day joust.  Disappointing effort.

Anyway, the fleet for the day was as follows:

Soong [38]
- Karr 8 (Captain) [5]
Ship Total: 43 SP

Regent's Flagship [32]
- Khan Singh 8 (Captain) [6]
- - I Stab at Thee [3]
- Elim Garak [3]
Ship Total: 44 SP

U.S.S. Voyager [30]
- Robert DeSoto 4 (Captain) [3]
- William T. Riker [3]
- Hikaru Sulu [3]
- Tom Paris [4]
Ship Total: 43 SP

Fleet Total: 130 SP

Round 1 vs Federation:

As stated above, all ships moved into the range of the object and destoyed it on turn one.  The rest of the match devolved into a bit of a duck hunt, my opponent's ships falling one after the other...  End result - 130-0, a win for the mixed fleet.

Round 2 vs Romulan:

The Scimitar with an Interphase Generator, the Valdore and the Prototype loaded up with cloaked mines.  Interesting game.  Started off well enough with the Valdore going up against the Soong one-on-one and realising that it was not a good move.  The Soong tore it apart without too much trouble.  The Regent's Flagship had a hammering from the Scimitar and the Prototype - the following turn mines were placed and I was hoping that the Scimitar would stick close to the Regent's Flagship so, with only one hull point, left I flew it straight onto the cloaked mines - unfortunately it was out of range so Khan did not avenge himself on this occasion.  The Scimitar and the Soong ended up at point blank range and exchanged fire, the prototype had engaged my defensive Voyager build (futility at its finest).

Shorly after, the Scimitar managed to outmanouver the Soong and destroyed it, the Prototype dumped its second Cloaked Mines and was then blown apart by Voyager.

Now we were down to two sets of Cloaked Mines and the Scimitar vs the Voyager.  Fire was exchanged, and the Voyager managed to deal three damage to the Scimitars' hull whilst losing a shield in return.  My opponent retreated from combat and hid amongst the mines - refusing to go one-to-one with Voyager.  A turn or two later I managed to get the Voyager lined up for a single pass on the Scimitar - only one damage dealt, none in return.  Unfortunately for me, too little too late - time was call and the game lost - 87-80; another few turns and I'm more than confident to say that the Scimitar would have died.

Round 3 - bye.

Romulan vs Federation:

Another mine heavy game for the Romulans, the Federation fleet did not fare too well here. 130-0 final score.

A strange OP, closer games than the scores show and overall quite a non-event made for a very weird day...

On the plus side, everyone ended up with the prize for the day, the Romulan Bird-of-Prey Rateg.

A review of that will be incoming soon!

Thanks for having a look and the next report will have a few photos!

Brightest Day - Narrative Play Mission 7

Mission 7: Brightest Day

The Romulan fleet has reached its destination, Betazed.  Luckily, the Horizon has managed to assemble a fleet to oppose them...

The Horizon is joined by the Bajoran Interceptor from "Changing Tides", the USS Essex from "The Great Beyond", the IKS Kahless from "Articles of War", an additional Klingon Bird of Prey and the USS Madison.

Each of the named ships has its own ability, the Essex can use an action to place 3 time tokens on itself, when the tokens run out, it regains all lost shields.

The Kahless can re-roll all blank results when attacking.

The USS Madison gains +1 defence die for each other Federation ship in the fleet.

In addition, the USS Essex is commanded by Captain Rixx, a skill 7 Captain with the following ablity: When attacking, if your target has a friendly ship in its front arc, you gain +2 attack dice.

It also has a secondary weapon that allows it to target up to two ships within range 2 in a 360 degree arc.

This should make the two Galaxy class ships something they normally are not in Attack Wing: Dangerous.

All damage sustained by the Romulan fleet in the first part of this mission is carried over, so as it stands only two of the ships are able to cloak, the Reman Warbird and D'Deridex 3 (signified by Tomalak).

Anyway, onto the game!

The Federation combined fleet sets up as so:

 The two fleets close and exchange fire:

  One of the D'Deridex Warbirds falls to fire from the USS Madison:

 The Warbirds concentrate fire on the Bird of Prey, reducing it to space dust.  The Bajoran Interceptor manages to land 5 damage onto the Reman Warbird over two turns, leaving it in an exellent position for the Horizon to finish it off.

 Both fleets had now taken heavy damage, the Valdores and D'Deridex's had damaged the Kahless and the Essex and were now setting up for an attack run on the Madison:

 The next turn would prove telling for the Federation and its allies:

 The Essex managed to finish off both one of the Valdores and one of the D'Deridex's.  The Kahless destroyed the last Valdore and Tomalak's Warbird destroyed the plucky Bajoran Interceptor:

 Tomalak cloaked his ship and attempted to manouver into position to attack the Madison, unluckily for Tomalak the Horizon rolled an exceptional 3 hits and the D'Deridex could only roll 1 evade on 6 dice...

 The last shot of the game was fired by the Horizon, eliminating the last of the Romulan fleet:

A victory for the Federation and its allies, Betazed had been successfully defended!

EPILOGUE:

The Romulan invasion has begun, Bolarus IX and Tellar have been invaded and Romulan ground troops have begun to dig in.

Thanks to the heroic actions of the Captain of the U.S.S. Horizon, Betazed has been successfully defended.

The most curious event however happened at the Trill homeworld, where the Romulan fleet entered the system and set up a defensive cordon around the planet.  The Trill symbiosis commission could not be reached via subspace communications and the system has been turned into an impregnable fortress.  Whatever the cause, it seems that the greatest mystery of all lies in wait on Trill...

CONCLUSION:

This brings to an end the first "Season" of the Federation campaign and I think it went quite well.  The Federation player enjoyed and even though it was quite a long day (all seven missions were completed in one session) I think it was well worth the effort of creating the missions, the unique ships etc.  I had a very good time GM'ing as well, far more entertaining than I would have first thought - I've already begun writing the Klingon and Romulan campaigns to tie-in with this one.

So, until next time, I hope you enjoyed reading through this and the previous missions, I'll hopefully be getting the next series done in the next few weeks so I'll update as soon as they've been played!

Thanks for sticking with it!

Blackest Night - Narrative Play Mission 6

Mission 6: Blackest Night

No longer content to sit back and manipulate things from the shadows, the Romulans have begun an invasion of the Federation.  Not yet able to attack Earth, the Romulans have sent fleets to strike at the heart of the Federation - Bolarus IX, Betazed, Trill and Tellar have all been targeted.

The fleet heading for Betazed has been intercepted by a small Federation task force who are hoping to slow it down long enough for reinforcements to arrive...

4 Generic Federation starships attempt to slow down the Romulan fleet, any damage they can inflict here will be carried on to the second part of this mission.

The fleets face off against each other:

 3 D'Deridex Warbirds, 2 Valdore Warbirds and 1 Reman Warbird form the Romulan fleet:

 An Intrepid and Akira form one prong of the Federation task force:

 A Prometheus and Excelsior form the other:

 Two of the D'Deridex and one of the Valdores trade fire with the Prometheus and Excelsior:

 The remaining Warbirds engage the Intrepid and Akira:

 Wide shot:

 The next turn, the Prometheus managed to score a critical hit on a cloaked Valdore, causing a warp core breach.  In return, the Excelsior was destroyed by one of the D'Deridex:

 The Valdore then finished off the Prometheus:

 At the other end of the table, the Intrepid and Akira were faring a little better, then the two prongs of the Romulan fleet closed in:

 Amazingly, both ships managed to survive and pummelled the Romulans in return, eliminating shields on many of them:

 Shortly afterwards the Intrepid finally fell to fire from the Reman Warbird:

 Lastly, after a valiant effort, the Akira went down as well:

The first line of defence had fallen but had they done enough damage to the Romulan fleet?

Only time would tell...

Blood Feud - Narrative Play Mission 5

The fifth in a seven part series, Blood Feud sees the Horizon face off against a rogue Klingon.

Mission 5: Blood Feud

A contact in the Klingon High Council has informed Starfleet intelligence of a rogue element in the Empire that is trying to start a war with the Federation - Kurga of House Kell.  Kurga is entering Federation territory with the intent of attacking a Federation outpost.  Starfleet intelligence has tasked you with hunting down Kurga and his last location placed him in the Cauldron, a dangerous region of space which Kurga knows very well.

The Cauldron, each objectve token has hidden under it either a battlestations token, a critical token, a mission token or an auxiliary token.  One token is revealed at random each turn and any Federation ship within range 3 suffers the following effects:

Critical token = Federation ships within ranges 1-3 take one unavoidable damage. Remove the objective token.

Auxiliary token = Federation ships within ranges 1-3 receive an auxiliary token.  Remove the objective token.

Mission token = Federation ships within ranges 1-3 must disable a crewmember.  Remove the objective token.

Battlestations token = Federation ships within Ranges 1-3 may make an immediate move of speed 3 or less.  Then remove any auxiliary tokens from the ship.  Remove the objective token.

The setup is as below:

 As the ships closed, the IKS neH made a rather unfortunate error, luckily for Kurga his ships ability to take an auxiliary token to force the Federation player to re-roll his attack dice kept him safe for now:

 Shots were traded all along the game area, the Horizon not managing to finish off the neH:

 A few more turns of manouvering, the Horizon pulls out the right move at the right time:

 Down to 1 hull point remaining, the neH, still cloaked evades destruction:

 Until a few turns later, the 180 degree arc of the Horizon and perfect placement manages to get the final shot in:

With Kurga stopped, the Federation and Klingon Empire have finally revealed that there was a traitor feeding information to the Romulans all along, Kurga was the reason they knew about the meeting in the previous mission "Articles of War".

In addition to raising the Captain Skill by +1, the Federation commander chooses another ability:

"When attacking or defending, you may re-roll one blank result".

Next time, the gloves come off...