All Good Things... - Q OP3

Never has an OP event more suited my experience of it.  Had I been able to look back and forward in time I could have avoided oh so many mistakes.  As they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing...

Due to events beyond my control I was, shall we say, unprepared for this event.  As such, I had to run a list more or less selected last minute from a previous OP event.  Choosing to run a Reman Warbird and two Vor'cha attack cruisers again, my list looked a little like this:

I.K.S. Maht-H'A [28]
- Khan Singh 7 (Captain) [5]
- - Remata'Klan [4]
- - Fire! [4]
- - Additional Phaser Arrays [4]
- Shroud [1]
- Corak [2]
Ship Total: 48 SP

Reman Starship (Reman Warbird) [36]
- Jean-Luc Picard 9 (Captain) [7]
- Mendak (Admiral) [4]
- Miles O'Brien [3]
Ship Total: 50 SP

Klingon Starship (Vor'cha Class) [26]
- Karr 8 (Captain) [6]
Ship Total: 32 SP

Fleet Total: 130 SP

A very similar list to the first Q OP event, the only changes being a slight modification to the Reman Warbird, losing the Romulan Security Officer and Charging Weapons and adding in the starter set Miles O'Brien (had a feeling interphase generators would be making another appearance)...

So, 4 players in attendance, the usual suspects!

Game 1 vs Borg/Dominion:

Yep, that's right.  The Cube, the Koranak and 2x Hideki attack fighters.  This was going to be a tough match whatever the end result.

Quick shot of my starting positions:

Early on I was helped by my opponent's positioning of his fleet.  Due to my higher Captain Skills across the board he'd set them up quite spread out, which enabled me to basically select a target - had to go for the Cube really, the highest point target on the board and I was fairly certain I could kill it.  After both fleets closed with one another I let loose with attacks from my entire fleet at the Cube, taking it down to one hull point remaining after the first round of firing.  In return the Cube hammered Khan, again reducing him to one hull point.

The second round of firing was also quite telling, I managed to kill the Cube and Dukat finished off Khan's ship:

The next few turns went as expected, I concentrated firepower on the Hidekis and managed to kill one off, I took some fire in return but not enough to kill any of my ships thankfully.

It ended up in the following position as time was called:

The Warbird had reduced the Hideki to one token left, the Vor'cha only needed to give me one hit to finish it off - 4 hits, my opponent had one evade token and three dice to roll... all 3 landed on evades.  After totalling up the scores (including the warp shell bonuses), it was 76-78 in favour of my opponent.  A very close game and one more round would have won it for me - darn you timekeeper!

Round 2 vs Federation/Dominion:

A similar fleet to what my opponent had used in our previous game, with the big exception being the Hidekis and the Prometheus.  Flanking attack with the Hideki and the Prometheus with a possible Captain Skill of 13... I had a feeling I knew where this was going.  Couple that with Donatra, Hayes and the Holo-projector on Donatra's ship... For once in these tournaments I was feeling outgunned.  It's a strange feeling.  I don't particularly like feeling like this - it means I'd actually have to outfly my opponent.

So, instead of sticking together, I decided to seperate my fleet and attempt to outflank my opponent:

This did actually do its job - my opponents' fleet headed straight for the Warbird - this meant I could at least blindside him with the Vor'chas and hope to do enough damage to carry me onwards to victory.

As the fleets closed, I used Miles to disable Worf on the Prometheus, which dropped the Captain Skill to 10 instead of 13, which meant I would at least get one shot in with the Warbird.  I attacked the Prometheus and hammered it, not managing to kill it but putting it in a very precarious situation.  I'd resigned myself to the fact that the Warbird would be gone in the first round of firing, I've done the same enough times to know how fragile ships can be to combined fire.

Sure enough, the first round was brutal.  I killed Hayes, my opponent managed to roll this whilst attacking the Warbird:

Bye, bye Warbird!

This did leave me with enough punch to finish off the Prometheus though, so by the time we'd got to the second round, the Warbird, Hayes and the Prometheus were all gone.  The next few turns were a game of cat and mouse, eventually:

The Hidekis were eliminated the turn after the picture above, then time was called with the Vor'chas and the Defiant class still surviving.  A win, 128-56.

Game 3 vs Romulans:

Interphase generators...  no problem.  Had sort of prepared for them and have dealt with them in the past.  Initially, this game went really well.  Closed into range.  Used O'Brien to disable the interphase generators on the Scimitar:

Had to make attacks with every ship to kill it...  reasonably poor rolling, eventually managed to get this though:

Just enough to kill it.  From this point onward though, everthing went downhill.  Cloaked mines, EPIC failure on my part, the two Vor'chas being blown away, then... well... just... remember that comment about time travel earlier?  I think I need to go back in time to when I was really young, then teach myself the difference between left and right.  It's a simple thing really. Unfortunately, it's the simple things that sometimes trip you up.  Meant to turn left, turned right. Warbird off the table.  Epic failure on my part.  Head was just not in the game and a simple mistake put it out of reach.  Everyone makes mistakes every now and again and in fairness to my opponent, he lost the Scimitar without it firing a shot and still put me in a position where he killed both Vor'chas - very well played.  In fact, I think a little bit of complacency on my part probably helped him a bit!

Well, the battle was lost, 156-50.  Lesson learnt and very, very well played to my opponent in that last game.

So, to summarise:

1st place - Romulans
2nd place - Borg/Dominion
3rd place - Myself
4th place - Federation/Dominion


Managed to come away with the IRW Terix for coming 3rd (this was the one I was after more than the last few OP's) so I was chuffed as bits to get it.

This is the last scheduled OP event for a bit, so the next thing up will be a review of the Terix and then it'll possibly be a little campaign series I've been writing - one of my comrades in arms will be put through his paces in a series of missions I've designed.  There are a few RPG-esque elements to it and hopefully if it works as intended I'll write up the reports and the series notes themselves in the future.

So, until next time, thanks for having a look at the report and I hope you enjoyed it!