Message-ID: <001e01be00e8$06212240$04eee6ce@regnar>
From: "Aaron Mays" <regnar@inav.net>
To: <babylon5-wars@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: [B5W] battle reports (short)
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 07:53:32 -0600
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Had two games this weekend, one of which is in progress.  EA took 3 Olympus,
Omega, 18 Thud w/4 missiles each.  Narn took a Dag'Kar, 2 G'Quan, tried out
a G'Karith, and a Ka'Toc and Thentus, plus 12 Frazi and 18 Gorith.  Narn was
really just trying to get a feel for the NCW ships.  Our EA player just
loves missiles.  Speaking of which, we were using the 2E thing where
missiles roll against the target's defense rating.  This was a hurting
thing.  Very few missiles ever missed, and Narn, hell , NOBODY has enough
defense guns to handle 24 thud missiles at once.
 Narn planned to use superior mobility to dance around the edge of the map,
sniping with lasers, emines, and ion torps while using the goriths to keep
the Thuds at bay.  I meant to stack the G'Karith with the Dag'Kar, reasoning
that it would help hold off the thuds, but then I messed up...  EA thought
the situation over for maybe two seconds and adopted the kamikaze approach
with the Olympii and Thuds:  speed 12 corvettes and 16 Thuds.  The Omega
sort of hid in back.
The first turn E-mine volley was a thing of beauty.  I hit a thud and the
omega, and would have got another thud flight if the @%**%! emine hadn't
scattered.  I did get 5 ion torp hits on an Olympus, but the effects weren't
as great as I'd hoped for.  From then on, incidentally, I couldn't hit to
save my soul and my damage rolls were awful.  This made EA's average rolls
more like spectacular, just by sheer contrast.  Also, embarassingly enough,
I never won an initiative roll.  Against the Thuds, this was
heartbreaking...  Especially when they nuked my Dag'Kar turn two.
By Turn 4, the Ka'Toc and Dag'Kar were dead, one G'Quan had had a side
knocked off, and 6 Goriths were dead, all by or mostly by those damn thuds
and their SSMs.  In return, I killed 2 Thuds with direct fire, 6 with
E-mines (that turn 1 uber volley) and had done moderate damage to all but
one Olympus.  That last olympus had lost retros and port thrusters and was
on his way to Andromeda at speed 12.  Trouble was, those missiles and pulse
cannon were steadily wearing me down.  And in about ten seconds, massive
pulse gatling fire was going to wipe out my fighters, esp the frazis.  The
EA player was ten kinds of pissed off when he saw the time and had to
bail....
Lessons learned:  Protect the Dag'Kar.  Repeat after me, PROTECT THE
DAG'KAR.  If you can.  Emines are nice, but by the time they reloaded I had
gone from ten of 'em to one.  The G'Quan weave works fairly well, but only
if you can hit what you aim at.  Which I couldn't.
All in all, a well played game by EA.
Final lesson learned:  Next time, I take Minbari.  Yeah, thats it...

After that thrashing, I duplicated the EA force and tried a Centauri force
out, 2 centurions, 2 darkner, 3 vorchans and 2 mograth.  I decided to try a
large force of small, agile ships with many TAs.  I used 2E TAs, the same
missile rules, pulse volley determined by to hit roll, drop outs, and the 2E
sequence of fires: ships shoot, fighters shoot at ships, fighters shoot
fighters, damage phases not simultaneous and drop outs resolved at end of
the firing step that caused the damage.
Centauri split their force, placing the centurions in a slow, almost
retrograding group to snipe at long range with battle lasers, while the rest
of the ships raced in from the side at speed 12.  EA went with a split
strategy, trying to cripple the centurions with Thuds, then hit the light
ships with everything just before they got close enough to get good shots,
then finish the centurions.  As it worked out, the first volley of centurion
sniping didn't do much.  Six battle lasers got 5 hits and averaged maybe 20
damage.  I killed an interceptor and 2 spbs on the omega.  It didn't do much
better vs the light brigade.  Turn 2 the thuds showed up.  The centurions
forced three drop outs despite 75% of TA shots hitting.  Trouble was, they
didn't hit hard enough.  Those 6 fewer missiles maybe made the difference
and kept a centurion alive.  Turn 3, the thuds had good position on the
light brigade with their remaining missiles.  The massed fire of 2 darkners,
3 vorchans, and 2 mograths was, barely enough to kill one side of the Omega,
due mostly to great hits and awful damage dice.  However, the omega lost
both port and starboard thrusters and had his sensors completely destroyed.
Only trouble is, I haven't had time to resolve 12 MPCs, 6 rail guns, 12
olympus missiles and 36 thud missiles on those little bitty centauri ships.
I'm almost afraid to, considering my sympathies in this fight.
Next time, I think I'll try Minbari....

Aaron Mays
"Incoming!!"


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