Monday, December 24, 2012

BatRep: Covenant of Antarctica vs Russian Coalition (Basic Box sets)


Admiral Dimitry Orlov scanned the horizon from his flagship.  It was a good feeling:  “ADMIRAL  Orlov”.  His time in court helped secured his position, but hard work and a good record in his naval career in the service of the Tsar (not to mention impeccable contacts in court), surely good things were due him.

After sailing from the port at St. Petersburg, he was just going to do a shake-down cruise of his new Battleship Georgy Pobedonosets ("St George the Victorious" in English).  It would also give him a chance to evaluate the abilities of his Battle Group.  Looking into the skies, he could see the squadrons of fighters and bombers escorting his ships out into the Baltic Sea.  Admiral Orlov couldn’t wait to get his group into shape: the Prussians were a nuisance and he couldn’t wait to make a name for himself…

“Admiral Orlov; the bombers are reporting a fleet moving to intercept us just beyond the island.”

“Are they ours?  Prussians?”

“No sir, not ours.  They’re not Prussian either.  We think they’re from Antarctica.”

“Antarctica?  What are they doing here?  Have the Radio Room contact them and warn them off.”

“Sir!  They refuse to respond.  What are your orders?”

“Our standing orders are to drive all foreign ships away from our waters.  Call all ships to Battle Stations!  It looks like we’re breaking in the guns sooner than I expected.”
 

So Geoff showed up at the FLGS with an Antarctican Fleet and had never played against the Russians, so we decided to go with the basic box sets:
-          Battleship
-          3 Cruisers
-          9 Frigates (3 Squadrons of 3 each)
-          2 Bombers
-          2 squadrons of Tiny Fliers

The Russian Coalition (RC) would use the Mimic Generator on the battleship, and both squadrons of Tiny Fliers would act as fighters.  (Russians have horrible AA for the most part.)  The Cruisers bought the “Rocket Jammer” upgrades just to increase the point costs (I couldn’t remember if CoA used rockets or not).

The Covenant of Antarctica (CoA) bought the “Inventive Scientists” for his cruisers, and deployed his 2 squadrons of drones as Fighters as well.

Using random deployment, Terrain on the 4’ X 4’ table was a single island on my left half of the board and a sand bar on my right side.  CoA caught RC coming out of the port! 

Deployment:

Russians:  (White/ Ghost Grey) (L to R) Frigates, Bombers with Battleship behind facing off to the right, Fighters, Frigates with Cruisers behind, fighters and frigates.

Antarctica: (Green) (Russian L to R):  Frigates, Fighters, frigates, fighters, cruisers, bombers, battleship, frigates.

CoA: Rolled the Capture the Commodore’s ship.  He wisely decided to go to default 70% of fleet value (~490pts)

RC: Rolled Sink all Large and Massive Squadrons.  As this was ONLY a battleship, I figured “why not?”


Turn 1:

Russians (RC) got the Initiative!

Turn 1 started very cautiously on both sides.  Some Fighters and Frigates all moved forward on both sides.  Finally, the CoA Cruisers advanced and fired on one of the Russian Frigate Squadrons – and Missed!!!  At this point, one of the Russian Frigate Squadrons moved forward between the island and the sand bar.  The Russian Frigates went to lob mortar shells at a CoA Frigate Squadron hiding behind the island, but we realized I could only lob shells over Models – NOT terrain.  Too bad!

A squadron of CoA Frigates tried to circle around the Left of the island, to sneak behind the Russian lines.  A Russian Frigate squadron moved to the left of the island and was able to split fire between two COA Frigate squadrons, sinking 1 frigate in each!  One squadron failed its break test, but the other was able to maintain order.  First blood to the Russians!  The rest of the squadrons on both sides jockeyed for position, but no other shooting or damage was made.
 
In the end phase, the broken squadron was able to rally.

 

Turn 2:
Antarctica Won the Initiative!

Russians played “Lost Orders” card on the Antarcticans, but they cancelled the effects sacrificing a card of their own. 

The CoA Frigates running around the left side of the island damaged 1 bomber with AA and damaged a frigate with torpedoes!  The RC Frigates retaliate, gunning 1 frigate squadron and using mortars on another, causing a Hull Point (HP) of damage on each squadron! 

CoA fighters attacked an RC fighter squadron: 4 CoA drones were shot down while the Russians used up an extra fuel due to Abort results.  The same RC fighter flight then went full throttle and attacked a CoA Bomber in the clouds, causing 1 point of damage for the cost of 1 Fighter Token.  Antarctica retaliated by attacking the RC bombers with their own squadron, though Russian AA shot down 2 tokens of drones, for no damage to the bombers!

RC Frigates in the center advance forward, and got within range band 2 of the Battleship!  Linking fire and shooting guns at a cruiser and mortars at the battleship, they managed to put a crit on the Cruiser (Systems), caused 1 HP on the CoA Battleship, then put another HP on the CoA Bomber with their AA!

Outraged, the CoA Cruisers advanced forward, shot down 2 fighter tokens with AA, caused 1 HP damage on a frigate in the center frigate squadron, sank a frigate in the right side frigates (who passed their Break Test, then played the “Tally Ho!” card – moving another squadron right away!  Who moved?  The CoA Battleship!  Crossing on an angle from right to left, the CoA Battleship got line of sight to the central RC Frigate squadron, and sank 2!

The Russians were now out for blood, but grateful!  By sinking the 2 Frigates, the way was cleared for the RC Cruiser to maneuver through the gap and fire upon the CoA Battleship.  The guns caused a crit on the Battleship: Fusion Leak!

CoA Frigates move forward and attack!  Their torpedoes failed to damage a cruiser (thanks Ablative Armor!), but their broadsides were able to cause 1 HP to a frigate and another to a cruiser, then caused fighters to use an extra fuel as they forced an “Abort” result with their AA attack!

RC frigates behind the sand bar stood still (we can do that – 0” min move!), and unleashed both guns and mortars at the damaged cruiser – and sank it!

CoA Bombers advanced forward and fired on the RC Fighters nearby, destroying the remaining fighters of the flight.  RC Bombers advanced as well, flying near the CoA Bombers.  (I thought of shooting AA as I passed but realized the Russian Bombers only had 2 AA each, vs. the 4 AA each the CoA had.  Russians would have gotten the worst of it.)

In an amazing display of Seamanship, a CoA frigate squadron managed to snake their way through their own cruiser squadron, without a single collision, sank the last frigate of one frigate squadron and an HP damage to a cruiser.  The RC Battleship moved forward but had no shot and in the final move of the turn, the remaining Russian Fighter Squadron attacked the CoA Bombers, but lost 3 of 5 tokens for no damage to the bombers!  OUCH!

In the repair cycle, the CoA repaired the Fusion Leak on the Battleship.

 
Turn 3:

CoA played “Pass The Tools” and repaired all but 1 HP of damage to the Battleship!

CoA won initiative, too!

 

CoA Frigates on left side of the island do a 180 turn and attack the RC Frigates, sinking 1 and causing the squadron to break!

RC Cruisers played the “Running Repairs” card, fixing 1 cruiser to full hull (though no Ablative Armor), moved forward and fired on the Battleship again.  The engineers of the Battleship did wonders, coaxing the shield generators to save 8 hits!  The battleship still took 1 HP of damage.  RC broadsides out both sides only managed to damage 1 frigate.

The CoA battleship maneuvered to fire its Particle Cannon at the remaining frigates on the left, obliterating both!  The Battleship’s broadsides crit 1 cruiser (Systems) then the turrets sink another cruiser with another crit.

The RC Bombers made their attack run on the CoA Battleship – if they were lucky, they would sink it and win the game!  The Battleship’s AA critted one bomber on the way in, but both made their “Hard Impact” attacks, causing 3 HP damage and a Nav Lock Crit!  Unfortunately, using the bombers this way cost the Russians the bombers as it is a Suicide attack – giving the CoA a “free 100 points”…

The CoA Frigates on the right failed to hit some frigates with their broadsides, but the torpedo run on a cruiser cost a cruiser it’s Ablative Armor and 1 HP.

The RC Battleship split its fire, Main Turret on one cruiser, the two upper turrets concentrated on the other.  The main turret missed but the two upper turrets double-crit and sank the other cruiser. 

The CoA Bombers attacked a cruiser, causing a crit (Nav Lock) as their AA shot down another fighter token.

RC frigates moved up slowly over the sand bar; fired on and damaged a frigate and a cruiser (1 HP each).  CoA Cruisers retaliated by sinking a frigate, though the remaining frigate passed its Break Test.

Ending the turn, the RC Fighters attacked the bombers, only to be shot down!  The Center squadron of CoA Frigates moved forward, collided with the RC cruisers and sank!  CoA still had 3 tokens of Fighters, but with no other RC fliers on the table and no way to land, the CoA Drones were useless for the rest of the game!

Both the CoA and the RC failed to repair the Nav Lock crits on their ships!

 

Turn 4:

Both RC & CoA played “Pass The Tools” cards.  CoA repaired 3 HP of the Battleship and the RC repaired 3 HP off 1 cruiser!

RC won Initiative!

RC moved their remaining cruisers straight ahead, firing at the Battleship, causing 1 HP (3 HP gone), then played “Tally Ho!” allowing a 2nd squadron to activate!  The RC Battleship activated; turned towards the enemy Battleship but collided with a Frigate (sinking it).  This turn only allowed the RC Battleship to bring 2 of 3 turrets to bear.  Firing anyway, the RC Battleship caused another HP to the Battleship and another HP to a cruiser with the one turret that was out of arc.

The CoA Battleship played “Running Repairs”, fixing 1 HP (3 gone), then fired on one of the cruisers, causing a crit (Engine Damage).

The last remaining move for the Russians was their remaining frigate moving and sinking another CoA Frigate.

As the RC were out of units, the CoA were able to move and attack with impunity.  Their target: the two remaining RC Cruisers.  The CoA Cruisers failed to damage anything.  The bombers cause 2 HP on 1 cruiser; a squadron of frigates torpedoed and caused another hp on another.  The hero of the match was the lone surviving frigate of 1 squadron, did a 180 degree turn, broadsided and sank 1 cruiser, then torpedoed and sank the other!


End of turn, we calculated the points and the CoA earned 510 points, more than the ~490 points they required to meet their objective.  The RC needed to sink the Battleship for their objective, but the Battleship still had 5 HP left.

CoA Won!!!

 

Great Game!  It literally could have gone either way!  In fact, if we hadn’t used the card decks, the CoA Battleship would have been sunk as it repaired 5 Hull Points during the game and only had 5 Hull Points left before they reached their 70%!!!

CoA commander declared that the lone Frigate Captain that finished off the 2 cruisers by himself was the VIP of the game.  He named the Captain Gravonski – I expect he’ll get promoted to Admiral soon…

What did the Russians learn?

For one thing; they may be called “Fighters”, but they’re not very good…

Ablative Armor is nice, but it really only gets you 1 “extra” turn to get into range.  If we hadn’t had an island to protect our Capital Ships’ approach, it would have been a lot worse for the Russians.

The Russian Bombers performing their “Hard Impact” attacks were significant at the time, but unfortunately the Battleship repaired the destruction they caused, and basically gave the CoA a free 100 points towards their goal.  I probably should have kept them flying longer and dropped bombs only for a turn or two (if they could have survived long enough to do that) before committing them like that…

Finally, the heroes of the Russian Fleet were probably the Russian Frigates.  I lost all but 1, but their contribution can’t be denied.

 

Admiral Dimitry Orlov was upset!  The Antarctic Battleship shouldn’t be floating!  The damage inflected on it was more than enough to sink any ship!  What sort of material did they use to build their ships in Antarctica???

If he was honest, Orlov realized he wasted too many resources going after the Battleship.  He lost all his cruisers, his bombers, his fighters and almost all his frigates!  At least the Battleship Georgy Pobedonosets was intact. 

The only thing he could do was to go to court and face the Tsar himself and apologize.

The Tsar wouldn’t be pleased!

Maybe if Orlov could put the blame on the Cruiser squadron Commodore.  He was from a minor family with few political connections.  If Orlov made arrangements with the Family, offered to support another heir and promote him through Court.  They may be willing to play along.  If he did it right, Orlov would appear in much better light, almost compassionate. 

It could work…

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