We ran a bunch of Squadron Strike events at GenCon; here are the short recaps:
When Universes Collide - Klingons versus Minbari:
"Captain, there are ships of unknown configuration approaching. Their weapon ports are open!"
"Attack!"
The battle had 3 Tinashi FGs (based off B5Wars stats) versus 3 D7s (based off of SFB stats). The Tinashi have a pair of forward fixed mount Neutron Lasers on each, and 5 fusion cannons. They also carried three fighters each.
Point value was 288 for the Klingons and 324 for the Minbari.
Turn 1, the Klingons plot high acceleration, the Minbari (played by a less aggressive captain), pivot their noses down to B(-30) degrees while accelerating by 2; the hope is that the Minbari can combine fire on one Klingons ship at range 24, then turn off. All nine fighters are launched, and tasked with point defense roles. The Klingons charge straight in, and Klingon #2 (the Fencer) gets its nose shield damaged by two of the Minbari - the third had turned its weapons out of arc. The Fencer regenerates 12 bubbles in its forward shield (another major difference - shield repair is much more robust in SS than SFB).
The Klingons launch drones at range 24 - drone racks are the weapon that's most different from SFB to SS, and this causes some confusion. They also armed, and fired, disruptors - firing through +4 ECM into the top aspects of the Minbari frigates resulted in 2 of 12 disruptors hitting - and the discovery that the Minbari skin armor is worth at least 2 points.
[Drones launch on turn N at targets within range, and potentially roll for impact on turn N+1 after the target has moved. The target generally gets to choose which facing of the ship gets to deal with the drones.]
Turn 2: The Minbari try to turn away - the Klingons accelerate and turn in. Minbari maneuver is complicated by the drones - they want to turn to separate from the Klingons while their Neutron Lasers cool off, but the drones will have to be dealt with on this turn, and turning away will take defensive weapons out of arc. Fighters are kept with the ships to shoot down drones, and the ships turn off. The Klingons get to range 16, but do not fire. The Minbari players use defensive fire, and discover why holding back weapons for Aegis fire is handy. None of the 8 drones launched hit their target. (4 launchers able to launch 2 per turn on the Klingons).
The Klingons launch another wave of 12 drones. Fencer finishes repairing its Nose shield.
Turn 3: The lightbulb goes on for one of the Klingon players, and he sees how all the parts of the game interact for movement; I can spend my time helping the Minbari players over the hump.
The Minbari players decide to swing back in on the Klingon ships; they came very close to doing internals at range 24, and only missed out because one ship had inadvertantly turned his weapons out of arc. With a lot of handholding, I walk them through coordinated maneuvers in 3-D, based on shooting bearings from their future position markers to the Klingon's future position markers.
The Klingons, in turn, split up a bit, one trying to catch an anticipated turn to get on the Minbari's side arc, the other charging in straight. Klingon #1 (Retribution) is the one going high and outside. The Minbari's maneuver is not the same for all three ships, but does line them all up on Fencer - and because they jogged down a bit, they're underneath it - still in disruptor arcs, and the ph-1 arcs, but below the arcs of all the phaser-2s. The fighters are moved after the Klingons move, and the decision is made to send them against the Fencer, which they can just barely reach by doing a maximum acceleration.
The Retribution is at range 11, and the Fencer is at range 7 from the lead Minbari ship, with all three Minbari ships having a shot at the Fencer's underside. The fighters also come in underneath, which proves to be a stroke of luck - it keeps them out of the arc of the ADD.
Two Minbari ships are at range 7 and 8, the third at range 9. All three fire their Neutron Lasers, which need 1+s to hit (due to the Fencer's bottom profile) for the first two, and a 2+ for the farther away one. Both of the first two ships choose to use the Cutting Trait to add 1 more point of damage to each Neutron Laser at the cost of +2 to their Accuracy targets.
The Fencer overloads three disruptors, and arms a third as a standard, while powering maximum ECM It doesn't do him a lot of good - his return fire needs an 8+ to hit the Minbari. with the disruptors and a 7+ with the phasers.
The Minbari only shoot down 5 of the drones, and hope that the remaining 3 will miss due to ECM - they're targeted on Minbari #2.
The Minbari roll obnoxiously well on their Neutron Lasers. Two of the Neutron Lasers roll 8+ on their Accuracy rolls, triggering the Continuous trait, and both of those had the Cutting trait active. The result is a moderately damaged Klingon ship.
The Klingon player (unwisely) decided to commit phasers to fire on Minbari #1, not the fighters; the fighters pretty much finished him off.
His disruptor fire and phasers on Minbari #1 did decent damage to the ship he hit - he threw enough dice that he was bound to roll well at least once, and overloads make all the difference in overcoming an armor value of 2. Eight more drones are launched.
Then the drone wave hits a different ship than the Klingon was targeting, and the defensive fire plans for the Minbari don't work out so well - three of them survive defensive fire and all three hit. Minbari #2 is not looking particularly well, but is better off than Minbari #1
If the fighters hadn't fired on the Klingon, the exchange would've been a lightly damaged Klingon and a not-quite-crippled Minbari. As it is, it's a hulked Klingon traded for a pair of not-quite crippled Minbari.
At the end of the turn, the Klingon does damage control and gets some of his phasers back; the Minbari attempts damage control and gets nothing back on either ship.
Turn 4: The Minbari decide to run straight at their current orientations, so they can provide fire support for the two wounded ships. Klingon #2 demonstrates that, yes, the Klingons are more maneuverable than the Minbari - a pivot rating of 5 answers for a lot of sins - and turns in behind them, where their armor is weakest. The Fencer also turns (albeit more slowly) to put a fresh shield on the Minbari - but it tasks itself with shooting those fighters with the ADD. The Minbari fighters are turning as tightly as they can to provide covering fire on drones.
The eventual trade is the fighters shoot down most of the drones launched on the prior turn, and the Klingons cripple seven of the fighters - with the Retribution throwing its disruptors into the Aft facing of Minbari #3, getting one hit.
The Minbari spend their time shooting down drones, and use Aegis to keep one from hitting the ship that had been hit prior.
During Damage Control, the damaged Minbari vessels finally fix their pivot thrusters), and the Minbari formation can actually move. It's also pretty clear that the guessing game from here on out will be 'which way do the Minbari turn' and 'which way will the Klingons turn'.
Turn 5: The Klingons coordinate to cover a Minbari turn to the left; the Minbari turn 90 degrees straight up - which, while it won't get them a shot on the Klingons this turn, will make it possible to land the surviving fighters to repair them. Both sides are somewhat surprised at where the other side ends up facing; the Retribution is just out of arc on its disruptors at range 4, the Fencer has a shot, but at pretty slim odds. Both choose to use their phasers on the ships rather than shoot the fighters. Minbari ECM reduces the phasers considerably.
The Minbari land their fighters on both ships not targeted by drones, and turn all their Fusion Cannons at the Retribution. This results in them losing the second Minbari ship, and doing significant damage to the Retribution in return. It's now two versus two with four surviving fighters, and one untouched Minbari.
Turn 6: The Minbari ships turn slowly to bring their weapons into arc while the Klingons repair shields and re-arm phasers, and try to not get too far away - they don't want leave overload range, and figure (rightly) that they can trade shields this turn for overload shots next turn. The Minbari use fusion cannons to swat down drones, now that theres one functioning launcher on the Klingon ships.
Turn 7: The Klingons turn in for the overload shot, the Minbari coast in for overloads and fusion cannons. The net result is technically a Minbari victory - the Klingons obliterate ship #1, and put the serious hurt on ship #3, but the Minbari strip all remaining weapons off both ships. In theory, the Klingons could've pulled out, fixed stuff, and fought some more, in practice, we'd run out of time.
Everyone had fun; there was one Minbari player who was having trouble figuring out how to play the game at all - he understood each subcomponent, but couldn't assemble the parts into a complete whole in his understanding. He pretty much just did whatever one of the other Minbari players told him.
Total time to play out:
Turn 1: About 1.5 hours (mostly teaching the game to 5 players)
Turn 2: About 40 minutes
Turn 3: About 40 minutes
Turn 4: About 20 minutes
Turns 5-7 - about 10-15 minutes each.
Lessons learned:
- I can teach the game in about 15 minutes to an interested player - when that's 5 players, it's close to an hour of instruction, just because there's always someone who needs a repeat of something. Having a Klingon payer suddenly grok everything helped a lot.
- The Minbari ships alternate from seeming too weak to godlike to too weak depending on the tactical situation. That 4 ECM is damned tough, but once you hit them hard, they crumple. They really lack effective damage control ability.
- The Klingon ships cannot sabre dance against the Minbari; the Minbari can't really fight a long range battle against the Klingons, who can accelerate and close too quickly.
- I was worried that drones were going to be ineffective; they proved to be the most useful weapons the Klingons had.
- I'm pretty sure that the Minbari fighters could've been more effectively employed, but without having played that game from the Minbari side, I've got no idea as to how, and I was trying very hard (after giving them the coordinated maneuver on turn 3) to NOT try to 'balance the scenario' with my experience.
Way of the Warrior
Three Klingon D7s versus two Federation CAs - one of which is the Enterprise, with a near Legendary crew.
This was designed to showcase "SFB feel" without slavish devotion to replicating every bloody detail of SFB.
Klingons started at Altitude 10, Feds started at Altitude 0, initial separation of 28 units. One of the Federation players was the Klingon player that had the lightbulb moment.
Turn 1: The Federation accelerates by 2, and don't turn - betting the Klingons will accelerate by 4 to use their better turning ability later. The Federation guess right, and end the turn at range 25 from the Klingons. They fire photons at that range (the table automatically converts to prox photons) and roll stunningly well - getting 7 of 8 hits, nearly dropping the left shield of one Klingon cruiser. The Klingons weren't expecting the Feds to fire at that range (only one SFB player on the Klingon side). The Klingons hadn't armed disruptors, and the Feds are just outside of drone launch range.
The damaged Klingon uses his general regenerators to rebuild 6 bubbles on the damaged shield.
Turn 2: The Feds accelerate by 4, and pivot by 2 to keep the geometry open; the Klingons pivot by 3 and accelerate by 4 - at the end of the turn, the Feds are speed 4, the Klingons are speed 5. The Feds also re-arm photon torpedoes; the ending range is 22.
The Klingons launch drones, the Federation ships don't.
Turn 3: The Federation players look at how far they can get if they just move forward without turning, and if they accelerate by 2 or more and don't turn, they can guarantee that they'll be more than 24 hexes from the drone's launch point. They choose to accelerate by 4 (their maximum) and build up a final speed of 8. The Klingons turn to run a closing course on where they'll end up - they end the turn at range 23 from each other, but 27 hexes away from where the drones were launched from, meaning they don't hit. More to the point, the difference in speeds means the Klingon drone launches (if any) will meet the same fate this turn.
Realizing this, the Klingons don't launch a second salvo, but do fire 12 disruptors at range 25, hitting the Intrepid with half of them - the Intrepid gets 6 shield bubbles back for free and spends an action point to recover the other 12 shield bubbles.
Turn 4: The Federation ships turn in, spending the action point to pivot 3 windows, turning the shallow range closure into a steep one, and accelerating by 3 to keep their speed the same at 8. The Klingons performed moderate acceleration, and slipped in; more by chance than anything else, the ending range is 17 to the Intrepid and 19 to the Enterprise. The Klingons launch 12 drones, the Federation ships launch 4 back at them. The Klingons decide not to fire disruptors. The Klingons are now covering 10 hexes per turn, the Federation ships are covering 8.
Turn 5: The Klingons make a bold maneuver, and accelerate straight in to the Federation ships at thrust 4; the Federation ships turn by two AVID windows and maintain speed - this results in the initial overload pass happening at range 4 after altitude is accounted for.
The results are bloody. Both sides launch their full spread of drones. Most of the Federation phaser-1s are tasked with shooting down drones; the Klingons use ADDs to sweep the Federation drones pretty thoroughly. The end result is that the Federation fires 8 overloaded photon torpedoes and four phaser 1s, and the Klingons fire 9 overloaded and 3 standard loaded disruptors and 9 phaser-1s, and 5 phaser-2s. One drone survives the Federation defensive fire, and none of the drones survive the Klingon's ADDs.
The Doomstalker is the Klingon ship at range 4, and it simply doesn't survive when seven of eight photons connect (the Feds had hot dice), and the remainder of the phasers hit.
The Intrepid is horribly savaged by the Klingon return fire, but is not blown up. Remarkably, none of her bridge boxes are hit (the source of APs) and no hits come through band 6, where her 8 damage control parties are. Damage control begins immediately and the Intrepid's crew quality turns the tide - she gets 6 boxes back out of 8 attempts (with hot dice).
Turn 6: This is where the Klingon's acceleration on turn 5 bites them. Starting at range 4, and with the Feds having an velocity of 8, and the Klingons having a velocity of 14, they end up at range 18, minimum. The Federation ships accelerate by 2 just to open the distance, and frantically refill phaser capacitors on both ships; the Enterprise reloads two photons, the Intrepid reloads none.
The Klingons pivot by 5 windows, and put 3 thrust on to keep the speed bleed down to -2; they're now pointed in the right direction with a velocity of 12, chasing Federation ships at speed 10 with 19 hexes of separation. Due to the angles, they end the turn at range 18. The Federation ships are lucky that the Doomstalker had blown up taking its drones with it. They barely shoot down the drones coming at them; the Klingons get unlucky with their ADDs and one drone slams into the front shield of the Fencer.
The Klingons fire disruptors at the retreating Intrepid, but it regenerates the shield damage. Intrepid then repairs another 6 boxes from Damage Control parties, including two phasers to deal with next turn's drone wave.
Turn 7: Both Federation ships accelerate by 2, and pivot by 3, angling up (to get more phaser arcs in coverage). The Enterprise re-arms two more photons, the Intrepid arms two. The Klingons get range 15 on the top facings of the ship, and hit with 8 of 8 disruptors, knocking down most of the Intrepid's top shield in the process; the Intrepid takes a drone on the Aft shield that survives the defensive fire, but it doesn't (quite) drop it.
Turn 8: The Enterprise and Intrepid pivot by 3 again, reversing course on the Klingons, and don't accelerate - the Klingons pivot to their port cutting across the trace, and end the range at range 6 and 7 respectively, with the Federation ships flying inverted, and the Klingon's rolled to their right by 60 degrees. It's nearly a repeat of the first pass, but at range 6; the Klingon ADDs shoot down the last of the Federation drones, and the Klingons launch their second to last salvo at the Intrepid.
Unfortunately for the Federation ships, the overload exchange works out better for the Klingons this time. The Klingons hit with all eight disruptors, all overloaded. The Federation ships fired a mix of 3 overloads and one standard (Enterprise) and two overloads and one standard) (Intrepid) and hit with 2 OLs and one standard, and the Klingons have a phaser advantage (with 6 phaser 1s able to fire offensively, versus 3). The result is that the Intrepid gets hammered - and eats a drone that made it through defensive fire - and the Klingons start getting SI hits on the 7 track; they also destroy 4 of the Intrepid's 8 DC parties. The Fencer has its forward shield dropped and takes four inconsequential internals.
Turn 9: The Federation ships pitch down by 2 windows and accelerate by 4, trying to present a different flank for the Klingon's next overload strike; the Klingons had anticipated this and pivoted appropriately; the Intrepid gets another double overload strike on its bottom shield, but no phasers (the Klingons lacked the APs to rearm them). Unfortunately for the Intrepid, this strips the last of her weapons and all but one of her damage control parties from her. The return fire from the Enterprise does some hits on the Fencer's still down shield (it had no APs left to spend on shield regeneration on the last turn). Most importantly, the damage destroys two of the Fencer's pivot track, reducing its maneuverability considerably. It also shreds the Fencer's Damage Control teams.
Turn 10: The Enterprise rearms three photons, and all phasers, the Intrepid only arms the phasers in arc, knowing they're dealing with the last of the Klingon drones. The Klingons rearmed phasers, but didn't arm disruptors, so the Enterprise's gamble sort of pays off. The Klingons are now presented with a problem - the Intrepid might have photons next turn; the Enterprise almost certainly will, but if they try to cover all possible movements (now that the ships have separated), it's either going to turn into two one on one fights, or one Federation ship will get a good shot at a Klingon while they gang up on the other, with one Klingon unable to hit either thrust 4 or a pivot of more than 2 windows. In the end, they decide to gang up on the Enterprise, and hope the Intrepid isn't re-arming.
Turn 11: It's reached by mutual conclusion that this will be the last turn of the game, because one Klingon player has another event. The Intrepid accelerates away from the fight; the Enterprise's captain tries to do something clever, and partially succeeds - mostly because the Klingon flying the Retribution (untouched, and thus with a Pivot 5) over corrected and the Fencer couldn't maneuver enough. The Enterprise overloads three photon torpedoes, and shoots them at range 6 into the Fencer, which finishes it off - the Klingon fire is split on two shields, and the Enterprise will be free to run away to re-arm due to geometry and the Klingon's low remaining speed. The Klingon captain can pursue one, but not both, Fed ships, and the Enterprise, while lightly damaged, is capable of terrifying regeneration if it's not pounded on repeatedly - and they're not on a good track to hunt down the Intrepid either.
Result was a Federation victory, though the Klingons had one undamaged ship.
The game had one player who'd played before, and four players who'd not played before.
Turn 1 took an hour (having someone help teach the Feds was a godsend.)
Turn 2 took 30 minutes
Turn 3 took 40 minutes (teaching damage allocation)
Turn 4 took 20 minutes
Turns 5 to 11 took between 5 and 15 minutes depending on how much shooting was going on.
Lessons Learned
- The big lesson here is that drones force people to clump their ships for mutual defense; this may mean that drones are a bit too powerful. Once the threat of a Klingon drone wave vanished, the Federation ships could be much more creative in their maneuver.
- Sometimes, the dice give, sometimes the dice take away.
- Damage control (and defensive regeneration) is a bit more powerful than SFBs; when teaching to an SFB crowd, make sure this is explained earlier on. (Not many SFBers in this game, but I can see it being a case of different expectations.)