Interludes and Examinations. Battle of XL-387-G.

 

The Shor'Li-Ka Shadows the Centauri fleet

'Na'Tor smiled as he read the latest update from the Warleader. The T'Sorn they had requested had finished it's work and had left the system. The Centauri Octurion had proven too badly damaged to survive a trip through hyperspace, and the facilities in the system were inadequate for the major repairs that would be required to reinforce its hull sufficiently. Instead, the reclamation ships crew had stripped the engines from the hull, a complete and largely undamaged grav drive, together with a staggering array of the Centauri's most modern weapons, and directed it into a collision with one of the planets many moons. It now sported a new crater, formed as the multi megaton hulk crashed into it. Once the system was secured, they would send teams down to recover as much of the debris as possible and recycle it, but for now, it was as useless for the Centauri, as it had been for the Narns. Ahead of him, and the Shor'Li-Ka by several hundred thousand kilometers, and well above the plane of the ecliptic, lay what remained of the Centauri fleet. Still a powerful force, but much reduced from what it had been, and no match for the Narn fleet which was growing larger week by week. 'Dilgar be damned', he thought to himself, 'we should purge the system of these vermin once and for all' he snarled at the thought, but he had his orders. Shadow the Centauri and report on their actions, and that was what he would do.'

The Campaign so far.

After 6 turns the Centauri are on the back foot having lost over half of their initial forces and having consistently generated small numbers of RR each turn, meaning they have been unable to replace losses in a timely fashion. They have also lost 5 out of 5 games, 2 against the Dilgar, and 3 against the Narn, with the largest clash, against the Dilgar, being the most damaging in terms of smaller hulls, and then losing the flagship of their fleet against the Narn. 
The Dilgar also suffered quite heavily in their large encounter with the Centauri, losing several large ships, and crippling damage to others. The Narn have come out the best, only losing a handful of ships, and most of those being smaller hulls, and easier to replace. I've summarized the losses so far below.

Losses:
Centauri: 1x Amun, 2x Centurion, 1x Corvan, 1x Dargan, 2x Haven, 2x Kutai, 1x Maximus, 1x Morgrath, 1x Octurion, 8x Vorchan Demos.

Dilgar: 3x Jashakar, 1x Kahtrik, 1x Tikrit, 2x Tratharti.

Narn: 2x Rothan, 3x Sho'Kov.

Strategic Situation.

The Narn possess the largest force, followed by the Dilgar, and finally the Centauri. The Narn now outnumber the Dilgar and Centauri in number of hulls, and come close to matching them in points. Both the Dilgar and Narn control 4 strategic objectives each, and the Centauri control none.

XL-387-G (i), the only rocky planet the Narn possess, is likely to be attacked

With the damaged Dilgar ships returning this turn, the narrow window where the Narn could attack at will is over, and the return of these ships means that the Dilgar again possess the most powerful planetary assault assets in the system. The Narn have 3 planets in their possession, a pair of gas giants and a small Dead world, an assault against the Dead world would allow the Dilgar to potentially leverage this advantage. Mass drivers are brutal against fixed defences and planets. They also have the best carrier force in system, having a distinct advantage against the Centauri who have only a few fighters, and the Narn who could probably match them in fighter numbers, but lack any dedicated carriers, and can bring fewer to any engagement.

The Narn have the largest, and at this time, most experienced force. This provides them with the opportunity to fight multiple battles in a single turn at quite high points and priority level. This will allow them to leverage their numerical advantage the most since, unless they are fighting the biggest engagements, they don't have to worry about fielding smaller forces than they might otherwise want to. The composition may not be ideal, but campaigns limit all forces to picking from their fleet roster, so this is not as much of a disadvantage as it might first seem.

The Narn Task Force in its entirety.

The Centauri are in the weakest position, their losses to date have been staggering in comparison to the other forces, but they still have a selection of powerful ships and only need a few turns to receive reinforcements to build their forces back up. With the Narn and Dilgar set to attack each other, it may provide the Centauri with the time they need, and if losses on both of the other sides are high enough, they could find themselves in a much better position than they currently enjoy. The lack of any strategic objectives in their possession means that they are not vulnerable to being attacked and suffering more losses, so provided they choose their targets wisely, they could come back from their weak position.

I am expecting to see the Dilgar and Narn attack each other aggressively to whittle away at each others forces, while the Centauri are likely to just try to secure the trade route for a few turns. I don't expect this to be contested, since you don't win by possessing the trade route, you do so by seizing all the other targets. The Dilgar will probably attack planet (i) and the Narn planet (iii) and the results of these battles will probably shape the rest of the campaign. It could be over quickly, or the results could draw it out. 

Observations

Its been both delightful to see the Centauri get their faces caved in, and also demoralising to see the same. David has been very aggressive in the campaign, and his position has snowballed. It seems very easy for inertia to take over and 1 player get in to a bad position. To be clear, there has been no attempt to bully anyone, so this is just how the campaign has gone. Perhaps the Centauri have been a bit too aggressive in the campaign so far.

The second point would be that it is very clear that there is a massive difference between knowing how to play the game, and playing the game. All 3 parties are competent with the rules, but whereas I (Narn) and Martin (Dilgar) have practice with ACTA over the past few months, and have been playing a variety of other games regularly against each other, and others at our local club for 10 years, and I've been playing weekly for 30, David has had a longer sabbatical, not having played much since the game went OOP. It was possibly an error to jump straight in to a campaign without a moderate number of warm up games first to help him get a better feel for things. Once the campaign has concluded, or perhaps while it is going on, a few generic pick up games at smallish size so we can smash out 2-4 games in an evening may be in order.

Campaign wise. Most of the games have been decisive, with disproportionate losses on one side in comparison to the other. the most important contributing factor has been the movement phase, getting your ships in to position and then striking. One game Martin and I played when we were in a quick 2 player campaign saw the campaign start and end on the first turn. The Dilgar lost half their ships in one battle, while my Centauri suffered no losses and only a little damage received.

This game was over fast, with all Dilgar forces destroyed, and no Centauri losses

A further observation would be that it is rarely worth repairing your ships in situ. It is more economical to request reinforcements, and then send your damaged ships for full repairs. Often the RR you would spend repairing a ship will be less than the cost of a new one. I will admit, that none of us have any 'Ace' ships, so things might change if a ship with all of the refits multiple times is damaged. but so far, there has been a very steady stream of ships going back to base, and only a few with very light damage getting repaired in theatre.

Losses in lighter ships have been heaviest. so concentrating your initial roster on these will be a distinct advantage in the early stage of the campaign. Larger ships are the most economical to buy in a campaign compared to smaller ones.

Well, thanks for joining me again, Turn 7 is about to happen, and I will update you on the developments in the system, with any luck there will be some spectacular firefights.