Preparing for War.

"Can you say that again?" asked Kalora forcefully, not quite believing what she had just been told. The Retaria system was a very boring Brown Dwarf, it was emitting barely any energy which had meant that just detecting it had been nothing short of miraculous. The Earth Alliance had been first to arrive, and had left a buoy laying claim to the system, a claim that had been vigorously contested shortly afterwards by the Resha-Kar Corporation of Brakir, of which Kalora was a senior member, and then by the Pak'ma'ra. 

Resha-Kar had been able to defend their claim, not without loss, but the chance discoveries in the asteroid belt surrounding the Brown Dwarf would make losses a hundred times what had been suffered acceptable. There had been some push back from the Earth Alliance, they hadn't taken kindly to one of their principal combat ships, an Omega class destroyer, being crippled and forced to surrender, but the corporations contacts in Earth Dome had managed to smooth things over somewhat. There were consequences, naturally, Kalora herself had been sanctioned in the Earth Alliance and her credit accounts frozen, but that was as far as it went, and under normal circumstances the sanctions would be quietly dropped in a few months once the news cycle had time to forget about everything. The fact that they had assisted the ship that had blown up the Resha-Attacker and killed a close friend of hers, after firing the first shot, had gone a long way to the response being as soft as it was. And the Pak'ma'ra? nothing from them.

So the message she was just receiving was something of a shock.

"The...uh... high council of the Khilsiek Protectorate has contacted the ISA, they are claiming that Retaria is under the gravitational influence of their star, and so part of their solar system, and under interstellar law that means that they.." Kalora cut him off abruptly with a sharp wave of her hand.

"I'm well aware of what that means, but that's preposterous, Khilsiek is, what, almost a quarter of a light year away?"

"Nevertheless, the ISA has agreed to the request to arbitrate on behalf of Khilsiek, a request that was seconded by Earth Gov"

"Hang on a minute" Kalora furrowed her brow, Khilsiek isn't in the Interstellar alliance, and they have no formal treaty with the humans.." She paused a moment "The ISA President is a Human, so its almost guaranteed he will do whatever it is Earth Gov tells him, but ISA protection does not extend to...." She grinned a wicked Grin "I think we should engage in some ah, 'aggressive' negotiations...."

    This weeks gaming was interrupted by my finishing another orbit around our star, and electing to spend the evening with my better half at our (not so) local watering hole. In light of the fact there is no battle report this week, I thought I would catch everyone up with the progress on preparations for our next A Call To Arms campaign.

    The first thing to do in any campaign is to pick your factions, so far we have the Earth Alliance, Pak'ma'ra and myself with the Brakiri. There is of course still time for others to join and plenty of forces for them to choose from. My starting fleet will probably be along these lines:
2x Avioki,
2x Brokados Carrier,
2x Halik,
4x Haltona,
4x Haltana,
3x Brikorta,
2x Ikorta,
2x Shakara,
4x Rakarta, or 4/8 Kabrik.

Most of my starting fleet. Just a few ships short

    The Brokados will be represented by the Torsha, and I will be using the Antoph as the Halik, Haltona, and Haltana. STL's by Tyrel Lohr. This does mean, since there is a small chance I could be required to use my whole fleet in the first battle, that I will need 4 more Antoph's to make the total to 10.

    This gives me a reasonably good mix of capabilities. I'm avoiding the high damage ships on the whole, with only the Avioki's and Brokados having damage scores of 50 or above. In the case of the Brokados, they shouldn't be the lead ship in an attack, so i'm not too worried, and the Avioki I do not expect to see combat early unless a large game is rolled for. This will mean it's easier for me to keep ships on the front line rather than send them away for a couple of turns for full repairs. In a lot of cases though, it is more efficient to just buy a new ship and lose the one you have for a few turns. You are going to be missing ships that may have lots of experience and refits if you do that though. I've taken a few carriers, mindful that one of the belligerent forces is Earth Alliance, and for the same reason I'm taking the Halik, it is an excellent escort ship and has reasonable anti-ship firepower as well.. I've not decided on which fighters to take yet, the Pikatos is a reasonably good strike fighter, but the Falkosi will let me contest fighter superiority against the EA, and support my capital ships acting as interceptors against the long range fire I will take from EA missiles, and Pak'ma'ra plasma torpedoes.

Fighter Swarm

    The rest of the selection gives me a bit of flexibility, the Shakara is an average scout and has jump engines so I can use it in a couple of scenarios, The Ikorta is a super effective assault ship that has some punch, and the Haltana is just the best ship in the whole fleet in terms of its utility, and has decent firepower to boot.
    The Patrol choices are a bit more undecided. The Rakarta appears in The Dilgar War unofficial expansion, and is just awful, and the Kabrik is a ship that, along with all the other police ships that are 2 for 1, is borderline overpowered. It's nowhere near as bad as some of them, but it's excellent value to get 2 ships for 1 patrol point. This is something that we may be looking at tweaking so the police ships don't have an undue impact on the lower priority games. We may also be looking at totally reworking the Rakarta to make it more use-able and also more in line with the ship in Babylon 5 Wars.

A Mixed Group of Merchants. Sadly no Hakara among them

    There is also the matter of some additional ships that will be needed. Firstly there are the Convoy Duty and Supply Ships missions which will need up to 10 merchant ships each There is currently no Hakara, and  really no good options for the Brakiri in terms of STL's, so I will be using a mix of ships from other races for my merchant marine. The Lias, Arcismus and Tra'shu'li are all available, and its not beyond the realm of possibility that a Brakiri Corporation would use them.

Planetary defences.

    
    There may also be a Planetary assault, or I could find myself building a space station to defend vital assets, so I will need 12 Orbital Satellites. I have 6 and a station, so it just remains to print off 6 more Satellites, and get them all painted.

    The terrain is also something that I have needed to improve. I've glued a lot more rocks to bases and given them a coat of paint and I'm painting some dust clouds rather than just using bare markers cut to shape. Hopefully this will improve the look of the board.

Painted Rocks!

    Planets are a bit more of a problem, since they come in 3 sizes, and may or may not have moons and/or rings. I have some Battlefleet Gothic templates I can keep using for now, but I will look to get something better in the near future.

    Also making an appearance will be a Jump Gate miniature. It's not Babylon 5, its a full thrust Jump gate by googleplex, available on cults3d. It will suffice especially since a more accurate jump gate would be an absolute pain of a miniature to do anything with.

    As for the campaign map. Again we will be fighting over a single system, I randomly generated it again, and this one is far more valuable than before. there are 5 strategic assets that will likely be highly contested, An Industrial world, Construction Yard, Mining Outpost and Jump Gate make up the assets players can claim, and there is of course the trade route that all systems have. Assuming I can take at least one of these assets, then replacing losses should be a lot easier than it was last campaign. I now have to prepare a map of the system, and possibly expand it if a couple more people sign on for the campaign.

I hope you enjoyed this brief update. I have plenty of things to be painting. I will see you next time.