Gunboat Diplomacy: Babylon 5 A Call to Arms Battle Report

Ship-Director Korlat was still in awe of his new position. The Takata was a state of the art class of ship that a few months ago he would not have even dared to dream he would be in control of. It was a new build, It still had that new smell and he found himself being hesitant to touch things for fear of them breaking or being marred in some way.

'Director, we have detected a large formation of Pak'ma'ra flagged vessels'

'Very well' he responded 'Bring the ship to battle readiness. Standing orders are to consider Pak'ma'ra ships within 10 light years of Khilsiek as being hostile, '

As I mentioned in the previous article, turn 4 of our campaign is underway with 4 weeks for players to play their games. One game is outstanding and is due to be played next week, and since the campaign game scheduled for this week was played in under 10 minutes, we decided to play a more relaxed game and try out a few things.

Todays game will be an Annihilation mission with terrain and 5 Battle Points.

Pak'ma'ra fleet.

Since this was a more casual game my opponent, Ginge, elected to pick a force composed of lots of smaller ships. The reason is clear when you look at the Pak'ma'ra ship roster, even when you include the additional ships from The Dilgar War expansion. The Ikorta with its torpedoes and forward firing heavy plasma cannon is the best ship the Pak'ma'ra have, and at skirmish level. Its got an average speed, is reasonably survivable and can be taken in numbers. best of all when it is in a squadron with other ships, they can combine their firepower and lob energy mines at people. The Tulas'hal in comparison is a little lackluster. The main advantage it enjoys is the Jump engine at Skirmish level. The turret mounted plasma cannon gives good all round firepower, and it has a decent amount of hit points combined with the native 6+ damage ignore all Pak'ma'ra ships have makes it quite a tough nut. the main disadvantage is its low speed and the fact that its lumbering.
Finally, the Sunhawk is fast, agile, has good torpedo armament and has a 5+ dodge combined with the 6+ damage ignore makes it a really cost effective choice, and as a Patrol choice you can take many many of them to act as initiative sinks. this is quite important as Pak'ma'ra are unlikely to win the initiative often.

10x Ikorta in 2 squadrons of 5
4x Tulas'hal in a squadron
12x Sunhawks

Brakiri Fleet.

Being a Battle Level game I definitely had the opportunity to try out a few things. I've not had the opportunity to test out a few of the ships from the Shipyard as much as I would like, so this would be the perfect opportunity.
I started off with the Takata. I don't often spend up in games, smaller ships tend to be more efficient and cost effective, but the Takata brings a couple of things to the table that Brakiri capital ships on the whole lack. Weapons that are long ranged and effective against a variety of targets, and protection against incoming fire with Interceptors. Backing this up is a whole slew of ships with no clear strategy except to playtest as many ships as possible.

1 Takata
1 Brokados
1 Haltona
1 Blitsi
2 Mearkat
2 Drikorta
1 Calorta
4 Rakarta

Deployment.

The Pak'ma'ra lost the initiative roll for deployment. the Ikortas and Tulas'hals were deployed centrally, with the bulk of the Sunhawks on the flanks.

The Brakiri Counter deployment saw the bulk of the force being on their right, and the Pak'ma'ra left, The intention being a classic refused flank that would hopefully allow me to defeat them in detail.

I did place a pair of Rakartas on my left to try to draw away some of the enemy ships, and if not then I could use them to harass the Pak'ma'ra ships as they lack rear facing weapons, and outside of their torpedoes much in the way of range. Facing off against the Sunhawks who were faster and agile meant that I didn't expect this lone pair to survive for too long.

Turn 1

The fleets had sighted one another. The bulk of the Brakiri force found itself facing only a light screen of Pak'ma'ra Sunhawks. Initially in a close formation, they spread out as their sensors identified the Takata. The rest of the Pak'ma'ra ships started to maneuver towards the Brakiri, however there was a great deal of debris obscuring the line of sight. 

Sunhawks fan out to avoid the worst of the energy mines effects and fire at the Halona

The pair of Rakartas on the extreme flank slowed considerably using a dust cloud to hide themsleves as a small armada of ships closed.

Fire was exchanged. The Sunhawks fired their missiles into the Haltona and caused minor damage, while the Takata concentrated its energy mines on a pair of targets. The effects were devastating, one of the Sunhawks was destroyed outright, while a second was crippled.

Turn 2 

Unable to avoid action, the Sunhawks close with the enemy fleet

The Pak'ma'ra continued to close with the Brakiri force, the bulk of their ships still out of range. The Sunhawks who had unfortunately found themselves facing the whole Brakiri force were now unable to avoid action, they should have made efforts to do so earlier and now it was too late. They instead selected a ship, one of the pair of Mearkats. Its resemblance to a Hakara fast courier possibly leading the Pak'ma'ra crews to conclude they were carrying important cargo given their obviously heavy escort.

As they closed, the Sunhawks came under concentrated and deadly fire, a couple managed to fire a few shots into the Mearkat before they were overwhelmed by fire. The Pak'ma'ra knocked down the ships weak shields and scored a couple of hits on the ships hull, but no major damage was inflicted. In return, 3 of the remaining 4 Sunhawks were wrecked by the Brakiri. 

And suffer massive damage

The survivor was set upon by 2 full squadrons of Pikatos fighters and a fairly substantial number of secondary weapon shots that left it crippled by not yet destroyed.

A Lone Rakarta Nervously tries to avoid drawing attention

On the other flank, the Rakartas looked on nervously as the hole Pak'ma'ra fleet was uncomfortably close

Turn 3

The Takata accelerated in order to clear the large asteroid field hiding the Pak'ma'ra Tulas'hals as quickly as possible, the rest of the Brakiri ships keeping formation with it. The Pak'ma'ra meanwhile continued their advance, now having maneuvered to have the Brakiri force in their forward fire arcs, but.... the Brakiri were just out of their range.

Pak'ma'ra ships engage the Brakiri scouts

On the Brakiri left flank, the pair of Rakartas found themselves outnumbered and in a desperate struggle with Pak'ma'ra Sunhawks and in range of the side weapons batteries of the Pak'ma'ra Ikortas. The Brakiri fire was somewhat effective. The Rakartas managed to land a few solid hits on the Sunhawks causing some minor damage. The return fire was fierce but wildly inaccurate. The Rakartas managed to escape destruction having been able to avoid the majority of weapons fire. the Dust cloud, combined with ineffective fire and evasive measures meant that the most severe damage was a pair of solid Plasma Torpedo hits that left one Rakarta badly damaged but still at full combat effectiveness.

The last Sunhawk on the flank is caught by fighters as the Takata draws line of sight to the Tulas'hal squadron

The final Sunhawk on that had engaged the brakiri tried to evade, but was relentlessly pursued by the Brakiri Pikatos fighters, their fire and the fire from the rear batteries of the Brakiri fleet left the ship a drifting wreck. 

With the Sunhawk dealt with, the Takata concentrated its energy mines on the squadron of Tulas'hal, and caught all 4 in the area of effect since they were in close formation, damage was caused to all of them to varying degrees.

Turn 4

The Brakiri engage the Tulas'hal squadron

The Brakiri ships accelerated towards the Tulas'hal squadron firing all the weapons that would bear on them. the Gravitic mines again found their mark, and the Pak'ma'ra ships, raked by fire from numerous ships, as well as shaken and torn by the Gravitic mines were pounded into scrap, one after another. Three of the four ships were wrecked, with the last one in very poor condition. Their return fire had smashed into a Drikorta, overwhelmed its interceptors and damaged its weapons batteries in addition to severe damage to the ships hull.

Pak'ma'ra ships are out of position

The bulk of the Pak'ma'ra fleet tried desperately to maneuver into a firing position, only a single target presented itself, and this was dutifully engaged. A Rakarta found itself trailing the Brakiri formation, and a barrage of torpedoes erased the ship from existence.

A Pair of Rakartas miraculously survive and start to harass the Pak'ma'ra fleet

The pair of Rakartas on the Brakiri left flank found themselves through the Pak'ma'ra formation with the Sunhawks speeding away. It appeared they had had enough.

Brakiri 24-2 Pak'ma'ra

Brakiri Victory

Conclusion

We left the game at the end of turn 4. The terrain, combined with the dispositions of the 2 forces meant that the Pak'ma'ra were going to find themselves thoroughly outflanked and then defeated in detail. The Ikortas are not the fastest or the most agile of ships. The Takata performed exceptionally well. It would have done worse if the pak'ma'ra had spread out a little more and not presented such good targets. 2 turns of hitting 4 Tulas'hal meant that it inflicted about 80 damage to them overall, and 40 per turn with energy mines. That is after rolling for close blast doors or their natural 6+ damage ignore. The other main takeaways are that the Pak'ma'ra ships are tougher than you would expect, their missiles hit very hard, but at least the ships in this battle, if the terrain is not suitable, you can outmaneuver them.
By the end of turn 4, unless the Pak'ma'ra were willing to go into asteroid fields and take damage, there was no way they would be able to avoid being outmaneuvered. There is a massive difference between 1 turn, and 2.

As to the rest of the ships. I couldn't really glean anything from their performance as the bulk of the damage was done by a few ships, and not the ones I was testing. I did find that the concentration of weapons forward was quite annoying as I was unable to fire effectively at the Sunhawk that outflanked me which is why it survived to turn 3.

Overall I would say this was a very very worthwhile game as we both gained some very important insights into our ships and how to handle the fleets.

Enemy force is attempting to disengage. Orders from the flagship are to conduct a general pursuit

STL's by Tyrel Lohr
Miniatures painted by myself and Ginge
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Next time I will be going over the events of turn 4 of our campaign

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thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.