Star Trek Battles: Hydran Kindoms Versus United Federation of Planets.

 

The end of our B5 campaign is pending but it will be a large battle and needs more time than we have available at our local games club. I've also got to finish painting my fleet and get the terrain up to scratch as I want it to be a fight to remember whatever the outcome.

In lieu of that we have been learning the rules to Babylon 5 Wars and rather than use Babylon 5 ships (as one might rightly expect) we are using Tyrel Lohrs Star Trek conversion rules. We did look at other systems but decided on B5W since the rules are complete (and free) and its detailed enough to be interesting, but not too detailed to be completely unmaneagable. As you might expect from a fan conversion there are some balance issues and design choices you may not agree with but on the whole they have captured the feel of Star Trek.

We have played quite a few games so far and we have a firm grasp of the basics of the game. we have been adding in things as we go, and this game we decided to add in Electronic Intelligence (ELINT). One of the more interesting concepts in B5W is Electronic Warfare. Each ship has sensors that they can use either offensively or defensively. Offensive use will see you use sensor strength to lock on to enemy ships and give you a bonus to hit them while defensive use will give your opponent a penalty to hit. You can spend your points how you like at the start of the turn. There are no limits to who you can shoot in a turn but shooting a target who you haven't locked on to will see you hit with quite hefty penalties.
Normally an individual ships sensor strength will dictate how many points it can spend on offensive or defensive use so naturally you can see how a ship with a high sensor rating will have a clear advantage (all other things being equal) to a ship with low sensors.
This is where ELINT capable ships come in. not only can they use their sensors as a normal ship can, but they can also provide sensor bonuses to nearby friendly ships and penalties to enemy ships. They look incredibly useful.

We are also going to tone down torpedoes in this game. previous matches have seen torpedoes dominate to the exclusion of everything else, so we are changing them. For this match, Max X will be 10 (not 20) for photon torpedoes.

The Hydran Kingdoms

2x Ranger Cruiser
1x Dragoon Cruiser
1x Lancer Destroyer
1x Scout Recon Frigate
1x Dragoon Torpedo Cruiser

Total 2965 points

The Rules for the Hydrans are in The Great Machine issues 11 and 17 which you can find here. Issue 11 has the first draft of the rules and issue 17 the second. We were not aware of this so the Hydran fleet, commanded by Ginge, had an unfortunate mix of ships from the 2 lists. 
The core of the fleet is a pair of ranger cruisewrs. these ships are armed with the potent Fusion beam. These weapons are not terribly powrful and short ranged, unitl, that is, you add power and then they become quite terifying, but still short ranged and unfortunately prone to exploding if you apply too much power. These are backed up by a Lancer Destroyer, this ship is smaller and mounts lighter versions of the Fusion Beam. As long range support, the Hydrans bring a Dragoon Cruiser, a Dragoon Torpedo Cruiser (which is the initial play test version of the ship) and the ELINT capable Scout Recon Frigate. The dragoons mount the Hellbore torpedo, this quite terrifying weapon, when it hits the opponent, 
We have not used any fighters yet, they will be added in future games, so that makes up the Hydran fleet. Their ships are powerfully armed, have really impressive forward and rear defensive values and have bulkheads to reduce the incoming damage making them quite survivable.

United Federation of Planets 

2x Excelsior-class Heavy Cruiser: USS Welles, USS Alvarez
2x Constellation-class Patrol Cruiser: USS Robert J Linder, USS DeShawn
1x Miranda-class Light Cruiser,: USS Dorsett
1x Soyuz-class Heavy Scout: USS Olzewski

Total 3000 points

Federation Ships have no stand out features except that they generally have no standout features. they are reasonably well armed, reasonably tough and reasonably agile. they do tend towards a more torpedo heavy armament than other factions might. Since I am fiughting the Hydrans we set the In Service date to 2300 for fleet selection. This gives the Federation a very good selection of ships to choose, which is nice because I don't have a large number of early TOS/TMP ships available, which is what the Hydrans would be facing under normal circumstances. The in service date does mean I can pick a couple of Excelsiors. They are the initial model rather than the later version, dspite the miniature having the additional blisters around the deflector dish. The ship itself is tough and powerfully armed but lacks any really potent wepaons, relying on quantity rather than quality Backing these up are a pair of Constellation class ships. They have a really powerful torpedo armament with very favourable arcs of fire and a reasonably good phaser armament. Finally there is a single Soyuz class to provide ELINT capability. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good its sensors are for ELINT purposes, and with exactly the right number of points left, a single Miranda. 

Set up and Deployment.

Our space map is still pending, so we used hex map with 2" hexes. this makes the battlespace smaller than we would like. we also added some terrain to the map. B5W does have rules for various celestial features and they are quite detailed, but we instead opted to go for a more simplisitc approach more akin to A Call To Arms and Battlefleet Gothic. The asteroids and planet block line of sight through them, but have no effect on movement. We are still getting used to tracking movement and the rules are complex enough as it is.

Federation Fleet deploys, I forgot to take a photo of the Hydrans, Sorry

With that, we commenced the encounter. B5W doesn't have any actual missions, you are expected to determine your own victory conditions, so we elected to go with points for ship kills, or if as seems more likely given previous experiences with the game, a general feeling of who has won.

Turn 1

The Hydran ships maneuvered towards the federation Task force. Diverting a lot of their power to their engines to improve their acceleration they rapidly started to close the distance. Their Sensors blanketed the area in white noise disrupting the sensors of the federation ships.

The fleets Maneouver

A volley of torpedoes was launched by the federation ships at the Hydran Scout Frigate. The Soyuz class ship, USS Olzewski used its Electronic warfare pods to enhance the lock on of the Excelsiors, the USS Welles and USS Alvarez, but even with more powerful sensors and the assistance of an ELINT ship, only 1 of the 10 torpedoes hit its target, the Hydran ships shields absorbing the damage. This was well below the expected result. The Miranda Class ship, the USS Dorsett accelerated down the left flank away from the bulk of the Federation ships.

Turn 2

A Second volley of torpedoes was launched by the federation, this time a much smaller one, from the Constellation class ships the USS Robert J Linder and USS DeShawn. they were targeted towards one of the Ranger class cruisers with the Soyuz class USS Olzewski focusing its Electronic Warfare capability on the same cruiser. The USS Welles and USS Alvarez also locked on to the same ship. The Hydrans responded by launching a barrage* of Hellbores at the Excelsior class ships from their Dragoon cruisers and the Rangers both locked on to the USS Alvarez, the Excelsior class braced itself for impact.
Meanwhile, on the flank, the USS Dorsett slowed slightly and hid behind a large asteroid to avoid fire from the Hydran Lancer class destroyer that was rushing to meet it and fired several shots into the Hydran scout frigate. Again the scout frigates shields were able to absorb the damage.

Heavy fire is Exchanged

Hellbores washed over the Excelsior class cruisers, The USS Welles was able to avoid the worst of the torpedoes, only a single weapon striking the ship, and the long range phaser fire was unable to damage the ship hull. The USS Alvarez was not so fortunate. massed weapons fire collapsed the forward and port shields, the thermal effects of the Hellbores wrecking the majority of the USS Alvarez' forward armament and overloading several shield generators. and then fusion beams impacted into the ships port side. Hull plating was shattered as the beams sliced into the ship. The port warp nacelle was seriously damaged and the fusion beams destroyed some additional shield generators and some more of the ships armament. several shots also penetrated into the core of the ship but caused only minor structural damage.

Torpedoes smashed into the forward shields of the lead Ranger frigate as it opened fire on the USS Alvarez, and the badly damaged excelsior was able to exact a measure of vengeance. Combined with fire from the USS Welles, USS Robert J Linder and USS DeShawn, the forward shields of the cruiser collapsed, and then dozens of phasers smashed into the prow of the ship. massive explosions tore through the forward section wrecking the entirety of the prow. in a few short second the Ranger class ship lost the majority of its offensive armament. the fire kept coming with shots penetrating to the primary systems and a single shot blasting through the CIC. It wasn't clear exactly how the ship held together, but it did, barely.

*we realised post game that the Dragoons would not have been able to shoot all their Hellbores due to the weapon arcs and the ship orientations. 

Turn 3

Both sides scrambled for position, the Hydran ships begining pivots as their high velocity was obviously too high to avoid coming much closer to the federation ships. The seriously damaged Ranger turned away to break off and the USS Alvarez, with its scorched and battered hull, veered off in the opposite direction away and fired several torpedoes into the Hydran ships.

Both sides jockey for position as the USS Dorset closes in 

The USS Dorsett darted out from behind the large asteroid it had sheltered behind, and fired a pair of torpedoes into the Scout frigate before closing towards the main engagement, The Hydran Lancer followed the turn but was unable to bring any weapons to bear.

Some fire was exchanged but the majority of the weapons on both sides were in their cooldown or recharge cycles. only a few light phaser shots were exchanged with very little damage being caused by either side.

Turn 4

The USS Alvarez and the USS Robert J Linder found themselves having to shed a lot of velocity in order to remain on the battlefield. they found themselves on the wrong side of the Gas Giant and were only able to fire a couple of torpedoes at the Hydran ships.
The Seriously damaged Ranger continued to accelerate and this took it out of engagement range

The Federation Gain the upper hand as the second Ranger cruiser takes heavy damage

Hellbores from the pair of Dragoon Cruisers fired but this time they were forced to split their fire between several targets. The Soyuz class ship, USS Olzewski bore the brunt of the fire, but surprisingly it was able to weather the fire with only minor damage. The Hydrans were hoping the maneuver would cover their retreat unfortunately the second Ranger found itself at the rear of the Hydran formation and The Federation ships concentrated their fire. Shields collapsed under the barrage and then torpedoes and Phasers started blasting the ships hull to pieces. The Rangers propulsion was almost completely destroyed and large fragments of the ships hull tumbled away  from the ships wrecked hull. The ship was still mobile, barely, but would now struggle to maneuver effectively, all it had in its favour was a high velocity which hopefully would see the ship break free of the engagement.

USS Alvarez and USS Robert J Linder struggle not to disengage

The Hydran Lancer and Scout both charged at the flank of the USS Welles, their weapons battering the shields down and scoring some minor damage. The Lancer had diverted a lot of power to one of the Fusion beams and the weapon exploded spectacularly before it could fire (Ginge needed a 19 or less to hit....)

With That, the engagement was over. We ran out of time

Losses and Damage

Hydran Kingdoms

1 Ranger Crippled, 
1 Ranger Heavy Damage
1 Lancer Light Damage
1 Scout Light Damage

Federation

1 Excelsior Heavy Damage
1 Excelsior Light Damage
1 Soyuz Light Damage

Federation Victory. 

Please see the end of the article for the SCS's

Conclusion

We made plenty of mistakes throughout the game which one would expect when you are just picking up a new rules system. Let us know which ones you think we made.
I think the photon torpedoes being lower power saved the Hydrans from a lot of damage contribute to the game being as close as it was. The Hydrans also made much poorer use of their ELINT ship while the Soyuz was constantly buffing Federation ships.
The main take away for me is that ships are very very durable, it takes an incredible amount of firepower to seriously threaten any ship even if you are very lucky.
The game is also very detailed so in future we may reduce the numbers of ships down slightly so we arent overwhelmed and can play more than 4 turns. It wasn't clear who would be winning, but at the time the battelended and we had to go home, the Federation appears to have the advantage.

I will be bringing you another battle report soon.

Federation STL's by Captain Mojo
Miniatures painted by me
Thanks to Ginge for being a great opponent as always
Full conversion rules and SCS's can be found here

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

Ship Control Sheets

USS Welles

USS Alvarez

USS Olzewski