Rescue Mission: United Federation of Planets V Klingon Empire 2343. B5W, Star Trek

Commodores Log, Stardate 20284.2. USS Hanako, Commodore Yorinobu Arasaka commanding. We are responding to an Incident in the Tango Sector close to the Klingon Border. A pair of K'tinga Class ships identified as belonging to the House of Gig'ne have crossed the border and seized a federation flagged merchant vessel the 'No Strings Attached' The USS Maelstrom monitored the situation but was ordered not to intervene and was able to track the No Strings Attached back to the Morska System just on the Klingon side of the Border. Starfleet Command has ordered me to Intervene and recover the No Strings Attached. I have been joined by the USS Stout and USS Palmer, These new ships were being evaluated before being adopted into service. I have also been advised that the actions of the house of Gig'ne were not sanctioned by the Klingon High Command, and they will not Intervene.

In the last encounter the Klingons were roughly handled by the Federation but managed to get in some good hits of their own. In this encounter, the Federation are pushing into a Klingon controlled system, and the House of Gig'ne will be looking for a measure of vengeance. We are again using the Star Trek Conversion for Babylon 5 Wars by Tyrel Lohr that you can find here. Fleets are set to 2000 points, and we have made a few points changes to some of the Klingon ships. We will be setting Max X to 10 for both standard and Heavy Photon torpedoes, and finally the Date for the battle will be around 2345 so no ships later than that can be included. This allows both sides to pick ships from the TOS and TMP eras.

Klingon Empire: House of Gig'ne

2x K'Tinga-class Battlecruiser. IKS Bortas, IKS Le'qordu
1x K'Farna-class Scout Bird of Prey. IKS Malparra
4x Chut'duj-class Patrol Ship. IKS Ch'Tang, IKS Etam, IKS Ning'tau,  IKS Qup'soh

Total 2000 points

With the Klingons being on the defensive, so to speak, they can include ships without warp engines and 4 of them are present in the form of the Chut'duj, a stripped down B'rel that's worse in almost every way but comes with a points significant discount. Backing them up as the principal hitting power are a pair of K'Tingas. We've made a few changes to the ship to make it a bit tougher on the front but it retains its standard armament. Finally the K'Farna is present, this is the ELINT version of the K'Vort and is almost as powerful offensively in exchange for improved sensors and a vastly increased suite of abilities it can use them on.

United Federation of Planets 

1x Ambassador-class Heavy Cruiser. USS Hanako
1x Trident-class Attack Scout. USS Maelstrom
2x Saber-class Attack Frigate. USS Stout, USS Palmer

Total 2010 points

Heading up the Federation force is an Ambassador class. This is a very well armed and defended ship that outguns everything else in the battle by a comfortable margin. The price it pays is that it is sluggish, having under powered engines, and it costs a lot of points which naturally limits the rest of the force. To back up this moster I decided on a pair of Sabers. These ships are fast and agile and hit hard their main downside is that they have a large blindspot which can be exploited. The final ship is a Trident Attack Scout. Its an ELINT ship but is quite deficient in a lot of areas, its not particularly well armed and fairly fragile. It does have a nice sensor rating though.

Battlefield and Deployment

Dispositions after turn 1 movement, I forgot to take a picture of deployment

The Battlefield is again a Green Nebula, the last time I hope with a planet and several scattered asteroids the Federation deployed in the bottom corner and came in at speed 5, the Klingons in the top right, again at speed 5. both sides were just out of ELINT range on turn 1.

Turn 1

As the Federation ships dropped out of warp they immediately detected a formation of Klingon ships. A barrage of torpedoes was launched by the Federation at extreme range at the IKS Etam.

The IKS Etam darts into cover of an asteroid as the Federation launch torpedoes

The small Chut'duj class patrol ship darted behind an asteroid in an attempt to break the sensor lock the Federation ships had on her. Firing her disruptors at the incoming torpedoes the Etam managed to hit one, destroying it, another torpedo missed the dense Asteroid indeed being sufficient to break a sensor lock, but the remaining 4 torpedoes hit the ship. the shields absorbed the damage from one then the remaining torpedoes hit the small ship, The port wing was hit, the blast shattering its midsection sending the tip spinning away, and with it one of the disruptors, the second torpedo hit the ships nose. the heavy armour saved the bridge from total destruction but the torpedo launcher was wrecked, The final torpedo smashed into the primary sensor array, seriously damaging them

Turn 2

The Klingons close in on the Federation attackers with the damaged IKS Etam cloaking

The IKS Etam activated its cloak and dropped from sensors, the heavily damaged Chut'daj being careful to keep its maneuvers as gentle as possible lest the critically damaged structure of the ship fail in its entirety. The ships damaged sensors being capable of giving only an erratic view of the battle space.

The Federation ships locked onto the remaining Chut'duj's with the heaviest locks being concentrated on the IKS Ch'Tang. With telemetry fed to them by IKS Malparra the Klingon ships launched a torpedo barrage at the USS Maelstrom. The Trident attack ship diverted all its power to its Electronic Warfare systems as it accelerated to get into the shadow of the M-class planet in order to break the line of sight of the K'farna. The IKS Ch'Tang did likewise and both ships succeeded.

The USS Stout and USS Palmer accelerate ahead of the USS Hanako and Maelstrom

The Klingon torpedoes were self guiding though and several managed to hit the frantically evading USS Maelstrom. The ships shields stopped the majority of the damage from the torpedoes, and the armoured hull the rest.

The Saber class ships, the USS Stout and USS Palmer accelerated hard in an effort to be able to draw a line of sight to the small Klingon ships. The Ch'tang had successfully avoided taking any fire, but the IKS Ning'tau had not, the ship was not the primary target of the federation so the captain had elected not to seek cover as perhaps he should have. It would go some way to explaining his commanding a Chut'duj. The USS Palmer opened fire first with its phasers, several missed the IKS Ning'tau as it  performed evasive maneuvers

The IKS Ning'Tau is destroyed by the pair of Saber attack frigates

The USS Stout added its fire with both of the Saber class frigates now firing on the Ning'tau. The USS Stout was more accurate, the USS Palmer had damaged the Chut'duj's engines. Hit after hit slammed into the small ship.

"Ghu'Vam!" Last order of the Captain of the IKS Ning'tau

Weapons, Engineering and sensors were knocked offline in quick succession and then the command bridge was hit. The entire ships crew was killed and the ship left as a mangled wreck.

Turn 3

The Klingons Cloak

With the Federation ships bearing down on them, the Klingon ships activated their cloaking devices. The USS Hanako, the Ambassador class, was able to keep track of the small IKS Ch'tang as it broke out of orbit and accelerated away, The Chut'duj was lightly hit as the USS Hanako fired its aft weapons at an incredibly hard to hit target.

'All ships, Initiate a Metaphashic Sweep' Commodore Yorinobu Arasaka, USS Hanako

The USS Palmer and USS Stout accelerated around the planet, with the USS Maelstrom somewhere behind as her shields recharged. The Klingon ships had taken evasive action in an attempt to evade the Federation ships and attack from an unexpected direction. Unfortunately for them, the USS Stout, straining its impulse drive, manage to detect the Klingon formation.

The Saber-class USS Stout detects the cloaked Klingon ships and opens fire

Sharing the sensor information through a data link, the USS Stout, opened fire, being joined by her sister ship the USS Palmer and the Flagship, the massive USS Hanako. The IKS Le'qordu, one of the 2 K'Tingas was the target. She got off far more lightly than expected, the Phasers of the Saber-class frigates had not fully recharged so their fire was much lighter than that faced by the IKS Ch'tang, and combined with the disruptive effects of the cloak, the federation ships managed to score only a handful of hits. They did manage to disable some of the IKS Le'qordu's weapons, but the damage could have been far more severe had they had a full lock on.

Turn 4

With it now being evident that their cloaks were not of much use at such close range, the Klingon ships dropped them, raised shields and then turned hard to port. The USS Maelstrom had rounded the planet and found itself facing 3 Klingon ships bearing down on her. The 2 Saber class ships decelerated and initiated a hard turn, but that left them out of position this turn and unable to bring any weapons to bear, The USS Hanako was forced to cut behind the Klingons, the Ambassador class was well armed and protected but far from fast or agile. With the Klingon ships now able to be targeted with the Federation ships main sensors, a flurry of torpedoes was launched, with the IKS Le'qordu being the main target.

The USS Maelstrom is almost destroyed

The photon torpedoes impacted all around the K'Tinga almost completely overloading its shields, and the USS Maelstrom put several phaser shots into the Klingon vessel as it approached. It was not enough. Klingon Torpedoes overloaded the Trident class ships forward shields, and a barrage of Disruptor fire from the IKS Bortas, IKS Le'qordu and  IKS Malparra smashed into the forward saucer section sending debris spinning away from the ship, as the Klingons strafed the ship, they managed to score a serious hit on the engineering section, Knocking out the ships main energizer and causing the warp core to become unstable as several of the safety interlocks failed. 

The USS Hanako, unable to prevent this simply had to content herself with firing into the IKS Le'qordus now unprotected rear, smashing the ships port warp nacelle. The ship was badly damaged, but still a serious threat.

Turn 5

The USS Maelstrom diverted all available power to her engines and accelerated away as hard as she could, weapons and sensors were taken offline in order to keep the ships rear shields up, but the severe damage she had taken meant that she had been mission killed.

The USS Hanako is targeted as the Sabers charge back into the fray

The USS Hanako now faced the Klingon fury as torpedoes were launched from all available launchers into her. For her part she weathered the barrage with little trouble, the Klingon Disruptors that were also directed her way failing to breach her shields despite a constant barrage and bringing them down to 35% strength overall. She responded in kind, again into the IKS Le'qordu causing more damage to the ship. It was being annoyingly resilient. The USS Stout  added to the flagships fire as the pair of Sabres completed their turns and charged back in to the fight, their weapons now fully recharged. The USS Palmer electing to target the smaller IKS Ch'tang and caused extensive damage.

With the Federation ships now committed to the fight against the IKS Le'qordu and IKS Ch'tang, the as yet undamaged IKS Malparra and IKS Bortas maneuvered around the planet.

Turn 6

The Klingon ships again cloaked and now left the battle space, leaving the field to the Federation.

Losses & Damage

Klingons
1x K'tinga: IKS Le'quordu Heavy damage.
1x Chut'duj: IKS Ning'tau Destroyed.
2x Chut'duj: IKS Ch'tang, IKS Etam. Heavy damage,

Federation
1x Trident Attack Scout. USS Maelstrom, Heavy Damage, Mission Killed

Federation Victory

Conclusion.

Victory for the Federation but at the cost of the USS Maelstrom. With the damage to the ship being incredibly extensive, if the ship were to make it back to federation space it would likely be scrapped immediately. The price the Klingons paid for this was one small patrol ship and their incompetent crew lost, 2 more damaged and some repairable damage to a very old K'Tinga, nothing much of value was lost.
I think the Victory comes down to 2 key points. The federation was able to keep up a constant fire into the Klingons, even is some of it was phasers firing very weak shots, and the Klingon failure to do the same. They only really made a single attack run that almost destroyed the USS Maelstrom, and also the fact that I was able to find the cloaked ships on turn 3, most of them at least and cause some 'free' damage
The Chut'duj patrol ships were likely a bad pick, they are fast and cheap, but incredibly fragile and have poor offensive output, you get what you pay for. The Sabers were amazing, Fast, Agile and with some impressive forward firepower they were the MVP's of the game. The Ambassador performed as I expected and absorbed an impressive amount of fire with no damage sustained, while dishing it out herself.
Neither side made the best use of the ELINT ships either, you pay quite a lot of points for useful abilities, you should try to maximise the return, and both sides failed to do it.

Overall I'm happy with how things turned out, I'm not too impressed with the Trident though, that may not get another outing, The USS Maelstrom is definitely getting scrapped.

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon or buy me a nice cup of Coffee.

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

Main picture is by Fabio Passara
STL's by Captain Mojo

Ship Control Sheets

Chut'duj Patrol Ships

IKS Le'qordu

USS Maelstrom