Friendly Fire isn't: Earth Alliance versus Earth Alliance. An A Call to Arms battle report

The massive solar flares were making it almost impossible to get any clear readings on the ships sensors. The rebels had retreated as soon as the small task force had jumped into the system and were using the incredibly active star to mask their presence. Damn Sheridan, and damn the Minbari who backed him. 

'Captain, we've managed to get a firm lock on their position, they are too close to the Star for us to launch any fighters but they also won't be able to use their Jump Drives to escape again.'

The Captain of the Omega Destroyer sat thoughtfully for a few moments

'Helm, Set an intercept course. Send a hostile challenge and order them to stand down. I don't want to fight them, but they've turned their backs on Humanity and thrown in with the Minbari, I don't need to remind anyone what's at stake'

Introduction

Its not very often that I play a mirror match. My preferred faction (Brakiri) isn't particularly popular. They look great but the fleet has a few quite serious weaknesses and is quite middle of the road so facing them is something of a rarity. The Earth Alliance on the otherhand are a lot mor popular so a mirror match is more likely but in this case the match is by design rather than happenstance. 

There are a few things that annoy me about A Call To Arms and that I personally would like to be done differently. The list is reasonably long but a written rant, or diatribe to use the correct terminology, can wait.

In this battle we agreed to use the rough points I had worked out previously. This was somewhat easier than one might expect. Ships in ACTA are roughly balanced against ships of similar priority levels so variation is quite minor. There are some ships that 'should' be either stronger or weaker than they are, but they wouldn't fit nicely into their priority level. I picked 3000 points, or roughly 7.5 raid points for each fleet.

Secondly, taking a leaf from Dropfleet, we elected to use 'Pass Tokens' Pass tokens are generated for the side with fewer ships, and they can use them in lieu of selecting one of their units to move in the movement phase. This means taking 'initiative sinks' is still useful, but won't be massively decisive. You will take ships for their utility rather than to simply force your opponent to move all their ships before you move your powerful ones

The last change was making a few changes to how bore sighted weapons work. For anyone who doesn't know, boresighted weapons are spinal weapons which require the ship to be pointed straight at the opponent in order to be able to shoot. This naturally limits the utility of the weapon, they are quite powerful but your options are severely limited by the requirement to move predictably. Instead we decided to use a roughly 30 degree arc for bore sighted weapons, just to get a feel for what a change like that would do to how ships perform on the tabletop.

With that, I picked the fleets from the Earth Alliance 3rd Age list since the Earth Alliance Civil War is a plenty good excuse to have a shooting match and it would ensure both sides have roughly the same ships. My collection is quite large and I had more than enough ships available

I did forget to bring the fighters with me. I do have enough based up to represent both sides, but I was being rushed by my better half as she decided right when I was getting ready to pack the car that I had to drop her off at the supermarket on my way.
We could have used some BFG small craft markers, BFG is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to space battles, but we elected instead to just not use them.

Fleets

Earth Alliance Loyalists

2x Omega-class Destroyer EAS Amendiares (1), EAS Linder (2)

1x Nova-B class Dreadnought EAS Gilchrist
1x Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser EAS Welles
1x Hyperion-class Assault Cruiser EAS Rhea
1x Olympus-class Corvette EAS Hansen
1x Oracle-class Scout Cruiser EAS Olszewski

Alien Sponsored Rebels

2x Omega-class Destroyer EAS Yorinobu, EAS Nostra (2)
2x Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser, EAS Barreto, EAS Takemura (2)
2x Olympus-class Corvette EAS Vogel, EAS Bloom
1x Artemis-class Heavy Frigate EAS Livani
1x Oracle-class Scout Cruiser EAS Abernathy

Battlefield

We randomly generated the terrain and were presented with a very open field. There was a single Asteroid belt and an accompanying Dust cloud which wouldn't provide much in the way of opportunity for maneuver shenanigans. 

The Alien sponsored rebels (Left) and the Loyalists (Right)

The Rebels lost the roll to deploy and deployed first, with the Loyalists counter deploying. with the board being so open there wasn't much in the way of subtlety with both fleets deploying as a single formation.

Turn 1

A massive burst of Tachyons blanketted the whole area as the EAS Abernathy, the rebel Oracle class scout cruiser jammed the FTL communications of the Loyalists. Immediately the EAS Olszewski, the loyalists own Oracle responded in kind. Power was directed to the engines of the huge human warships and charged plasma streams met the intense electromagnetic field of the star causing a dazzling display of colours. Both sides turned to face the other and the distance closed fast. 

The fleets close and the rebel Artemis is hit

The Rebels had made the first aggressive move with their jammers but the loyalist were the first to fire. The main particle beam of the EAS Amendiares, resembling a lightnig bolt more than a particle weapon reached out, striking the EAS Livani, the rebels Artemis class Heavy Frigate, dealing a moderate amount of damage.

The Nova dreadnought, EAS Gilchrist used the tail of a dense solar flare to obstruct the rebels sensors, and the pair of Loyalist Hyperions maneuvered erratically, their sensors and communications under intense pressure from the EAS Abernathy and the highly energetic Stars magnetic field.

Turn 2

The Rebel fleet accelerated hard towards the Loyalists bringing a lot of their weapons into range of the Loyalist Hyperion, EAS Welles. Beams from the pair of rebel Omega Destroyers, as well as the pair of Hyperions targetted the Welles, and the ship was disabled. It managed to bring its weapons to bear on the Rebel Artemis the EAS Livani crippling the heavy frigate before it too was disabled by a shot from the Loyalist Omega, EAS Amendiares. The EAS welles squadron mate, the assault ship EAS Rhea also found itself under fire and it took heavy damage from the pair of  rebel Olympus corvettes, the EAS Vogel and EAS Bloom.

Casualties on both sides

With the rebel ships concentrating their fire on the EAS Welles, the Loyalist Omega, EAS Linder fired on the Rebel Omega, EAS Nostra, but interference from the solar activity meant she could only score a minor hit.

Turn 3

With the range continuing to close, the EAS Linder corrected its aim and the rebel Omega, EAS Nostra took a very serious hit. Pulse weapons fired in all directions and almost every ship on both sides found themselves taking fire, and damage. The Rebels finished off the EAS Rhea, while in turn they lost one of the Olympus corvettes, the EAS Vogel

The fleets continue to close the range

As it emerged from the cover of the solar flare, the Loyalist Nova Dreadnought EAS Gilchrist took a serious hit from one of the rebel Omegas, losing the majority of its starboard weapons to a sustained beam hit.

Turn 4

With the range now close, the Loyalists accelerated hard. THe EAS Amendiares managed to get past the rebel hyperions and a lucky beam shot from the Omegas rear weapons together with fire from the EAS Linder disabled the EAS Baretto. The EAS Amendiares was also able to fire into the rebel Omega, EAS Nostra, to its front, with the EAS Linder adding to the fire. Miraculously, the EAS Nostra was able to avoid most of the damage with only minor damage sustained.

No room for subtlety

The Rebel Omegas chose to target the EAS Gilchrist and the Nova Dreadnought was hit by sustained barrages from both ships which left it a drifting wreck. Flanking fire also hammered into the remaining rebel Olympous, the EAS bloom and the ship suffered heavy damage.

The EAS Gilchrist meets its end

Turn 5 

At point blank range the Omega destroyers from both sides fired into each other. Having maneuvered themselves into position to target the EAS Gilchrist previously, the rebels found that only one of the Omegas could raget their loyalist counterparts, and only the EAS Yorinobu could fire its forward armament. 

'Bring us in closer'

A devastating shot slammed into the EAS Linder almost crippling the ship in a single blow while the combined fire from both Loyalist Omegas into the rebel forces was disapointing. the Yorinobu and Nostra again escaping with only minor damage despite a barrage of fire being directed their way. with only the badly damaged rebel Olympus the EAS Bloom receiving enough damage to disable her.

Turn 6 

The fleets passed each other, and the EAS Linder again took heavy damage, with her fire control being hit by the rebel forces, reducing her firepower, and again the loyalist weapons failed to score any meaningful damage in return.

Both sides have sustained heavy damage

Turn 7 

Finally the Loyalist Omegas were able to score meaningful hits disabling the EAS Nostra. The advantage was short lived, as the survivng rebel Hyperion, the EAS Takemura had maneuvered into position and its beam weapon raked across the length of the EAS Linder disabling the ship in short order

The EAS Abernathy runs down EAS Linder

The Loyalist Olympus EAS Hansen, having avoided taking fire thus far, received a single hit from the Rebel Oracle, the EAS abernathy, the shot avoided the Olympus' interceptors, penetrated the ships hull, and kncoked the Olympus out with a single shot.

Turn 8

With only the EAS Amendiares and EAS Olszewski surviving, the Loyalists withdraw.

Casualties and Damage

Rebels

1 Omega Lost
1 Omega Damaged
1 Hyperion Lost
1 Hyperion Damaged
2 Olympus Lost
1 Artemis Lost

Loyalists

1 Omega Lost
1 Omega Damaged
1 Nova Lost
1 Hyperion Lost
1 Assault Hyperion Lost
1 Olympus Lost

Rebel (marginal) Victory

Conclusion

This was a hard fought victory to the rebels. I made some errors early in the game which led to being on the backfoot going into the end game. Firstly I really messed up in deployment which left the hyperions in a poor position and Ginge punished me for that. then later on I probaly moved the nova forward a turn too early. I was a little unlucky when it took critical damage and lost a lot of its weapons butthe choice was to try and use it to bait the Omegas into shooting it, or let them engage my own Omegas.

I did manage to get my positioning correct with the my own Omegas, able to engage multiple targets with all their weapons for several consecutive turns. The dice were somewhat against me though, I was scoring lots of bulkhead hits, almost no criticals, and only managed to score a single solid beam hit the entire game. one or both of ginges omegas should probably have died a lot sooner.
I was also on the receiving end of numerous punishing beam hits, and lots of criticals. It felt very uneven in that respect. Had my own rolls been more towards average, It might have changed the outcome, whether that would have been enough to make up for my initial errors though?

As to the changes. well, the fleets seemed to be well balanced. Ginges Hyperions performed very well, and mine didn't. the pass tokens didn't come up. Finally, the chnges to beams, giving them a wider arc was more convenient, but it still gives massive opportunities to get around them and deny shots. every time the beams shot the ship firing them would have been able to, in the movement phase line up a boresight shot, more testing is required, obviously.

Next Time:

I will be going over what I do, and do not like most about ACTA. I will also be drafting some rules for the 'Witch' class carrier, a design by Tyrel Lohr based on the Warlock hull

STLs by Tyrel Lohr.
Painted by me
Thanks to Ginge for being a great opponent as always

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