Power Projection

16 October 2004

Day Game Attendance: Glenn, Tom Granvold, Scott McDonald, Kris
Evening Attendance: The day gamers plus: Lisa; Supatra; Maksim and Diana
Menu: Supatra's Thai pork and beef barbecue

Game Summary (by Glenn Goffin):

After-action report
Power Projection: Fleet
Date: Saturday 16 October 2004

Referee/scenario writer: Glenn M. Goffin
Imperial players: Kristian Miller, Scott MacDonald
Zhodani player: Tom Granvold

Setting: Sansibar(Izhedriel)/Querion system, mid-1109 (during the Fifth Frontier War).

Conventions: Toward the star is 12 o'clock; away from the star is 6 o'clock. Sansibar was represented by a penny in the center of the table.

Imperial orders: Engage in commerce raiding in Sansibar system. Large cargo vessels are top priority. Capture Sansibar main world if possible (vacuum world, so clearing defenders and putting particle weapon into orbit will lead to surrender).

Imperial forces: Lightning-class cruisers Arrival Vengeance and Children of the March (each forming one task force). Admiral von Mossadegh, Fleet Tactics-7, fleet commander.

Zhodani orders: Repair and refit heavily-damaged Viepchakl-class battleship Tiaflva; protect Tiaflva from Imperial attacks. Use cruisers to defend transport vessels forming up in Izhedriel system before moving to resupply Consular forces in Vilis Subsector.

Zhodani forces: Task Force One: Battleship Tiaflva (with about 20% hull damage, spinal meson gun at level 5, various other systems damaged or destroyed). Task Force Two: Zhdavldits-class light cruisers Shezo and Nanchvrr. Battleship Officer Replotlstebr, Fleet Tactics-2, fleet commander.

Other ships: Three Chteriabl-class 10,000 dton transports inbound to Sansibar about 25MU out, approaching from about 10 o'clock.

Turn 1 (pictures 01-06):

Imperials enter game table from 5 o'clock with vector of 6 MU, direction just passing Sansibar on their port side; all 16 fighter squadrons deployed.Whole Game Table

Tiaflva in counter-clockwise orbit around Sansibar, with Sansibar on its port beam; light cruisers in clockwise orbit on opposite side of Sansibar; all ships 3-5MU from Sansibar.

Imperials coast.
Zhodani forces accelerate toward Imperials.
Zhodani transports coast toward Sansibar with 3 MU vector.

Distance between sides after movement is about 40MU.

Initiative: Children of the March; Tiaflva; Zhodani light cruisers; Arrival Vengeance.

Children of the March fires spinal particle weapon at Tiaflva but misses; launches BPL missiles at Tiaflva.

Tiaflva fires spinal meson gun at Arrival Vengeance, causing substantial damage (including spinal mount threshold check). Tiaflva fires BPL missiles at Imperial ships.

Zhodani light cruisers launch BPL missiles at both Imperial ships.

Arrival Vengeance fires on Tiaflva, causing significant damage (spinal mount threshold check).

Turn 2 (sorry no pictures):

Imperials coast with 6 MU vector.
Zhodani coast toward Imperials with 3 MU vector.
Zhodani transports coast toward Sansibar with 3 MU vector.

Initiative: Children of the March; Tiaflva; Zhodani light cruisers; Arrival Vengeance.

Children of the March, recharges spinal weapon, fires more BPL missiles at Tiaflva. All BPL missiles detonate about 10MU from Tiaflva, causing damage, but no threshold check.

Tiaflva recharges spinal weapon, fires BPL missiles at Arrival Vengeance (I think); mostly lost to escort PD fire from fighter squadrons.

Zhodani light cruisers fire spinal weapons at Arrival Vengeance, causing very severe damage (including loss of damage control parties and multiple threshold checks). Zhodani light cruisers fire BPL missiles at Arrival Vengeance; mostly lost to escort PD fire from fighter squadrons.

Arrival Vengeance recharges spinal weapon, fires BPL missiles at Tiaflva for minor damage.

Turn 3 (pictures 07-12):

Imperials coast with 6 MU vector.
Tiaflva starts to decelerate.
Zhodani light cruisers start to decelerate.
Zhodani transports turn toward 7 o'clock at maximum speed (6G).
New Zhodani transports exit jump, about 100MU away at 8 o'clock.

Initiative: Children of the March; Tiaflva; Arrival Vengeance; Zhodani light cruisers.

Children of the March fires spinal particle weapon at Tiaflva, causing significant damage (spinal and first-row threshold checks). Children of the March fires nuclear missiles at Tiaflva, causing minor damage. Children of the March's fighter squadrons fire nuclear missiles at Zhodani light cruisers, causing minor damage.

Tiaflva fires spinal weapon at Arrival Vengeance, taking it out of the fight (multiple threshold checks; bridge and computers destroyed; no damage control parties). Tiaflva fires nuclear missiles at Arrival Vengeance's fighter squadrons, taking out several. Tiaflva fires lasers to destroy a few other fighter squadrons.

Arrival Vengeance's fighter squadrons fire nuclear missiles at Tiaflva, causing minor damage.

Zhodani light cruisers recharge spinal weapons, fire nuclear missiles and lasers at Arrival Vengeance's fighter squadrons, destroying remaining squadrons.

Game called after about 5 hours of play because it was time for dinner.

The Zhodani side gets a victory. None of the transports was hit at all. Tiaflva was not destroyed, but was seriously damaged. It's likely that Children of the March will disengage and leave Arrival Vengeance as a prize for the Zhodani. Children of the March could cause more damage to Tiaflva in Turn 4 and then break off before being destroyed.

Game review:

The game lacked the zip of Full Thrust, Brilliant Lances, or Battle Rider, as we spent a lot of time looking back and forth at a lot of charts and tables. Looking up Attack and Defense factors on two tables to decide which row of the Secondary Weapons Table to use was awkward.

We couldn't find any rule regarding using nuclear missiles to attack multiple fighter squadrons. We decided that any fighter squadron in the nuclear detonation circle was attacked. Thus one nuclear missile attack could (and did) take out several fighter squadrons.

The tables are not as complete and organized as we'd like. E.g.: Relative Computing Power is not listed with the tables as part of the formula to determine Attack Factor. Short range for BPL is listed not in the range table but as a footnote to the Attack Factors table. "Resolve damage" in the turn order really means, "fire weapons; determine hits; resolve damage".

The jury is still out on this game for the Tactics-0 group. Tom Granvold commented, "there's a game in there somewhere," a comment with which I concur. I think that if I do my own set of quick reference charts, and if we become more familiar with the game mechanics, our experience will improve. We're going to play High Guard next month, using off-the-shelf ships, to see how it feels in comparison to PP:F. I'd also like to play ordinary Full Thrust, maybe using the PP:F SSDs, to get a better feeling for that game (which is very popular with our group, but which I haven't played).

Pictures are posted to Tactics-0 group. I will add them to Traveller Full Thrust shortly.

--Glenn

Evening Games: