Sunday Starships: Battle of Angle Run AAR

Last week we finally played the battle for Turn 3 of the Chancellor campaign.  Things didn't go so well for the Terrans. 

Avarian Gatherer Flight V (fourteen galactic transports and three stellar destroyer escorts) left vertex along the shipping lane to Angle.  It was accompanied by Homeworld Flight's Cruiser Wing and Battlecruiser Wing.  

While the Cruiser Wing had lost its flight leader, a galactic dreadnought, and one of its stellar cruisers in the Battle of Vertex (and another SC due to mechanical issues--OK, I could only fit four ship displays on one piece of paper so I dropped cruiser No. 5), the Avarian Battlecruiser flight was unbloodied with a galactic dreadnought flight leader and four battlecruisers.

Opposing them all was a Terran Valiant-class galactic dreadnought, the Noble Knight Prince, played by yours truly.

Da Baron, who played the transports, surprised me by having them come on the map in a line instead of a column.  Joe had the battlecruisers and dreadnought to the right, while Holdfast took the cruisers on my left.

I figured the Avarians would all gang up on me, so I entered on my left and tried to stay out of range of the birds' capital ships. 

I headed toward the cruisers but no one was in range the first turn.  Meanwhile, the transports broke to my right, while the big guns came after me.

Finally, I was in range!  Instead of targeting the cruisers, I shot at a couple of the nearest transports.

Two hits!  But not enough to finish off the birds.

The capital ships responded in kind, combining their fire against the NKP and scoring several hits.

The cruisers added their weapons to the mix, inflicting more damage on the Terran ship.  I knew I couldn't stick around if I wanted to live.  I was able to get in a good shot at one of the cruisers as I tried to haul as to the opposite side of the board.  This left the convoy free to make its escape, guarded by the other two battlecruisers.

In the third turn, the combined fire finally proved too much, and the Valiant erupted in a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma.

This left the convoy and escorts free to head on to their destination.

I was really sorry to see the game end so quickly, especially since the other players had driven out from San Antonio.  But the rules as written allow ships to combine fire, meaning they add all their offensive factors together when attacking the same target.  The way the mechanics of the game work, when a half-dozen ships join in against a single opponent, they get a lot of shots--and the ones that hit do massive amounts of damage.  I think I'll enact a house rule that ships can only combine fire for a maximum offensive factor of 20.  Much more than that, and you break the game--or at least the scenarios we've played in this campaign.  My apologies to the admirals, especially to the Terrans.