The Australian Alliance forces met and were defeated by the Chinese Peoples Republic battlegroups at the Dragonfly Nebula today. This defeat has left vital Alliance contra-terrene processing plants in enemy hands.

The Alliance forces (893 pts ea.) consisted of two groups of;
1 Bengal Class HC
2 Komodo Class HDD
1 Coral Adder Class FF

The Republic forces (899) consisted of two groups of;
1 Jade Tiger Class HC
2 Fire Tiger Class DD
2 Star Dancer Class FF

both sides set up along the long edge of the star mat, the Alliance forces groups at each corner and the Republic forces a bit more central, but still spread out.

Turn one saw the chinese move rapidly forward, trusting in their heavier shielding and armor plating to see them through. The Alliance made a token advance only enough to bring their longer ranged Terra watt lasers to bear. AG1 (alliance group 1) focused their fire against CG2's (chinese group 2) Heavy Cruiser, doing significant engine and hull damage. AG2 fired on CG1's leading escorts doing minor damage (the surviving gunnery officers have been sent to a grueling refresher course). Return fire from CG2 against AG1 saw almost no damage inflicted. The same could not be said about CG1's counter fire against a single destroyer in AG2. At the end of turn one the AG2 destroyer was bleeding air and stripped of almost every weapon aboard.

Turn two, CG1 split up, sending three of their ships against AG1 in addition to CG2. AG2 turned to present their broadsides against mostly empty space. Again poor gunnery on the part of the alliance saw the Republic forces of CG1 escape with only moderate damage in exchange for the loss of the AG2 frigate with all hands.  AG1's fire against CG2 proved almost as bad, though the enemy cruiser in this group was streaming air badly and down to only 30% of its weapons.

Turn three was carnage. ships on both sides were blowing up left and right due to close range fire and the somewhat more accurate fire of the chinese despite alliance countermeasures. At the end of turn three, only the two AG cruisers remained combat effective, the sole surviving frigate and two destroyers each down to a single hull point apiece. Outnumbered pretty much 3:1 at this point and having destroyed only two chinese ships, the Alliance forces hypered out surrendering the field to the Chinese Republic forces.

Notes:
We alliance commanders forgot to apply the variable damage of our rotary plasers with our hits. At long range we were getting 9 hit dice each weapon but still couldn't do more than 4-6 hits of which only 1-2 would get through the shields and armor of the chinese ships.  The same couldn't be said about the chinese. their 18cm rocket batteries, having 5 to HD were simply slaughtering our escort vessels despite long range and countermeasures. 9They were rolling a heck of a lot better than we were) The rockets were ammunition based and honestly proved the equalizing factor in the engagement in terms of ROF.  They didn't seem to unbalance anything in terms of play or relevant firepower. what really put the hurt on us was the piercing weapons...the chinese had p+1 and p+2 weapons...the +2 literally decided the game by allowing 80% of their railgun shots to punch through the light alliance shields on any roll.  Have to play a few more games with these but I think the modifier might be a bit low for their effectiveness.

The game was the first for all three of my vict...err...volunteers. Everyone had fun and we're gonna be starting a small campaign style game in the next month or so. More to follow then.