Captain's Log, Stardate 201114.1

Responding to a distress call from the colony on Favelo Alpha IV, Elements of
6th Fleet (Command Cruiser USS Excaliber, Heavy Cruiser USS Wasp, and Light
Cruiser USS Dunkerque) were dispatched to investigate and reinforced by the
raiding group of the Fast Heavy Cruiser USS Eagle and War Destroyers USS Rabin
and USS Tudjman. Upon entering the system, sensors detected a formidable
Klingon battle group consisting of a C8 Dreadnought and two C7 Heavy
Battlecruisers near the planet.

Captain Jay aboard the Excaliber was in overall command and order the fast
raiding group to swing around the planet and attack the Klingons from the rear.
The cruiser squadron turned toward the Klingons but moved within range of the
Klingons long range disruptors. The Dunkerque took the initial volley from all
three Klingon ships, suffering some moderate damage. The Klingons launched a
wave of drones at the Dunkerque and Wasp.

The Eagle and her escorts accelerated and used the gravity well of Favelo Alpha
IV to slingshot around. The Klingons countered by accelerating away, a move
that brought them above effective maneuver speed for the large Klingon ships.
The Federation cruiser squadron turned toward the planet and were chased by the
inbound drone flights. The Klingons chose to ignore the damaged Dunkerque and
concentrated fire on the Command Cruiser, while the federation vessels
concentrated fire on one of the C7s.

The Klingons began their deceleration and turned back toward the Federation
fleet (several dangerous power spikes were observed from the Klingon engines) as
the Eagle and her group completed their maneuver around the planet and roared in
at high speed with overloaded photon torpedoes. The Klingon drone waves smashed
into the Federation cruisers, causing significant damage. In the following
exchange of fire the Eagle and her escorts were able to fire into the weaker
shields of the Klingon rear and one C7 was destroyed. However, the Command
cruiser was obliterated and the Eagle was severely damaged.

Another exchange of fire saw the USS Wasp and USS Eagle destroyed along with the
remaining C7. However, the War Destroyers had maneuvered to the weak aft port
shield of the dreadnought and inflicted significant damage. The battle was now
between the Klingon capital ship and the three smallest Federation vessels. The
Dunkerque's damage control teams managed to get her damaged 4th photon torpedo
launcher back online and the remaining federation ships harried the C8, with the
war destroyers able to remain in her aft port quarter and attack through the
downed shield. Not going down without a fight, the Klingon dreadnought
destroyed the USS Tudjman and began sending boarding parties against the Rabin
by transporter and shuttlecraft. As the Klingon vessel was destroyed, Klingon
Marines seized control of the Rabin. Faced with an ultimatum that they would
destroy the vessel and kill the entire crew, the Klingon ship was allowed to
moved toward neutral space. We are trailing the vessel while awaiting
reinforcements from Star Fleet.

Captain Cantwell, commanding
USS Dunkerque.

This was my second game of Klingon Armada (not counting the playtest games against myself) and we expanded our games a bit from my first one. Both of us tried using
Emergency Thrust a couple of time (with varying success). We used the damage
control rules and even played with boarding parties, which Doug used to seize
one of my destroyers. We had a planet on the map and I was able to use the
rules for orbiting a planet to slingshot around and rapidly change direction to
come in behind the Klingons. Much fun.

PS  I tried out my idea for allowing anti-fighter weapons to fire on fighters (drones) as they move.  It seemed to work fine and did not seem overly powerful in this setting (where the ships are not necessarily min-maxed).  I think I knocked down around 4 drones in this manner and was still forced to eat 30 or so drones during course of the fight.