Topic: Terran Empire vs. Arcturan Federation (AAR)
I have engaged with another playtester to make sure the vassal mod is workable/playable as it stands.
Blacklancer99 stepped forward to play the the Arcturan Federation (from the Imperial Starmada Sourcebook) while I assumed command of a Terran Empire squadron.
The Arcturans ships are: a Kyouwa-class Cruiser and two Hayabusa-class Destroyers.
The Terran ships are: two Belligerent-class Light Cruisers and a Valiant-class Escort.
Turn 1: Both squadrons move at high speed to engage each other, the Terrans moving in a V-formation, the Arcturans in line-ahead. Neither side is in range at the end of the Move Phase.
Turn 2: Both squadrons again close the distance. After the Move Phase, both sides open fire with their long-range batteries. The defensive philosophies of each fleet turn out to be important in the results.
The Terrans open fire with their main weapons at long range. As it turns out, they get more hits than they deserve, largely due to Fire Control on their ships, which eliminates the range penalty and turns those 5s into hits. More helpful even was that needing 5s to hit, I rolled 6 hits on 10 shots.
The two hits that did almost all the damage, were rolls that would have missed without Fire Control. Two lightning turrets hit and then get enough shield penetration against the Arcturan Cruiser Murakamo to score 9 damage dice! The rolls: Dice = 1,1,1,1,3,3,4,5,5. That looks like 8 Hull damage not to mention serious Engine damage... alas, the Arcturan Cruiser has Armor Plating and those four 1s result in NO DAMAGE! A later hit scores an additional hull hit for a total of 5 hull hits. Without Armor Plating, those 1s would have been enough to sink the Murakamo in one round of combat!
Still, enough hits are scored to also cause serious damage to the Murakamo's main batteries.
The Arcturans open fire with their long-range batteries, as well. Although they have a better accuracy than the Terrans, they lack Fire Control and so suffer the -1 penalty for long range fire. In addition, the Terran cruisers are equipped with Countermeasures, which means that long-range fire will hit only on a roll of 6. All shots go wide and the Arcturans (so Blacklancer99 tells me) begin to get a sinking feeling...
Below is an image of the ships at the end of the fire phase. Notice the Hit Markers next to ships damaged during Fire Phase. These markers are used to record damage to be applied in the End Phase.
[attachment=1]Turn 2 post Fire Phase.jpg[/attachment]
Here is a closeup of damage being assigned on the in-game data sheet to the Murakamo. The little x's bracketing ship systems indicate damage (see Engines and Shields). Alternatively, they could be replaced with X's. So a ship beginning with shields of SHIELDS: 1 1 1 1 that took two damage to shields would look like SHIELDS: X X 1 1
[attachment=0]Assigning damage to Murakamo.jpg[/attachment]
Turn 3 will be forthcoming...
Those particle cannons are just nasty :!: 
