Saturday 10 March 2018

5150 Campaign – S2i – Reconnaissance Mission



[Activation: Star Navy 2, Hishen 6 – Star Navy moves first]
Calmly Jackie continues to control the fleet, “Ajax, increase velocity to 3 cycles and come hard to port. Keep out of range of Scipion. Exeter keep formation.”
The capital ships move ponderously forward.

Manoeuvring to get a firing solution on the unconscious Skywalker, Apollo side slips one cycle to port and as he comes into visual range his dogfighting initiatives kick in. Barrel rolling he manoeuvres another three cycles to port and one to starboard. Now in a perfect firing position he releases fifteen Rail Gun rounds at the unconscious Skywalker. Skywalker is a sitting duck. Fourteen of the fifteen rounds are on target and eight rounds smash through his still active shields. The damage is catastrophic and the ship immediately explodes.  

Wary that both ships are damaged, Colgar6 calls to Da Gobbo, “Keep in formation with me and let’s take the last X Wing together before he can get an attack run in on Ajax.”
Colgar6 moves dead straight forward 3 cycles and Da Gobbo deaccelerates to 4 cycles to take the lead.  

Da Gobbo and Colgar6 get the drop on their counterpart who is too busy lining up an attack run on Ajax.
Da Gobbo takes the initiative and barrel rolls two cycles forward before side slipping one cycle to starboard. In the perfect firing position he releases fifteen Rail Gun rounds and one Fire and Forget missile at his opponent. His aim is wide and only one round is on target and that is defeated by the X Wings shields. The Fire and Forget missile however strikes dead on, smashing into the Hull and the Cockpit. The pilot is rendered unconscious and his ship side slips 5 cycles to port and comes to a rest.

Watching the X Wing pilot drift by him, Colgar6 attempts a Hi Energy Yo Yo manoeuvre to get his opponent back in his sights but it is too much for his ship in its current condition. He moves forward two cycles and turns one aspect to starboard.
Spotting his chance to act the Old Sarge moves in next. Pushing his throttle to full velocity, he side slips two cycles to starboard and into visual range, he then barrel rolls three cycles forward, into a perfect firing position. He is out of missiles but his opponent is almost defenceless with only his shields to protect him. He presses the trigger and fifteen Rail Gun rounds spew forth from his weapons. Eight rounds are on target and two pass through the X Wings shields damaging its Engine and penetrating its Hull. The air frame can’t take the damage and the last X Wing is destroyed.

With his engine and comms link damaged The Addict knows better and to try a strafing attack on the enemy capital ship. He moves forward three cycles to get back into formation with his comrades.
Scipion moves forward three cycles, closing the distance to the Star Navy Fleet, brining his Projectile Batteries closer to his opponents.
“Open fire,” commands Jackie.
Warspite and Exeter fire their long range beam batteries (Ajax is out of arc). Four of the rounds explode around the Scipion. The Hishen light capital ship shields protect Scipion but they take a hell of a beating and phase out. They’ll be down for the next nine cycles. 
Battered by the barrage, her Capitan is too busy to return fire (ie not active this round).

With her shields down the Scipion’s Captain knows he is in great peril and will be destroyed before he is able to inflict any serious damage to the Star Navy fleet.
He turns his ship and at his maximum velocity of 3 cycles stars to outpace the Star Navy fleet. Jackie orders Apollo and Old Sarge to give chase and for The Addict, Da Gobbo and Colgar6 to retire to a safe position behind the fleet. Apollo and Old Sarge use their after burners to quickly catch the damaged ship but they start to lose contact with the fleet. Jackie recalls his precious fighters rather than have them get out of contact. The Scipion slinks away.

18 comments:

  1. Well Fisher pulled it off, but shooting Luke Skywalker while unconscious!!!!
    A great finale to the battle.

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    1. A mans got to do what a mans got to do.

      Well I guess we know who's better now. Apollo vs Skywalker and the Viper vs the X Wing.

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    1. No thank you for the rules Ed. I'll a review pretty soon.

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  3. Whew! A hectic few moments in this mission, but the good guys survived. Well, most of them did...

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    1. Yeah there is the odd empty chair. The loss of the Achilles so early in the campaign is going to come back to haunt me. Plus of course poor old Hinton coped it.

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  4. The Star Navy pilots have really got their act together now.

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    1. They came good in the end didn't they. If the X Wing's hadn't focused so much on the capital ships perhaps it might have been different. But I guess we'll see as the campaign progresses how they are able to hold it all together.

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  5. Great finish. A sensible measure rather than lose those veteran pilots.

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    1. Yeah I thought so. When I started I figured I'd have heaps of capital ships and fighters but they actually dwindle pretty quickly and there are no replacements.

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  6. Great AAR... Nice hard fought battle..

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    1. Thanks Gary. A couple of the pilots did exceptionally well including the Old Sarge.

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  7. Do the pilots get better over time ? Just wondering how they, and the capitol ships, might improve over the campaign?

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    1. Yeah there are some mechanisms for that. I think I'll simplify it a bit and when they hit five kills and 'Ace' status I'll bump them to rep 5.

      There is a lot of ways to personalise the pilots and capital ships. For example you can give the pilots and the capital ships traits and you can rate each section in a capital ship differently.

      I chose to keep it pretty simple at this point so that I didn't have to remember so much during my first play through.

      This week I'll write a bit of a review of the rules and what I did and didn't adopt for the campaign so I can try to give you guys a bit more of an overview of the rules etc.

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  8. Excellent finale to the encounter Tim, especially after it seemed a bit of "a close run thing" for a few moments!
    The Recce force took some bad knocks but pulled through - and now they have an idea what they're up against :-)

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    1. I must admit I thought I was going to lose more fighters but in the end they worked out pretty well. Losing Achilles was a real blow though. It was a true recce through. Now at least I know the relative strengths and weaknesses of the combatants much better after actually seeing them in action rather than just reading a stat line.

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  9. Sounds Good, don't need to over complicate things at the beginning!

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    1. I agree. I actually simplified the game quite a lot and I think, for me at least, I got the balance just about right. I'm going to make a couple of other minor mods before the next game.

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