Firestorm Armada Battle Report, 800 points
Somewhere in the void (or upstairs at Battlefront Games, depending on your level of imagination), the outskirts of a Relthozan patrol fleet and a Terran one encounter each other. Both sides called for the rest of their respective fleets and tried to stay alive until they arrived.
The mission was Escalating Engagement, which I had never played before. It's a corner deployment, with basic "kill everything" rules, except that at least 1/3 of your points must be in outflank reserve, including all Tier 1 models. Since my Relthoza patrol fleets tend to run kind of top heavy, that was a bit of a concern.
For this engagement, I went with maximum Short Ranged Spacecraft (SRS), where every squadron was carrying at least three. My admiral was my classic battleship, upgraded with extra SRS wings (six bombers), two extra point defense, increased assault points, and corrosive primary weapons. I also had a carrier with corrosive, five bombers, and three interceptors. Tier two consisted of a single squadron of three shunt cruisers (who never found an opportunity to shunt anywhere) carrying interceptors and corrosive, while tier three was two squads of four Nidus carrier frigates loaded with fighters.
My opponent and host, Jason, went for a maximum activations list: minimal upgrades and lots of ships. His admiral was in a battlecruiser that looked suspiciously like the SSV Normandy, then there were two squads of three regular cruisers and three squads of four standard frigates.
Relthozan carrier and battleship are in reserve as per the rules. They're clearly visible at the lower right, but they're not "really" there. The Terran battlecruiser and one of the terran cruiser squads are also in reserve. The large masses are planetoids, and we're both just kind of hiding behind them. The Relthoza home corner is "Northeast", and the Terran's is "Southwest", for lack of a better coordinate system.
Since it's mostly about torpedoes at this range, which don't care about things like terrain, it's just a question of dice. One of the Terran frigates goes down to a barrage of torpedoes from the Relthoza shunt cruisers, and a Relthoza frigate loses a hull point before it could drop off its fighters for torpedo defense. I believe both Terran reserves arrive, but neither Relthozan ones do.
Relthozan reserves still do not show up, to the chagrin of the Relthozan frigates squadrons in the Northwest that are now at half strength. They take cover in the nearby gas cloud. The Terran battlecruiser in the SouthEast gets a TAC card for increased speed to try to reach the action. One of the Relthozan shunt cruisers is missing two hull points, but they're still cloaked at this point.
The Relthozan battleship arrives in the Northwest and cuts loose on the cruiser squadron. One is destroyed and the other two are damaged from a combination of boarding attempt, bomber strike (that was softened by cruiser point defense far more than expected), and decloaked broadside. Frigates of both sides continue trading fire. The shunt cruisers leave the cloaks up, but each attempt a boarding against one of the nearby frigates. One is captured and then destroyed by its former allies, and another takes some damage. The battlecruiser fires some torpedoes, probably responsible for some more damage on the shunt cruiser squadron.
The Relthozan carrier finally arrives, but isn't able to do very much. In the Northwest, the battleship finishes off the weakened cruisers. The shunt cruisers risk decloaking to apply some damage to the remaining cruisers, but roll badly and don't do very much. Return fire from those cruisers and the Terran battlecruiser destroy two of them. We decide to call it here because of time as a very narrow Relthoza victory. The battle logs are almost even, but the spiders have significantly more firepower still on the field.
Lessons learned:
The mission was Escalating Engagement, which I had never played before. It's a corner deployment, with basic "kill everything" rules, except that at least 1/3 of your points must be in outflank reserve, including all Tier 1 models. Since my Relthoza patrol fleets tend to run kind of top heavy, that was a bit of a concern.
For this engagement, I went with maximum Short Ranged Spacecraft (SRS), where every squadron was carrying at least three. My admiral was my classic battleship, upgraded with extra SRS wings (six bombers), two extra point defense, increased assault points, and corrosive primary weapons. I also had a carrier with corrosive, five bombers, and three interceptors. Tier two consisted of a single squadron of three shunt cruisers (who never found an opportunity to shunt anywhere) carrying interceptors and corrosive, while tier three was two squads of four Nidus carrier frigates loaded with fighters.
My opponent and host, Jason, went for a maximum activations list: minimal upgrades and lots of ships. His admiral was in a battlecruiser that looked suspiciously like the SSV Normandy, then there were two squads of three regular cruisers and three squads of four standard frigates.
Relthozan carrier and battleship are in reserve as per the rules. They're clearly visible at the lower right, but they're not "really" there. The Terran battlecruiser and one of the terran cruiser squads are also in reserve. The large masses are planetoids, and we're both just kind of hiding behind them. The Relthoza home corner is "Northeast", and the Terran's is "Southwest", for lack of a better coordinate system.
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| Setup |
Since it's mostly about torpedoes at this range, which don't care about things like terrain, it's just a question of dice. One of the Terran frigates goes down to a barrage of torpedoes from the Relthoza shunt cruisers, and a Relthoza frigate loses a hull point before it could drop off its fighters for torpedo defense. I believe both Terran reserves arrive, but neither Relthozan ones do.
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| End of Turn 1 |
Relthozan reserves still do not show up, to the chagrin of the Relthozan frigates squadrons in the Northwest that are now at half strength. They take cover in the nearby gas cloud. The Terran battlecruiser in the SouthEast gets a TAC card for increased speed to try to reach the action. One of the Relthozan shunt cruisers is missing two hull points, but they're still cloaked at this point.
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| End of Turn 2 |
The Relthozan battleship arrives in the Northwest and cuts loose on the cruiser squadron. One is destroyed and the other two are damaged from a combination of boarding attempt, bomber strike (that was softened by cruiser point defense far more than expected), and decloaked broadside. Frigates of both sides continue trading fire. The shunt cruisers leave the cloaks up, but each attempt a boarding against one of the nearby frigates. One is captured and then destroyed by its former allies, and another takes some damage. The battlecruiser fires some torpedoes, probably responsible for some more damage on the shunt cruiser squadron.
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| End of Turn 3 |
The Relthozan carrier finally arrives, but isn't able to do very much. In the Northwest, the battleship finishes off the weakened cruisers. The shunt cruisers risk decloaking to apply some damage to the remaining cruisers, but roll badly and don't do very much. Return fire from those cruisers and the Terran battlecruiser destroy two of them. We decide to call it here because of time as a very narrow Relthoza victory. The battle logs are almost even, but the spiders have significantly more firepower still on the field.
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| End of Turn 4 |
Lessons learned:
- Escalating engagment relies heavily on the reserve rolls, and it really sucks that you can't play a TAC card to reroll reserves to bring in your admiral until the admiral shows up!
- It also makes for some very spread out battle lines as stuff can show up anywhere along a ten foot expanse of board edge per side.
- It sucks to have to close with Terran frigates without getting clobbered by their torpedoes. This is especially true when I don't have Stealth from Systems Network to protect them on the way in.
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