Squadron Strike: Wolfpack Tactics
My brother and i played a second game of SS yesterday - this time pitting his Valiant against my 4 Slavas. The whole game took about 4-5 hours, not including the break we took in the middle (for the all controlling WoW), but it was definitely moving faster than our first one! I'm convinced you really could play a Mode 2 squadron on squadron engagement in about 2 hours, like the box claims.
We set up nose to nose at about 30 hexes, with initial vectors - 2 for the Valiant, 4 for each of my Slavas - split between the hex corners. (This is the same way we set up the first battle, too. It's been hard to set the ships up at the edges of their weapon envelopes and still have them fit on the large-hex map, but the small-hex maps are just a bit too small for the stacking blocks. I suppose we could open the range up a bit by tilting the approach plane into the vertical a bit.) My fleet was set up in a vertically stacked "U" with two S1 and S4 on the top, while the Valiant was on the plane (naturally).
On the first turn the Valiant drifted forward toward my formation, while my Slavas thrusted to open up their formation, with S1 - the "Slava" - pulling more out of the plane.
On the second turn the Valiant did a pivot and thrust more or less toward S2 ( the closest one), while my ships lined up for torpedo launch, each firing their full salvo of 4 SCUDs. The Valiant, after handily killing my ECM, also chose that moment to open up with its alpha strike of 3 Anti-ship Lasers. The range to S2 - the 'Volga' - was about 20 hexes, so i figured my ship was pretty safe. Not so! Every single beam hit, and Continuous 7+ - which we decided allowed full open-ended damage, a la Full Thrust , perhaps incorrectly? - showed its power. The first beam alone rolled 10, 7, 7, 6, and the third scored three hits, as well. The ship survived getting sliced nearly in half, but just barely - only 3 SI left - and only the 4 torpedo launchers left. (I assumed each additional beam counted as a separate volley for 'Hull-substitution'.) The Bridge and Movement were undamaged, but the DC parties were wiped out!
Third turn: Worried about the torpedoes, Jonas pivoted the Valiant hard to starboard & down and paid the 3 AP to thrust at max, not coincidentally putting the wierdly reinforced armor of the ship's left side in front of my missiles & guns. At this point i was going for an envelopment, so i pivoted S4 - the 'Dnepr" - nose down while thrusting full out - which, unfortunately, would result in a huge 10 hex vector heading off-board. I fail at billiards! S3 and S2 just rotated to bring guns and missiles to bear, while S1 nosed down as it continued to rise out of the plane.
With its main guns still cooling, the Valiant split its fire between S4 (aft pulse laser) and the nearest torpedo salvo (PD lasers) - we qickly find out that at that range the PD doesn't have the power to kill the torpedoes, but the pulse lasers prove as accurate as their larger cousins, scoring lots of incidental damage on the "Dnepr", including the Bridge and 2 SCUDs. All three of the Slavas with functioning lasers return fire, but only two beams hit (used the Salvo Table & rolled terribly as usual), knocking the shields down by 8 points - which are immediately recharged! Meanwhile the damaged "Dnepr"'s crews utterly fail to fix anything - must be conscripts!
After this picture was shot all four of my torpedo boats released their second salvo, aimed at the Valiant's EoT.
Fourth Turn: At this point my formation had collapsed, due to the Valiant crossing the "U" on the side, but the S4 - the "Dnepr"- had put itself in position behind and above the enemy, despite my wild vector. With the Valiant engloblated, i pivoted all of my ships into attack positions, except for the "Volga" - with most of the crew dead and numerous hull breachs, the ship was spinning out of control! (Actually i just wrote my pivot down backwards - oops!) Jonas surprised me by pivoting to bring the Valiant's main battery to bear on the crippled "Volga", rather than continue building displacement against the incoming torpedoes.
This allowed 4 SCUD salvos to manoeuver into attack range. Jonas divvy'ed up his PD laser fire evenly between each of the 16 torpedoes - this resulted in 3 to 1 shot per each SCUD, with the majority having two shots against them. The heavy PD in the front killed all 8 of its targets handily, but 4 of the 8 SCUDs coming in from the side - the strong left side! - got through and detonated on the hex. (Um, Explosive torpedoes don't fratricide in Squadron Strike, right?) Assuming detonation was done at the same time as weapons fire, the SCUDs blossomed into nuclear fireballs, shredding shields and scoring light damage, even as the Valiant opened up on the "Volga" with its AS Lasers, finishing off the crippled ship. The three remaining Slavas' return fire was also devastating - at close range the S1 "Slava"'s CIDS beams were hitting regularly (3+) for 2 to 6 damage, chewing through the weaker top shields and allowing the heavier CSIRLs to batter into the hull. S3 - the "Don" - was in long range for its CIDS, but was firing through the unshielded (but well armoured) left side, and did great damage with its heavy beams. The "Dnepr", firing from the opposite side, managed to shoot through the shields, but inflicted only a few hits. But all that damage adds up!
In the picture here, the Volga is marked with a white square as KIA, while the torpedoes haven't been resolved yet. Note that the leftmost Slava - the "Dnepr" - doesn't have a EoT on the board - it is way to the left!
With that result, and the vectors swiftly separating, we concluded that the Valiant was going to break-off the engagement and run - with its undamaged drives & bridge/power-systems - for deep space, giving the "technical win" to the Slava squadron - but, with one Slava destroyed and another superficially damaged vs a moderately damaged Valiant, call it a draw.
If you can see anything we did wrong, or inconsistencies with the photos, please tell! I'd also like to hear any thoughts on the tactics of such an engagement.
We set up nose to nose at about 30 hexes, with initial vectors - 2 for the Valiant, 4 for each of my Slavas - split between the hex corners. (This is the same way we set up the first battle, too. It's been hard to set the ships up at the edges of their weapon envelopes and still have them fit on the large-hex map, but the small-hex maps are just a bit too small for the stacking blocks. I suppose we could open the range up a bit by tilting the approach plane into the vertical a bit.) My fleet was set up in a vertically stacked "U" with two S1 and S4 on the top, while the Valiant was on the plane (naturally).
On the first turn the Valiant drifted forward toward my formation, while my Slavas thrusted to open up their formation, with S1 - the "Slava" - pulling more out of the plane.
On the second turn the Valiant did a pivot and thrust more or less toward S2 ( the closest one), while my ships lined up for torpedo launch, each firing their full salvo of 4 SCUDs. The Valiant, after handily killing my ECM, also chose that moment to open up with its alpha strike of 3 Anti-ship Lasers. The range to S2 - the 'Volga' - was about 20 hexes, so i figured my ship was pretty safe. Not so! Every single beam hit, and Continuous 7+ - which we decided allowed full open-ended damage, a la Full Thrust , perhaps incorrectly? - showed its power. The first beam alone rolled 10, 7, 7, 6, and the third scored three hits, as well. The ship survived getting sliced nearly in half, but just barely - only 3 SI left - and only the 4 torpedo launchers left. (I assumed each additional beam counted as a separate volley for 'Hull-substitution'.) The Bridge and Movement were undamaged, but the DC parties were wiped out!
Third turn: Worried about the torpedoes, Jonas pivoted the Valiant hard to starboard & down and paid the 3 AP to thrust at max, not coincidentally putting the wierdly reinforced armor of the ship's left side in front of my missiles & guns. At this point i was going for an envelopment, so i pivoted S4 - the 'Dnepr" - nose down while thrusting full out - which, unfortunately, would result in a huge 10 hex vector heading off-board. I fail at billiards! S3 and S2 just rotated to bring guns and missiles to bear, while S1 nosed down as it continued to rise out of the plane.
With its main guns still cooling, the Valiant split its fire between S4 (aft pulse laser) and the nearest torpedo salvo (PD lasers) - we qickly find out that at that range the PD doesn't have the power to kill the torpedoes, but the pulse lasers prove as accurate as their larger cousins, scoring lots of incidental damage on the "Dnepr", including the Bridge and 2 SCUDs. All three of the Slavas with functioning lasers return fire, but only two beams hit (used the Salvo Table & rolled terribly as usual), knocking the shields down by 8 points - which are immediately recharged! Meanwhile the damaged "Dnepr"'s crews utterly fail to fix anything - must be conscripts!
After this picture was shot all four of my torpedo boats released their second salvo, aimed at the Valiant's EoT.
Fourth Turn: At this point my formation had collapsed, due to the Valiant crossing the "U" on the side, but the S4 - the "Dnepr"- had put itself in position behind and above the enemy, despite my wild vector. With the Valiant engloblated, i pivoted all of my ships into attack positions, except for the "Volga" - with most of the crew dead and numerous hull breachs, the ship was spinning out of control! (Actually i just wrote my pivot down backwards - oops!) Jonas surprised me by pivoting to bring the Valiant's main battery to bear on the crippled "Volga", rather than continue building displacement against the incoming torpedoes.
This allowed 4 SCUD salvos to manoeuver into attack range. Jonas divvy'ed up his PD laser fire evenly between each of the 16 torpedoes - this resulted in 3 to 1 shot per each SCUD, with the majority having two shots against them. The heavy PD in the front killed all 8 of its targets handily, but 4 of the 8 SCUDs coming in from the side - the strong left side! - got through and detonated on the hex. (Um, Explosive torpedoes don't fratricide in Squadron Strike, right?) Assuming detonation was done at the same time as weapons fire, the SCUDs blossomed into nuclear fireballs, shredding shields and scoring light damage, even as the Valiant opened up on the "Volga" with its AS Lasers, finishing off the crippled ship. The three remaining Slavas' return fire was also devastating - at close range the S1 "Slava"'s CIDS beams were hitting regularly (3+) for 2 to 6 damage, chewing through the weaker top shields and allowing the heavier CSIRLs to batter into the hull. S3 - the "Don" - was in long range for its CIDS, but was firing through the unshielded (but well armoured) left side, and did great damage with its heavy beams. The "Dnepr", firing from the opposite side, managed to shoot through the shields, but inflicted only a few hits. But all that damage adds up!
In the picture here, the Volga is marked with a white square as KIA, while the torpedoes haven't been resolved yet. Note that the leftmost Slava - the "Dnepr" - doesn't have a EoT on the board - it is way to the left!
With that result, and the vectors swiftly separating, we concluded that the Valiant was going to break-off the engagement and run - with its undamaged drives & bridge/power-systems - for deep space, giving the "technical win" to the Slava squadron - but, with one Slava destroyed and another superficially damaged vs a moderately damaged Valiant, call it a draw.
If you can see anything we did wrong, or inconsistencies with the photos, please tell! I'd also like to hear any thoughts on the tactics of such an engagement.