Battle of Minos Korva

My old friend Matt stopped by for a game last night on his way to visit family. I invited Adam to attend as well and I setup a scene from the Cardassian Border wars for us to play. For this game we would be fighting over the hotly contested system of Minos Korva with roughly equal forces.

Minos Korva III is an M class planet and the focal point of our game.

The forces available to Starfleet were as follows:

USS Kodiak (Steamrunner Class Light Cruiser)
USS Iberia (Challenger Class Light Cruiser)
USS Dakota (Cheyenne Class Frigate)
USS Herbert (New Orleans Class Frigate)
USS Thefel (New Orleans Class Frigate)
USS Mjolnir (Norway Class Destroyer)
USS Pompey (Springfield Class Frigate - Torpedo Pod Loaded)
USS Sixx (Saber Class Scout)

The forces available to the Cardassians were as follows:

CDS Gadacz (Galor Class Cruiser Type 3)
CDS Kraxon (Galor Class Cruiser Type 3)
CDS Bralek (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Kenzha (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Moddan (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Parn (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Rekleen (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Terak (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Vetar (Galor Class Cruiser Type 2)
CDS Irathrane (Lakat Class Destroyer Type 1)
CDS Otheon (Lakat Class Destroyer Type 1)
CDS Vermarn (Lakat Class Destroyer Type 1)

Adam chose to play Starfleet while Matt and I split up the Cardassians. As per the rules we began rolling off to deploy squadrons onto the table using the Command Quality of our respective flagships. Unfortunately for Starfleet the Cardassian admiral was a professional (D4 vs D2) and a series of rolls later, Adam was forced to deploy the entire Starfleet force first. Naturally, the Cardassians were deployed to make the best of this advantage.

The Lakats were deployed to the extreme left flank opposite the Starfleet flagship, the USS Thefel (New Orleans Class Frigate).

The Galors were formed up into two squadrons of four (minus the flagship) and deployed opposite the heaviest grouping of Starfleet ships.

The heaviest group of Starfleet ships included the USS Herbert (New Orleans Class Frigate), the USS Dakota (Cheyenne Class Frigate), and the USS Iberia (Challenger Class Light Cruiser). This was the primary target of the Cardassian heavy squadrons.

At the opposite end of the battlespace the Starfleet flagship was lonely, the nearest ships being 1/2 a light second distant.

The opening moves saw the Cardassians maneuvering to the right of the planet and Starfleet announcing a charge of their warp drives. The Cardassians incorrectly predicted that Starfleet would perform a Tactical Warp Jump and engage the Galors in a point blank furball. As it turned out they jumped out of the battlespace. Apparently Adam was not happy about having to deploy his entire fleet before the enemy and intended to perform some shenanigans in response.

With the battlespace temporarily theirs, the Cardassian ships settled into an orbital patrol pattern around Minos Korva III. They then awaited the inevitable return of Starfleet.

A few turns later a warp signature was detected at the far right of the battlespace. Predicting that this would not be the entire fleet, the Cardassians maintained their patrol pattern.

Moments later the Starfleet flagship emerged from warp alone. This was certainly a tempting target, however, the Cardassians judged that Starfleet may be using this lone ship as bait. Adam certainly had guile to use his flagship in this way. The Cardassians slightly adjusted one squadron of Galors' flight path to bring fire on the ship. The exchange of fire between the ships had negligible effect on each other.

As predicted, Starfleet then had the remainder of their fleet jump in at the opposite side of the battlespace. Had the Cardassians turned their fleet to chase down the flagship, they would now have the bulk of the Starfleet ships behind them.

The Cardassian squadrons began to make their orbits tighter, using the planet's gravity to swing them into firing positions on Starfleet.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the upcoming firefight, Starfleet was closing its ranks to bring maximum firepower on the rapidly orbiting Cardassians.

The Cardassian ships did not ignore the Starfleet flagship during their rapid maneuvers, at every opportunity photon torpedoes were lobbed at long range towards the lonely vessel. A supreme example of fleet gunnery (very lucky dice rolls) produced a number of hits on the flagship, tearing down its shields and knocking out its port thrusters. However not all was going well...

In an attempt to orbit as fast as possible, the Lakats had made their turns as tight as possible, too tight in fact. The CDS Irathrane skimmed the atmosphere of Minos Korva III suffering extreme shock, eventually disintegrating, and raining debris onto the surface.

While admittedly annoying, these maneuvers did swing the Cardassian fleet around the planet rapidly and inadvertently placed a squadron of Galors into a game winning position. Having suffered light damage and being alone, the Starfleet flagship decided to perform a Tactical War Jump to bring it across the battlespace and into the lines of the rest of the Starfleet force. Unfortunately, the flagship's helm officer programmed the jump a couple of nanoseconds too short (bad die rolling) and only jumped about half way. This left it in prime weapons range of four Galors. These ships opened fire and caused severe damage to the little frigate but she wouldn't go down. The famed Starfleet engineers kept her operational and the game progressed to the next turn.

The rest of the Starfleet force accelerated to full impulse and desperately tried to reach their hapless flagship.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity, the Cardassian ships left their flanks open to the rest of the Starfleet force and pursued the Starfleet flagship. Continued fire from the ships, including the Cardassian flagship, eventually caused a warp core breach. The USS Thefel (New Orleans Class Frigate) was lost with all hands. In revenge the Starfleet force concentrated fire on two Galors, collapsing their shields and causing heavy hull damage, however, both ships managed to limp on.

At the end of the turn, with the loss of their flagship, morale checks were required by all Starfleet ships. The USS Iberia (Challenger Class Light Cruiser), USS Mjolnir (Norway Class Destroyer), and USS Herbert (New Orleans Class Frigate) warped out of the system without orders. This left only four ships to face the remainder of the Cardassian fleet. Adam deemed the odds too long and jumped the rest of his fleet out.

I have to give credit to Adam for attempting such a bold maneuver. He used his flagship as a very tempting bait to pull the Cardassian fleet out of position. Had we fallen for it the game would have been very interesting. Had his flagship jumped far enough the game would have at least been an even affair. Don't think you shouldn't try such things again, Adam, fortune favors the bold!

Thank you to Matt and Adam for a fun yet odd game.

The rules we used can be found here: http://metaverse.battlespacepublishing.ca/
The facebook group can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/battlespacepublishing.ca/