Wednesday, 17 July 2019

What is a Frigate? - Excerpt

The following is a section from a novel I'm slowing writing (very slowly). I was motivated to finish
this bit after a discussion on the FFG Armada Forums about ship classifications, and publish it here
for comments and responses. The formatting is a bit strained for some reason.

The story so far - Master Akimo is a blue alien, who is guest on the Glorious Warning, an MC30c.
The master is not a Jedi, but has some force abilities that are explained elsewhere. Whatever.
Akimo is helping repair the ship, which was badly damaged in a battle some years earlier before being abandoned.
Galto is a human crew-member, a veteran of the clone wars navy, etc. We are very early in the days of the Rebel Alliance.

***

What is a Frigate?”
Galto looked up from the various wires before his eyes.
Master Akimo was working beside him, checking couplings and circuits with a steady efficiency.
“Huh?” Galto aked.
“I have heard the term since arriving aboard the vessel - the conveyance.” Akimo replied.
“It is called a Torpedo Frigate.”
“Well, that is what she is - a torpedo frigate.” she turned back to her work. 

Akimo was not satisfied with simple answers.
“Leaving aside its gender- which I also have questions about being a hermaphrodite -
what does it mean: Frigate?”
“That refers to the class of ship - heavier than a corvette, lighter than a cruiser.”
“Then it is a reference to mass?” Akimo mused.
Galto shook her head. “Not specifically - more a reference to her role in combat.”

Akimo briefly lifted a hand, then returned to the circuits.
“I do not understand - how does mass relate to role?”
Galto paused a moment before replying.
“Well, lighter ships typically accelerate more quickly are more lightly armed.
They serve as scouts and flank guards. So Corvettes skirmish and flank,
whereas Frigates dash into the heat of battle and out again before being destroyed,
while Cruisers do most of the heavy fighting.”
“Frigates cannot fight cruisers then?”

Galto coughed. “Well, of course. In numbers frigates can destroy cruisers.
With enough numbers Corvettes can destroy battle-cruisers. But in large fleet actions Corvettes and
Frigates tend to find their place on the outer edges, not in the thick of things.”
There was a few moment’s pause as Akimo shut one wall section and moved to another.
“Battle cruisers?” 

Galto finished closing a circuit before responding. “Heavy cruisers. Real warships - like the new
Imperial class Star Destroyers. Technically a cruiser but fast and heavily gunned and shielded.
We live in a new age of space combat. Many things are changing- some of our old terms are
out of date.”

“So Star Destroyers are battlecruisers?” Akimo had stopped work to look at Galto.
She turned to the alien and crossed her arms. “I call them that. The new Imperials are anyway.
The mainline Victory class are more traditional cruisers. Slower - but vicious in numbers.
They serve as the line of battle. The Victory class will be the bulk of the Imperial fleet for a fair time -
particularly out here.”

Akimo tapped a finger to chest. “So your Frigate is not equal to a cruiser? You cannot hope to defeat a
Star Destroyer?”
Galto shrugged. “Well, that’s a question and no doubt . There are different kinds of Star Destroyers.
Against an Imperial class - the battle cruiser - I’d say clearly no. It would take three Frigates like this
to take down an Imperial - and you’d likely lose two of them. But against a Gladiator class star
destroyer, which is really a Frigate itself , I’d put good odds on a Torpedo Frigate like ourselves
coming out on top in a one on one -better shields, better weapons mix.”

Akimo stepped forward, eyes searching. “And against a Victory? A Cruiser?”
She held her hands out, palms up. “Well, there you’ve got me. In a face to face conflict the Victory has
the edge - but any Frigate Captain worth his salt knows how to kill a Victory.”
“Salt?” Akimo asked, held tilted to the left.
“An idiom. One who knows his business. Our Frigate can fly rings around a Victory cruiser. Get in his
flanks or behind him and smash him to bits. Just don’t get caught in his front. A squadron or two of
fighters to keep the Ties off our back and we’ll give them what for.” Galto turned back to the circuits.
Akimo’s head shook. “You have a strange manner of speech.”
Galto laughed.

The blue master turned back to the circuits and wires. But another question came. “If a Frigate fan
outfly a Cruiser, surely a corvette fan outfly a Frigate?”
Glato sparked a wire and gave a little grunt. “Well, perhaps. The Imperials have Corvettes that fun turn
pretty fast but can’t outrun us. These mon cal frigates have a nice turn of speed. Corellian Corvettes
are slightly faster again with the right engines. I’ve seen them bully Victories very nicely.”
“And these hammerheads I have heard about? The Captain used to command one of them. Would they
pose a threat to a Frigate like this?”

Galto took off her glove and sucked a tingling finger. “I should say not. The hammerheads are an old
corvette and not much use anymore. They make up most system defence forces but are mostly useless
now - slow - under gunned under shielded. I would not want to serve on one in a serious fight.”
“Ah. They are weak. Flimsy.” Akimo coupled some wires and shut the compartment.
“Well, no.” Galto responded.  “Not flimsy. In truth a hammerhead has better armour then this thing.
If a Hammerhead rammed the Glorious Warning we’d crumple. But that’s these non cal ships -
all shields, no hull. There are parts of this boat where you can’t lean on the wall for fear of putting a
hole in it. But she’s shielded like a Cruiser, flies like a Corvette and hits like a hammer. And the
commander knows his business. If we can get the hyperdrive running reliably we’ll be a danger to any
Imperial ship short of a battlecruiser. We’ll need some friends to take down an Imperial. But anything
else? No worries.” Galto chopped the air with her tingling hand.

“None at all?” Akimo was opening another compartment.
“What?”
“No worries at all? That easy?” 
She shook her head. “Idiom. Nothing is too easy. Although Gozanti Cruisers shouldn’t be of concern.”
“Cruisers?” The blue master lifted an eyebrow.
Galto sighed. “A stupid name. They call them Cruisers but they are really support ships. Freighters.
Transports.”
Akimo frowned. “Then why call them Cruisers?”

Galto slammed the compartment and moved to the next. “It’s all Palaptines fault. We had a perfectly
good system before he came along - Transports, Corvettes, Frigates, Cruisers. Then his majesty comes
along and now it’s cruisers, destroyers, destroyers, and bigger destroyers. The man is mad I tell you.”
“Undoubtedly so. Whereas your system is superior - this Frigate is faster than a corvette with a thinner
hull and more weapons than a cruiser.” Akimo gave his odd chuckle, like a duggi drowning in mud.
“Ah but you see - that’s because this is a mon cal design - aliens see? Non-humans don’t really
understand space - not really - at least not in the proper way.” Galto leaned further into her compartment,
reaching for a stray line.

Akimo snorted. “I certainly don’t understand it at all.”
“Well exactly,” Galto countered quietly. “Blue skinned hermaphrodite pacifists can’t be expected to
understand the nuances of fleet operations the way humans do - we are bred for it.”
The little blue alien seemed to get the joke. With a gentle smile Akimo responded:
“But Palpatine is human isn’t he?”
Galto laughed. “Yes.” She climbed out of the compartment and waved a ray-cutter at the master.
“But as I said before - he’s mad. All that power has gone to his head. Mad as a barking nun.”

***

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Rieekan Seven vs Ozzel - Sensor Net

 The second outing for the Rieekan Seven (plus Tycho) was against Theo, flying a Cymoon (Xi7s, Gunnery Teams, Dual Turbolaser Turrets, Strat Adv), Quasar, Raider (ex racks, sensor teams), and two Gozantis with comms net. His fighters were Howlrunner, Mauler, and 4 Generic Interceptors.

Both at 400 - Theo won the toss and elected to go first. He looked at the objectives and chose Sensor Net - which is fair as I don't have Strategic Squadrons.
 We placed the tokens and deployed. Theo had the last drop, so I deployed cautiously. I regret my deployment of Jaina's Light (the one facing right). I should have put them all in a neater line, but such is life.

Start of turn 2, and Theo used his Strategic Adviser, so I flung Quantum Storm forwards to gum up the Quasar's order... but this wasn't really a problem - the squadron ball wasn't really going to be a huge threat to me at this point. But I did it anyway. Everything else moved up with various levels of speed in order to trap the ISD. The other slicer tool moved up to annoy the ISD, expecting to be shot to pieces, but instead the ISD took shots at Quantum Storm (and failed to get the Accuracy) and one of the Corvettes (Minor damage - Cymoons NEED Vader IMHO) - the ISD instead rammed the Transport to stay in place and avoid getting shot by multiple Corvettes.

 Start of turn 3, and the damaged Corvette (on the left) is there to draw the Raider shot so the other one can escape, but the ISD goes first destroying the Corvette centered on the Quasar (which is Rieekan'd). The ISD rams the Bright Hope transport again. So I move the left front Corvette, taking shots at the ISD and Raider (though the ISD is the main target of my assaults). The Raider then finishes off the Transport, so I slicer tool the Quasar. Jaina's Light takes the token on the right and comes roaring into the battle.

This is just a zoomed in view of Turn 3. Tycho is on the Station, waiting his moment of glory.
The Rieekan corvette does some serious damage to the Quasar, then ducks around the back to stop the Gozanti ramming Quantum Storm to death. I double rammed the Gozanti, expecting it to have to ram me in its turn and die, but instead Theo just dropped it to speed 0. Of course, that level of arrogance had to be dealt with, so Jaina's Light lined up a side arc through obstructions to kill it next turn.

Start of turn 4, and the tokens are building for me - even without the Strategic squads I'm getting more of them because I have more activations and can move the tokens further to my not-yet-activated ships. I did not do this perfectly (I'm rusty) so I probably missed out on another 3 tokens over the course of the game.

The Quasar activated first so the Squads did some limited damage to the Corvette behind the ISD, but it lived. Then the Quasar shot and rammed the corvette before it to death (Rieekan'd).
I went first with Jaina's Light to kill the Gozanti and almost finish the Quasar. My Rieekan'd Corvette rammed the Quasar to death, then ET'd into the ISD, then died.

 Start of turn 5 and I still have 3 Corvettes going (Rieekan's Flag is the middle of the three Corvettes).

There is some shooting, and the now heavily damaged Corvette in the shadow of the ISD goes down. (Rieekan'd, double ram, etc).

 Start of turn 6, and Jaina's Light does the damage to finish the ISD, but not before being Rieekan'd.
I had dreams of a perfect role to kill the Raider with Ozzel on board, but it did not happen.

Tycho had jumped from safety to put a shot into the ISD, and went down to Theo's Squads.


  End of turn 6 - only Rieekan's flag and Bright Hope survive. The Raider, squads, and a Gozanti for Theo.

I had 4 more tokens than Theo, which was enough to get me a 6 point win (6/5). Well, Theo did the maths, and I didn't have the brain space to check it, but he's pretty good on the addition and subtraction side of things.

A good game, and a good bit of training for the Rieekan Seven (and Tycho!)








Task Force Orange Fleet Ambush Rieekan Seven and Tycho

After a long hiatus of Armada, I managed to get a game on an actual table. I'm playing around with a Rieekan Seven list - 5 TRC90s with ETs, 2 slicer GRs, and Tycho for an even 400 points. The objectives are Most Wanted, Sensor Net, and Fleet Ambush. 

Yes, Fleet Ambush.

Madness, I know.

Fleet Ambush fell out of favour early in Wave 1 with the introduction of Demolisher (and to lesser extend Ackbar AF2s). The ability for the first player to shoot at things in the first round of the match was quickly seen as problematic - "Who is being ambushed here? You or me?"

I'm not convinced Fleet Ambush is a great option, and if my opponent has it I will be strongly tempted to take it.

The thing about Fleet Ambush that might be useful to the 2nd player is the wording that all ships have to be deployed before any squadrons (nice if you have lots of ships and few squadrons).
The other thing is that the Ambushed ships in the ambush zone CANNOT deploy on terrain (nor can squadrons, but this is less of an issue). This second ruling means that with thoughtful deployment of terrain you can really limit where big ships deploy in the ambush zone - pushing them to one side, or to the front or the back of the ambush zone. Then you can deploy to counter this - either by lining lots up to engage, or deploying sideways somewhere else to fly around or flank or do any number of things.


My opponent for this match was Rory who was flying two ISDs (2 and Cymoon) with Thrawn, a mid sized generic squadron ball, and Pryce. Rory decided to take Fleet Ambush, and deployed his Pryced flagship in the Ambush zone. I deployed with four of my TRC corvettes lined up the ISD2, expecting Rory to pick turn 1 for his Pryce - but he chose turn 2. I did question that at the time, and suggested an earlier timing, but he made up his mind. Rieekans flagship is deployed on the left, ready to jump in to the mid / late match.


At the start of turn 2 I know for sure that the Thrawn ISD is going down - I get to activate all of my ships before it can do anything, and that means 5 lots of TRCs chopping it to bits.
Rory's squadrons are not scary enough to destroy any Corvettes to quickly, and although that Cymoon is coming up fast, It's still out of range (and Cymoons without Vader - not that scary IMHO).


Start of turn 3 and the Thrawn ISD is gone - putting it in the Ambush Zone and Pryce'ing for turn 2 was a definite mistake - but live and learn! Without Thrawn, my slicing GRs can keep the squadrons ineffective, and the Corvettes can chop the Cymoon to bits in quite a leisurely manner.



Start of turn 4 and my Rieekan flagship has ended up quite close in the side of the Cymoon (unnecessarily close really) and Rory rolled exactly what he needed to kill it - and I forgot that I had Lando on that ship to keep Rieekan company, so the whole thing might have been avoided.



Rieekan zombified himself, let rip with the TRCs and double ram, and finished the ISD-C. The game was over in round four.

It has been quite a while since either Rory or I have put ships on the table, and I had forgotten so much about effective corvette flying (lining up double arcs, thinking ETs, etc).

Thrawn was well and truly ambushed - a good and quick game to get us back into the swing of things.