Genearal SFB
Tournament Tactics
Game 1 – Peter Bakija,
Kzinti
I’ve played Peter before,
and he is very, very good in a Kzinti, so I knew this would be a
tough way to start off my weekend. I usually expect to see a
Kzinti launch his scatter pack early on turn 1 so he can close
behind them and 4 ship launched drones. If this happened, I would
have to weasel the 10 drones off because it would be really hard
to come out of turn 2 clean after dealing with 14 drones. If the
Kzinti keeps his distance after I weasel, then He will have to
build another drone wave on turns 2-3 which I may be able to
weasel off again. A good Kzinti would not let me get away with
this. I also seriously doubted that I’d get a range 8 shot on him
this turn. One advantage I had was that I knew Peter was going to
do this because I had the opportunity to see him play many times.
He wants you to weasel because he’ll know right where you will be
beginning of turn 2 and he’s a master at dealing with slow/parked
opponents.
Turn 1
So my turn 1 EA involved
me overloading all photons and moving at medium speed (16/17
split) while having 3 weasels. I had 1 point of reinforcement on
my #2 basically because it was left over power. Peter started at
16 and launched the Scatter Pack as predicted early in the turn.
He then turned right towards his corner so the drones could get
ahead of him after the SP blossomed. So the SP blossomed,
revealing 6 speed 20 drones which where obviously type 1’s. He
then launched 4 more speed 20 drones from his ship, looping around
to face me then turning again to his left and speeding up to 26.
I turned left myself and Peter fired 4 standard disruptors at me,
hitting with 3. After bouncing 1 point, I took my 8 points on the
#2. I then turned to direction A for my last movement. By turn’s
end, Peter was 10 hexes away from me and his drones where about 4
hexes from me coming from divergent angles. I turned out just the
way I expected it to.
Turn 2
I had 2 real choices here
– sit Tac and weasel for most of the turn, or start off tacing
and then kick into speed 10 in reverse to keep Peter in front of
me. I decided to sit and Tac with a speed increase to 4 later in
the turn because I would have better control of the shield facing
Peter Fired upon. So I held the photons, started a 4th
weasel, put 5 into tractor, 1 impulse and 2 Warp Tacs and a Speed
increase to 4 on 24. I also had 7 points reinforcement on my #1
and 5 points on my #2.
As expected, Peter came in
at me at high speed 26 as I weaseled his 10 drones. I was able to
avoid collateral damage, but that also meant my weasel would not
die until Impulse 7. I announced the raising of my fire control,
which would not be up until impulse 11. By Impulse 10 he had a
range 2 shot on my #6. I seriously considered firing my full
alpha right there because it would be a range 4 shot with my FC
still down, but I realized that if Peter held most of his fire
that he would be free to run me over at his leisure. I declined
to fire , but Peter was feeling the fire in his belly and let
loose with 4 OL disruptors, 4 p1’s, and 4 p3’s. he hit with 3
disruptors and I took 18 internals after using my 5 batteries for
reinforcement. I lucked out when all he could hit was a couple of
warp engines, a phaser 3 and 1 photon. Next impulse me FC came up
and I Taced left. Peter Turned off and announced a speed change
to 14. I took the range 3 shot on his #5 Firing 3 OL photons and
2 p1’s. 2 Photons hit and a solid phaser roll netted me 2 p3’s, a
drone rack, a disruptor, a couple of power, and a Tractor. Next
impulse I gave him 2 more phaser 1’s hitting the rest of the p3’s
on his left side and getting into his batteries as well as taking
out another tractor. The impulse after that Peter slipped left to
put me off his #4 and denying me another shot with my remaining
phasers through that down shield. The rest of the turn Peter
looped around, launching 2 speed 20 drones that would not hit me
this turn as I sped up to 4 and waddled after him. I believe he
finished the turn facing directly away from me.
Turn 3
Well, things where going
well for me so far. I had taken care of 10 of his drones, knocked
a reasonable hole in him, and still had most of my ship left. The
problem was that now I was stuck at a very low speed and had to be
able to avoid him to reload my photons. I knew that if he wanted
to catch me, he would. So I started my 3 photons, plotted an HET,
refilled my phaser caps, refilled my batteries (4 warp, 1
impulse), kept my 3 weasels, and maintained a speed of 8
throughout the turn. I didn’t bother with tractor power because
Peter had lost both if his. Peter plotted a high initial speed
with a dropoff in mid turn.
Impulse 2 he HETed to
head right at me. I responded by HETing away from him. 2
impulses later I announced Emergency deceleration as it was clear
I was not going to get away from him anyways. He announced ED
also, and he skidded to a halt 1 hex directly behind me. At this
point I launched another weasel, which took out his turn 2
drones. . After the explosion period, he launched a speed 32
drone. I downfired 2 p3’s at it and I died. He launched another
on and I repeated the process. The same thing happened when he
launched a 3rd drone (not all of these where 32’s, just
the 1st one). I then Warp TACed to bring my #3 shield to bear.
He launched a shuttle timed to hit me the impulse after I did
that, but I took a gamble and left it alone, feeling that it was
manned. I was right. Now here is where I made the mistake that
cost me the game. I had intended to impulse TAC to bring my #2
shield to bear on him and bring my FH phasers into arc to deal
with any further shuttle launches he had, but I got caught up in
all the hubbub of trashing his toys and so I forgot to do it. So
on impulse 26 he launched a speed 5 shuttle that I just knew was
the suicide shuttle and I kicked myself for not making that TAC.
So next impulse, the shuttle whacks my #3 for 18 and Peter
announces fire. It turned out that all he had was 4 p1’s, so
maybe I could survive my mistake. Unfortunately for me, he rolled
a 1,1,1,5 and did 28 points of damage with those 4 phaser 1’s.
The 22 internals I took hut me badly and there was no way I was
going to be able to win at this point. I then made my TAC
posthumously. Still, I figured I’d try 1 more turn hoping that
he’s make a grievous error like I just had. He repaired a
disruptor at turn’s end.
Turn 4, I Overloaded my 2
surviving Photons, held 1 weasel (he had blown the other one off)
put a smattering of leftover power on my #2, refilled what was
left of my phaser caps, and tried to Tac to face right at him and
back away so I could fire on impulse 2. Obviously, it didn’t
wok. Peter hammered me with 4 OL disruptors and a couple of
phaser 3’s on impulse 1 and the damage was just to much. Not to
mention the 3 drones he launched on impulse 1. I conceded and
Peter harried me with insults the rest of the day. Actually,
that’s not true. Peter was very gracious and I enjoy losing to
him more than defeating some opponents because games with him are
always learning experiences.
I was disappointed in
myself after this game because I felt I had played the 1st
2 and ½ turns well and I had a reasonable chance of winning the
game until I forgot that stupid Tac. Little did I know that I was
about to embark on a 6 game winning streak that contained some of
the most bizarre circumstances that I have ever played through.
Game 1 -
Peter Bakija, Kzinti
Game 2 - Ben Ossenfort, WYN AUX (Hellbore, Dis,
Gat, Drone)
Game 3 - David Cheng, Hydran
Game 4 - Aadil Sulamain - Tholian ATC
Game 5 - Wil Leiserson - Tholian ATC
Game 6 - Kevin Block-Shwenk, Rom TKE
Game 7 - John Malis, Klingon
Game 8 (Round 1 of single elimination) - Ameer
Sulamain
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