Genearal SFB Tournament Tactics

Game 6 – Kevin Block-Shwenk, Romulan TKE 

Kevin had been playing a Fed this weekend and was 4-0 in it, but he had an obligation to be somewhere on Sunday morning so he couldn’t play in the final rounds.  So instead of playing a civil war that would have been meaningless for him, he decided to re-enter in a Rom TKE just for kicks.  Against plasma ships I like to maintain a high speed on the 1^st turn.  I’m willing to take a range 8 shot and turn off as long as I have some room to run for the next turn.  I won’t take that shot if he gives me no reason to turn off, though.  I prefer to hit a front shield on the TKE because they are equal all the way around and it will effect his maneuver more than knocking down a rear shield will.  My goal on the opening alpha (provided it’s range 8 and he’s got plasma out there that will force me to run before I get any closer) is simply to knock down a shield and get most of his armor.  If I get a lucky 3^rd photon to hit or a great phaser roll, I’d consider any internals a bonus. 

Turn 1 

I Overloaded 3 photons and held the 4^th as a standard (10 total power), held 1 weasel and put 23 into movement using a 17/31/26 plot.  This allows me to move every impulse from 19 on while still preserving my ability to HET on the impulses that matter (28-32). 

Kevin did a speed 14-26 plot and we both came out towards the middle of the board unremarkably for the 1^st half of the turn.  I Impulse 18 Kevin launched his R torp.  Next impulse Kevin turned to his right.  I saw that I could catch him at range 8 while still keeping the torp at range 2, so I turned left to follow him.  Kevin slipped out but I was still able to get the shot I wanted on impulse 28 with me firing on his #6 so I used my batteries to upgrade my standard photon to a 12 pointer (I had the feeling I was going to need all the power I could get to run next turn) and let fly with all my photons and 6 p1’s.  This is the point where my photon dice finally redeemed themselves from the horrible showings in games 2 and 3.  I hit with all 4!!!!  Kevin had no allocated reinforcement on that shield and conceded the game before I even rolled the phaser damage.  As it turned out, Kevin had 12 points of reinforcement on his #5 shield but was unable to face it to me before I hit range 8 due to my high speed.   

After Kevin conceded, we decided to re-roll the photon dice and play the game out as we had only played for 15 minutes (including EA) and this was going to be Kevin’s last game of the weekend.  After all, who wants to play a 15 minute game of SFB?  So the 2^nd photon shot netted me a hit with the 12 pointer and one of the 16 pointers, but a healthy phaser roll blew through his #6 and ate 9 of his armor boxes after he used his batts to stop 6.  At this point I had a feeling that his R torp was a fake, so next impulse I turned back to direction A and ate it at full strength on my #1.  Sure enough, it was a pseudo.  Kevin turned back to D and launched his LP F torp that would hit me early next turn.  By impulse 32 his torp was 2 hexes from me off my #2 so I fired 4 p3 shots at it, doing 2 damage. 

Turn 2 

I had to get the heck out of there but I wanted to refill my phaser caps to take advantage of Kevin’s down #6 if an opportunity presented itself.  I completely refilled my phaser caps (8 pts), held the weasel and put 23 into movement (17 to turn to get turned around to direction C, then 31 on 11 to run like heck, down to 16 on 24 to get turned around again).  I left the photons completely dry. 

Kevin plotted speed 26 for most of the turn and HETed to direction B  to give chase.  The F torp hit me after 6 moves for 9 damage on my #3, but it was also a pseudo.  At least the guessing games where done.  Once I got turned around I ran for my life.  I was able to catch Kevin directly behind me at range 7-8 off his #2 shield, so I fired all 6 bearing p1’s at him and did about 12-13.  I wanted to complicate his maneuver as much as possible, so I was happy to take this shot.  For the rest of the turn he chased me towards the other end of the board and we finished around range 5.  Kevin tagged me on my #4 with his P1’s doing average damage.  I was about 8 hexes away from the wall here. 

Turn 3 

I was not going to be able to run for much longer this turn, but I was loathe to stop and park with no photons armed.  Not to mention the fact that I only had 1 weasel.  I decided to keep moving but planned on hitting the wall later in the turn to weasel off the inevitable plasma or to buy time before I was anchored.  If I could hold the anchor off long enough I might be able to force him to hang around long enough so that I could hit him with whatever I had left at the beginning of the next turn.  I started all 4 photons, put 1 into phaser caps (bringing them up to 4), held my weasel, started another ww, put 1 into HET and 4 into reserve Warp an 1 impulse so I could Tac quickly if I had to ED quickly for any reason.  I put 22 into speed plotting 26/24/17 giving me 7 straight movements on impulses 2-8.  If he bolted I’d at least be able to give him some pursuit with this plot. 

Sure enough, Kevin started off at speed 31.  I went direction C for a few impulses and he was facing B, hiding his down shield.  I thenturned to D and he had to turn to C to keep me in his FA.  Next impulse I HETed to A.  Kevin saw that I would get a range 4 shot on his down shield with 4 P1’s in a couple of impulses and conceded.  I had only 14 boxes of shield damage on my #4. 

Now Kevin could have bolted his torps at me and done a few internals if they hit, but he told me that he was bent on anchoring me.  I felt good about winning the “extended” game the way I did, but I have to admit that Kevin WAS screwing around in a ship he does not play often.  If he was playing a ship he was really skilled in (and that’s at least half of them) this game would not have been nearly as easy for me.  And hitting with all 4 photons at range 8 in the “real” game was pretty much a guarantee of victory anyways.

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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