StarForce Scenario 1 Tactical combat at Alpha Centauri
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Alpha Centauri (AC) forces begin Turn 1 already in the LiteZulu (LZ), and so choose to deploy dead center of the Tactical Display: 100/0.
Solar Hegemony (SH) forces have to shift in on Turn 1, and choose to enter the Tactical Display (TD) at hexes 540/0 and 541/0. (Note the misprint "451" on the TD.)
Turn 1
Turn 1 starts in the TD, and more or less defines the entire scenario: whoever wins the tactical phase wins the game for Scenario 1. The AC starforce is allowed to set up anywhere on the TD, chooses colocating with the stargate.
The SH forces enter on hexes 541 and 540.
Tac Turn 1
Tac Turns are comprised of two phases.
Phase 1
Once the SH forces enter the TD, they need to get close enough to the stargate to cast. They have two choices: battle mode now, then slow shift, or stellar shift close in, then change to battle mode. Either way, the Tac Turn they change to battle mode leaves them vulnerable to opposing casts. In this case, J and K change to battle mode, and L and M stellar shift to 150/-1 and 110/+1. This costs 28 teles, leaving 4 anti-cast.
The AC forces could choose to be in battle mode to start, given their location in the LZ implies 11.11 Step 3: A. In this game, the AC starts in stellar mode. The point is probably moot, either way, unless the SH does something really stupid (likely!), AC won't have much chance of an effective cast.
The stargate can perform up to 12 casts. For this TT1, the stargate will cast 8 points in the 1, 5 and 9 directions, both positive and negative, for a total of 48 teles in casting, leaving 16 teles in anti-casting.
- Stargate to L: 8 attenuates to 4, against anti-cast 4, 0 column, result D.
- Stargate to M: 8 attenuates to 4, against anti-cast 4, 0 column, result D.
Good work AC! Put the Sollies on the run.
Phase 2
No starforces choose to shift this phase.
- Stargate to L: 8 attenuates to 4, against anti-cast 4, 0 column, result D again, which results in R, randomized BreakOff to LZ 1722, out of play.
- Stargate to M: 8 attenuates to 4, against anti-cast 4, 0 column, result D, again, which results in R, randomized to LZ 3710/+10, out of play.
As it turns out, the above describes "lucky" rolls, when in fact I had miscomputed the tac shift tele cost for L and M as 32 instead of 28. During the game, the stargate casts were rolled on +8 instead of 0, which is almost sure disruption. However, the next tac turn, L and M would be helpless as they would then need to change to battle mode leaving no teles for anti-casting. The result at the end of Tac Turn 2 would very likely be the same.
End of Tac Turn 1: L and M are out of play, A, J and K are in Battle Mode.
Not looking good for the Solar Hegemony.
Tac Turn 2
The Alpha Centaurians are off to a commanding lead. Let's see how they fare now the Solar Hegemony has its nose bloodied.
Phase 1
- A: 32T to 240/0
- J: 56T to 341/-1, 8A.
- K: 56T to 332/+1, 8A
- SG20: 64C7p, range 3, roll on the 0 column, no effect.
Phase 2
- A: 16C5p, 16C5n (note: this was a blunder. Unlike stargates, starforces are only allowed a single cast per Tac Phase). Casting against J, 16 attenuate to 8 - 8 roll d10 for 9 on the 0 column, D! 10% chance, great lucky roll.
- SG20: 64C7n, range 3, roll on the 0 column, no effect.
AC needed the lucky roll on Phase 1 with a followup to Randomize in Phase 2. Net result, nothing, as J recovers at the end of Tac Turn 2. Solar Hegemony is doing better.
Tac Turn 3
Nothing changed in Tac Turn 2. Let's see what Tac Turn 3 brings.
Phase 1
- A: 32T to 140/0
- J: 48T to 150/-1
- K: 48T to 130/+1
- SG20, casting:
- 32-C-7-n, no effect
- 32-C-5-p, no effect
Phase 2
- A: 16-C-11-n
- J: 8-C-3-p, no effect even combined with K
- K: 8-C-3-n, no effect
- SG20, casting:
- 16-C-7-n combine with A, disrupt J
- 16-C-5-p, no effect
- 32A
Upshot: J is disrupted in Phase 2, which doesn't really matter.
Tac Turn 4
It looks like the only way to win for the SH is using both J and K to full blast the stargate, right away. The stargate has a couple of options: defend at full strength both phases, or take a chance on being able to disrupt J or K.
Phase 1
J and K both commit: 64T in the appropriate direction of the stargate. At range 1, this is 32 + 32 = 64 total on SG20, which now has a choice. Technically, SG20 won't know what J and K are committing, if anything, but the risk of disruption is high if SG20 doesn't provide any anti-cast teles. The options are A64, and less than A64. In this case, let's play a hunch that J and K are going to commit, and play the odds with two casts, 8C in both directions.
Which is better?
Let's try both and see what happens:
- A64: 64 - 64 = 0, 10% chance of D, roll d10 for 0, no effect. However, it turns out a "D" result on a stargate has no effect anyway.
- A48: 64 - 48 = 12, 30% of an R (see note just above), roll 7, stargate is disrupted!
- SG20 casting to J: on the +4 column roll d10 for 1, no effect, but it doesn't matter because J has no more teles to spend in Phase 2.
- SG20 casting to K: on the +4 column roll d10 for 4, D, but again it doesn't matter because K has no more teles to spend in Phase 2.
Now if the SH only had the other two starforces, there would be a chance of winning this on Tac Phase 2.
At this point I called the game without starforce A's cast. While A had a pretty good chance of randomizing either J or K, it didn't matter for this game, at this point.
Phase 2
Not necessary, SH has lost.
AC carries the day!
AAR
Working through a set of tactical turns was time consuming, with the initial tac turn taking several hours of intermittent work. The sequence of play isn't that difficult, or long, but it is different. Later tac turns went much more quickly.
As with many other vintage wargames, there is a certain amount of critically important record keeping necessary for game play. The Simultaneous Movement (SiMov) ledger is critically important, and could be improved. There is no dedicated ledger for Tactical Turns, which differ from Stellar Turns just enough to make the SiMov ledger annoying to use for tactical combat. A dedicated player aid for tactical turn and combat sequencing would be nice as well.
A case could be made that the single Alpha Centauri starforce is already in battle mode, instead of having to change modes on Tac Turn 1. It may not really matter, because it's allowed to position itself anywhere in the Tac Display, and it won't know which boundary hexes the SH is going to occupy. The entering forces will spend the entire tac turn changing mode.
There is a possibility of having the stargate disrupted in Tac Turn 4. In this case, it might be reasonable to call it a draw.
The scenario description states that this is not to be considered balanced, but I don't think it's that bad. Certainly, had the SH not blundered into the stargate casting range quite so early, the outcome could have been significantly different. If it is unbalanced, it's not yet apparent to me which faction has the advantage, and how big that advantage is. As usual, this means it must be played again!