DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER

The Darkstar universe continues to gain momentum as another on-line game was run live on Sunday, January 6. This time we had Damon from the UK on with us, along with a gallery on onlookers including several prospective new players and @aras , one of the original playtesters of the Darkstar system from all the way back in 2012.

As always, if you’re interested in this wargame, we play live online almost every week  Just ping me a PM with an e-mail address if interested.  Also, the rule rook is available for download: here

Damon was hoping to test out the new heavy cruiser design he commissioned as part of the Darkstar Rule Book v1.0 Project, the Trafalgar class heavy cruiser.  This class breaks with several traditions of the Royal Navy, foregoing conventional rail guns for the electron particle cannons, cutting back slightly on secondary armament and protection in the interest of enhances sublight thrust and maneuverability, and increased anti-aerospace protection from enemy fighters, bombers, and torpedoes.

All heavy cruisers of the Trafalgar class are named for warships that were with Nelson during the historic Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.  So for today, Damon has HMS Bellerpheron, escorted by the Falklands class destroyer HMS Essex. His mission is to come to the aid of an undefended British installation in high orbit over a Mars-sized planet, somewhere in them much-embattled Libra-Sagittarius strategic command sector, combat zone of the ongoing Duchess Annabel’s War.  It seems the Prussians from the Eisenwolf colonies (Gleise 570) are getting uppity again, despite the thorough pounding they received from a joint Russian-British Task Force at the recent Battle or Cervantes (Mu Ara).

So here’s our battle for the day.  We see the British “Vancouver Station”, launching two fighters (balancing out the game, the British needed 4 points).  From above the planet’s north pole, we see Damon’s battlegroup.  At lower left, still decelerating from their Darkstar Wave, we see the Prussian force.

Clearly the Prussian Force is more numerous.  We have the Leopold class heavy cruiser KMS Lutzow, along with two Emden class frigates an a Type XII class umfangangriffboot (perimeter attack boat, or U-boat) U-126.  While the Lutzow and the Bellerpheron are both “advanced” heavy cruisers (120 points), the difference is in the HMS Essex.  She’s an advanced destroyer (48 points), while the Jenna  and Koblenz are standard frigates of 20 points each.  Add the U-126 and the game comes out at 176 points, once we balance things out by giving the Britsih a fair of Supermarine Starfire fighters launching off of Vancouver Station.

With her faster speed, the Bellerpheron win initiative and so gets to move second.  The Prussians, still moving very fast (especially for a heavy cruiser) zoom on at 36 kilometers a second (12 hexes a turn), hoping to close the distance as quickly as possible.  The Prussians have many more guns than the British, but they are less accurate (both Bellepheron and Essex have +1 CICs) so it behooves them to get the shooting ranges short as quickly as possible.

That said, the Prussians also have to maneuver, and the Lutzow is a ponderous beast, so they’re also standing on their brakes as they streak toward Vancouver Station, accounting for the planets gravity as they go (one hex pulled toward the planet at the end of their movement if you end movement within 10 hexes of a the planet).  Initial shots are exchanged, nothing much. At this extreme distance (19-21 hexes, about 3700 kilometers).

The Prussians, still slowing, now have enough thrust to make a hard turn to port, hopefully presenting a broadside toward the approaching British.  The Lutzow has the lowest power-weight ratio on the table, resulting in the lowest thrust, meaning she will usually lose initiative (especially when she keeps rolling 2s).  When you lose initiative and have to go first, all you can hope for is to predict where you think the enemy might be at the end of their movement, ased on their position, bearing, speed, and available thrust.

The British, seemingly strangely at first, actually streak toward the Prussians at pretty high speed.  Bellerpheron dives at the planet at 24 KPS, pulling out two hexes away so that when gravity is accounted for, he’s still one hex away, just enough to avoid burning up in the planet’s atmosphere.  Essex follows suit, screening ahead of the cruiser, the port sides on both British ships perhaps glowing a faint, dull read as they literally “bounce” off the planet’s atmosphere.

The Prussians, for the moment, can’t believe their luck.  Even though their flagship lost initiative, they have successfully (albeit barely, sloppily) crossed the British T. Every single Prussian gun in the battlegroup will be able to shoot this phase, while, the British can only respond with forward guns.  But there is method to the British madness.  In true “Nelson fashion,” although Bellerpheron may take a  hammering this turn, next turn she will be all certainly directly behind the Lutzow, firing powerful 15 terevolt EPCs directly into her vulnerable engines and reactors.

While guns come to bear, torpedoes streak toward their targets (blue and red wedge pieces).  Here the Prussians have a huge advantage, especially with that U-boat on the table (eight forward-firing torpedo tunes, plus a +2 targeting CIC).  But the Bellerpheron bristles with 25mm mass driver chain guns, and between her guns, those of the Essex, and the scouts and fighters, they shoot down every Prussian torpedo as they streak in toward the engines of the Essex.

The shooting begins.  Knowing they won’t be able to knock out the Bellerpheron in one salvo (at least from the bow, there are just way too m any armor and internal structure boxes to  get to before you start hitting vitals like the forward magazine and the bridge), they instead focus everything on the hapless Essex.

At a range of just over 1000 kilometers (spitting distance for a heavy cruiser), the Lutzow fires everything she has at the British destroyer.  Eight 11-gigwatt rail guns, then twelve 6-gigawatt rail guns.  A Falklands class destroyer is fast and high-tech, but not terribly robust.  She simply comes apart under the hail of fire, especially once the two frigates add their own smaller rail guns to the argument.  The Essex is simply shredded, damned near split clean in half longways by the concentrated Prussian rail gun fire.  Once the bridge is hit the ship is already crippled, but the rest of those Prussian guns have already fired and to be honest it’s a bit of overkill.  Suffice it to say the Essex is out of the fight.

If there’s one thing Prussians do well, it’s rail guns.

The Bellerpheron and the Essex, meanwhile, try to give as good as they get.  They have two disadvantages at the moment, however.  One, they Lutzow has stronger shielding on her hind quarters (British guns come to bear on the Lutzow’s starboard quarter), and only their forward guns can fire.  Still, they manage to open a terrible gash in the side of the Prussian beast, and perhaps most significantly, knock out her starboard quarter maneuvering thruster.  This means the Lutzow will have to pay +1 Thrust for every turn she wants to make.  Already badly outclassed maneuver-wise by the Bellerpheron, and with the Bellerpheron practically on her tail already, the Lutzow is indeed in trouble next turn.

So can the British pull this one out of the fire?  Or is the British winning streak about to be finally broken?  Can the Lutzow and her escorts turn around Prussian fortunes in Duchess Annabel’s War?