DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER
Damon (British) v. Rasmus (Japanese)
October 2519:
For the last 57 days, ground combat has raged on the surface of Kishimoto, colonized terrestrial planet of the HD-172051 (Kishimoto) star system.
Kishimoto is a roughly Earth-sized, terrestrial-class world with huge liquid water oceans under miles of permanent ice. The yellow main-sequence star is stable, the ice provides protection from cosmic radiation, and the planet is rich in resources like water (obviously), silox 35, and heavy hydrogen isotopes useful in fusion reactors. Colonies are tunneled out of the ice, soft enough for easy construction, hard and permanent enough for structural stability. With large spaces under the ice now warmed by gigantic reactors, Kishimoto has thus become a large hydroponic mega-agricultural colony, feeding Japanese colonies and providing important trade throughout the Libra-Sagittarius strategic command sector.
In an attempt to compel the Japanese to abandon their Prussian, New Roman, and Black Dragon allies, the British have landed two regiments of Royal Marines on the planet. But so far, these 3200 men have been stalemated by a smaller, but determined and deeply entrenched, Japanese defense force.
Now, both the British and Japanese are trying to break the deadlock on Kishimoto. When Japanese Intelligence (tipped off by the enigmatic spy known only as “Red Kitsune”) is alerted to the approach of a British troop convoy, they hastily mount an expedition of their own to counter. Now two troops convoys are headed to Kishimoto, each escorted by a cruiser battlegroup.
Entry zones shown on the map. Target ground hex is circled in red.
Each side has three troop ships.
Each troop ship moves 6 hexes a turn, has 4 shields, and 25 damage points.
Each side gets 50 points for getting a troop ship to the target hex.
Cargo ships always move first, before first warship to move on each side.
Gravity effects: pulls 1 hex toward the planet, if warship ends move within 10 hexes of planet.
Gravity does not effect troops ships (antigrav drives) or aerospace craft
Warships have a speed limit of 6 when within one hex of planet (atmosphere)
Shooting through or into an atmosphere hex applies a -2 penalty on to-hit numbers (atmospheric refraction). Just shooting out of an atmosphere hex applies no penalty.
Exceeding this movement limit inflicts one ROW of armor off the bow and either P/S Bow.
Game lasts max of 8 turns.
So the setting and special rules for this game are described above. This map shows the larger operational campaign area for the ongoing Duchess Annabel’s War, with the location of Kishimoto star system circled in green. 
Today we have Damon and his British (headed by his flagship, the Trafalgar class heavy cruiser Bellerphoron) escorted by the Falklands class destroyer HMS Essex, against Rasmus and his Japanese (flagship IJN Sendai Byo, a Taiho class light cruiser … Takashiro class destroyer IJN Kuroki … and Akashi class strike frigate IJN Urakaze). We also have spectators from the US, UK, and Australia! The mission, again, is to not only end the game with more points worth of operational warships than your opponent (*game is balanced at 172 points), but also get as many of your troop ships to the indicated “ground battle” hex as you can. We’re trying to expand more of the Darkstar rules out there for everyone, and thus we’re slowly but steadily rolling out new features like a taste of the planetary assault rules! Japanese ships are approaching from upper left, British ships from the lower right.
End of movement on Turn 2. Notice that the Japanese torpedoes (orange wedges) haven't hit the British warships yet. Rasmus has opted to keep the engagement ranges nice and long, actually not a bad move considering his ships' advantages in enhanced targeting electronics and long-range accuracy. But even these Ki-45 "Toryu" (Dragon Slayer) torpedoes can't reach across 4000 kilometers this fast. Damon, meanwhile, is keeping the mission firmly in mind, escorting the troop ships toward the invasion hex, ready to open fire against the Japanese troop ships in turn as soon as the curvature of the Kishimoto planet allows (although he'll he shooting through planetary atmosphere, thus assessing a -2 to hit against his accuracy).
Both sides' troops ships are now closing on the assault zone. Remember that each hex in this game is 180km, large enough to fit some small countries. This means that on the ground, the entire war for Kishimoto is probably taking place in that one hex, and this game could be decided in large part by whoever gets the most troops ships (reinforcements) to tip the scales in the battle in progress. Damon certainly remembers this, firing a full broadside against the first Japanese troops transport. But the refraction effects of the planet's atmosphere (Hexes 1520, 1620, and 1721) combine with some very poor dice, to ensure that the lead Japanese troop ship takes only 18 points of damage, short of the required 25 to shoot it down. As for the British troop ships, the Japanese warships are too far away to effectively engage and so instead they are firing at the HMS Essex. 
Looks like both sides will get all three troops ships to the combat hex. One Japanese troops ship took a helluva pounding, but made it nevertheless. Both players are awarded 150 victory points. With both sides getting all three troops ships into position, the ground battle of course remains a stalemate (just a much LARGER stalemate), so it looks like this game will be resolved one way or another in high orbit above Kishimoto. The Japanese set about to win it, putting torpedoes straight down the unshielded bow of HMS Essex (she lost her shields in an earlier fire phase), while the frigate Urakaze and the destroyer Kuroki shoot forward, making a hard torn to starboard, and rake the Essex's note at point blank range. The Essex is all but torn apart, one Ki-45 torpedo going off INSIDE her port torpedo room and yes, setting off the magazine. However, the return fire from the Essex and especially the Bellerophon positively maul the two small Japanese ships. They survive, technically, but are horribly damaged, with multiple hits to maneuvering thrusters, engines, reactors, sensors, mass drivers, troops bays, hangars, and core sections like life support, med bays, Darkstar drives, and so on. The HMS Essex is not so lucky, her crew is unable to maintain power and she goes dark, adrift and burning, out of the battle. 
The Japanese are now actually having a helluva time maneuvering. Their light cruiser flagship is going too fast, while their frigate and destroyer are going too fast and have also beel largely hobbled with so many hits in engineering sections. Making matters worse, their fleet is now obviously divided. But Bellerophon does not run down and finish off the Urakase and Kuroki, instead turning towards the light cruiser Sendai Byo. The mighty "Billy Ruffian" is pummeled by accurate, long range Japanese fire, but she has tough shielding and thick armor, and also keeps shooting down all their torpedoes. She can keep this up for a while, but not forever.
After a long afternoon of frustrating die rolls and honestly ... solid tactical play that just wasn't being rewarded by Lady Fortune, at last the British catch a break. The Sendai Byo sets up a broadside against the Bellerophon, but fails to do in in such away that does not incur a return broadside in turn. At this range, trading broadsides with a larger British warship is rarely a good idea. A full broadside of 15 teravolt EPCs slashes into the Sendai Byo, cutting across her engineering compartments of her starboard quarter. Four critical boxes are hit. Light Cruisers are crippled on a 10+ on a d6, minus the number of critical boxes hit. That leaves ... 6+, and wouldn't you know it, Damon rolls, ON CAMERA, a 6. The Sendai Byo is crippled, leaving only the heavily damaged Kuroki and Urakaze limping behind the small moon further off the "northeast" corner of the board. We call the game there. 
Here are the damage tracking sheets for HMS Belleropheron and IJN Sendai Byo. As you can clearly see, the Billy Ruffian took far more damage,but was able to spread it out by presenting different sides to enemy guns. Also, she has a LOT more armor and internal structure boxes (she's a 145,000 ton ship). The Sendai Byo just took the damage in the wrong spot, at the wrong time, and Damon caught a lucky break with the dice.So this was a great game played by both sides. It was tight, tactical, and reserved, well … up until Rasmus sent Kuroki and Urakaze on a banzai charge across the bow of HMS Essex. 😀 Honestly, I feel I made the troop ships too tough, a full broadside from a heavy cruiser at optimum range really should have tanked at least one of them. But I bumped the normal “civilian” shielding of 3 up to a 4, then added the +2 targeting penalty for atmosphere (forgetting that, duh … of course these ships are going to be in atmosphere). But that’s on me.
So the British win this game 120 (Bellerophon) to 51 + 24 (Kuroki and Urakaze) + 5 scouts = 80 (all British scouts were shot down by Japanese scouts and mass driver guns of the Sendai Byo).
This means that Kishimoto will probably fall. Yes, the troop balance on the ground is still unchanged, but now the Royal Navy controls the skies over the planet, and Bellerophon will probably spend the next few days pummeling Japanese ground positions from orbit.
What this means for the larger context of Duchess Annabel’s War is uncertain. This has been a fairly loose campaign when it comes to tracking. But the fact is the British have lost only one battle since last October, and won several big ones in a row. These Japanese have lost several big ones, and honestly their alliance in the “Iron Wolf” coalition with the Prussians, New Romans, and especially Black Dragons has always been tenuous (the Black Dragons were their blood enemies in the previous Xi Scorpio War).
If we were keeping closer track of points, the British would probably have won enough to “cash out” of this war as victors, the Japanese as losers. But what it really comes down to is whether players want to keep playing Japanese and especially British (definitely the most popular faction so far).
Either that or we could let the Duchess Annabel’s War finally end and instead start a new campaign fresh, using the factions people are most interested in. 😀
We gotta get the Americans in one of these wars, if for no other reason that to see Task Force Oriskany on the table again. 😀 😀 😀
I enjoyed this game, mistakes and all. Not chasing down the Japanese frigate and destroyer when the cruiser was out of position was a mistake but then lady luck glanced in my direction with the six.
Honestly, @damon , I think of all three people in this, you me, and @rasmus , you made the fewest, or at least the smallest, mistakes. I was pretty surprised to see Rasmus move his warships into such high orbit, leaving his troop ships more or less exposed to Bellerophon’s broadside as they made their landing run. Honestly, he “got away with it” because of MY mistake, that is … in double-buffing the resilience of those troop ships by +1 ECM shield rating AND atmospheric penalties. Actually, it started even worse when I wasn’t even ALLOWING atmospheric fire. Rasmus was… Read more »
@oriskany The idea behind not riding on top of the troopships was that the warships would not give them any benefits (even less so when the Royal Navy left their torpedoes at the nearest space station.) so while they had to go in close and hot under the British guns, where trying to snipe from distance should play to the Japaneses strengths. Replaying it mentally I should only have gone in the face of the Bellerophon with the strike frigate, followed by shooting with everything else on the same facing. @damon when you mentally replay a game even 3 days… Read more »
Definitely good points, @rasmus . Like I said in the write up, keeping an open range is definitely a good idea for the Japanese in general, especially with classes like the Taiho and Takashiro. You also make a good point about not needing to provide mass driver coverage against a British task force that had no torpedoes. The Trafalgar class has no torpedoes because this is what Damon more or less asked for when he “commissioned” the class via his donation during the rules write up in December. A fast cruiser with lots of guns that could use “Nelson’s tactics,”… Read more »
@rasmus Totally, should have turned left and chased the little ships to finish them off because without ‘that’ six, I reckon it would have been a lot closer to mutual destruction
@oriskany
I enjoyed the outings I had with the Japanese – the glass cannon aspect of them take some getting used to
Awesome, @rasmus . I should add that the whole faction isn’t really like this. The Kagumo class destroyers, Chikuma class heavy cruisers, Katana class heavy cruisers, and of course Yamato class battleships are insanely tough, just slow and not terribly high-tech. The Japanese Navy almost has “two sides” to it, as well as having the second-most powerful carrier arm (only the US beats it, and the UK is right behind). They’re definitely a clash of styles, just as they were in World War II, part of what makes the IJN so interesting for me in WW2. Their “descendants” in Darkstar… Read more »
@oriskany Yes, you have said it before – I might try to take the heavy version for a spin