DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER
Battle Report: Prussians (Elessar2590) vs. US Navy (Oriskany)
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Here’s another Darkstar battle report, this time between @elessar2590 and myself (game Saturday, April 13). This time the the game took place in the upper layers of a gas giant atmosphere, where factors like jovian lighting, hyper-velocity winds of 400+ kph, titanium-melting heat, hull-crushing pressure, and gravity like you will never see anywhere else on a Darkstar table are almost as dangerous as the enemy!
Here’s the opening map. Even at a scale of I hex = 180 kilometers, a jovian gas giant will NEVER fit on a table … you won’t even meaningfully see the curvature of the planet’s sphere. Seriously, on this scale Jupiter is almost 900 hexes across, that’s 23 complete Darkstar Maps. Yes, I have measured it, and yes … you can technically see the curvature, but no … the curvature is so small at that scale it literally has no game effect (i.e., always stays within the same row of hexes). Elessar2590 has the Hipper class light cruiser KMS Koniggratz, the Maas-class destroyer KMS Sauer, and the Emden-class frigate KMS Jena. I have the sleek, beautiful, powerful, but expensive and somewhat vulnerable San Antonio-class light cruiser USS Denver, and the Valcour-class destroyer USS Vincennes. The objective is to fight over the atmospheric gas giant station floating in the upper layers of the gas giant, much like Bespin’s Cloud City.
Here is a brief overview of the special rules for games on gas giant tables. This sheet is from a previous gas giant battle, where the gas giant was on the other side of the map (pretty much just reverse all the “left” and “right” notations). As you can tell, the gravity here is strong enough to affect your ship ANYWHERE on the table, it can actually change your direction of movement and your velocity, and anything that leaves the right edge of the map is just … gone … crushed by the 10,000 atmospheres of pressure, burnt to ash by the heat, and sucked down to crushing oblivious by the inescapable gravity of this planet that’s so big it’s practically a failed star.
The Americans and Prussians make their initial approaches. The Americans go for a bow-on approach, intent on launching a full spread of Mk 48 gravitic torpedoes (“14” counter). The Prussians, despite losing initiative for the most part, fire off with front guns except for the scrappy little frigate Jena, who turned fast enough to preset her fearsome little broadside. Hey, don’t laugh, she scores a lot of hits! 
I get lucky once again and largely win initiative. So as the Prussians make a port turn toward me (fighting the planet’s gravity as they pull out of their shallow dive, I’m able to sidestep to starboard and then cut a hard turn to port, dropping in directly astern with a full broadside. Excellent gunnery position, really the best spot in the game for a broadside, the problem is I am now spearing down like a javelin directly toward the gas giant’s atmosphere. If one of my ships loses power now … And again the Jena cuts behind me, ready to drop a point-blank broadside of her own. The gunfire is insane. Four of my torpedoes get through the mass drivers and the shields, slamming into the stern of the Koniggratz. This, followed up by the blistering broadside of the Denver’s EPC batteries, quickly cripples the ship. FULL DISCLOSURE: We forgot to fire Elessar2590’s scouts at my torpedoes, he WOULD have shot at least one of them down, this MIGHT have made a difference, but would have just meant I would have to fire ALL Denver’s guns against the Koniggratz. As it stands, the Denver’s lasers swivel on the escort destroyer Sauer, slicing her open so the guns and smaller lasers of the destroyer Vincennes can finish her off as well. Just that fast, the Americans have torn the heart out of the Prussian battlegroup. However, the little Jena pounds away at the Vincennes’ stern, and actually leaves her with fires in engineering. As they were being crippled … the AFT guns of the Koniggratz and Sauer also hammered into the port bow of the Vincennes, detonating her forward magazine. Vincennes has a 4+ chance of being crippled at this point, her life hangs by a literal 50-50 thread … 
The Vincennes survives! Elessar2590 rolled a 3, and needed a 4+ to cripple her. So by the SLENDEREST of margins, the ship retains power long enough to pull a desperate turn to starboard, and full-power blast up out of the planet’s gravity well. Meanwhile, measuring the last recorded velocity of the Koniggratz and the Sauer (24 km per second),and adjust for gravity, we see where the will actually make it off the top of the map before they are pulled down into the planet’s gravity. Long story short, they are crippled but will not be destroyed permanently by the planet. 
Meanwhile, the last little ship Jena, executes an insane little fish-hook turn and again broadsides the stern of the Vincennes. This time the Vincennes loses power for sure. But at least now she’s powered up out of a death spin toward the gas giant’s core. Vincennes will make her recovery check after the battle, and thus will eventually see service again. Meanwhile, aft guns of the Denver put two EPC bolts through the bridge of the Jena, mercifully ending this battle. Hey, with the ass-kickings that I’ve taken in Valor & Victory and AirWarC21, I deserved to win a game ONE of these days. :D 
The Koniggratz and the Vincennes after the battle. The Vincennes will be towed back to port, and after a few weeks in dry dock, will eventually be repaired. In all, a great day for the American Navy.
A brutal game if I ever saw one, I did join for the last round expecting to see a round or two – but it was all over already at that point
Thanks, @rasmus – Yeah, this was a quick one. A lucky turn with initiative, followed by a well-practiced turn behind the Prussian sterns, even if meant a risky maneuver toward the gas giant atmosphere, and then I got away with making that dangerous turn with @elessar2590 ‘s cripple check on USS Vincennes … we DID make a mistake by missing that Prussian scout fire against the American torpedoes, which honestly COULD have made a difference for the unfortunate KMS Koniggratz.
In any event, sometimes thing just go your way.
Excellent stuff, well played both of you.
Thanks very much, @gremlin ! We should get you or @templar007 signed up for one of these web games one of these days! 😀 😀 😀
Looks like it was as tense as ever, seems to be the nature of the game! Great to see terrain being such a shift to the way you think and fight. Now a dogfight amongst the Jovian lightning, that would be something. However, I suspect small craft might be destroyed very easily in such conditions.
Thanks, @davehawes – yeah, this game was a lot of fun … its just that it was a little small, and there was no reason to “get down in the soup” so to speak. You’ll notice @elessar2590 and I stayed completely out of the clouds, although USS Vincennes came close once. we’ve had a subsequent battle with @damon that really had a kickass manuever battle IN the clouds, and more than a few lightning strikes, too. I had one cruiser ALMOST crippled, actually she really should have been, just to see what would have happened with less lucky dice, sure… Read more »
Maybe only on hexes of craft if there are no capital ships in adjacent hexes, but I appreciate the simplicity of the rules of the current setup so maybe best not to mess. Did you ever consider doing a zoomed-in scale dog-fighting variant? I quite like the idea of running two campaigns in parallel, be nice to cut between the air group games and the fleet games. Especially, that feeling of like when I lose some fighters in the fleet game, I really know those guys!
Thanks, @davehawes – A fighter dogfight expansion of Darkstar has been requested several times, both locally and in the OTT community. One thing I would want would be a very sleek, slick, FAST rule set, especially when it comes to movement. A lot of fighter games out there really emphasize the tactics, which is great, but I always feel like I lose the raw speed and fury of a fighter dogfight. Don’t get me wrong, tactics in a fighter combat game are great, we’re having huge fun and success with AirWar C21 with the British vs. Argentinians over the Falklands.… Read more »