Persei-Aries War Resumes
Fear the Wolfpack!
Last weekend we actually had two community games of Darkstar. After our “campaign game” with players in the US and UK (reviewed earlier in this thread), we then had a supplementary non-campaign game with players in Shanghai and Australia.
So this game isn’t part of the Third Hercules War, but somewhere else deeper into the void, a smaller battle with smaller, faster ships, somewhere along the “Third Band” frontier of Known Space.
A small Prussian battlegroup, built around the Hipper class light cruiser Hohenfreiburg (named for one of Frederick the Great’s victories) and three Emden-class frigates is entering a new star system, somewhere in the Cassiopeia Constellation. Perhaps this is Beta Cassiopeiae, a yellow-white variable giant 54 light-years out, just on the fringe of the Third Band. Their forward screen, made up of a wolfpack of five Type XII umfangangriffboote (perimeter attack boats, or “U-Boats”) has detected potential “claim jumpers,” a battlegroup of the Arab League who believes they already have a claim on this system by a previous treaty.
These Prussians have been in a Darkstar wave for over two months to get here. Since even the fastest courier will take no less than 19 days to return to Earth. Therefore, both battlegroup commanders resolve to settle the issue themselves. The Prussians and Arabs decelerate to attack speeds, vector toward each other, depressurize torpedo tubes, open outer doors, retract bridges, and begin fixing telemetry approaches and firing solutions.
There are no diplomats this far out.
Action stations! We are now “weapons hot!”
Prussians: @elessar2590
Arab League: @muakhah
Here is the matchup. This is only a 195-point battle because everyone is “new” (no XP-upgraded ships or crews) and so many of the ships here are so small. This is typical in the Third Band, since larger heavy cruisers and especially battleships (to say nothing of the logistics ships required to support any formation larger than the leanest of battlegroups) take at least three months to get this deep into Known Space. Note the Arab League “Shabbak-201” class gunboats. At just 5300 tons and a crew of 20, they are most analogous to ships like the YT-1300 “Millennium Falcon” (as appears at the Battle of Endor / Ep VI ROTJ) or Firefly class “Serenity.”
Both battlegroups make their approach, the Prussians approaching from 030 (upper right) and the Arab League from 210 (lower left). The Arab flagship Al-Fihri launches 14 fighters and 4 bombers, a “hybrid” light cruiser that carries a slightly smaller gunnery battery in exchange for a moderate aerospace strike group. The Prussians, for their part, launch “Sternjäger” (Star Hunter) gravitic torpedoes … LOTS of torpedoes. Those Type XII U-boats don’t play around when it comes to these deadly warheads. 
The fleets close and things get brutal on Turn 02 very fast. The Arab ships have proven a little faster than their Prussian foes, and largely won the initiative. As the Hipper-class light cruiser Hohenfreiberg turns to starboard, the Arab hybrid cruiser and two escorting destroyers “cross their T.” The Prussian frigates streak much closer to the Arabs, hoping to put a rail gun broadside into their starboard quarter. But the heavy lasers and EPCs of the Arab ships are much more powerful at this range, and BOTH frigates are quickly crippled by blistering broadsides. The U-305 is also knocked out, drilled by the forward laser arrays of the El Fihri. Prussian torpedoes cannot all reach the Arabs on this turn, so their “Sternjäger” strike is somewhat divided, just enough for Arab point-defense systems to shoot down many of the warheads, and the shields absorb most of what’s left. 
It’s not all going the League’s way. Further away from the moon, the lone Prussian frigate KMS Siegen (Emden class frigates are named for mid-sized cities of Terrestrial Germany) stands tall against the Al Fihri’s aerospace strike. The Arabs have elected to arm their bombers with all missiles rather than torpedoes, giving him many more warheads albeit at a smaller damage profile and less accuracy. The Prussians shoot down some, the shields absorb others, and then just plain get lucky with the location of the hits, perfectly spaced across the Siegen’s aft armor so the armor perfectly absorbs all the damage. Still, at this moment the League is winning the battle, hands down. If they were closer to the table edge they could break off the action right now and claim a legitimate victory in this “raid / skirmish” model game.
The tide turns, horrifically, on Turn 03. Although they all survived last turn, the Arab cruiser and destroyers were damaged last turn, and those butcher’s bill comes due when the second onslaught of Prussian torpedoes makes its terminal approach. With the Shabbak-201 gunboats too far away to offer mass driver support, the El Fihri, Zarqa, and Mersin are all quickly crippled (although not destroyed). Meanwhile, more Prussian torpedoes howl at the gunboats, many missing but all it takes is one hit to cripple a gunboat with these massive warheads. The Arab battlegroup is this largely tabled, but their fighters manage to strafe and cripple the engines of the Siegen, which is unfortunately aimed at the moon at the moment. The crew abandons ships and the 27,000 ton frigate hits the surface at close to nine kilometers a second, kicking off a blast visible halfway across the star system. Gunnery from the Arab ships also mauls the Hohefreiberg but she survives, which is more than we can say for the U-309.The battle is over. It’s a major Prussian victory (they’ve destroyed / crippled 174 points of Arab League shipping while sustaining 84 points of losses, giving them a +90 lead, or 46% of the original battle’s points). However, it hasn’t been cheap. Two frigates are crippled and a third is gone forever. Two more U-boats are crippled, U-305 will be recovered but U-309 will in fact be captured by the Arab League while she is adrift. That said, it looks like the Prussians will be calling the shots in Beta Cassiopeiae for the foreseeable future.
There’s some playtesting going on to determine whether these “wolfpacks” of U-boats (or similar classes like the Russian K-56 or American Mako class) are OP. I don’t think they are, but they may be under-priced. So this game might have been slightly unbalanced, I’m thinking with adjusted pricing there should have been only four U-boats, perhaps only three. Still testing.
I had a great game, lots of fun. Afterwards my wife asked me how it went and all I could say was. “I was winning, and then I lost.” For me Darkstar is all about winning initiative on your important ships. I still love the Arab Ships, though the light cruiser (minus the aerospace group (which I am still learning how to use right)) feels more like a destroyer plus weapons wise than a cruiser. If anyone new sees this I firmly recomend Darkstar as a Spaceship game that is easy to learn, hard to master. As a good game… Read more »
@muakhah – I think you are on the money regarding the Almanzor class light cruiser being, once you remove the aerospace group, more of a “heavy destroyer.” The points cost for the ship bear this out. The standard for a destroyer is 40. A light cruiser is 70. A “Hybrid” light cruiser is 50. What drives up the cost is the 10 fighters (20 points), 4 bombers (8 points), and 2 scouts (2 points). Thus we wind up with 80. Where these particular Arab ships have an issue is not in how you played or how the individual ships are… Read more »