Fixture of Dakka
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I've been playing in a 'Dominion War' campaign for the past few weeks now, as my local store didn't start selling the game until the OP Events were finished.
The way the campaign is organised is, we fight through the 6 months of the Dominion War OP Events every week or so, each person getting 60 points to spend on ships.
The idea of was it should be Dominion VS Federation, however surprisingly, we've had a lot more Dominion players turning up instead of the Feds. So, for most of the weeks, it's been Dominion V everyone else.
However, there's a twist... Any unique things. If your ship dies, they're deid, permanently. Gone for the entirety of the rest of the campaign. However, you can 'warp out' at the end of any turn (or flee off the board edge).
Game 1 Operation Return
4 players on the first week.
Dominion Fleet
Me:
Jem Hadar Battle Cruiser, Level 1 Captain, Dorsal Weapons Array.
Jem Hadar Attack Ship, Level 1 Captain, Polaron Beam (range 1-2)
Ally 1:
Romulan Science Vessel
Breen Battle Cruiser
A-random-Ship
Federation Fleet
Enemy 1:
IKS Koraga, Koloth, Annoying sensor echo 3 dude, Flagship card, more defence dice than you could shake a stick at.
Enemy 2:
USS Voyager with B'elanna Torres and others.
Things started quite well for the Dominion, with the Koraga taking a whole chunk of hits from my fleet, causing it to race to the far edges of the board. My ally decided to busy himself destroying Deep Space 9, with Torres on board. Unfortunately, Voyager in the mean time chose to pick on him. Eventually, only the Science Vessel was left, which Voyager left along and came from my fleet. Unfortunately, I was having a hard time catching the Koraga, due to it using its 3 sensor echo and higher skill to stay out of my main firing arcs, leaving me having to pot shot my dorsal weapons array at it, to very little avail. Despite suffering some hits from my Attack ship, Voyager destroyed that in short order, however. After some more chasing through the mine field, my Battle cruiser ended up with a perfect shot on Voyager, taking out all of its shields and most of its hull, leaving both enemy ships wounded and bleeding. However, so was the Jem Hadar and the first battle ended with a Federation Alliance victory, but a single true casualty... B'elanna Torres.
Game 2 The Battle of Chin'toka
6 players
Dominion Fleet
Me:
Keldon Class: Luaran, Breen Aide, Cloaking Device,
Keldon Class: Gul Evek, Cloaking Advice
Ally 1:
Jem Hadar Battleship
Ally 2:
Jem Hadar Attack Ship
Jem Hadar Attack Ship
"Federation" Fleet
Enemy 1:
USS Reliant with KHAAAANNNNN
Romulan Bird of Prey
Romulan Science Vessel
Enemy 2:
Borg Soong Ship
Enemy 3:
Bioship Alpha
As we were trying to avoid getting shot at by the defence stations, I deployed my 2 ships in one corner, with the Jem Hadar in the other. The Bioship deployed in the middle, with the Enemy 1 opposite me.
It seemed to start off so well. My Keldon Classes were doing a lot of damage to the Reliant, with no damage in return, passed that opponent by and were then lining up on the Bioship. Then things.... went less well.... The Soong ship opened a transwarp conduit and reappeared in the table corner in front of me. And, the Bioship was in arc as well. I'm proud to say my Keldons survived one round of shooting from this pair, and managed to strip off a bunch of shields from the Bioship too.
Luaran died in the next round, with Gul Evek on 1 hull point left, with a Warp Core Breach on him as well. Keeping in mind the Campaign rules and the fact that Evek is a Cardassian after all... Discretion was deemed to be the better part of valour and, quite frankly, he made a run for it, taking me out of the game.
The game proceeded better for the Jem Hadar, thanks to my only real contribution to the game against the Bioship, it died in short order. The Reliant managed to repair its shields up to full, however. The Battleship and the Soong ended up knocking lumps out of each other, so much so, that both ships made a run for it. Eventually the only things left when time was called, was just a single Jem Hadar Attack Ship and the Reliant. So, calculating up the points totals for the survivors, the Reliant cost a grand total of 5 points more. - Game 2 was a 'Federation' victory.
Game 3 The Siege of AR-558
6 Players
Dominion Fleet
Me:
Jem Hadar Battle Cruiser with Gul Dukat, Dorsal Weapons Array
Hideki Fighters
Ally 1:
Jem Hadar Battleship
Ally 2:
Jem Hadar Attack Ship
Jem Hadar Attack Ship
"Federation" Fleet
Enemy 1
IKA Maht'ha, Koloth, Annoying sensor echo 3 dude
Enemy 2
Romulan Warbird
Romulan Science Vessel
Enemy 3
IKS Negh'Var
This was my first time using fighters, and not having looked to see there was actually 6 weeks worth of games, not 5, I decided to risk using Gul Dukat.
Unfortunately for this mission, anything planet related was pretty much pointless, as battle points weren't counted or the like, unless the game went to time. It didn't stop the Dominion attacking the heck out of the world though. Because, well... Hideki's don't have many good actions anyhow.
Despite the Battleship having to take the Long Way Round, the planet, this game very much went in the Dominions favour, the Negh'Var dying from the crossfire of my Battle Cruiser and the Battleship, with the Romulans dying to the Jem Hadar Attack Ships. This then came down to us ganging up on the IKS Maht'ha and Koloth, who had proven so much of a pain for me in the first game of the campaign. Being massively outnumbered, it was only a matter of time until the Maht'ha was cornered and none other than Gul Dukat himself finished it off, giving him QUITE the total of named Klingon kills...
Game 4 The Attack on Earth
6 Players.
Dominion Fleet
Me:
Flagship (Independent Romulan)
2nd Division Cruiser with Gul Evek, Amat'lgan, Omet'lklan, Dorsal Weapons Array, Tetryon Emissions
Ally 1:
4th Division Battleship with Weyoun 8
Ally 2:
4th Division Battleship with Gul Dukat 8
Federation Fleet
Enemy 1
IKS Cha'ng with Nu'daq
IKS Somrow with Gowron
Enemy 2
Borg Soong Ship with Picard and CounterAttack
Enemy 3
USS Excelsior with Picard, lots of torpedoes and Transwarp Drive
This was today's game and, again unfortunately, the scenario special rules were pretty useless as far as the campaign was concerned, so it just became a bash around the planet. I've got to say, I would have liked to see a proper scenario where you did have the Federation defending Earth and the Dominion attacking it.
So, after having 2 weeks worth of my allies having 2 Jem Hadar Attack Ships, I chose to field the 2nd Division Cruiser, only to have 2 Battleships turn up as escorts instead... Well, as they were 4th Divisions (owned by different players, so no uniqueness to worry about), we had a lot of free actions to pass about. - And I actually gave them a whole 1 Defence Dice to use when near me.
Opposite us, we had the Excelsior, with the Ch'ang and the Somrow on our flank and the Borg Soong ship lurking round the planet.
The Excelsior, intending to overshoot us with its transwarp drive ended up moving at just the wrong position that it would end up overlapping us whichever move it made. With Dukat and Evek concentrating fire, at range 1, the Excelsior was knocked out entirely in 1 round. Slightly better than likely odds, however as we both had Battle Stations and Target Locks on the ship, it seemed good enough. Weyoun meanwhile, managed to hurt the Somraw.
Weyoun ended up going for a wander round the planet (darn horrible turn circles), while I made good use of my Dorsal Weapons Array to take out the Somraw over the course of a couple of turns. Meanwhile, Dukat hunted down the Cha'ang where, after some horrendous rolling with 6 defence dice on the Cha'ang rolling blanks, it got utterly wiped out.
So, that left The Jem Hadar VS the counter-attacking Soong. Counter-attack was a massive pain in the game, however I've since read the FAQs to see that it only triggers once per turn, not repeatedly. In any case, the Soong was a much harder prospect to take down, with all our ships losing our shields and both battleships taking medium to heavy damage. However, my Dorsal Weapons Array ended up coming in handy again, plinking away at the ships shields until we lined up a kill shot on it. - This gave The Dominion their second major victory of the campaign, with our victories tied. In 2 weeks time, it's The Battle of Cardassia Prime, hopefully The Dominion can change history.
I've got to say, in these types of games, the Dorsal Weapons Array is proving utterly invaluable. As I'm not needing to worry 'that' much about fleet manoeuvres and I'm just focusing on my single (or maybe 2), ships, quite often I'm perfectly happy to just pick a move that gets me out of the likely firing arcs and just plink away. This actually meant in our second non-campaign game today, I just spent 8 turns doing a 2 left circling round the Soong, only actually getting short at once in those 8 turns.
See you all next time, For Cardassia!
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