When It Rains It Pours - Part 2

Battle # 2
For my second experiment, I decided to bring fighters into the mix. I plan to base 2-3 very small fighters together with each base representing a squadron. Like any ship, the squadron will have Quality, Combat Value, and Defense ratings. Range will be 0 (the fighters need to get in close to launch their torpedoes). They have a high CV to represent the devastating impact of their torpedoes and a good defense to represent the difficulty hitting them. When opposing fighter squadrons meet in a zone, they will use opposed die rolls to represent a dogfight with the loser suffering 1 or 2 hits and have to roll against Quality or else retreat 1 zone.

For this experiment, the Federation (left) has a destroyer and fighter squadron while the Aquians have a fighter squadron (I should have given them 2).The Aquians are trying to reach and destroy the Federation destroyer.

Ship stats:

Ship	Move	Quality	Combat Value	Range	Defense
Destroyer	2	4	2	2	2
Fed. Fighters	3	3	3	0	3
Aquian Raider	3	4	3	0	3

My cruiser from the first game now represents a destroyer while I made some quickie counters for the fighters (I'll make some proper bases at some point).

Starting positions (Federation on the left)

 The Aquians won initiative and rolled 2 activations, allowing them to move across most of the board. The Federation's 501st Fighter Squadron (the Blue Genies) intercepted, and a dogfight ensued. The Genies got the better of the fight, thinning out the enemy squadron a bit.

Dogfight!
The Aquians take some damage.

 The dogfight would continue for a couple of turns until the Aquians withdrew. During these turns, the destroyer took no action (I did not think it should fire into a dogfight for fear of hitting its own fighters).

After taking heavy losses, the Aquian squadron withdraws.

 The Aquian CO was not ready to quit. He doubled back and tried to reach the destroyer. As the Blue Genies prepared to pursue, the destroyer opened fire. Its accurate fire annihilated the raiders and the threat was over.

The end of the Aquians

THOUGHTS

• This game lasted four turns - a nice, quick action. It will get interesting with some more ships on the board.
• Treating a fighter squadron as a "ship" with similar stats seemed to work. Unfortunately, I could not get to the destroyer for a torpedo run (the Blue Genies did their job as interceptors!)
• While I usually don't like opposed die rolls for missile combat, I feel that it is appropriate for simple dogfights, where fighters are going head to head.
• I played that a squadron could not move once it was involved in a dogfight (except for retreats). I debated, and am still debating whether there should be some mechanism for breaking off from a dogfight and pressing forward. I initially did not allow it so that interceptors would be effective. Perhaps I could allow a squadron that won the last round of a dogfight the option of breaking off.
• Conversely, being defeated and retreating allowed the Aquians a chance to bypass the Federation interceptors and approach their target. Perhaps I should allow a winning squadron the option of pursuing its retreating opposition into the next zone, keeping the losers locked into a dogfight.