Background
A distress signal has been received from the Federation colony on Setlik III. The USS Rutledge has just arrived at the colony and is reporting a significant number of casualties among the colony's inhabitants. Rutledge believes that the perpetrators are Cardassian and that they may still be in-system given that a number of anomalous sensor readings have been detected near the Setlik system's asteroid belt.
Admiralty has called for all ships patrolling the Federation/Cardassian border, and within the Setlik systems response zone, to report to Starbase 375 within the hour. These ships will form up Battlegroup 54392 under the command of the USS Hood (NCC-1703), an aged and shortly to be decommissioned Constitution class heavy cruiser. From Starbase 375, Battlegroup 54392 will proceed immediately to the Setlik system to hunt down the perpetrators of the Setlik III massacre.
Meanwhile, the Cardassians of the 4th Order have regrouped their forces just inside the asteroid field in the Setlik system. Gul Morand, the commander of the 4th Order's strike force is in somewhat of a quandary. Having expected to find Federation forces in the midst of preparations for a preemptive strike into Cardassian space all he found were settlers. He now must reassess his intelligence reports and locate where the Federations forces must be hiding. Little does he know that those intelligence reports were wrong and that he has just fired the opening shots in what will be decades long hostilities between the Cardassian Union and the United Federation of Planets.
After much contemplation, and just as Gul Morand was about to order the strike force to return to Cardassian space, his science officer yells out "Contact! Twelve Federation vessels approaching our position. Bearing 049 by negative 032 degrees. Impulse power. Shields are raised!" With that, Gul Morand orders the strike force to await his command. The Cardassians will wait for the Federation forces to pass their position. Then they will emerge from the asteroid field and strike!
Cardassian Forces (2,700 points)
- 4th Order commander Gul Morand on DD-D
- 12x Hideli PC's
- 8x Galor I FF's
- 4x Keldon I DD's. Gul Morand is on DD-D, the Cardassian fleet command ship
Federation Forces (2,875 points)
- Battlegroup 54392 command ship USS Hood
- 1x Constitution CA (USS Hood)
- 2x Oberth SC's (USS Pegasus & USS Yosemite)
- 1x Aerie PC (USS Royal)
- 2x Deneb FF's (USS Deneb & USS Perseus)
- 1x Akula DD (USS Akula)
- 2x Constellation CL's (USS Joshua Tree & USS Amberly)
- 1x Constellation CLS (USS Spika)
- 1x Miranda NCL (USS Plantinga)
- 1x Trident NCLS (USS Trump)
Terrain
An asteroid field of level six attack dice intensity is on the table. Arrange as desired. This represents the outer most boundary of the Setlik system asteroid field.
Initiative
Cardassians have the Initiative on Turn 1 as their emergence from the Setlik system's asteroid field catches the Federation forces by surprise. The Federation player cannot use scouts to alter the Initiative on Turn 1 for this reason.
Table Layout
Below is the initial deployment for the battle report. Deployment zones are along the long edges of the table in a zone 15cm's from each table edge. Players chose which side of the table they will use.
Battle Plan of the respective forces
Cardassians - We possessing twice as many vessels as the Federation do. The plan will be to close quickly and overwhelm the Federation cruisers and destroy them first. Then with those out of the way, squadrons will then isolate and pick off the remaining vessels starting with the destroyers and then working down the size classes until the enemy is utterly destroyed.
Federation - Keep in your squadrons and concentrate your fire on single vessels at a time. Trust to your shields, your training and each other. Stick to each other like glue and show no mercy. These thugs have just murdered defenseless colonists and they will pay!
So, will lots of smaller ships be able to take out a smaller force of larger vessels. Or will a small number of larger vessels be able to withstand a beating and punch down a larger number of smaller foes. Stay tuned...
