I don’t have notes for turn by turn but here’s how that battle settled out.
The Gorns came in at high speed under EM to close on the Kzinti. The Kiznti came in at medium speed, both forces were obliquely closing on the planet. The lead Kzin element launched drones and the second kizni followed suit. Deformations in space/time lead to an increased efficiency in warp drive for a brief moment. (everyone got some extra hexes of movement from my misreading of the sub-impulse chart.) The Kziniti turned to passed ‘north’ of the planet while the Gorn continued to pass south with plans to sweep around, deal with the drones, and pursue.
realizing that the drones wee going to reach their target (all drones were targeted on the following Gorn element) before the next firing window the Gorns panicked and used the Emergency Decel to stop the task force. (the Gorn had not yet fully internalized the concept of defensive fire stages. bad Gorns) From their now stopped condition the Gorns fired and destroyed most of the approaching drones.
The lead Gorn fired a plasma S as a bolt at the following Kziniti (who had turned much slower than the lead.) at a range of about 10 hexes and missed. The second Gorn fired and hit. The two forces closed and with plasma-F’s the shield of the second kzinti were dropped and some internals scored. The Second Gorn also fired a plasma-S as a torp at the lead Kzinti who upped to maxed speed and continued North.
Noe the battle is fairly tight and close to the planet. The lead Gorn fires his remaing S at the second, slower and closer, Kzinti, who responds with a brace of drones. (the lead also fired a brace of drone at the lead Gorn, but from much longer range.) Of the 4 drones two were destroyed one tractored and one hit.
The second kzinti failed to pay for his high-enegery turn at the start of the impulse and quickly found he could not use the planet as a shield. Another S was launched from the second Gorn and both caught the Kizin, but on separate shields. Shields were dropped and internals scored. Returned fire scored internal on the lead Gorn destroying the tractor beam.
Next round five drone hit the lead the Gorn, both down open shields. While the lead gon had some spaces not open to vacuum there weren’t very many and no weapons. The lead kzinit, having shed his plasma-S buddy, turned to re-enter the fight.
At this juncture the Gorn retired.
player impressions:
Very favorable. There were mistakes on both sides as our brains tried to load old SFB programs that did not match to FedCom, but we expected that sort of thing in a learning game. The game itself played fast and fun. Best of all even with frequent stops to read and understand the rules we were able to finished the game with enough time for a brace of board and card games w my wife afterwards.
I have a little to add from the Kzinti point of view.
The entire game lasted a little bit less than two turns.
Most of the first turn consisted of the two forces closing on each other. Early in the first turn the Kzinti force fired a total of six drones. Since the drones were faster than the Kzinti ships, by the end of the turn the drones were leading the Kzinti force by several hexes.
The Kzinti force expected the Gorns to use phasers defensively against the drones, but was shocked when the Gorns came to a dead stop and even used some smaller plasma torpedoes to fight off the drone swarm.
Emboldened by this development, the Kzintis abandoned their original plan of sniping at the Gorns from a range 15 and closed to within overloaded disrupter range. The combined Kzinti disrupter and phaser fire succeeded in dropping the front shield of one of the Gorn cruisers and doing massive damage to the weapon systems.
With one Gorn ship effectively neutralized, the Kzinti commanders fell into disarray as how to proceed. The lead Kzinti ship choose to break off and try to outrun the close range heavy plasma torpedo targeted upon his ship while the other Kzinti decided he would try to overrun the remaining Gorn ship and get off another turn of overloaded close range fire.
During the beginning of the second turn both Kzintis fired a full barrage of 8 drones targeting the second Gorn ship. And the running Kzinti boosted his speed to emergency maximum to try and outrun that torpedo, or at least increase the range before the torpedo hit and reduce the damage inflicted.
As the second turn proceeded the running Kzinti was dismayed to see his fellow commander still closing with the enemy despite two large plasma torpedoes. Then realized the other commander was not reckless but intended to dodge behind the nearby planet to shield himself.
The closing Kzinti ship fired on the second Gorn ship, but with mediocre results. Such is the luck of war. Then the boldly closing Kzinti commander made a tragic mistake of timing and missed his chance to hide behind the planet; it appeared that the Kzinti ship would soon suffer massive damage from two heavy plasma torpedoes. Fortune was now favoring the Gorn.
With two fast groups of drones now closing on the second Gorn’s position, the Kzinti commanders were surprised to see the Gorn not take his chance to outmaneuver the drones. Instead he appeared to want to pursue. This was the turning point of the battle.
Due to a combination of unlucky inaccuracy and ‘drone fever’ almost all the drones penetrated the anti-drone fire and struck the second Gorn ship, gutting it of almost all ship systems except, surprising enough, most of the warp power.
With one Gorn ship damaged and the other Gorn ship heavily damaged, the Gorns wisely choose to flee the battle, leaving the planet in the control of the Kzinti Hegemony.
Victory!