SH142 DESPERATE DAYS

SH142 DESPERATE DAYS

Original scenario by Ken Burnside, Arizona

Year 179

During the height of Operation Nutcracker, the Tholian Defense Fleet allowed Kzinti and Gorn vessels into Holdfast territory to defend against the Klingon and Romulan assaults. Also at this time, the 312th Battle Fleet arrived in Holdfast Territory. During those desperate days, elements of the 312th were used to react to several Romulan and Klingon forays, often with allied support. The action depicted here is a raid on an identified Romulan assembly area, the Alliance force attacking just as the advanced elements of the Romulan strike force begin to arrive.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 6; 3 Alliance players and 3 Romulan players.

INITIAL SET UP:

Terrain: Asteroid Field (P3.1). Use asteroid field map from module S2.

Alliance: Gorn HDD+ (A) in 2215, heading E, speed 10, WS-III.

Kzinti CM (B) in 0115, heading B, speed 10, WS-III. See drone restrictions below.

Tholian NCA ( C) in 3030, heading A, speed 10, WS-III.

Romulan: FireHawk-K (D) in 1504, SparrowHawk-J (E) in 1602, SparrowHawk-A+ (F) in 1401, all heading D, speed max, WS-l. Romulan ships may begin the scenario under cloak at the Romulan player’s option.

LENGTH OF SCENARIO: The scenario continues until all forces belonging to one side have been destroyed, captured, or have disengaged.

SPECIAL RULES:

Map: Use a closed map. The Alliance units can only disengage in direction E. The Romulan units can only disengage In directions B, C, or D. Units which disengage in unauthorized directions or areas are considered destroyed.

Shuttles: No shuttles have warp booster packs.

MRS shuttles may be purchased up to the limits in (J8.5). Only the NCA and FHK will be allowed to have a MRS.

Commander’s options items

Each ship can purchase additional or special equipment as Commander’s Option Items (e.g., T-bombs, extra Marines, etc.) up to 20% of its Combat BPV. See (S3.2) for details and exceptions. Note that whatever is spent here counts in the Modified Victory Conditions (S2.2) as victory points for the enemy.

Although NSMs were available to the Romulans, they cannot purchase them for this scenario.

All drones are “medium,” speed-20. “Fast,” speed-32 drones are available for purchase as restricted items.

Each drone-armed ship can purchase special drones up to the historical racial percentages as part of the Commander’s Option Items. See below for a restriction on the Kzinti CM.

Refits: The Kzinti CM has the Y175 refit. The Gorn HDD has the HDD+ refit. The Romulan SparrowHawk-A has the plus refit. No other refits are available to the units involved in this battle.

Drones: Kzinti ships in Tholian space were operating at the end of a very long and tenuous supply line; they were hampered further by the low priority of supplies they were given as their operations were not as crucial to the defense of the Hegemony. To reflect their supply problems, the Kzinti CM uses non-Kzinti drone percentages.

Disengagement: The Kzinti CM and Gorn HDD must disengage if crippled; the Tholian Agreement is a very tenuous and fragile one. The NCA can only disengage if it is crippled as it is being used to stop an assault on territory the Tholians cannot afford to relinquish.

Intelligence: The Romulans are very curious about the Tholian NCA. They must gather 100 points of lab information about the NCA or destroy the NCA before they can disengage, or they lose the scenario.

VICTORY CONDITIONS: Use the Modified Victory Conditions. The Alliance forces receive no points for any Romulan ships that successfully disengage in direction D after they have destroyed or gathered the required information on the Tholian NCA.