Star Trek Alliance Campaign Pt2 - So very tired…

4th January 2025

Barry

10 mins

I’ve been knocking out a bit of Star Trek related content here and I refuse to apologise for it. Our Star Trek Alliance Dominion War cooperative campaign continues, and we’ve reached the end of Klingon missions.

I couldn’t help myself.

The group has the same amount of experience points – except for Ando who is the only one who hasn’t died throughout all this. Has he carried the team? Certainly not so far but there’s still time. Is his time now?

No.

Favor the Bold

The war isn’t going well for the allies and so they’ve decided to make a daring attack against the Dominion to try and turn the tide. So the setup for this mission includes a lot of ships off the bat. There are five Galor class ships in the centre of the board – our objective – and then two Jem’Hadar Fighters and a Battlecruiser. We need to destroy the Galor’s and then escape to the opposite board edge by the end of round 9 which sounds simple except that if one sneaks past us we probably don’t have time to go chasing it.

Round 1: A little lonely over here…

Though we’re not completely outnumbered, we each have a ship assigned as an escort. They cannot attack but they can absorb attacks for us. The twist is that for extra experience points, three of the five must make it to the end of the game and evacuate with us – so we can’t stay too long lest the AI manage to focus fire on one of us.

With the enemy AI deployed, it’s determined that we need a lure to help simplify the attack on the objective. I’m the lure. I decide to cloak early to prevent enemy being able to target lock and for the extra evade dice for when they start shooting. The Galor’s are inactive until a player is in range 3 of any of them.

The team manages to destroy one Galor and reduce another to 1 health. More enemies spawn opposite me. I’m unhappy about being the lure now that I’m looking at possibly getting shot by two Galors, four fighters and two battlecruisers. Anyone who has ever played me knows that my dice are not good.

That’s why when we need the AI to blank out there’s calls for a “Barry-roll”.

“Back away, not today, Disco Lady” - Disco Stu

Round 2 I decide to back up, hoping that it opens up the range and confuse the targeting priority of some enemies whilst the rest of the team flank. The guys drop another Galor and come close to destroying another. I took a pot shot at the closest Galor and it’s a Barry-roll. Luckily I don’t do that when getting shot at.

Next turn we get into the fight proper, and I slam in behind a Galor and managed to get it down to just 1 health – but it’s also behind me so we are concerned we won’t be able to get him. I take a hit and lose two shields now that I’m not cloaked. Meanwhile Ando loses his escort as the enemy focus their fire on him. Thankfully the other Galor’s have been destroyed by the team so now it looks like I will be held up as I chase this last one down.

I’ll leave that to the rest of the team…

Round 4 I reverse again in the hopes that I can keep the enemy in range of my turret. The problem is it’s a red move so no actions and we can’t be certain I’m not getting shot to hell because to very, very clear – my dice are trash.

Fortunately, I fall in behind him and get lucky enough on the dice roll to kill it.

With the objective now achieved it’s time to haul ass and escape, the only thing is the huge amount of enemy ships in our way. Alex and TheSean easily drop a battlecruiser handily, while Ando and Jim take out a fighter.

Time to GTFO!

For the next round I make my move to escape while the Dominion starts to crash into itself which allows me to destroy a fighter on the way. Alex and TheSean stay on the fighters to try and make sure the escape is clear. The Dominion takes some pot shots for no effect whilst we manage to escape.

Invasion of Betazed

The win that we had apparently came at a cost, with our fleets caught out of position at Betazed and we now need to cover the evacuation of the 10th Fleet’s escape after their crushing defeat. The ships can perform some basic speed 2 and 3 manoeuvres however none of them are facing the board edge we need to evacuate them to.

Compounding the problem is that the each round the Dominion spawns new fighters they immediately perform a move equal to the round number which means they’ll close in really quickly.

Again we opt to split the force, the Dominion ships that are already deployed are the only ones that will attack us so we need to clear them quickly so we can focus on those hunting the 10th Fleet. So Alex and I opt to cover escape as we can cut them off easily.

Time for maximum violence.

The others take out the two Galors and damage the third for the loss of two shields between the three of them. At the end of the round, 2 Jem’Hadar fighters spawn behind the fleet.

Round 2 the Dominion fighters are in pursuit, Alex and I destroy a fighter though one of the 10th Fleet ships is nearly destroyed by the second. The others destroy the last Galor and are now free to help us – which is good because two fighters and a battlecruiser have spawned behind the fleet and conduct an immediate move into the board.

The enemies start closing in quickly…

The next round those same fighters close in on us despite some unusual moves. The Allies scatter and we move in to try and block the attackers before they can do anymore damage to the 10th Fleet.

We successfully remove two fighters, and one of the allies was lucky to escape whilst more enemy ships spawn and come barrelling down the board towards their target.

De-conflicting moves becomes another problem.

Round 4 the team manages to disable a battlecruiser and destroy another two fighters. I manage to strip the shields off the battlecruiser for no damage in turn and the 10th fleet is fortunately out of range and arc of any attackers. Fortunately there’s no more enemy reinforcements coming this round.

Three of the allied ships escapes at the start of the next round,  whilst TheSean manages to destroy a battlecruiser from long range having successfully K-Turned. I manage to flank the last remaining battlecruiser removing it from the board. We’re not free and clear though as three elite enemy fighters come barrelling down the board to cut off our own escape.

Allies now have a clear run to escape.

Round 6 and the remaining 10th Fleet allies have escaped as have Ando and I. The others concentrate fire on the dominion fighters, trying to punch a clear hole so they can escape which they only manage to do in Round 8 with only one Dominion fighter surviving on 1 hull though that doesn’t impact the amount of experience points we get.

 Debrief

The recent upgrades have really boosted our efficiency, being able to use the Klingon’s multiple target locks to improve our attacks. Similarly the Klingons have been able to attack multiple targets with one of their upgrades which really softens them up. Which is all really fitting considering the it’s now the end of the Klingon story arc and we’re about to go into the Romulan story arc where the Breen join the Dominion’s efforts to take over the Alpha Quadrant.

Their entry will definitely undermine our new found efficiency in combat as their disrupt our action economy naturally meanwhile the new Dominion battleship brings even more firepower meaning we’re more than likely going to have to rethink our approach as we move on.

Cheers,

- Barry