Victory at RA99Q4
by Sir_Starfurry (Kevin Block-Schwenk)

Round One vs. Jaelum (Romulan King Eagle)
Round Two vs. Whisper (Kzinti)
Round Three vs. Random (Hydran)
Round Four vs. Vae_Victis (Romulan Firehawk)
Round Five vs. The_Rock (Klingon)
Round Sixvs. Crusader (ISC)
Thanks

Round One
Opponent: Jaelum (John McClellion), Romulan King Eagle. 10 turns.

Notes: This was John's first tournament game ever, and he lasted longer than any other opponent until the finals.

The King Eagle, though normally considered a mediocre-at-best ship, can give the ISC a very good fight. Its cloak (when used) gives it essentially absolute protection from the ISC heavy weapons, it has an excellent power curve, and, should it ever do an attack run, the 10 armor will keep it from getting too stripped of weapons by small volleys.

Versus plasma ships I like to hold two standard G-torps, as I am most concerned with having enough energy to avoid getting anchored. And I would never trust a Romulan to not cloak anyway.

Turn 1 he went speed 12. He launched an R-torp at me on impulse 11. I got range 15 and PPD'd. He reinforced away virtually the entire thing. I put a few phasers (should've done more) into the R-torp and took it for 12 - bats = 7 damage on i32, as I really wanted to know if it was real before allocating for next turn.

Turn 2 he ran to the corner, while I came after him.

Turn 3 he went slow. When I got range 10 I started my PPD. He launched an F, weaseled and started to cloak, making me roll my PPD shot, but I kept the lock. I killed his weasel with 3 range-8 p-1s, outran his F (taking it for one point--real), and swung around.

Turn 4 he came at me relatively quickly. His R was reloaded, and I did not have my PPD. I plotted medium/fast, and got range 5-oblique off his #1 when he turned in. I shot off most of his #1 with my p-1s, then timed my 40-point stack (right G+F) so that it went through his #1 as well. He poured all bearing phasers into my plasma torps, and bolted his R (hit) into my weakened #3. This resulted in each of us having about 7 internals (plus he'd lost his armor), in which I lost an F-torp and he did not. I then rather pointlessly HET'd back at him, the only result being that we hit each other on flank shields with 20-pointers and a few p-3s, then flew past each other.

Turn 5 he ran, and I PPD'd his #5.

Turn 6 he ran to the corner, and I followed, repairing my F-torp. We ended the turn with him up against the wall.

Turn 7 I expected the game would end. I had my PPD ready (though I only loaded 3 pulses, as I needed the speed, was a bit low on power with 2 warp gone, and figured if he launched on impulse 1 I'd have to turn off by impulse 4 anyhow.) I also prepared an enveloper to hurt him if he came at me or tried to run (he was up against the wall). If he cloaked, I could always bolt it.

He went speed 0, and clearly had his cloak powered. I missed 2 of 3 ppd pulses, as well as my bolted torp, and turned off. At range 10 he bolted his R at my 5--hit again. With my 3 and 5 down versus a heavy plasma ship I was not a happy ISC. He decloaked late in the turn.

Turn 8 I swung around, reloading, while he went speed 10. He launched two admins as phaser platforms, leaving him only one shuttle in his bay (!).

Turn 9 he was at speed 10 again. He launched an F. I got to range 10. He announced cloak, and I PPD'd his #2, hurting it, and killing an F-torp on a splash internal. I also killed his 2 admins. I then got impatient and came in for a phaser shot. I was not able to hit his down 1, and had to settle for his 2 on impulse 32. At this point his three front shields were all but destroyed, in addition to his #5.

Turn 10 I expected him to come out of cloak and tractor me. Figuring I couldn't match his anchor, I went speed 0 with ~10 points of reinforcement. Since he was down to his last shuttle and was a smaller ship, and had at most 70 points of plasma, I figured we'd maul each other but my superior bulk would yield victory. However, he stayed moving under cloak, then rather inexplicably came up a few impulses later, having emer. decelled. His 3-box #5 was facing me, and I launched a fake torp at him (worth a try...) as he was fading in. He weaseled. I let his weasel live, and, when my phasers cycled, centerlined him and fired through the weasel shift. This gutted him and destroyed his other 2 plasma launchers. He conceded (I had 2 weasels ready, and would start weaseling before his fire control came on.).

After conceding, he politely requested that I email him detailed writeups of the rest of my games in this tournament. I did so, and those emails formed the building blocks of this article.

Round Two
Opponent: Whisper (Shane Chopin), Kzinti. 5 turns.

Note: The standard Kzin/ISC game involves the Kzinti eating everything the ISC has to offer, catching him turn 2 or possibly 3, and a vicious knife fight (between a mostly deshielded Kzinti and an empty ISC) ensuing. Most ISC toss an EPT turn 1, but on a whim I held 2 standards, seeing if I could get a 1-turn kill if he went forward empty. (If certain ships put all their discretionary power into reinforcement you can race in with 2 standard torps. As long as you stay 1 hex behind your plasma and move into its hex your phasers will hit the same shield that it does. Your ppd kills their reinforcement, then they take 40 + phasers while you take phasers alone and they concede.)

Turn 1 He moved a mere 13 hexes (12/14 split) all turn (12/14), and did NOT launch his sp. I kept clear. i31 he hit me with 4 stds--all hit. I PPD'd him at range 11 on i32, and launched a pseudo (hoping he'd dump some phasers into it next turn). He launched 4 IM drones. I kicked myself hard for not having an enveloper...

Turn 2 I expected he'd come roaring after me, and plotted 15/26/17 (24 moves total), with 2 in my ppd, holding my Gs, 4 special shuttles (2 sui, 2 weasel), and 2 in tractor.

Then he announced speed 0 (!) I finished ppding him (He bounced most of it) and turned off. He shot my #4 with stds and p1s for 13 damage. I dumped 3 bats into reinforcement, put 2 more bats into my ppd, and circled. He let my fake torp hit him without even shooting p-3s into it--how humiliating! I shot down his turn 1 drones. Impulse 31 we were at range 10, him off my right side, and I launched a right F + (real) G. I figured he'd probably weasel but it would at least get that standard torp out of my tubes so I could start launching envelopers (the best way to slowly kill a parked ship). Plus if he launched more drones they'd go away if he weaseled, allowing me to shoot him with more phasers. I32 he launched 4 fast drones.

Turn 3 I went speed 8, with a fully overloaded PPD plus reloading other stuff, 2 in tractor, and my special shuttles. He again went speed 0. Impulse 4 I got range 8 and started to PPD his #2. Impulse 8 I slipped away (still range 8). He tac'd his #1 towards me. My plaz was one away from him, and his drones were 1 away from me, though 2 were tractored. If he weaseled his wave of fast drones would disappear. He thought I was bluffing again, and didn't weasel. (He put 4 p3s into the F.) I shot down the untractored drones. Impulse 9 he TAC'd his #1 to me, and took 28 points of plasma damage, plus the ppd, plus 3 p1s. A total of 12 internals, incl. 3 p3s and a p1. He shot back (2 std, 2 Ol, 4 p1s), rolled well again, dropping my #2 to 2 boxes. I turned off. He went up to speed 8, and launched 4 IMs at me. I batted up to 9, got him directly behind me, and launched an F at him, forcing him to stay away or take a bunch more internals through his #1. Impulse 31 the F (minus 2 p-3s he put into it) hit his #6, while I shot down most of the drones.

At this point he conceded. He had relatively few internals, but he'd used 3 drones waves (including 4 IFs). More importantly, he had a down 1, and half-strength #2 and #6, and was at about range 12. I could easily avoid range 8 while reloading, PPD again, etc.

Round Three
Opponent: Random (Aaron Brown), Hydran. 5 turns.

Turn 1 I plotted speed 15/16/25/26. (going 25, 26 on i28 allows you to move every time during the last 9 impulses while preserving the HET option.) He almost mirrored my speed plot. I started my PPD at range 15. He had minimal reinforcement, and my PPD wiped out nearly half of his #2. I then turned off, and we ended the turn at range 9. I launched my left EPT at him on i31. (I like to launch late in the turn, so that the other ship can not phaser it down on turn 1)

He made one big mistake: he launched his fighters early, but despite pre-allocating 2 into tractor he forgot to tow his fighters along with him, so his ship went roaring ahead of his fighters! This meant that on turn 2 his fighters couldn't catch me, nor could they gat down plasma.

Turn 2 I was SURE he'd dive in on me, as I was near the edge of the map, so I completed my right G as a standard, went 30 for the first 4 impulses (so that if he wanted a range-8 shot on me he'd have to eat the EPT.), down to 15, and pre-allocated a HET and I believe one in tractor. (Plus held 2 suis and reloaded the PPD and G-torp). My plan was that if he dove at me came in I'd launch a stack of 40 (G+F) and HET around to fight him in order to hopefully give him a good enough mauling.

As happened, he held fire, turned off and ran out my EPT. We both circled around, ending the turn at about range 20, roughly oblique.

Turn 3 our speed plots were virtually identical to our turn 1 plots. He continued to fly near his fighters, though they weren't tractored. At range 10 I started my PPD on his #6. He then HET'd at me so that my ppd was hitting his 1 instead. I'm not sure why he did this HET, as he was going to get range 5 (and no better) either way. He took the last 2 or 3 pulses PPD on his #1, then soon I was at range 5 oblique off his #1. He held fire; I fired 6 p-1s, rolled well, and got 7 internals, including a p-1 and a fusion.

Next impulse nobody moved. I bolted my left F at him: it hit and killed 2 more p-1s plus a hellbore, then I turned and ran. At this point he was effectively checkmated, as with a down #1 and 5 weapons already dead he could not get close next turn without losing too many teeth, and with only 2 p-1s and one hellbore he could not hope to win a game of attrition. However, he sportingly played on.

Turn 4 we started at range 5, with his fighters a bit behind. I launched an EPT on impulse 1. He fired all bearing weapons at me, rolled rather well, and got 7 internals through my #5 (including the F torp which I'd bolted). The EPT caught him, though he was able to kill half of it with 3 gats. Resisting the temptation to HET, I circled around as he ran.

Turn 5 he went speed 0, his fighters circling around a couple of hexes behind, while I went 17. I got range 8 and, using my bats, gave him an overloaded PPD on his #5, effectively destroying it. Then at range 5 I was about to give him at least a dozen more internals with 6 p-1s and turn off, but he decided to just concede at that point.

Round Four (Quarterfinals)
Opponent: Vae_Victis (John Lafayette), Romulan Firehawk. 3 turns.

Note: As a Romulan fighting an ISC I like to cloak turn 1 (so the ISC can't launch plaz or use his PPD, and if he has to bolt an EPT so much the better, while I get the center of the board.), then come racing at him turn 2 with a mountain of tractor. My ISC countertactic to this is to hold 2 standard Gs, ppd, some specical shuttles, and do 26 moves turn 1, trying to overfly him at range 0, shoot off half a front shield (As a general rule, I don't care about the opponent's rear shields.), then open up the range as I go over him. After that every other consideration is secondary to NOT GETTING TRACTORED and fed the tasty 100.)

Turn 1 I held standard Gs, my PPD, 3 ww and a sui, and went speed 26. Like clockwork he cloaked and came at me. As he saw that I was going to shoot a front shield, he turned away. I slippped away a bit, ending the turn range 6, me off his #3, him off my #6 (but out of my FA).

Turn 2 I plotted 15/30/16, with 3 ww and 5 in tractor. He stayed cloaked, going speed 14 all turn (14 + 3 + 18 = 35. He was probably holding his torps as Gs, confirming that he was going to probably go for the anchor.) I followed him. I could've had a 6 p-1 range 0 shot on a rear shield, but declined to shoot. I shot his #6 with 3 p-1s for 4 damage. Late in the turn I got a bit sloppy: turning a bit too late, with only 3 or 4 hexes moved by the end of the turn.

Turn 3 We started at range 3, him off my 6, me off his 3. I was 90% certain that he'd make his attack run. I toyed with putting 3 in my tractor before I slapped myself awake and put 5 to ensure he couldn't anchor me. [[Assuming he HET'd at me, with a fast/slow/slower/slower plot, that is. He'd need to HET and move on impulses 2 through 6, and would get range 2. The cheapest speed plot he could do is 26/16/8/4 = 12 moves. +5 (HET), +4 (housekeeping) +2 (Holding Gs) = 23 power. He produces 38 power + 5 bats = 43, leaving him a max. of 20 for a tractor. So I needed 10 (5 + 5 bats) to fight it off.

Turn 3 I plotted 17 through i4 (so that I could turn away), up to 30, down to 16 on 17, with 2 weasels held, 5 in tractor, not reloading any of the 3 phasers.

He plotted 26/19/9/4, and HET'd at me on impulse 2. I turned off, and launched a 40-point (G+F) stack, which hit him on impulse 5 (killing his #2, a torp, a tractor and 2 phasers). Since he was in my relatively blind spot (1 back, 1 over), and the cloak still gave him a +1 range shift (effective range 3), I could only back the plasma up with 2 p-1s. Greed would've wanted another tractor, but this volley was very mediocre, only getting 1 phaser. His speed dropped to 19 on 6--enabling him to move through impulse 7.

Impulse 6 he had a somewhat ugly choice: if he did not turn I could put 3 p-3s through the down shield at range 2, with every phaser hit a p-1. If he did turn I'd still be at range 2 in his FH launch arc, but I would be out of his FA bolt arc so if he didn't get the tractor he could not try to even things up with a good bolt shot. He turned and tried the tractor, going up to 18 (to my 9), leaving me with 1 battery. I launched the other G at him, which would hit his #5, and shot his #5 with 3 p-3s. He shot off most of my #3 with his phasers, and launched 2 30-pointers at me.

My torp hit him for 3 internals, and luck was with me, as I got a second plasma-F torp! I think he mostly gave up at this point, as he didn't bother launching his F-torps at me in the 8-impulse window. I shot one S-torp with 3 p-3s and took them at range 11. The one I shot was fake, the other was real. (By his power he could only kick one G up to an S, as he did 13 moves.) I took 22 to my #5, swung around and started to ppd his #1 on impulse 30 (range 7 or so, 4 pulse ppd as I didn't have the power to OL it.). As soon as my ppd hit he conceded.

Round Five (Semifinals)
Opponent: The_Rock (Paul Scott), Klingon. 3 turns.

Note: I made several wrong guesses this game and came closer to losing it than any other. The_Rock had just beaten Moose(Steve McCann)'s tough ISC in the quarterfinals.

Turn 1 Similar to my Hydran game, I plotted 15/16/25/26, with a left EPT and rolled the right torp, holding 2 suis and a weasel. He went 15 all turn. I ppd'd him at range 15...13 and turned off. He bounced just under half the ppd, receiving a smattering of damage. He fired 3 standards at my slightly reinforced #5--all missed! On i32 we were at ~range 12 and I launched my EPT; he discharged one overload.

Turn 2 I plotted 30/16. He turned off early and outran the EPT, then hooked around rather quickly (Darn B turn mode...) I circled, but slipped the wrong way and got a bit too close too soon, and launched my EPT on impulse 27 (Would have preferred an i32 launch to make him spend more of turn 3 running.) We ended at range 10, the torp about halfway between us. He fired 2 standards late in the turn, both hit. I thought he'd run again, so I dumped 3 bats to only take 3 damage on my #6. On impulse 32 he launched 2 drones--the first drone launch all game, and discharged 2 overloads.

He did a really clever deception which almost cost me the game: Turn 2 he moved 23 hexes, and had 12 in his disruptors, with no reason to use reserve power. 23 + 12 + 4 = 39 => I figured he did not have any special shuttles...

Turn 3 he announced speed 26, while I went 15/16 on i6, with 2 pre-allocated to HET (so that I could do a fastload and HET if necessary), and 2 in tractor (planning to grab drones). Impulses 1-4 I PPD'd his front shield. Then he bulled straight into my EPT! At this point I launched a fake G with the F, assuming incorrectly that he would turn off. Instead, he let them hit his 18-box #6 without having shot a single weapon except for launching 3 drones (2 IMs, one VIM.) I kicked myself for giving him 2 internals instead of 22! Around this time I shot his almost down #1 with 3 p-1s and he dumped his bats to avoid taking internals.

He got range 4 and fired 4 OLDs, but no phasers, into my #4--3 hit, dropping the shield. My turn mode was not reset, and with him faster he'd get several phaser volleys, closing to range 3 or 2 = very dead ISC. I HET'd around. His speed dropped to 19, and he turned and came into range 0, at which point I could finally land my fastload on his 1-box #1. He launched a shuttle (I couldn't yet, having HET'd). Since I "knew" he didn't have any special shuttles, I ignored it. I killed one incoming type-1 and wounded another with p-3s, as he shot off most of my #6 with his phasers...

Next impulse, *WHAM* I took 21 internals (18 sui + 5 plaz feedback - 2-point shield.), losing only one p-3; an F-torp; and, more ominously, a tractor beam.

Next impulse, feeling rather desperate, I tried a tractor on him hoping he hadn't pre-allocated any to his tractor, as I had only my two pre-allocated points. He didn't have tractor power, and I grabbed him. We each shot each other with one p-1. I took 9 in, and luckily did not lose my 2nd tractor. I shot down a total of 3 of the 4 type-1 drones. The following impulse I was able to turn at my new speed (7), taking 14 points of drone damage on my pristine #1, and poured my 3 right p-3s through his down shield, which got his shuttlebay down to a single box! (His scatterpack, presumably.)

He had 2 unfired p-2s bearing. I launched a manned shuttle...he held fire. I launched a sui. He held fire. It destroyed his #2 (And his 1 and 6 were already down), plus did 2 in, including his last shuttle! Then I launched another sui. Again he held fire. 18 more internals ruined his ship and he conceded.

Round Six (Finals)
Opponent: Crusader (Robert Schirmer), ISC. 14 turns (And 9 hours--yike!)

Two things to note before the writeup:

1) Cruiser (Norman Cruz), a consistently excellent ISC player, deserves much of the credit for my victory in the finals. We played 3 practice ISC civil wars, as I tried different tactics (holding standard Gs and diving in with tractor power, going reverse, launching standards with more reinforcement), and he slaughtered me every time, teaching me really really well what does not work! We concluded that I simply needed to play the game as an plasma ballet with envelopers, getting positional advantage, reinforcing away some of his fire when I could, and punishing him for any mistakes.

2) It should be noted to his credit that this was Robert's first tournament EVER, and he got an ace card out of it! (With 50+ players the top 2 both get ace cards.) How many of us can claim the same?

Turns 1 through 9 I held 1 or 2 weasels and no suis. I had no weasels on turn 10, prepared 2 on 11, then had all shuttles as weasels (or preparing) starting turn 12.

Turn 1 I rolled my left G, enveloped the right one, and went 14/15/14/26 with ~8 reinforcement. He went 14/28 with ~2 reinforcement. I launched my EPT ~range 14. He started his PPD, and missed 2 pulses. I PPD'd back (still range 11-15), missed one pulse. He launched his left EPT, and I turned off.

Turn 2 we outran each other's EPTs and circled around, reloading stuff. I kicked myself for doing the right EPT rather than the left one, as given the position of his torp I had to circle around to the right or I'd be up against the wall, and in an plasma ballet it is imperitive that one holds the center of the map (allowing room to run) as much as possible. I had to turn into him late in the turn in order to get him in my LP arc. On i32 we launched EPTs at each other. ~Range 18.

Turn 3 I was able to plot 17/12/17, allowing me just enough time to get him in my FA, ppd, then turn off and avoid his turn 2 EPT, plus I had a decent amount of reinforcement again. He had positional advantage, as he could turn off anytime he wanted. Had he stayed away, I'd have been in a rough position, as I'd have had to make some ugly choices (HET, start ppd at range 16-17, or hold it and quite possibly not be able to shoot.). Luckily for me, he came straight in and we swapped PPD fire at range 15. I think we both missed one pulse, and again I had more reinforcement. We turned and outran the EPTs, ending the turn with me facing him and him running, about equidistant from the center.

Turn 4 I reloaded again, plotting 17/28. He went 17. I expected him to swing around to the left, getting his LP plasma in arc so he could launch it and keep me away. Instead, he went and buried himself in the corner(!). I launched my right EPT, which would hit him early turn 5, and turned oblique to him. I had a golden opportunity to stay out of his LP launching arc by going straight rather than slipping away, but didn't see it until it was too late. He was able to just barely get me in arc by turning in on i32 and launched his left EPT.

Turn 5 I turned off. He went 4/14 and hit my rears with a 3 pulse ppd (range 11-15), then weaseled my torp on i4, taking some collateral on his 4. He followed. As I easily outran his EPT and swung around to get him in my FA, he launched another EPT, which forced me to turn off again. He thereby got ahead of me in the PPD cycle. However, I launched my left EPT at him, which again was going to catch him early next turn (this time in the 11-15 bracket).

Turn 6 he went 4/14 again, weaseling my EPT. I plotted 12/17, and wasted 5 points of power: 3 went into contingent HET, and 2 to repair a shield--only rather than writing "repair shield 2" I'd accidently written "repair shield 6", and my 6 had no damage at all! As neither of us has EPTs ready, and my PPD was ready and his wasn't I swung around and went at him. He did not turn off, and when we got range 8 I dumped 4 bats to give him a 6-pulse overload.

Between the OLPPD and my p-1s at range 5 I destroyed his #2 and gave him 16 internals in 3 volleys (8+4+4), Hitting the grand total of one phaser-3. This was redeemed by the fact that his phaser shot on me was terrible (15 damage as opposed to the 21 average at range 5 on my #2 from 6 p-1s, leaving me with 5 shield boxes), and he did lose 4 warp. He had launched a fastload (which I had hoped was a pseudo until I realized it wasn't the impulse before it hit) and an F, each of which hit me in the 6-10 bracket, minus 3 p-3s, hurting my #3 and #4 respectively as I frantically turned away. I launched my right F at him, and he turned off as well.

Turn 7 I was facing the wrong way, and my phasers and bats were both totally empty. So I plotted 2 tacs, up to speed 8 on i4, reloaded bats, 5 phasers, and did a right EPT. He went 14/27/14, and evaporated my old F with 3 p-3s, opened up the range a bit more and turned in. We ended the turn about equidistant from the center of the board, range 12. My #1 facing him, his #6 facing me. On impulse 32 I launched my right EPT and he fired his PPD, hit.

At this point we saved the game, continuing it several days later. I felt that I had several small advantages at this point which were cumulative: He had used 2 weasels to my 0. Our shield damage was roughly equal, but he had lost more front shielding, and had a down shield. Moreover, he was down 4 power. An EPT-lobbing ISC is a rather power-hungry boat, and those 4 power would hurt him. Furthermore his front hull was gone, meaning that little bits of internal damage would hurt his power curve more than mine would be. I resolved to play a super-conservative game at this point, being perfectly happy to trade like a chess player who is up 2 pawns, reinforcing with any power I could spare.

Turn 8 I put up 7 points of reinforcement, plotting 10/15(on i4)/17. I put another point of so into phasers, and chose to roll my right G for another turn, as I expected him to launch, making me turn off and not get a good launching position. Given how fast he moved on the previous turn, his phasers & bats were nearly empty still, and he would have to keep his speed up to outrun my EPT. I figured he'd have no reinforcement.

I started my PPD on 1, missing one pulse. (We were now even on total pulses missed.)

He launched an F at me and turned off. I was able to slip away from the F, as opposed to turn away, stretching the range out to 13 and evaporating it with 3 p-3s. Again, he did 18 hexes of movement--I was amused that, with 4 fewer warp, he was consistently going faster than I was! He was nervous to turn in, as I'd get a range 15 phaser shot on his down shield, so we ended the turn at range 17. He launched an EPT on i32.

Turn 9 I plotted 17/12/16 and launched my left EPT on impulse 1. He kept away from it, while I circled around, topped off my phasers, finished reloading my plasma-F (One reason Crusader was going so fast was that he did not reload his F-torps.). We ended the turn at range 22, and he declined to PPD--we were back on the same PPD cycle again. I was reluctant to turn in as I expected another EPT on i32, but he had rolled his torp and did not launch.

Turn 10 We did a turn 1-style battle approach, coming at each other more or less near the center, each launching an EPT (My left; I launched slightly earlier) and we PPD'd each other. I had to be going fast enough to outrun his expected plasma, so I was unable to afford reinforcement.

I watched in horror as most of my advantage in the game evaporated, as his PPD hit (mostly my #1, knocking it down to ~8 boxes), while mine missed its first 3 pulses! Suddenly our front shields were equal again (my #2 and #6 a bit stronger, his #1 substantially stronger), while my rear shields were weaker.

We turned and outran each other's EPTs, though he had to pour 3.5 points of phaser power into mine in order to evaporate it at range 18.

Turn 11 I went fairly fast, as I had neither EPTs to load nor his PPD to worry about, and I wanted to swing around and grab as much of the board as I could. He matched my speed despite his EPT, and we approached each other obliquely, #6 to #6. Impulse 31 we got range 8 obique. I launched an F, and we shot each other with 6 p-1s, both rolling badly (him worse, making up for one of those missed PPD pulses of mine.). His #6 was almost gone, while mine was about half strength. Impulse 32 I sideslipped away, while he turned into me (!) and launched an EPT.

Turn 12 I went speed 0 with TACs, holding 2 weasels and preparing the other 2 as weasels, planning to tac at him, swap ppd fire (accepting that he could probably overload his, but in return I had 8 reinforcement on my #1), and we'd then have a bloody knife fight, which I would hopefully win as I had 4 weasels (minus one to weasel the EPT) to his 2. I toyed with overloading my PPD, but there was a chance he'd HET out of range 8; besides, the reinforcement, combined with the weasel ECM hopefully making him miss a pulse, was about as good as the extra pulses would be.

I also completed my left G-torp as a standard, figuring that if we were going slow, with only 2 weasels he might be reluctant to weasel a 20-pointer (which could be fake).

He went speed 14 I TAC'd toward him. We PPD'd each other--both hit. After his 4th pulse, he HET'd out of range 8, and his speed kicked up. My last pulse hit his rear shield at range 9. He outran my F-torp. Right after he HET'd I batteried up to speed 4 in order to be able to move adequately the following turn. I weaseled his EPT and crawled after him, as he gradually slowed down to speed 8. We ended the turn ~range 13. I shot 6p-1s at his down #6 for 3 damage, while he shot my weak #1 with 2 p-1s for 3 damage.

I also used two CDR repairs to fix boxes on my 1 and 2 shields. In all the excitement I forgot to start reloading my left F-torp.

On this turn I took my one internal of the game (from PPD splash through my #2): a p-3, which I fixed the following turn.

Turn 13 I plotted 10/8/11 (Stupidly plotted 12/8/11 for an extra move then remembered that I'd started the previous turn at speed 0), and started loading my F-torp. He announced speed 14, so impulse 1 I let fly with a right EPT --at minimum it would force him to launch his torp right away, giving me enough room to outrun it at my slow speed. He lauched his pseudo. He did not have a speedup later, and was low on power, so in deperation he fired p-1s and tried bolting his left G-torp at my ~7-box #3 at range 15 (So much for the pseudo...). The bolt missed. He then declared emergency deceleration and weaseled my enveloper, doing so an impulse too late and taking some collateral damage. With his torp used, I happily batted up to speed 12 and circled back at him. He TAC'd away from me. (At this point in the game he had a 2-box #1 and a down 2 and 6.).

I launched my real 20-point torp at range 10 on i25--this way it would end the turn at range 3, so that he couldn't phaser-3 it down. I got range 8 on him, and held fire until i32 to ensure he didn't TAC at me. On impulse I shot off most of his #4 shield with p-1s.

Turn 14.

I allocated a full overloaded PPD, speed 0/4(i8)(This was an error.), loading my torps, and putting 6 reinforcement on my #6. He went speed 0.

My torp moved to range 2. I probably should have started my PPD on impulse 1, but really wanted him to hold his last weasel, and figured that making my PPD reroll might be incentive enough for him to use it. (Note that if my torp WERE fake, I would likely annihilate him with an EPT on this turn.)

Impulse 2... He TAC'd his #3--his last decent shield (~14 boxes) to face me, launched a 20-pointer from his right launcher, and declined to weasel, or even shoot p-3s at the torp. I started my PPD; he bounced 2 p-1s off my reinforcement.

Impulse 3. The torp hit. Between that and the PPD he lost 2 torps--choosing to destroy a G-torp with an enveloper loaded as the second torp hit. (As he didn't want to lose his ppd.) My ppd kept blazing away. He tac'd, then (second) HET'd new shields to face me, but was still taking internals from the splash. Impulse 7 I remembered to my disgust that going speed 0 had reset my turn mode even though I didn't TAC, and had to abort my 6th pulse and TAC away so as to not eat his torp (Which turned out to be fake. Oh well.) I weaseled his torp, which turned out to be fake. He shot me with phasers and PPD. The phasers, firing through the shift, did negligible damage. The PPD hit, but it was hitting my last good shield: a ~20 box #5, and was only 4 pulses. (His bats were gone at this point, so he couldn't overload it off reserve power.) We noticed that, given the way he had HET'd earlier, his destroyed G-launcher was not in arc, so he had to eject the torp on i13--it didn't matter, as I had 2 more weasels anyway. After he ejected the torp, I heated up fire control, turned back in, and on impulse 32 shot his 2-box #1 with 6 p-1s at range 5.

After the phaser hit, he had over 50 internals (Including losing all 4 plasma launchers) to my 0. He had 5 down shields and one 4-box back shield, while I had (albeit very weak) shielding all around. He conceded.

Thanks

Thanks to all my opponents for universally being real gentlemen and fun to game with; Gregg Dieckhaus and Paul Scott for making SFB Online a reality, and Patrick M. Abram for keeping it going; Joe Butler for judging the tournament; and everyone else who played!