Prelude
Sometimes, well before the Jazygian Empire took to space, Mankind began the colonization of the Solar System, with sub-FTL ships. They mined the inner and outer planets for resources, and terraformed a great swath of Mars and its moons.
As the richness of Earth grew, soon a unified Earth Government (EarthGov) was established. However, they excluded the Martian colonists from most of their decisions, and had the Martians pay exorbitant taxes when dealing within the inner Solar System. Then the colonists created the Martian Sphere, an exclusive trading zone, prohibiting Earth ships to mine the outer planets.
Things soon came to blows, at first with armed ore carrier and other merchant vessels, but both factions soon developed their own navies.
The EarthGov Navy had more crew and better resources, so they usually went for aggressive overwhelming tactics. Their ships had average protection and fixed forward firing arc weaponry. They deployed a series of automated defences around their sections of space, and large replenishing battle stations called "Milk Cows", guarded by self-guided demolition fighter vessels, for fleets stationed in deep space.
The Martian Sphere Navy relied on their home bases around Mars, and made their vessels more durable for long term deep space deployment. As Mars was a lot less populated than Earth, their ships were better shielded and relied more heavily on automation. They were a lot safer against boarding attacks as well.
Mars won its independence in the first war with heavy losses, and the Martian Sphere and EarthGov actually fought off an alien incursion on the outer rim of the Solar System together.
The two factions then prospered and launched many deep space probes for further expansion. However, secretly, EarthGov did not totally shelve their plans to subdue Mars, and after a few years of peace, an invasion of an unprecedented scale occurred.
The Martian defenses were swept away by superior EarthGov numbers. They had even gone as far as willingly sacrificing capital ships without a thought. Mars itself had undergone a complete blockade.
All the while, the battleship MSS Phoibos and her escorts were on a deep space mission to gather intelligence on a new space-dwelling species appearing past Neptune. They received a message of emergency from the Martian Sphere government, recalling every outlying squadron to the defense of the home planet. By sheer coincidence, MSS Phoibos was the furthest away from the source of the emergency, and by the time they arrived within striking distance of Mars, the battle had already played out and the Martian Sphere Navy had lost.
MSS Phoibos was now the only capital unit in service of Mars.
After a hasty consultation with his crew, the captain of the Phoibos decided to maintain radio silence and go rogue from the Martian government itself. They would wage a secret war against EarthGov's assets, until the time for a full strike would come.
Rules
Rules to be used are my Space Battles in Space by Spacecraft, modified from a hex grid so that each span of movement equals 2" instead of one hex. Ships fire on a beam or forward arc measured 30° from the broadest points of the ship in that direction, firing range increments measured in 3".
Martian Sphere ships:
MSS Phoibos (Large), Hephaestus-class dreadnought battleship
MSS Sub Rosa (Medium), Spalato-class heavy cruiser
MSS Walkyr (Small), a modified deep space reconnaisance probe
2 Warbler-class fighters (Tiny)
Martian Sphere ship abilities:
Warp Out. Once during the campaign, the entire task force may disengage and end the battle, regardless of their distance from the exit point.
Passive Shielding - Each Medium or Heavy MS vessel has an extra Hit Point, which recharges after a battle. If a vessel takes more than one hits, that counts as permanent damage, but the Passive Shielding would still be replenished.
Battle Shield - First Phase. Once per battle, a Medium or Large MS ship may raise an impenetrable shield that lasts for three turns.
Battle Shield - Second Phase. Directly after the first three turns using Battle Shield, ranged hits on a MS vessel suffer a -2 penalty on the hit dice for three more turns.
Anti-Boarding Net - all the while the Battle Shield is active, an opponent cannot initiate a boarding action against MS vessels. This effect expires three turns after the second phase has passed.
Elite Defending Party - as per the core rules
EarthGov ships:
As the EarthGov Navy believes in the supremacy of overwhelming numbers, their crews are not very well trained, and their ships have no special abilities.
The backbone of the EG space forces is the Hammerhead-class battleship, a large unit with fixed forward firing arc weaponry.
Scenarios
Will be randomly thrown together, as per the current situation dictates...
Number one (published on Random&Creative) is: Behind Enemy Lines!
In which the task force strikes out on an EarthGov convoy route, defended only by a pair of Sickle-class cruisers and a fighter patrol.
Number two is going to be: The Curse of the Mind Flayer.
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