Here's my battle report from playing the Xabthar scenario against the dumbest person I could lay hands on, my own self:
On turn 1, Vandamien won the initiative roll, leaving Agri Ki to angrily make alveolar clicks on the bridge of the Kruxugh'. The two fleets started just out of fighter range, so the K'kree couldn't make use of their massive superiority in robot fighters in the first strike phase. No matter, they still had loads more missiles, and what are missiles but slightly smaller, more purpose-driven robot fighters?
Vessel-Herd "Furious Message", with the flagship and the other "fast" battleship (2G accel, but J3) pushed ahead and volleyed off salvos of missiles (here I forgot to move and fire, so they fired after I remembered, when I'd moved two other units on the Renkard side--not a good look for the writer of the rules, but my ten year old was trying to ruin Frozen for his three year old sister at the time, in my defense). Renkard's dinky little "heavy" cruisers couldn't survive even a single volley of those massed launchers, but they were saved for the time being by the 11th Escort Group, which interposed itself between the cruisers and the incoming warheads, losing the destroyers E-05 and E-11.
The heavy(ish) ships of the First Union Squadron came charging up then, but even at maximum acceleration, they couldn't close the range enough to bring their mighty particle beam spinal mounts into range, instead volleying off missiles from their own launchers. Twelve points of missiles are nothing to sneeze at; the K'kree were trying to conserve their fighters for the second strike phase, and used only a handful to attenuate the incoming warheads, relying on their thickly-armoured hulls to see them through. The battlecruisers of "Triumphant Bellow" moved to protect the flagship, firing their own missile batteries at the Renkardian battleships, who, having moved ahead of their escorts (stupid of me!), absorbed the blows as best they could, anxiously realizing that every point defense box they lost was an enemy fighter that would get through.
The Xabthar monitor group's five battleriders, hauled to that world by Megusard Corporate megafreighters only a month before, now came charging in on the K'kree flank. With no spinal mounts, and not wanting to overshoot the following turn, they came up short of beam weapon range, lobbing missiles into the battlecruisers. Sadly they lacked the weight of fire to deliver a telling blow.
The remaining Renkardian escorts poured fire into the hulking K'kree dreadnoughts, but though they forced the enemy to sacrifice a few more fighters, they achieved little else. Now it was time for the second strike phase.
The Union, having won initiative, at least was able to go first. The three battleships volleyed off their fighter complements in three wings of three squadrons each, hoping to further reduce the K'kree space group. Their attacks were broken up by swarms of the "Centaurs'" robot fighters, and those who did break through failed to do much against the thickly-armored K'kree warships. Now it was the turn of the Lords of Thunder.
Even reduced by all the craft committed to interceptions, the two battlewagons salvoed off twenty-five fighter attack points in five wings of five, all of them racing for the battleships. The six GEMs (gunship-equipped merchant) of the 3rd Carrier Group committed their combined space group of six fighter attack points to limit the force of the attack, but even so, far too much got through. The Roscoff, the trailingmost battleship in the Union squadron, was hit by waves of fighters and fell out of line crippled, her maneuvering thrusters flaring erratically. She was out of the battle. Other fighters swarmed the flagship, damaging her severely, but she and her sister Locranon stayed in formation, grimly hoping to close to spinal mount range the following turn. But the K'kree weren't done. The two battlecruisers of "Triumphant Bellow" volleyed off eight more fighter attack points in two wings of four, striking both ships. Struggling to keep station, the flagship signalled Rear Admiral Sednarii, commnding the 5th Cruiser Squadron, to "STAND BY TO TAKE COMMAND."
The last salvo of K'kree fighters, from the smaller cruisers of "Runners on the Flanks", sallied forth in two more wings of four fighter attack points each towards the Monitor Group, catching the hapless Peitho in their swarming attack and leaving a wrecked carcass where a proud warship had once stood.
It was time for initiative. Braying in triumph, Agri Ki rolled an 8 to Vandamien's 4. The Lords of Thunder may have expended all their fighter attack points, but with both battleships intact, they had plenty of firepower to sling around. Closing the range, their fusion guns were finally able to join their missiles in savaging the g'naak battleships. The Thurien, stricken by the fire of two 250,000 ton ships, simply vanished in a cataclysmic explosion. Agri Ki did not have long to savor his triumph. Emerging from the expanding cloud of debris, her own hull pierced in a dozen places, the Locranon returned fire. Her mighty spinal mount speared through the sandcaster screen thrown up by the Kruxugh', and the exploding charged particles nearly gutted the uncompartmentalized K'kree battleship, and as it wallowed in space venting atmosphere, Locranon's missiles found their mark. Kruxugh''s magazines exploded, taking the Lord of the Outer Steppes with it. Mere instants later, it was Locranon's turn, as the battlecruisers of "Triumphant Bellow" accelerated forwards at three gravities and blasted her to pieces.
The battlecruisers now came under fire from the 5th Cruiser squadron, but the poorly-trained crews' gunnery proved lacking, with only a handful of beams and missiles getting past the K'kree point defenses. The destroyers of the 11th and 12th escort squadrons, lead by the light cruiser Chastity, were better shots. Their weapons raked both of the big Axternachur-class ships from stem to stern, and both battlecruisers tumbled away from the battle out of control, the few K'kree able to keep their heads during the chaos escaping to an uncertain fate in the ships' automated shuttles.
The monitors meanwhile traded fire with the last remaining K'kree ships, the four 50,000-ton cruisers of "Runners on the Flanks", but the remaining four ships, spread out for fear of more robot fighters, failed to concentrate their fire properly, and barely scratched the enemy cruisers.
As the second turn ended, the six escort carriers of the 3rd Carrier group, unable to contribute further to the battle, jumped out.
The third turn saw the beleaguered K'kree go down fighting, firing by divisions and killing Commodore Klimt of the monitor group when the Alglea exploded, followed almost immediately by her sister ship, Auxo. At higher TLs, battleriders make for fearsome opponents, but TL-A ships simply couldn't stand in battle against even the inefficient but much heavier K'kree cruisers. The rest of the Renkard fleet closed in, weapons firing, and the K'kree cruisers perished in a hail of missiles and a torrent of beams.
All in all, it went pretty well, I feel, despite struggling with my own dang rules several times. I also realized I needed to make some more record sheet changes to make them more useful. The total butcher's bill was:
Renkard Union:
3 x 105kton TL11 battleships
3 x 30kton TL10 battleriders
4 x 1.5kton TL11 destroyers
K'kree:
2 x 250kton TL12 battleships
2 x 100kton TL12 battlecruisers
4 x 50kton TL12 cruisers
Obviously, the K'kree losses were total, but (a) even with a 1-2 TL advantage, K'kree ships are dreadful (their battleships have only a bit more firepower than an Azhanti High Lightning-class fleet intruder a third of their displacement), and (b) there are a lot more battleships where that came from in the Xuruk’xaar’keer!, so I think it's fair to say this was a draw. I could have made some better choices with the screening ships on the Renkard side, or played more conservatively as the K'kree, and probably gotten a different outcome.
