C3PO – “Sir, we just lost the main rear deflector shield. One more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for!”
Han Solo – “Turn her around!”
And then Han Solo proceed to go head to head against a Star destroyer, barely avoids crashing into the bridge and then miraculously vanishes from the Star destroyers sensors and is gone. The Star destroyer has lost them and captain Needa suffers a reprimand while Millenium Falcon has secretly docked to the enemy ship. Sure, Star Wars is space fantasy and the ships certainly doesn’t follow the laws of physics or even common sense but let’s find out if this particular daring maneuver is at all possible using the Intercept rules? We will only use the standard rules here, no house rules or Star Wars conversions, just plain ol’ Intercept.
Let’s use a Beowulf class Free trader as Millenium Falcon and an Azhanti High lightning class cruiser as the Star destroyer. Let’s break down what is going on in the scene:
Han, Leia and Chewie hastily exit the asteroid to avoid being eaten by a huge improbable worm. A nearby Star destroyer detects them and give chase. Falcon first seem to shrug of the fire from the enemy but then a hit destroys their rear deflector shield. Han reroutes all power to the forward deflector shield, turns around and fly straight at the enemy. Captain Piett order shields up as Falcon barely misses them. The Star destroyer has lost track of the Falcon and assume it has escaped, possibly through some sort of cloaking device albeit a ship that small is unlikely to have one. Falcon has in fact docked on the rear side of the Star destroyers bridge tower.
Intercept neither have shields nor cloaking devices, the only defense against lasers aside from armor is sandcasters so let’s assume our trader ship has a bunch of these; one laser and two sandcasters in the top turret and one laser and two sandcasters in the bottom turret. The Beowulf won’t ever fire at the Azhanti but we calculate it anyways:
- Beowulf Pilot task 7+, +4 from Hand Solo being an excellent Pilot
- Dice pool 1
- Thrust 1.8 Gs unloaded
- DAB 20, ARM 19, Surface 13/19, Power 16/19, Thrust 16
- Effective Range 1 Single 10 MW laser: PEN 24 DAM 24
- Beams 5+ range 1, 8+ range 2-3, 11+ range 4+, Missiles 8+
- Two sandcasters defense roll 9+, +2 for dual
The Azhanti has lots of weaponry including the deadly meson spinal mount. Darth Vader wants to capture the ship rather than killing it as he believes Luke is on board. The Azhanti will use its two batteries of 10 MW lasers each and its two batteries of 50 MW each. The Azhanti will also use Spray fire attacks to trade damage for multiple hits hoping to cripple rather than killing, most commanders know what awaits if one displeases Darth Vader.
- Azhanti Pilot task 12+
- Dice pool 7
- Thrust 2.3 Gs loaded
- DAB 35, ARM 31, Surface 25/31, Power 25/31, Thrust 28
- Range 1 Triple 10 MW laser: PEN 25 DAM 25
- Range 3 Single 50 MW laser: PEN 29 DAM 29
- Beams 0+ range 1, 3+ range 2-3, 6+ range 4+, Missiles 3+
- No sandcasters
We will simply assume that Han Solo with his excellent piloting skills and a target number of 7 will always be able to turn at least 4 steps (which is the same as saying he will roll 3+ on his Pilot task rolls). We also assume that the cruiser will use many of its computer pool dice to get 2 steps of turning on every turn. Given the fact that when Han Solo initially escaped from Hoth and was chased into the asteroid belt his fancy flying had two cruisers nearly crashing. Surely lord Vader will have none of that so the cruiser captains make damned sure that maneuvering is a top priority.
The trader is leaving the asteroid with a speed of 2 and the Azhanti has the same speed, two squares behind and one to the right. The cruiser immediately give chase and the fight is on.
The cruiser fires its lasers at the trader and the trader defends using the two sandcasters of its belly turret. The sandcasters does not completely stop the laser attack and the cruiser inflicts Severe damage to the Surface location of the trader.
This is the moment C3PO say “Sir, we just lost the main rear deflector shield. One more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for!”
The cruiser know the trader is now nearly defenseless and confidently turn and thrust to close the gap.
The trader captain knows he can no longer rely on the sandcasters fending off the cruisers lasers and he cannot outrun the cruiser as the trader’s 1.8 Gs is no match against the 2.3 Gs of the cruiser. He decides to turn the ship around and go for the cruiser’s blind aft centerline. C3PO shouts in protest and Needa flinches as the trader passes the bridge of the cruiser.
The trader disappear from the cruiser’s sensors as it has moved into its blind aft centerline. The next turn the cruiser will no longer learn the trader’s move. It is crucial that the cruiser reacquires the trader or the trader might slip away. Failure is not an option when Darth Vader is your commander.
The captain uses the formidable computer power at hand to turn the cruiser 2 left and thrusts for 2G, turning the cruisers blind aft centerline away from where he thinks the trader will go. The trader decides to capitalize on the cruiser being blind by turning towards the cruiser and thrusts to get on top of it.
What is Han Solo thinking, surely the cruiser will have the common sense of scanning itself when the enemy has lost its track?
The movement phase is over and its time for the Sensor phase. Having lost the track of the trader the cruiser should perhaps go for a wide scan that is guaranteed to contain the trader, a Visual or Infrared 2×2 box Scan maybe?
Every sensor operator and every officer at the naval academy learns that Scans touching the Sunglare column are bad, akin to staring into the sun on guard duty. Sure, Hoth lies outside of the Goldilock zone of its star and the asteroid belt is even further out it will still severely degrade the Scan, what else to do?
The best option might be for the commander to put a small 3×3 square Radar scan on the ship. Radar don’t suffer Sunglare degrading and will make sure the trader cannot hide anywhere near the ship. We who have seen the movie knows this is not what happened – Leia and Han was not captured and brought to Vader’s command ship so why didn’t captain Needa use a radar scan to reacquire the trader?
Captain Needa, after losing track of the trader “I shall assume full responsibility in eluding them apologize to lord Vader – meanwhile, continue to scan the area”
The reason is simple; as Needa has left to ‘apologize’ to Vader the remaining bridge crew on the cruiser does not want to signal to Vader that they have lost track of the prey. Vader’s command ship will surely pick up the radar scan of the cruiser and inform lord Vader of their incompetence.
The cruiser decides on a Visual 1×1 box scan that doesn’t touch the Sunglare and covers the presumed location of the trader.
The cruiser sees nothing and it’s remaining bridge crew learn the fate of captain Needa, failure is not an option in tbe Imperial navy it seems. It is time for the next turn.
Finding nothing from the previous turn’s Scan the cruiser turns left and thrusts for 1G. Han Solo, still untracked, executes the final step in his clever gamble and manuvers to dock with the cruiser (same, position, vector and facing is all that is required).
The trader is now docked with the cruiser and the only way a Scan to detect it is if the scanner explicitly states that they are scanning for docked ships, with their Sense target number up to 7+ from the usual 6+. See page 26 of the rulebook for details on Landed or docked.
C3PO “Captain Solo, this time you have gone too far!”
The trader ship will remain docked until the fleet get ready to jump. Very few people have ever heard about this trick; to dock unseen with an enemy vessel to elude detection, unfortunately for Han Solo, one of these few is Boba Fett who follow them as they undock.
So, there you have it: playing out the escape from the Hoth system using only standard Intercept rules, even finding rationales as to why captain Needa does what he does.
Keep space tidy – dump in jump.
Vector movement 