Scenarios

A simple skirmish scenario, with both sides at opposing ends/corners of the map. Both sides start with NNN points. However, one side has exactly three ships, while the other side has no fewer than ten ships. The challenge is to see if the smaller ships can swarm and overwhelm the heavier ones.

Starbase Assault

This is another simple scenario. Both sides have NNN points to play with. One side has a Starbase worth no fewer than NNN points, plus defensive vessels. The other force has a selection of ships as desired by the player. The objective for the attacker is to obliterate the Starbase.

Variations might include allowing the defender to have mines pre-deployed; disallowing the use of cloaking devices by either side; restricting one side to organic hulls.

Asteroid Skirmish

Each side has a task force of NNN points. The table has fifteen to twenty asteroids placed on it, either by a random method (perhaps dropping bits of paper from five feet above the table) or by each player taking turns putting the asteroids on the map. One axis of the map should be designated as the "12" direction.

The fight is a basic skirmish, with both sides starting in opposite corners. The interesting mechanic is the asteroid field. Follow the rules for Movement of Asteroids from Full Thrust page 26. If a ship intersects an asteroids's trajectory it is destroyed as outlined on Full Thrust page 25.

Planetary Skirmish

A straightforward skirmish scenario. This one features a planet in the dead center of the map, with two NNN point fleets squaring off. The attacker starts from anywhere along the map edge that he chooses, while the defender must start his entire fleet within four MU of the planet (four inches).

Any ship that collides with the planet is destroyed instantly, its burning remains raining down upon the surface.

Minefield Skirmish

Two opposing fleets meet each other in deep space and prepare to engage. However, there is a complication: their maneuvers have brought them into a minefield laid in space long ago. The mines are still active and deadly, and pose a threat to both sides as they move to attack.

Each side has a matched force of NNN to NNN points. Each player takes fifteen mine markers and fifteen dummy markers (so there will be 60 mines on the board, total) and mixes them up so they don't know which is which. The players take turns placing markers on the board, with the caveat that no marker may be within 3 MU of any other and no mines can be within eight MU of the two fleet deployment areas (either and edge or a corner, normally).

If a ship ends its turn within three MUs of a marker, flip the marker over. Dummy markers are removed from the board, while mine markers will explode. Full Thrust page 18 details the rules for mines.

Mine/Countermine Operations

While it may resemble a basic skirmish, this scenario is made more interesting by the fact that the defender has a miniumum of three minelayers in his arsenal. Both sides have NNN points to play with, but one side must include three minelayers of at least 150 points each.

Courier Interception

Vital information has been spirited out of the enemy's territory aboard a fast, lightly armed courier. The courier attempts to escape through a warp gate, but there's a hitch -- the warp gate's subspace matrix takes a number of minutes to initialize. Shielded by a number of allied light attack craft, the courier must survive long enough to escape through the warp gate.

Each side has NNN points. The courier player must have a single high-speed ship with only one weapon system, and his other ships cannot exceed 150 points each. The attacker can divide up his points anyway he likes. The warp gate is located within the defender's third of the map and comes on line at the beginning of the seventh turn. Once the warp gate is on line, the courier only has to move into its space to be teleported away and win the match. The attacker only needs to destroy the courier to win.

For added variety, try placing ten to fifteen asteroids on the map at random, so the courier has places to run and hide.

Commerce Raid

The attacker decides to put a dent in enemy shipping. A remote, lightly defended logistics base is chosen as the target, and a task force is dispatched.

Both sides have NNN points. The defender has a small logistics base (no larger than 300 points, with the Cargo Bays equipment option) and a small fleet of cargo ships (minimum six). The starbase must be located in the very center of the map, with the merchant ships located within two hexes of it. The merchant ships start at rest.

The timing is bad, however, as a routine naval patrol is expected to call at the base at any time. The defender has 500 points of reinforcements that will appear at any one edge of the map at the beginning of the fourth turn. This should seriously up the attacker's "pucker factor".

The attacker wins if he destroys two-thirds of the merchant ships. The defender wins if two-thirds of his ships escape. Anything in-between is a draw.

Asteroid Base Assault

This is a similar mission to Starbase Assault; however, the target is an asteroid-based installation. Play this scenario similarly to the Starbase Assault scenario, with the following change:

The asteroid installation itself is built like a starbase (i.e., a ship with no propulsion system), worth a minimum of 600 points. The installation's Hull value represents the structural integrity of the buildings on the asteroid; the asteroid itself has a Hull value of 50. The installation occupies only one side of the asteroid, so weapons can have only a firing arc within the F, FP, and FS arcs. The asteroid base rotates one clock-sides at the beginning of each turn, in the clockwise direction.

Slaver Hunt

The objective in this scenario for one side is to board a passenger ship and cart away as many potential slaves as possible, while the other side tries to prevent this same thing from happening. Each side has NNN points to work with.

At the beginning of the scenario, a passenger liner (its stats are unimportant) is sitting disabled in the center of the map. The slaver player has one ship with capacity for 500 passengers that starts the game 1 MU adjacent to the passenger liner. The rest of the slaver escorts are deployed anywhere on the map the slaver chooses (although cannot be within 12 MUs of the naval patrol player's forces). It takes one turn for each 100 passengers to be loaded onto the slaver ship, and it has already loaded up 100 -- thus it will take four full turns for it to be fully loaded. The slaver is able to undock and maneuver around the map and redock with the liner to load more slaves; it must simply sit idle next to the liner for one full turn to load up another 100 passengers

The naval patrol player places his forces anywhere along one edge of the map.

The rescuer must attempt to board and seize the slaver ship that has kidnapped the passengers. If he can do so, he wins. If the slaver ship escapes off the board with a full load of passengers, the slaver wins. If the slaver is destroyed with innocent passengers on board, or if the slaver ship escapes off the map with fewer than a full load of passengers, the game is a draw..

Capture the Flag

This is primarily the same as the Starbase Assault or Asteroid Base Assault scenarios, except that the objective for the attacker is to capture the target base, either by using Marines or by killing all the crewmembers aboard the target installation, allowing it to be occupied later.

Since this is considerably more difficult than simply destroying the base, the attacker has 30% more points to spend on ships than in the assault scenarios.

Midway 2600

This force-on-force scenario consists of two opposing fleets, one of which is heavy with fighter carriers. Each side has NNNN points to spend, but one side must have at least four fighter carriers, each of which has at least 50% of its points spent on Fighter Bays.

Barbarians at the Gates

The imperialist navy has held the local systems under its heel long enough. A flotilla of obsolete, outmoded local vessels has assembled to wipe out the local naval outpost.

The imperialist force has NNN points, but its Tech Levels are all high. The indigenous forces are poor -- their Tech Levels are low - but there are many of them, fully NNNN points worth! The indigenous forces find the imperialist naval patrol having just replenished supplies from fleet tenders; thus the imperialist forces start in the beginning of the map at no velocity, while the indigenous forces can start from any or every edge of the map as the player desires.

The Bear and The Coyotes

Enemy forces have been hiding out in a huge asteroid field, unbeknownst to the Imperial Navy. During a hyperspace transit from one sector to another through one such asteroid field, a superheavy carrier -- HMS Oso -- suffers a critical engine failure and is forced to drop out of hyperspace in the middle of the asteroids. Unfortunately for the captain of the Oso, this particular patch of space is the hideout for a band of enemy light attack ships. Seizing this opportunity of a lifetime, the light forces swarm to attack, hoping to obliterate the enemy carrier before her sister ships can come to her aid.

The defender has a single carrier, worth up to NNN points and with at least 70% of its SU's spent on Fighter Bays. The attacker has NNN points worth of small craft, none of which are larger than 150 points. There are also fifteen asteroids on the map, distributed (and that behave) according to the method described in the Asteroid Skirmish scenario described above. The carrier starts at the dead center of the map, while the attackers are scattered around the map as desired by the player, so long as they aren't within 15 hexes of the carrier. The carrier's fighters are not deployed at the beginning of the game.

At the beginning of the seventh turn, the carrier's allies hyper in, appearing at any edge of the map the defending player desires. These consist of at least two vessels, of total value of 600 points. The carrier is able to repair its hyperdrive at the beginning of the thirteenth turn, allowing it to go into hyper by leaving the edge of the map.

The attacker wins if the Oso is destroyed; if the defender manages to drive off or destroy the attacker while the carrier still has at least one Hull point and one Crew point left, or if the carrier escapes off the map into hyperspace, the defenders win.

Battle in the Teutoburg Cluster

Yes, this is another asteroid scenario. Scouts have reported the approach of an Imperial task force through a natural channel that bisects the Teutoburg asteroid cluster. Laying an ambush, the attacking force, known as Task Force Arminius, has seeded the asteroid field with mines and hidden its ships within the field bordering the channel. The Imperial patrol, Task Force Varus, is proceeding through the channel none the wiser.

Task Force Arminius has NNN points of ships and 40 mine and dummy markers (20 of each), which are pre-deployed. His ships may deploy anywhere within the asteroid zones, but not within six MUs of the center line of the clear channel; his mines may be anywhere up to the edge of the channel. The defending force, Task Force Varus, also has NNN points, and must start the game within the clear channel at one end of the asteroid field, all facing the same direction (towards the far end of the channel).

The channel is created by placing thirty asteroids randomly along the map, but leaving a six MU wide channel through the very center of the map (and running along the long axis of your game mat, if it has a long axis). The asteroids can be placed by alternating turns or by dropping bits of paper from a few feet above the table, with any that fall within the channel being re-dropped to one side. It's up to the players whether they want the asteroids to move randomly or not (as described in the Asteroid Skirmish scenario).

The defending player wins if one-third of his ships escape off the map.

Black Hole Skirmish

Two even forces engage each other in the darkest reaches of space, only to find that they have come within the extreme gravitational field of a black hole. The black hole marker is placed in the dead center of the game map, and all ships are affected by its presence.

Ships are affected at the end of their movement, sliding towards the black hole in the straightest line possible. No facing change is forced upon them, but the ships' final positions are adjusted as follows, based on how far they are from the anomaly:

Distance from the black hole: Forced movement:

5 MU or less - 3 MU

6 to 10 MU - 2 MU

11+ MU - 1 MU

Any ship that crosses the space occupied by the black hole is instantly destroyed. Any ship that passes through within 2MUs adjacent to the black hole takes 1 point of Hull damage and an additional point of damage rolled against their damage chart, due to the severe gravitational eddies present. Fighters, Battle Satellites, and Drones are similarly affected, both in movement and damage; if a Fighter or Drone flight passes through the 2MU radius surrounding a black hole, roll a single d6 to see how many craft were destroyed, while if a Battle Satellite passes through, it is simply destroyed.

Special conditions: Some weapons and equipment will not function properly (or at all) in a black hole's high-gravity field. Possible effects include:

Missiles cannot seek
Long-Range Sensors and Electronic Warfare Systems are ineffective.
The black hole blocks line of sight.

Normal victory conditions for a skirmish battle still apply.