This short Wasp vs Rafik duel was intended as the first battle for a player who, I hope, will soon play more AV:T. I asked P whether he prefers Wasp or Rafik and he chose Rafik. I think that in hidsight I should have told him to take the Wasp, since it's easier to play in a straight beam fight.

Starting conditions were - first row of fuel used, no missile or coilgun ammo, otherwise ships were undamaged, and were set at a distance of about 25-30 hexes with vectors of 3 towards each other, the "Victory" was slightly above the plane of the map, the Krzewski was below.

I was determined to close in quickly so I went to full thrust, Rafik was a bit more cautious and had a slower vector, but was also going more or less straight at me, so in the second turn I managed a perfect pass at a distance of 6. Just before coming into range I was hit by a salvo from 2 MRLS mounts, but they only singed one heat sink, destroyed one living quarters and a bit of fuel, due to good soak rolls. Then was the Wasp's turn and the alpha strike did a devastating 74 points of damage.

Well, I hoped for "devastating". Unfortunately, due to some good rolling no SI hits were ever incurred in the first half of the battle - I destroyed some reactors (and was half expecting them to blow up, however, quick perusal of the damage section has shown that nuclear reactors of combat ships do not blow up. Disappointing. ), heat sinks, and then reached the crunchy core. Which was where the Rafik started to hurt - I hit its bridge. Three times. No flex points, no bridge, 50% failure chance for each order. Then I was hit by one more shot which did cosmetic damage and we departed on quite large vectors. I swung around, again opening throttle wide and noticing with some discomfort the quickly dropping amount of reaction mass.

It actually took us two turns to reengage, during which time we were able to replenish the batteries, and then I managed another alpha-strike at a distance of 6, this time doing 73 damage. The second time I destroyed life support and all hyperdrives, in addition to some more heat sinks, and inflicted 4 SI hits (the Rafik passed the first octagon with flying colours). Unfortunately, I was down to the last row of fuel, and then the Rafik opened fire with more MRLSes, blasting holes in my fuel tanks and destroying 6 columns of fuel. With 13 fuel left I decided to disengage and go home, feeling victorious, while the Rafik, with 4 wrenches left, repaired the life support and the hyperdrives and limped home.

The whole game took 2.5 hours and was 6 turns long. Quite an OK introduction, but it shows that in a pure laser fight frigates are quite tough and difficult to cripple or destroy. Next time, coilguns!