Monday, July 16, 2012

The Vargr and the Fifth Frontier War


The Vargr and the Fifth Frontier War

Just coreward of the Regina subsector lies the Vargr domains of Gvurrdon Sector. One Vargr warlord – the leader of the Ngath Confederation - has been influenced by the Zhodani Consulate to throw in with the Consulate against the Third Imperium. While larger than any corsair raid could ever hope to be, the Vargr warfleet is small by the standards of modern interstellar war.

As with many endeavors, logistics drives strategy. The Vargr were not immune to this constraint. Specifically, the Vargr had tens of thousands of ground fighters available, but insufficient shipping capacity (‘star lift capacity’ to use the naval term) to move all the troops simultaneously with the fleet. The result is a campaign that often appears to ‘lurch forward’. The assault carrier squadron carries the initial combat drop, but then has to fall back and retrieve the second wave. (Author’s aside: you find similar constraints in the operations of the 7th Amphibious Force in the Southwest Pacific during World War Two).

Coupled with that is the bottleneck nature of the Feri star system. Feri has no gas giant, so in order to refuel, a fleet must control the planet. But the Vargr could not lift enough troops to quickly conquer the planet.

The Ulithi Fleet plan called for a six week campaign by the 101st Army and 105th Tank Corps, supported by the cruiser squadrons of the Fleet. Meanwhile the battle squadron’s accompany Assault Carrier Squadron 12 back to Vargr space to pick up the remaining corps and divisions of the invasion force and return to Feri. Ideally, by the time the fleet returned, the only thing left to do would be hold the victory parade, load up the troops and push on to the next objective.

5 comments:

  1. Hmm...Vargr strategy in FFW. Always fun! I usually load my assault ron with everything BUT 101 Army and then I can leave garrisons at the worlds I want to conquer without doubling back. Normally I aim to take Dentus, Moughas, Violante and Focaline as quickly as possible to maximize VPs.

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  2. Yup. I had an ulterior strategic motive, which was to create a campaign background yielding a fun setting for pitting the Vargr against Imperial forces.

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  3. Ray, great stuff. In the old days, I had a naval officer character from Aramis. He knew the Vargr for the threat they were.

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  4. I remember the Vargr being a bit useless but more useful that the Sword Worlds stuff. Stay away from big battles and don't waste resources on them. I did play this twenty years ago so I might not be the best judge.

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  5. Fred, your memory is spot on. The Vargr fleet-army is able to pull off missions of a limited nature. When playing FFW, they could subdue a number of low tech worlds and - with luck - take on one or two major campaigns...like Feri.

    The limits are tied to the number of divisions that can serve as garrisons, allowing the corps and army to push forward.

    For my purposes, Feri is the first strategic objective of the Vargr fleet. A tough objective with great return in booty.

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