Re: Battle for the Lytherian astroid

While interesting I find severl things of note with the battle you
described.

1)  all forces should fight like the forces they are.  By this I mean
your humanoids acted very well as mercenaries or Tenth Pit but not as
scro, who we all know prefer to get in close fast and unleash the
marines rather than duke it out at range, even if that might be wiser.
 With this in mind I wonder why the scro didn't land outside of the
elven range and drop off marines before they began their aerial
assault or have the ships land one by one to do so after they'd beaten
back the air field defenses (covered by the other vessels, of course).

2)  Once again we see the poor design which gives SJ weaponry worse
range with larger weapons.  I think several people have modified this
in their campaigns and I think this illustrates a good reason why. 
Also tracking the movement of fired shots each round until they clear
the battle area might well have altered the battle as a failed
initiative roll could have put a heavy catapult shot into one of the
ship's sides.  I think one of the primary problems with ships versus
ground fortifications is ships are subject to critical hits.  Any
significant battle will have a couple and though I didn't see you note
them a spelljammer shock mage one a ship within the gravity field of
the asteroid could spell doom as the ship fell "to earth".  Ship
shaken hits would also be significant as, of course, would loss of
maneuverability.  On the converse side of the a ship has the advantage
of being all in one hex and thus having all its weapons centrally
located.  Most base designs I've seen place weapons over several hexes
so a savvy player (not necessarily character) can manuever so they can
isolate one or two weapons and pound on them.  When they're gone the
ship moves withing range of the next base weapon.  I perform similar
sniping attacks all the time in Starcraft so I've gained an
appreciation for how well these tactics work to destroy outer defenses.

3)  One note is this refers somewhat to #1 above, too.  Why didn't the
elves have any prearranged magical defenses?  Something as simple as
hallucinatory terrain, hallucinatory forest, magic mouth spells, or
the like could have helped them greatly.  Also a nice wall of fog or
fog cloud could have prevented an enemy ship from doing anything (as
no one could see) but I only noted the use of destructive spells. 
Sleep works especially well on orcs and could have quickly removed the
scorpion weapon crews as a threat.  Charm and suggestion spells I like
the most as they can cause an enemy of any power to suddenly become a
distraction to his friends.

4)  This point isn't really a critique but rather a roleplaying note
and has little to do with the actual battle you presented.  Humanoids
find battles great times for advancement.  Say the scro have lorded
their mastery over the others a little too much so as soon as the
mantis suffers a ship shaken crit the other vessels pull out of elven
range and pound it.  They hope the "fleet" flagship will crash and
they'll get to let their two enemies duke it out while neither has a
way to escape the asteroid.  Or maybe the scro first mate decides he
needs to be captain, especially after the loss of the blades which he
sees as useless.

5)  How did the attackers communicate and so time their actions? 
Semaphore?  Magic?  This is very important as line of sight would come
into play with all those ships suddenly running to the asteroid field
so many times.  Timing was key to the humanoid attack and I would like
to know how they did it.  It might give me some ideas and it could
make those vision obscuring spells of the elves all that more useful. 
The elves could use continual darkness (preprepared on ballista bolts,
arrows, and stones, of course) to confuse an enemy very easily.  Place
a few in key locations around the airspace of the base and the enemy
suddenly finds it hard to target weapons emplacements until they're in
range.  Further the enemy spellcasters must choose between dispel
magic and fireball/lightning bolt now.  Throw a continual light (or
continual light rock/arrow/bolt) on a ship and suddenly you get
bonuses to hit highlighted areas of the ship and crew just as you
would with faerie fire (remember, space, especially in an asteroid
field that prevents sighting ships until they're 1000 yards out, is
dark).  It also interferes with orc and goblin sight (minuses to hit).

6)  Why wasn't at least one ship on patrol to help prevent foes from
sneaking up.  They don't have to engage, just see the enemy and run
home with some semaphore raised to sound the alarm.

7)  Was most of the battle conducted in the asteroid's air envelope? 
If so I'd use weapon stats for normal surface battles rather than
those modified for SJ.  It might or might not alter some effects.  It
also introduces sound as a factor so shout spells and the like are now
useful.  Since fireball seemed to work well I'd assume the air
envelopes were connected at least.  On the idea of sound you could add
weapons preprepared with magic mouths also.  Start taunting (with the
spell or simply with magic mouths) the humanoids and I'd probably
force morale/discipline checks on the enemy crews similar to how
battlesystem forces a discipline check when two racial foes meet.  

8)  Permanent bases should have covered turrets, much like archers use
arrow slits and crenelations to provide them with cover.  Add a team
to man the cover and it could open when the weapon's ready to fire and
close while its reloading (the observatory or garage door effect). 
This adds additional personnel costs but you have marines who could
fill this function and act as a back up weapon crew in case the first
one needs replacements.

Those are some of my initial thoughts on the matter but I do think
your example demonstrates one of the long time principles of war, a
static defense will never beat a good mobile offense.
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