Foxhound - A Striker variant Amber Zone Reviews # 24

Check out the series introduction here. 

Amber Zone: Foxhound, a Striker variant, by J.D. Webster

Location: Sverdan, a balkanized TL-7 world with standard to dense atmosphere. (No location given in the OTU)

This Amber Zone is specifically written for Striker, making it unique of the Amber Zones I've reviewed so far. There is no mention of PCs, patron or payoff, so I'll leave that out of the review.

Setup: The defender's side in this scenario consists of eight G-Carriers & three Rampart space fighters. The G-carriers are moving in convoy, transporting a national leader. They are protected from above by the Ramparts. The attacker's side has twelve “Foxhound” jet fighters – normally not a threat to the space-armored Ramparts, but the attackers have been supplied with a quantity of anti-spaceship missiles (Gyrfalcon type) which can knock the Ramparts down. 

 The Foxhounds' mission is to take out the national leader, but they don't know which G-carrier he's in, so in effect they have to take out all of them. The defenders obviously want to prevent this. The scenario ends when either all of the G-carriers or all of the Foxhounds are out of action. 

 Striker has rules for utilizing aircraft (which at higher TLs includes contra-grav craft like the G-carriers) in strafing ground targets and dogfighting. In each turn all the craft in the same range roll for 'advantage'; which usually means in position where one side cannot fire on the other. Damage is abstracted into a 'damage point' value; hits scored reduce this total. As the dp value goes down, the craft loses speed, and there's a chance for crippling hits to take a craft out immediately.

Strong Points: I am assuming that this is a balanced scenario. The G-carriers will be pretty easy pickings for the Foxhounds, and are not likely to score many hits in return. The Ramparts are very tough relative to the Foxhounds; but the Gyrfalcons can even that up, except that there are only so many Gyrfalcons available.

Weak Points: I can't see any, unless the scenario is unbalanced, which I will not know until I play it several times. Let's assume that it is balanced. No weak points to mention.

What I'd change: Basically nothing, this is a good standalone/one-off game. It could also be integrated into a Traveller game, most likely making the PCs pilots of the Ramparts. A really mean referee would make them crew of one of the G-carriers!

In My Traveller Universe: I don't have a lot of TL 7 worlds, and most of them are in the Wilds. The world Sharmun (which I lifted whole from JTAS 4/Amber Zone #4 “Salvage on Sharmun”) fits the bill, but this encounter would certainly ignite a nuclear war between the two local powers, so maybe I'd better pick on the planet Pergamuth (Wilds 0309) - and make the target the Great Leader (see Planets in my Traveller Universe - I've added Pergamuth).

Maps: As this adventure takes place entirely in the air, maps are not indicated.
 
The page image is of a Soviet MiG-31 Foxhound.