Please re-evaluate and look at the map closely.
Your thoughts are to bring in 2 carriers (more like freighters) and 3 fighters, and a destroyer (all of which have a 1/10 to hit probability into a region that has 2 enemy PDS shooting back at you prior to the battle with the enemy Dreadnaught?
2/10, actually. Hit on 9 or better.
Sod it, send in the flagship for good measure
We keep throwing curves at ya, @Captbnut, and I apologize for that.
Carriers are only Speed 1 (they can’t move from your Home System to Archon Vail, unless you have an action card or the “Gravitation Drives” Tech, and even with that Tech it only speeds up 1 ship and so you could bring 1 Carrier and the Fighters, but not both).
Now, your Flagship has Capacity, so it can bring up to 3 Fighters or Infantry (or any combination thereof), but it is also only Speed 1, so it can’t move anywhere to pick up more stuff.
So, just for clarity, from what I can see you can move your Flagship, 1 Destroyer, 1 Dreadnaught, 1 Fighter, and both Infantry from the Velnor system. That will leave that system empty (aside from your Spacedock obviously).
You would get 3 PDS shots from your Flagship before Combat begins, and the Mentak would get 2 shots back. Statistically, about 50% of those shots will hit, so you should expect to inflict 1-2 hits on them, and expect to take 1 hit back.
After that your Flagship and Dreadnaught are pretty good, and you should expect 1 of them to hit each round. Your Destroyer and Fighters each have about a 20% chance to hit, which means on average they will hit once (among all of them) every 2 rounds of combat, more-or-less.
In response the Mentak have a Dreadnaught that will hit about 50% of its shots, and a Carrier that will hit about 1 in 5, so you should expect to take another hit or two before you can take them out (keeping in mind that the Mentak have 3 total health worth of ships, so your opening volley should get you close but dice are dice and there are no guarantees).
You are definitely leaving Velnor exposed, but GeeBizzle has already passed this turn, so theoretically you should be able to clear out his ships.
The ground combat with 2 of your Infantry a very 50/50 affair if your one Dreadnaught shot doesn’t hit (if it does, obviously you immediately win, but that’s only a 50/50 bombardment roll). And because the Mentak have a PDS, you can’t bombard, which actually makes it relatively unlikely that you will win that ground fight (they get a free PDS shot on your landing troops, if you lose that 1 things get much worse very quickly).
ANYway, I’m just letting you know how I run these sorts of calculations when I fight. The numbers at the start look good, but if you miss that entire initial PDS volley (not unlikely), things get a lot more questionable… you should still theoretically win, but there will be a cost, and that cost gets high as soon as your Fighter(s) die.
Alternatively, you could just activate Archon Vail, send nothing in, and just take your free 3 PDS shots with no response (since you’re not sending in any ships, there are no Xxcha ships in the active system for the Mentak to fire at).
Means there is zero chance to capture or blockade the system, but it might soften up the Mentak fleet: you would have to get 2 of your 3 shots to hit for it to “mean” anything (otherwise the Dreadnaught soaks the one damage and repairs at the end of the turn).
But it is an option, and I’ve done it in the past. Just something to think about.
Also I think I get 3 dice 2pds plus 1 extra die from a card.
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GeeBizzle is correct: there is a neighbouring PDS (I seem to really struggle at noticing Mentak PDS… bad news if we were enemies, but since I think the Titans currently account for something like 75% of the entire Mentak Trade Good economy, not a big deal since we are friends!).
So you would also have to factor on 1-2 hits coming at you before combat begins. You can be thankful he doesn’t have any Destroyers or Cruisers: the Mentak also get to fire with up to 2 of those before combat begins, which can be a pretty significant source of free hits.
Again, the math is significantly in the Xxcha favour (3 health of Mentak ships vs 7 health of Xxcha), but it’s never a sure thing.
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Yup I’m due another dice based calamity.
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I’ll do this, partially because you were so kind to type all of that out!!
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Also because I’m about to explode.
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Remember how dismal my dice were in the initial battle for this planet.
My captains have promised me they haven’t been drinking this time.
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@Marx asked for a die roll:
RIghtio, let’s get this party started!
Xxcha forces will be 1 Flagship (two shots on 7+), 1 Dreadnaught (5+), 1 Destroyer (9+), 1 Fighter (9+), and 2 Infantry (8+ when/if we get to ground combat). The flagship also provides 3 PDS shots hitting on 5+… oh, hey, Plasma Scoring gives you a 4th shot! Huh. So that’s 4 PDS shots going at the Mentak.
The Mentak fleet is 1 Dreadnaught (5+), 1 Carrier (9+), and 2 PDS (5+) plus Plasma Scoring for 3 shots.
PDS… fire!
Xxcha (5+): pool 4d10: 5, 6, 2× 7
Mentak (5+) pool 3d10: 2, 5, 10
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Bam! 4 hits on the Mentak, wiping them out (unless they have something up their sleeve, @GeeBizzle), and 2 hits back against the Xxcha.
@Captbnut, allocate your hits. You can absorb both shots by using “Sustain Damage” on your Dreadnaught and Flagship, but keep in mind a relatively common Action Card is called “Direct Hit” and it will destroy a ship that uses Sustain Damage (Dreadnaught II tech makes them immune, but your Flagship and War Suns are always vulnerable to those cards… but while they are “common”, they aren’t super common, but it is something to keep in mind. In this specific case, if you use “Sustain Damage” on your Flagship and the Mentak destroy it, you also lose 2 of the 3 things it is carrying since your Fleet would only have a Capacity of 1 remaining on the Dreadnaught).
After that we can move on to Ground Combat if the Xxcha desire.
I’ll destroy a fighter and take a hit on the dreadnought
How is this possible? They’re an eye-catching yellow! You can practically see them in the dark (of space)! 
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@Marx asked for a die roll:
Okay, with the caveat that if the Mentak have something up their sleeves we will have to scrap the entire invasion, let’s move on.
The Mentak PDS gets one shot at the descending troops… oh, hey, Plasma Scoring works here too. Valuable lessons for all in this battle! So two shots.
PDS 5+: pool 2d10: 4, 9
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@Marx asked for a die roll:
One Infantry flames out on the way down.
Mentak Infantry and Xxcha Infantry both hitting on 8+:
Xxcha: d10: 10
Mentak: pool 2d10: 2× 10
One loss on each side, which takes out the last Xxcha attacker and ends the battle unless the Xxcha have some trick.
That ends @Captbnut’s turn (again, if @GeeBizzle has cards to play we can just rewind and reroll as appropriate), and brings us to @COMaestro and their turn.
I got nothing
Who gets the planet card?
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The Mentak keep it as this point, since they defeated your invasion (and they still have an Infantry there)
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