Forget what I said about the Hydran Ranger's robustness. Although it can certainly take quite a bit of damage, it can still be gutted like any other starship. And if the Ranger is destroyed, the fighters will have a tough time winning by themselves unless the other starship can't move faster than about 20 hexes a turn.

Turn 1: Ranger charges at speed 31. Romulan has speed 20. They close in quickly and the Romulan launches both plasma torpedos. Gosh, I love those plasma swivel mounts as both torpedos stay tightly together. The Ranger decides to plow through the torpedos.

Both ships are at close range when the torpedos hit. The Ranger neglects to fire at the torpedos. You have to remember that on any large volley you'll lose at least a couple of phasers, so might as well fire them before they get taken out. The Ranger takes a lot of damage, losing three phasers and a fusion beam. Later in the impulse the two starships exchange direct fire, but since the Ranger has lost some weapons it only does a handful of internal damage, although destroying a plasma launcher.

Fighters were launched on impulse 25 so that they can fire on impulse 1 of turn 2. They're a few hexes away at the end of the first turn. Both the Ranger and the fighters can shoot through the downed #6 shield of the Romulan on impulse 1 of turn 2, with the Hydran having a fusion beam that it didn't fire on turn 1.

Turn 2: The Hydrans fire, doing significant damage to the Romulan starship. The Romulan all of its facing phasers, leaving it with just two phaser-2s on the right side and a plasma torpedo. The Romulan runs, trying to recharge its plasma torpedo. The Hydran pursues. The fighters split up into groups of three to try to corral the Romulan.

Two-thirds of the way through the turn the Romulan tries to break through the fighter screen, hoping to get past them before the end of the turn. Alas, the attempt falls short, and the Romulan starship ends the turn with three fighters right behind it. Faced with another 40 points of damage that will cut through the scant #4 shield, the Romulan surrenders.

Key thing for the Romulan was to try and destroy the Hydran Ranger. Not too surprisingly, the six phaser-2s that shoot in the FA arc are rather important and easy to strip with a good volley. Without them the Ranger has to get a centerline shot to hit with all fusion beams, meaning it doesn't have much firepower out of the centerline.

Although the fighters look quite fearsome, without the Ranger they are not all that threatening. Each fighter can do about 4 points of damage at a range of 4-5 hexes, which is as close as an enemy ship will get (in the Cadet Training Handbook, shuttles can't be fired upon outside of range 5). Although that would be about 36 damage for the full squadron, if the ship has plenty of power then it has the leisure of running away and repairing its shields. Note that it's going to be hard to destroy the Ranger while not taking substantial damage.

For Round 2, the Klingons are allowed to come back into the tournament. The matches will be Gorn vs Lyran, Hydran vs ISC, and Klingon vs Kzinti. As a wild guess, I think that the Gorn, ISC, and Kzinti ships will advance to Round 3. Gorn because of its phaser-1s, ISC because it has more power and is sturdier than any other ship, Kzinti just because.