10 Sagittarius Fleet - at Mongoose Towers

[H]

of course people want to choose a fleet that has a good chance against all opponents, if everyone starts taking an EA Anti sag fleet. . . all you need is one well prepared Narn nutter (enter reaverman) and he could win the shole shebang, even loosing to the sags might mean nothing if everyone else beats them!

Hiff, my Narn are good. But not that good, I'd get my botty spanked

I heard you liked that........

 

[MongooseMatt]

No kidding. In a match between the 1st most broken ship, the tourney Sag, and the 2nd most broken ship, the Whitestar, then of course it'll be close becaue they're both broken; one's just more so broken than the other.

Now, this is interesting because (personal views aside!) I was under the impression people were okay with the White Star now. Opinions?

 

[katadder]

Matt, agree with your point about terrain and that probably not enough players use it and yes it can maketh the game.

But Whitestars with Dodge & Adaptive Armour and their maneouverability are probably not the best selection to see how broken a 10 Sag fleet is.

I dont mind the new Sag (Obviously as an EA player) but then I wouldnt field 10 of them.

of course there will always be people who bitch about things, overpowered Sags, Gross Ka'tans/Ka'tocs, panse Vorchans etc etc thats just life, and if I get ganked by an uber fleet on 16th well ce la vie.

No kidding. In a match between the 1st most broken ship, the tourney Sag, and the 2nd most broken ship, the Whitestar, then of course it'll be close becaue they're both broken; one's just more so broken than the other.
Oh, and this opinion is excluding Drakh from the picture, because I think the Mothership is the most broken ship in the game, but it's War so at least it's not used often; oh, and don't try to ar5gue for the Mothership because it's the only ship in the game to get 2.5 pts worth of crap for a single War point.

white star, broken? i dotn think so, 4+ dodge and 1 less AD on secondary weapons plus lose precise, compared to saya nova or somethign the whitestar isnt the best raid choice in the game now.

 

[Reborn]

Yar, 'tis good to have this ghost put to rest, aye!!

 

[Reaverman]

No kidding. In a match between the 1st most broken ship, the tourney Sag, and the 2nd most broken ship, the Whitestar, then of course it'll be close becaue they're both broken; one's just more so broken than the other.

Now, this is interesting because (personal views aside!) I was under the impression people were okay with the White Star now. Opinions?

White Stars are a pain, but I can live with them. My Frazi love them, they like to gang up on them, and nibble them to bits. My Ka'Tocs, just put big holes in them

 

[MongooseMatt]

Lakara
2 Bimiths (likely to jump one in the middle of them)
3 Shyarie

Lots of Interceptors, Scout abilities galore, and massive numbers of Comm Disruptors to screw with their CAFing and Come Abouts.

I think it oughtta do well.

The funny thing is, I would call that a balanced fleet

 

[H]

No kidding. In a match between the 1st most broken ship, the tourney Sag, and the 2nd most broken ship, the Whitestar, then of course it'll be close becaue they're both broken; one's just more so broken than the other.

Now, this is interesting because (personal views aside!) I was under the impression people were okay with the White Star now. Opinions?

oh can open, worms everywhere.

I hate the whitestar, but I have seen them creamed good and proper, it IS one of the best raid ships, but it's not overly broken, although dodging when it has a speed zero crit was stupi. I believe this has been fixed though. . . I think the Dag Kar needs hull 5, hint, hint ;-)

 

[Burger]

White Stars are perfectly fine now, IMO. A bit susceptible to 4-1 weapon crits, though, maybe the -1AD should have a minimum of 1 dice.

 

[H]

White Stars are perfectly fine now, IMO. A bit susceptible to 4-1 weapon crits, though, maybe the -1AD should have a minimum of 1 dice.

I thought it did?

 

[MongooseMatt]

White Stars are perfectly fine now, IMO. A bit susceptible to 4-1 weapon crits, though, maybe the -1AD should have a minimum of 1 dice.

Maybe - but then again, the White Stars get a bonus on CQ, meaning they can repair more easily. . .

 

[Triggy]

Matt, agree with your point about terrain and that probably not enough players use it and yes it can maketh the game.

But Whitestars with Dodge & Adaptive Armour and their maneouverability are probably not the best selection to see how broken a 10 Sag fleet is.

I dont mind the new Sag (Obviously as an EA player) but then I wouldnt field 10 of them.

of course there will always be people who bitch about things, overpowered Sags, Gross Ka'tans/Ka'tocs, panse Vorchans etc etc thats just life, and if I get ganked by an uber fleet on 16th well ce la vie.

No kidding. In a match between the 1st most broken ship, the tourney Sag, and the 2nd most broken ship, the Whitestar, then of course it'll be close becaue they're both broken; one's just more so broken than the other.
Oh, and this opinion is excluding Drakh from the picture, because I think the Mothership is the most broken ship in the game, but it's War so at least it's not used often; oh, and don't try to ar5gue for the Mothership because it's the only ship in the game to get 2.5 pts worth of crap for a single War point.

The SFoS White Star may have been that way but the Armageddon White Star is much more even to all opponents.

The battle was interesting and also leads me to think that even in A Call to Arms terrain should be used most of the time (I know the scenario says not to at present). Having a set of rules for player defined terrain, much in the vein of 40K and Fantasy would be an interesting take on the game and one I'd like to see playtested at least. When you have central terrain features the battles are generally much more tactical and therefore mainly more fun.

I also agree though that the White Star fleet had almost everything possible going for it (other than luck) and still lost albeit not by very much at all. It's an unfortunate fact that to find that Zen grail of perfect balance you often need to try out all extremes first, leaving balance as the only option. Something like Magic would be the ultimate end of this spectrum and I really wouldn't want to see ACtA go down that road of constant new releases to counter old problems but creating new ones as they go. So far Mongoose have generally been light handed (a good thing) with their changes and tried to nudge issues toward a centre point.

 

[Reaverman]

White Stars are perfectly fine now, IMO. A bit susceptible to 4-1 weapon crits, though, maybe the -1AD should have a minimum of 1 dice.

Maybe - but then again, the White Stars get a bonus on CQ, meaning they can repair more easily. . .

I was daunted by White Stars at first, but after the Baptism, I think they are balanced. Just that Dodge, and Adaptive Armour is so annoying

Thats not me saying they are Cheesy BTW

 

[Burger]

The 1 minimum damage of adaptive armour has caused my WS the most grief. 20x 1AD guns are much more scray than 1x 20AD! Not saying it should be changed, but thats what kills me off the most. Pesky Frazi!!!

 

[Davesaint]

Hi guys,

Following the discussions on these forums, I grabbed Nick (our resident demo guy) and we tried out the ten Sagittarius fleet.

To match this, I gave 5 White Stars a whirl, figuring I could keep him off balance at least part of the time, and trust to dodges. We played tourney rules, A Call to Arms scenario, with a small planet and an asteroid field.

Some thoughts, if not conclusions;

1. His rolls for criticals were below par, as were my dodges and beam rolls.

2. Terrain maketh the game, even in space - the odd floating rock can spare you a first turn drubbing, and give battered ships breathing space (this would be particularly effective with a Shadow fleet).

3. But it cannot save two Sagittarius (two Sagittari?) from incoming jump points.

4. With ten Sagittarius, you will always be in the field of fire for missiles, wherever you go.

5. But you can put the fleet off balance if you are agile enough, vastly reducing the incoming fire. . .

6. . . . so long as you keep your fleet together and do not spread out.

7. The upgunned forward arc was used twice in this game. Most shots came from the rear and sides.

8. You have to love a planet that a White Star can orbit in a single turn, allowing it to Concentrate All Firepower on a single Sagittarius twice in as row (didn't survive).

End result? The Sagittarius fleet _did_ win. However, it was close enough that it could have swung either way on the dice. One White Star limped home, while only three Sagittarius were left, one badly damaged, one almost pristine.

What was interesting was that the White Stars kept pace, point for point, right up to the end, until both their Damage points and my dice ran out of steam.

Not going to make any judgements from one game and we are more prone to listen to the thoughts of our players than simply go by our own battles so, if after everyone has Armageddon people still want a change, we'll give it some serious thought.

However, 5 White Stars (Armageddon stats) are a perfectly reasonable tournament fleet, so I believe there are ways and means out there. Next time, I'll try a boarding fleet!

My main thought? I don't think people are using planets and asteroids as much as they should.

Warning: Into the Fire II will have terrain on almost every table!!!

Matt,

A couple of questions:

What type of missle load outs were the EA using. What is the weapon load out? Is it 4AD forward, 6AD to Port and Starboard, and 2 AD Aft?

If the Sag fleet knows they are playing against whitestars, they can load up on Anti-fighter missles, negating the WS dodge ability, however, The missle loadout I fear is Flash for the F/P/S racks, and Heavy's in the Aft Arc. If the AD for the Sag is what I indicated above, then you will be throwing more dice than the WS can effectively dodge.

Using Flash missles without CAF a broadside from the 10 Sag's is 60 Missles hitting with 30 as they are AP. On average the WS will dodge 15. Leaving 15 hits that are Double Damage and Precise. 10 will do 20 points, and 5 will do 10 Points plus 5 Criticals. That's one Dead WS.

If you fire 1/2 of a Broadside at 2 Whitestars, then it's 30 Missles at each with an average of 15 Hits. (assuming no CAF) The WS will dodge About 7 of them. Meaning 8 hits two of which are crits. 6 hits for 12 Damage and 2 Hits for 4 Damage plus 2 Crits leaves you with 2 crippled whitestars after adaptive.

Assuming that the Whitestars were able to get Range 18 and not 10, it is likely that you lost 1 Sag in the exchange as on average you will miss on your first roll(assuming no CAF) with 2 of your INL's The 3 remaining INL's will likely get a total of 5 hits between them 15 Damage plus 1 crit.

In looking at other ships to fight the 10 Sag force, the Bimith is a non-starter. The problem being that the Sags will pour too much fire to make the interceptors worth it. If the Bimith is either slowed significantly or stopped, all it becomes is essentially a peice of terrain to be avoided since it is only range 8. In the time we have been playing, I think I can count the number of times the Bimith has had a chance to fire on 1 hand. It really needs a combat laser.

Try running 10 Sag's against a fleet of 4 Prefects and 3 Corvans and see how they do against a beam heavy fleet.


Dave

 

[Burger]

Dave,
Your figures are all wrong, because White Stars have adaptive armour, which halves damage and crew losses, roundng down to a minimum of 1, on a per-weapon basis. You can't clump all 10 Sag's volleys into one 60AD attack.

 

[Nidalap]

Is the Marathon in the torny pack a variation on a Current hull or is it a new ship from the keel up?

Cheers,

Barry

 

[katadder]

apart from its beam the marathon is like an inferior omega.

 

[H]

the key words being "apart from it's beam" which is a bloody nice beam!

 

[Davesaint]

Dave,
Your figures are all wrong, because White Stars have adaptive armour, which halves damage and crew losses, roundng down to a minimum of 1, on a per-weapon basis. You can't clump all 10 Sag's volleys into one 60AD attack.

Actually you can since I am hitting them with Flash missles that are Double Damage and Precise. There are No odd points of damage and they always do 1 point of damage after adaptive. Thus if 15 missles that are double damage hit a whitestar after his dodge he takes 15 damage after Adaptive and is DEAD.

I have been running the ISA since I started playing and I have experienced this first hand.

Dave

 

[Nidalap]

so it`s the omega mini?

on the point of fighting with 1 of a kind fleets how about 10 warbirds or 5 solarhawks. solar hawks would come to 25 quid. not bad. Chronos are a cheap ,good fleet for starting tornys with. add a hyperion or nova and you have a torny fleet for less than 20 quid.
( these are the lines I use on demo days !! )

How much for a torny force in ANY other system? THat why this game rocks!!

Barry