10 Sagittarius Fleet - at Mongoose Towers

[Ripple]

No offense to you Chewy but our local player is known for having a tendancy to stick his whitestars right in the center of an enemy's crossfire. He has improved radically, but with the SFOS whitestar he took second place in an earlier tournament that was also well attended. He only lost to an Earth missle fleet and it was his third total game.

I am glad to hear we have a playtester in the US as there does seem to be a real difference in play style between the US and the UK. That is assuming I have you located right in St. Louis.

The idea that a ship has to be better than it's PL because the fleet is thin bothers me a bit. What happens as the game expands and more ships are added to that fleet? What happens to battles at the PL of the fleet in question. Should they tend to win at that level because they lose at others. Does this mean that certain fleets are more tourney viable than others because the tourney system doesn't force you to fight at all PLs?

It is a question of whether there is any intended balance on a skirmish by skirmish level or is the balance only to be found in campaign and then only if the dice force a race to play at non-optimal pls.

Ripple

 

[E Nicely]

I am glad to hear we have a playtester in the US as there does seem to be a real difference in play style between the US and the UK. That is assuming I have you located right in St. Louis.



It is a question of whether there is any intended balance on a skirmish by skirmish level or is the balance only to be found in campaign and then only if the dice force a race to play at non-optimal pls.

Ripple

Which playtester are you referring to, Ripple? I'm the only US playtester (San Diego not Stark Industries -that's where Iron Man works :wink: ) . I think you're right, there is a difference in styles of play between here and the UK.

If I'm reading what you wrote about balance right the answer would be that CTA balances over a fleet as a whole, and that every fleet has an achilles heel. Whether it is optimal at low or high PL, bad against beams, whatever. Things are very balanced in campaigns since scenarios and fleet size vary widely from battle to battle. On a per-battle basis (which is all I've been playing the last few months) it comes down to tactics, good play overcomes the Achilles heel every time. That's what's great about the game, it's tactical, not a game where a Space Marine Chaplain or something like that will win every time. Sure the new Sag looks like a problem (the supposed other 2 "unbeatable" fleets are pure B.S.) but the only huge one out of the new ships.

 

[Celisasu]

The idea that a ship has to be better than it's PL because the fleet is thin bothers me a bit.

It bothers me a lot. At that point it no longer comes down to skill, it comes down to the dice roll to see what priority level the game is being played at. Seriously, if the Sag is left as is you can kiss any game below Battle level good bye if someone is using Sags in their fleet. It might even impact Battle level fights. I don't want the game to consist of "Oh, he has 10 Sags. I start with my fleet on the edge of the board. For my move I move my entire fleet off the board."

At this point I'm honestly considering not purchasing Armageddon. We know about the changes to Stealth, Fighters, and E-Mines. That's about all we need. We'll just use the Tournament White Star and otherwise go with SFOS. There are still some unbalanced ships even then, but it sounds like it'll be better than going with Armageddon.

 

[Voronesh]

The argument, a fleet needs to be balanced all across the board is 50/50.

Yes overall the fleet must be good, some difference between PL is very nice.

BUT:

SFOS, it was just more sensible to not fight Minbari at high lvl and just leave. Though low lvl games the Minbari might just vanish off the board.

Same goes for tourneys, they are only (mostly) fought at Raid (time constraints yes), so a fleet that happens to have very good ships around Raid has an advantage, while one that is average across all PLs is at a disadvantage. If ACTA wants to have serious tourneys without the "Guess whos won *snicker* Sag" it should be balanced.

ACTA is very good, as tactics play a huge impact. But what happens when you are tactically good, and still a frikkin 6-6 crit from a Prefect that did its 3rd Come about in a row gets you. Right tough luck the gods of dice didnt like you today.

Same with the Sag. if 90% of all people say something is broken it probably is. Though in this case the gods of design that do not like you, and this will not change after a game. Plus there was one tourney (Gencon? Dont remeber exactly) where 1st and 2nd place were taken by broken fleets, aka Sag and Hunter respectively.

 

[Twin-Linked Aldades]

Well, actually the EA `style` of jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none is the biggest benefit.

In the last tournament, which used SFOS not tourney lists so a lot of the `broken` ships as people here think and no Saggi`s, me and Rynar ended respectively second and first with widely diversed fleets. he prefers the `low missile approach` with Olympii and Missile Hyperions, while I always build my fleets around the Twin-Linked trait.

His tour went over Raiders, Narn and Teshlan heavy Minbari, while I faced ISA (5 SFOS WS who all think unbalanced - 20-0 to the EA), a hull 6 and beam hevy centauri fleet (Prefect, 2 sullust, 2 maximus, 2 Covran and a wing of sentri) and the same Narn.

Last but not least, all tables where blank of scenery, yet the adaptibility of the EA pulled the day, even with a lot of SFoS broken ships as they call: White Stars, Prefect, Sullust`s, Ka`Tan / Ka`Toc.

The point is, all those hard numbers are pretty cool and theoretical, but it can`t calculate for 2 very important factors: the human mind and pure luck.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Hear, hear.

 

[Ripple]

Pure luck I'll buy on an open table vs the Centaurii fleets, but I would need to know a bit more about your EA 'twin linked' fleet to buy that tactics won that. Same with the whitestars. I had a game where my drazi ten strikebirds nearly killed a whitestar fleet despite heavy asteriods, I did not for a second claim that was cause the whitestars should not have wiped the floor with me. My opponent was just too anxious to stay right on top of me, so I got shots right up to the end.

A good number of the 'broken' fleets/ships can have large issues if you get aggresive with them, or hyper jumps are available. But played well they seem to have a much stronger win record. Will they win every time, no, will they win the majority of the time assuming dice rolling is roughly even for both players, yes. This can be a challenge, but fleets with a clear advantage over most others do not really have a place in tournaments. Not if you want your tournaments to have a variety of fleets and races.

Ripple

 

[Triggy]

Well, actually the EA `style` of jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none is the biggest benefit.

In the last tournament, which used SFOS not tourney lists so a lot of the `broken` ships as people here think and no Saggi`s, me and Rynar ended respectively second and first with widely diversed fleets. he prefers the `low missile approach` with Olympii and Missile Hyperions, while I always build my fleets around the Twin-Linked trait.

His tour went over Raiders, Narn and Teshlan heavy Minbari, while I faced ISA (5 SFOS WS who all think unbalanced - 20-0 to the EA), a hull 6 and beam hevy centauri fleet (Prefect, 2 sullust, 2 maximus, 2 Covran and a wing of sentri) and the same Narn.

Last but not least, all tables where blank of scenery, yet the adaptibility of the EA pulled the day, even with a lot of SFoS broken ships as they call: White Stars, Prefect, Sullust`s, Ka`Tan / Ka`Toc.

The point is, all those hard numbers are pretty cool and theoretical, but it can`t calculate for 2 very important factors: the human mind and pure luck.

Well, they can and do more than compensate for luck and as for the human mind, surely that would level out as well because if the best minds take the best fleets they'll be even better.

With last year's ItF tourney, using SFoS lists, ISA (all taking 4+ White Stars) and Minbari dominated the whole thing, Centauri clearly were next best and Ancients hadn't a hope and the only one finished dead last. There were a couple of EA and League fleets mixed in there but otherwise all went according to expectations.

At the moment most players think the Sagittarius is too hard and there are a small number of other ships people think are too hard too, which with further balancing would lead to a balanced tournament scene. Now this may not be what Mongoose are aiming for and that's their prerogative but it is the aim for several players out there.

Finally on the issue of PLs levelling out a fleet by some being harder at certain PLs than others, I disagree with some of the larger examples but don't mind a bit of this sort of flexibility (e.g. I consider the limited Minbari and Drazi fleets good examples of PL limitations but the EA Early fleet a slightly less good example). I would try to balance out the ships with each other then see what context the fleet places the ships in and make minor tweaks to emphasise certain philosophies.

 

[Reaverman]

It can be hit and miss with Ancients, since they have to try and grind the opponents in the first few turns. Otherwise, its game over.

 

[katadder]

the problem with all the fleets is not everyone will be happy no matter what yuo do, people say one ship is more powerful than any other at a certain PL but then thats alright cos at other PLs you may overpower that race with your ships for that PL, its all about balance, some fleets are better at raid and others are better at battle level. some have really good skirmish ships whilst other races have really bad ones. the only ship we coud defiately say is broken is the sagi, and all that needs is bumping up to raid level and it would probably be fine then.

 

[Twin-Linked Aldades]

The saggi isn`t broken `per se` in my opinion, it`s the combination of 10 of them that makes it all wrong.
Kind of like a single Ka` whaatver extension or the Centauri little beam boat (Darkner I believe?). One or two isn`t wrong or overpowering but 10 of them (assuming we`re talking 5pts raid) is a nightmare.

 

[Voronesh]

Ah yes its that problem.

Like one ship that is 10% better than it should be. No problem when there are 6 other ships, some maybe a little worse so it euqals out.

But 10% all across the board can make itself felt.

And yes people will always complain. But that doesnt make it right to say lets just not balance stuff. You should still try anyway.

And then theres always the problem of the number of people complaining. The more complain, the more people actually do not enjoy the game all the time. Can lead to various problems, like World of Warcraft, where stuff gets shifted so bad sometimes that people were complaining about the newest change anyway. Oh yeah and not trying to separate whiners from actual complaints.

 

[Target]

At least in warhammer there are core, special and rare choices so you can't stick in all one type of troop, mongoose should look into this as i would class the Sag in Special or Rare as it's stats are better than nearly all other skirmish ships and probably very expensive to run firing missles willy nilly.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I don't get how everyone seems to think the Sagittarius is some kind of "supership". Even with the upgraded Armageddon version you'll only get to fire every other turn with 6AD as it can't turn fast enough to bring the others to bear next turn. Any race with 30" beam weapons or assault fighters will gut them on their first couple of turns. They've only got about 30 damage points and a good beam critical can kill them pretty easily. And any race with decent interceptors or stealth can make them much less lethal.

I haven't seen the Early EA fleet list yet but if, as I suspect, it is similar to the Earth/Minbari War lists then the Sagittarius is the only long-range
ship the EA have. I'd say the stats make more sense in a fleet limited by in-service dates.

As for folk fielding an entire fleet of the things, that's just well out of order
and shouldn't be allowed in tournament play. In a campaign game their fleet would just get thrashed.

I'd like to see some sort of minimum/maximum ship type rule for each race to stop this type of gamesmanship, at least for tourneys.

 

[katadder]

they can fire every other turn the 6AD one as long as you dont manage the come about special action, in which case they get to fire 6AD then 4 the following turn. for a skirmish ship thats quite nasty, esepcially when they are precies, now take 10 of them, thats 100 missiles in 2 turns, no beam fleet can match that at range 30
and upwards of 100 if you manage the come about on any ships to a max 120 missiles.

 

[Reaverman]

Just for clarification, what playing style do the US players favour?

 

[Iain McGhee]

The Early EA have Initiative +0 (I think). That means that most other fleets (particularly the Minbari and Centauri) will usually get to shoot before you got a missile off. And you still would have to beat Stealth or Interceptors. In that game I mentioned I had 4 Sagittarius cruisers and 3 of them were scrap on the first turn and the other on the third. That's a pretty common occurence as they are the primary targets for any long-range opponents. Most of the missiles they fired either couldn't track the target (Sharlins have Stealth 6 at long range) and only about half of the ones that hit did damage (and XP dice prevented any criticals) as I was using Triad-Link missiles to beat his Stealth.

Of course, against some other races the Sagittarius is much more effective.The Drazi get hurt pretty badly, at least in the first few turns although I've yet to see a Brakiri Tashkat (Interceptors 5, hull 6) take much damage.

 

[Twin-Linked Aldades]

Don`t forget the stelth modifiers that have changed in armageddon, AND the fact that the tinyweenie fighters now can overload interceptors before a big boy starts firing... Two things a sagg captain probably appreciates a lot

 

[Iain McGhee]

I wasn't forgetting. It is still going to take a few turns to get close enough for that to matter in most games. Depends a lot on terrain too.

 

[katadder]

one thing i wish is that narn ship busters were as powerful as earth heavy missiles, the missiles get precise, TD and 2" extra range over ship busters.