5 Point War Problem

[crichelle]

So me and my friend just got finished playing a 5 point war with some extra fleet composition rules we are trying out. The game was set at 5 War points with only one point breakdown below raid allowed (we were trying to get a big battle feel without having to worry about the swarm issues). He played Shadows and fielded:
1 Ancient
2 Young
8 Scouts

I played ISA and put down:
1 Victory
2 White Star Gunships
3 White Star I
4 Blue Stars
1 G'Vhran

Needless to say he thrashed the heck out of me. Turn 1 saw the G'Vhran blow up. Turn two saw the three White Stars and the four Blue Stars eat it. And since none of his ships had been destroyed (One of his young shadow ships was down to 35 or so damage left and one of his scouts was at 9 or so) we called the game.

I realize that ISA is a hard fleet to put up against shadows (especially the hard as nails Shadow Scout), but my question is whether or not the fleet breakdown rules made it worse. We really like the idea of big ship fighting it out (without the random patrol ship crippling your battleship on turn 1), but are the Shadows really that good, or did the fleet rules cripple the ISA from the get go? Has anyone else had much luck with ISA against them? Thanks.

 

[Ripple]

I'm not sure your extra requirements were the issue.

Looking at your fleet, you very vulnerable due to the accurate weapons on the scouts. I would have tried for more non-ISA units I think, to get more non-dodge dependent ships (ie use your ally point as your break down instead of going for a ship at level.) I also think you are light on fighters for this scale game vs shadows.

Maybe something like...

Whitestar Carrier x2
- sixteen whitestar fighters is scary to a race with no AF, and they can ignore the stealth on the scouts if they by getting close

Whitestar Gunship x2
- four more fighters and the all important pinning beams.

Whitestar x4 (would buy bluestars but then I have to buy a nolotar as well)
- keep them close to minbari, spend time lowering stealth and beaming with the blast doors closed.

Tigara x 4
- form a box around where you want the whitestars to go, should scare the little scouts away giving their beams some time. The stealth won't help much for the one he chooses but may give you a hail mary against the longer ranged shots.

twelve ships to his 11, and 20 fighters that can actually hurt him... forcing him to think about his closing a lot more, and a good layer of beams.

other options...

Tara'lin - all around beams, decent fighter support

Basically shadows do the pick and kill real well, but tend to over commit due to lack of weapon lines. Lots of hulls is better vs them, but not lots of dodge dependent ones. Stealth is weaker against them, but he has to commit to the act to make it useless.

The huge shoal of fighters will make it very tricky for him to come after your block, keep the tigara's as a squadron and he should find the hedge dangerous to get within eight of... rendering his scouts less of an issue. With fighters, scouts and range you should get through stealth more often than not... use the mini-beams to troll for stealth breaks maybe as well.

Eh... just thinking on screen...

Ripple

 

[skavendan]

You think that was bad try facing 5 war points of whitestars or even the mission on page 75

 

[crichelle]

The white star carriers are a great idea, I will definately get them on the table next time. I almost fielded the pair, but I think I got carried away by the description of the Victory in the fleet book. It's not a bad ship, but one on one it gets thrashed by an Ancient Shadow Ship. I am curious about the Tiagra option though. Their weapons don't look that scary. Is it just the fact that they have multiple weapons in each arc (so they have a better chance at breaking stealth with at least one)? I had a very hard time breaking the stealth on the shadow scouts and hitting one with more then a 12 or so molecular pulsar dice a turn (the stealth kept the victory's lasers impotent till it started fighting the Shadow ships).

Regardless, once again, the right choice turns out to be taking more, smaller ships (funny how often that ends up). Hopefully next time my friend doesn't just throw down 20 Shadow Scouts...

 

[Ripple]

Tigara vs shadow scout.

He has to come to eight to fight, but his accurate does nothing for him, and stealth is pretty even (he does get one extra bonus for shadow, you lower his one with the fighters). So it ends up his six dice sap/dd vs your vs your six/four dice of ap/dd/precise plus four AD of minibeams. He does get shield and dodge... but the dodge is low and the shield stops only three hits max.

Form a box around where you want your whitestars so he can't get range eight on the whitestars without giving you shots from multiple interior arcs on the tigaras. This should mean you put out a good few more AD per raid than he does, and your mini-beams should have the range to concentrate on a single target, making the shield less relevant, or spread them around if he jumps inside to break stealth as often as possible. By using them squadroned you should get a good moment.

Anyway, idea was to make his 'hit squad' pay for its short range. To do that you need ships big enough to take the hits and throw AD in all directions. The longer minibeam range means that you can support yourself from the far side of the box. The stealth means you can still avoid some fire frm the larger shadows if you get lucky (three beams from them, minus three on your stealth - tagged, scouted and shadow - one will still miss).

Ripple

 

[Locutus9956]

Right some thoughts on that fleet:

Victory: Possibly not the best choice vs shadows. Frankly theyve got so many precice weapons that putting all your eggs in one basket by taking big ships like War and Armageddon level ones (even rock hard ones like the VCD) is really an accident waiting to happen.

White Star Carriers, despite my general loathing of the whole 'Whitestar <insert naval classifaction of your choice>' school of ISA ship design that mongoose addopted in Armageddon, ARE extremely nasty ships and shadows are actually have very little defence against fighter attack. Yes the scouts have accurate guns but since they move before your fighters thats not as helpful as you might suspect theyre again an expensive ship though so will probably die by critical hit quite quickly....

Whitestar Gunships though much improved are still in my book NEVER worth it over simply taking 2 Whitestars or Whitestar IIs for each of them.

As for Whitestars themselves, yes theyre fragile to shadow scouts but theyre still extremely effective and almost as manueverable as the shadows themselves (and lets not forget they outrange the scouts).

The key to fighting shadows with ISA really though is focus all your fire on his scouts. One by one. Make sure you kill outright rather than wound. Shadow ships are extremely manueverable but so are your ships, take out his smaller ships early and he will be force to move his big, maneuverable but limited fire arced ships before most of your fleet and you should be able to avoid much of his fire. And once you make a move to attack a big shadow ship make sure you hit it HARD with everything you can at once. Beams can pin them remember and that advantage should be exploited whenever possible, and further once youve got one of them pinned dont let up the attack until it's dead.

Also regarding the stealth, you can try mixing in some Whitestar IIs. Use their scout ability and attack that same target with fighters then get in close and all of a sudden those shadow scouts are needing you to roll 1s to fail to target them..... (and then get automatically hit once you fire at them again).