A viable tactic against Gaim?

R

Ragewind

Mongoose
So I am sitting here playing a few friends in B5 with a Mimbari fleet when I roll up a anilination scenario against a Gaim fleet. Since I am aware of how they played I picked up 2 of the war level ships with the 36' Beam/Triple/Precise weapon, Sharoos IIRC. Also a ton of those raid level Escort ships because I just like them. As it turned out it was a really good idea to take them right about the time when the Gaim's fighters reached me I formed a wall with the raid ships around my warships and used the intensify defensive fire command (along with some last second launched fighters) the results were amazing.

Since the crewed missiles automatically launch a attack on any ship they come into contact with (including fighters I suppose since they count as ships) they could not get past my raid level ships to launch a attack on my war level vessels who had by that time killed 4.5 of their ships. IIRC they had somewhere near 90-100 fighters total and lost around 13 getting to me. They then lost a grand total of 51 getting through my 36+ dice of AAF and then impacting into my ships. Out of 12 raid ships I lost 3 which opened a hole in my net. I ended up winning the game with 2 war level ships left and 2 crippled raid escorts.

I think this was a pretty nice little tactic although I am not sure if all of the fleets can do this however.
 
Minbari have excellent ships for beating the Gaim. Their escort is superb, they have lots of advanced anti-fighter as well as speed and range. They obviously suffer from the emines, but on the whole they can do very well.
 
In my last 2 games in the campaign I came up against EA twice and my Battle level queens got mauled by the beams and long range missiles. Even if I wasn't reinforced against in both games I would have had trouble winning the scenarios.

As it was, I lost both due to the double VPs for the Queens and not having enough time to complete boarding actions. (It would have been nice to mess up the victory with all those breaching pods I had attacking it.)
 
This was also a high level game, where the Gaim don't have equivalent ships. Part of the Gaim story is they are very tough for their level... as you claw up the ladder and get bigger games you can start to just be better than them.

Basically you had a prefect fleet to take them on. Lots of great escorts who actually benefit from IDF, and very very good long range beams, the one thing the gaim actually fear. So its not so much a tactic as a statement, Minbari are one of the races that beat the Gaim, if at high enough pl.

Nothing wrong with that... and not the only combo that can beat the Gaim by any means... Doesn't answer the questions of how do third age EA beat them with a fleet that will also do well vs Centauri or Minbari say. How do the Drazi beat them at all? Or ISA with a whitestar heavy fleet?

Ripple
 
Correct me if I am wrong but lets say for example ship 1 has 10 guided missiles breathing down its neck (lets assume you are earth)

Regardless of who wins initiative lets say ship 1 does its movement and then launches 1-4 fighters. The fighters then stay in base to base contact with ship 1 thereby escorting it.

After all ships have moved its then time to move the fighters, the Gaim player then throws 10 guided missiles at ship 1, now the fighters(s) you have escorting ship 1 spring into action defending ship 1. After almost certainly losing the dogfight the crewed missiles cannot be recovered and you will have stopped 1-4 of the ships by dogfighting(after dogfighting assuming its alive the fighters automatically return to base contact with the escorted ship)

Now assuming you can drop 2-4 fighters out (easy if its a carrier) you can place the fighters in such a way that the crewed missiles will then have to come into base to base contact with the fighters escorting the ship. By the guided missile rules they will have to resolve their 1AD super attack against the fighter(s) forming a screen around ship 1 as soon as they come into contact with it(regardless of dogfighting). The escorting fighters will get their dodge as normal since it is not a accurate attack thereby fully protecting ship 1, this is all in addition to any anti-fighter dice the ship may posses.

The above example also assumes the crewed missiles are coming right for you and do not start their movement directly in front of your ship giving them the room to maneuver behind your ship. It is also unclear if the escorting ships that won their dogfight will continue to dogfight until they are destroyed as the book talks about being able to engage in multiple dogfights per turn, if so then its even better as even 1 fighter can stop 10+ crewed missiles if it continues to win the dogfight. Interestingly enough the Gaim player cannot use the mass of guided missiles to aid the dogfighting ship according to the wording on page 112 of the fleet book so they will always have +0 when dogfighting.

Now on the Gaim player's shooting phase they will wipe out your fighters with the E-mines but they can be recovered if you have a carrier allowing you to repeat this as necessary. Dealing with E-mines alone the gaim can be dealt with by all races. Whats really interesting if even if you shoot down the crewed missiles ahead of time they cannot be recovered due to the wording on page 112 of the fleet book, the next page just seems to reiterate this when talking about impacting.

Breaching pods are even easier to stop if you throw out some fighters right before they hit as they automatically lose a dogfight and the fighters blocking the path means they will only be able to hit you with so many at a time thereby reducing their impact even if you can only auto kill 1-4 per turn (assuming you have 1-4 fighters)

All of the above examples assume the controller of ship 1 does not start the game with his fighters out and only launches them right before the wave of fighters hit. The Gaim player also can't fire on his own ships with the E-mines so the closer you are to his fighters the safer your own fighters are.

Against races like the Drakh (well only the Drakh) any ship they send out that has GEG 2+ is practically immune to the Gaim as the crewed missiles are a separate weapon system each and unless they crit the ship will take no damage from them and the E-mines will only do a handful of points per turn. Of course they are still susceptible to Breaching pods and aside from shooting them down the Drakh player will just have to entirely focus on a Gaim ship until its destroyed and then leave the table if the attached pods are about to disable it. Tactical Retreats yield only 1/4 of the VPs so its completely doable especially if you down a Queen ship.

ISA isn't as bad off once I thought about it, regardless of if they win Initiative or not they can replicate the above tactics or just speed using using All Power, and then quickly blast down a queen ship or two (not hard considering their weapons) and simply leave the table like the Drakh. They also get their Dodge vs the crewed missiles meaning they will stop 50% of them and on average they can only stick on 6 missiles at a time. Also I doubt you can but if attaching a breaching pod is considered a attack and a ship might be able to Dodge it, although it is most likley wishful thinking.
 
In the campaign I took 4 assault ships so that I would be able to take on Drakh, as it was the scenario did favour me (supply ships with me attacking) By the end of turn 2, 7 out of the 8 freighters were destroyed and I had 14 VPs in the bag.

The drakh beams did take out 2 assault ships, I would have probably lost the other 2 in a few turns but I effectively wiped out the destroyers and light cruisers lauched from the mothership.

The best tactic I found to do real damage to ships was a combined Assault ship, Breaching pod and Klikkitak assault. Giving my opponent multiple problems to deal with at the same time.
 
yup, those assault ships were going down!! ;-)
would have been interesting to carry on to see if the mothership could have waded through that wall of fighters to get to your queens, with no antifighter rating, it would have been tough going.
 
I was looking over the basic tactic list, and I think another fleet that could do it reasonably well is the braikiri. Though the halik does not have advanced anti-fighter, it does have a lot of anti-fighter and a good spread of firepower to attempt to use basic guns to shoot down some ships. Then, instead of the two war class vessles, I'd use four kaliva. They are going to be relatively immune to emines and even with interceptors; 4 shots at 5 dice SAP/TD should be able to down a gaim ship almost every turn.
 
Couple of issues with the 'drop fighters' defense.

First is that they drop in the end phase, after the crewed missiles have already attacked, so you have to do it the turn before. This allows the Gaim e-mine them effectively, with the own fighters moving back. Yes, you can shoot them with main guns, but then they are recoverable.

Second, is only a very small number of races have a sufficient number of ships that carry their own fighters in any numbers. One flight can only intercept one attacking flight a turn. This was covered in a rulemasters thread a long time ago, the only way to end up in multiple dogfights is to survive a fight while engaged with more than one enemy flight, or draw a fight. So you need numbers. (depending on interpretation of 'base contact', if you are going by stem, a single flight can do a lot for you.)

Ripple
 
Looking at the vree closely i think they would be able to give the gaim a good showing as well....

They deffinetly have the anti fighter capacity even if it isn't advanced, and the weapons could shred the gaim once in close....


just thinkg the posiedon carrier is considered the premier carrier right? what do people think of that vs the battle level carrier of the gaim...


i think that should prolly be re-thought.
 
Ripple said:
Couple of issues with the 'drop fighters' defense.

First is that they drop in the end phase, after the crewed missiles have already attacked, so you have to do it the turn before. This allows the Gaim e-mine them effectively, with the own fighters moving back. Yes, you can shoot them with main guns, but then they are recoverable.

Second, is only a very small number of races have a sufficient number of ships that carry their own fighters in any numbers. One flight can only intercept one attacking flight a turn. This was covered in a rulemasters thread a long time ago, the only way to end up in multiple dogfights is to survive a fight while engaged with more than one enemy flight, or draw a fight. So you need numbers. (depending on interpretation of 'base contact', if you are going by stem, a single flight can do a lot for you.)

Ripple
Click to expand...

This is true and considering I am now only starting to pick up the fighter rules I apologize. However even if they drop in the End Phase the enemy still cannot open fire on them as the fighters "Dogfight" before the ships fire if the turn sequence chart is to be believed. Meaning the strategy still works as presented.

Also as mentioned if the text if page 112 in the fleet book is to belived as well once they turn into the crewed missles then even being shot down they cannot be recovered.
"Klikitak flights may not be used to intercept enemy fighters or breaching pods and have no chance to be recovered by ships with the Fleet Carrier trait if destroyed.."
 
akenatum said:
Looking at the vree closely i think they would be able to give the gaim a good showing as well....

They deffinetly have the anti fighter capacity even if it isn't advanced, and the weapons could shred the gaim once in close....


just thinkg the posiedon carrier is considered the premier carrier right? what do people think of that vs the battle level carrier of the gaim...


i think that should prolly be re-thought.
Click to expand...

Weak hulls on the Vree, so they could be e-mined to death. Short range guns that are all interceptible for the most part as well.
 
well they do have hull 6 ships too at battle and above. although the raid level ship only has hull 5 it also has 34 damage which is nice.
 
No, it only works if you launched the flights in the previous turn, as the missiles will attack you before the end phase. It does work in that regard, but the counter to this is the Gaim fighters just back off for a turn and let the e-mines do their thing. It's a valid tactic as you force the flights to hold back a turn, and that may get you all you need, but you will rarely kill flights this way.

Since the Gaim player decided how many flights to convert to missiles he can engage your flights with his non-converted flights first, locking you in dogfights, then use his missiles to attack the ship if there is room or hold back out of weapon range until the next turn if there is not.

Ripple
 
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