[ACTA2e] Validity of Vorlon Fleet.

[Spideredd]

Plus for a lot of races, 4-6 is not really any better - Drazi, Vree, Vorlons, Shadows, ISA, ...

I dont think that the 4-6 criticalis that bad for the Drazi or the Vree, as they will generally have quite a few ships, and the same (albeit to a far lesser extent) goes for the ISA. As for Shadows and Vorlons, as long as they aren't critical screwed, they should be fine.

 

[voodoomachine]

Vorlons and to a lesser extent Shadows seem to be finesse fleets. You really need to play to their strengths to do well with them as they are not all-rounders.

I play shadows in the same campaign as HeroesGames. And I can generally do well with them, but only by heavily playing on my ability to use terrain, kill a ship, hide and heal, pop out, kill a ship, repeat. And its funny how many people complain about that style of play. Apparently everyone just wants me to run headlong into their guns, despite the fact that if I did, I'd get massacred, either through crits or through sheer damage.

I haven't lost a trait due to crits yet, but I have lost weapons. And that really sucked. Especially because all the "lose a weapon" "loose an arc" "loose all weapons" are all the same crit for me. At least the "Loose one weapon in a random arc" crit only does minor damage to other races. For Shadows, and Vorlons, its everything gone.

 

[Ripple]

Not sure how you can say the Drazi and the Vree don't suffer badly due to the one arc thing just because they can use lots of ships effectively. The Vree have excellent higher priority ships that will likely not be taken due to 'crit vulnerability', which is a shame. The Drazi also now have at least a Raid ship worth fielding in a battle of the same pl, but can you risk it?

To be fair to Triggy, several of the crit table changes only really become an issue in combination with the new ease of boarding. The move to a marine dominated game (we have not played a game since we got the second ed pack to test that did not involved at least one boarding attempt.)

Ripple

 

[Da Boss]

To be fair to Triggy, several of the crit table changes only really become an issue in combination with the new ease of boarding. The move to a marine dominated game (we have not played a game since we got the second ed pack to test that did not involved at least one boarding attempt.)

Ripple

Really - thats really interesting as it is something I forget about in the heat of a battle and am foccused on trying to make things explode. -I think there was some boarding at the recent tournament - Narn vs Drazi but not sure about other games...............

Does your group tailor your ships for it or it is just something that happens?

 

[Locutus9956]

The thing with the 4/6 crit is that yes it can still strip all weapons from a ship with one arc but, with a very few exceptions, only smaller ships (skirmish, patrol) tend to have all their weapons in one arc, and frankly losing all guns from one of them is unlikely to be a game killer.

The big exceptions to this seem to be: Vorlons, Shadows and Vree.

Theres a few other ships that have that 'one arc fragility' but for me thats an acceptable counter as those ships tend to have more firepower in that one arc than equivalent ships their level...

Vree however have the maneuverability to run and hide till they can repair, as do shadows, who also have shields to help resist being critted in the first place. I havent actually tried Vorlons in 2nd Ed yet but I can see their big ships suffering from 'the death of 1000 cuts' that the ancients used to in armageddon.... Still I'll have to try them. I've been pleasently surprised by the fact that stealth DOES seem to have improved already and that the new beams are not outright dominating the game the way they used to (and I feared they would even more). We will see....

 

[Dizzy Vree]

during our leauge (wich is admitadly VP based) weve had a EA v Narn game that weant 2 turns without shooting, because every avalible target was being borded....

Now that the shuttles rule has changed(or i atleast think it has) boarding seems alot easeyer, and alot more common

on the 4-6 crit side of things, Vree got a huge upgunning(yay) but there lack of troops(see above) and the 4-6 crit rule means that certain fleets that only have weapons in one arc, but they are very good weapons are now fair-er.





(i personaly like the new crit tables)

 

[Locutus9956]

I should also add that pretty much all the cirst that have 'got worse' have done so by gaining the added effect of killing troops or losing traits.

Personally I love this. The troops thing is frankly minor as most races that are going to try boarding are very very good at it and have loads of troops anyway, besides it makes sense that troops can be killed in fires too!

As for the traits, this is superb in my oppinion as it can open up opertunities that can be exploited without that crit being as lethal as a 'ship basically useless now' crit. The best example of this I can think of is last weekend, when my oponents Tinashi took a crit and lost a trait. Needless to say I was praying for a 'bye bye stealth' result but after we decided what numbers on the dice were which trait and rolled my hope faded away as it didnt come up with the desired number for stealth. Until I realised what had actually happened.... the Tinashi had lost its advanced anti-fighter guns. Every remaining sentri and Rutarian on the table descended on it like wolves in the next turn and basically tore it to shreds and removed its stealth when it became crippled as well, leaving it with one single hit point.

I then hit with the full firepower from a Dargan (ok that was perhaps SLIGHT overkill for the last hit point and the resulting explosion wiped out most of my fighters but it was the last ship my opponent had and it made a very satisfying boom (especially after the previous game when a similar Tinashi had jumped in behind my primus and tore it in half with a horrific beam roll......) (and it was just a one off game so I wasnt worried about losing the fighters )

 

[Triggy]

To be fair to Triggy, several of the crit table changes only really become an issue in combination with the new ease of boarding. The move to a marine dominated game (we have not played a game since we got the second ed pack to test that did not involved at least one boarding attempt.)

Ripple

Yeah, boarding is a big issue now. I personally like this as it adds another dimension to the game (particularly stopping cruisers from crawling round on All Stop) and emphasises an extra set of tactical ploys.

Locutus - good to hear this sort of thing being taken advantage of. Even if the balance of the critical table isn't perfect, this is something like what we were hoping to achieve.

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

I'm sorry but in my honest opinion, the changes made to vorlons and shadows in 2e are plain stupid, okay they've been given the redundant systems benefits, but on the other hand they have been nerfed so badly that as said before, a couple of criticals can render some of the most technologically advanced ships in the game completely bloody useless.

I'd have to say that if this is an example of mongoose playtesting, to created a more balanced game system and corresponding balance to fleets, then I'd like to know what the heck they were all doing for so long.

Too little damage for a start, for ships that are supposed to rely on resilience (according to the blurb in the fleetbook from mongoose!) I'm not trying to say that vorlon/shadow ships should be uber hard, but one good volley from a younger race heavy cruiser or similar should NOT be able to destroy a vorlon/shadow ship of similar size! DID YOU SEE THAT HAPPEN IN B5? I THINK NOT.

Come on guys at Mongoose HQ, the whole reason I started playing this game was because it was a good break from GW rules stupidity, don't start going down the same road for goodness sake.

Can we please see some common sense injections into these rules, in the spirit of the game and B5 the show!!!

 

[Sulfurdown]

Too little damage for a start, for ships that are supposed to rely on resilience (according to the blurb in the fleetbook from mongoose!) I'm not trying to say that vorlon/shadow ships should be uber hard, but one good volley from a younger race heavy cruiser or similar should NOT be able to destroy a vorlon/shadow ship of similar size! DID YOU SEE THAT HAPPEN IN B5? I THINK NOT.

Actually I think we did. There was a couple scenes where some of the Narn & White Stars caused Shadow Ships to fold within a barrage. Just the same as we saw some Shadow Ships slice right through a couple G'Quan.

 

[Sulfurdown]

I play shadows in the same campaign as HeroesGames.

How often to you use the infamous Fighters?

 

[Ripple]

Sadly in the games we've played the traits lost have generally been big ones. Not much of the healthy ship losing its flight computer, so our experience may be tainting the sample.

As a side note we have seem the beam dynamic come to completely dominate many of our battles. The freak hit from a skirmish ship shooting a battle hull and crippling or destroying it outright has definately set the tone of the game to the point where we're mostly reluctant to take anything above the level of the fight.

On boarding, no we don't generally tailor our fleets to it (one local player aside in the current campaign) but there are enough ships in the game with large numbers of troops and good weapons that you don't have to.

Strangely, we've seen little change in the bigger cruisers sitting at max range on all stop to get a extra shot in. Maybe do to the number of fast ships we play we rarely saw All Stop continue after that initial second volley, as folks were afraid of the flyover and not being able to turn fast enough to stay int he fight.

Local flavor and tactics seem to have driven much of what was seen as 'needing' changes in second ed. Our grouped talked about the huge differences were seeing in the comments from the Burger's crowd (Mostly seeming to have gone silent except for burger), the Mongoose tourney crowd and us chicago types. We worried that there wasn't enough cross seeding of playstyles, and that may be why some of the changes seem so obviously wrong to folks in different areas.

Ripple

 

[voodoomachine]

How often to you use the infamous Fighters?

As little as possible. Although I recently played Carrier Clash. Level? Skirmish 8. Meaning I had to take a single War ship (lowest level ship with two fighters).

Strangely, it went really well for me. Almost impossible for the low level skirmish ships to really damage him.