Are Gaim THAT good?

[Da Boss]

Thanks Tzarevitch, I think Katadder replied excellently for me but Its always useful to have more ideas.............

its getting the Laiti e-mined that hurts more - 26 damage does not give me a lot of leeway - but not complaining - it usually can match most fleets with a Maxmius to protect it

 

[Tzarevitch]

when using demos etc as daboss does he cannot play the patience game, as the Gaim will move to 40" and just e-mine you without any retaliation, whilst throwing all his fighters out ready for you.
using a fast fleet like centauri your best bet is to APTE 1st turn, this has the advantage of getting you close where you need to be and the fact the Gaim player hasnt had an end phase to turn his fighters into missiles yet.
you cannot out patient/stalemate a gaim player due to range (especially with centauri). ok e-mines are not huge killers, but daboss played a fleet that could throw out 38 per turn, againts his demos thats 19 hits and average 16 damage so a crippled demos per turn whilst not firing back.

Don't get me wrong, I agree 100%. If you can rush him before he can turn his fighters into suicide bombs then he should by all means do so, but judging from the complaints about the gaim being too tough, I am guessing that it isn't that easy most of the time.

Tzarevitch

 

[tneva82]

If you can rush him before he can turn his fighters into suicide bombs

Tricky. Turn 1 end phase they all turn into suicide bombs, turn 2 onward every fighter on board is suicide bomber if Gaim player so chooses.

 

[Misiolak]

Did some simulation, and I think a single shadow ship (young) can easily beat 5pt raid of Gaim.
1. Can't be boarded.
2. Kills one skirmish level queen ship per turn.
3. Shields absorb most of crewed missiles, so hardly any posibility to couse it a critical hit, as bombs can't crit.

Shadow ship can kill 4 skirmish level queen ships (or equivalent) before it's forced to widraw becouse of damage. At raid level, its 40vps against 7,5+5vps for widrawal and control of battlefield. Even fighting for only 3 turns give it 30:12,5 vps.

 

[locarno24]

Gaim are fairly slow to launch (compared to the number of fighters they carry) - a quick rush might not be a bad plan, especially for a 'shock' fleet like centauri gunships or dilgar strike cruisers.

 

[Da Boss]

Not sure they are that slow as they have a reasonable carrier score and Scramble Scramble is a CQ 7 check - they should have CQ 5 so anything but a 1?

 

[Voronesh]

Did some simulation, and I think a single shadow ship (young) can easily beat 5pt raid of Gaim.
1. Can't be boarded.
2. Kills one skirmish level queen ship per turn.
3. Shields absorb most of crewed missiles, so hardly any posibility to couse it a critical hit, as bombs can't crit.

Shadow ship can kill 4 skirmish level queen ships (or equivalent) before it's forced to widraw becouse of damage. At raid level, its 40vps against 7,5+5vps for widrawal and control of battlefield. Even fighting for only 3 turns give it 30:12,5 vps.

Please do not forget, that skrimish lvl queens will have (going from 1e rules here) 2 fighters on the board at the start of the game. Then launch 4 first turn, and your done. Yougot all 60 fighters launched, Boarding pods are useless so no need to launch em at all.

80AD will do about 25 damage per turn....... HAve fun ^^

 

[Da Boss]

if the fleet carrier is being used - has half of the carriers total flights out at set up and then should have most of the rest out on next turn with a successful scramble scamble roll

 

[Misiolak]

80AD will do about 25 damage per turn....... HAve fun ^^

No problem. Remember they die 1 per turn, so its about 24damare in 1. turn, 21 second, 19 third, 16 fourth. Also no crewed missiles in first turn, and shadow ship has full shields. In the next turns you can't get more than 10 missiles into contact, so 5 hits, 3 blocked by shields, and rest easily regenerated. Shadow ship can probably live through to turn 6, but I wouldn't take unnesesary chances.

 

[Da Boss]

The fleet I faced also had at least one assault ship so beam to face as well

but I do think it would be interesting to see

 

[Voronesh]

Hrmmm, good now that is a problem. Getting all those missiles into contact :S.

I concede. In most games you will win.

But now we are back to our standard problem. Swarm vs big ship. one good crit by the missiles, and your shadow ship might go down the drain.......

 

[Misiolak]

Shadow have it easy, they repair them at the end of next turn. And if You are in bad shape you can always escape via board edge (unless adrift). Think about all those other fleets that feel any critical hit much harder (or to be precise: longer).

And I think it is one of these rare occasions when the bigger is better. Unless we are playing Anihillation, ofcourse.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Did some simulation, and I think a single shadow ship (young) can easily beat 5pt raid of Gaim.
1. Can't be boarded.
2. Kills one skirmish level queen ship per turn.
3. Shields absorb most of crewed missiles, so hardly any posibility to couse it a critical hit, as bombs can't crit.

Shadow ship can kill 4 skirmish level queen ships (or equivalent) before it's forced to widraw becouse of damage. At raid level, its 40vps against 7,5+5vps for widrawal and control of battlefield. Even fighting for only 3 turns give it 30:12,5 vps.

Personally I think the young shadow ship can do it too. Two stalkers and a scout (mainly to fill the points out) may be workable too. It just isn't easy for the gaim to inflict enough damage on the shadows and they have no way to stop shadow ships from simply retreating, repairing and coming back.

Tzarevitch

 

[Skipper]

OK, heres a challenge, how would the Abai do against them. Build a fleet designed to beat the Gaim.

My analysis:
Shields help (effective increase in damage and crew and will reduce criticals from suicide bombers if they are still up at that point)
Boarding is nasty: Too few crew and too slow to really avoid the boarding action.
Speed: Overall to slow to get in and slug it out and not maneuverable enough to stay away.
Figheters: Ya, right.

 

[Voronesh]

Shadows can manage because of the unability to be boarded (same counts for Vorlons, those might lose though due to the effect of AA being useless against 2AD emines).

Shadow Scouts will not be viable. AP emines will do 33 damage in a single turn without help from elsewhere. A Stalker will NOT survive two turns of firing from Emines alone, fighters will do extra damage.....If we assume 10 missiles coming into contact with a single ship, that is going to be 10 damage in a single go. Totaling a ship also in a single turn. So after 3-5 turns a fleet made up of a scout with 2 Stalkers actually doesnt have too good a chance. Self repair will not be used for long, due to the damage is just enough to kill you in a single turn. :S. (and i have only used 20 crewed missiles out of 60, with a bit of luck, they might penetrate the shield and crit for extra damage....or not ^^).

So an Abbai fleet....40 Breaching pods and enough fighters and emines to make sure enough arrive. Even 4 might should be enough to kill a Bimiths troop complement (if im right about the fact of Gaim troops rolling twice and picking the preferable die). A Bimith could even be killed via the use of 10 crewed missiles, and the full use of the Gaim fleets emine complement. But of course if you manage to capture every single ship on the board, you are even able to circumvent the fact that Queen ships are worth double VP.......

 

[Tzarevitch]

Shadows can manage because of the unability to be boarded (same counts for Vorlons, those might lose though due to the effect of AA being useless against 2AD emines).

Shadow Scouts will not be viable. AP emines will do 33 damage in a single turn without help from elsewhere. A Stalker will NOT survive two turns of firing from Emines alone, fighters will do extra damage.....If we assume 10 missiles coming into contact with a single ship, that is going to be 10 damage in a single go. Totaling a ship also in a single turn. So after 3-5 turns a fleet made up of a scout with 2 Stalkers actually doesnt have too good a chance. Self repair will not be used for long, due to the damage is just enough to kill you in a single turn. :S. (and i have only used 20 crewed missiles out of 60, with a bit of luck, they might penetrate the shield and crit for extra damage....or not ^^).

So an Abbai fleet....40 Breaching pods and enough fighters and emines to make sure enough arrive. Even 4 might should be enough to kill a Bimiths troop complement (if im right about the fact of Gaim troops rolling twice and picking the preferable die). A Bimith could even be killed via the use of 10 crewed missiles, and the full use of the Gaim fleets emine complement. But of course if you manage to capture every single ship on the board, you are even able to circumvent the fact that Queen ships are worth double VP.......

Now that I look again, you are right. The 2 stalker, 1 scout combo is too fragile. The missiles aren't that big a problem, but the e-mine damage is.

The problem I have with the Abbai is they are too slow and have short weapon ranges on top of it. Bimiths can take a beating though. Unfortunately, they will have to against the gaim.

Really, against the gaim 10 queenship force you need 2 of the following: speed, durability or long range weapons. You cannot afford to allow the gaim to fire on you for more than 1 turn (2 at absolute most) without answering fire unless you have a VERY sturdy ship.

Tzarevitch

 

[Davesaint]

The nasty thing is if the Gaim win the set up roll. If they place after their opponent, then they set up facing away from their opponent dropping photon bombs on them all day long. Then it becomes difficult to catch them. I do love turreted range 40 template weapons! BTW, the young shadow ship has no chance at 5 raid against the Gaim. If you take 10 Queen CL's, you have 80 dice of AP firing every turn. you will hit on odds with 26 per turn, which on turn 1 you get 16 through the shield. every turn after that you get 21 through not counting the 60 crewed missles. The gaim should be able to keep you out of range on turn 1, and with all of it's fighters launched by the end of the 1st turn, it might be able to with an APTE keep you out of range on turn 2 as well. This assumes that the GAIM won the set up, which is possible, but not completely likely. The crewed missile is SAP, DD, and Precise. So that is 30 hits with the fighters for 60 damage and 10 crits. Ouch.


Dave

 

[katadder]

although as fighters go 1st the 1st 3 would be hits on shields so no crits and max of say 10 attacks from fighters in a turn, 5 hits, 3 ignored means only 4 damage pluscrit chances which is easily repaired.
also once through shields for e-mines you can lower the damage caused by 1in6 due to bulkhead hits.
have to really luck out for assault ships, those are the damage causers in a Gaim fleet.

 

[Voronesh]

Problem with a young shadow ship is, that it regens about 12 damage per turn. Even with 10 missiles (doing 10 damage) and then 80AD Emines, doing 22-23 damage every turn, your be at 33 damage total. minus the repairs is 20 (ok the numbers dont add up, but they arent really supposed to, this is a rough sketch about dice rolls). You have to remove 85 damage points (damage plus shields) to win. now theoretically this could be achieved in 3-5 turns if the shadow ship does nothing (highly unlikely).

Now in the end Gaim might be able to win, but there is going to be a shadow scout as well, it might just blast a few missiles out of the sky with its accurate gun, and then you might decide to blast it to death, but thats a turn of firing lost against the shadow ship......

Now wait a moment......wasnt i supposed to prove that Gaim win every battle......(oh well a single ship from a single fleet isnt really proving anything ^^ at least about the general power lvl of the gaim fleet)

 

[LaranosTZ]

Erm, keep in mind that the young shadow ship can jump in directly on top of the gaim ships, regardless of what the scenario allows. Hyperspace mastery would pretty much mean that the shadow vessel would cut apart a gaim ship starting on the first turn. So no way to 'stay at range' for the first turn. Your only chance would be to set the gaim ships as far away from each other as possible so that the shadow player can't get a shot on the following turn.

You have to have half your fleet on the field, and in 5 point raid you get 1 young shadow ship, and 1 scout. Hyperspace mastery also doesn't say half your points remain in hyperspace, it states half your -ships- do.