Are Gaim THAT good?
- Thread starter Gollum9
- Start date
from a dogfight or being shot the answer is yes. the only time they cannot be brought back is if they carry out their attack run and hit or miss they are dead with no chance of coming back.
plus you would be surprised how useful +1 dogfight is if the opponent uses their fighters correctly.
plus you would be surprised how useful +1 dogfight is if the opponent uses their fighters correctly.
Sulfurdown
Mongoose
I mentioned it in the other GAIM thread but thought I'd ask here too since you mentioned the dogfight. Why is it that the GAIM Klikkitak, which has no weapons, doesn't automatically die in dogfights like Breaching Pods do?katadder said:
katadder said:
has this been changed or FAQed?
Reason I ask is p112 says:
"Once converted into a Klikkitak, it may not change back. Klikkitak flights may not be used to intercept other fighters or breeching pods and have no chance to be recovered by ships with the Fleet Carrier rule if destoyed"
which seems to say pretty clearly once they die thats it they are dead?
Well,
had my first look at the Gaim today - 5 point Raid ACTA vs the Shadow 1 young one / 1 scout combo. The Gaim were not maxed to take out shadows: 1 Assault Ship, 2 Carriers, 1 Raid Queen, 2 Skirmish Queens.
The Shadow Scout hovered on the base edge and took no part in the fight. The Shadow Young One Went steaming up the middle, and only put 6 damage on the Raid lvl Queen. The Gaim then converted their fighters to missiles. Attacking with 16 of these missiles the Young One had its weapons knocked off line - bad news, and the damage racked up towards the 30 mark. The young one had to run and heal up for a turn - outstripping the fighters, but damage snuck up to around the 35 mark. Then it turned, put 18 damage on a carrier, but with 12 missiles attacking, the damage crept up to mid forties.
The Young one then took out a skirmish queen, and again massed missiles and emines pushed the damage into the fifties.
Then the damaged carrier went, the missiles kept hitting and damage crept past 60, but now there was a lot less fire the young one would have to experience, and indeed with the missiles running out and three ships left the critical stage was past and the Gaim could never put the damage down to stop the Young One healing up.
I was allowing 12 to 16 missiles to attack a go - which might be slightly generous, but I wanted to favour the Gaim. It confirmed what I suspected, there is a nasty period when the Shadow is surrounded and 3 to 4 precise DD hits a go, plus emines and beams - but once 2 or 3 of the Gaim ships have gone, then the Young One can cope with the damage the Gaim can dish out.
Seeing that number of fighters on the ground is daunting, and I can see them giving my standard configuration Centaurii and League fleets a hard time, but I reckon the Shadows to be very strong at Raid - more so than at higher levels where combined fire can take them down very fast.
had my first look at the Gaim today - 5 point Raid ACTA vs the Shadow 1 young one / 1 scout combo. The Gaim were not maxed to take out shadows: 1 Assault Ship, 2 Carriers, 1 Raid Queen, 2 Skirmish Queens.
The Shadow Scout hovered on the base edge and took no part in the fight. The Shadow Young One Went steaming up the middle, and only put 6 damage on the Raid lvl Queen. The Gaim then converted their fighters to missiles. Attacking with 16 of these missiles the Young One had its weapons knocked off line - bad news, and the damage racked up towards the 30 mark. The young one had to run and heal up for a turn - outstripping the fighters, but damage snuck up to around the 35 mark. Then it turned, put 18 damage on a carrier, but with 12 missiles attacking, the damage crept up to mid forties.
The Young one then took out a skirmish queen, and again massed missiles and emines pushed the damage into the fifties.
Then the damaged carrier went, the missiles kept hitting and damage crept past 60, but now there was a lot less fire the young one would have to experience, and indeed with the missiles running out and three ships left the critical stage was past and the Gaim could never put the damage down to stop the Young One healing up.
I was allowing 12 to 16 missiles to attack a go - which might be slightly generous, but I wanted to favour the Gaim. It confirmed what I suspected, there is a nasty period when the Shadow is surrounded and 3 to 4 precise DD hits a go, plus emines and beams - but once 2 or 3 of the Gaim ships have gone, then the Young One can cope with the damage the Gaim can dish out.
Seeing that number of fighters on the ground is daunting, and I can see them giving my standard configuration Centaurii and League fleets a hard time, but I reckon the Shadows to be very strong at Raid - more so than at higher levels where combined fire can take them down very fast.
Voronesh said:
All fleets have some defence against the Breaching pods. Time. The pods only move 8" a turn. If the Gaim are set up to launch fighters and engage at long range then they have to close a lot of distance, so you have potentially 2 turns before you need to deal with them if your using a long range engagement fleet. The other way to look at it is by attempting to control the fighter war, however you do need the initiative. Launch late (to avoid being shot at by the bombs) and go to immediately intercept any unescorted pods (you'll need to mob escorted ones). As initiative winner you get to choose the dogfights first.
As per my post on the other Gaim thread, I would be interested to see what everyone thinks if you discount the Shuuka skirmish level queen from the fleet list (I am not suggesting that this should really be done; just for comparison sake). Do you think that you can build fleets to face a Gaim fleet that does not have access to the Shuuka as it currently stands?
Humbaba
Humbaba
not sure - still thinking about it all and need to play them
hwoever it also intersting that the fighters can convert to missiles whilst still in the hanger so they can always enter play as Missiles straight from the ship, except on turn 1 when they change at the end of the turn................according to rules on p112
hwoever it also intersting that the fighters can convert to missiles whilst still in the hanger so they can always enter play as Missiles straight from the ship, except on turn 1 when they change at the end of the turn................according to rules on p112
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Gregor said:
A question for everyone else - how many Gaim fighters can get into base contact?
eldiablito
Mongoose
Sorry about the size of this post, but I have 2 options to deal with all these horrifying Gaim fleets. I also have a rules question regarding mixed fleets that use the Gaim.
I certainly don't claim to be a great, nor experienced player, but couldn't we split our fire onto the incoming fighter swarms?
Take a Vree Xill as an example. Now, most of the time, it would be flying with blast doors closed, so don't expect much, but you could move within 15" and theoretically split 1AD on each flight stand. I know that this is purely theoretical, but you could swat up to 8 stands in a single volley right? This gets even better if you are playing a fleet like earth alliance, where the raid level nova can swat (theoretically) 14 stands on the port and starboard arcs.
On a slightly different tact, if you cannot beat them, join them? All ISA and League nations can diversify their fleet by taking a Gaim ship or two. At the 5 point raid game, any one of these fleets can take 2 Shuuka queens and use their own 40" mines to take down those swarms of Klikkita. No more problems! You also get 12 of your own torpedoes to just make the Gaim enemy wince as well. :twisted:
Finally, and this is a little off topic, a friend of mine is taking 2 of the Stak scouts for his League fleets. Now I don't have a problem with this, but as I was reading the Gaim rules, it says that you need one queen first, before fielding any other ships. Personally, taking a Stak scout is just fine by me and this is obviously the least of my problems (I have enough tactical faults to be worried about 2 patrol level ships). In other words, can League fleets use the scouts without invoking the "queen" racial rules?
I certainly don't claim to be a great, nor experienced player, but couldn't we split our fire onto the incoming fighter swarms?
Take a Vree Xill as an example. Now, most of the time, it would be flying with blast doors closed, so don't expect much, but you could move within 15" and theoretically split 1AD on each flight stand. I know that this is purely theoretical, but you could swat up to 8 stands in a single volley right? This gets even better if you are playing a fleet like earth alliance, where the raid level nova can swat (theoretically) 14 stands on the port and starboard arcs.
On a slightly different tact, if you cannot beat them, join them? All ISA and League nations can diversify their fleet by taking a Gaim ship or two. At the 5 point raid game, any one of these fleets can take 2 Shuuka queens and use their own 40" mines to take down those swarms of Klikkita. No more problems! You also get 12 of your own torpedoes to just make the Gaim enemy wince as well. :twisted:
Finally, and this is a little off topic, a friend of mine is taking 2 of the Stak scouts for his League fleets. Now I don't have a problem with this, but as I was reading the Gaim rules, it says that you need one queen first, before fielding any other ships. Personally, taking a Stak scout is just fine by me and this is obviously the least of my problems (I have enough tactical faults to be worried about 2 patrol level ships). In other words, can League fleets use the scouts without invoking the "queen" racial rules?
Wow.....
Im not posting here for two days and its 3+ pages longer....
OK first, before we go about changing the full Gaim fleet, we need to evaluate all ships and more important alot of makeups of fleets. What i wanted to prove was that Shuukas and only those are a little bit too good. I cant say anything else about the rest of the fleet.
Ok analysis on skirmish queens:
Gaim Fleets have 4 options at defeating an enemy:
-beams on raid and skirmish lvl gunships/trooperships
-photon bombs on queens and raid carrier
-crewed missiles on queens and raid carrier
-and breaching pods on trooperships and our skirmish lvl queenship.
Now most Gaim ships have 2 options available, with Queens dabbling a little with breaching pods, except our skirmish lvl queenship who gets a full 4 of them. Now what i would do is reduce the number of templates to 2! (every other ship only has 2 emine templates except this one) and reduce the number of AD to 4 or 6 total. And maybe 1-2 breaching pods less. (and up the photon bomb range on the raid lvkl queen, thats just a typo resolved in the wrong direction).
I didnt look too much at any other ship in the Gaim fleet yet. So i wont trust myself on any judgement on them.
Im not posting here for two days and its 3+ pages longer....
OK first, before we go about changing the full Gaim fleet, we need to evaluate all ships and more important alot of makeups of fleets. What i wanted to prove was that Shuukas and only those are a little bit too good. I cant say anything else about the rest of the fleet.
Ok analysis on skirmish queens:
Gaim Fleets have 4 options at defeating an enemy:
-beams on raid and skirmish lvl gunships/trooperships
-photon bombs on queens and raid carrier
-crewed missiles on queens and raid carrier
-and breaching pods on trooperships and our skirmish lvl queenship.
Now most Gaim ships have 2 options available, with Queens dabbling a little with breaching pods, except our skirmish lvl queenship who gets a full 4 of them. Now what i would do is reduce the number of templates to 2! (every other ship only has 2 emine templates except this one) and reduce the number of AD to 4 or 6 total. And maybe 1-2 breaching pods less. (and up the photon bomb range on the raid lvkl queen, thats just a typo resolved in the wrong direction).
I didnt look too much at any other ship in the Gaim fleet yet. So i wont trust myself on any judgement on them.
2 of the weapons the Gaim have (fighters and boarding pods) run out. Once you have used a missile or pod you can't get it back! A game I played today (see other Gaim thread for a brief report) ended with the Centauri I was using bugging out in turn 6 when there was only 20 or so auxiliary craft left on the table. Their fleet carriers were dead (they're hull 4, easy kills), the only ship that could still launch stuff was a Shuuka queen that had lost the carrier trait on turn 1 and engineering shortly after. If a fleet is still alive on turn 6-7 it can probably annihilate any Gaim fleet because they have lost 50% of their weapons (and the weapons that cause the most damage).
Well, I like to try things out to see for myself. Just played Gaim at 5 pt raid ACTA against Centauri and also League - wasn't even close - the league were too slow to close to effective range and had lost most of their fleet before the first shot went home. First wave fighters just ripped the Centauri apart as they closed - the Demos got off their ion torpedos but were dead before round 2's firing, fighters also took out the maximus in one turn, and knocked the sulusts armament out - 1 corvan and 1 balvarin against the entire Gaim fleet don't wash.
Didn't have to anything special or spectacular to achieve these results. The Centauri would give most other races a reasonable fight.
I was allowing 12 bases to attack, 9 would perhaps slow the inevitable in some instances.
Massed turreted weapons is an issue - though weapons crits can halve the fire power of a Gaim ship or even take them out (random arc). I think I would prefer to see weapons deployed per arc, probably favouring the forward arc to reduce the effectiveness of running in circles - would also reduce the range to 30 - just to give some chance of manoeuvre against them. Against Skirmish ships the fighters are deadly, particularly if they've been softened up first.
I leave it up to more experienced players to get the balancing right.
Didn't have to anything special or spectacular to achieve these results. The Centauri would give most other races a reasonable fight.
I was allowing 12 bases to attack, 9 would perhaps slow the inevitable in some instances.
Massed turreted weapons is an issue - though weapons crits can halve the fire power of a Gaim ship or even take them out (random arc). I think I would prefer to see weapons deployed per arc, probably favouring the forward arc to reduce the effectiveness of running in circles - would also reduce the range to 30 - just to give some chance of manoeuvre against them. Against Skirmish ships the fighters are deadly, particularly if they've been softened up first.
I leave it up to more experienced players to get the balancing right.
2 carriers
2 skirmish queens
2 raid queens
The Demos only landed their ions onto a carrier - out of range of a queen which would have been a better target. Since the Demos had started the Sulust also beamed the same carrier, leaving it 50% dead, half firepower and adrift -
Two Demos (squadroned) were heavily damaged by fire from all 6 Gaim ships.
Turn 2 as the Centauri closed to twin linked range they were mobbed by fighters - with devastating results.
Note I was fielding a sensible tournament Centaurii force - not something maxed against Gaim (hence carrier - bonus to initiative and +4 dogfight sentries).
There were one or 2 criticals that gave the fighters an extra +2 or +4 damage here or there - but nothing amazing - the damaged demos were easily destroyed by fighters, the sulust was alive, but no firepower - so would have to disengage, and the maximus, despite AF4 - just went up - has good hull but low damage, and missiles hit on 4+ for precise, double damage.
As can be seen from other reports, coming into close range from hyperspace makes life harder for the Gaim where the scenario allows it - I was just looking at a stand up toe fight. Those turrets and the range make it close on impossible to outflank the Gaim unless there is terrain.
I was using counters, and since fighters can actually go onto a base, a 2 fighter counter long base can get 12 in contact, including the corners - this overwhelms fighter defences - and interceptors don't work on the crewed missiles.
2 skirmish queens
2 raid queens
The Demos only landed their ions onto a carrier - out of range of a queen which would have been a better target. Since the Demos had started the Sulust also beamed the same carrier, leaving it 50% dead, half firepower and adrift -
Two Demos (squadroned) were heavily damaged by fire from all 6 Gaim ships.
Turn 2 as the Centauri closed to twin linked range they were mobbed by fighters - with devastating results.
Note I was fielding a sensible tournament Centaurii force - not something maxed against Gaim (hence carrier - bonus to initiative and +4 dogfight sentries).
There were one or 2 criticals that gave the fighters an extra +2 or +4 damage here or there - but nothing amazing - the damaged demos were easily destroyed by fighters, the sulust was alive, but no firepower - so would have to disengage, and the maximus, despite AF4 - just went up - has good hull but low damage, and missiles hit on 4+ for precise, double damage.
As can be seen from other reports, coming into close range from hyperspace makes life harder for the Gaim where the scenario allows it - I was just looking at a stand up toe fight. Those turrets and the range make it close on impossible to outflank the Gaim unless there is terrain.
I was using counters, and since fighters can actually go onto a base, a 2 fighter counter long base can get 12 in contact, including the corners - this overwhelms fighter defences - and interceptors don't work on the crewed missiles.
