Battle Report - Earth Alliance vs Interstellar Alliance

[EDFDarkAngel1]

We decided on a 4 point Battle game, fighting my friend to demo the game... he had played once before under 1e rules.

Earth Alliance (Me)

Archangel, Warlock Advanced Destroyer
Phoenix, Apollo Bombardment Cruiser
Centurion, Apollo Bombardment Cruiser

ISA (Dan)

Angel, White Star Carrier
Enforcer, White Star II
Sheridan, White Star II
Ghost, White Star II
Spectre, White Star II

There was various debris about the field, including a central planet on the field.

Deployment was on the west side of the planet, and our ships pretty much went right after each other. Despite him winning initiative, my ships got range first, the Archangel fired its boresight at the carrier. 6 AD. 1 hit. I didn't even crit.

Turn 2

I won initiative this time, and kept my ships moving straight at his. I fired first and took out the Angel's engines, leaving her to adrift. The White Stars pummelled all three ships, with the Ghost rolling her 2 AD on the beam and ending up with 9. The Phoenix reached damage threshold before the 5 crits were even rolled. In the end, I had 5 hull left, but no crew to move the ship.

Turn 3

The Archangel laid into the Angel, stopping her in her tracks and making sure she didn't do anything ever again. Enforcer and Sheridan missed the Centurion entirely, but the Ghost and Spectre, focused on the Archangel. The Spectre, up until this point, was speeding through the other side of the planet to get a flank shot.

Turn 4

ISA won intiative, and their first White Star took out all the forward weapons on the Archangel. The Centurion played pirate and did engine damage to the Ghost... and that's about it. The other White Stars rolled ungodly beam damage, and completely destroyed the Archangel.

Turn 5

I win initiative. I turn the Centurion on its side. I have one White Star in the starboard arc, two White Stars in my port, and one on the fore. I fire every missile except my aft arc and collectively do 8 points of damage and two crits. Needless to say, their return fire turned me into a bright light in the sky.

Beams rule. If you don't have beams, you don't rule.

Dark Angel

 

[Zeru]

The ISA player rolled some amazing beam dice that game, on average they should probably only hit with 2-3 beam per White Star. Pretty interesting game, White Star Fighters did not do anything?

 

[Da Boss]

Beams are a little less predicitable / more fun (?) in that you tend to miss a bit more now and hit big a bit more now - it sort of balances I think

 

[EDFDarkAngel1]

White Star Fighters... well, after burning my Auroras down, they all went after the Archangel and the Centurion, then died quickly and horribly to AntiFighter 4. That is an amazing trait for a ship.

He did save some of his fighters just before the Archangel turned the Angel into slag.

Dark Angel

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The EA player needed some smaller ships. A few Chronos frigates would have done wonders for the battle...

 

[Gunnvaldr]

Yes, I second that thought that a picket of smaller ships would have help the EA player. Also that particular battle would have been ideal to try out the Apollo Strike Cruiser and see how it plays.

 

[Zeru]

I think the ISA player should have also had atleast one White Star, instead of White Star 2s all around, because Scout can help immensely.

As for earth, I believe the other two are correct, smaller ships would have helped immensely.

 

[EDFDarkAngel1]

Well, I was the EA player

I don't have many choices for EA quite yet... my expansion recently included two Hyperions. The Chronos frigates are awesome to be sure, I was just worried about not surviving to get into the fight.

I wanted big ships that could take a few hits (I know better now) who could also dish out alot. The 2e Apollo Cruisers and the Warlock can hit lots of multiple targets at once.

I personally think I started losing when that little annoying POS cored the Phoenix. It went downhill from there.

Dark Angel

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Warlock was a good choice, but I'd have left the Apollo in space dock. I don't like it at all. I'd reccomend the Warlock, an Omega and four Chronos frigates for your four battle points. You'd have plenty of fighters to screen your main ships and hopefully ward off the Nials and White Star fighters, and a good picket to help tackle the White Stars, while the Omega and Warlock pack a good wallop between them.

 

[Court Jester]

Or if you only have the Apollo models use them as Apollo Strike Cruisers against the ISA. Much better that way.

 

[hegemon]

At first glance Apollo SC's are really good, however when I took them against the brakiri in my last game it didn't hold up to well, damage wise it held it own not to bad sustaining a bridge destroyed, but the delicouse firepower that i thought it had didn't hold to its bargain out of the twin-linked 14AD it only managed roughly 4 hits.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Apollo SC looks like an old-fashioned broadside unit. Not much firepower up front, which is a bit odd for the Crusade EA. Even with the broadside focus EA has been given across the board, Crusade period seems to have most of the killer guns up front.

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

Maybe old habits simply die hard. They probably worked in the 'what worked once should work again' theory. After all, that's what the older captains would be used to anyway.

 

[Abraxas]

At first glance Apollo SC's are really good, however when I took them against the brakiri in my last game it didn't hold up to well, damage wise it held it own not to bad sustaining a bridge destroyed, but the delicouse firepower that i thought it had didn't hold to its bargain out of the twin-linked 14AD it only managed roughly 4 hits.

That just sounds like bad luck right there... certaintly not an indication of how good it is.

You're right, up front it looks great. I'm curious to hear other stories about it.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

4 hits out of 14 sounds about right for TL weapons going against hull 6. If it wasn't a hull 6 target though, then yeah, it was unlucky.

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

Unfortunately just because something can throw out a lot of dice doesn't mean that it will get a lot of hits or cause a lot of damage. Poor dice rolls, wrong weapon against wrong hull, any number of things can cause a something that appears good on paper to under-perform. Just remember that old addage; "The best laid plans in the world won't survive the first roll of the dice".