[br] 5 point WAR with 3rd age EA and the vorlons

[tneva82]

Somebody asked for pictures so we took best we could, screen captures of vassal :lol:

As such it's now in PDF format to be found here:

www.tneva.net/miniatures/acta/eavorlon5war.pdf

Hopefully we didn't screw up any rules THIS time though I'm sure we have :lol:

Fun game though. Vorlon ships are one mean ships.

 

[Locutus9956]

Interesting battle. In retrospect for the EA I would suggest:

1. Drop the Warlock for 2 Command Omegas or a Command Omega and 2 regular ones. As you found out, though it is a lovely mini, the Warlock as an armageddon ship, sucks.

2. Drop all the Starfuries for T-Bolts. Vorlon fighters, if he even takes any, suck in dogfights and even T-Bolts will eat them. And as antiship fighters, T-Bolts are obviously a much better option. (also they will die less to EM pulses)

3. Drop the pulse omegas for standard ones. This one is just my personal opinion but against vorlons who are all hull 5, beams can do ALOT of damage and the extra range can let you start hurting them sooner (and crucially can let you do enough to kill one or two ships at the start of the game before you start taking losses)

4. I'd consider dropping the Novas and Hyperions for more Olypus and Artemis or maybe another Omega. Hull 5 relatively expensive ships are just asking to die against vorlons and theyre all relatively short ranged ships too so if theyre in firning range so are the vorlons. Also with the big boresights for all the omegas you need lots of initiative sinks

5. Seriously consider targeting the transports first. They die much quicker than his tougher ships and lose HIM initiative sinks.... Your biggest advantage is outnumbering him, the more you can do so by the better.

Destroyers are the next priority (though if you CAN be pretty sure of killing a destroyer do that over a transport).

LEAVE THE CRUISERS TILL LAST!!! The light cruiser doesnt actually do THAT much more than the destroyers anyway and are so damn tough that they can pretty effectively 'tank' most of your fleet for several turns.

 

[tneva82]

1. Drop the Warlock for 2 Command Omegas or a Command Omega and 2 regular ones. As you found out, though it is a lovely mini, the Warlock as an armageddon ship, sucks.

Amen.

2. Drop all the Starfuries for T-Bolts. Vorlon fighters, if he even takes any, suck in dogfights and even T-Bolts will eat them. And as antiship fighters, T-Bolts are obviously a much better option. (also they will die less to EM pulses)

And if I had faced centauri's?-) What makes you think I knew I would be facing vorlons?-)

Games are rarely balanced if you know too much of opponent pre-game. Too easy to tailormake the list. Rock-paper-scissor.

LEAVE THE CRUISERS TILL LAST!!! The light cruiser doesnt actually do THAT much more than the destroyers anyway and are so damn tough that they can pretty effectively 'tank' most of your fleet for several turns.

Oh I wasn't concentrating major firepower there except when forced(like when warlock couldn't boresight anything else). Most of the damage against them done thorough game was done from secondary weapons who simply had nothing better to shoot.

However most of your comments seems to come from the base assumption that I knew I would be facing vorlons. Wrong assumption. I didn't know what I would be facing though excepted centauri's or maybe drazi's(he seemed to enjoy them last time we played).

 

[Silvereye]

Great bat rep tneva, keep them coming.

After game we started dreaming about 5 point armageddon between vorlons and shadows That
would be fun!

Now that would certainly be interesting.

 

[Locutus9956]

Fair enough. Round our way we usually know what list people will be using before the fight. Also in campaigns you DO know who your fighting before you pick your fleet for the scenario

Answer me this though. Did your opponent know he'd be facing EA? If so it seems a tad unfair that you have to build a list for all opponents and he gets to tailor his list to fight EA

Still, nonetheless, the others are merely aniti Vorlon suggestions. The point about Warlock and Command Omega though is applicable always That said acording to Matt the Warlock is going back where it belongs in 2nd Ed (War level)

 

[tneva82]

Fair enough. Round our way we usually know what list people will be using before the fight. Also in campaigns you DO know who your fighting before you pick your fleet for the scenario

We do not PLAY campaign :lol:

We do not like meta gaming and so keep things as hidden as possible(though my current love for 3rd age does deny that a bit).

Answer me this though. Did your opponent know he'd be facing EA? If so it seems a tad unfair that you have to build a list for all opponents and he gets to tailor his list to fight EA

Assuming he exploited the knowledge. And assuming I didn't say pull out centauri list(afterall I bought centauri's as well as EA which is why I keep using EA). So he COULD do anti-EA fleet(if there's such with vorlon ship selection...) but then again I'm in no requirement to hold to EA. I might just as well pull out shadows if I feel like :lol:

 

[Locutus9956]

Well in all fairness Id hardly call it metagaming to know who your going to fight (unlessy your playing a surpise attack or something). Still tis entirely up to you of course how to play your battles

 

[tneva82]

Well in all fairness Id hardly call it metagaming to know who your going to fight (unlessy your playing a surpise attack or something). Still tis entirely up to you of course how to play your battles

If you know who you face you can also tailor the force to minmax selections...Great flaw in any point selection systems. Invariably you either pay too little or too much.

 

[locarno24]

And that, children, is why we do not mess with the vorlons.
Leave the encounter-suited wierdos alone and they'll leave you alone.


Agreed on most points; Swap warlock for command omega and 2 regular omegas at third age. At least until it drops back to affordable war in 2nd E.

Armageddon-priority ships are hard to field; any ship taking up nearly half your fleet is a big problem.

Not sure what I could suggest, tactics-wise. Those destroyers refused to die for at least a turn each more than they had any right to.....and once your lighter ships started getting blown away, the particle beam on the warlock becomes rather second-rate.

Crusade-era marathon/chronos force anyone? I imagine sub-cruiser vorlon ships don't like hull 6 very much.

 

[tneva82]

Agreed on most points; Swap warlock for command omega and 2 regular omegas at third age. At least until it drops back to affordable war in 2nd E.

Hey I DID say in report I thought it was mistake as well...But hey I wanted to try out that ship. Pretty much only ship in 3rd age I hadn't tested and didn't have fleet carrier added to mix(whose exact rules we do not know).

Armageddon-priority ships are hard to field; any ship taking up nearly half your fleet is a big problem.

Not any more than taking battle level ship in 5 point raid...2 FAP out of 5 in both cases.

 

[Locutus9956]

Ah but most battle ships are generally WORTH the 2 raid points. Most Armageddon ones (at the moment) are definitively NOT worth 2 War choices

As for crusade era vs Vorlons, its rather tricky in my experience. Ive tried Marathons and Chronos and I gotta say, not so good

Marathons perfomred great but Chronos just die. Instantyl most of the time (as much as I love them, they are imensely vulnerable to beam heavy fleets, however if any DO survive to get behind the Vorlons, its a whole different ballpark

 

[Grimbart_Kriegsaxt]

Nice report
And thx for the Pictures, finally i could follow the battle report ^^.

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Great report, particularly like how you did the maps, very clear and detailed! Good stuff!

On Chronos against vorlons, wouldn't go there. ships are great against non beam races, hull 6 & interceptors 3 make them very durable. against beams they become hull 6 and a tiny amount of damage and crew. Against double and triple damage beams, they are going to die in one or two shots, and they certainly won't be killing even a transport in that amount of time.

Another thought. Personally I never drop priority level by more than a couple, so in this wouldn't have gone below raid. When you drop too much the ships become far too fragile. Especially Olympi, you've got that whole hull 4 thing to worry about, which will put a smile on any opponants face.

Nice job though!

 

[Ripple]

Curious why you think it would be meta gaming to know who your opponent is. Seems to me the artificial and weird environment is the tourney where you don't. If this is any kinda of simulator of reality (fictional one or otherwise), you would almost always know who you were up against.

Point taken on the always paying too much or too little, but that's true whether you know who your opponent is or not.

On the EA suggestions...even against Centauri I think you are better off with T-bolts over aurora's. Yes it's giving away a dogfight point to the centauri but you should outnumber him by a good bit so not such a big deal. I recently tried just shooting flights down by having a couple/three t-bolts not aid but stand nearby and blast the Sentries after they took out my lead T-bolt. Worked fine. Just usually see that if I take a few aurora the enemy just engage my T-bolts anyway so why waste time.

Ripple

 

[tneva82]

Great report, particularly like how you did the maps, very clear and detailed! Good stuff!

Wahhahhah! Those are just screen captures taken FROM the game We played the game WITH vassal(no models and what's worse: No gaming table! 24"x48" board does not good gaming board make). So it's easy to "make" these maps. Print screen->paste to irfanview->cut out the board part->save to file->insert to report

 

[tneva82]

Curious why you think it would be meta gaming to know who your opponent is.

Because you can suddenly min-max the selections which means that either you pay too little for your ships OR if they have been pointed with the assumption you only select those when they are most effective in every other time you overpay too much. As a result 99% games balance points with idea that you don't know what you face and ergo min-maxing them against what you face will effectively give you more points...

If this is any kinda of simulator of reality (fictional one or otherwise), you would almost always know who you were up against.

Who says real admiral could get what he wants? (hey I'm going against vorlons! Send me two dozen omega destroyers!). Real world generals/admirals/whatever have to work with what they have got more often than not.

Anyway the mere fact we have 2 supposedly equal fleets mean this isn't real world simulator anyway.

Point taken on the always paying too much or too little, but that's true whether you know who your opponent is or not.

But you can't min-max it and ergo it pretty much balances itself out...