Brand-Newbie Hellos and Questions

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Hi,

I got roped into trying this last night at a friend's place, and suspect I am hooked. 5 point raid with three players. I picked Minbari because they looked cool, and went with a Morshan, two Tagras, and a Lesheth, mostly because multiple episodes of BstarG have me with carriers on the brain. Opponents were Narn with 2 G'Quan and 2 small wedgie escorts, and Humans with an nova, another ship of similar class, and two missile destroyers.

Man did I have fun. I found out hte hard way that Tiagras are not designed to close with G'Quans, but managed to swarm him with fighters and got lucky with a reacter critical, stalling them. Once I clued into the whole"don't get close" thing, I became a tactical challenge to limit opponent's opportunities to fire while concentrating my shots in hopes of the crit.

This has me thinking about fleets, etc., and I wanted to run some ideas past folks here. I've run a search on fighter-use in the game, and the general consensus seems to be that they suck; the Nial, however, seems to be a notable exception. Has anyone tried running fleets with loads of Nial fighters - mulitple carriers, etc.? Am I out of my mind for considering it?

I suspect most of our games will be of the "Raid" scale, simply because of the time constraints, but I can see the occasional game with larger fleets. A core of a Sharlin and a couple of Morshans looks like a fun fleet to play. Is this a viable target to work towards?

Secondly, I'm also possibly interested in the Abbai and Brakiri; as with the Minbari, this is mainly because of the ships. While "Searchy" tells me the Abbai are a "close and fire" fleet, how do the Brakiri play?

Finally, I wondered about the fleet boxes. While they seem like a good deal, they do represent a certain investment, and I'm not convinced that the mixes offered are the ships I want. To what extent would people recommend the boxes vs. a pick and choose approach?

Thanks,

FMB

 

[Chernobyl]

Fighters for quite a while did "suck" :lol:

however, the new armageddon book due for release immenently is going to introduce changes to the combat sequence that will probably bring fighters right where they need to be, in balance. Nials are quite good as they have stealth, which is uncommon for fighters, as well as good weapons. So a fighter heavy fleet may be feasable, but until the book comes out and everyone gets in some games under the new rules, its anybody's guess.

That being said, Welcome to the forums and welcome to ACTA!

Chernobyl

 

[Silvereye]

Welcome to the game.

I picked Minbari because they looked cool, and went with a Morshan, two Tagras, and a Lesheth, mostly because multiple episodes of BstarG have me with carriers on the brain.

Thats one way to pick a fleet.

Man did I have fun. I found out hte hard way that Tiagras are not designed to close with G'Quans, but managed to swarm him with fighters and got lucky with a reacter critical, stalling them. Once I clued into the whole"don't get close" thing, I became a tactical challenge to limit opponent's opportunities to fire while concentrating my shots in hopes of the crit.

This has me thinking about fleets, etc., and I wanted to run some ideas past folks here. I've run a search on fighter-use in the game, and the general consensus seems to be that they suck; the Nial, however, seems to be a notable exception. Has anyone tried running fleets with loads of Nial fighters - mulitple carriers, etc.? Am I out of my mind for considering it?

I suspect most of our games will be of the "Raid" scale, simply because of the time constraints, but I can see the occasional game with larger fleets. A core of a Sharlin and a couple of Morshans looks like a fun fleet to play. Is this a viable target to work towards?

Secondly, I'm also possibly interested in the Abbai and Brakiri; as with the Minbari, this is mainly because of the ships. While "Searchy" tells me the Abbai are a "close and fire" fleet, how do the Brakiri play?

Finally, I wondered about the fleet boxes. While they seem like a good deal, they do represent a certain investment, and I'm not convinced that the mixes offered are the ships I want. To what extent would people recommend the boxes vs. a pick and choose approach?

Thanks,

FMB

It is very difficult to go wrong with a Sharlin. Their only drawback is they cost a War point, so are better at the High PL games. Morshins are fantastic, not only are they Fleet carriers, they also come with command +1 and 8 flights of Nials and 1 Flyer.

The Minbari fleet box is very top heavy, full specs weigh in at over 7 War Points. If you are into large games it is the way to go. The reinforcements have 2 drawbacks. The Troligans are probably some of the most useless ships in the fleet, when compared to a Tinashi. Torothas are a bit of an oddity too; fragile, close range ships.

I am not too sure of the validity of the fighter fleet as there are changes due in Armageddon that might make this more/less viable. Certainly if yougo down the fighter route, the Morshins bring more in than buying them seperately.

If you want to play big games, the box set is excellent value. But in the meantime you may be better with a bit of a Pick n' Mix fleet.

Sharlin, 1 Tinashi, 2 Morshin, 2 Tigaras. A Leshath would not go far wrong either. And if you want to buy the box later, you will get a nice Minbari fleet for when you need to invade Earth.

The Tinashi and the Tigara's both have good variant hulls available to them.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Until you get your copy of Armageddon, the simple change made to fighters that improves their effectiveness is that as per your rules Fighters move last after all the capital ships have moved. BUT they now fire first before any larger ships fire, so they get to do some damage before being shot down.

I think the nial is about the best fighter in the game, so yes I think a nial based fleet is a possibility. I am collecting quite a few right now for my one Morshin plus Sharlins etc.

TWO Morshins, now that would be one heck of a lot of Minbari fighters on the board..

Overall the fleet boxes and reinforcements boxes are superb value for money, as long as what is in them is what you wanted in the first place.


Kremmen

 

[MustEatBrains]

Hello to the game, and to this forum in general - you´ll learn to love this place, believe me!

With the new rules-tweaks in Armageddon, fighter-based fleets should become quite powerful - still, it always depends on what you´re facinng; some fleets have tremendous anti-fighter firepower (Narn e-mines; Minbari mini-beams...).

Your fleet choice is interesting, because Minbari, Abbai and Brakiri were the fleets that got me into ACTA as well! Abbai are really tough at close ranges; while their combat lasers are able to inflict a huge number of critical hits at close to medium ranges... their main weakness is against beam-heavy fleets, because they can´t use their interceptors against them. The Abbai fleet box is great; you get a pretty effective combination of ships with it. Add a Lakara and another carrier or two to the mix, and you´re able to face anything your can throw at you!

My experience with the Brakiri is that they are able to take a lot of punishment (their battle-level ships aöready have 60 damage), but that they do not deal out as much damage as other fleets - except for their ship variants, which pack some serious hitting power (I´ve been able to tear apart a Sharlin with a Kaliva a few months ago; and that was before stealth was toned down). Overall, I consider the Brakiri a good middle-range fleet which can compete with most opponents. I´m no fan of their fleet box, though - no Haliks, a Tashkat too many... anyway, that may just be me.

And Minbari? I love´em. Only the EA (3rd age or Crusade) might be as dangerous when being deployed as a carrier fleet, and I´m a great fan of the Sharlin (I use one whenever I can). And with the new stealth rules, they should be very evenly balanced; they have huge long-range firepower in any case, but can also be deployed for close-quarters...

There´s a Fleet Box Analysis thread somewhere on this forum; might be worth a try on the search engine...