Cenrauri Vs. Earth Alliance

B

Boomer

Mongoose
Ok...new person here but I've played a number of various levels against EA without much success... can't seem to be able to take on the EA ships AND the swarming fighters...seem to be able to kill one or the other but what's left over kills the remainder of my fanheads...I admit I have'nt used the mighty Maximus yet but I'll start soon enough...

I realize it depends on what level one might be at but it seems you get one or maybe 2 turns of Laser shooting at 25" before the Novas get within the 12" range and things tend to even out...of course the Lasers might have cut up a Nova or 2 but by then the bloody Furys are swarming all over an they'll inevitably get a crit...so it's either swat at a million flys while getting pounded with a bat...or clobber the bat but get stung to death by the darn bees...

One still has to move forward unless you do an All Stop...and even then mathematically speaking the Novas are on you within 2 turns no matter how fancy your manuevering may be... any ideas from my fellow purple-people-eaters (which haven't really eaten anything but dirt)? :lol:
 
Sentris are basically equal to a Starfury or you could do Rasiks that are interceptor fighters. A Primus comes with several bases off the bat and can handle any Nova Decently. Alot of people do not like the Beam Team combo and the biggest weakness for a Beam Team is fighters. I suggest taking mostly Primus ships along with the Altarian for a good well rounded raid choice and a Balvarix for plenty of fighter cover.

If fighters really do annoy you. Take the Liati and watch fighters dissapear with that ship.

Vs Novas a Concentrate All Fire on a Nova with a Primus or 2 will cripple it or send it packing while focusing your faster ships on the aft arcs of most EA ships. Earth Alliance excells with broadside tactics so force his fleet in either the front arc or aft arc or you will get a good beating and dont forget his beams are boresight so use your speedier ships for force the flying bricks to try and split up.
 
Remember that the Centari have a large number of very nice raid ships, with decent Hull, a fiar amount of damage and some very good front fire power.

Also try splitting your fleet and pincer them, making sure to move small ships 1st as initative soaks, Vorchar Scouts and Corovans are great for this as they not only give you an initative soak, they give you the scout ability and have stealth :).

A few Raziks are great at dog fighting and as long as he doesn't take a Posiden you can pretty much match him fighter base for base with good fleet picks.
 
The one ship I would HUGELY recomend vs EA is the Sullust, it packs a hell of a puch, and is tough too. I'd strongly suggest taking a Balvarix loaded with Raziks (and take Raziks for every fighter option you get frankly) and that should deal with the EA fighters nicely. Focus your beam firepower on the nasty short ranged EA ships like the Novas, Olympus, etc and take them down asap. If he takes Omegas, IGNORE THEM till later in the game, they may look scary but they can soak up ALOT of damage and the real hitting power comes from the smaller ships with all round firepower.

A word of warning on Maximus's by the way though, they are fantastic ships but I REALLY wouldn't recomend using them vs EA for one reason and one reason only.

Interceptors.

Sure enough of them WILL wear interceptors down but when you have so many beam options, to take a NON beam armed ship vs an opponent loaded with interceptors is virtual suicide in my book.

So basically the best I can suggest, is a good combo of Sullusts, Primus and a Balvarix. And as many Raziks as you can afford without sacrificing too much of your fleets actual firepower.
 
Personally I like a primus, dargan, sulust mix. This gives you a good amount of beams and fighters. Plus the dargans are reasonable flankers, plus they are good backup for vorchan. (yes I like vorchans, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.) The only drawback is they are not are tough as centurions. But you get fighters, and all round arcs, so I guess it can be down to style or taste. Three primus and two sulust are good at breaking things, as it is so much easier to concentrate fire on one ship with arcs, rather than boresight.
 
I don't see how you're going to match EA fighters "base for base" with a Centauri fleet, unless the EA player deliberately takes ships with low fighter loads. His battle ship of choice, the Omega destroyer, has twice the fighters yours does, and his small carrier has as many fighters as your large one. Only the Octurion battleship, Balvarin and Balvarix carriers and the Adira royal battleship have more than two fighter bases aboard.

A Balvarix full of Raziks will help, but if he's playing a single Omega and a single Nova he has as many fighters as you do, and the Razik's edge over the Aurora Starfury is pretty slim. It's also worthless against ships, unlike the Starfury which has 2AD TL to throw at you. The Maximus frigate has anti-fighter guns, but they're Weak and short ranged. Keeping one near your larger ships will help, but it won't solve the problem. Use your Primus' twin arrays against the fighters. The combination of TL and plenty of AD should generate enough hits that they fail their dodges and die. With a Maximus close by and the Primus' pair of Sentris or Raziks on close escort you should see the Primus survive fighter attacks.

If you're really struggling vs EA fighters, you could take a skirmish point worth of fighters instead of a Vorchan or other light ship. That'd get you eight Razik flights and it's a lot cheaper than a Balvarix carrier.
 
take ships capable of killing his ships and worry less about the fighters.
5pt raid fleet - tertius, prefect, sullust, darkner, 2 corvans.
this gives you only 2 fighters but leave them flying CAP on ur tertius or something and just use all the beam dice you have to blow away his ships.
 
I agree with Katadder, beams are good. I'm a little bit worried about 2e. If they take away our beams it is going to make fight EA fun. All those interceptors.
 
Well from what Ive seen of 2nd Ed you neednt worry, you still have beams, just not QUITE as many. And you have MORE than enough Ion firepower to blast through interceptors (try taking EA vs Dilgar under current rules and see how long intercetptors hold up to the barrage of bolter fire....)
 
Maybe I'm being parnoid. But I just had one of those games were it seemed that the vast majority of sixes I rolled were the ones that stopped my matter cannons, even after I had depleated the interceptors with twin partical array fire.
 
Katadder's cheesy beam-team will win you the game, but it'll cost you your soul... :wink:

The 2nd ed Centauri are going to be great, from what I've been told. Beams will still be available and still nasty, but your ion cannons and matter cannons is where you'll do the damage. Speed and aggression will be your watch-words. Interceptor-heavy fleets will be a problem, but nothing you can't handle if you think before you hit the triggers. 8)
 
Aye Id tend to agree, Tertius AND Prefect in a 5 point raid? It will win but you will have to wear a huge prosthetic beard dipped in cheese for the rest of your ACTA gaming days ;)
 
Thats kind of a relief as I've just finnished painting a Centauri fleet (8 point battle) and was worried that they were going to get watered down. Now all I need is someone else in this city of 1 million people to paint a fleet, or I'll be forever doomed to be teaching people with counters.
 
Boomer, as you are new to the game can I check your opponent is doing one thing right.....

You can't start the game with all your fighters launched, and they launch very slowly from the likes of Novas, only one a turn as I remember. You should have enough sentri's to hold up the star furies as they come in dribs and drabs whilst your beams do the damage??

Cpt K
 
the key to fighting the EA with Centauri?

1 stay in as few of his arcs as possible. Don't let him use that firepower

2 take Raziks!

3 Beam him to death! (while you can, since those days are numbered!)

4 You have faster, more agile ships, use these advantages. Get around him, behind him

5 Kill the smaller ships first. This reduces his initiative/boresight sinks and allows your numbers to mass for the kill in only one arc of his big hitters
 
Well thanks everyone...we did kind of an oddball setup but he had a Warlock and 4 Novas while I had an Octurian, Primus, Sulust, Liati, and 2 Darkners...I killed some Furys with the beams (his other stuff was a bit to far out) and then my Raziks whittled him down too and the Liati got a few...however he still had about 10 left...the big problem was he hit my Primus Bridge early and knocked its weapons off-line, effectively taking it out of the game...one good note, the Liati was his favorite target and it soaked up a huge amount of damage before it died...no way should it be a WAR level though...it is a fighter killer but if it gets targeted all the time it dont do much good...I will try the pincer thing with some Vorchans...
I will go heavier for Beams first then worry about fighters, we'll see thanks everybody ! Boomer
 
Taking 2 war is always going to put you at a disadvantage, you would have been better dropping one of them and taking 2 more primus (or 1 and a tertius). Concentrate about half your biggest ships on 1 of the nova's to kill it (use other ships if you need to) then start work on the next.

Its always best to kill 1 ship rather than badly maul 2 in my opinion. Unless you get one of the crits that takes the ship out of the battle, but then just try and kill it from other arcs as they can repair at the worst possible time.
 
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