Centauri and Crack

[katadder]

Interesting I only usually use CBD when I am reloading so get 10 dice TL DD every turn and the 6 dice of missiles evey other

yeah if you come into range, didnt see alot of that myself TBH they used to like hiding at range and firing torps. then there was neils pacifist centauri who opened JPs rather than fight the Gaim

 

[Da Boss]

Ah well - yes I was worse and just conceeded my fleet - lost the good bits (Liati crippled and Demos killed and crippled) and the rest would never get to actually fire a weapon so a bit pointless to actually play 2/3 turns of not rolling a dice except initiative - still it was interesting lesson

 

[Jetbaker]

Yes our Centauri player is very good and has been rolling hot lately to boot. It seems though that any low hull ship is dead before it gets to fire. I am playing Drakh in the campaign at the moment and when all their weapons get a bazillion attack dice, our more agile, faster, our twin linked, double damage, and thats just one gun, makes it a little hard to do anything to them. Not to mention with the giving them a precise beam, and having the criticals take away traits its hard not to hate them. I can tell you that the Dilgar player in our campaign cant do anything to Centauri as well. The Centauri do get a lot of interceptors in the fact that a Maximus can Concentrate Defensive Firepower and be able to loan those out and lets not forgot the 1 interceptor on the Demos, there are others as well but I forget them at present. I also wonder at times at how a 3 AD Beam, Precise, and Double Damage equals to the the front arc of a Centauri ship I for one would take the twin linked double damage and around 10 AD that most Centauri ships have. Beams are to inconsistent for me to consider them a good mechanic, and god forbid if I roll no hits on a beam it makes that fleet worthless.

back on track, what weakness does Centauri have? They are fast, agile, DO have interceptors, tons of damage, are not short range as people claim, have on par absorption rate as other fleets, am I forgetting anything. Most fleets have 2 weaknesses like Shadows with telepathic disruption and pinning. I see nothing even remotely that I can consider a weakness in the Centauri fleet. On the contrary I find them to be the best fleet, very forgiving, and no weaknesses. Yes a good player is a good player and same goes for rolls but when during the course of one turn and the Centauri player has 4 battles and wins them all resoundingly and with only taking 19 damage overall its a fleet issue. When a fleet can do everything and well and can give beat downs like that it makes the game no fun. At this point I am just wishing for the good ol beam days that might help but I doubt it since the Centauri still DO have beam as well. Rant done !!

 

[Target]

Drakh seem a little weak to me compared to other fleets, having no fighters doesn't help. Never played them so can't help you there.
Dilgar with Thoruns & missles should be able cope, maybe your player is having good rolls at the moment, myself i must been his counter balance, truly awful rolls.
The Thoruns if you get enough out there should be out dogfight & act as interceptors to prevent some of that damage. Garosuch?? is fleet carrier so that should help.
Centauri are pretty easy fleet to master. If the maximus is there it's not a Vorchan/Demos.
It seems that those 2 fleets probably will have a harder time vs Centauri.
Dilgar a similar style of play & Drakh just lack a little firepower & can't get interceptors with no fighters.

 

[Da Boss]

Hmm well not having fun I get that but:

re damage - the hulls and damage of the Centauri are about average for ships of their level.

Guns - are horrifically powerful up close ( upto 12" being the main giun range 9 - 12" often being a sweet spot) - but are interceptable. Also only one arc with most ships. Get behind them as many have said on the this thread

Now I am not saying they are not extremely good - but then I think many fleets can now say the same.

Minbari can be extremely nasty - esp if their stealth is infalible as it can be! ISA can be extremely difficult to get into the arcs if played right and dish out good damge with their own double and triple damage guns. EA have the interceptors to weather fire and can dish it out as well - Tank showed me how good Hyperion rail crusiers squadroned can be League have so many possible combinations to deal with them .............

re the Maximus - yes its wonderful but has to stay with the ships and concetrate defensive fire is a CQ 8 check - 50/50 chance.

Beams - sometimes nothing sometimes a vast explosion - both for and against.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Listen, I hate doing this, but you're whining. The Centauri are killable. They lack interceptors on most of their ships and have to use Maximi to get interceptors for their major warships. They lack anti-fighter protection, even the largest ships only have a few dice and almost no ships carry fighters of their own. Almost all their weapons are in the front arc, and almost all at less than 20" of range. Their best weapons are 12"-15" range.

How to beat them? Get into the flank and rear arcs, hit them with high damage weapons or just big AD numbers. Smack them from long range, EA, Narn and Minbari are great at this. Interceptors can stop most of their weapons, so use anything with interceptors to face them if you can. Kill the Vorchans first, they're viscious little buggers but they vanish to a couple of good barrages, especially long-range shooting that gets them before they get into range. Mob them with fighters, the Vorchans have no defence against fighters at all.

Your keys to success are simple:

1, Interceptors.
2, Long-range weapons.
3, Get out of his front arcs.
4, Fighters.

 

[emperorpenguin]

back on track, what weakness does Centauri have? They are fast, agile, DO have interceptors, tons of damage, are not short range as people claim, have on par absorption rate as other fleets, am I forgetting anything.

:shock: wtf?!

 

[Jetbaker]

If you think I am whining than I have failed in my attempt at this thread. I was not tryign to whine but rather feel out if I was the only one feeling this way. It seems I might be the only on as most posts are in contradiction to what I think. I understand that people say use interceptors and such but I dont play a fleet that has them. Also, their interceptors are good enough to not allow most non beam damage to get through. Hell ask my Dilgar friend about his problems, and Dilgar IS a damaging heavy army. As for the range yes it might be considered short but when on average most of your ships can move at least 16+ inches a turn it makes a long fire game into a short fire and then you can turn more easily with your agile ships. I am not asking for changes I was just wondering if others thought this way. I am just tired of standing no chance and getting every ship blown apart in less than 2 turns. If you think I am wrong in this regard I respect your opinion, but I still think mine is valid as well.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You're exaggerating the issue. The Vorchan is the Centauri's fastest ship at speed 14". Most of the rest are around 10"-12". Most have no interceptors. If you think a single interceptor die on a handful of Centauri skirmish ships and 2 on the Maximus is "good enough to stop most damage" you're either seeing some bizarre dice rolling or you've given up before you've tried.

The Centauri fleet's weaknesses have been clearly laid out for you. Exploit them. Come back for advice if you have more problems, don't rant about how great they are while obscuring the issue with exaggeration.

 

[EDFDarkAngel1]

Yawn. So, I have a problem fighting ISA. I have EA Crusade and I die almost every time because their beams are better and the guy who plays them have dice that, as far as I know, are incapable of rolling under a 4. Are they broken? Maybe, a little bit. They have paper-thin hulls so, if I survive their attack, chances are they are space dust.

It would be alot easier to kill them if the very good player didn't spend 10 minutes turning a 2 AD attack into 35 dice.

Dark Angel

 

[emperorpenguin]

Drakh are more agile than Centauri, so get out of the front arc asap. If you stay in front of Centauri you will lose, no doubt about it. Sacrifice a turn of fire if necessary but get BEHIND!

ignore the fighters, your GEG will protect you. Kill the most agile ships first then pick off the big ships at your leisure

 

[Jetbaker]

I am unsure how to respond to your post. I will say this. What I know is that their ships are usually better for their priority than most in other fleets. You say exploit their arcs, that is easier said than done as their ships are agile. You say they are short range, well I disagree with you there, I find they are on the medium side range and are devastating from any range. The stealth issue you bring up is a valid one but I can at least have things in game to tone down stealth. I have nothing to tone down a Centauri warship, outside of rolling 8-9 beam dice which is above the norm. You say I am whining and exaggerating. I can only state what I have seen and been a part of. You try and go through 6 turns in a campaign losing all battles to the Centauri and really only killing one ship. This is not only my point of view but the view from my gaming friends as well. Lets just agree to disagree on this issue.

 

[emperorpenguin]

you aren't listening.

their ships are not as agile as yours. If you keep disregarding advice which seasoned Centauri players are prepared to give you then you deserve to lose quite frankly :roll:

 

[Jetbaker]

How are Drakh more agile? They have 2 ships at skirmish that are agile, that's it, no more. The speed is an issue as well as Drakh aren't the fastest fleet and to get past them is hard enough to do, but since their so fast and agile its easy to get in my arcs where I have no guns.

 

[stryve]

Going by the fleet lists, it looks like Centauri and Drakh are roughly equal in speed and manuverabilty. As to range, Drakh secondaries are a bit shorter while their beams are a bit longer (discounting raiders, which are just short).
Of course, I don't have much experience against either of these fleets, so I can't say how that translates to actual gameplay.

 

[Court Jester]

there were an aweful lot of demos around, although they seemed to be all concentrating on firing torps only and staying on CBD, not many ion cannons fired from them that i saw. but then i prefer vorchans anyway for total damage output.

I was getting right in there with the ion cannons in all my games on Saturday... The torps are nice for dishing out huge numbers of critical hits but the 10 dice of dd/tl was always the workhorse...

 

[katadder]

as drakh you do have DD precise beams, generally you are fast and can be more agile when for example the centauri battle ship is lumbering. also you can get carried init sinks, your battleship carries a ship inside that can have a DD P beam.

centauri do lack any real defenses, and any real rear arc. if it comes to it all power to engines right past them. ok you are only shooting 4-6AD of AP sometimes TL dice but thats 4-6 more than the centauri are firing back.

 

[Target]

Light raiders for the Vorchans. I use Havens vs Drazi cause of the 2/90 turns.
As for 8-9 beams hits your opponent is getting damn lucky.
Average for a primus is 6 mine is probably 5.
Maybe you should play me. I always roll 1's for interceptors, hardly ever get above average for beams.
Some decent luck should change your games by the sounds of it.
Maybe you should give us what he uses & what you guys have used vs him.

 

[lastbesthope]

also ignore the Corvan - kill the Laiti and the Demos :wink:

Indeed, with hindsight, not onnly should I have ignored the Covran and romped on the Liati, I should have tried to AJPB the sodding thing twice when I had the chance, at least I'd have come out behind it.

Ah well, I learned my lesson for the next game and scraped into 7th, not bad I think.

LBH

 

[Ripple]

Couple of response in defense of the Centauri are pretty hard.

Interceptors - yes only a few ships have them but you can hand ANY ship a couple if it is in danger. Thus it will often seem that he always has as many as he needs. Sure, its only 2 dice on the Maxi...but interceptor dice are first one is key, second is okay and who cares if you have more.

Range - Range fifteen is plenty right now. If you have a front arc weapons and speed eight or so you can jump right into the fight with an all power in almost any setup. It is rare for there to be more than one turn of beyond range fifteen fire. Eight or less is short range, and even eight is not hard to get if you can maneuver.

Damage output - Double damage and precise are damn close in total damage out put with precise being the more disabling, especially with the new chart. Centauri lost nothing but range in the change to a 'non-beam' configuraton and gained hugely in the primary fighting ranges of 10 to 15.

Beamness - last point is centauri lost a almost nothing in the change from beam. They have a skirmish beam ship that got better, a raid beam ship that traded DD for precise but otherwise is similar, and above that just lost some range (25 to 18?). If we were talking 12 range you would have taken a significant hit in range...but the loss really allowed the beams to stay in the fight from turn two on...

I'm not saying they are broken, or that I could not be wrong about some of the above...but...the original poster is not nearly as crazy as you folks are making out. The Centauri remain the most powerful of the 'non-trick' fleets, edging out EA a bit. Gaim (fighter/bomb), ISA (maneuver), Minbari (Stealth) all can be harder if the 'trick' works...but all have a bane (mines), the Centauri don't.

Maneuver is not a weakness of the Centauri, they do become lumbering at battle, but so do most other fleets and at that point they stop being front arc dependent as well. Looking at the stats from the tourney, three of the top six are centauri and it looks like they mostly conceeded to another fleet that is being questioned, the gaim.

Just saying, they are very strong, and finding ways to destroy them is not as simple as 'get to the side'. Finding ways to survive them is not as easy as 'shoot the vorchan/demos quick'.

Ripple