Deciding fleet.

[Kretsmester]

As a longtime fan of the show, and avid miniature games enthusiast, I've decided to give ACTA a go. It's a bit of a pain to get hold of miniatures here, though, because the local hobby store don't support the game, so I'll have to order everything online. Furthermore, because of archaic toll limits and such, it's easier to buy stuff in bulk, otherwise it gets very expensive. So, long story short, I want to know what I get into before I buy anything.

As it stands, it's a tossup between three fleets, and I wonder how they play.

First out is the Narn. I love the look of some of the ships (the G'Quan in particular, and those similar to it), but I'm a bit ambivalent on the T'Loth and Rongoth, and to a lesser degree the Ka'Toc. Do these ships fill essensial roles in the fleet, or can I do fine without? Also, how do they play? I understand they somewhat lack finesse, would this mean they lack flexibility as well? Do they get boring to play easily?

Secondly, the Drazi. I loved the Drazi in the show, as underdogs, but their ships seem very similar. I'm also a bit concerned with the lack of larger vessels.

Finally, Earth Alliance. How do they play exactly? What's their strength and weaknesses?

 

[Gunnvaldr]

Welcome to the hobby Krets

My first advice beofre you buy any models is find a group of willing players to try out the game

Secondly to use the counters, either by downloading from the forum here or photocopying the rule book counters and use them instead of ships.

It is advice you do this with any ship you are unsure of using beofre you purchase.

Now for Drazi, the new (relative to old players of the game) beam rules do help them enough to score against tought ships. Although your ships tend to be lower priority, you tend to have a much larger fleet then others.

Drazi tends to be a 'horde' force, in which you do need the numbers to effectively counter your 'bore' sight limitation.

For Narn, I have no experience using them. But for EA there are 3 era's, or list in other words, Early/Third Age/Crusader. Most players I know of tend to play Third age, I play Personally play Crusader. And I'll leave other ppl to tell you their experience at that

 

[angelus2000]

Heya Krest and congratulations on joining the dark side..... sorry wrong scifi universe

First suggestion is also Gunns. Find some other people that are interested in playing, and go with counters at first. A few bucks at Kinkos and dowload off the internet and you can have shiny full color ones.

For the fleets though.

Narn. They changed a great deal with 2e, almost as much Centauri did but in a different way, as their play style didn't change much, but how and what ships to use did.

Theres generally 2 play style that Narn can use, and thier ships tend to be geared to one of those.

First, Pack hunters and swarms. Ka'Tocs, Var'nics, and the oh so lovely G'Vrahn are the main ones for this use. They pack absurd firepower and are tough for their PL to boot. They are fast for their PL as well, and possess better than average turns, the G'Vrahn in paticular.

The Other is straight slugfest. Rothans, G'Quans, Dag'Kars, G'Karith, BIN"TAK!!!, Ka'Bin'Tak. These all possess average to slow speed for the PL, but share the Pack hunters toughness with even more firepower, much of which is concentrated secondary batteries, These are the ships you drive up the middle and use to lay waste all around.

Rongoths/Rothans are swarm brawlers. Rothans in paticular are good in squadrons, and can be used to effitively screen G'Quans, Bin'Taks, T'loths from pack hunters. T'Loths a damage sponge, pure and simple, and works great if your partial to boarding actions. Ka'Tocs are a must be in almost every scenario. Hard-hitting with 3 AD of beams, tougher than average for skirmish, has some weapons in every arc. IMO the only bad thing about them is their turn rate (1/45 and Speed 10 aren't the best match)

Drazi..... I don't squat about. never fought them, never used them.

EA has three Eras to choose from. All have different play styles, strengths weakness.

Early EA I know the least. Most all theri ships are Raid and below, so you tend to field a lot of them. Very flexible fleet, as you have good long range fire, decent fighters, some fast ships. About thier only weakness IMO is that their ships go pop easy against beams, and pop fast in general. Another strength is list flexibilty, as its near the top in sheer amount of variants you can field. If you like tweaking, you wont be bored.. ever.

3rd Age I know the best, mainly cause thats my fleet . I consider 3rd Age to be the premeir fighter fleet in existence. Better than average fighters, but the sheer numbers you can field is ridiculous, and thats before you start adding Avengers and the Posiedon. Long range fire is good, with Omegas, Command Omegas, and Warlocks all having some nasty Boresight beams, and Olympus, Hermes, and Warlocks adding missles to the mix. Artemis are great skirmish brawlers, they are worth thier wieght in gold, Olympus are a bit more flexible. Hyperions are your pack hunters, and can do some serious damage, they go pop easy though. Novas were a fairly good brawler, but IMO got nerfed in 2e, I rarely take them any more unless I need cheap fighters. The only a few weaknesses IMO. 1, lack of variety; 3rd Age ship selection is on the skinny side, you end up taking the same ships all the time because theirs only a few ways to build a fleet. 2, and endemic to EA in general, theri ships are less sturdy than the other races of the big 4, taking into account Minbo stealth (Interceptors makes up for this to a degree though)

Crusade EA is where the big boys are at. Heavily weighted towards Battle and War PL, but what ships are thier are very good. Marathons and Apollos are both excellent ships, and make good complements for Omegas. Delphis the second best scout in the game, Chronos are tough little buggers for anything without beams. Access to only Arma PL ship EA has. 2 weakness though, both of which are major IMO. Fighters are lacking in numbers, as most Crusade only ships carry few, if any (the Firebolt makes up for this, good dogfigther and a nasty bomber, the ultimate in dual-role fighters). THe other is a pronounced weakness at Raid and below, altough this is not as bad as 1e. Mymidons a great Patrol PL, Chronos sit at skirmish, and Hyperions are still availalbe.

Well, i hope that helps somewhat. Personaly, I'd recommend going with Narn at first. Thier fleet list is large, and the nature of Narn ships tends negate some of the bad juju from having a "Duh..." moment. I don't think you'd enjoy Drazi, it takes a paticular mindset to get the most out of them. EA's a bit nitpicky, their strengths aren't real obvious and many of them rely on other ships in the fleet to use thier full effectiveness.

 

[Kretsmester]

Thanks for the feedback!

First off, as for the counters: There was a clique of Babylon 5 enthusiasts locally, that used to hang out at the (sadly, now closed) game store and play a lot. I didn't talk a lot to them though, both because they were a bit ... socially challenged, and because they played with counters. For me, counters look so fundamentally unspectacular it totally defeats the purpose of playing tabletop games in the first place. They're fine if you want to try out some madcap "so crazy it might even work!" scheme before actually investing money in it, but personally I'll never rely on them instead of miniatures. Furthermore, just painting and owning a fine fleet of Babylon 5 spacecraft is reward enough in itself, even if I don't end up playing it a lot.

I live in a medium-sized city in a country without any traditions in miniature gaming, so I'd be hard pressed to find a group of people to play with. Most here are pretty preoccupied with Games Workshop stuff anyway. I have however found a friend of mine who's willing to give it a go, and there had been a voiced interest in the gaming circle to try something else, so hopefully more will follow suit.

As for the fleets, I'll think about it a bit more. Last night I'd more or less decided for EA, but now I'm uncertain again. It's going to be either EA or Narn though, of that I'm certain.

 

[H]

Thanks for the feedback!

First off, as for the counters: There was a clique of Babylon 5 enthusiasts locally, that used to hang out at the (sadly, now closed) game store and play a lot. I didn't talk a lot to them though, both because they were a bit ... socially challenged, and because they played with counters. For me, counters look so fundamentally unspectacular it totally defeats the purpose of playing tabletop games in the first place. They're fine if you want to try out some madcap "so crazy it might even work!" scheme before actually investing money in it, but personally I'll never rely on them instead of miniatures. Furthermore, just painting and owning a fine fleet of Babylon 5 spacecraft is reward enough in itself, even if I don't end up playing it a lot.

I live in a medium-sized city in a country without any traditions in miniature gaming, so I'd be hard pressed to find a group of people to play with. Most here are pretty preoccupied with Games Workshop stuff anyway. I have however found a friend of mine who's willing to give it a go, and there had been a voiced interest in the gaming circle to try something else, so hopefully more will follow suit.

As for the fleets, I'll think about it a bit more. Last night I'd more or less decided for EA, but now I'm uncertain again. It's going to be either EA or Narn though, of that I'm certain.

having played both, I would advocate playing the Narn, much more fun, funky camo scheme, coolest looking ship in the game (G'Quan)
if you went for EA I would look at Third age, Early is great too, but third age means you can field those iconic ships from the show in the same fleet, omega, Nova, Hyperion, T-bolts and Auroras.

 

[Kretsmester]

Of course I'd go 3rd Age! Anything else is ... well not really Babylon 5.

Having narrowed it down somewhat already, could you please give me a quick direct comparison between the Narn and EA ships, without going too much into rule mechanic terms?

 

[inq101]

Neither fleet is especialy fast or manoverable.

EA: Big broadsides and powerful boresited lasers. Loads of fighters (and pretty good fighters). Long-ranged missiles and lasers on most ships. Good selection of ships, though not too many specialists. They rely on interceptors for survivability.

Narn: Ships are either pack hunters (tough and good weapons, but vulnerable without support) or floating fortresses (Rediculously tough, well armed but slow). Limited fighter support (few ships carry fighters). Powerful beams, some are arced rather than boresited, but weapons are generaly shorter ranged weapons than EA. Devestating e-mines (template weapons) though normaly one-shot or slow loading.

EA has better long ranged firepower and better fighter cover. Their weapons are more rounded (useful in more situations, no one-shot stuff) They have Interceptors to reduce the damage they take.
Narn's have tougher ships and more powerful weapons. And as angelus said, BIN'TAK!!!

 

[H]

Of course I'd go 3rd Age! Anything else is ... well not really Babylon 5.

Having narrowed it down somewhat already, could you please give me a quick direct comparison between the Narn and EA ships, without going too much into rule mechanic terms?

hmm, well, each fleet has it's strengths and weakneses.
well, similarities of the fleets
both fleets are Boresight fleets (beams), meaning they need lower level ships to move, so they can line up their big shots, both are slower on the whole than say the centauri, and neither is overly maneuvreable. both have good ranged beams, so as long as you can bring the beam to target something, their is a chance depending on who you play, you won't get return fire.
Differences. Narn only get interceptors on one ship, the very powerful G'Vrahn, EA conversely get them on most ships. Narn however get E-mines, area effect ignoring stealth explosions. EA get missiles, although 3rd age is their weaker option for missile fire. to balance the lack of interceptors, narn ships usually get a few more damage points. narn also get good troop numbers for boarding. EA instead get better fighters, more fighters per ship, and higher antifighter.

some key ships - comparisons

War level. G'Vrahn Versus Warlock. ok, these are arguably two of the most powerful warships in the game, both have excelent weapons loadouts, and good surviveability thanks to good damage and interceptors. in a straight fight, It would be difficult to call, both ships also look superb!

Battle level. G'Quan versus omega. once these two would have been viewed as weaker choices, the G'Quan may still be, the Omega on the other hand is now quite tough. better beam, minibeams (slow loading) on the flanks, and more fighters. The G'Quan does get e-mines, though they are one use only. these are two of the best looking ships in the game, but the omega is the superior choice. However th G'Quan can be replaced with a mag cruiser which is a pretty decent choice. All ships are slower and lumbering, they definately need support to make them fully effective

Raid Level. var'Nic Versus Hyperion. I was tempted to say T'loth here as it's iconic, but the var'nic is one of the finest raid ships you can get. both ships sport a 4 dice beam, which on a raid ship is superb. both are reasonably speedy, and get 2 45 turns, again, excelent on a raid ships. where they differ is on secondary weapons and surviveability, and here, the var'nic edges it in my mind. it gets a stronger hull, 6 opposed to 5, and it's forward weapons are more effective. the hyperion conversely gets all round fire and interceptors, as well as 1 more fighter.

Skirmish. I'm going to look at the Thentus versus Olympus.
many would argue for a ka'toc, but i personally prefer the thentus. here the Narn, with 4 diceworth of beam, is up against the railgun turrets of the Olympus. both have the same hull, the thentus sporting more dameg, but the olympus getting an interceptor, neither carry fighters. the missile rack and railgun on the Olympus mean it can cover all it's arcs effectively, but the beams on the thentus give it more direct punch (in theory) both gain all round twin linked guns, a few dice less on the thentus, but for me, the option of so many beam dice at Skirmish make it a winner, especially against interceptor fleets

patrol. here is a straight up fight between hermes and the 2 for one police cutters. I'd actually go for the hermes, it carries a fighter and missiles and even sports an interceptor, BUT for the same prioce you could pick up 2 torpedo cutters, with dodge and 1 dice each of torpedo. I just have a liking for the hermes though, it looks nice, and if it carries a t-bolt, it's a fine ship

I skipped armageddon, EA get the Victory, narn get the monsterous kaBinTak. I think the Victory gets the more surviveability but these two are definate heavyweights, and both are fantastic choices

I would say overall, the narn get more ship choices, althoug hsome of their skirmish ships seem redundant. Both suffer from overall speed and maneouvreability, but I see them as quite a close match, depending on who you play either fleet may apear better or worse than the other If you like fighters take EA, otherwise go for narn

 

[H]

EA: Big broadsides and powerful boresited lasers. Loads of fighters (and pretty good fighters). Long-ranged missiles and lasers on most ships. Good selection of ships, though not too many specialists.

Narn: Ships are either pack hunters (tough and good weapons, but vulnerable without support) or floating fortresses (Rediculously tough, well armed but slow). Limited fighter support (few ships carry fighters). Powerful beams, some are arced rather than boresited, but weapons are generaly shorter ranged weapons than EA. Devestating e-mines (template weapons) though normaly one-shot or slow loading.

EA has better long ranged firepower and better fighter cover. Their weapons are more rounded (useful in more situations, no one-shot stuff) They have Interceptors to reduce the damage they take.
Narn's have tougher ships and more powerful weapons. And as angelus said, BIN'TAK!!!

i'd definately argue over your longer ranged beams argument.

narn have a beam at patrol, EA don't
Skirmish, 20" on the ka'toc, 15" on the thentus, ea, no beams(actually, i lie, 15" beam on the oracle scout)
Raid, 20" on the var'Nic, 18" on the hyperion
battle 30" max for both fleets
War EA finally win, 35" on warlock, only 30" max for narn
Armageddon, 30" on Narn, no armageddon at 3rd age (whoops, ignore that line from my review then) but in crusade 30" beam on EA.

so through the levels, the narn beams are actually longer ranged

damn, you edited, yes, EA secondaries outrange Narn secondaries.

 

[angelus2000]

That extra 2-4 inches EA pulse cannons sport in range, is more of an advantage than what you would think. Most other fleets secondaries are limited to 8 inch range, and theres been many a turn where I've gotten to fire those secondary pulse cannons and there other guy hasn't, becuase my ships siting 9-12 inches away. Another thing is most EA pulse cannons are TL, Narn pulse cannons aren't.

PLay styles and everything else aside, theres 2 additonal considerations for you. Narn rely more on thier Skirmish level ships than EA does, although 2e changes changed this a bit (Narn 1e Raid choices sucked, pure and simple). However you will still most likely rely on Skirmish PL ships, which directly translates into more minis. Which also translates inot more money spent. In effective EA fleet at 5 Battle PL, will run between 8-12 minis, a Narn fleet will run 12-16; thats very rough guess, but Narn usually will outnumber their opponent.

Another is painting and building considerations. Narn ships are fairly easy builds, many of thier ships are 1 peice, they tend to be low on flash and are easy builds. Most EA ships suck for building, they tend to be high on flash, slightly warped, and have lots of peices (Novas in paticualr blow, 16 turrets which love to fall off).

Painting however, EA tend to be much simpler. Painting Narn ships is a time-consuming affair, as the those neat camo stripes have to be done by hand. I can paint in Omega in less than an hour, a G'quan took me about 4 for comparison, just because of the damn stripes.

 

[inq101]

I meant that overall the EA has a slight range advantage, not just their lasers. I'd prefer Narns bbeam weapons as their Mag guns are arced rather than boresited, and several ships have lasers and mag guns giving you a scary amount of beam dice up close.

 

[Locutus9956]

It may take longer to paint Narn but you cant deny that its worth it They just look so damn cool (and thats coming from someone who now has a fleet for every major race EXCEPT Narn Guess whats next on my ACTA shopping list? (and I DO have a GQuan already, but its not very well painted )

 

[angelus2000]

*Shudders* Never again will I do that camo scheme. I'd rather paint a Brettonian army than do Narn again

 

[Banichi]

I live in a medium-sized city in a country without any traditions in miniature gaming, so I'd be hard pressed to find a group of people to play with. Most here are pretty preoccupied with Games Workshop stuff anyway.

Just out of curiosity, which country and city?

 

[Kretsmester]

Just out of curiosity, which country and city?

Bergen, Norway.

 

[inq101]

Go to a games club with the rulebooks and some card counters. Tell people it's free to play 'cause you'll provide everything they need. I got a good sized campaign started from people who've never played before by doing that.

 

[Banichi]

Just out of curiosity, which country and city?

Bergen, Norway.

Drat, I thought you might have been describing Auckland. We even had a local game club close down earlier this year. (although I wasn't to sure about the socially challenged coment :lol: ). The advice inq101 gives about doing demo games at a club is sound, 2 point raid is good as it allows for a fast game, but has enough ships for you to get the rules across. I used to use 2 vorchan and a centurion Vs 2 warbirds and a xill for demo games. That mix of ships has a good wide range of weapon and ship traits, without trying to manage a huge fleet.