Drakh Tactics

verdantgreen

Mongoose
Can any of you point me to some collected Drakh tactics? Alternatively, if there are no such lists, would you care to post some tips? I'm thinking of getting into the Drakh as my second fleet but I would like to know what they are like.

P.S. >> I have the book coming in the mail but I'm just impatient :-)
 
Thank you, somehow I missed that :-/

Hmmm...the Mothership seems quite nice. Now, I don't have the actual numbers handy or anything...but it sounds quite effective.

It is kind of hard to tell with the models, but is the Drakh mothership the thing that we see during their first appearance in the show? (the ship that is destroyed by Delenn and her Whitestars as it tries to escape)
 
No. Those ships don't have models... yet. I'm begging for them... but no answer yet.

The ship on the show (as close as I can tell) would be a Drahk Cruiser:

ctadrakhcruiser.jpg


... with a Hvy Raider escort (since Cruisers don't carry Raiders).

The Mothership is getting a resculpt (Thank the Gods), hopefully too look less like a Hammer Head shark and more like this:

mothership.jpg


... which is the one we see on the show.

If you need stats for the ships or just a quick reference while typing, use this:

http://chburger.brinkster.net/

... it's what I use.
 
OK, I have been negligent here to post on Drakh tactics, as I was hoping for someone else to start the ball; but, I've run them a few times, and have some knowedge of how I, at least, I run them. I would be interested in others' opinions as well; feedback is very important to me. I'll divide these subjects into:

-- Introduction and Background
-- Race Theory and Ship Overview
-- GEG Implications and Management
-- Individual Ship Evaluations
-- Raider Fleet Tactics
-- Beam Team Tactics
-- Supporting the Centauri and Shadows
-- Matchups
-- Scenario Considerations
-- Campaign Considerations
-- Suggested 5-Raid Fleets
-- Cheat Sheet
-- Conclusions

Who knows? By the time this is done, it could be a (Massive) S&P article from the user community to ... well ... itself.
 
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

One disused remnant of a Shadow plot, the Drakh fleet offers a different vision on Shadow tactics; namely, what low point-cost ships of Shadow theory might look like. They do not posses the extreme advancements of their Shadow masters, such as Super-Maneuverability, Hyperspace Mastery, or resistance to critical hits, they often boast high agility through their repeated use of the Drakh fleet workhorse, the Raider, advance jump and deployment capabilities through the use of Huge Hangars on Jump-Capable hulls, and resistance to damage in another form, the race-defining Gravitic Energy Grid.

And just as the Shadows in A Call to Arms are a finesse fleet with high PL-level ships, the Drakh are a finesse fleet with stress on low PL-level ships. As such, they occupy a similar space in terms of tactics as the ISA, except at the Skirmish-level and not at Raid-level. Many of those same ISA concepts are still good, until you recognize the real fundamental change behind this – the Gravitic Energy Grid.
 
RACE THEORY

Taking a quick look at the Drakh fleet brings the reader to several obvious conclusions. And, yes – I know about the great caveat; it’s coming.

-- You have few point defense systems, no access fighters at all. Not only does your fleet not possess them, it takes a small miracle to get them in a campaign setting, either; it’s a 12 or 2 on the Duties list only. This selection can come from Centauri or League, but it must be a ship. The League has no good dogfighters in it – the best option out there is the poor Brikorta, which at least gives you fighters fast enough to keep up with the Drakh Raiders – but it’s still only DFR +0. The Centauri Razik would be a great option, but the only ship with craft available is the unacceptable Amar. Clearly, opposing fighters will expect to pick on your Raiders without mercy. The fast ones will probably succeed. Shadow, Drazi, and ISA players are quite familiar with this phenomenon. The ISA players at least get to rely on the unequalled dogfighting skill of their almost-gross Nials to clear up the issue.

-- Almost everything is Beam and Precise. The only exceptions are on the non-combatant Scout and the heavy ships. Even then, the primary armament is beam, usually by large margins. This strongly promotes some of the Minbari ideas of fire; including critical-trawling. The limited ranges of the Neturon Cannons, however, don’t help quite as much. Much of the damage you cause will be with those Double-Damage critical beams causing secondary effects.

-- Your Hull ratings are abysmal. Your first Hull 5 ship is at Raid-level, and even then, it’s kind of small. The only Hull 6 ship you have in your fleet is a Breaching Pod. This means that the low-hull ship problems are yours to keep; beam-armed ships are extremely dangerous to engage, and large banks of standard damage are deadly. These sorts of Hull values make pulse weaponry highly dangerous, and SAP stuff, like Ion Torpedoes, Standard Missiles, and the Gravitic Lance, not such a big deal as it might otherwise be. Also, Beams CAFing aren’t such a great concern – they were probably going to hit you anyways.

-- You have almost zero combat ships at Battle-level or above. 4-hull ships aren’t Battle-capable at Battle Priority and above, no matter how you slice it. You have exactly one serious option of itself, the Cruiser. Even its range is only 25 and has but 38 hits and crew; so it isn’t a heavyweight, either. This means at high priorities you cannot afford to just trade shots with the opponent and slug it out. You have nothing to slug it out with.

-- You have +4 initiative, and up to +6 if you take the Mothership. This gives you the second-best initiative rank, only behind your Shadowy masters (who’s surprised here?). You can use this advantage in many ways, and it meshes with your large numbers of durable and highly mobile Skirmish ships (see above for why you have many skirmish ships) to create interesting initiative traps.

-- Your Refits and Duties lists are spectacularly dangerous. I personally feel these lists are the best in the game (sorry, Centauri and Abbai). There’s candy everywhere: from the Enhanced GEG and Self-Repair refits (which are murderously powerful at Raid and Skirmish), to the Stealth refit (extremely useful to the Motherships) to the Extra Huge Hanger to the Supercharged Thrusters that give you +2 Speed (not +1!!) -- all these are impressive to the Drakh arsenal. There’s only 1 booby prize, at it’s at a dice roll of 11. Even the Long-Range Targeting system is useful, although the round-down bit certainly stops some gross things the Light Cruiser could do. The Duties list is, if anything, even better: the threat of a Keeper stops everyone in the campaign from fielding an Armageddon-level ship; you can even infect a Vorlon Heavy Cruiser with this thing. It’s probably a just outright broken refit. The rest are beautiful as well; Political Influence is persistent and crippling, Whispering and Warmongering in any campaign where fighting is enforced or just likely considering the people involved can be brutal. With all your AJP-equipped ships, even the 8, Superior Hyperspace Tactics, is mean.

-- And, of course, everything has a GEG. Which, of course, changes everything.
 
GEG IMPLICATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

The GEG defines the Drakh. If you fail to get high value out of the GEG, you will almost certainly lose, no matter what flavor of fleet you take. And because of the passive nature of the system, it isn’t tactics of how you use it that you have to maximize, it against what it’s used.

The GEG is a threshold system. Until you exceed the GEG’s threshold, you deflect (almost – more about this later) incoming fire until it is consumed. This also means that, all other things being equal, the gets better and better the less the amount of firepower is left on the table.

And firepower has a slightly different definition here. As the GEG resets after every weapon system’s fire, the firepower we are considering is the total amount of damage a given weapon system can generate. This means that ships with one large damage system, such as any 4-dice DD beam weapon, the large Dilgar Bolter arrays, or the larger Abbai Quad Particle Arrays are major threats, while the multiple banks of the weapons systems of the Vree, Drazi, and Brakiri and not particularly dangerous.

To assess firepower numerically, here’s a fast and dirty assessment: take the number of first-weapon hits (or dice, if you don’t want to calculate hits --- but you really really should!), roughly add three quarters again if beam, and multiply it by its damage rating. If it’s five times your GEG or more, it’s a problem system. Much more than that and it’s a must-avoid. If it’s triple or less, it doesn’t scare you much. A good position is where it is only 2 or less more than your GEG score; now you've found where you're supposed to be.

One enabling ability of the GEG is flanking maneouvers. One of the posters on the A Call to Arms forum has the motto: “’Sir, the enemy has us surrounded’ ‘Good! We can fire in all directions!’”. This has a lot of truth in ACtA; surrounding someone in ACtA may only mean that you’re letting the enemy use all their arcs to their full potential. If you let them, all those side point defense guns can really add up against a target. However, lots of light guns is exactly what the GEG was built for – making those wealth of weapon systems add up to virtually nothing. Combining this with other defensive systems, like Dodge, makes it that much worse. Consider that it will take, on average, the side firepower of about 11 Teshlans to cripple just 1 Light Raider. Normally, the side of firepower of 11 Teshlans can take out 1 Sulust per turn. The comparable Drakh ship, the Light Cruiser, will take a lot of critical hits – 5 or more – but will only take about 17 damage and 20 or so crew. A Drakh Cruiser will probably laugh, taking perhaps 7 damage and 10 crew, mostly from the 5 critical hits. Clearly, the cost of flanking is small enough that instead of the fierce price paid my most races, the Drakh consider it without question. The Drakh are the first A Call to Arms race that encourages Napoleonic tactics.

Suddenly, all those ideas about attack en eschelon stop becoming old theory and become cold, hard fact. Outflanking, envelopment and speed become weapons; and you have the right forces for the job, your Raiders.

You even have a tactical option Napoleon didn’t: jumping directly into a fleet. Normally dubious in that you are permitting all those side guns something to do, your AJP-capable hulls can withstand significant point defense firepower without batting an eye. The enemy then has two unpleasant choices; attempt to turn their main guns to bear on your ships that have jumped directly into the fray, and permitting the rest of your fleet a clearer path to engaging you with its Light and Heavy Raiders, or charging forward to the rest of your fleet, trying to trap them, conceding losses to your jump-in task force for the rest of the game. Most fleets will reluctantly try to come about or dispatch some sub-force to do so. And, of course, you get the benefit of the Advanced Jump Point bomb on top of it all; an extra cheese-cherry on top. The author recommends resisting the Brie; the Raider models are spiky and it hurts if your opponent throws one at you. If you must do this, remember how much of a long-term issue fighters can be, so bomb Vorlon Fighters and Frazi; if your opponent has been foolish enough to already launch them especially consider Sky Serpents and Shadow fighters.

In counterpoint, the wrong place to be is directly in front of the big guns. Two Targraths will barely notice any Drakh Light Cruiser’s GEG before it dies; the GEG will probably add but 4 damage and crew to the ship before its death. In this scenario, it is less useful than even Interceptors 1. A dramatic variation!

This means that, to get the most out of the Drakh, you must avoid direct confrontation, avoid main weapon systems, and play a long, protracted defensive game of maneouver. This puts the Drakh squarely in the finesse fleet category, by GEG theory alone.

There are really only four ways to do this on your own, and both of them rely on your initiative benefits. Your opponent’s bad moves don’t count as a tactic:

1). Too Many Threats, Too Much Flexibility
The idea behind this one is that if he chooses one way, you choose another, and your Raiders are more nimble than he is. Flanking forces are the concept behind this one, usually in the form of wide ranging maneouvers by independent Light Raiders in larger wolfpacks. Terrain is usually your catalyst for this; your local Shadow player knows exactly what I’m talking about

2). Initiative Sinking
Use scouts, light raiders, and your initiative bonus to force him to move ships to fire one your Light Raider bricks. Then, move the Heavy Raiders and Cruisers to safer firing positions, and light ‘em up to your heart’s content. Repeat.

3). Jumping In
A free outflank, but remember to set up several jump points on the turn of entry so your opponent doesn’t know which direction to turn on the first turn. You can even use one turn of fake jump points to set up the actual jump points once you’ve messed your opponent’s fleet disposition up.

4). High-Speed Overrun
You admit to taking one turn’s fire, hate it, and all power past the front guns, then get the game to degenerate into a furball.

Sometimes none of these work; see the Vree matchups section!

The GEG is not all happiness and light. There is one major tactical consideration if you are getting the most out of your GEG – it does nothing to prevent critical hits. This means that while your ship may survive, it will experience a lot of degradation from critical effects. There is nothing to be done about this expect to be prepared to deal with it. This is precisely why the Drakh weapons are precise; which you give a lot of criticals, your fleet ends up taking a lot of criticals, too. Also, remember, there are ZERO penalties to the Drakh for using the All Hands on Deck special action, so use it often.

These critical hits are the only source of the threat of Fighters in the main, but it’s a bad one. Raiders have few answers to this; fighters in quantity put the Drakh in a horrible bind. It’s a slow-ticking time bomb that claims Light Raiders; the best you can likely do is cover your Heavy Raiders in a Light Raider’s fire cone to keep your heavy guns alive, at least for a little while (a thank you for this idea to Burger … it’s not an answer, but it delays the awful). Bombers can usually get about 1 point per turn on a Raider by direct effects; these fighters are the Frazi, Sky Serpent (very dangerous), Vorlon and Shadow Fighters, and Double-Vs. The Thunderbolt, Rutarian, and Tzymm aren’t as bad; they have weapons split on two different weapon systems (see first idea!).

Finally, the GEG allows you to play some (limited) terrain games. Dense asteroid fields are usually a horrible idea, but if you move really slowly (All Stop Orders and 2” or less), you can usually get the heavier GEGs to do much to all of the protection for you. This idea really only best applies to the ships with GEG 3 or greater, but can be an excellent way to hide a ship that makes your opponent make an uncomfortable decision. It’s my personal favorite way to hide Motherships (see individual ship assessments, later.)
 
INDIVIDUAL SHIP ASSESSMENTS

Patrol level: Breaching Pod, Scout.

Breaching Pod: Normally not worth the waste of breath, but as the Huge Hangar ships come with some for free, you may wish to check it out. It’s a waste of time, though, it’s the same as everyone else’s. Most breaching pods blow; without any fighter support at all, these are, in general, even worse.

It role is usually as point defense for Huge Hangar ships. The ship in question hides behind or in some terrain where some small (and usually flanking) ship chases it down. The breaching pod lurks nearby, just behind the cover, waiting for that flanker to pop up around the asteroid field or dust cloud (etc.) in question, trying to kill the Mothership or Carrier. The breaching pods then just the ship unless there is a fighter escort. Otherwise, it has no role, even to the point of being an inefficient way to send troops to the ground in a Planetary Assault scenario.

Grade: F.

Scout: Patrol-level scouts with Stealth are vile, and this one is no exception. While the Corvan has an interceptor and the Vaarl has 360 degress of Anti-Fighter weaponry, the little Drakh Scout comes with a GEG and a nasty forward-facing gun. However, the Drakh Scout cannot defend itself from fighters with any certainty, relying on the GEG to keep it alive for any amount of time. Eventually, Frazi or other similar heavy fighters will kill it. However, coming second fiddle to these two evil craft only underscores the effect of this little scout.

Its role is fleet scout and at that it excels. It should stay way away from the combat in question if it can. However, if with a Raiders fleet that all overfly their targets to get behind them, the scout can get caught as a default target and eliminated. This ship is fast enough to get behind the opposing fleet as well, and that may be a much safer place for it than in the rear by itself.

Grade: A-.

Skirmish level: Light Raider, Heavy Raider.

Light Raider: I cannot underscore just how hardy this little cockroach of a ship is. Defensive stack multiplicatively and for the Raider, this is a lifesaver. If you factor in its Dodge, get a Hull 4 Damage 32 ship with a GEG of 2 (defenses multiply!). This is hardier than the already acceptable Olympus – more damage, and the GEG 2 is usually better than the Interceptors on the EA vessel. An even more stark comparison is to the Centauri Darkener, with no defenses and 25 Damage at Hull 4. Killing these things takes forever. Even against a full Prefect under CAF, it lives – you expect 8.28 hits – which is 4.14 after dodge, for 7:6 (7 damage, 6 crew) or so and maybe a crit effect after the GEG. This from one of the worst beamships in the game – and it takes two of ‘em to expect to even cripple you. That’s strong! You can throw these things in the lions maw and watch ‘em come out alive. They may even be able to survive a short-range CAF from a Targrath (it’s very very close because of MoD).

And after the first turn, you opponent might not get another good shot at one – with an All Power to Engines speed of 21 and 2/90s for total flexibility in action, this thing can generally go wherever it wants in the furball. As pointed out above, the furball is where the GEG runs supreme; it’s just this vessel’s kind of fight.

You pay for it, though. Consider what 6 continuous turns of fire from your nimble little minx will do: 9 damage, 9 crew, and 3 criticals. Expected yield: 12.3:15.6. You’re depending on maneouverability to keep you alive, so don’t expect CAF effects. It takes 6 or so turns of fire to kill even a lowly Vorchan. Coupled with a range of only 8 and no side guns whatsoever, that’s pathetic. It’ll take a miracle to kill something.

Note that due to this ships’ reliance on its Traits, it tends to fall apart when crippled. If it gets to crippled, expect it to die really soon.

Therefore, its role is initiative sink, unintentional brick, critical-trawling sniper, and a moderate threat to Hull 4 ships. It is also a nasty to nightmarish hunter-killer against Whitestars and dodge-capable ships. Light Raiders rarely get to shoot fighters, but in the furball it can happen on occasion. Ultimately, however, they are usually ignored just like other bricks are, such as the T’Loth and G’Quan are; the total damage/crew firepower and commensurate threat are just too low to choose to shoot at unless there is no better option. Much of the Raider Fleet tactics are about just that.

Grade: B.

Heavy Raider: If the Light Raider is all about defense, this piece of work is all offense. Yin needs Yang, and your Light Raiders need your Heavy Raiders.

Defensively for Hull 4 Skirmish, 1 Dodge point means a lot, and this gets the Heavy Raider to effectively 26 Hull and GEG 1.5. With only 2/45 turns and speed 10, it looks a lot more like your standard Skirmish ship than the Light Raider does. On the Hull 4 scale, it sits on the lower end of the scale, closer to the G’Sten and Darkener. Beams can eviscerate these things – that CAFed Prefect generates about 11:10 and at least one critical on its shot, possibly crippling your Heavy Raider in one salvo. That’s a big difference. It also suffers from the get-crippled-going-to-die reliance on Traits as well, so it is a great deal more fragile.

And it flies like a short-ranged one of these, too. Without side guns, it’s not going to survive on its own. And it doesn’t have to; it uses its buddies to do the work. The Light Raiders draw the fire, the Heavy Raiders get the lightly-contested battle pass. And, while the guns are short-ranged, the firepower of the Heavy Raiders is nightmarish: 6 turns of fire on Hull 5 will generate 13.56 hits for over 26:26 and in excess of 4 criticals: expected yield: a whopping 35:43. That’s a dead Sulust, and 3 times the firepower of the gun-challenged Light Raider. A Mothership’s payload of ships with mostly Heavy Raiders can easily expect to wipe a Raid ship per turn if they get there and stay there.

And those are the main concepts. Get there and stay there.

So the roles between the Raiders are: Light Raiders stay alive, Heavy Raiders make you die. It even rhymes. But it needs to stay alive to deliver its punch, so you must either protect it or draw fire away from it. That’s what those light raiders are for. Remember, that while your Heavy Raider has good firepower, it is quite fragile.

Grade: B.
 
I hope my campaign players are reading. I've just switched over to Drakh, one win, one loss in the campaign (how do you beat EA? Without a stick, I mean) and one of my lowly Raiders rolls..... KEEPER. I can't freakin wait. "You. The big guy in the back. Outta the pool!"
 
CZuschlag - this is the kind of strategy guide I would pay for! You should definitely consider submitting this to S&P.

Would you mind if other players follow your excellent example of what the forums should be used for and emulate your format to do other fleets they are familar with?
 
This is a prospective guide, and my experiences. I am always looking for more refinements and input. Please --- feel free to expound, criticise, correct, postulate -- creative input is very welcome!

Hash -- please! I'm actually flattered, and am truly appreciative of the compliment.

I would love some creative input from some of the other notorious Drakh players -- Hiffano, TenaciousB, Right Hand of God -- please, your input is valuable!
 
Great summary - very interesting reading, and I don't even play Drakh.

What's this about the Keeper and Armageddon level ships? Afraid to ask...perhaps we'll see them in the next campaign we're about to start? Hope you decide to join.
 
The Keeper is THE most broken duty in the game. It's not even close; the addition of an Interceptor on a Whitestar is bad enough, but this is spectacular.

I don't think I'm doing too much damage to copyright when I quote the rule for

3: Keeper:
One captain of an enemy fleet has been introduced to a Keeper. Mark down which ship this is. You can force your opponent to do any you wish with the ship (and you do not have toreveal which ship it is until you first decide to take an action with it!) except fire upon its own fleet. You could there force it not to fire at your ships, cause it to enter a jump gate and withdraw or simply fly off the table. You may only influence this ship in battles you fight against it.

Ungodly. The mind boggles. Maneuver to Shield them -- shielding a mothership! Give Me Ramming Speed. E-mining your own ships --- you aren't firing on you allies (Ionics, to add insult to injury). All Power to Engines through an asteroid field. All Stop so you can be hit by a Launch Shuttles and Breaching Pods or hit by Breaching Pods (now, finally --- a use for these damn things!) for DOUBLE victory points. You can even use this thing on a Vorlon Heavy Cruiser --- there isn't a rule above that stops you. Even against an Ancient.

SICK. SICK AND WRONG.

If you want to, give the Drakh something else spectacularly cool for Keeper. Like, get to borrow any enemy ship you want for one turn for any fight you select against anyone ... maybe even the original owner, at any time in the future, the time is of your choosing. (The captain is purged of the keeper -- or executed -- after the battle.) That's horrible enough. But the above is death sentence for anything War level or above in an enemy fleet. It actively gives away victory points to your opponent -- a lot of them.

Sorry, I fly Drakh, but this is outright busted.
 
CZuschlag said:
.... Give Me Ramming Speed.

Your ship needs to be Crippled when it attempts this action. However hoping to fail CQ check for a Run Silent roll instead, or just Initiate Jump Point....

If it is only one single action (the captain gets 'relieved' of command afterwards) I can see it being more annoying (especially so with energy mines) rather than outright broken. Lets face it, it is just one ship (which may get destroyed before you can actually make use of the keeper on it).
 
The way its written presumably if you do manage to get crippled then you ram its own fleets ships............ :shock:
 
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