which are the battle level ships ?
The
Stormfalcon-class heavy cruiser, which is ok - its boresight laser is 3 double damage and 4 triple damage dice. It's quite likely not to be able to fire twice in sucession anyway (fast ship, short range, boresight) so it's not too much of a problem that it's slow-loading.
It's a bit fragile and its secondary weapons let it down a bit, though.
The
Nightfalcon is a carrier variant - still not that impressive, though, as it lacks Fleet Carrier and its guns aren't much to write home about.
To be honest, neither really is much to write home about compared to an equivalent value of "whateverhawks" from the patrol or skirmish sets.
The trick is, what role do you want the Drazi to play?
With Graviton Beams you don't need initiative sinks, and in fact the Brakiri would find themselves sinking for the lighter ships (kind of counterintuitive!).
Brakiri ships tend towards mid-range forward beam firepower with ok secondaries. They're a very nicely balanced fleet but they lack any ship that can manouvre 90' or more per turn except (bizarrely) their
Tashkat/
Takata hull.
As a result, a few light 'hawks and 'birds can provide protection against being flanked, a big threat with a Brakiri capship line. Concentrate on smaller ships; these are allies to support the main line, not win the game on their own.
Suggestions:
Guardhawks are nice and cheap and at dead slow can keep pace with the big boys. Brakiri ships aren't exactly unprovided for in terms of
Anti-fighter, but an
Anti-fighter 6 escort for a patrol point is bargain basement. That, in turn, means your
Brokados and
Brikorta carrier's fighters can act offensively - you can replace some of them with
Pikitos gunships and tear nice holes in the enemy fleet - especially the lighter-armoured ships most likely to risk flanking you!
Fielding cheaper drazi escorts also means you don't need to bother with
Haliks and can field the hull as
Haltonas with those nasty graviton beams, the equal of an Avioki's for half the price.
Eyehawks are truly rubbish scouts, but then they are half the price of a
Shakara. If you're taking a grav/laser firing line, they're not exactly necessary but if you expect to face minbari they're nice, and the scout initiative boost never hurts.
The
Claweagle or
Sleekbird are ok, but are significantly less menacing than people think. The fact that you won't have many of them, or much backup in boarding terms, means they're probably not for you. In planetary invasions the
Ikorta is a better pick.
The classic
Sunhawk is an ok ship by itself. It's fragile and boresighted though, so is just adding something fragile to shoot at when put next to a Brakiri battle-line :roll:
The
Jumphawk is nice in a drazi fleet. It's irrelevant in yours - the Brokados is a jump-capable command carrier, and you have no shortage of either trait in your fleet. They do allow the drazi to make hyperspace flanking attacks but if you're not fielding many drazi ships its a bit of a waste.
Solarhawk - slow loading like the rest of the fleet, fragile and boresight only, but damn it hurts. Its solar cannon delivers more punch than a war-priority
Tashkat's main gun. It's not so useful as a flank guard as it might be given its all-boresight nature but they generate well-deserved caution in enemy fleets. Expect them to die in a hail of long-ranged fire as no-one will allow them to get a shot off if they have a chance!
Darkhawk - again, slow-loading. Arguably the Brakiri don't need more slow-loading weapons but these are missile racks, with a full foot of range advantage over gravtion beams. 5 missiles are a nice punch that will let you pick on and work over one or two ships before you get to grav weapon range, and (in theory) will reload just in time to hit the ships that look like they might get past your line. Fragile but cheap, as with all drazi ships.
Strikehawks are probably not worth the effort. You have a proper carrier, with access to assault fighters that do just as well as the sky serpent, and without that advantage it's an under-armed
Warbird.
Warbirds are the main-line Drazi ship - Hull 6, 18 hit points and
Dodge 5+ makes it one of the toughest skirmish ships out there, and - whilst short ranged and with the inevitable boresight main gun - it carries quite a lot of firepower, with an impressive spread of twin-linked attack dice backed up by a small beam weapon for killing armoured targets. As a fast response unit or flank attacker it works very well.
