EA 3rd age weak?

[GhostRecon]

What I find odd about the whole EA fleet list is that the Early list actually appears stronger than either of the "later" lists.

That's because they have AP and DD (not usually together as far as I recall) plasma cannons, which are replaced by single damage and usually TL pulse cannons... with more dice and better range.

Your early Nova has half the dice of the 3rd age Nova, and shorter range, yet everyone thinks it's better. It isn't, it's just that individual hits are more powerful. You can't get as many hits though, so it's a trade-off.

Except that, Oracle Scouts are more plentiful, and the Early Years Nova can benefit from Scout Redirection, making it even more effective than the 3rd Age Nova.

AP, DD shots are more effective than TL Pulse Cannon, particularly against better hull values. Also, you're incorrect about the range; the EY Nova and the 3rd Age Nova both have 12 inch range.

6-8-4 AP, DD is essentially equal to 12-16-8 shots, with AP to boot, compared to 8-14-4 TL. And that's TL shots that can't benefit from Scout Redirection. So there's, I think, a good reason why most EA players would rather have the EY Nova over the 3rd Age one.

As for the topic, I think B5Freak summed it up best.

I play 3rd age and Crusade and can understand some of the frustration. The problem is that, aside from Missiles, Heavy Lasers, and the occasional Railgun, 3rd age just doesn't pack much punch compared to some fleets. Total dice are pretty nice, but fleets that can throw DD AD without any boresight restrictions (Centauri) or relying on beams, do seem to have a distinct advantage.

What I find odd about the whole EA fleet list is that the Early list actually appears stronger than either of the "later" lists.

EA Crusade especially suffers significantly at lower Priority fights, such as Raid and Skirmish (Or the dreaded Patrol, particularly against specific opponents).

Ironically, in my battle experience, I've found that Pulse Cannon and Missiles are the only things worth taking: Every Railgun I've taken has been disappointing, getting only 4-6 damage out of a Chronos Railgun turret per salvo, against Hull 5 ships with no interceptors. Comparatively, even with 4 AD of TL Heavy Pulse Cannon, I seem to get a crit every time.

Beams, too, are hugely disappointing; rarely do my Marathon beams hit or kill much of anything (But when they do, once per 10 or so battles, its pretty spectacular).

Missiles are the redeeming value for EA, which is why I pine for Olympus' or a equivalent vessel for my Crusade EA. 2 AD of Turreted P, SL, SAP missiles is very good for a Skirmish level ship, especially when backed up by Heavy Pulse Cannon and turreted Railguns.

Maximize your initiative sinks, using Olympus (Use those turreted weapons to wreak havoc!) to help line up your boresights with your Hyperions and Omegas. I would avoid the Omega Pulse Destroyer and Nova Dreadnought against Dilgar; both are too slow and require too much maneuver to get into the thick of the enemy in order to be of much effect with all those Bolters waiting for them: Plus, with lumbering, once you got into range the Dilgar could just fly past ("Kiting" your ships). You'd essentially be feeding them points. Keep your lumbering Omegas behind your fleet, to the sides, to form crossfires and keep as much of the enemy and the board within the 90o degree arc they can turn in; more, concentrate your firepower to kill off his ships as quickly as possible.

Fighters I've had mixed results; the key, I think, is as others have emphasized, to use dedicated dog-fighters to keep the enemy fighters off your T-bolts, while you use your T-bolts to attack lower-priority enemy vessels, or damaged enemy ships. (And make sure you attack in arcs where the enemy would be shooting at your ships! That way, he can't get use out of unused weapon arcs by blasting your fighters.)

I rather like EFD's characterization, though: Everything EA has, someone else has something better.

 

[Locutus9956]

Ok, I'm not the worlds greatest ACTA player by any means but I'm far from the worst as well (and I'm pretty sound tactically even if I make mistakes when it comes to actually applying them in game.... ) That said, heres my take on this:

First off, Thrid Age EA are NOT weak, I hate to say it but you may just be losing to a better player (or you may just be having terrible dice luck, lord knows I've lost my fair share of games thanks to that....) that said, Dilgar when used well are very VERY nasty fleet.

The trick with Dilgar is they have very solid and reliable firepower, because they rely on lots of dice chucking decent chunks of damage the sheer numbers tend to push things towards the averages and you find your games are less reliant on lucky crits or big beam salvoes.

Things like Omegas, by contrast, tend to fluctuate massively in their damage output, some days you may do next to nothing with those beams, while others you may roll 27 hits and nuke a ship.

All that said heres some suggestions to use vs Dilgar:

1) Hyperspace. Dilgar have HORRIFIC forward firepower but are generally rather poorly armed aside from this, if you have the chance to use hyperspace jump as much of your fleet in BEHIND him as possible.

2) Fighters, Dilgar fighters are, whilst fast and strong on the attack are average dogfighters and generally not all that numerous, EA fighters by contrast are among the best out there and usually present in droves.

3) Multiple Arc ships. The boresight on Omegas are nice but EA ships are at their best if you can drive them right into the HEART of the enemy and use multiple arcs at once. Vs Dilgar with Omegas in particular (and Hyperions) dont be afraid to go all power to engines, overshoot and use your aft guns.

4) Close blast doors. If your not going to fire more than 1 weapon in a turn and dont need to turn, dont be afraid of using this order. It can be phenomenally useful.

5) Interceptors. The trick with interceptors is that they WONT stop massive firepower, they DO however force your opponent to focus on one ship at a time or risk wasting lots of firepower. Dont forget about 'Intensify defensive fire' and the ability to use fighters as bonus interceptors particularly on ships with only 1 or 2 dice to begin with, it can be a big help, particularly against big battery fleets like Dilgar and Centauri.

6) Olympus corvettes. Are WONDERFUL ships. Use them. A nice trick you might want to try with them is jumping them in behind (youll need another ship to open the JP) with heavy missiles. Dont forget to bring a scout for this tactic though so they can fire the turn they arrive.

7) As has been hinted, dont be afraid to use squadrons, sure you'll lose an initiative sink or or two out of it but the firepower you get in return can be well worth it.

8) Pentacons: Dont be fooled, they may get a free initiative sink but remember theyre effectively LOSING 4 by squadroning those 5 ships.

9) Initiative sinks. This is the big one. First off, when using a fleet that uses boresights, DONT be lured into the trap of trying to take out the big damage targets first. Kill the little ships you can be sure of taking out first. Also if you can force a Pentacon down to 3 ships dont forget it NO LONGER COUNTS AS A PENTACON. They can stay squadroned but they dont get their free skip then.

10) Lastly just to reiterate: Dilgar Fwd arc = BAD. Lumbering ships will have a tough time avoiding it but they also tend to be rather tough. Use that. Use close blast doors etc, hell, use them as initiative sinks giving up the boresight if your not goint to get to use it anyway then move your smaller more manevuerable ships to AVOID the big guns. Use Hyperspace, overshoot and sacrifice some firing if you have to but AVOID THE FWD ARC. It's not easy but it can be done!

 

[CratZ]

Omega and hyperion just have too weak sidearcs imo

Once I go in the middle with my omega (I have even done this, so its not something I never thought of) it means the rest of the game I only get to use my aft beam. Since I dont expect any dilgar or centauri fleet to exist in front of my omega if I do this.

I dont know if weak sideguns are there because I have "powerful" front weapon but I have a feeling this is the case. Well the "mainweapon" is not even close to reliable. Heck! the entire ship just feels such and on/off unit. and its not even very likely that I get to shoot both sidearc AND my beam on the same turn. It also seems weird fluffwise that such a big battleship is designed to rely on just 1 weaponsystem :shock: (and yes I know fluff has nothing to do with game balance). But I think omega should have a bit better weaponry to compensate situations where I cant beam (not that the beam does anything anyways)

And the hyperion doesn't even have tl on its side guns, so I probably get 2-3 hits. Make it 4-6 if I have a target on both sides.

Yes the olympus is good, I have noticed but so has my enemy too :x . My olympuses are pretty much the first thing that gets shot down. But I have to try that hyperspace thing. I did it once but the jumpgate opened in some godforsaken place so I didnt have much help from that :roll:
Maybe I should buy 20+ olympuses and go for a swarm.

I use CBD frequently. It has almost become my trademark 8)

And Dilgar can use fighters to intercept and actually has more use of intercepting since EA doesnt have that much dices. Just something I noticed.

 

[goom]

Hi,

Our group has played quite a few dilgar v earth games though we are using early ea

The games are fairly even at raid and skirmish (didn't try any higher level games yet)

The dilgar missiles can be a nightmare when redirected by scouts but I found most of the other weapons have fairly short range.

In the early earth raid level list I would always choose an orestes, 1 oracle, and 1 saggitarius and 2 olympus and the remaining point on fighters. I would arm all the missile ships with long range missiles.

Set up on standard game board I would set up the fighters as far ahead as possible with the orestes about 6 inches behind them and the rest of the ships hugging the table edge behind the orestes. Dont spread the ships too wide apart though. Keep them so they can support eachother and so that the battleship is sort of guarding everyone

The long range missile ships should be able to pound the dilgar before they close in with their own missiles. The earth missiles are precise so with a few lucky hits you may do some vital crits (always happens really)

The screen of fighters should worry the dilgar about charging into bolter range and the orestes can soak up huge amounts of damage if it closes blast doors and with luck it might be able to bore sight something every turn, doesn't really matter what!

The same method could be used for 3rd age. just replacing the orestes with the omega. It should be more succesfull really because the earth have higher initiative then and better fighters and the omega looks deadly to me at least on paper

I hope you have success against the dilgar. Just pick longer range weapons and use that to your advantage and use fighter cover to stop them getting too close and you should do ok

 

[Locutus9956]

Well the omega is a tricky beast but the key with the 'fly into the middle' routine is to do so with multiple ships, it may not look much on the side from one or two ships but when a you get lots in theere youre suddenly looking at a big group of weapons in multiple directions. Secondly I would say the aft beam is not to be sniffed at if it means the Dilgar are pointing away from you Dont forget that lumbering ships CAN use come about to increase their turn to 90 degrees (and can alaso all stop and pivot once theyve passed the enemy).

As for dilgar fighters acting as interceptors, the trick there is to send your own fighters in to dogfight them, once engaged they cant act as interceptors (and your imune to anti fighter fire as well) Personally I actually prefer Auroras to Thunderbolts in 2nd Ed as I tend to use them more for interception than attacking ships but a good mix can be useful. (Dont get me wrong, I've also had my ass handed to me by them on more than one occasion too )

Lastly, as noted, if your enemy is going after Olympuses, try to move them last and make use of terrain/hyperspace.

Oh and that reminds me, one last trick with hyperspace. Keep several jump capable ships in hyperspace (Hyperions are good for this, especially Assault ones since theyre short ranged and only skirmish PL) and have them ALL open jump points in the area you want to come in, they will all scatter seperately but odds are at least one or two will end up more or less right where you want it, the next turn the ships whos points scattered to less favourable locations simply dont perform initiate jump point and instead move on via one of the other ships more accurate points.

Dilgar are a hard fleet to play against but I've beaten them with all 3 EA lists and seen them beaten on many other occasions by other EA lists.

 

[Omnipotent]

Well, hopefully we get a game or two today, think my Dilgar and Centauri vill try out EA third age AND crusade today

LONG LIVE THE BOLTARS :twisted:

 

[Iain McGhee]

The only real weakness I've found with 3rd Age EA is that at higher PLs many games can be decided depending on how well your Omegas do with laser fire while the fleets are closing. Once the fleets get in close they don't get too many boresight opportunities against a good player and the pulse cannons aren't that effective against hull 6 ships, worse still if they've also got other defences. Hyperions have similar problems, although their manouverability allows them to get more beam shots in than an Omega. Trouble is, that makes them prime targets early on as they are relatively easy to kill. Gets worse later in the game as your smaller ships that are functioning as initiative sinks go boom. My most common tactic with Omegas is to keep them at long range as long as possible and snipe, unless the scenario allows the enemy to keep ships in Hyperspace.

 

[eldiablito]

So I cannot truly have as much to offer as other EA players, but as I just recently watched the crushing defeat of an EA fleet to a Dilgar player, I'll throw in my puny wisdom...

First off, don't go heavy on one type for your fighters! Your favorite may seem like cool, all around weapons, but you want to specialize. Aurora Starfuries are best for dogfight, so stick to them and hold up the Dilgar fighters (even if you loose them all eventually). Meanwhile, your Thunderbolts or Tigers should take down enemy scouts! If there is another ship available that is close to going down, go for it. Yet, IMO, you REALLY want to limit the Dilgar player from getting those scouting re-rolls as any extra critical hits become double if not triple damage!!! :shock:

Second, the Dilgar can get quite a few fighters themselves (if they choose to), so you'll want at least 1 Avenger if not more. Not only will your fighters get that recovery roll, but you'll also increase your dogfight by 1 (see the previous paragraph for more info).

Third, you MUST take down one ship at a time. Don't mess with fishing for critical hits as each Dilgar ship is a heavy brick (both in appearance and in stats). Sure it is cool to strip off their forward guns with a lucky weapons failure. Also, Earth (especially the early years) has plenty of precise weapons with all those missiles. But don't fall into that trap! You need to kill those ships and not just have a bunch of hefty ships that are NEAR dead.

Finally, the Dilgar play a forward shooting game. Yeah, Minbari and Vorlons may feel that pain, but the Earth of any age can play the close up and personal battle. Just get those Nova (of any age) and other such bruisers and send them in as fast as possible. Once past the forward arc weapons, you'll have an easier time picking them apart.

 

[Omnipotent]

*moved*

:twisted: :lol:

 

[CratZ]

Nice report but maybe you should stop hijacking threads from other ppl :roll:

 

[CratZ]

Back on the topic.

EA vs. Dilgar really has to be the most retarded MU ever. I played them again about a week ago and lost badly. Again the game was decided on turn 2.

On the first turn he shot down my nova with missiles and next turn he moves his pentagon in front of my omega and also blocks my omegas movement with a tight formation so that i cant All power away. So I close blast doors but it didnt help.

During this time I only shot down 1 jashakars and ochlavita. almost destroyed 1 targrath with beams.

Turn 3 was pretty obvious what would have happened. His pentagon would have turned about 90° and busted my other omega. this time with missiles + bolters

I really fail to see how Im supposed to win a fleet with better INI, maneuverability and firepower.

And btw he always seems to have some ship with him that has better sidearc firepower than my entire fleet.

 

[locarno24]

Again - depends on your fleet.

I'm not going to argue that the Dilgar don't have a qualitative edge on third age, but taking two battle-level ships against a raid/skirmish-priority swarm won't help either.

With multiple Hyperion-class cruisers roaming the field (not in squadrons, which hands you boresight initiative on them), you might find things work better - the cruisers in front of the Pentacon will go up in flames (although Close Blast Doors! does help), but not easily.

A Dilgar Anti-ship Missile hit (i.e. 1 attack die) does an average of 2.4 damage. On a ship on Close Blast Doors! orders that's 1.6 damage, meaning that to kill a 28 hit Hyperion-class cruiser you need to clobber it with 18 missiles.

However, only half of the missiles fired will hit unless you've got a scout lock, the first 2-3 will be shot down by interceptors, as will ~ 1/6 of the subseqent ones, meaning that it takes something like 35 missile tubes firing to achieve this. So you'll end up with the entire fleet throwing its missile tubes at one Heavy Cruiser just as if it was a dreadnought, and by round two - the fleets are passing one another and out of forward arc. And now, you're just as manouvrable as the Dilgar - and a Hyperion actually has side and rear guns with teeth, and you aren't stuck in a five-ship squadron to kill initiative.


It's not easy, winning with 3rd Age EA - and it mostly comes down to the Boresight rule, which I have never liked, since it makes the artificial mechanic of initiative so critical that (as noted) Omegas, Shadow Omegas, Hyperions and Marathons, Warlocks and Nemesis almost become On/Off. Why it got retained from 1st edition I've never quite been sure.

 

[Omnipotent]

I must say that anything with hull 5 easy to kill with the Dilgars, as "everything" is AD and DD...a hull 6 with closed blast doors on the other hand is harder. I usually use two scouts to get those re-rolls for sure. And on turn two, there is still some EA ships left in the Dilgar forward arc, as you just closed the cap to ~20+ inces on turn two. If the Dilgar player would all power to engine and tried to get his 15 inc boltars in range then I could believe that EA could jump behind.

I am beginning to see a pattern :roll: Dilgar/Centauri wins EA,
EA should win Vree(at least with breaching pods ),
Vree wins Dilgar/Centauri. U got a nice triangle drama there :roll:

Hope someone got that

 

[CratZ]

I made a silly list. Could it work? :?

warlock (1 aurora, 3 t-bolt)
Hyperion (aurora)
Hyperion (aurora)
Avenger (4 aurora, 4 t-bolt)
Nova (aurora, 3 t-bolt)
Olympus
Olympus
Oracle
Hermes (aurora)
Hermes (aurora

aurora: 10
t-bolt: 10

Not sure if I should go with flash missiles.

And what about this? 8)

5pt battle
Omega pulse (2/2)
Omega pulse (1/3)
Nova (1/3)
Avenger (5/3)
Artemis
Artemis
Olympus
Olympus
Hyperion (1/0)
Hyperion (1/0)

(aurora/t-bolt)
(11/11)
This fleet probably gets outmaneuverad easily. Atleast this would be something different. :roll:

 

[CZuschlag]

Another idea: I'm not the sure the Dilgar fleet has an answer to hordes upon hordes of Missile-armed Tethys and one Avenger for fighter cover. Cheesy, yes, and I know you give up hordes of extra victory points .....

... but I think it just won't matter. The missiles, and more importantly, the 2 90's, should carve him up. I have no idea what I'd field against that, and I play an awful lot of Dilgar.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

No Tethys in a 3rd Age fleet though.