EA early years v ISA

Taran said:
Other than that, the Dag'kar should have been your primary target. Your best weapon against ISA is your fighters and e-mines are the best weapon against fighters.
This thread should be renamed "How to Kill Hindsight!"

This was a teaching game, and while in the end, I did win, whenever he clumped up, or anything that would have lead to e-mine love, I stopped him, explained the template and he redid the moves, but yea, the e-mines would have been dead fighters.

I still don't understand, and the question was not answered above, how you kill a fighter? If it is on my stem, and attacking me, can it be shot at? Is it like a dogfight where you can't shoot it?

Also, is it true that you can only place as many fighters "in contact with" a ship, as you can fit their bases on the ships stem?
 
not how to kill hindsight, but rather, how to love hindsight, then punch him in the crotch.

I'll be right back here asking again if I have trouble with mimbari or centauri or narn, well I guess I am asking for advice on how to kill narn. I know you helped me quite a bit in the game and gave me more than adequate "Don't do that"s. I just couldn't figure out how to stop that dag'kar. Hell, I'm still not convinced unloading my entire fleet into it'll do the trick.
 
As I understand it:

You can shoot at any fighter as long as it is in arc and has not fought in a dog fight this turn or is still in one (unless you use a emine to accidently catch it in the blast)

Fighters attack a ship by mesuring to its stem as usual and as long as they are in range and stacked any number can attack that turn.

does that help :)
 
On the fighter issue...

fighters don't have to contact your stem, just be within range. The stem is only important for a couple of kinds of suicide fighters. Fighters on your base (yes one of the few times base size matters) ignore stealth.

Dogfight exclusion (where you can't fire at the flight) only applies when two opposing flights are in contact. Even then, if both flights are enemy flights, you can fire, you just won't know which one your gonna hit.

Ripple
 
Yea I have been re-reading the rules, I guess we did some things wrong.

In a dogfight, only the attacker and the defender can die (unless e-mined), and the supporting ships remain where they are until they move or attack again in the following turn. We were clearing all enemy fighters when a dogfight was won, and that would have left him with some extra fighters.

So I guess, its not so bad, and Blue Stars are the way to deal with fighters if they are all that is left. Blue Stars being accurate, it'd ignore the fighters dodges, so that at least would help me clean up. I was afraid that you couldn't target a fighter that was making an attack on a larger craft, like shooting into a dogfight.
 
Hindsight said:
Sit them in the back arc?

I guess I don't understand fighters that well...

So... you put as many fighter bases as you can on the stem... so like... three or four...?

Then the ones that can't fit, sit behind or to the side so they can still shoot (inside of 2"). Can you shoot a fighter that is on someones stem?

We had the situation where it may have been all fighters left... I thought I was going to have to E Mine my own ships to kill them.

Fighters have a 2" rangwe unless bombers; just swarm the whitestar. May sound simple but you must make sure you dont get ay in the F arc. As AA is weak against seperate attacks and your fighters will probably inflict a little dasmage each (1,1) you will probably decrew the whitestar. And when you have 16 of them from 2 avengers thats 32 tl ad thats dead white stars.

Fighters are just cool though and if you dont understand them well you may need to play a few games with loads of them in there. It may get a bit compliacted but it will be great fun.
 
Fighters can attack as long as theyre within 2" range, the issue about numbers contacting the stem only really comes into it with suicide fighters (gaim and dilgar) or targets with stealth. And yes you can shoot at fighters in base contact with enemy SHIPS but not if theyre in contact with enemy fighters (theyre in a dogfight).

As for your fleet selection:

Nova - Personally I think the nova is a fantastic ship, its heavily armed, tough and carries a sizeable fighter compliment, however for facing a fast maneuverable opponent like the ISA It's just not worth it as they will just avoid it's guns until they have taken out it's escorts and can then move gank it at their leuisure.

Hyperion - The hyperion Heavy cruiser is an ok ship, but personally the Raid level hyperions are too fragile and die too fast. The SKIRMISH varients though, in particular the rail cruiser, are truly phenomenal ships. They are not as well armed but are hard as nails for their PL.

Avengers - As noted, when fighting ISA, fighter swarms are your friend. An avenger filled with fighters is a nightmare for most ISA forces. However if he's deploying that Dag Kar, stay back and keep em in the hangars or out of range till you can blast that thing off the table with long range missile fire.

Saggitarius. Nasty on it's own, in numbers it's verging on broken. Still the same can be said about the whitestar so imho go right ahead and fight fire with napalm :P

Tethys. As it stands wonderful initiative sinks, but that will soon change. Still handy for 'maneuver to shield them' though once that returns.

Hermes - Alos highly underated, and wonderful for taking on the ISA, fast (by EA standards), maneuverable, long ranged and even carries a fighter flight. This ship practically SCREAMS 'take me' for fighting ISA.

As for fighters, ordinarily I'd champion the humble Tiger star fury for it's missle range but seeing as the ISA fleet will still likely have a few nasty things like Nials and maybe even an carrier Auroras are probably safer. Also Auroras actually stand a chance of catching up to Whitestars ;)

It's also worth noting you dont have to just get in his rear arc, use the sides too ;) He's only got forward guns on most ships so swarm with as many as possible and as noted with self repairing adaptive aromoured, dodging little monsters:

"There is no 'overkill', there is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload'"

Pick a target and shoot it till it goes boom. Never EVER leave a whitestar/bluestar/whatever crippled/damaged but still on the table.

My 5pt raid fleet would be:

2 x Saggitarius (1pt)
2 x Rail Hyperions (1pt) (carrying Auroras)
1 x Avenger (1pt) (loaded with Auroras)
4 x Hermes (1pt) (again Auroras)
1 x Oracle and another Saggitarius (1pt)

Turn 1: All missiles make DagKar go away. Use scout lock and avoid CAFing with fighter carrying ships etc. End of turn launch all fighters.

Turn 2 onwards: swarm ISA with fighters, keep fleet together so they cant pick you off one at a time and hammer one ship after another. Start with the blue stars, they die quicker and are almost as dangerous in my eyes but if you get the chance to hit a whitestar hard, do so but make sure you finish it.
 
Hindsight said:
Taran said:
Other than that, the Dag'kar should have been your primary target. Your best weapon against ISA is your fighters and e-mines are the best weapon against fighters.
This thread should be renamed "How to Kill Hindsight!"
And Locutus
And Taran
and what's his name with more models than money who never paints them and probably holds the world record for unpainted thunderbolts...

It's how to kill ISA. Which is a pretty simple task, actually.
 
Well, in his case, he is literally trying to kill me, as I am the only person he plays with (so far).

Today I traveled down to Game Kastle in Santa Clara, CA. They have a fantastic selection of Babylon 5, not full as of course much is still out of print but I dropped $200 on a Psi Corps Fleet Box a pair of Omegas, a Warlock and an Avenger.

He has some painting to do, and then it is on!
 
Hindsight said:
No. 1 Bear said:
Swarm the whitestars and bluestars with fighters. As each attack will cause a minimum of one damage if you hit and dont bulk head. Plus its funny when you put down 16 auroras.
I thought you couldn't stack fighters, they had to actually fit on the stem?[/quote
-------
Only four can be 'in contact' with the stem, but 22 can be within
two inches of the stem. (I normally just play 20 within 2 inches)
 
This thread is out of control!

I guess that little scruffy guy counts too.

Campaign Day 1 - Minbari assault on my ISA Controlled Settled World. Gave the Sharlin such a beating in Turn 1, that the whole Minbari fleet jumped out. Not a bad day.

First time I'd ever won the game, that didn't involve a demonstration.
 
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