Federation: When do I fire my Photons?

[deadshane]

You really think so? That would be awesome. I've already been published in Warp Rift for Gothic (Ork Tactica), would be cool if I could find my way into Captains log as well.

....would be neat if I could be the originator of the Kaufman Retrograde in ACTA: Star Fleet. That there is some trash talkin'!

Where is that blog/board? Could you post a link?

....now to go come up with a Pikaurd (misspelled on purpose) Maneuver.... 8)

 

[billclo]

You really think so? That would be awesome. I've already been published in Warp Rift for Gothic (Ork Tactica), would be cool if I could find my way into Captains log as well.

....would be neat if I could be the originator of the Kaufman Retrograde in ACTA: Star Fleet. That there is some trash talkin'!

Where is that blog/board? Could you post a link?

....now to go come up with a Pikaurd (misspelled on purpose) Maneuver.... 8)

http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/, under Joint Venture with Mongoose/A Call to Arms/Call Out Notes.

 

[JRhoades]

Our group has begun experimenting with the Thach Weave. It requires -- at a minimum -- 2 groups of Fed ships. My tastes run to having these groups be exactly the same. When the Klingons jump one group of your ships, have both your Fed groups turn in -- across each others' paths of travel.

If the Klingon player sticks to his targets, the target group speeds up. Your second group can move slowly and still slide in onto the Klinks flank. The Klink will now have the second group lined up to pound him, while the original target is getting set up to fire PhoTs next turn.

In an ideal world, you will be firing half your PhoTs every turn. Which makes PhoTs very similar to Disruptors in terms of damage yield per turn.

From what I have seen in games, I am betting this will work best with 2 cruiser/capital groups performing the traditional Thach weave, and a third group of Burke FFG's held back to enfilade/flank the Klingons. The Burke's can hold the PhoTs until they can do some serious hurt -- outside the Klinks double-shielded fronts.

Ramius FFBs are not agile, so I tend to leave them at home. I am even debating assembling the two in my fleet box without their upper nacelles.

I am unsure how this plays out when the Klink divides up and goes after both groups...

Anyone else flying the Thach Weave?

 

[scoutdad]

Not a Photon tactic, but an observation on the Ramius class miniatures.
Both of hte ones I painted were so well made that the upper engine pylon snapped in and would have held w/o glueing.
Perhaps you could assemble your FFBs without using glue on the upper engine pylon and paint them. Then, you could simply remove the pylons and store them in your minis case. That would enable you to snap them back in if you ever did wantto run a FFB.

Double duty...! Bonus! 8)

 

[Finlos]

Rare-earth magnets are your friend here. I believe you're looking for something on this page here. I did something similar for my 40K tanks and regularly swapped out heavy weapons with ease. Don't regret doing that at all and I highly recommend it.

 

[locarno24]

I am unsure how this plays out when the Klink divides up and goes after both groups...

The two packs fire at one another's attackers.

One of the hardest things about formation combat - be it naval, airborne or the poor bloody infantry in pike blocks - is the concept of ignoring the guy trying to kill you in favour of the guy trying to kill the guy to your right (or whatever). But it does work. Sort of.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I am unsure how this plays out when the Klink divides up and goes after both groups...

Anyone else flying the Thach Weave?

Every Gorn in existence needs to use the weave/scissor tactic or they will never get a mobile enemy into arc of a reasonable number of plasmas. :roll:

With the Klinks and bearing in mind that IDF is current a less than usefull action just about everyone should be operating as battle groups in order to get someone shooting the Klingons in the ars... erm rear end. With the generally lower shields and damage levels of the Klink ships they go down fast if you can get rear shots on them. Every race fighting against Klingon ships should either be running as a pair of battle groups (or three in larger games) or just dispersing into pairs to cover a larger area.

The trick is to make it impossible for the Klinks to not have some of your ships firing into the rear arcs of some of his. With the lower shield numbers if you can fire from behind and take down or significantly weaken a shield the guys in front can then crush the ship. Remember that since the shield halves damage from the F arc fire from behind is twice as effective: lol:

Since a big part of killing the enemy is focusing as much of your fire onto one or two of his ships as you can and with at least 12" range to play with (apart from the plasma races) your ships can be spread out and still concentrate on a single target. If the klinks go wide on one side move the ships on that side towards the rest of your fleet while the remainder of your ships swing up and wide trying for the flanks.

From a tactical point of view the best sight you can see is a klingon’s back side: twisted:

 

[deadshane]

Ramius FFB's have the best point to photon ratio out of any of the Federation ships. Barring technically the BCJ.

If you're going to do a long range photon salvo (and you should be) your fleet needs them. The smaller escorts have worse weapon layouts for this tactic and also have a lower sheild threshhold being less than 20.

Turn Radius of 4 is agile enough I would say.

A VERY powerful fleet for this sort of tactic would be....

1000pts

Kirov Class BCH
Jersey Class BCJ x 2
Ramius Class FFB x 3

For 1000 pts this is about the best you can do Photon and Phaser-wise for this long range tactic. 21(25) torpedoes and 41 forward firing phaser 1's. Your important cruisers are also really stout in sheilds and hull (30 shield threshold), not to mention ultra reliable on drone DEFENSE.

About the only way to do more photon damage is to go ALL Ramius, but that wont really work since your fleet will not be able to take RETURN sheild 'ignoring' damage. At least that's what my logic is telling me.

One thing I like is that after loosing all of your photons...you've still got a reserve of 4 here. You've got FORCED saved torps. I kind of like that.

 

[Rick]

I assume you meant thatch weave? Sounds a lot like the tactics some use in NA - because most of the best weapon arcs are broadsides, often the most ideal way to attack is to tack or zig-zag up the table, sounds like you just rediscovered the double zig-zag - 2 fleets doing a mirror of each other and crossing in the middle and interweaving!

 

[Captain Jonah]

I assume you meant thatch weave? Sounds a lot like the tactics some use in NA - because most of the best weapon arcs are broadsides, often the most ideal way to attack is to tack or zig-zag up the table, sounds like you just rediscovered the double zig-zag - 2 fleets doing a mirror of each other and crossing in the middle and interweaving!

For fleets that can turn its a weave, for the Gorn I call it a scissor since its a bit of turning and long periods of straight lines :roll: :lol:

 

[Rick]

Generally, in one form or another, it's been in ACTA from the start - mainly because it can get the enemy fleet right on the line of the F and either P or S arcs - and that is the sweet spot where the majority of your ships weapons have targets! 8)

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

Great discussion guys.

After a couple of games I'm loving our BC variant options. The BCJ has a fantastic price - only 10pts more than a CC and for that you get so much...

I have been contemplating a force with lots of BCJ's and FFB's as well - mostly for going up against Klingons although I guess it would be decent enough against Gorn as well.

Last game I had some very poor luck with the photons at long range. But if I bring MORE photons and pay attention to my ranges a bit better it can't go worse!

Personally I'm going to have at least 1 squardon and 1 fleet box - so that's 4 FFG's and 2 FFB's - I really don't see needing more FFG's than that!

-Tim

 

[archon96]

my son was using two bcj against my gorn fleet, he found after the fight that would have rather had the extra drones for a more continual pounding then 2 extra torps. he fired about 25 torps during the game from his whole fleet and hit with 5, most were within 8 inches. his luck was so bad 6 overloaded torps from his dn and hit with only one. he then took a full bore site worth of plasma's from my gorn heavy cruiser. hehe

 

[Nazgull2k1]

my son was using two bcj against my gorn fleet, he found after the fight that would have rather had the extra drones for a more continual pounding then 2 extra torps. he fired about 25 torps during the game from his whole fleet and hit with 5, most were within 8 inches. his luck was so bad 6 overloaded torps from his dn and hit with only one. he then took a full bore site worth of plasma's from my gorn heavy cruiser. hehe

Tell him he needs to space his tactical officer straight out an airlock. The next one wont be so terrible at plotting firing solutions.. I promise.

:lol:

 

[JRhoades]

...you could simply remove the pylons and store them in your minis case. That would enable you to snap them back in if you ever did wantto run a FFB.

Double duty...! Bonus! 8)

Sweet!

 

[JRhoades]

I assume you meant thatch weave? Sounds a lot like the tactics some use in NA - because most of the best weapon arcs are broadsides, often the most ideal way to attack is to tack or zig-zag up the table, sounds like you just rediscovered the double zig-zag - 2 fleets doing a mirror of each other and crossing in the middle and interweaving!

Yup, it has apparently been "invented" a couple of times in military history. While it gets called the "thatch" weave, I believe it is named after John Thach, a WWII US naval aviator who is credited with coming up. He used the tactic to help Wildcat pilots deal with Zero's.

 

[Myrm]

I assume you meant thatch weave?

No he really does mean Thach weave,Im afraid Thatch weave is a common mistake - its named after a USN pilot named was Thach who introduced it from Midway on in combat for the USN as a way to handle Zeroes - although he didn't name it after himself, it got his name added to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave

Simply put its manoeuvring two less agile elements to take out one more agile element by mutually supporting criss-crossing flight patterns.