I finally played my first (5 pt raid) fleet game on Friday. I had the Scharnhorst and the Lutzow (Deutschland-class) and a light cruiser+destroyer escort with 2 U-boats and some ME109s for air cover. My opponent had the Ark Royal and several heavy and light cruisers as well as destroyers and a sub. His plan was to sink at least one of my battlecruisers with air power and cruisers and generally mess me up. I was going to rely on the same cruisers to sink his carrier at range while taking flank shots with U-boats.
We used the base rulebook with none of the tournament rules nor any house rules. The scenario was Carrier Duel (start 48" apart).
When we called it, I had lost one sub, light cruiser and both my aircraft. The capital ships had taken some damage and a couple of speed reductions and fires but nothing major and they were still fightable. Most of his cruisers and destroyers were at the bottom or crippled, his aircraft had been wiped out and the Ark Royal was seriously on fire and near crippled. Neither one of us was expecting this result.
Observations/questions:
1. Are aircraft seriously underpowered in this game? He played them really well: he crept his carrier forward and launched all of his aircraft, attacked me en masse and tied my fighters up with his fighters. He concentrated his attacks on the Scharnhorst. If his aircraft didn't get shot down by the combined AAA fire from my fleet, he would drop a torpedo, which would frequently miss or have no effect due to the torpedo belt.
2. Torpedo belt is perhaps too extreme. The Scharnhorst, with 6+ armour and a torpedo belt was nigh unstoppable. She must have taken well over a dozen torpedo hits from aircraft, cruisers and destroyers and we were both amazed when it shrugged it all off and pulled away, albeit at reduced speed, which she quickly repaired. To be fair, she suffered more at the hands of the concentrated shelling of the cruisers and destroyers. Instead of a re-roll at 6+ to damage, perhaps a 50-50 chance would be better.
3. Are torpedos too weak in this game? Beyond the episode with the Scharnhorst, above, I also ambushed a pair of his light cruisers with my two subs. I hit one cruiser with 4 torpedos and I failed to cripple her, at which point she sped away at flank speed.
4. Concentrated fire from capital ships is quite devastating. Once his air power had been spent and his ships closed to secondary/torpedo range, I started sinking them rather quickly. Every turn at least one would go to the bottom.
Are the above observations due to only having played one game or is this the general feeling of others as well?
Thanks,
Madis
We used the base rulebook with none of the tournament rules nor any house rules. The scenario was Carrier Duel (start 48" apart).
When we called it, I had lost one sub, light cruiser and both my aircraft. The capital ships had taken some damage and a couple of speed reductions and fires but nothing major and they were still fightable. Most of his cruisers and destroyers were at the bottom or crippled, his aircraft had been wiped out and the Ark Royal was seriously on fire and near crippled. Neither one of us was expecting this result.
Observations/questions:
1. Are aircraft seriously underpowered in this game? He played them really well: he crept his carrier forward and launched all of his aircraft, attacked me en masse and tied my fighters up with his fighters. He concentrated his attacks on the Scharnhorst. If his aircraft didn't get shot down by the combined AAA fire from my fleet, he would drop a torpedo, which would frequently miss or have no effect due to the torpedo belt.
2. Torpedo belt is perhaps too extreme. The Scharnhorst, with 6+ armour and a torpedo belt was nigh unstoppable. She must have taken well over a dozen torpedo hits from aircraft, cruisers and destroyers and we were both amazed when it shrugged it all off and pulled away, albeit at reduced speed, which she quickly repaired. To be fair, she suffered more at the hands of the concentrated shelling of the cruisers and destroyers. Instead of a re-roll at 6+ to damage, perhaps a 50-50 chance would be better.
3. Are torpedos too weak in this game? Beyond the episode with the Scharnhorst, above, I also ambushed a pair of his light cruisers with my two subs. I hit one cruiser with 4 torpedos and I failed to cripple her, at which point she sped away at flank speed.
4. Concentrated fire from capital ships is quite devastating. Once his air power had been spent and his ships closed to secondary/torpedo range, I started sinking them rather quickly. Every turn at least one would go to the bottom.
Are the above observations due to only having played one game or is this the general feeling of others as well?
Thanks,
Madis
