Help with 3rd age EA

[Target]

Chant with me now: "Fighters are my friend, fighters are my friend, fighters are...". You get the idea. Novas and Omegas, especially Comm omega, can put out more fighers than anyone else can (bar Raiders) without them having to take Patrol Wings to compensate. Having the nasty T-Bolt to use is just icing on the cake. An average Raid or Battle PL 5 pt should be putting out at least 50% more fighters than your opponent can field.

Example 5 pt Battle

1 Avenger
1 Pulse Omega (Works better with the Nova's than Beam Omegas)
2 Nova
6 Hermes

Fighters Total. 26. Thats an insane amounts of fighters for 5pt Battle. Nearly every other race would have to take 2 Carriers to come close, which means less competition to your Omega/Nova Gun while they close. Nearly every race has some mean to deal with fighters, but only minbari could pose a serious threat to this many fighters (Nial/MBs). E-mines can be worked around due to tactics, every other race would ahve to rely on integral AF weaponry to deal with this horde, as +3 Dogfight Satfuries would eat their fighters.

5pt Raid.

3 Novas
2 Olympus
4 Hermes.

Total Fighters. 16. Still quite a nasty amount of fighters, but no fleet carrier bonus or reroll. Squadron the Olympus and Hermes to provide a nasty missle salvo (no need for init sinks, no beams).

5pt War.

In my experience the fighters strategy gains effectiveness the higher the PL, as more fighters can be put on the board for the 3rd Age. While the Posiedon is VERY tempting at this high of PL when pursuing fighters, the Avenger is still the better choice, as an Hull 6 Omega can be taken as well for nearly the same amount of fighters. so....

1 Comm. Omega
1 Avenger
2 Omega
1 Pulse Omega
4 Nova
4 Olympus
8 Hermes

Fighters Total. 60 Fighters. Nearly everything in this carries fighters and you have 4 essential types of combat types here. LR beam (Comm Omega and Omegas) SR brawler (Pusle omega and Nova), Missles (Olypus/Hermes), and lovely fighters. lots of fighters, insane amount of fighters, all of whom have fleet carrier bonuses, due to the Avenger. With that many fighters, your ships dont actually have to kill ships, just wound them enough for the fighters to gank.

10 pt War example. Just furthur illustrate the ridiculousness of EA fighter strenght.

2 Comm Omega
1 Avenger
3 Omega
4 Pulse Omega
8 Nova
8 Olympus
16 Hermes

Fighters Total 96. Nearly a hundred fighters squadrons to swarm your opponent. At this high of a list, the fleet carrier bonus isnt as overwhelming as before, as nearly any race that has one will take one. But you should have nearly 2 to 1 in the numbers game, and the 12 gunships charging his line might provide a mighty tempting target to distract. Long range Beam and Missles may be able to knock out the enemy fleet carrier, thus enhancing your own fighters, and should be the priority target, even before other warships.

So fighters FTW. EA(especially 3rd Age EA), play the fighter game better than anyone else. There are more effective fighters out there, Nials / WS Fighters, Sentris, but they will not be able to stand up to that horde.

BUT if your pursuing fighters, do NOT throw them away. Most races treat fighters as disposable; you cannot, as they constitute a major portion of your offsensive fire. Avoid the temptation to run them out ahead of fleet; they'll simply get beam/cannoned/emined/intercepted to death before they can reach their targets. Deploy them around the flanks and rear of the fleet,so they are in postion to intercept flankers/leakers and intercept enemy fighers that attack your own ships. With this many fighters, having fighter supporting ships is a valid option unless facing Narn.

Yes you can do the Hordes of light ships. It works. The Omeage/Nova gunline works as well, but the gunline is halfway to having the fighter srtike force already.

So, what are you going to do against the Narn? E-mines will kill your fighters and the ships you have don't have enough firepower to kill the narn ships

Dave

What ships would you take instead????
None of ships listed apart from the Avenger are weak on firepower. The fleet listed are somewhat missle heavy as well, Narns worst Nightmare are missles. You don't actually have launch fighters, till you are close enough, I use this with my Centauri & Thunderbolts are far harder to kill than hull 3 Sentri's.

 

[Jhary]

Of course, the other half of it is, against the Vree and the Drazi, you may have just auto-victoried

You have never played EA Fighter Heavy against Vree?
Think of the anti Fighter weapons every Vree Ship has.

And the drazi Yeah they can make really heavy punches in youre bigger ships

 

[angelus2000]

Pwrserge.

For standard loadout missle variants, swap around wht you were going to use. Put Flash on the Olympus, and Heavy on the Hermes. Reason being Hermes most likely will live long enough to only get one shot as is, so may as well make it a nasty one. A hermes and the 12 edge can APTE and Deliver the Heavy Missle on the first turn, possibly knocking out a heavy warship with the first blow. I'll sacrifice a hermes to kill a tertius or G'quan any day of the weak.

HARM missles have thier uses, especially against the Cent, although you may need to squadron salvo them to get their effect, due to interceptors. LR can work great on ships with stealth, as the extra range keeps them alive much longer, potentially. AF against ISA.

T-Bolt - Starfury ratios are a bit difficult and very dependent on the opponent. Normally, take all T-bolts except the following circumstances.
ISA, take all starfuries. The WS and ISA CQ bonus is evil and the reduction in offensive power is justifiable. Minbari same thing. No hull 6 usually and Nials come in bigger numbers. Cent, use a 50/50 mix, as the Sentris can outdogfight T-Bolts easily. But normally not a huge amount of Sentris so try and match 1 starfury/1 Sentri. Past that, T-Bolts FTW normally.

Davesaint; there are some workarounds but I'll be the first to admit a fighter heavy force can be extremely weak against Narn, especilly if the players are not equal in skill Level. But there are a few

It really come down to what ships carry emines and emine variants that are used. Gquan and Dag Kar are prety nasty as they can use variants, G'Kariths are bad casue they can emine every turn, and have emines to the rear as well.

First option. Don't launch fighters off the survivable ships, Novas and Omegas. Hermes launch as they going to get emined anyways, Avengers can launch as they can get recovery rolls.

Spread em out. While its a template weapon, emines still only go so far. If your fighters are spread, eh'll only be able to nail 1-2 a shot from emines, while the bulk of yours will live. They'll be vulnerable to Frazi ganks, but again enough should be living this wont be a problem.

and most important, Flank, Flank, Flank. This is a golden rule for fighters anyways, but comes into its own against Narn. Send them out at a 45 degree from the Narn and get out fo the Emine Arc soonest. No fighters in arc, no dead fighters. This will take the fighters out of action for a turn or 2, but against Narn this is acceptable.

The only threat that cant be worked around is Narn ships dumping Emines on themselves at point blank range. There is nothing that can done about this from a tactics point of view.

Narn are tough fro fighters to deal. The only thing as scary as emines are Morshins with the Minabri medium fighters on them.

 

[angelus2000]

Ya forgot about Drahk. GEG sucks for fighters big time. Then again figher might be able to kill every single Light Raider in a hurry, leaving only the bigger ships for the gunline to kill.

Vorlons are a non-issue though. T-Bolts 4in range agianst 2inch EM pulse, might not be as effective, but they can shoot with impunity, and Vorlon Fighters suck balls in dogfights. Some starfuries will have to be sacrificed in order to clear they way, cause vorlon players just sit their fighters on the vorlon ships base and use that AF beam to good measure. Init will be tough to beat so may have to hold off fighters until some miracle occurs and EA wins init, in which case Vorlon Fighters die quick. Better thing is vorlon fighter take fleet choices, so not as many transport to qorry about either

 

[Target]

Of course, the other half of it is, against the Vree and the Drazi, you may have just auto-victoried

You have never played EA Fighter Heavy against Vree?
Think of the anti Fighter weapons every Vree Ship has.

And the drazi Yeah they can make really heavy punches in youre bigger ships

The lower priority Vree get smashed by T-Bolts real bad. Of course the bigger ships can take it. The game that was posted on the forums was Crusade era ( wasn't a lot fighters compared to the 5pt Battle listed here), didn't take all T-Bolts, went for the big ships with the fighters. Anti fighter still has a hard time hitting hull 5 if they get to fire because EA also gets to fire their ships at the ones that have been t-bolted. Take out Vree intinative sinks.
The lists Angelus has posted are the majority anti ship ones just they have screams of fighters. That Vree scouts saucer is so dead, ignoring stealth means it's doomed. Starfuries generally mug my Corvans bad & it has interceptors, let alone being attacked by t-bolts.
Vree are in real trouble, the only saving grace is not all the fighters will out by turn 2.

 

[Davesaint]

Dave[/quote]
What ships would you take instead????
None of ships listed apart from the Avenger are weak on firepower. The fleet listed are somewhat missle heavy as well, Narns worst Nightmare are missles. You don't actually have launch fighters, till you are close enough, I use this with my Centauri & Thunderbolts are far harder to kill than hull 3 Sentri's.[/quote]

I prefer a more balanced fleet.

5 Skirmish
Nova
6 Hermes

5 Raid
2 Hyperion
3 Olympus
6 Hermes

5 Battle
5 Hyperions
3 Olympus
2 Oracle
10 Hermes

while I don't have the huge number of fighters that you have, I have a ton of long range firepower in the Hermes and Olympus's I tend to run the Olympus and Hyperions in a squadron to maximise firepower. I personally feel that the Pulse Omega and the Nova are overrated. Plus I have a hard time paying a battle point for an Avenger. If I was playing Early Ea, its a great buy.

For 5 War, I would prob. go

4 Omega(Std)
1 Avenger
5 Hyperions
3 Olympus
2 Oracle
10 Hermes


Dave

 

[angelus2000]

Neh, I'll agree up to a point on the Pulse Omega. Its only marginally better than a Nova stats wise. If the F pulse cannons were AP or DD or something it would be easily justifiable. Its survivability is much greater than a Nova and fills much the same place tactically speaking.

I actually really do like Hyperions. But if your going for a fighter heavy list, they simply dont make any sense

 

[Target]

Agree on Pulse Omega, espicially when you can take Hermes so your Beam should at least target something. If the Pulse had DD on the Heavy Pulse i would be worth considering but then it would another version of the secundas which i do like.
Hyperion is a matter of style of play. Like the idea of the Hyperion / Olympus mix but still rate the Nova for it's ability to take punishment.
The Avenger has Fleet Carrier & slight weapon upgrade vs Early years. The Early Avenger is a good buy though.

 

[Jhary]

The lower priority Vree get smashed by T-Bolts real bad. Of course the bigger ships can take it. The game that was posted on the forums was Crusade era ( wasn't a lot fighters compared to the 5pt Battle listed here), didn't take all T-Bolts, went for the big ships with the fighters. Anti fighter still has a hard time hitting hull 5 if they get to fire because EA also gets to fire their ships at the ones that have been t-bolted. Take out Vree intinative sinks.

5 point battle? Are you joking then the Vree are really on top and you have with EA no chance about the initiv sink who cares about ini. When you have 6 to 10 times more Ships

 

[Target]

The lower priority Vree get smashed by T-Bolts real bad. Of course the bigger ships can take it. The game that was posted on the forums was Crusade era ( wasn't a lot fighters compared to the 5pt Battle listed here), didn't take all T-Bolts, went for the big ships with the fighters. Anti fighter still has a hard time hitting hull 5 if they get to fire because EA also gets to fire their ships at the ones that have been t-bolted. Take out Vree intinative sinks.

5 point battle? Are you joking then the Vree are really on top and you have with EA no chance about the initiv sink who cares about ini. When you have 6 to 10 times more Ships

Slight exaggeration with 6-10 times more ships. The Hermes are patrol lvl remember ships. Better than your Xixx & so is the Olympus. EA cares a bit about ini, Vree will win EA T-bolts don't pick targets carefully, only a fool would go in surround a ship thats covered by anti fighter ships all round, hit the stragglers & small ships which you can hurt bad. This happens before you can shoot, Flash Missles hurt Vree more than your torps hurt EA as you have concertrate on single ships to get through the interceptors not that it isn't a bad tatic as I concertrate on one ship to make sure it's dead. Don't go for ships that your fighters can't seriously hurt. T-bolts target your weak ships while missles hit your torp ships or ships than could potienally take out a lot fighters. Hull 5 is quite tough to hit it makes t-bolts very nasty. Since i would stack about 7 T-bolts to one arc & hopefully only 1 or 2 ships would be able to fire on the since AF is only 5". 14 AD normal 14 AD at AP hurts hull 4 bad.

 

[Jhary]

Youre right but if some on depend oly on fighter heavy like postet before than he will be in trouble. For other ships are the Vree no match.

 

[Target]

Angelus2000 5pt Battle
1 Avenger
1 Omega PC
2 Nova
6 Hermes
If I thought Fleet Carrier was going pull me through the Battle i'd drop the Omega for 2 Olympus & 2 Hermes, only losing 2 fighters.
Just discovered that thats only 4 Battle Points that changes things. No wonder it didn't look quite right.
Here's a crazy Fleet.
1 Omega Command
1 Avenger
12 Hermes
Still has 26 flights with Fleet Carrier not that the Omega could release all of hers.
I'd probably opt for if I was going to have a Fleet Carrier
1 Avenger ( Big Target sign on this ship if Fleet Carrier rolls are going well)
1 Omega
1 Nova ( Body guard for Avenger)
4 Olympus
7 Hermes

A Couple of Olympus to protect the Omega as well Nova to guard the Avenger. My Theory is after a couple of rounds, all my fighters are out, there will be quite a few very hurt ships after the intial missile barrage. My fighters then will be able find easy targets either stragglers or small enough to hurt with out worrying about the consequences to much. Works prefectly if the your Opponent doesn't fire back.

 

[Silvereye]

What ratio of T-bolts to Auroras would people recomend?

Even with the Aurora/Thunderbolt dogfight upgrade in Armageddon, I would still consider fielding about 1/4 to 1/3 Aurora to 2/3 to 3/4 Thunderbolt.

I would also start most games with the Aurora deployed first when you need to put up a fighter screen.

However, for one-off pick-up games it is worth keeping the exact fighter make up flexible as you will want more Aurora if your facing an opponent with a fighter heavy fleet. Or perhaps more Thunderbolts if you are up against very poor quality fighters (like Kotha).