how are the Drakh?

[MustEatBrains]

I've been thinking about this over night, shows had sad I am, actually my boy was up all night teething and it gave me something to think about other than the high pitched whine that makes my erars bleed!

It´s the same here; nights can be incredibly long sometimes... :roll:

But to the topic: Now, since I have neither the 2nd ed rules yet nor been a playtester, I obviously can´t really say anything definite about the Drakh. From what I´ve read, they seem to be vulnerable to fighters; but in turn should be able to swarm bigger ships with all their beams.

Sounds like a challenge to play.

I always wondered why the Drakh did not have a heavy fighter themselves - some smaller scale version of the Heavy Raider, like the WS fighter for ISA (ok, that was a FA miniature originally; but I think that would work with the Drakh as well). A bomber, afighter with 1AD beam, or something like that. Nothing to really intercept fighters, but you could at least throw it at them to slow them down. Or just go ship hunting with your Raiders. Optically, it would help bringing the "wasp swarm" look the Drakh had in the show to the game. A well, I´ll put it on my christmas wish list.

 

[Da Boss]

Maybe something in Hiffanos new supplement?

 

[MustEatBrains]

Who was it who had converted the FA scale Drakh? His heavy raiders would be prime for use as a superheavy drakh fighter...

 

[Right Hand of God]

It's not the lack of drakh fighters that bothers me, that sets them apart from every other race. But they have no anti fighter capability whatsoever, no escorts, and no AF according to one of the earlier posters who has the fleet book. GEG is fine, but it is not an anti fighter defence and it doesn't stop you being nibbled to death by gnats.

Unless someone with the book can add something here, they do seem particularly vunerable to fighters, even more so than in 1st ed

 

[Greg Smith]

I would say GEG is an anti-fighter defense. It is better a defending against weapons with low numbers of attack dice than bigger weapons.

5 Aurora Starfuries with 2AD TL each will do less damage against a target protected by a GEG 2 than a 10AD TL weapon.

 

[Right Hand of God]

GEG can limit damage from fighters but it isn't a defence, it doesn't stop crits or the damage from crits. The best AF defence is the ability to shoot them down before they get to shoot you. In one way or another that seems to be an option avaialable to every other fleet except the Drakh

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Play to there stregnths, they have very good strengths when used correctly and can, by playing on them, decimate opposition fleets.

 

[Locutus9956]

It seems to me that this is theres alot of complaining in this thread because the drakh work differentely than they used to, they have changed. Theres a big difference between something requiring different tactics than it used to and it being completely useless. The same sort of arguments got thrown around for ages about the minbari for ages after armageddon.

Furthermore the fact that the Drakh diddn't dominate at tournaments might be less to do with them not being horribly effective and more to do with the fact that there are simply not as many Drakh PLAYERS out there....

That said I'm not pointing at you alone CZ as frankly some of the counterarguments in this thread have flatly contradicted themselves.

About CBD:

Statement 1: It was decided that ships with 1 weapon system alone shouldnt get it because it as well as dodge and GEG was too good.

Statement 2: But surely its just as good for things with multiple weapons and dodge, they fire one while the others are out of range and thus get dodge and CBD and firing.

Statement 3: Ah but ships with dodge PAY for dodge so thats fine.

Well stop me if this sounds crazy but the ship in statement 1 PAID for dodge and GEG so frankly if statement 3 is true, statement 1 is bollocks and if statement 3 ISNT true statement 2 has a very good point!

 

[Greg Smith]

GEG can limit damage from fighters but it isn't a defence,

Surely something that limits damage is a defence?

 

[katadder]

GEG can limit damage from fighters but it isn't a defence, it doesn't stop crits or the damage from crits. The best AF defence is the ability to shoot them down before they get to shoot you. In one way or another that seems to be an option avaialable to every other fleet except the Drakh

its better than most other people get. lets consider 2 ships - the omega destroyer and the drakh strike cruiser. omega has AF6, the strike cruiser has GEG 2. now lets consider 6 starfuries attacking both these vessels. the omega on averages will kill 2 furys. the average number of hits on the drakh cruiser will mean a liely hood of one crit. so you have stopped all shots but 1 getting to you.
i know which i would prefer.
you could go down and use the hyperion and light cruiser, in which case the hyperion has AF2 and definately loses out to GEG2.
perhaps the whitestar versus raider anology should come in. the WS has no AF the raider has GEG1.
GEGs are a fine anti-fighter system. just wait until hobbybox comes on and tells you how annoying he finds the GEG when using his t-bolts/furies against the drakh.

 

[Locutus9956]

Dont forget though that that omega also has interceptors and a fighter compliment of its own that can intercept the attacking fighters...

I'm not saying GEG is useless (frankly I think its a superb defence) but just that Drakh arent any better off than anyone else because of it!

 

[The Hobbybox]

If you want to stop fighters attacking your Drahk ships then shot them with your secondary armament, it's what they are there for.

Or if your ship doesn't have secondaries then send your light raiders in with their beams (which I believe happened in the show!)

Drahk (rightly in my opinion) have very little anti-fighter defence, because the GEG is a big enough defence on it's own.

Yes, you will still get hurt by crits, so welcome to the club the rest of us non Drahk are in.

Thank you, rant over!

 

[Burger]

The GEG is a much better defence against range 4 fighters such as T'Bolt, Sky Serpent etc than any amount of Anti-fighter trait!!!

 

[katadder]

that too.

 

[No. 1 Bear]

If you concentrate on the bad points of the drahk yes you will come up with many things you dont like and niggle away at you. However if you look at what they can do and what advantages they have youll find it balances itself out.

 

[thePirv]

If you want to stop fighters attacking your Drahk ships then shot them with your secondary armament, it's what they are there for.

Or if your ship doesn't have secondaries then send your light raiders in with their beams (which I believe happened in the show!)

The number of times I've had a full bank of secondary weapons on a larger ship fail to kill a single fighter flight because of th efighters dodge score.

And as for using the Light Raiders, that's all well and good except that they will only ever get to shoot on your enemies terms since Fighters move last and fire first.


Don't get me wrong, I haven't even seen 2e yet, but fighters were a big enough problem in First ed for the Drakh, I don't see that having changed any, but then for me, that's how the Drakh always were.

I'm just worried about all the new "bomber" fighters I'm hearing about.

 

[Burger]

I'm just worried about all the new "bomber" fighters I'm hearing about.

Well, other races have more reason to be scared of them... your GEG still works against them, even if it isn't a particularly good AF defence... but other races Anti-Fighter traits are useless against a range 4 fighter!

 

[thePirv]

I'm just worried about all the new "bomber" fighters I'm hearing about.

Well, other races have more reason to be scared of them... your GEG still works against them, even if it isn't a particularly good AF defence... but other races Anti-Fighter traits are useless against a range 4 fighter!

Other races can throw their own fighters at the Bombers though.

I think that's the crux of the problem here.
Everybody bar the Drakh had fighters as a fighter defence, plus whatever AF weapons they had. The Drakh had the GEG and Light Raiders. Armageddon effectively left Light Raiders useless at this job because of the new fighter movement rules.

Now in 2e, practically every other race got an extra bonus AF trait, where the Drakh keep their GEG and ineffective Light Raiders.
Basically the Drakh don't have the number of toys to work with for beating fighters that other races do, and one of our toys (the Light Raider AF weapon) is pretty much completely useless at the job. Also, our GEG is passive so Fighters get to keep trying to beat it, whereas the AF trait is active, so will reduce the number of enemy fighters every turn.

Drakh-- GEG (passive), secondary weapons, AF weapon on Light Raider (too limited).
Just about everyone else-- AF trait (active), secondary weapons, AF weapons on some ships (some limited, some not), Fighters (active)


Besides, in case anybody didn't learn after the fiasco that was Armageddon, we Drakh players like to have a bitch and moan every time something new comes out. :twisted:

 

[Locutus9956]

I disagree about light raiders being useless due to fighters moving last. It may not be easy to hunt the fighters but you can happily set up light raiders to cover your other ships. Ok so the fighters can always run beind the light raider and hit it instead but that still stops them hitting the tastier targets like motherships and the like! Simply put moving last is not a free ticket to avoid being shot by any means!

Frankly from what I've seen of 2nd Ed the Drakh dont look like theyve lost much franky and are still armed to the teeth with precice beams, which are now potentially even more horrific, especially against big high hull ships.

 

[katadder]

people didnt gain an AF trait, they lost AF weapons into an AF trait so actually as a rule have less weapons to fire at other ships.