Im curious again!

[Nazgull2k1]

Ok, I've seen quite a few AAR's concerning Feds, Klinks and Roms, but none concerning Kzinti or Gorns. Im SFB, I fought the Gorns on several occasions, and absolutely hated it. (I hate being on the recieving end of mass plasma's lol. )

However, I am very interesting in the Kzinti Empire. Anyone able to get a feel how they play, perhaps an AAR? (My funds are limited, I cant afford more then 1 real force. )

Thanks everyone!

 

[billclo]

That's an interesting question. I haven't seen anyone talking about playing the Gorns yet. I think there have been a couple people playing around with the Kzinti. It might have something to do with not being able to get miniatures for those Empires yet.

But there's nothing keeping anyone from playing with some substitute miniatures though.

 

[Modious]

I looked at Gorn, and all the lumbering made the fleet look tough to handle. Of course, I usually play Klingons! In addition, I'm not confident the Gorns have sufficent drone defence against Kzinti and Klingon. I could be wrong, but that's my impression. I'd like to see someone prove me wrong, since I always liked Gorn. Against their historic enemies I think they look fine.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Until I can drag some players out of hiding I'm a bit stuck for local games but in terms of the Gorn and Kzinti both are playable if you use their strengths and cover their weaknesses.

The Kzinti can run some Drone heavy fleets that can really crush a smaller ship every turn unless you are carefull but they suffer in close due to lack of any heavy weapons, they need to play like a longer range version of the Klinks, move constantly, keep the range open and skirmish. With a nice terrain heavy field of play they find that range advantage cut a lot and have to come in close at which point you too can enjoy the smell of burnt fur in the mornings :twisted:

The Gorn on the other hand are lumbering and hard to turn, the lumbering trait limits them to 1 45degree turn which makes them harder to move around, after all it takes 4 turns just to come about. However the Gorn have a massive advantage the Feds do not, most Gorn ships can launch half of their firepower (plasmas and phasers) into the port and starboard arcs. With Gorn ships in pairs or squadrons scissoring across each other all the time even the most nimble Klink is going to be hard pressed to park somewhere out of plasma arc of at least one ships side firepower.

Fed ships with a turn mode of 6 can turn once after 6” and then once again after 12” but they have photons with a strict Forward arc. This forces them to use frigates and destroyers that are agile or nimble enough to cover the larger ships rear arcs.

In terms of drone defence yes the plasma races have a harder time of it, after all they have not spent years designing ships to fight drone chuckers where as the klinks, flat tops and furballs do nothing else. However there are enough phaser 1s and tractors on the Gorn to cut down a medium drone wave. Against people you know are going to be chucking large drone waves park a pair of smaller ships behind your big stuff and have both go to Intensify defences. They can cover each other and the big stuff quite well. Don’t use just one escort on IDF though as it becomes a magical drone magnet. :shock:

If I can find someone in this area to play a few games with I’ll let you know how the theory holds up but no photo’s as the ships may well be bits of paper :lol:

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Think it's possibly do to the fact that the Gorn (for all there issues :? ) don't appear to be getting much love is that people new to the SFU are aiming at the miniature availible fleet (Fed, Klink, Rom), and that people know about the 3 mentioned fleets.

The Drone issue is not that bad for the Gorn, think Romulan's may have it worse, due to fire arc's and 2-6 kill rolls v Drones with P-1's + tractors (Plasma races are used to using phaser as defence, as thats all you can use vs plasmas).

The other thing that maybe effecting Gorn is the -1 initiative/Lumbering issue (still have an issue with the -1 initiative on them (and the Orion's), and think ALL Gorn fleets i feild WILL have a CC to counter this). It puts players off, and makes them a VERY Bad choice for introductory games - which is all i'm doing at the moment (andhave 3 new targets/players from this)

 

[Iron Domokun]

The Kzinti can run some Drone heavy fleets that can really crush a smaller ship every turn unless you are carefull but they suffer in close due to lack of any heavy weapons

Disruptors are heavy weapons, and on the DW and larger they'll have as many disruptors as the Klingons.

 

[Captain Jonah]

The Kzinti can run some Drone heavy fleets that can really crush a smaller ship every turn unless you are carefull but they suffer in close due to lack of any heavy weapons

Disruptors are heavy weapons, and on the DW and larger they'll have as many disruptors as the Klingons.

While the game may call them Heavy weapons they are more a medium firepower type. Compared to the impact/damage throw of a flat top or plasma chucker Disruptors are not that heavy. Kzinti and Klingons both need to dance, going head to head with one of the heavy damage races at a few inches range is not a good experience for the disruptor races, yes you can fire them every turn but your fire your four (klingon/kzinti) disruptors at me and I'll fire my photons/plasmas back.

A wise Kzinti player is going to avoid the 1-8"/overload bracket like the plague, Kzinti ships may mount as many disruptors as Klingon ships do but they do not have anywhere near the close range survival of a front to front pass. A klingon may come through such a pass with something left of his shields, a Kzinti that decides to go nose to nose will very quickly find that a Fed/Gorn/Rom will take his 4 disruptors, phaser down the drones and then kick in his front shield and take most of his hull for lunch.

Unless its a battle winning move to swoop in on a lone ship without reload weapons and use overloaded disruptors its generaly wiser to stay well away. Tractors and Ph 3s to whittle down the drones and it comes down to 4 AD of disruptors doing multihit 2/4 against 4 AD doing 4/8 or 10-12 AD doing 1d6.

The klingons have the half damage front shields, the kzinti have no such advantage and will suffer if they go nose to nose with a high damage race with charged reload weapons.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Crunch power (damage output in one turn) is not what makes a weapon a "heavy weapon", it's defined by the background. Drones and phasers are secondary weapons, disruptors, plasma, photons are heavy weapons.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Crunch power (damage output in one turn) is not what makes a weapon a "heavy weapon", it's defined by the background. Drones and phasers are secondary weapons, disruptors, plasma, photons are heavy weapons.

While the game may call them Heavy weapons they are more a medium firepower type

Background, cannon and the game can happily call them Heavy weapons, if you want to replace my use of the word heavy with the word crunch please do so.

Perhaps I wasn't clear when I wrote the bit above in red. While Disuptors are classed as Heavy weapons they are a lot lighter than Photons and Plasmas. A Kzinti who charges in with overloaded Disruptors nose to nore with a Photon or Plasma race with loaded weapons is in for a world of hurt.

Kzinti like klingons should live for speed and keep the range open unless going for a kill on a cripple. Disruptors work at range and combined with the Drones allow the Kzinti to kill an enemy by a thousand cuts.

If you want huge front arc fire power and some mobility and versitility go Fed, if you want crushing short range fire power, like back stabing people and have a lot of patients go Rom, if you want to amble across the map utterly destroying anyone in front of you go Gorn.
If you want to dance around like an insane ballerina spitting death at people go Klingon and if you want to sweep across the map at speed raining death and destruction from afar while franticly trying to keep the range open go Kzinti. Kzinti can fight up close but they will take far more damage doing so.

Its up to how you want to play your furball’s. Songs will be sung of the glorious (and Short) career of the Kzinti berserker fleet :lol:

 

[Iron Domokun]

A Kzinti who charges in with overloaded Disruptors nose to nore with a Photon or Plasma race with loaded weapons is in for a world of hurt.

I never disputed that. You're arguing with yourself.