Is Fighters firing first so bad?
- Thread starter CodeofArms
- Start date
Our firs wing sized groups with caps but in movement we still have fighter movement phase which we take turns in moving wing sized groups. We find this is better because you better respond to where the enemies fighters are going to cover your ships. We find it's a bit more tactical. Then we don't dogfight anymore, fighters can either shoot at ships or fighters. The Dogfight score represents the modifier to dodge. A few more house rules where they come from but that will be going off topic a bit.LordClinto said:
With the Vree they should have more fighters on their ships, maybe even a light fighter.
Also think Drazi should carry more as well. Maybe most fleets should more on ships to save buying independant wings which i personally don't like much as it should be about ships.
Davesaint said:animus said:Okay, I did miss something on the independent fleets. Still, I don't mind that Vree suck against fighters the same way I don't mind that some fleets are heavily fighter dependent. It's all good.
Unless you are Vree going up agaisnt EA.
Dave
Good for EA. :lol:
Okay a few things folks keep saying wrong...
Drazi star snakes are FOUR flights per wing.
Drazi star snakes are +0 dogfight rating, that is not a 'decent dogfighter'.
Guardhawks are hull 4, damage 14 ships...the very ship type that fighters destroy before it can fire. A patrol choice that buys a turn, and due to drazi fire arcs does not even buy be a shot back by other ships in the fleet.
Narn fights at low skirmish pls should not have to buy the G'Karith every single fight just in case there are fighters. The Ka'toc carries a flight (I used Goriths thinking that would help) and, much like in tournament, did not know who my opponent race would be. I went with two Ka'toc, a Sho'kar and two patrol torpedo cutters, he went with a Nova, two hermes and two purchased wings. End result was three flights to twelve heavy flights and it was a big deal as I had several smaller ships that could be overwhelmed easily. I had plenty of all round firepower and several interceptors (at +1 dogfight even) and I stayed together, but I could not kill the flights fast enough and was quickly wittled down, I did kill the Nova though.
How exactly was that a that a case of not taking any fighter defense? For most races at that level having only a few flights is the norm and you depend on all round dice to defeat them. Claiming I should have taken a G'karith which would have died quickly to enemy beams (yes even 2 AD beams) would have been just as foolish if my opponents had not show up with the stack of fighters.
The problem with the current system is the rock paper scissors approach it helps create. Fighters require specialists to counter in many situations, that is not bad except in situations where you face a large amount of them. When you reach the threhold where fighter stacks can simply kill ships without retaliation you have reached the problem threshold. Look at the emine thread where Triggy was suggestion double damage for emines. You have exactly the same issue. A weapon that springs from 8 to 22 inches away and can destroy small ships without real risk of retaliation that bypasses the built in defense (against fighters for most ships thats dice).
A T-Bolt firing on a hull 4 ships does 2.75ish damage a flight before crits, six flights kills a skirmish Vree without the ability to fire back. If I bunch up, your ships blow me up on myself from range and your fighters wait until there is a big enough hole to exploit. The Vree fleet above that is give as a five raid fleet lacks the firepower or the staying power to fight many tourney lists, but I would like to see it tried. Perfectly willing to be proven wrong but not armchaired wrong.
To paraphrase Locutus above I am SICK of folks coming on the boards and saying something is a tactical problem, when folks have a real valid arguement about the weakness of certain ships, fleets or mechanics.
Anyhow...we've all been down this road before...some folks think its great, others think anyone who cannot deal is a dolt who cannot think his way out of a paper bag. I'm out of this one, hopefully I can get Prelude to do our EA Posiedon vs Vree fight sometime.
Ripple
Drazi star snakes are FOUR flights per wing.
Drazi star snakes are +0 dogfight rating, that is not a 'decent dogfighter'.
Guardhawks are hull 4, damage 14 ships...the very ship type that fighters destroy before it can fire. A patrol choice that buys a turn, and due to drazi fire arcs does not even buy be a shot back by other ships in the fleet.
Narn fights at low skirmish pls should not have to buy the G'Karith every single fight just in case there are fighters. The Ka'toc carries a flight (I used Goriths thinking that would help) and, much like in tournament, did not know who my opponent race would be. I went with two Ka'toc, a Sho'kar and two patrol torpedo cutters, he went with a Nova, two hermes and two purchased wings. End result was three flights to twelve heavy flights and it was a big deal as I had several smaller ships that could be overwhelmed easily. I had plenty of all round firepower and several interceptors (at +1 dogfight even) and I stayed together, but I could not kill the flights fast enough and was quickly wittled down, I did kill the Nova though.
How exactly was that a that a case of not taking any fighter defense? For most races at that level having only a few flights is the norm and you depend on all round dice to defeat them. Claiming I should have taken a G'karith which would have died quickly to enemy beams (yes even 2 AD beams) would have been just as foolish if my opponents had not show up with the stack of fighters.
The problem with the current system is the rock paper scissors approach it helps create. Fighters require specialists to counter in many situations, that is not bad except in situations where you face a large amount of them. When you reach the threhold where fighter stacks can simply kill ships without retaliation you have reached the problem threshold. Look at the emine thread where Triggy was suggestion double damage for emines. You have exactly the same issue. A weapon that springs from 8 to 22 inches away and can destroy small ships without real risk of retaliation that bypasses the built in defense (against fighters for most ships thats dice).
A T-Bolt firing on a hull 4 ships does 2.75ish damage a flight before crits, six flights kills a skirmish Vree without the ability to fire back. If I bunch up, your ships blow me up on myself from range and your fighters wait until there is a big enough hole to exploit. The Vree fleet above that is give as a five raid fleet lacks the firepower or the staying power to fight many tourney lists, but I would like to see it tried. Perfectly willing to be proven wrong but not armchaired wrong.
To paraphrase Locutus above I am SICK of folks coming on the boards and saying something is a tactical problem, when folks have a real valid arguement about the weakness of certain ships, fleets or mechanics.
Anyhow...we've all been down this road before...some folks think its great, others think anyone who cannot deal is a dolt who cannot think his way out of a paper bag. I'm out of this one, hopefully I can get Prelude to do our EA Posiedon vs Vree fight sometime.
Ripple
Epaminondas
Mongoose
To bad for the Vree players.
I'd love to have forward arc beams rather then boresight- but I don't have them.
Every race has some plus sides and some weaknesses. Vree have lots of decent turrented weapons, and are fairly manuaverable. Access to other league ships gives them access to some very good ships [Kaliva, Bimith].
Their downside is a weakness against fighters.
In a tournament situation, everyone has a generalist list which covers most bases and can perfom well; and everyone would prefer different lists if they knew who their opponents would be.
As EA, I might take only one scout in a generalist or non antiminbari fleet... and want two or more scouts against minbari.
===
Work the tactical problem.
Besides, from a fluff standpoint the Vree are at least moderately close allies of EA like most of the rest of the league. If the Vree are having a problem with fighters, they would get on the horn and ask the EA to have an Advenger or Posiden swing by. 8)
No race [or ship] should be good at everything.
===
fighters striking first makes them useable; making the strike last makes minbari immune to fighters, and hurts the EA badly.
I'd love to have forward arc beams rather then boresight- but I don't have them.
Every race has some plus sides and some weaknesses. Vree have lots of decent turrented weapons, and are fairly manuaverable. Access to other league ships gives them access to some very good ships [Kaliva, Bimith].
Their downside is a weakness against fighters.
In a tournament situation, everyone has a generalist list which covers most bases and can perfom well; and everyone would prefer different lists if they knew who their opponents would be.
As EA, I might take only one scout in a generalist or non antiminbari fleet... and want two or more scouts against minbari.
===
Work the tactical problem.
Besides, from a fluff standpoint the Vree are at least moderately close allies of EA like most of the rest of the league. If the Vree are having a problem with fighters, they would get on the horn and ask the EA to have an Advenger or Posiden swing by. 8)
No race [or ship] should be good at everything.
===
fighters striking first makes them useable; making the strike last makes minbari immune to fighters, and hurts the EA badly.
Are you serious? I mean really? Are you actually trying to say that an entire fleet that has Anti-fighter weapons in every arc on every ship is suppossed to be weak against fighters?
Turn it around. If fighters fire last, the Vree kick the snot out of a fighter heavy fleet. If they fire first, the fighters kick the snot out of the Vree. As I said before it is the all or nothing approach that is the problem, not the tactics being employeed nor the stats of the ships involved.
Epaminondas said:
Nice attitude.
The problem is that it makes the game rock, paper, scissor. While yes the Vree can take other league ships, as I have stated in my earlier post, until recently they were not allowed to have them in the tournament settings. Are the Vree maeuverable, yes, are they painfully slow when using their super-maeuverablitiy, yes. Does this mean that fighters can catch them and crush them, yes.
The thing that you are forgetting about the EA is they are not solely reliant on their boresight weapons to win. They have missle armed ships that provide both flexability and in the case of the hermes, fighter armed initiative sinks that have range 30 weapons. This allows you to get your boresight weapons on target. You have a decent skirmish level scout in the Oracle to get your redirects so that you don't miss out on your CAF. Have you ever wondered why the EA is played so much? It's because they are a good balanced fleet.
Ever wonder why few people play the individual league races or the Raiders, it's because they are normally below average. The only exception might be the Brakiri now that the Brikorta's heavy weapon is a beam.
BTW - I hope you don't post on the "Please Fix the Warlock" Thread. That way I can tell you too bad, that's what you get for playing EA.
Dave
Epaminondas
Mongoose
In latin, my signature means "return the warlock to war." 8)
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While I agree a dedicated fighter strike can give the Vree alot of problems; how many large strikes would you really expect to see in a tournament?
EA players need to pick their missiles and fighters for the entire tournament. Based on my experience, I would be surprised if an EA player went more then 50% thunderbolt; and have more then 11 fighters in the average 5 point raid. Say 6 furies and 5 thunderbolts. If the Vree had no fighter support, I'd expect around turn 3-4 I'd have my fighters launched, organized into a wolf pack and starting to work over isolated patrol/skirmish level ships.
Toss in an unfortunate explosion, and the occasional fighter being picked off by antifighter weapons; I'd be surprised if I could really punch out more then 2-3 patrol/skirmish ships before being rendered combat ineffective. If the Vree are using their range appropriately, they can easily inflict similar losses with their long ranged weapons.
Compare the Bimith to the Nova in a mixed league fleet. The Bimith is a step from the nova, but the Nova gets fighters... a significant chunk of the reason why EA ships are considered to be at their priority level is the fighter support.
===
I don't think I'm significantly biased in favor of fighters firing first; I pay more Crusade EA then 3rd age- my fighter are an antifighter screen, with the occasional hunting of a crippled ship. [Last 10 games my fighters killed one ship... which happened to have 2 damage points remaining.]
I'll grant right now we have two imperfect solutions- fighters firing first does cause a fleet with few fighters real headaches; fighters firing second mean minbari are immune to fighter strikes, and fighter strikes are generally worthless [attrit so fast good for one, maybe two strikes before being wiped out].
Under the rules as written, Vree do have access to league ships to limit the downside for them of fighters striking first.... and striking first makes the fighters modestly useful but not overpowered. No fighter strike will punch out a raid or battle choice (well maybe a hyperion- which is a egg with a hammer).
Frankly, I'd rather see fighters have a chance to punch out their weight in ships then be useless cargo.
Other then one game I've played with an EA carrier task force (advenger, 4 novas) v. a mixed league fleet (3 battle); I've never seen fighters dominate a game. And I took ALL thunderbolts in that game.
If tournament organizers are not allowing mixed league lists; that is a problem to be dealt with by that tournament, not a reason for a general rules change.
----
While I agree a dedicated fighter strike can give the Vree alot of problems; how many large strikes would you really expect to see in a tournament?
EA players need to pick their missiles and fighters for the entire tournament. Based on my experience, I would be surprised if an EA player went more then 50% thunderbolt; and have more then 11 fighters in the average 5 point raid. Say 6 furies and 5 thunderbolts. If the Vree had no fighter support, I'd expect around turn 3-4 I'd have my fighters launched, organized into a wolf pack and starting to work over isolated patrol/skirmish level ships.
Toss in an unfortunate explosion, and the occasional fighter being picked off by antifighter weapons; I'd be surprised if I could really punch out more then 2-3 patrol/skirmish ships before being rendered combat ineffective. If the Vree are using their range appropriately, they can easily inflict similar losses with their long ranged weapons.
Compare the Bimith to the Nova in a mixed league fleet. The Bimith is a step from the nova, but the Nova gets fighters... a significant chunk of the reason why EA ships are considered to be at their priority level is the fighter support.
===
I don't think I'm significantly biased in favor of fighters firing first; I pay more Crusade EA then 3rd age- my fighter are an antifighter screen, with the occasional hunting of a crippled ship. [Last 10 games my fighters killed one ship... which happened to have 2 damage points remaining.]
I'll grant right now we have two imperfect solutions- fighters firing first does cause a fleet with few fighters real headaches; fighters firing second mean minbari are immune to fighter strikes, and fighter strikes are generally worthless [attrit so fast good for one, maybe two strikes before being wiped out].
Under the rules as written, Vree do have access to league ships to limit the downside for them of fighters striking first.... and striking first makes the fighters modestly useful but not overpowered. No fighter strike will punch out a raid or battle choice (well maybe a hyperion- which is a egg with a hammer).
Frankly, I'd rather see fighters have a chance to punch out their weight in ships then be useless cargo.
Other then one game I've played with an EA carrier task force (advenger, 4 novas) v. a mixed league fleet (3 battle); I've never seen fighters dominate a game. And I took ALL thunderbolts in that game.
If tournament organizers are not allowing mixed league lists; that is a problem to be dealt with by that tournament, not a reason for a general rules change.
Not sure when we started talking about things in terms of tournaments only, but in general you are correct that a fleet that is made up mostly of fighters isn't going to show up at a tournament.
Up until Armegeddon, that was a rule passed down from Mongoose in their official tournament pack. No combined League Fleets, no missile/e-mine variants, no heroes, etc; Not really a decision made by the folks who ran the individual tourney.
Thank you for re-iterating my point... Having the rules state that ALL fighters fire first/last is the root of the problem. Basically there are two camps in this debate. One side says "Fighters should be able to fly in and deliver a quick, deadly strike" The other side says "Fighters shouldn't be able to move with impunity through Anti-fighter guns". Firing first often means that a single ship is just swarmed by fighters and blown up before it even has a chance to retaliate. Firing last means that swarming a ship results in most of the fighters exploding before they can fire...
As I said before this is a case of a general rule removing a player's tactical choices. In the case of the EA where they have so many fighters, switching this from one side to the other results in them being either overpowered or underpowered depending on which is used. There needs to be a middle ground here.
Epaminondas
Mongoose
I brought up tournaments because Davesaint based one of his objections to fighters attacking first was that Vree were banned from mixing ships in tournaments. If one objection to fighters attacking first is that a carrier task force will hurt Vree badly, its worth talking about how frequently that sort of list will pop up.
While Mongoose sanctioned tournaments might state no mixed league; there is nothing saying every local game store has to follow that. For instance, I'm running a tournament in Durham, North Carolina next weekend. I am allowing league ships to be mixed up.
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Where I do disagree is that I fall on the side of fighters firing first- I think it is appropriate that a fighter strike can destroy a small ship, if the attacker uses his brain and the defender can be isolated from the rest of his fleet.
Average number of fighters will generally cancel each other out; leaving at most 1-3 fighters on the table. Even 3 thunderbolts aren't going to do much against a patrol ship- and if the patrol is properly covered by other ships; the fighters will die to AF weapons.
I don't think one fleet having problems against fighters is a reason to nerf fighters.
While Mongoose sanctioned tournaments might state no mixed league; there is nothing saying every local game store has to follow that. For instance, I'm running a tournament in Durham, North Carolina next weekend. I am allowing league ships to be mixed up.
===
Where I do disagree is that I fall on the side of fighters firing first- I think it is appropriate that a fighter strike can destroy a small ship, if the attacker uses his brain and the defender can be isolated from the rest of his fleet.
Average number of fighters will generally cancel each other out; leaving at most 1-3 fighters on the table. Even 3 thunderbolts aren't going to do much against a patrol ship- and if the patrol is properly covered by other ships; the fighters will die to AF weapons.
I don't think one fleet having problems against fighters is a reason to nerf fighters.
5 Avengers (early era) thats 40 furies launched by turn 2. Thats enough fighters to make a serious dent in any fleet by turn 3. Turn 1 no firing usually, Turn 2 beams usually open up, Turn 3 most weapons get to fire. Even 5 avengers can hurt when targeting the same ship or 2 & thats after the furies have found a target. The Avengers become tough because they can take the save or APTE to bring their guns to bear while launching fighters. Against say a e-mine heavy fleet, they don't have to be launched till they have closed range (still only 2 turns to unload all fighters) or have a avenger jump in behind if able. Each avenger has 40 hits, hull 5 and interceptors. Can't all stop against them once they in range as they will board your sorry ass, to bad if those starfuries spd 0 you. Double VP's for boarded ships.
Most fleets will struggle with this. Maybe they will bring a couple of Novas instead only 30 fighters but with 2 serious warships. Furies are still dangerous with their 2 AD twin link. Damn lucky they aren't fleet carriers.
Most fleets will struggle with this. Maybe they will bring a couple of Novas instead only 30 fighters but with 2 serious warships. Furies are still dangerous with their 2 AD twin link. Damn lucky they aren't fleet carriers.
prelude_to_war
Mongoose
Now that the old tournament list is obsolete, isn't this rule also obsolete? Assuming this is the case, League players are free to use mixed lists (within the normal constraints), thereby diversifying and playing up combined League strengths, rather than magnifying individual race weaknesses.Epaminondas said:
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Chernobyl said:
And the correct impression it would be.
LBH
prelude_to_war
Mongoose
Ripple, I'm looking forward to this matchup (just don't throw the game to prove your point!). I'll bring the paperbag :wink: .Ripple said:
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