ISA Tactical Manual from S&P

[Methos5000]

I was reading through it and wondered what everyone else thought of it. I noticed a couple of things though.
1. The skirmish choice: Whitestar Fighter. It says it can use its AJP to jump point bomb. I thought that was resolved that they could not do that.
2. The raid choic: Whitestars. The precise trait is mentioned along with the molecular pulsars, which no longer have the precise trait.

Also has the run and repair tactic worked for people? I mean its great that the WSs can repair themselves but for me it always seems like I have a prefectly repaired WS floating crewless into the void since the crew loss doesnt regenerate. If crew damage was done differently maybe but all you need are 12 seperate hits on a WS irregardless of what damage is actually done and its done for. Granted 12 seperate volleys is alot but thats assuming you only did 1 point of crew damage.

Now Im not complaining about the capabitlies of the WS I think its a great ship. It just doesnt seem to me like that tactic would work. Maybe Im just doing it wrong.

 

[Celisasu]

The ISA tactical manual also suggested using the T'Loth. :roll:

 

[emperorpenguin]

It would seem that Alan Oliver b*****d up there!
White Star Fighters cannot jump point bomb as they cannot use the "Initiate Jump Point" SA
and the editors didn't catch it

hmm precise on the pulsars, I thought the article might have been pre-Armageddon but since it has the WS fighters clearly not!

 

[Celisasu]

Although to be fair, while some of the ship suggestions were bad(T'Loth, White Star Gunship), the race vs. race analysis were generally quite good. And I guess if he misread one of the White Star traits, I can see how some incorrect tactics were extrapolated from that.

 

[Davesaint]

Ok, lets start with the thoughts -

Patrol level. you take Vaarls for an ally ship and nothing else. The tiraca/Shyarie are a waste of a choce. I guess you could choose the hermes, but eh.....Yes, your only choice if the battle is less than 4 Patrol, is fighters. Go for the T-bolts instead of the Nials. More dice, tough to kill.


Skirmish Level - White Star fighter - Waste of a pick as you only get 1 per skirmish point. Take the Vaarka, or a WS for 2 skirmish points. WSF cant AJP! Never take a scout unless it's a Vree Scout. The increased CQ for your scouting rolls makes it worth it. G'karith is an interesting option, but it's hull 4 and likely to die


Raid - WS is good enough for me. Allied ships - Leshath, Ashinta, Never the Nova. The nova throws away your maneuverability advantage. Frankly I would prob. never take a raid level ally when I can have a Vaarka and 2 Vaarls.

Battle - WS2 - Not as good as 2 WS. Allied Carrier - the Morshin, otherwise only the Tinashi is a good bet at this level, however I might be convinced to take a Kaliva.

War Level - WS Carrier. No other choice makes sense for the ISA. The Gunship is too fragile. As for war level Allies - only 1 makes sense, the Sharlin.

Armageddon - The Victory is a beast. No allies are worth giving up a Victory for one of their armageddon level ships.

Alan talks about using the CAF SA on turn 2. This is often a mistake as you are throwing away your maneuverability advantage.

As I get through more of this I will add more comments.


Dave

 

[CZuschlag]

I have now fought against the Nolotar, and a word about that should could have been included. I can speak to that ship a bit here.

The Nolotar has the exact same problem that the Drakh Scout does in a Raider-heavy fleet. The ISA fleet, in the main, lives and dies by its ability to evade heavy enemy fire. This means that, if the ISA player has retained an edge, one half to one third or so of the opposing main batteries either cannot concentrate to eliminate one target or cannot fire at all. It attempts to do this by using the White Star's superior speed and mobility. Combining this with its high surviability will eventually allow for the creation of weaknesses to exploit in the endgame.

The Nolotar, unfortunately, misses this whole point. It is a ship that cannot evade enemy arcs easily, being mainly front-towards-enemy, with only 2/45 turns, Hull 5, and no Dodge or other defensive system. In short, it's just asking to get shot. And when those 1/2 to 1/3 of enemy batteries can't find anything else useful to do, the Nolotar proves to be a more than worthwhile target. You're giving the enemy something to do with those other default weapon systems, and there it fails integration with the fleet concept horribly.

The alternative is a fleet that is by far dominated by Nolotars. So, the assessment must be considered -- is this ship good enough to get a fleet built on its capabilities alone?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. Granted, the hordes of AP, Twin-linked guns is very nice, but everything is merely single damage. A Nolotar, when front towards enemy, expects 7.5 hits from its 10 dice against Hull 5. This is almost matched by the similar Omelos, which summons 14 dice for 4.66 hits, which is magnified by about 1/3 for Masters of Destruction benefits to 6.2 equivalent hits/turn. This difference can easily be accomodated with one Disruption Torpedo wave. Note also that the Nolotar cannot augment its abilities by either Closing Blast Doors or CAF, whereas CAF significantly augments the Omelos' capabilities. Finally, the Omelos in fleets may have the opportunity to use side guns to further its effect, whereas the Nolotar cannot.

The Omelos is an above parity ship, no mistake. And the Nolotar could be a good ship, too; its damage score is significantly superior to the Omelos (the Crew score, however, is merely identical). But it fails to meet the criteria of playing well with others -- notably, the Whitestar ships. The White Stars themselves leave the ship in the dumps with nowhere to run.

the Nolotar did have one obvious role, however -- fleet capable initiative sink for the ISA. However, for this purpose, the vastly superior choice of 2 Patrol Blue Stars make the Whitestar selection odious at best.

(I personally think this new little ship is Absolutely Ghastly. Forget about the AJP bombing that just puts it over the top. It compares slightly unfavorably to the G'Sten! Because of Adaptive and Dodge, this thing is a hidden effective Damage Rating of 30 with 8 dice of forward AP firepower (4xdouble damage). Given the additional of the anti-fighter property, its main battery is not completely out of line with the G'Sten's Heavy Pulse system. You do indeed lose the large battery of Medium Pulse and the (minimal) side guns. It has less firepower total, but it has 2 90's and speed 15, whose value has been proven over and again to the ISA. And oh yeah --- I'm comparing a Patrol ship to a Skirmish vessel! Giving these little initiative sinks to the already hard to line up Whitestar stack is a real potential fleet balance problem, although I haven't been able to verify that over the board yet .... obviously!)

It could be a valid ship to help the ISA out at the patrol level, and can provide an area of defense against some enemy fighter attacks but nothing particularly beyond that. And you've got SuperNials to fight off those enemy auxiliary craft, anyways.

 

[tneva82]

It could be a valid ship to help the ISA out at the patrol level, and can provide an area of defense against some enemy fighter attacks but nothing particularly beyond that. And you've got SuperNials to fight off those enemy auxiliary craft, anyways.

I think whole point of that ship is to give fighting chance in lower level games...Think 5 point patrol. Umm...White star, squadron of fighters. Destroy white star, win game. Even funnier if you, for example in campaign, roll 3 point skirmish. No valid ship choises! (well now you have both nolo'tar and blue star). Well of course you could go for allies but then not much of a ISA fleet...

Even say 3 point skirmish and...Ummm...1 white star, 2 squadron of fighters. Again white star dead, you lost game.

I don't think nolo'tar is exactly meant as good ship in high-priority games. However in patrol/skirmish priority levels where there's 0-1 raid level ships and no higher it should work better.

 

[Burger]

The section about fighting Shadows is totally wrong. "The match up between the Shadow Scout and the White Star is a classic, but you should be able to come out ahead"??? Oh look there goes a pig at mach 3. Has the author ever played a WS vs Shadow Scout battle? Either 1 on 1, or 2 on 2, or 5 on 5... the WS get trashed every time. It is the most one-sided, "paper-rock-scissors" match-up in the game.

 

[katadder]

he also goes on about the 3+ dodge of WSs.
really think they should get someone who is upto date in the rules to do tactics.
like no JP bombing from WS fighters. the fact that WSs have gone down to dodge 4+ and lost precise.
the fact that gunships are quite possibly the worst ever ship designed atm.
quite obviously someone who never plays ISA

 

[Burger]

Totally agreed katadder...

JP bombing is "innovative and viable"???
He doesn't know the WS secondary weapon has lost Precise.
Self-repair allows you to pull out for a few rounds, and play the "long game"? What about your crew, they don't regenerate...
He never seems to suggest splitting your allies FAP into lower level ships.

 

[katadder]

pity hes a mongoose staffer (well i assume he is, never know with S&P)and cant come to the tourney to try his theorys out

 

[Locutus9956]

I have to agree. Nearly every tactics article Ive ever read in S&P seems to have been written by people who clearly dont have a clue or are just massively out of date. The one exception was the one in last months (or was it the one before) which was actually fairly good.

 

[Burger]

You'd think the Editor would spot these blatant mistakes in the articles. I mean we can all spot them in 1 read-through. Do they not read articles before publishing them?

 

[cordas]

Hmmm aparently not..... They didn't miss that they plan to release wave 3 evo minis at the end of May, or begining of April either.

 

[Greg Smith]

pity hes a mongoose staffer (well i assume he is, never know with S&P)

There's an easy way to tell - there's a list in the credits. And he's not.

 

[katadder]

even worse then, seems any old stuff can be published without being read

time to send in some tactics for other fleets using out of date stuff and making things up

centauri tactics:
the Haven is an awesome ship, i always fit in as many as humanly possible 8)

 

[H]

great way to noble your opponents before a tourney.

I have found the Torotha to be surprisingly useful....

 

[lastbesthope]

Well I spotted these three errors on my first read through, the first has already been mentioned

1) You can't AJP bomb withthe WS Fighter

2) He mispelled Neroon (twice)

3) On P.12 he suggests a multi allied race split of your ally point. From my reading of SFOS you can only buy allies from one fleet, not multiple fleets.

I could be wrong on the third one though.

LBH

 

[Greg Smith]

No, that's how I read it as well.

 

[katadder]

i wouldnt have a problem with people using multiple fleets, after all they are all members of the alliance.