ISA White star, WS II, WS gun ship

For the sake of amusement... my friend put 10 Armageddon points of Shadows on the table (we do crazy games like that some times). I matched it with ISA (20 White Stars, 2 Victorys, 3 Gunships, 2 Carriers), Vorlons (2 each of each class of ship and 6 stands of fighters), Minbari (an assortment of Sharlin and lesser ships). He was always concerned as to where the White Stars were. Go figure.
Regards,
Click to expand...

In Dave's defense, I've played a few of his other opponents at least once. They all go a bit nutters when WS's hit the board, oft times ignoring other more dangerous things, so I completely understand his somewhat negative viewpoint where WS's are concerned
 
David said:
inq101 said:
David said:
I'm not feeling the love here... wish I had stealth ;>
Regards,
Click to expand...
I wish I had quad damage, 50AD e-mines on my fighters.

Stop whining.
Click to expand...

Not whining. As for the quad damage (one ship) 50ad emine (if I take Narn) stuff, all I can say is ;P
Regards,
Click to expand...

Glad someone clarified the allies bit for me. At the end of the day the ISA HAD to get some kind of weakness, and that has transpired that their's was E-Mines against their own ships, but they have a way round it with Allies. The Narns perceived weakness was speed and maneuvreability, so they have the Var'Nic and G'Vrahn which pay for it with slightly weaker damage tracks, and less all round guns (but I still thin the G'Vrahn is too good). All fleets have to offer some weaknesses otherwise we would end up with generic slugfests. Remember though, a whitestar will always (eventually) be able to get out of E-mine arc, unless facing Gaim, in which case, be thankful they don't have TD mines! :-)
 
Lord David the Denied said:
There isn't really anything better to go up against Gaim. E-mines are bad by the sucide fighters is what will get you...
Click to expand...

How about Dag'Kars for pounding the seriously evil Gaim mine launchers and swarms of Nials and Furys for the Gaim fighters? Also, after perusing the Gaim list, I am not sure just what ship/s carry the Queens. It would seem to be crucial to nail the Queen to put a crimp in the Gaim. Are there specific Queen carrying ships or is it optional?
Regards,
 
Lord David the Denied said:
I just reccomended Dag'Kars to you... :?

The Queen ships are the ones with "Queen" in their class names... :wink:
Click to expand...

;P Mine was just a manner of speech, including your fine suggestion with my addition to it. After rereading the Gaim list I had made the SWAG (silly wild ass guess) that Queen in the ship name meant Queen in the ship. I was just looking for something in the text that empirically stated it. Those Klikkitat ships are nasty little so and sos, aren't they? It should be an interesting first Gaim game. ;)
Regards,
 
Wow this thread grew fast. Way back on page 2 or so I posted about emines spreading to additional races and that it e-mine trait was one of the rock paper scissors effects in the game. What I ment by that was indeed that certain fleets require certain tools, and for many games where there is blind building of fleets that isn't a good thing.

The primary bad effect is to some extent what I've seen in this thread. Someone has a legitimate concern over how to approach a certain race and the answer is not a tactic, its a fleet choice. Something you can't change once you've started a battle and see the enemy.

This was one of the primary issues with the minbari in 1st ed. Stealth was powerful but could be defeated by the right fleet, but that same fleet was often severely hampered vs a majority of other builds as it had to invest valuable FAP in counter stealth ships that had little other use.

It's all well and good to tell people to take mixed fleets as the answer, but it largely is ineffective at solving the problem.

Tourney issue - one guy shows up with the one trick pony fleet. He may not win but he completely torpedoes the people he fights who don't have the counter widget.

General issue is much like stealth with the Minbari, e-mines are becoming central to several races while at the same time dodge is becoming central to the defense of other races. This was okay when you could partially ignore emines as annoying to ships/deadly to fighters, but the recent changes have made them primary weapons that negate primary defenses. Sure no crit effects, but large numbers of double/triple damage weapons with any level of ap is going to do serious damage.

Finally, someone said just plow through with Abbai allies due to having shields. Please think about this a bit more. Shield are really only crit resistant damage/crew boxes, and the size of your ship has been reduce to reflect that you have them. Since e-mines don't crit, why not take just about any other ship through, and the primary benefit of the shields is completely wasted. Yes they regen at a slow rate, but so do most of the ISA ships. Better off just closing blast doors, that actually removes damage, shields just changes it's character.

Ripple - sorry about the slightly out of sync ness of the post
 
Not everyone has a choice of fleets. Even those of us who do have a choice don't have an infinate choice. The choices thrown out here were more or less directed at me and other ISA admirals. Some pretty good info too. When you don't have a choice of fleets, it falls to you to develop tactics.
Regards,
 
David said:
Lord David the Denied said:
There isn't really anything better to go up against Gaim. E-mines are bad by the sucide fighters is what will get you...
Click to expand...

How about Dag'Kars for pounding the seriously evil Gaim mine launchers and swarms of Nials and Furys for the Gaim fighters? Also, after perusing the Gaim list, I am not sure just what ship/s carry the Queens. It would seem to be crucial to nail the Queen to put a crimp in the Gaim. Are there specific Queen carrying ships or is it optional?
Regards,
Click to expand...

It is tempting to try to hit the Gaim with fighters of your own, and it may just work. But I seriously doubt it man, at 24 wings for a raid point they can field far, far more than anyone else can. I still cant believe they get so many of them with +1 AND fleet carrier.

It will be tough, White Stars are faster than them though, but 3" isnt much room to spare and you will run out of room fast - might be worth a try to make your opponent hedge his bets a bit......

Good luck.
 
I've got a Gaim fleet but not played against ISA yet. I don't think the e-mines or fighters are your biggest problem, worry more about the swarms of breaching pods you'll find flying at you. Even the Victory only has 6 troops while your poor whitestars have just the 1.

Your fighters are going to be overwhelmed. Even the whitestar fighters +3 dogfight won't be much use when outnumbered 6:1.

I'd advise taking for allies fast ships with the escort trait (Drazi or Vree?), or tough gunships (Narn or Abbai).

The best fleet to take against Gaim is more Gaim. For 1 battle point a pair of Stuteeka War Carriers will throw 6, 40" range, 2AD photon bombs and carry 48 fighters and 8 breaching pods and are Fleet Carriers (only hull 4).
 
Frohike said:
David said:
Lord David the Denied said:
There isn't really anything better to go up against Gaim. E-mines are bad by the sucide fighters is what will get you...
Click to expand...

How about Dag'Kars for pounding the seriously evil Gaim mine launchers and swarms of Nials and Furys for the Gaim fighters? Also, after perusing the Gaim list, I am not sure just what ship/s carry the Queens. It would seem to be crucial to nail the Queen to put a crimp in the Gaim. Are there specific Queen carrying ships or is it optional?
Regards,
Click to expand...

It is tempting to try to hit the Gaim with fighters of your own, and it may just work. But I seriously doubt it man, at 24 wings for a raid point they can field far, far more than anyone else can. I still cant believe they get so many of them with +1 AND fleet carrier.

It will be tough, White Stars are faster than them though, but 3" isnt much room to spare and you will run out of room fast - might be worth a try to make your opponent hedge his bets a bit......

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Yes, I noticed that. I was figuring on using both e-mines and fighters together to trim down the fighter horde with the White Stars providing a second line of defense. Looks like a good time to use that long range Neutron Laser Love from the Sharlin to hit their capitol ships.
Regards,
 
inq101 said:
I've got a Gaim fleet but not played against ISA yet. I don't think the e-mines or fighters are your biggest problem, worry more about the swarms of breaching pods you'll find flying at you. Even the Victory only has 6 troops while your poor whitestars have just the 1.

Your fighters are going to be overwhelmed. Even the whitestar fighters +3 dogfight won't be much use when outnumbered 6:1.

I'd advise taking for allies fast ships with the escort trait (Drazi or Vree?), or tough gunships (Narn or Abbai).

The best fleet to take against Gaim is more Gaim. For 1 battle point a pair of Stuteeka War Carriers will throw 6, 40" range, 2AD photon bombs and carry 48 fighters and 8 breaching pods and are Fleet Carriers (only hull 4).
Click to expand...

Good points. Fortunately I have these option available to me as well as others. I look forward to playing against the Gaim. Got two buddys who are frothing at the mouth to get the fleet.
Regards,
 
I understand that the ISA can use allies and some of them can be extremely useful against the Gaim. But what about the average 5 point Raid Scenario? At most you can have 1 Battle point of allies in your campaign fleet. Thats 2 raid points, which mean the rest of your fleet is WS class ships which drop like flies from multiple barrages of e-mines or Nolo'Tars, which while more effective against e-mines than WS still have their own serious weekness against the Gaim (no Troops and AF 4 will not stop a Gaim swarm, especially when you consider the Skirmish Queen ship carries 6 fighters and 4 breaching pods, even if i split AF between all 4 breaching pods odds are at least on of them will get on board)

Im not discounting the fact that the ISA can have a huge fleet list to choose from. Im just pointing out that allies arent always as helpful as everyone is making them out to be.

My point in the beginning was that one fleet having such a superior advantage over another doesn't seem right. Unless its a low level scenario you will have to bring ships the Gaim are extremely effective against. Plus they have lots of superior troops (roll 2 dice and take the high one? were the high number of troops they carry not enough?) which leaves the ISA at a disadvantage. The best defense would be to take 4 Gaim Shuuka Queen ships as allies so you can clear out their dozens of fighters that launch every turn. So I need to bring the same class of ship that Im fighting against to have a chance? No one sees any problem with that? And how many ISA players will think it is fun to buy the same 4 ships every campaign just because someone they play against loves the Gaim fleet?

To be perfectly honest with the increase in races that received e-mines the races that rely on dodge should have had a reduced dependance on it. (lower their dodge and give them more damage and crew)

And again as I said before, Im not even really concerned with the Narn, Brakiri and pak'ma'ra e-mines. Those are either fixed arcs (Narn and Brakiri) or short range all around (pak'ma'ra have one class of ships that can create e-mines to the rear but it is 10" range). With good terrain all those e-mines can be out-flanked. It just seems the Gaim were designed from the ground up to destroy the ISA.
 
inq101 said:
I'd advise taking for allies fast ships with the escort trait (Drazi or Vree?)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd go with those crazy Drazi too. Guardhawks look like they will make good allies against the Gaim for that patrol point they cost. Escort and Anti-Fighter 6. Hull 4 though, so you don't have everything. Other option would be to loot the Minbari list for an Ashinta Heavy Escort, though this is a Raid choice and not as manoeuvrable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
The infamous Eurisko fleet from 1981
Replies
6
Views
559
AnotherDilbert
A
G
Body Armor and Damage to it
Replies
13
Views
888
Anstett
Anstett
S
High Guard Smaller Weapons
5 6 7
Replies
132
Views
6K
Condottiere
C
Terry Mixon
Large Ships, Reduced Crew, and Additional Sensor Stations
3 4 5
Replies
83
Views
3K
AnotherDilbert
A
F
Called Shot and Sustained Damage
Replies
3
Views
469
Bense
Bense
Back
Top