League mix

[Talisinbear]

Hi

If a person was going with a mixed fleet for the League. what would be a good one to match the starter boxes of the other races?

Thanks Talisinbear

 

[BigG26]

If your goin for one of the starter box sets then personally i'd go for the Brakiri box, its the only one that has a sizeable battle fleet! (IIRC close to 10pts at battle pl). Plus you also get 4 Aviokis/Kalivas which are the backbone of any mixed league fleet!! Add to this two of the Tashkat/Takata (the only war level ship, at the mo, in the league fleets) and 4 Ikorta/Brikorta (tough little skirmish ships with 18/20" 2ad, sap, precise main weapon), and the joint fastest fighter in the game in the Falkosi (albeit with 1ad, ap).

Add to this that you have the Brokodos for the fleet carrier ability, and Haliks for their anti fighter capability and you have a decent fleet in its own right!

When you can combine this fleet with the capabilities of the Drazi Strike Hawks (the ability to fire a sky serpent right at a capital ship and to hit it with 8ad from a fighter with hull 5 and a dodge of 4+ is a nasty surprise-even more so now that fighters fire first)/Warbirds/Stormfalcons, the Abbai Milani/Bimith (overwhelming firepower in the port and starboard arcs)/Lakara (14ad all round and a 6 ad beam weapon, hull 6, 8 interceptors) and a couple of the Vree vessels and your talkin bout one tough fleet!!

Hope this helps!

Gary

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You can take Raiders as well for some cheap, numerous fighters. The Raiders Double-V also packs a prtty big wallop. It's dog meat in a fight, but escort them in with other fighters and they'll administer a good hard smack to capital ships...

 

[Burger]

Battlewahgon is pretty good too. Almost as good as some centauri ships with its hull 6, 35 damage and 3AD beam weapon!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

*gasp*

It must be broken!

:shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[Burger]

Well it does have Boresight weapon, that is a disadvantage

 

[Lord David the Denied]

All round I'd say the Raiders Battlewagon could contend with the Centauri Prefect one for one or as part of a fleet. After all, the Raiders only have one other ship worth putting on the table so you'd have plenty of Battlewagons, and you'd easily mob the Centauri fighters before swarming their ships with Double-Vs...

 

[Burger]

1v1 a Prefect will beat a Battlewagon every time, because of the Centauri's +3 initiative, the Battlewagon will never get its boresight lined up. In a fleet, they are pretty similar.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You say that like it's so certain. Watch those initiative dice come up snake eyes a couple of times and you'll change your turn. +3 won't save you if you roll a 2 and he rolls a 12, buddy...

 

[Burger]

According to my maths, a +3 means you'll win initiative over 80% of the time. The one turn in 5 that the Raiders win, 3AD is not going to destroy the Prefect unless you're increcibly lucky. The Prefect will be hitting the Battlewagon every turn.

 

[katadder]

yep, even with -2 (damn abbai) me and nick managed to win init against an Ea fleet every round of one game

 

[Burger]

I'm talking about the general case, not freak occurances. Hash managed to beat my stealth every roll last night, except for one attack on a Nial and one from a Maximus. Does that mean stealth is useless? No, it just meant he was incrdibly lucky that game. Next game, he will fail every single roll (crosses fingers...)

What I am saying is that most of the time, freak occurances excepted, the Prefect will thrash the Battlewagon.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

According to my maths, a +3 means you'll win initiative over 80% of the time. The one turn in 5 that the Raiders win, 3AD is not going to destroy the Prefect unless you're increcibly lucky. The Prefect will be hitting the Battlewagon every turn.

Averages again. Play one hundred games and that will hold true. Play one and you're at the mercy of the dice gods again, and we all know luck goes in streaks.

It won't take much for those 3AD of heavy laser cannons to render the Prefect impotent or at least impair its performance enough to make the outcome less biased in the Centauri's favour. A no firing out of random arc critical could turn very ugly for a Prefect.

On top of that the weak traits on some of the Raiders' weapons don't matter against hull 6 so one of their big disadvantages just disappears.

 

[katadder]

and the battleship has 4 fighter squadrons to throw at the prefect too.

 

[Burger]

Averages again. Play one hundred games and that will hold true. Play one and you're at the mercy of the dice gods again, and we all know luck goes in streaks.

Yes of course. But if you're rolling a D6 and I'm rolling a D20, sometimes the D6 will win... that doesn't mean the D20 and the D6 are just as good as each other. The D20 is obviously going to win, most of the time.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

That's true, but the contest isn't so clear cut. You can say that, mathematically, the Centauri will win initiative 80% of the time, but that doesn't mean that that 80% will be when you need it or that you'll see that percentage of initiative wins in the game.

It'll only take one turn of the Raiders getting the initiative to get the Prefect nicely lined up for some beam-related pain. Add in the 10AD of pulse cannons to the fore and the fighter bases the Battlewagon carries and it's not so helpless as you seem to indicate.

 

[Burger]

I'm not saying its helpless, just that most times the Battlewagon would get thrashed. Just like a D20 will thrash a D6 most times. A few times it will get lucky but most times, it will lose. Thats what statistics are for, thats how betting shops make their money, thats how insurance works, and thats how they predict the weather (OK cancel that last one...)

 

[Captain Kremmen]

If your goin for one of the starter box sets then personally i'd go for the Brakiri box, its the only one that has a sizeable battle fleet! (IIRC close to 10pts at battle pl). Plus you also get 4 Aviokis/Kalivas which are the backbone of any mixed league fleet!! Add to this two of the Tashkat/Takata (the only war level ship, at the mo, in the league fleets) and 4 Ikorta/Brikorta (tough little skirmish ships with 18/20" 2ad, sap, precise main weapon), and the joint fastest fighter in the game in the Falkosi (albeit with 1ad, ap).

Add to this that you have the Brokodos for the fleet carrier ability, and Haliks for their anti fighter capability and you have a decent fleet in its own right!

When you can combine this fleet with the capabilities of the Drazi Strike Hawks (the ability to fire a sky serpent right at a capital ship and to hit it with 8ad from a fighter with hull 5 and a dodge of 4+ is a nasty surprise-even more so now that fighters fire first)/Warbirds/Stormfalcons, the Abbai Milani/Bimith (overwhelming firepower in the port and starboard arcs)/Lakara (14ad all round and a 6 ad beam weapon, hull 6, 8 interceptors) and a couple of the Vree vessels and your talkin bout one tough fleet!!

Hope this helps!

Gary

Could I ask for clarification on the sky serpent please. I thought the turn you launched fighters they could not really do anything shoot etc. I know the sky serpent is launched 8 inches instead of 3 inches. Is it also allowed to fire on take off turn, am I right other fighters can't do that or have I not been paying attention??

Cpt Kremmen

 

[CZuschlag]

That's how I understand it, too Captain Kremmen. I did check this out, I remember, just after the new fighter rules, as I was a bit scared of it. Of course, I could have checked it out wrong.

 

[Burger]

You are correct CK. Sky Serpents, like other fighters, cannot fire on the turn in which they are launched.
Which makes the sky hook catapult kind of useless...