Legal Today - Illegal Tomorrow?

[Hindsight]

First off... I picked up a pack of Nials today, waiting for my Sharlin to arrive (which will become a Tara'lin) and a trio of Blue Stars. Sorry the picture is not awesome or anything, I need to build a light box but we're moving in a couple weeks so I am holding off on new construction.

I was browsing the Fleet List, and there is a points breakdown showing that one Battle point can be broken down into two Raid, four Skirmish, or eight Patrol. When I use Burger's Fleet tool, it I guess is using updated rules, that do not allow you to skip the Skirmish point level when choosing Patrol ships.

As an ISA player, I am just not a fan of that Legend of the Rangers ship. The thing was a derelict for most of the movie if I recall and it just doesn't scream power like the White Stars do. So my option is to either not use a Skirmish ship, and thus not use Blue Stars at all, or use one of my Battle Points (At Battle 5) and bring in an allied Skirmish level ship, instead of using the point for two Dag'kar's as I have it now.

I'm looking for feedback and thoughts on this, as I'm still getting used to the game. I realize that right now, I can use 8 Patrol ships, per Battle point, and that is something on the block to be changed. Just trying to figure out what to shoot for as I make more purchases and get closer to Battle 5, which is what they play at my local store.

I own:

3 White Stars
2 Dag'Kar
3 Blue Stars
8 Nial Starfighter Squads
1 Sharli (Enroute from AOG)

I was thinking of using the other half of my 5th Battle point, to pull in three of the Blue Stars, and a set of Nials, but that skips the Skirmish level all together. Am I not understanding this right?

So yea, thank you for all of the great feedback and discussion so far, across the forums, and thank you for your thoughts on my question here. I am really glad I found this site, and the ACTA game.

 

[Hindsight]

I primed and painted four of the Nial bases. I like them as sets of three, both because it extends the value of one pack of the models, and with six I felt it was more cluttered than it needed to be. 1 Patrol point is a set of six, and that feels right vs. a set of twelve for a single patrol point.

Starfuries are no match for the Nial, canonically speaking, as well.

 

[locarno24]

You can still split a point directly (i.e. Battle - Patrol). That hasn't changed and won't.

The 'must use a skirmish ship' only applies if you want to split down a point multiple times; you only split one point (so one Battle point splits into two Raid points, of which one splits into two Skirmish points, of which one splits into two Patrol points, leaving you with one raid, one skirmish and two patrol).

5 Battle:

Points 1 & 2 - War Priority
Tara'Lin Cruiser + 4 Shial Flights + 1 Flyer Flight

Point 3 - Patrol Priority
Blue Star
Blue Star
Blue Star
Nial Wing (2)
Nial Wing (2)
(Currently you could have more, but Powers and Principalities is reducing the number of points you get for splitting down)

Point 4 - Raid Priority
White Star I
White Star I

Point 5 - Allies - Raid Priority
Dag'Kar Frigate
Dag'Kar Frigate

Upshot is that you're short a flight of flyers. Make sure the second set of Nials are painted differently so you can identify Nial heavy fighters from Shial stealth fighters of the Tara'Lin.

 

[Da Boss]

nice looking paintjobs

 

[Hindsight]

Thank you. I wasn't sure what to do with the Blue Stars. I found a game version of the ship, a mod made for a Star Trek space battle game, Bridge Commander. I took some of what I did from that, theirs was a little more gray, so I added some blues to make it a bluer Blue Star =)

 

[Burger]

I was thinking of using the other half of my 5th Battle point

Here's your problem, there is no such thing as half of a battle point. When splitting a battle point you must use one of the splits listed in the FAP FAQ. You can't spend half at a time.

 

[Hindsight]

Ok yes, the FAQ clears it up. Maybe that should be a part of the FAQ list up top, I had to search a bit to find it on the B5 page.

I can use 1 Battle Point to buy 8 Blue Stars, but not a White Star and Four Blue Stars.

This answers my question, thank you. =)

So I either have one too many White Stars, or one too few, to properly utilize my Battle points. I will have to consider this, and figure out what to add or subtract to make it work.

 

[Hindsight]

Reading over the third document from the new rules, I see that you can now take a single Battle point, and turn it into one Raid and 3 Patrol. So when those rules become available, I can sacrifice one Patrol choice, in exchange for being able to take a White Star, and three Blue Stars, for a single Battle Point. So assuming the new rules are on track for a timely release, I can take a Tara'lin, three White Stars, two Dag'Kars and three Blue Stars as a legal Battle 5 fleet under the ISA.