Lessons for the Gorn
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
Keeper Nilbog said:
Well, our studio fleet only has one of each ship, so my options for a campaign battle group were somewhat limited
The shields do let the light cruiser down, but then it has four more plasma dice - also another phaser up front, whioch is nice for softening a target up before a plasma strike. But then it again, it has enough plasma for that to not really matter against many ships!
Ultimately, the light cruiser bridges the gap between the Heavy Destroyer and the really big and mean stuff. If you want to bring a larger ship down, the Heavy Destroyer must work with another ship, whereas the Light Cruiser is probably the smallest Gorn ship that might just be able to do it on its own.
You pays your points, you takes your chances!
Keeper Nilbog
Mongoose
HDD - 145
CL - 175
CM-K - 195
BCH - 240
CL - 175
CM-K - 195
BCH - 240
6x stego HDD
2x CM-K
1x BCH
1500 points of fun.
roll the hdd in a picket out in front of the bch, with the cm-k on each flank slightly back. anything that runs past the bch will get two rtypes in the face. i chose the r based on its range. i plan on holding the cmk back to take advantage of any oppurtunites.
2x CM-K
1x BCH
1500 points of fun.
roll the hdd in a picket out in front of the bch, with the cm-k on each flank slightly back. anything that runs past the bch will get two rtypes in the face. i chose the r based on its range. i plan on holding the cmk back to take advantage of any oppurtunites.
AAR of 2 Klingon vs Gorn battles today.
Game 1:
Klingons: (me)
C7
3 D5W
3 F5
2 E4
vs
Gorn CC
BC
2 CL
4 DD
It was a slaughter for the Gorns. I blew up 2 DD on his approach, beyond plasma range (using retrograde tactics). He then lost a BC on T3, and I shot down alot of his plasma. Much of the rest was hitting Klingon front shields. He fired 12AD from a CL into the front shield of a D5W...3 dice hit (Klingon defensive fire), he rolled so-so, and the D5W took only a few hits on the shield. He looked shocked and said no way... He conceded, being nearly out of plasmas. The Klingons lost no ships.
We switched sides, and mixed up the Gorn ships a bit.
Same force for the Klingons, and the Gorn took:
BCH
CM
2 HD
4 BD
This one was a little closer; I lost a BD due to fire on the 2 closing turns. I had the forces split into 2 forces about 10" apart; one angled a little to the right and turned in slightly left, and the other to the left which turned in slightly to the right. The big ships were in front, with the HD and 2 BDs a little behind.
The Klingons moved on the flanks of the CM and BCH with all the frigates conducting RX attacks at close range.. The Klingon cruisers went up the middle and split right and left. This enabled the smaller Gorn ships to get in some juicy flank shots with plasmas flying left and right.
However, the Gorns only managed to get a couple ships on IDF, whereas about 75% of the Klingon ships made IDF. Despite that, I figure I got about 15-18 dice worth of plasma out of 60 dice worth fired onto a target (10 dice worth were unfired due to lack of suitable targets). Some Plasma-S were fired at 9-10" range against flank shields and did okay. I overestimated how many phasers were available to defend a crippled D5W and I sent 2 S-torps from range 10 into it's rear. The cascading criticals caused it to blow up in the midst of 6 ships. :shock: Gotta love those level 2 crits from plasmas when they do score though.
At the end of T3, the Gorns had lost a CM, and a BD. The Klingons lost a D5W, E4, and a F5 crippled. It was a wash points-wise, 310 Gorn vs 330 Klingon.
We both thought that phasers are way too effective vs plasmas. I still think that it ought to take 2 phaser hits to negate one die worth of plasma.
T4 would have been ugly for the Gorns, as they were nearly all out torps, with a bunch of Klingons able to hop on their butt. A D5W and 2 F5 on the tail of the Gorn BCH and HD. On the other side of the battle, it was a HD and a damaged BD vs a C7, D5W and a E4.
I thought the splitting of groups yielded many more flank shots than in the first game where he basically charged in and several ships were out of position (and didn't have much in the way of targets). But I don't see how I could have done better than I did.
As for the Klingon drones, they were fairly effective vs Gorns without enough phasers to deal with them.
I really liked the BDs. Good ships. The HDs were eh, okay.
Pic of the end of game 2:
The Fed BCH was a Gorn BCH, the Fed CLs were Gorn HDs, the Fed FF were Gorn BD.
Game 1:
Klingons: (me)
C7
3 D5W
3 F5
2 E4
vs
Gorn CC
BC
2 CL
4 DD
It was a slaughter for the Gorns. I blew up 2 DD on his approach, beyond plasma range (using retrograde tactics). He then lost a BC on T3, and I shot down alot of his plasma. Much of the rest was hitting Klingon front shields. He fired 12AD from a CL into the front shield of a D5W...3 dice hit (Klingon defensive fire), he rolled so-so, and the D5W took only a few hits on the shield. He looked shocked and said no way... He conceded, being nearly out of plasmas. The Klingons lost no ships.
We switched sides, and mixed up the Gorn ships a bit.
Same force for the Klingons, and the Gorn took:
BCH
CM
2 HD
4 BD
This one was a little closer; I lost a BD due to fire on the 2 closing turns. I had the forces split into 2 forces about 10" apart; one angled a little to the right and turned in slightly left, and the other to the left which turned in slightly to the right. The big ships were in front, with the HD and 2 BDs a little behind.
The Klingons moved on the flanks of the CM and BCH with all the frigates conducting RX attacks at close range.. The Klingon cruisers went up the middle and split right and left. This enabled the smaller Gorn ships to get in some juicy flank shots with plasmas flying left and right.
However, the Gorns only managed to get a couple ships on IDF, whereas about 75% of the Klingon ships made IDF. Despite that, I figure I got about 15-18 dice worth of plasma out of 60 dice worth fired onto a target (10 dice worth were unfired due to lack of suitable targets). Some Plasma-S were fired at 9-10" range against flank shields and did okay. I overestimated how many phasers were available to defend a crippled D5W and I sent 2 S-torps from range 10 into it's rear. The cascading criticals caused it to blow up in the midst of 6 ships. :shock: Gotta love those level 2 crits from plasmas when they do score though.
At the end of T3, the Gorns had lost a CM, and a BD. The Klingons lost a D5W, E4, and a F5 crippled. It was a wash points-wise, 310 Gorn vs 330 Klingon.
We both thought that phasers are way too effective vs plasmas. I still think that it ought to take 2 phaser hits to negate one die worth of plasma.
T4 would have been ugly for the Gorns, as they were nearly all out torps, with a bunch of Klingons able to hop on their butt. A D5W and 2 F5 on the tail of the Gorn BCH and HD. On the other side of the battle, it was a HD and a damaged BD vs a C7, D5W and a E4.
I thought the splitting of groups yielded many more flank shots than in the first game where he basically charged in and several ships were out of position (and didn't have much in the way of targets). But I don't see how I could have done better than I did.
As for the Klingon drones, they were fairly effective vs Gorns without enough phasers to deal with them.
I really liked the BDs. Good ships. The HDs were eh, okay.
Pic of the end of game 2:
The Fed BCH was a Gorn BCH, the Fed CLs were Gorn HDs, the Fed FF were Gorn BD.
Boosting shields might yield better results against drones than attempting IDF, and it can help a little vs other weapons too.
I haven't had problem with phasers vs my plasma yet, but i can see how IDF can make it more annoying.
Still, when you get at least 4 AD through defense, and roll nothing but 5 and 6 for those 4 AD, man its a good feeling, so very very good.
I haven't had problem with phasers vs my plasma yet, but i can see how IDF can make it more annoying.
Still, when you get at least 4 AD through defense, and roll nothing but 5 and 6 for those 4 AD, man its a good feeling, so very very good.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Da Boss said:
Especially for a short range race like the Gorn. Lots of nice terrain to hide behind stops those 24" Disruptors and 36" Drones. Try again with plenty of terrain for the Gorn to use and see how it goes.
The game plays significantly different with all the rules on terrain and table size in place than on the traditional blank black star field. The options for tactical enjoyment and challenge multiply when you have to dodge asteroids, can hide behind or duck into gas clouds or slingshot around a planet or moon.
It is also 'historical' in that virtually all naval battles in history take place near land. From Salamis through Lissa and virtually all WW2 surface actions, open ocean engagements were very rare. In space where the ratio of nothing to something is vastly larger, about the only way spaceships could hope to encounter each other would be a solar system or some other important item of stellar geography.
It is also 'historical' in that virtually all naval battles in history take place near land. From Salamis through Lissa and virtually all WW2 surface actions, open ocean engagements were very rare. In space where the ratio of nothing to something is vastly larger, about the only way spaceships could hope to encounter each other would be a solar system or some other important item of stellar geography.
That has been answered I think. Use the terrain generator in the book. It is fairly important if you want a balanced game. The generator may produce maps that are sparse on terrain or only round the egdes, but on the whole it helps a lot in stopping the long range sniping and retrograde against close range fleets.
nekomata fuyu
Mongoose
That's like saying "My Federation fleet is playing without Photon Torpedoes, as my opponent seems to have a dislike for them."billclo said:
nekomata fuyu said:That's like saying "My Federation fleet is playing without Photon Torpedoes, as my opponent seems to have a dislike for them."billclo said:
Yah, but I can't exactly beat my opponent upside the head and make him play with terrain can I?
I agree that open space battles ought to be rare; unless one side has to stay and defend something what's the point?
JohnDW said:
Yah, I don't see how I'm going to win regardless of what tactic I used when 75%+ of my plasma dice are shot down because nearly the entire enemy fleet is on IDF. Gorns have inferior phaser suites due to their funky arcs. And you end up using many of them vs Klingon drones anyways.
billclo said:
You should be careful there. You said the klingons got lucky on their IDF, firing 60-70 plasma dice and having 45+ dice shot down would be a statictical freak against just 9 ships (unless you mistakenly fired a bit of plasma against each enemy ship!). Plasma is the single biggest hitting weapon in the game, and by a very large margin. Yes it requires getting quite close but it is utterly brutal when it does get there, even with phasers on their current 1 to 1 reduction. On a 2 to 1 reduction it would be nigh on impossible to defend against, even in your game the extreme IDF uber lucky fleet would still have taken another 23+ dice of damage, enough to slag a DN, more normal rolling would have done a good amount more than that.
Play a few games with random terrain as per the book, that should make a difference.
No, I fired against only 3 targets with plasma due to some ships having difficulty lining up a target - I engaged a D5W in the flank and a D5W in the rear, plus a F5 from the rear. The E4 kill was from phasers up the rear.
I guess I'm just getting really frustrated. EVERY time we play Klingons vs someone else the Klingons always win. We switch off who plays them, and they win every time regardless of tactics used by the non-Klingon force. Frankly the 2nd game where the Gorns killed a D5W, E4 and crippled an E4 but lost a CM and a BD was the best performance vs Klingons yet.
And the Gorns were still going to get creamed the next turn since they had only about 10AD worth of unfired plasma and most of the Klingons on their rear.
Perhaps if we get more opponents and encounter different play styles we might stumble upon a winning combination, but as it stands at least for us the Klingons are nigh-unbeatable. It's to the point where the game isn't fun anymore, when the Klingons win every time. And if a game isn't any fun, why bother? I'm actually considering selling off my considerable investment in minis and walk away from the game if the Klingon-wins-every-time trend continues. Or just ban Klingons, sell their minis off, and play with other races.
I guess I'm just getting really frustrated. EVERY time we play Klingons vs someone else the Klingons always win. We switch off who plays them, and they win every time regardless of tactics used by the non-Klingon force. Frankly the 2nd game where the Gorns killed a D5W, E4 and crippled an E4 but lost a CM and a BD was the best performance vs Klingons yet.
And the Gorns were still going to get creamed the next turn since they had only about 10AD worth of unfired plasma and most of the Klingons on their rear.Perhaps if we get more opponents and encounter different play styles we might stumble upon a winning combination, but as it stands at least for us the Klingons are nigh-unbeatable. It's to the point where the game isn't fun anymore, when the Klingons win every time. And if a game isn't any fun, why bother? I'm actually considering selling off my considerable investment in minis and walk away from the game if the Klingon-wins-every-time trend continues. Or just ban Klingons, sell their minis off, and play with other races.
