Minbari Tactics

[cadno ap annwn]

Yes its me again lol

I'm currently playing a campaign with my brother and a friend and we decided that we'd play without any ancients. This naturally meant I suddenly couldn't use my shadows (oh the pain!!). I decided to use Minbari due to the abundance of beam weapons and naturally the stealth ability. Though not a patch on the old slicer beam and shields I've found them quite fun to play with.

My question though is can anyone advice me on tactics with the minbari. I've played against Centauri with those dreaded Demos ships and got my backside handed to me!!

HELP!!

Rich

 

[Da Boss]

MInbari usually do quite well against Centauri as he still has to see you and for once his fighters are only as good if not worse than yours. keep at range - the vast majority of his guns are shorter range than your secondary's. Use terrain / all power to engines to go through his fleet if they try to lunge into range - you usually have excellent all round firepower. Minbari can often afford to play the long game - picking away at ships.

At lower levels the Ashinta is a horribly effective ship - it can cruise about at range on CBD picking away at ships - several in a squadron are not nice. The vaunted Centauri interceptors are useless against most Minbari.

At higher levels the Sharlin is a beast but then squadroned Tinashis hand out beamy death and have horriblly effective secondaries.

Only beat the Minbari a couple of times - as ever lucky stealth rolls win or loose the game.........

 

[Burger]

Though, against a Demos swarm there really isn't much you can do...
Keep range? Yeah that'll work for 1 turn if you're lucky.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Not much you can do? Cut them to bits with your precise, double-damage beams. You know, the ones that massively outrange their weapons, while holding the range open and using stealth to avoid their fire... :roll:

 

[AdrianH]

So he wants to swarm you with small stuff. Do it back to him, harder - spend all your FAP's on Nials, then watch him swear because the Demos has no anti-fighter defence.

Otherwise, I wonder how a bunch of Teshlans would fare? You'll still be outnumbered but at least they have the speed and agility to mix it with the Demos. I believe their Nials can be used as interceptors. And even if he does wipe out your cruisers, the Nials should be able to exact some sort of revenge.

 

[Da Boss]

Though, against a Demos swarm there really isn't much you can do...
Keep range? Yeah that'll work for 1 turn if you're lucky.

Minbari are as mentioned blessed with good all round fire - especially ships like Ashinta - if they come to you - go past them and fire - probably on CBD - if out numbered - squadron time - again all round fire so not so worried about arcs - 4 Ashintas firing 24 AD of TL Minbeams out of each arc or one if CBD - you have a good chance of firing first.

TGT is the one who has repeaedly showed how effective this ship is - I have also played with and against it in campaigns - hugely good.

 

[Burger]

Not much you can do? Cut them to bits with your precise, double-damage beams. You know, the ones that massively outrange their weapons, while holding the range open and using stealth to avoid their fire... :roll:

Massively outrange? Demos has 20" weapons. I don't call 20 vs 25 (fo Tinashi) or 30 (for Sharlin) "massively" outranging!

Hold the range? Demos has speed 14, 2/45 turns. You'll be able to hold range for 1 turn if you're lucky, or 0 turns if there is debris he can use.

Using stealth to avoid fire? Well yeah, but 5+ down to 4+ due to close range, down to 3+ due to that Corvan, down to 2+ due to previous hits... it's not much of a good defence for long.

Combine with the swarm effect vs big ships. Sorry but I repeat, there is nothing you can do against a Demos swarm!


Ashinta is good, yes. But I don't think 5 of them would be able to beat 10 Demos.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

It has a 20", slow-loading, single damage weapon. Minbari beams are all above 20", precise, double or triple damage, and you can hold the range if you know what you're doing for at least two turns, God knows Triggy's done it to me enough times with enough different fleets. 14" isn't very far when you're playing on a 48" gaming board.

 

[H]

well then, i have done this, and I had an extremely messy battle. Admittedly my opponent only had 6 Demos in his 5 battle point fleet, he decided any more was too cheesy.
Now then, I'm not sure where the range issue came in, the demos has good solid range. certainly longer than the Ashinta, which in usual battles is a super ship.

However, and I may well get laughed at here. . . I used the Trolligan. Why you may ask, well, it's tough, and as it closes range it just gets better and better. Hull 6, good damage points and a flyer.. yeah yeah a flyer, trust me, it's not as bad as all that. using the flyer as an interceptor, the trollis mowed through the centauri lines. They weren't focused on the demos, but they certainly killed almost everything else until an adrift crit left one floating away. . the full batrep exists somewhere on this thread, the combinationg of tough troligans and relatively tough for PL Ashintas put out a withering amount of fire, something the demos really can't cope with. Yes I got smacked about, yes my stealth was almost useless, not only on the trolli, but my ashintas as well.

The obvious issue was the fact that slow loading weapons are considered not to have fired if they fail stealth, bah, and the CBD on the demos.

 

[Target]

Use flyers as interceptors & go for Tigara's, should work vs Demos swarm.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The only difficulty with Troligans and Tigaras is that most, if not all, their weapons can be intercepted, and the Demos comes loaded with an interceptor. Add a Maximus and/or Sentri fighters and it can be hard to kill them that way.

It would work, certainly, and it takes away his main tactic, but you want some beamage in there, too.

 

[katadder]

It has a 20", slow-loading, single damage weapon. Minbari beams are all above 20", precise, double or triple damage, and you can hold the range if you know what you're doing for at least two turns, God knows Triggy's done it to me enough times with enough different fleets. 14" isn't very far when you're playing on a 48" gaming board.

well considering the effective range of a demos is 41". add in your deployment (which even on annihilation is 6") and that means you have 47" of those 48" covered 1st turn. 2nd turn you're in range for ion cannons too. as burger said, minbari cannot keep range against you.
also the torps being slow loading is almost a bonus, if you dont see the minbos you dont fire the torps so not as if you wasting them by trying.
best thing minbari can do is take fast, agile teshlans. you fly towards them, they APTE past you and use rear minibeams.

 

[Da Boss]

Ashinta is good, yes. But I don't think 5 of them would be able to beat 10 Demos.

I'd be interested to watch the battle - I am not sure it would be that one sided - Demos is too good yes - but if and when its reduced it would bemuch more even. No Corvan or fighters to help break steath

What do you think about 5 Ashinta vs 10 Vorchan? The numebr of tiems I have and/or watched people fail massively important 2+ or 3+ stealth rolls........all the time the TL minibeams was wearing away ships - yes the Demos can use CBD but so can the Ashinta and it does not care what arc you are in

 

[katadder]

10 vorchans or 10 demos?
ashintas are another good option because of that, and they are tougher than teshlans etc.
10 demos in 1st turn at max range, probably 3 see target, 18 torps, 12 hit thats 12 damage and 4 crits average which will kill or cripple a teshlan, but an ashinta would survive a bit more.

 

[H]

of course the isse with 10 Vorchan, or Demos is that you can get sooo many rolls against stealth, you should in theory be able to take an ashinta down quickly.

but again it's all down to the yes/no/win/lose aspect of Stealth.

 

[Silvereye]

Minbari are an interesting fight. For most of the their fleet options, they have the drawback that once you are past the stealth they have weak hulls/Damage and most of their ships are designed to engage a single ship at a time.

There advantages are they all have Advanced Jump Engines (hyperspace entry), and the majority of their weaponry will ignore interceptors and Hull score and their Neutron Lasers are Precise.

Things to remember: their fighters can be used as interceptors and Fusion Lasers can be redirected with a Scout.

Against the Demos fleet, spend a FAP fraction on Flyer flights and use them as interceptors, spend the rest of the FAP on Torothas (hyperspace in and take them from behind). Consider spending FAPs on the Morshin if you can (to recycle those Flyers that fail as interceptors), it also packs a Neutron Laser and 8 Nials for anti-ship duty and a bit of command to enhance your initiative advantage. Blow the rest of the FAPs on Ashintas, all round twin-link enough advanced anti-fighter that any fighters he might have brought along will think its suicide to attack any of your ships.

Torothas weaponry is mostly interceptable, though its speed and manoeuvrability could be helpful.
Ashinta is a cut down battleship, pretty much a guaranteed choice for most Minbari fleets. Plenty of Twin-Linked firepower too.

Of the rest of the Raid choices, Teshlan is a good ship, fast and manoeuvrable, though not really suited in the ship of the line role this fight will need.
Tigara is a brawler, might be worth considering if you are running more Torothas and can make a hyperspace entry.
Leshath is just too specialised for this particular fight.

 

[Ripple]

The expectation that 3 out of 10 would penetrate stealth at range 20 is wrong by the fact that after the first one gets through the others would need one less. At the least I would think that warrants rounding the fraction of the third for the initial roles up to 4 seeing.

Normally on the turn when there is normally the close and kill shot the minbari try to power away, but they are so out sinked this time, they would be hard pressed to force it completely.

Ripple

 

[Triggy]

The expectation that 3 out of 10 would penetrate stealth at range 20 is wrong by the fact that after the first one gets through the others would need one less. At the least I would think that warrants rounding the fraction of the third for the initial roles up to 4 seeing.

Normally on the turn when there is normally the close and kill shot the minbari try to power away, but they are so out sinked this time, they would be hard pressed to force it completely.

Ripple

Exactly, at range (fighters haven't had time to engage yet), the first shot is the most unlikely and often will take two or three to get the first hit on the target ship. Once this first shot is made it gets a lot easier.

The big advantage with Stealth is that it prevents the early enemy shots of the game thus giving more time for the Minbari ships to act whilst fully functional. This is important as criticals are so important in the game and the Minbari can get the jump on most enemy races before they start to suffer punishment from enemy fire.

 

[katadder]

The expectation that 3 out of 10 would penetrate stealth at range 20 is wrong by the fact that after the first one gets through the others would need one less. At the least I would think that warrants rounding the fraction of the third for the initial roles up to 4 seeing.

Normally on the turn when there is normally the close and kill shot the minbari try to power away, but they are so out sinked this time, they would be hard pressed to force it completely.

Ripple

true, could get 4 or even more if you get the early spotting. even going with 4 thats 18 hits average with 6 crits, should do over a teshlan.

 

[Da Boss]

I presume all the Minbari are also on CBD on the first turn - or at least the Ashinta........