Fleets:-
Minbari - 2*Shantavi, 2* Tinashi, and 2* Ashinta
Centauri - primus, balvarin, Centurion, 3* Suluust, 6* Demos
Recently, Myself and marky mark at ID gaming played his first second ed game. Now we had the re-match. Afer a narrow minbari victory last time, I chose to ditch the trolligans, a morshin, and leshaths and go for some beamy goodness. He chose to drop a centurion for an extra 2 demos, because he knows they terrify me
Winning initiative, the centauri politely asked the Minbari to set up first. I set up dead centre with the two ashintas flanking the two pairs of their battleship bretheren. The centauri set up the 6 demos to the right (as looking from the minbari view) the primus, centurion and balvarin in the centre, and the 3 suluusts on the left. I felt a bit of a pincer coming on!!
Turn 1.
The Minbari won initiative, and to make things fun, the centauri all stopped their Balvarin. In response, the minbari all stopped their entire fleet. Yes, I have all my ships in a squadron, I wanted one big beamy fireing round. The Centauri Had to come into my range to shoot me. And so they did, the sulussts came forward in their squadron, the Primus did also, closing blast doors as it came, as did the centurion. The entire Demos squadron.. all stopped… I was a tad taken back by this, but it helped me decide to take down the primus in on deadly salvo. The mega squadroned fired, nothing had come into minibeam range (well a centurion had, but he;d done it by mistake, and I allowed him to move it back a tadge) so we had 8 dice of TD and 8 dice of DD…. And what a dismal role it was. In total I did 21 damage to the primus, would have been 29 but his closed doors saved him somewhat. I was quite gutted, as with my 12 dice of hits, I got 1, yes 1 critical with my precise goodness. . . this wasn't looking like the start I planned… but lo, someone smiled a little on me as I removed the forward arc from the primus. Not to be outdone, the Suluust fired at a shantavi..one of them saw it and promptly blew out it’s beam, and with those 6" secondaries to the front, it was pretty neutred. And that was pretty much the end of turn one, the only other ship in range had been the primus, with it's now defunct front arc.
Turn 2
The centauri snatched the initiative, and the Minbari squadron broke. The right flank ashinta tunred inwards and flew across the minbari line, presentine different potential firing arcs depending upon what the century did. They of course all stopped that damned balvarin and so my left flank ashinta moved slowly in front of it's sister ship. The Centauri feeling that they needed to smash stealth moved up the primus right between the ashintas, it didn't need it's forward arc now! The Tinashis decided to concentrate on the primus and sullusts so they too moved in behind the ashintas, presenting their starboard arcs to the prospective demos approach. As it was the centurion halted, with a line of minbari in ffront of ti, and the mangled Shantavi and it's partner all powered to engines to get those juicy molecular pulsars in range. And so they swept in, six fully loaded demos hurtled forward, not quite getting within 8 inches, phew..
And so firing began in earnest. Starting with the primus to drop stealth on the Ashintas, it failed woefully on both, much cursing from the centauri player. In response the Tinashis poored flaming death in to the Suluust, giving it a vital system weapon arc loss, and with only one arc, it was pretty useless. More fire on the primus damaged it, but it was still going. A return of fire from the suluust rendered my intact shantavi.. adrift, and tore into the other. But both managed to fire and the combined fire took out the centurion before it had fired a shot. Things were however looking grim for the Minbari, surrounded by demos and Suluusts and 2 battleships looking beaten and bruised. A flurry of fire from the Ashintas managed to remove the front arcv on a demos, whoo! In resonse only on demos managed to get a lock on, and mostly ineffectively it hit a Tinashi.. for 4 damage and then, a Tinashi is adrift, rats!
End of turn and despite the casualties being centauri, I felt worried, with 2 Shantavis now effectively out of the battle, one adrift, one beamless and unlikely to turn back to the fray anytime soon. #
Turn 3.
Centauri again win initiative.
The Minbari all stop their right ashinta, the primus moves forward again hoping to get out of beam arc of the tinashis. The second ashinta all stops. I am covering most of the table in 3 different arcs between the two of them. The Demos seem to think what the heck, and swarm forward targeting the ashintas and my drifting Tinashi. The other tinashi moves up behind it's sister, whilst the sulusst concentrate on the Mauled Shantavis. Who with one drifing egde towards a balvarin.
Finally the centauri fighters swarm in, and are mostly blown away by antifighjter fire, but one Sjantavi is just beyond escor range and is crippled, loosing it's stealth but hanging on to it's flight computer!. As the centauri fire, it's goodby from him, as one shantavi explodes horrendously, hitting it's sister in the blast and crippling it also, again removing it's stealth. The remaining suluust fire turns it to to dust, and the Minbari player makes a strangled meep sound in his throat as he looses almost half of his fleet in a single salvo. In a fit of anger the tinashis lay waste around them, beams lance into one of the suluusts, removing it's special action of closed blast doors, and smashing it to a crippled state, the other tinashi lances it’s beam into the Primus, leaving it with only a few crew and one damage. Demos begin to see their error of swarming around the Tinashis as one is cast adrift, and another looses it's forward arc. Only now it seems are the Minbari dice roused to anger. Fearing for the primus, it tries to lock on to a Tinashi, and boy does it fail spectacularly. An ashinta then sinishes off both a primus, and a Suluust, and manages to cripple a demos along the way. The demos squadron finally fires and the Ashinta dies, and a Tinashi takes a small hit. The centauri player looks flustered. I look at my dice in amazement. Obviously I need to get them angry.
Turn 4
Yup, you guessed it, centauri have won initiative. the remaining ashinta all stops and pivots, just for the hell of it really. The Balvarin moves forward into the space vacated by the shantavi's, closing on the drifting Tinashi. Again the other tinashi closes on it's sister ship. Thanks to the drifting speed and close quarters, the squadron integrity is still intact. The suluust closes in on the second tinashi, point blank range! And with no more ships to move, the demos continue to swarm the tinashis, apart from one that has 2 turns to fix it’s adrift before leaving the table!!
Firing is from the Balvarin, a tactical decision in the hope of lowering stealth for comrades, and it hits the drifiting tinashi causeing some significant damage. Again the tinashis open up forst, destroying 2 demos, and hitting the suluust and Balvarin fior minimal damage. As the demos open up, the damaged Tinashi finally dies. Drifting along harmlessly as a drifting hulk. The Suluust prepares to take on the second tinashi, it's stealth at 3 by now.. and misses with a 2…. The remaining ashinta pops another demos, yay.
The drifting demos with all hands on deck, fails to repair it's adrift, and with 2 adrifts in place, it cannot possibly repair them before going off the table, and is removed.
The balance is mostly with the Minbari as that suluust has 3 damage points left!
Turn 5.
Minbari finally win initiative again yay.
We have a comedy lineup of ships as the ashinta is followed by a balvarin, followed by a tinashi and a demos briging up the rear.. the suluust glides across the back of it all, unable to bring any guns to bear. The tinashi opens up on the Demos, who takes NO damage thanks to his closed blast doors! The Balvarin gets the rest of the forward fire, taking 1 damage against thanks to amazing closed blast doors. The Suluust however dies with a whimper. The Demos poors fire into the Ashinta crippling it, but crucially it keeps it's stealth and flight computer! Tha ashinta does bugger all damage to anything and the balvarin manages to push that ashinta closer to death.
Turn 6
Here now we have a battle and a crippled rain against a raid and a skirmish ship, surely the Minbari will win. And they get initiative for a start. The ashinta tries to loop away from the Demos but just does not have the speed or maneuvreability to do so, however it has brought the ship into the side arc of the tinashi. The balavarin and tinashi reamin in formation as they were. And the Tinashi fires first, a good side shot on the demos and it dies quickly. All that is left is the balvarin. A solid beam shot slices therough it, and lo, a 6-6 crit! The balvarin explodes in a hail of metal and mangled sentries, and the M inbari are victorius with a half damage Tinashi, and a very very mangled Ashinta
Winner, Minbari.. just
Again, a very very close game from my perspective. Poor Old mark has been doing everything right, and sucking me into a big old ruck! But his stealth rolling lets him down. Perhaps not taking a scout has been a big mistake, but I would have been targeting it immediately.
So then, Trolligan versus tinashi, versus Shantavi.
I have heard a lot of people rate the Shantavi, hence why I took it, and I have to say, I thought it sucked. It's a bit of a one trick pony, and if that beam isn’t working for you, it has nothing. The tinashi on the other hand, with those twin linked minibeams is quite horrendous, the minibeams did far more damage than my beams throughout. As for the trolligan, it didn't appear in this game, but in the previous game, it was superb, the damage potential in all arcs from this baby is great, and in a fleet that has numerical superiority and can and should bring stealth down, it’s hull 6 is a godsend! I would have to think long and hard between a trolli or tinashi, probably dependant upon opponents. I looked at the neshetan, but just couldn't see anything to make me want it over the other ships. Maybe someone could enlighten me.
I have promised mark I ill take a different fleet next time but I have had 2 of my most enjoyable games against him, so next time think I'll try Brakiri, not played them in second ed. Should be fun
Minbari - 2*Shantavi, 2* Tinashi, and 2* Ashinta
Centauri - primus, balvarin, Centurion, 3* Suluust, 6* Demos
Recently, Myself and marky mark at ID gaming played his first second ed game. Now we had the re-match. Afer a narrow minbari victory last time, I chose to ditch the trolligans, a morshin, and leshaths and go for some beamy goodness. He chose to drop a centurion for an extra 2 demos, because he knows they terrify me
Winning initiative, the centauri politely asked the Minbari to set up first. I set up dead centre with the two ashintas flanking the two pairs of their battleship bretheren. The centauri set up the 6 demos to the right (as looking from the minbari view) the primus, centurion and balvarin in the centre, and the 3 suluusts on the left. I felt a bit of a pincer coming on!!
Turn 1.
The Minbari won initiative, and to make things fun, the centauri all stopped their Balvarin. In response, the minbari all stopped their entire fleet. Yes, I have all my ships in a squadron, I wanted one big beamy fireing round. The Centauri Had to come into my range to shoot me. And so they did, the sulussts came forward in their squadron, the Primus did also, closing blast doors as it came, as did the centurion. The entire Demos squadron.. all stopped… I was a tad taken back by this, but it helped me decide to take down the primus in on deadly salvo. The mega squadroned fired, nothing had come into minibeam range (well a centurion had, but he;d done it by mistake, and I allowed him to move it back a tadge) so we had 8 dice of TD and 8 dice of DD…. And what a dismal role it was. In total I did 21 damage to the primus, would have been 29 but his closed doors saved him somewhat. I was quite gutted, as with my 12 dice of hits, I got 1, yes 1 critical with my precise goodness. . . this wasn't looking like the start I planned… but lo, someone smiled a little on me as I removed the forward arc from the primus. Not to be outdone, the Suluust fired at a shantavi..one of them saw it and promptly blew out it’s beam, and with those 6" secondaries to the front, it was pretty neutred. And that was pretty much the end of turn one, the only other ship in range had been the primus, with it's now defunct front arc.
Turn 2
The centauri snatched the initiative, and the Minbari squadron broke. The right flank ashinta tunred inwards and flew across the minbari line, presentine different potential firing arcs depending upon what the century did. They of course all stopped that damned balvarin and so my left flank ashinta moved slowly in front of it's sister ship. The Centauri feeling that they needed to smash stealth moved up the primus right between the ashintas, it didn't need it's forward arc now! The Tinashis decided to concentrate on the primus and sullusts so they too moved in behind the ashintas, presenting their starboard arcs to the prospective demos approach. As it was the centurion halted, with a line of minbari in ffront of ti, and the mangled Shantavi and it's partner all powered to engines to get those juicy molecular pulsars in range. And so they swept in, six fully loaded demos hurtled forward, not quite getting within 8 inches, phew..
And so firing began in earnest. Starting with the primus to drop stealth on the Ashintas, it failed woefully on both, much cursing from the centauri player. In response the Tinashis poored flaming death in to the Suluust, giving it a vital system weapon arc loss, and with only one arc, it was pretty useless. More fire on the primus damaged it, but it was still going. A return of fire from the suluust rendered my intact shantavi.. adrift, and tore into the other. But both managed to fire and the combined fire took out the centurion before it had fired a shot. Things were however looking grim for the Minbari, surrounded by demos and Suluusts and 2 battleships looking beaten and bruised. A flurry of fire from the Ashintas managed to remove the front arcv on a demos, whoo! In resonse only on demos managed to get a lock on, and mostly ineffectively it hit a Tinashi.. for 4 damage and then, a Tinashi is adrift, rats!
End of turn and despite the casualties being centauri, I felt worried, with 2 Shantavis now effectively out of the battle, one adrift, one beamless and unlikely to turn back to the fray anytime soon. #
Turn 3.
Centauri again win initiative.
The Minbari all stop their right ashinta, the primus moves forward again hoping to get out of beam arc of the tinashis. The second ashinta all stops. I am covering most of the table in 3 different arcs between the two of them. The Demos seem to think what the heck, and swarm forward targeting the ashintas and my drifting Tinashi. The other tinashi moves up behind it's sister, whilst the sulusst concentrate on the Mauled Shantavis. Who with one drifing egde towards a balvarin.
Finally the centauri fighters swarm in, and are mostly blown away by antifighjter fire, but one Sjantavi is just beyond escor range and is crippled, loosing it's stealth but hanging on to it's flight computer!. As the centauri fire, it's goodby from him, as one shantavi explodes horrendously, hitting it's sister in the blast and crippling it also, again removing it's stealth. The remaining suluust fire turns it to to dust, and the Minbari player makes a strangled meep sound in his throat as he looses almost half of his fleet in a single salvo. In a fit of anger the tinashis lay waste around them, beams lance into one of the suluusts, removing it's special action of closed blast doors, and smashing it to a crippled state, the other tinashi lances it’s beam into the Primus, leaving it with only a few crew and one damage. Demos begin to see their error of swarming around the Tinashis as one is cast adrift, and another looses it's forward arc. Only now it seems are the Minbari dice roused to anger. Fearing for the primus, it tries to lock on to a Tinashi, and boy does it fail spectacularly. An ashinta then sinishes off both a primus, and a Suluust, and manages to cripple a demos along the way. The demos squadron finally fires and the Ashinta dies, and a Tinashi takes a small hit. The centauri player looks flustered. I look at my dice in amazement. Obviously I need to get them angry.
Turn 4
Yup, you guessed it, centauri have won initiative. the remaining ashinta all stops and pivots, just for the hell of it really. The Balvarin moves forward into the space vacated by the shantavi's, closing on the drifting Tinashi. Again the other tinashi closes on it's sister ship. Thanks to the drifting speed and close quarters, the squadron integrity is still intact. The suluust closes in on the second tinashi, point blank range! And with no more ships to move, the demos continue to swarm the tinashis, apart from one that has 2 turns to fix it’s adrift before leaving the table!!
Firing is from the Balvarin, a tactical decision in the hope of lowering stealth for comrades, and it hits the drifiting tinashi causeing some significant damage. Again the tinashis open up forst, destroying 2 demos, and hitting the suluust and Balvarin fior minimal damage. As the demos open up, the damaged Tinashi finally dies. Drifting along harmlessly as a drifting hulk. The Suluust prepares to take on the second tinashi, it's stealth at 3 by now.. and misses with a 2…. The remaining ashinta pops another demos, yay.
The drifting demos with all hands on deck, fails to repair it's adrift, and with 2 adrifts in place, it cannot possibly repair them before going off the table, and is removed.
The balance is mostly with the Minbari as that suluust has 3 damage points left!
Turn 5.
Minbari finally win initiative again yay.
We have a comedy lineup of ships as the ashinta is followed by a balvarin, followed by a tinashi and a demos briging up the rear.. the suluust glides across the back of it all, unable to bring any guns to bear. The tinashi opens up on the Demos, who takes NO damage thanks to his closed blast doors! The Balvarin gets the rest of the forward fire, taking 1 damage against thanks to amazing closed blast doors. The Suluust however dies with a whimper. The Demos poors fire into the Ashinta crippling it, but crucially it keeps it's stealth and flight computer! Tha ashinta does bugger all damage to anything and the balvarin manages to push that ashinta closer to death.
Turn 6
Here now we have a battle and a crippled rain against a raid and a skirmish ship, surely the Minbari will win. And they get initiative for a start. The ashinta tries to loop away from the Demos but just does not have the speed or maneuvreability to do so, however it has brought the ship into the side arc of the tinashi. The balavarin and tinashi reamin in formation as they were. And the Tinashi fires first, a good side shot on the demos and it dies quickly. All that is left is the balvarin. A solid beam shot slices therough it, and lo, a 6-6 crit! The balvarin explodes in a hail of metal and mangled sentries, and the M inbari are victorius with a half damage Tinashi, and a very very mangled Ashinta
Winner, Minbari.. just
Again, a very very close game from my perspective. Poor Old mark has been doing everything right, and sucking me into a big old ruck! But his stealth rolling lets him down. Perhaps not taking a scout has been a big mistake, but I would have been targeting it immediately.
So then, Trolligan versus tinashi, versus Shantavi.
I have heard a lot of people rate the Shantavi, hence why I took it, and I have to say, I thought it sucked. It's a bit of a one trick pony, and if that beam isn’t working for you, it has nothing. The tinashi on the other hand, with those twin linked minibeams is quite horrendous, the minibeams did far more damage than my beams throughout. As for the trolligan, it didn't appear in this game, but in the previous game, it was superb, the damage potential in all arcs from this baby is great, and in a fleet that has numerical superiority and can and should bring stealth down, it’s hull 6 is a godsend! I would have to think long and hard between a trolli or tinashi, probably dependant upon opponents. I looked at the neshetan, but just couldn't see anything to make me want it over the other ships. Maybe someone could enlighten me.
I have promised mark I ill take a different fleet next time but I have had 2 of my most enjoyable games against him, so next time think I'll try Brakiri, not played them in second ed. Should be fun
