Ok so in the end I went with:
Octurion Battleship,
2 Primus class
2 Centurion
The other players all seemed to be going 2 War and a battle or similar.
Of course the EA player decided to be different and go for lots of smaller stuff and a carrier which gave him lots of fighters.
My first game was up against Narn - 2 War and a Battle. I have never rolled so many 1's and 2's in my life. Not helped by the Narn player taking out the engines on my Octurion in the second turn. I couldnt get it repaired at all so my biggest ship was left stranded with only 1 weapon in range and I couldnt hit diddly with it. I took down his Battle first and then concentrated on one war at a time, getting the Centurions on the left flank helped.
I lost 1 primus taking down the first War. By then I was considering turning and running as the Octurion had finally died and I was down to a not very healthy Primus and 2 Centurion. However, the final turn saw me actually manage to make some critical hits which killed his last War.
So a win for me even though it didnt seem like it.
Conclusions: fighters and Narn dont work (curse those energy mines). Centauri at long range dont get alot of weapons and you got to get the rolls to make them work.
Second fight was against Minbari. Uh..... I hate stealth. Killed a couple of raid ships and that was it. Once again, Octurion at longe range simply doenst work for me.
Conclusions: Next time you see Minbari ships, run.
Third fight V. EA - Lost again. so many fighters! They mobbed both my Centurions to death. Faired better against the larger ships, but in the end died to numbers. Octurion did better here managing to get its other weapons into the fight for the first time. My 8 stands of fighters were as useful as tits on a fish.
conclusions: Not sure what Icould have done here (other than magically change into Narn and chuck a load of energy mines out). Maybe get a carrier myself for next time an see how I stand up in a furball.
Fourth fight: ISA. Beam when they work..... mwahahahahaha! got adaptive armour have you? fine beat 6 crits, 3 of them on table 6.
Yes, I finally managed to roll the dice that beam weapons need to work effectively. An easy win for me - a combination of good dice rolls and poor fleet choice by the ISA commander. Also, he got fazed by my Centurions diving for a flank and split his force up which meant my larger ships got in close enough to do some serious damage before he realised his mistake.
Conclusion : I might not be so lucky next time.
In all, a good day. It seems to me that Centauri really do need to get in close to be really effective. Having only 1 weapon for long range when everything im going up against has at least 2 or 3 isnt good. Add in the fact that its a beam weapon and so dependent on the dice rolls to do serious damage and you are hurting at long range.
Of course I could be wrong, but thats my experience so far.
