Minibeam and CAF

[Harry Lonsdale]

I just noticed that while beams can't benefit from scout redirect or CAF, minibeams still can. My first reaction was that given they also hit on 4+ all the time and ignore inteceptors allowing them to get a reroll was a tad overpowered.

However, I haven't played with the 2e rules yet, and I don't want to jump to conclusions without trying it out. So, to those of you that have seen this in action, what is your take on it? Was my initial assessment off base?

 

[Right Hand of God]

It does give the Minbari some defence against a mass of low priority low value hulls. Facing the Minbaru you have no need to worry about your hull 4 and to a degree hull 5 ships taking a cheap pounding from the boneheads. This makes a mass of patrol level ships a viable tactic, both for extra stealth rolls and to gnat bite you to death. When you look at the numbers of Mini beams the Minbari have, and discount those that are twin linked alreay, you aren't really talking about that many shots. Then take into account the fact that if they do use CAF the Minbari ship is only going to be firing the weaponary from one fire arc. As nearly all their ships have multiple arcs it becomes a difficult decision for the bone head player and not an automatic choice.

 

[Hans Olo]

You also have to get close up to your enemy in order to use yure secondaries, and that is exactly what the Minbari not want to do. Its already hard enough to maintain a reasonable stealth score (especially because scouts have now a longer detection range)

 

[Triggy]

The big difference between the two is that if Beams hit then that also affects how many dice are rolled for the next set of Beam rolls, but with Minibeams, once you've hit, you don't roll to hit again.

Enjoy your Minibeam CAF goodness

 

[Silvereye]

CAF is perhaps a bit pointless with Minbari now. But it does give you a good reason to consider taking a Leshath other than for ganking your opponents Scouts.