Need Help against Narn

[thehod]

I cannot find a reasonable tactic that can exploit a weakness in the Narn fleet. I am fielding Centauri and this is a 5 War battle coming up and I cant use superior numbers as the fleet is nothing but G'Quands, Ka'Tans, Dag'kars, and Sho'kas torpedo frigates.

Fighters are worthless vs Narn so my Balvarix will spend the battle with her fighters never launching. I cant overtake ships with breaching pods on my Vorchats because Narn have ridiculous amount of troops. I refuse to resort to Beam-Team because My house refuses it. I cant out speed him because he has weapons in all arcs and Vorchats will get beamed to death before they can get close enough. And Emines make sure I will never pull a CAF or have any surviving scouts on the board.

the mission rolled is call to arms so I got no terrain to hide

I dont know a good strategy vs the Narn that works.

 

[katadder]

maximus are useful, hull 6, quite fast and decent number of dice.
if you not beam teaming whats that mean? no prefects or tertius?
still leaves alot of other ships with beams, octurion, primus, sullust, dargan, centurtion, magnus, darkner.
i wouldnt bother with vorchats, if going to use any vorchan variant use the actual vorchan, greater foreward range than vorchat and faster.

 

[Silvereye]

Interesting, I'd certainly try and squeeze an Octurion, a few Primus and a couple of Sulust into your list. Octurion for it's Command (should ensure you have the initiative each turn) and masses of good weaponry, and Primus and Sullust are all good laser boats. I'd then start grabbing Elutarians for the Ballistic Torpedoes, and Altarians for their Matter Cannon (Narn have no interceptors for the (Super-)AP goodness), torpedoes are Precise. Altarian and it's variants also benefit from Hull 6 and weaponry in all arcs. Corvans will allow you to play with scout re-rolls for Beams and Torpedoes and Matter cannon. Scatter in some Maximus for finishing off the wounded.

A fleet on the lines of:
1 War: Octurion
1 War: 2x Primus
1 War: 2x Elutarian (Squadron for that first turn 10AD torpedo barrage), 1x Maximus, 2x Corvan
1 War: 2x Alutarian, 1x Maximus, 2x Corvan
1 War: 2x Sullust (or more Altarians), 2x Maximus
(I'm not sure if the breakdowns can be done more efficiently)

Load auxillary craft as Raziks, and keep them in the hangers until the lines cross.

 

[Burger]

1 War: 2x Primus
1 War: 2x Elutarian (Squadron for that first turn 10AD torpedo barrage), 1x Maximus, 2x Corvan

You'd be better off with:
1 War: 1x Primus, 1x Elutarian, 1x Maximus, 2x Corvan
1 War: 1x Primus, 1x Elutarian, 1x Maximus, 2x Corvan

Free ships

 

[Silvereye]

Thanks, I thought there was a beneficial break I'd missed.

 

[Target]

Try Secundas for your Primus Varient they quite reasonable, gives you a lot of troops. Altarians & Elutarians are very good verus interceptorless ships.
Try this
Secundas, Elutarian/Altarian x2
Secundas, Altarian, 2 Maximus x3
Thats Beam free & real brawler fleet
Could even crit fish with Elutarians buy spreading your torps across his big ships while you close with the others.

 

[vitalis6969]

I cannot find a reasonable tactic that can exploit a weakness in the Narn fleet. I am fielding Centauri and this is a 5 War battle coming up and I cant use superior numbers as the fleet is nothing but G'Quands, Ka'Tans, Dag'kars, and Sho'kas torpedo frigates.

:lol: :lol: :lol: We should play each other. I can't find any strategy that works AGAINST the stupid fan heads. Them and their forward arcs are the bane of my existance.

-V

 

[thehod]

Well for our campagign game I decided to go with a fleet that did make me feel very dirty while playing. But still lost

1 War: Primus, Tetrius
2 War: Primus, Tetrius
3 War: Prefect, Elutarian, 2 Maximus

I went up against a 5 war fleet it was Planetary assault

Bin'Tak x 1, G'Quan x 4, Dag'Kar x 4, Kat'Tan x 7, Skirmish Scout x 1

This was the Bat Fleet from hell

I tried a standard Beam line tactic and wait for the 4 G'Quans and Bin'Tak to jump while his other ships moved up on me. His 4 Big ships jumped in and I opened up at best only crippling 1 GQuaN and the next turn his Bin'Tak basically alphastriked a Tetrius to death. SHipbreaker emines destroyed my lines and I only managed to kill the G'Quan after with a few shots and then the rest of my ships went boom shortly with me only killing a Kat'Tan and a Dag'Kar. The ionic emines made sure I can no longer close blast doors or manuver to shield ships and the initative sinks killed me because several times due to me moving all my ships and finally his big ships denied me most of my matter cannons or go out of my Foward arc. This Narn fleet is best designed for killing anything and Kat'Tans enmasse are just plain wrong and I dont see how a Beam Team fleet can even compete against this.

 

[katadder]

was it assassins? cos he has 5 war pts to you 3 by that.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Seven Ka'Tans?! No one that fields that kind of numbers of so blatantly broken ships can ever, ever moan about the Beam Team cheese-factor...

 

[H]

yup i would never field tnhat many... probably because i only own 4 models ;-)

 

[cordas]

Seven Ka'Tans?! No one that fields that kind of numbers of so blatantly broken ships can ever, ever moan about the Beam Team cheese-factor...

Agreed, if he is using that then I seen nothing wrong with you just taking Tertius and Prefects..... No cheese has to work both ways or it just isn't fair.

 

[katadder]

well going by your 1st post you were both supposed to have 5pt war.

now did you only use 3 war on purpose as its a campaign. cos your opponent had 5 war. also your breakdowns were done quite poorly too, done another way you could have had either another raid or 2 more skirmish ships.

 

[Da Boss]

You mention Planetary invasion, is that the reason for the disparity in forces? - but shouldn't you have gotten space stations etc as well as your fleet?

 

[thehod]

We rolled the planetary assault scenario. I Have a 5 war fleet on another planet but the Narn Player assaulted another world where I thought he would origonally assault my 5 War Fleet.

I had a 3 Point War fleet on the other planet he assaulted with his 5 war. I had 1 single station that got captured at the end of the battle. His Bin'Tak and 4 G'Quans are assault transports without needed to buy one.

I mean seriously how do compete against that many beam dice. It outnumbers my beam dice almost 3 to 1.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

When you're that heavily outnumbered you just have to make the best of it. Kill as many of the filthy, inbred vermin as you can and go down fighting!

 

[katadder]

one hint when facing narns - kill the ka'tans 1st. they have more beam power than a g'quan on each one but with hull 5 and only 20 damage they die quite quick.
this obviously also decreases the number of init sinks he has as well.

 

[Ripple]

Agree with Kat here,

First your outnumbered, by almost two to one. Expect to lose. Either retreat or look for another way to get something out of the fight. In campaign play under SFoS it is more expensive to replace all those skirmish ships that a G'Quan or two.

Second, you up against a boresighted enemy, use it. Kill his initiative sinks and he starts not having ships that get to shoot for a turn. Also, buy down, by having a smaller number of big ships you are playing to his advantage. He only gets to shoot at ships you move early, that often means he'll be stuck lining up on ships that already have more than enough firepower coming their way.

Third point, did you squadron up? Once you know you are going to lose the initiative battle, squadron as deep as you can. In your case you could literally have fired everything you have by the second pass. He will likely not squadron as deep as he needs to have the sinks.

That's an ugly fight you had, no advice will really have helped you win outright if the Narn were playing well. But I don't believe the Narn are unbeatable by the Centauri. The Beam Team and the Bat Squad both have a history of being top of the class (out there with the EA Missile Fleets). It's also a high PL fight, those seem to go one way or the other much faster.

Ripple

 

[thehod]

I would have retreated but this was Centauri Prime I was defending and I flat out refuse to give It up right down to the last ship. I Vow to send every bit and last of my ships to liberate Centauri Prime.

I tried the stalling tactic for 10 turns but no avail. He left the Ka'Tans prety far back and when he jumped in his heavier stuff it hit me hard.

 

[katadder]

jumped in? well drive from them after his ka'tans then turn and hit the heavier stuff. his g'quans and bin'tak are slow. your primus etc are speed 8. and if hes jumping in 1st turn hes not there, 2nd tur hes not firing.