No sunhawk varients in tournament pack
- Thread starter Captain Kremmen
- Start date
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
The only issue I can see with the Sulust is the 25" range - that's better than the Primus... :?
CZuschlag
Mongoose
The Primus is 25 as well, both Tourney and ACtA. I can buy that, though --- that's a battle level ship. Brutal .. in number of dice. Range I don't question. Battle and above level ships have great advantages but begin to suffer disproportionally damage due to criticals, especially the no-fires (one arc, 50/50 firing crit, the 4-6) and stopper (speed zero, no special actions) crits. They can die in two ways --- criticalled into irrelevance, or just killed. War ships are huge, but then begin to be extremely susceptible to crit-pointlessness, (definitely all of the x-6's except the 5-6, which a War level ship will suffer average of one to two of before destruction).
CZuschlag
Mongoose
Getting back to the original subject matter:
I had the privilege of helping run (as we ended up with an odd number, the last person in got to help the judge. Serves me right for being late!) the large 14-man July Chicago tournament. We did run with a couple of experimental rules, one of which was League -- not Drazi or Abbai or what have you, but League fleets. How did it do?
Mixed bag. We had one Drazi player (Ripple) who did quite well, got third, one of which was a negociated draw when it was found that the Minbari opposition did not use a Tourney-Legal Tigara -- way too much Precise -- and we didn't have time for a restart. Left the judging ground in a awful bind. He could have asked for more points but didn't; he was being a good guy. Could have had second or first. The core of the force was Drazi -- a mass of Warbirds and Strikehawks -- and a couple of Varrls. Now, one thing we did see in that tournament was that the Varrl effect was drastic -- we allowed the ISA it's one point of allies, and boy, did the Varrls augment that force! The Drazi player used Sunhawks and the Varrls consistently to get the initiative sinks he needed to get boresight opportunities for his fleet. Warbirds and Strikehawks consistently had targets, a few of them augmented. The effect was dramatic. It was an escalation tournament, and the effect at the 5 Battle-level (round 3) was very dramatic. In round 3 the Varrl sinks and focussing allowed the Stormfalcons to do horrible things. I can't imagine this not continuing in other environments -- he was facing a tourney Centauri beamstack of doom, and still won in Space Superiority. I don't know if this would have happened, of course, if we were running the 4-beam Sullust or the Prefect, mind you! (Edit: as I read this, I realize that I didn't include in the description two relavant factiods .. in general the Drazi player was pretty adept during this tournament, only really making one gaffe -- forgetting the points given for sectors in Space Superiority, and kind of lucky, during the Skirmish level of the escalation, parking a Secundus -- 4/5 of the Centauri player's fleet -- in turn 1. Quality of play was in general high, which may have had something to do with them winning, too, of course. My apologies.).
On the other hand, we had a second League entrant, and in this case he had an amalgam of stuff ... many Abbai, some Brikortas -- guess what, Vree Scouts (shocker! not.) -- and not much Drazi that I could remember. His fleet sort of had multiple ideas running in it. Didn't work, this player took last. Centauri ripped it apart at range, Minbari danced out of range after criticals and used a planet to separate fleet elements. The fact that the fleet didn't have a co-ordinated doctine didn't seem to help. My first analysis -- with no firm proof at all mind you! -- is that a League fleet needs to be one fleet's main idea, with other League elements supplementing gaps, such as scouting or close-in defense. Use of Abbai needs to be considered very carefully, as the -2 initiative hit is an absolute killer to a mixed fleet.
Second question:
As to Drazi variants? The Solarhawk is a risky, risky ship. You'll probably get to fire it exactly once, as that thing needs to die, and is very killable. It's very hard to get better than a return on investment on it due to its high PL (Raid), total lack of staying power (18:20??), and single slow-loading beam line (6 dice in one boresighted line mean you're not firing at two targets, period). With scout support (assuming mixed fleet, above, or Rbax's Eyehawk), this thing WILL kill something. You need it to kill something Raid. It ... can. Sometimes. Hiding this thing with Maneouver to Shield Them is a core concept, and by no means a guarantee. Think you can get two firings with it? It's a winner ship. If you can't, it will at best be breakeven and maybe, should it fail to kill its assigned victim, end up being a loser ship. Very very risky selection. In an escalation tournament, at battle level, 3-squadrons of these things could be ridiculous, and should be considered for dealing with bad things such as War-level ships with scout support. Never buy these with Abbai in the same fleet, as something has a great chance to kill it with no fire ever coming from its guns -- again, that -2 is just killer, both on Turn 1 and Turn 3.
My local Drazi player's use of the other Sunhawk variants are limited. I haven't seen him field Guardhawks ... I assume there's a good reason. Jumphawks are very rare, but are very cheap initiative boosters, and intriguing idea. I've seen Darkhawks, but they tend to go BANG far too easily for my liking. He tried to use them as improved initiative sinks and limited bombardment vessels. Didn't work out great, to expensive for 4 missiles every other turn on a race that often leaves interceptors with nothing to do and too easy to kill. If they had access to Flash and Heavy Missiles, I's sure change my mind, but not as is.
I had the privilege of helping run (as we ended up with an odd number, the last person in got to help the judge. Serves me right for being late!) the large 14-man July Chicago tournament. We did run with a couple of experimental rules, one of which was League -- not Drazi or Abbai or what have you, but League fleets. How did it do?
Mixed bag. We had one Drazi player (Ripple) who did quite well, got third, one of which was a negociated draw when it was found that the Minbari opposition did not use a Tourney-Legal Tigara -- way too much Precise -- and we didn't have time for a restart. Left the judging ground in a awful bind. He could have asked for more points but didn't; he was being a good guy. Could have had second or first. The core of the force was Drazi -- a mass of Warbirds and Strikehawks -- and a couple of Varrls. Now, one thing we did see in that tournament was that the Varrl effect was drastic -- we allowed the ISA it's one point of allies, and boy, did the Varrls augment that force! The Drazi player used Sunhawks and the Varrls consistently to get the initiative sinks he needed to get boresight opportunities for his fleet. Warbirds and Strikehawks consistently had targets, a few of them augmented. The effect was dramatic. It was an escalation tournament, and the effect at the 5 Battle-level (round 3) was very dramatic. In round 3 the Varrl sinks and focussing allowed the Stormfalcons to do horrible things. I can't imagine this not continuing in other environments -- he was facing a tourney Centauri beamstack of doom, and still won in Space Superiority. I don't know if this would have happened, of course, if we were running the 4-beam Sullust or the Prefect, mind you! (Edit: as I read this, I realize that I didn't include in the description two relavant factiods .. in general the Drazi player was pretty adept during this tournament, only really making one gaffe -- forgetting the points given for sectors in Space Superiority, and kind of lucky, during the Skirmish level of the escalation, parking a Secundus -- 4/5 of the Centauri player's fleet -- in turn 1. Quality of play was in general high, which may have had something to do with them winning, too, of course. My apologies.).
On the other hand, we had a second League entrant, and in this case he had an amalgam of stuff ... many Abbai, some Brikortas -- guess what, Vree Scouts (shocker! not.) -- and not much Drazi that I could remember. His fleet sort of had multiple ideas running in it. Didn't work, this player took last. Centauri ripped it apart at range, Minbari danced out of range after criticals and used a planet to separate fleet elements. The fact that the fleet didn't have a co-ordinated doctine didn't seem to help. My first analysis -- with no firm proof at all mind you! -- is that a League fleet needs to be one fleet's main idea, with other League elements supplementing gaps, such as scouting or close-in defense. Use of Abbai needs to be considered very carefully, as the -2 initiative hit is an absolute killer to a mixed fleet.
Second question:
As to Drazi variants? The Solarhawk is a risky, risky ship. You'll probably get to fire it exactly once, as that thing needs to die, and is very killable. It's very hard to get better than a return on investment on it due to its high PL (Raid), total lack of staying power (18:20??), and single slow-loading beam line (6 dice in one boresighted line mean you're not firing at two targets, period). With scout support (assuming mixed fleet, above, or Rbax's Eyehawk), this thing WILL kill something. You need it to kill something Raid. It ... can. Sometimes. Hiding this thing with Maneouver to Shield Them is a core concept, and by no means a guarantee. Think you can get two firings with it? It's a winner ship. If you can't, it will at best be breakeven and maybe, should it fail to kill its assigned victim, end up being a loser ship. Very very risky selection. In an escalation tournament, at battle level, 3-squadrons of these things could be ridiculous, and should be considered for dealing with bad things such as War-level ships with scout support. Never buy these with Abbai in the same fleet, as something has a great chance to kill it with no fire ever coming from its guns -- again, that -2 is just killer, both on Turn 1 and Turn 3.
My local Drazi player's use of the other Sunhawk variants are limited. I haven't seen him field Guardhawks ... I assume there's a good reason. Jumphawks are very rare, but are very cheap initiative boosters, and intriguing idea. I've seen Darkhawks, but they tend to go BANG far too easily for my liking. He tried to use them as improved initiative sinks and limited bombardment vessels. Didn't work out great, to expensive for 4 missiles every other turn on a race that often leaves interceptors with nothing to do and too easy to kill. If they had access to Flash and Heavy Missiles, I's sure change my mind, but not as is.
KaToc's and KaTans are easily beaten. 1 turn is their weakness. A Sulust should take 2 out everytime. They don't have interceptors or the hits, range. Don't be afraid to speed past their fwd arc and let or twin links cripple them. They won't hurt you much with pulse guns. Vorchans wipe the floor with Katoc's. Outspeed 21" and out manuever them. Just choose when they get to attack.
CZuschlag
Mongoose
Ka'Toc/ans can also suffer from SEDS -- Sudden Escort Death Syndrome. I've done it with Dilgar at range 15. You'll get a fair warning when your Sulust or (especially) Prefect dies, but the Ka'Toc/Ka'Tan can die like *that*.
OTOH, I don't buy the Prefect is bigger argument completely --- isn't the 35:38 less than double the Ka'Tan's 20:27? The two Ka'Tans do indeed outmass the Prefect.
The Ka'T** will also have one final trick we've overlooked -- those two blasted Frazi stands. Yeah, normally I'd laugh, too, but without aft guns these things could, literally, become a pain in the a**.
OTOH, I don't buy the Prefect is bigger argument completely --- isn't the 35:38 less than double the Ka'Tan's 20:27? The two Ka'Tans do indeed outmass the Prefect.
The Ka'T** will also have one final trick we've overlooked -- those two blasted Frazi stands. Yeah, normally I'd laugh, too, but without aft guns these things could, literally, become a pain in the a**.
Drazi are the only race that currently DO allow one variant to be used in tourney rules, the Strikehawk. So, be grateful 
Admittedly, weithout the Strikehawk, the Drazi would be a really really bad fleet.
And whats with the turning every thread into a LDD vs. Ka'Toc thread??? Jeez get over it dude, or get a new fleet if you don't like yours!
Admittedly, weithout the Strikehawk, the Drazi would be a really really bad fleet.
And whats with the turning every thread into a LDD vs. Ka'Toc thread??? Jeez get over it dude, or get a new fleet if you don't like yours!
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Why can't you read what I write? I like my fleet fine. I'm sick of hearing other people moan about a couple of ships in it like they're all-conquering death merchants while ignoring other fleet's over-powered ships.
Why is that not clear enough for you?
Why is that not clear enough for you?
David, to be fair, the SFoS lists have a few overpowered ships but once Armageddon comes, the White Star and Minbari fleets get toned down leaving the next most powerful ships for their level in order:
Prefect
Tertius
Sulust
Drakh Light Cruiser
Rohric
At least for my money anyway. What this means is that the three most powerful ships are all Centauri and this is why people don't like them particularly. I know your points about the Sulust "only" having 4AD on its beam but this is about 1AD too many for it to be equal to the other ships at Raid level.
Don't forget, people aren't bitching about you, merely trying to get as much balance as possible into the fleets. The White Stars and Minbari have taken the brunt of this flack before, then it was the Shadow Hunter and Sagittarius in the tournament lists. Now it's the Prefect, Tertius and Sulust...
BTW, the current Centauri list reminds me strongly of the current Eldar 40K list - a few very good units, a few OK units and a few very poor units. This means that you always see similar compositions in even friendly environments.
Prefect
Tertius
Sulust
Drakh Light Cruiser
Rohric
At least for my money anyway. What this means is that the three most powerful ships are all Centauri and this is why people don't like them particularly. I know your points about the Sulust "only" having 4AD on its beam but this is about 1AD too many for it to be equal to the other ships at Raid level.
Don't forget, people aren't bitching about you, merely trying to get as much balance as possible into the fleets. The White Stars and Minbari have taken the brunt of this flack before, then it was the Shadow Hunter and Sagittarius in the tournament lists. Now it's the Prefect, Tertius and Sulust...
BTW, the current Centauri list reminds me strongly of the current Eldar 40K list - a few very good units, a few OK units and a few very poor units. This means that you always see similar compositions in even friendly environments.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
I can see the argument about the Tertius, but you've yet to convince me that the Prefect is over-powered. Or the Sulust. A 4AD beam with a Front arc and 25" range is nasty but it's not like the ship has any other appreciable firepower or lots of agility or speed. It doesn't even have a jump point...
and i like my tertius just the way it is. its not even that dangerous until you get closer, ok it has a powerful beam weapon but then so do most people at that level. also it doesnt have any fighters and has only 1 interceptor so is more vunerable than the primus to secondary weapons and fighters.
You really think the Tertius is balanced with the Primus?
Yes you lose the Sentri's and one interceptor. Difference between one and two is not that huge. They tend to soak out about the same and become dodge six for the weapons they can affect. So one vs two is maybe a hits difference. And fighters, well we will see in Arm. but does not seem to be a huge issue to me given you have all round tertiary weapons that are twin-linked. Oh, and you gain fifteen crew. Somehow I do not see you as in significantly more danger.
You gain twelve dice of super ap double damage for this slight shift in defence. How can you be balanced if you gain significantly but lose insignificantly? That has been the basic question with every balance issue mentioned about a variant. If you believe that you can gain more than you lose then one of the two ships is not balanced.
The Sulust/Prefect debate is pretty much do you consider the beam a problem. Lots of the Centauri players do not. If you have not played against them, try doing it for a while without going back and see how folks feel fighting against them. If you have maybe you can offer some hints how others should fight them, and why they are balanced. Show me the numbers on other ships with similar potential.
Ripple
Yes you lose the Sentri's and one interceptor. Difference between one and two is not that huge. They tend to soak out about the same and become dodge six for the weapons they can affect. So one vs two is maybe a hits difference. And fighters, well we will see in Arm. but does not seem to be a huge issue to me given you have all round tertiary weapons that are twin-linked. Oh, and you gain fifteen crew. Somehow I do not see you as in significantly more danger.
You gain twelve dice of super ap double damage for this slight shift in defence. How can you be balanced if you gain significantly but lose insignificantly? That has been the basic question with every balance issue mentioned about a variant. If you believe that you can gain more than you lose then one of the two ships is not balanced.
The Sulust/Prefect debate is pretty much do you consider the beam a problem. Lots of the Centauri players do not. If you have not played against them, try doing it for a while without going back and see how folks feel fighting against them. If you have maybe you can offer some hints how others should fight them, and why they are balanced. Show me the numbers on other ships with similar potential.
Ripple
thing is you could say the same about lots of the variants, why is one always picked over the other? generally cos they appear to be better, i always take vorchats over vorchans for example, throughout all the lists you will find certain variants are always better at same PL too.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Thing with the Tertius is that it keeps the Primus' beam at the same level, but adds extra firepower that's too powerful for a battle level ship. To be fair it should lose some of the beam's AD, or even lose the beam altogether, but then it's rather pointless in competition with the Secundus.
Tertius is way overpowered, i refuse to use them now.
Sulust a little strong espcially when combined with a Primus eg My personal fav 5 pt raid fleet Primus,2 Sulust and 3 Corvans, go the Beam Team, but does have weakness eg no rear arc and is Hull 5.
The Prefect is to strong from the fact it is hull 6. The loss of a turn doen't effect it much as a Fwd arc beam weapon.
Sulust a little strong espcially when combined with a Primus eg My personal fav 5 pt raid fleet Primus,2 Sulust and 3 Corvans, go the Beam Team, but does have weakness eg no rear arc and is Hull 5.
The Prefect is to strong from the fact it is hull 6. The loss of a turn doen't effect it much as a Fwd arc beam weapon.
tertius is what the primus should have been as the primus is way undergunned for a battle level ship and wouldnt have a chance against a g'quan unless always kept at long range beams. ok they have twice the beams of a g'quan but the g'quan also has e-mines and i dunno about you but up close i use them as ship busters in my narn fleet and short charge at range which still gives the g'quan more ranged power, more close up power and more crew than a tertius let alone a primus. if they removed tertius then i would prefer 2 prefects over a primus, more firepower, more ships, more damage.
