No sunhawk varients in tournament pack

[Target]

A Primus nearly always win vs a G'Quan even the Secundas beats them.
Interceptors stop a lot of G'Quan weapons, Main weapons Fwd arc instead of boresight, meaning CAF, once they pass each other the primus fwd arc weapons get to fire way more than the G'Quan boresight as the narn have make a lot more come about rolls compared to the Primus. The Primus is a awesome battle lvl ship as good as the the tinashi. The G'Quan will eventually get criticaled out of the game. Interceptors and kick ass Fwd weapons are the Narns worst enemy. Only ship the Centauri really fear is the Bin Tak, it has an absolutely awesome firepower. T Loths are just annoying as they won't die and board you. Centauri don't generally carrying a lot of troops. Ka Toc's and Thentus are pretty useful. The Sho Kar is a damn good ship as well. G'Quans are good. The Varnic i think needs a little more fwd firepower as they have weak Aft arc and no P,S arc.

 

[Triggy]

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.

What the...?

The Primus is almost universally accepted as the benchmark for a good, solid Battle level ship. It's tough, versatile and hits quite hard. Oh yeah, it's also pretty easy to use well (certainly easier than an Omega or G'Quan). It has virtually the best long range firepower of any Battle level ship in the game and that includes ships with boresights. This is particularly true when you think how easily it can CAF on the enemy!

 

[Reaverman]

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.

What the...?

The Primus is almost universally accepted as the benchmark for a good, solid Battle level ship. It's tough, versatile and hits quite hard. Oh yeah, it's also pretty easy to use well (certainly easier than an Omega or G'Quan). It has virtually the best long range firepower of any Battle level ship in the game and that includes ships with boresights. This is particularly true when you think how easily it can CAF on the enemy!

I've taken Primi out, but I am in no way saying that they are easy. Far from it, they are good ships, with a kick ass F arc beam weapon :wink:

 

[CZuschlag]

katadder:

Ok ... that gets a W.T.Fill in the blank. Consider the Primus' main competition at Battle Level (matchups in chess opening notation, going from a clear winnable advantage down: +, +/-, +/=, =, =/-, -/+, -. - is a clear loss on the way):

-- Omega: Heaviest weapon is boresight and fewer dice. If you get to use the boresight aft, this assessment is different, but this is admittedly rare. (+)

-- Apollo: You could make a case here, but the Apollo is very vulnerable to criticals and interceptor banks. Flash is nice, but every turn of 6 SAP beam kicks every turn of 8 AP interceptable any day. And that's with flash missiles. (+/-)

-- Tinashi: Another ship you could make a case for, but its 50/50 stealth has to match up its 4 beams versus your 6. The Fusion Cannon's range is its ace in the hole. If using tourney, you have a huge mass and threshold advantage. (=)

-- Narn G'Quan: The G'Quan may be larger, but has only 3 boresight dice as opposed to 6 FA dice on the beam. As exists, the E-mines are useful to remove your CAF advantage, but that's as far as it gets. You are more than half the G'Quan's size, so the Primus is better. (+/-)

-- Narn Var'Nic: I like this ship more than others, but that's probably not justified. If my memory is good, we get to really debate the value of 2 45's. I think it's a very big deal. Big enough to offset boresightedness. Big enough to offset size advantages. Maybe enough to counter CAF. Not enough to do all that and counter and 2 additional beams. Too bad, it's a cool figurine. I still like it better than the G'Quan. (+/=)

-- ISA: It's the frickin' WS2. Not worthy, especially against WS1's. Next! (+/-)

-- Shadow Hunter: The SFoS Hunter is meat against your beams. The tourney is a different story. 100 points Hull 5? Just like Mr. Stay Puft ... Roast 'em! (+/=)

-- Vorlon Light Cruiser: An awful bruising. You may be in trouble on this one, but no guarantee. You do have a major range advantage. His regen may decide the day. (-/+)

-- Abbai Lakara: Its beam is range 15 and is slower than dirt. You have got to be kidding me against the Primus. It's not getting outside of Arc! Your forward twin arrays are almost as good as his. Yick. Next!(+)

-- Brakiri Kaliva: The SFoS Avioki doesn't even get nominated here. But the Kaliva does! Would be OK, but Centauri interceptors really hurt their precise Grav Lance system. The Graviton Beam against Hull 6 just doesn't cut it. (+)

-- Drazi Stormfalcon: Interesting! Stormy is in perpetual danger of not getting shots due to initiative due to the boresight weapon. It's a house when it hits, and is still fairly quick, but the reload turn is painful. At best level to the Primus, and I bet with little work I could find a reason to consider the Primus better. I just don't know enough of its stats offhand to make that calculation on the fly. (=)

-- Vree Xaak: Nastier ship than you might expect, it fills a very different role. Due to the Primus' rear arc, this is likely better for the Vree; a rare positive matchup. It will be a slow battle to see just how long the Vree can keep firing in the face of slow death by side interceptors. The interceptor rolling by the Centauri will decide the day. (-/=)

-- Dilgar Tikrit: Bolters are interceptable. 6 dice of beam aren't. AP vs. SAP? Primus bigger? Why am I still comparing? Masters of Destruction gives the Dilgar an outside shot at it with luck. (+/-)

-- Dilgar Wahant, Khatrik: They move speed 4. I don't really need to say anything else, do I? (+)

-- Drakh Cruiser: OK, finally a level competitor I can sink my teeth into. The Hull gives away a hit and change, but the GEG makes up for it. You'll get lots of criticals, but his Precise will make up for that, too. When he overflies you and uses the rear beam will be when it all goes wrong. Twin arrays will mostly bounce off the GEG. Yes, but the cruiser is small, and should the GEG fall when it cripples, the Drakh are in a world of bad (-/=)

So, in total, the Primus is down for 2 -/= and 1 -/+ on the whole? Sounds like it's fine to me! If the Tertius is demonstrably better, then I cannot justify that as balanced. (Edit: Oops! Originally I had "can justify". What a typo! Sorry.)

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Am I the only one having trouble understanding any of that? What's all this talk of size? Since when does the relative sizes of ships make any difference?

 

[Im-Rehsa]

I think when he talks about size he is refering to the damage points...

 

[CZuschlag]

It's a reference to damage and crew.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Why not just say that whichever ship is being discussed has more damage and crew? Save a lot of questions that way...

 

[Silvereye]

-- Tinashi: Another ship you could make a case for, but its 50/50 stealth has to match up its 4 beams versus your 6. The Fusion Cannon's range is its ace in the hole. If using tourney, you have a huge mass and threshold advantage. (=)

Have you taken into account the Neutron Lasers Precise ability. Also the stealth is more than 50/50 as you suffer a -1 penalty to the roll at greater than 10" range, which is where the beams will compare. I'd say these would swing the advantage back to the Tinashi.

 

[Burger]

-- Tinashi: Another ship you could make a case for, but its 50/50 stealth has to match up its 4 beams versus your 6. The Fusion Cannon's range is its ace in the hole. If using tourney, you have a huge mass and threshold advantage. (=)

Have you taken into account the Neutron Lasers Precise ability. Also the stealth is more than 50/50 as you suffer a -1 penalty to the roll at greater than 10" range, which is where the beams will compare. I'd say these would swing the advantage back to the Tinashi.

Unless you're fighting Shadows/Vorlons/Drakh, or the enemy has scouts, Scanners To Full, etc...
Seems like most times I use Tinashi's my opponent is saying "stealth... anything but a 1 to see you"

 

[CZuschlag]

It'll be closer to 50/50 between multiple fighter attempts at scanners to full as well as your own, one of these three should hit. I do not remember the Minbari Tinashi as having any Nials of its own. If both SA by some miracle hit, you'll get better than that. The crit race is indeed slightly in the Minbari favor, as the hit rates between Hull 5 and Hull 6 are 1.12 hits/beamdie vs. 0.69 hits/beamdie. Given 50% stealth ... an estimate, to be certain! -- we get 0.56 vs. 0.69 hits/die, 3.36 hits/ship vs 2.76 hits/die, 0.9259 crits/salvo for the Tinashi, 0.56 crits/salvo for the Centauri. Within short range this, of course, gets somewhat better; I expect the Sentris will have died off by then.

We locally believe the Minbari are horribly busted as SFoS written, as evidenced by the changes to, and amended by the tourney list. The massive disparities in damage, crew, and thresholds in the tourney pack are sort of an "oops, we biffed" red flag by the playtest team. Even with the changes published, we had over 28% of the Chicago tournament field them! Couldn't have made them all that bad a ship. Even then the Primus chances seem to be better than marginal. With high thresholds making the loss of the Stealth property and repeated easy access to the same Fusion Cannons in arc gone, I find this reasonably level post-balance.

It is conceivable that Armaggedon's re-engineering of the stealth mechanic also will achieve this effect. We have been testing locally Minbari with the -1 at long range gone, and a +1 at short range instead. Interesting.

 

[katadder]

try -1 at ashort range, no bonus either way in the middle and +1 at long range

 

[CZuschlag]

A reasonable medium. So my 50% stands!

 

[Burger]

Meh. I was hoping for something a little more imaginative than "-1 at close range". Byebye Tigara, byebye (even more) Torotha.

 

[katadder]

altho saying that the EA managed to fluff about 3 stealth rolls on a boresighted corvan that had had its stealth lowered by fighters last night so that was quite amusing

 

[Ripple]

'anything but a one' on a tinashi?

For god's sake man kill the fighters! You have the mini-beams for a reason!

Though seriously, I was hoping for a really new mechanic with stealth as well. I find the all or nothing approach somewhat disenchanting, and nudging the numbers up or down will not make that any more fun. The tournament pack did succeed in balancing the minbari but the balance still did not seem to be who could fly better but who had a stronger run of the critical dice. Flying drazi I am more sensitive than most because if you miss your chance to finish a ship due to stealth the reality is you probably aren't shooting that ship again before time is called. No side guns for pass over shots and hail mary's.

Outside of tournament you have always had some options for anti-stealth fleet builds that could make the stealth issue less problematic. Still not sure what else they could have done that did not turn stealth into a form of dodge.

Ripple

 

[Burger]

I find the all or nothing approach somewhat disenchanting, and nudging the numbers up or down will not make that any more fun.

Agreed 110%

 

[Triggy]

I find the all or nothing approach somewhat disenchanting, and nudging the numbers up or down will not make that any more fun.

Agreed 110%

Personally I disagree and find stealth to work nicely. You need to hedge your bets on the outcomes of your dice and I know people have seen freak results but frankly in about a dozen games versus them, (and a couple with them) I've never seen the silly luck that seems to be common elsewhere. Even running the stats on it seems to show that there's an exaggeration of the few times it happens over the rest when it doesn't.

 

[Ripple]

Sorry Triggy but I have a couple dozen games against them now and much like all luck stealth runs in streaks. Running the stats on them will not tell you a thing as simply not enough dice that matter are dropped in any particular game. I generally respect the math but not when it comes to ten dice that matter in a game.

As far as hedging your bets goes, how exactly do you do that with a primarily boresighted race?

How about one of the no scout races?

Anyone in the League whose fighters are easily swept aside by the Nials if not blasted apart by the anti-fighter mini-beams.

If the Minbari don't neatly cluster up so your secondaries get lots of shots?

Not saying they are not defeatable. I do quite well vs them with Centauri and Earthforce missle fleets (though Sharlin is still an issue there). Narn have their own flavor against them with the mines reducing the Special Action advantage. But reliable tactics? Not much if I can not make the stealth rolls.

Anyway, now we know what the new stealth is going to be so we can start working the numbers again.

Ripple

 

[Triggy]

Sorry Triggy but I have a couple dozen games against them now and much like all luck stealth runs in streaks. Running the stats on them will not tell you a thing as simply not enough dice that matter are dropped in any particular game. I generally respect the math but not when it comes to ten dice that matter in a game.

As far as hedging your bets goes, how exactly do you do that with a primarily boresighted race?

How about one of the no scout races?

Anyone in the League whose fighters are easily swept aside by the Nials if not blasted apart by the anti-fighter mini-beams.

If the Minbari don't neatly cluster up so your secondaries get lots of shots?

Not saying they are not defeatable. I do quite well vs them with Centauri and Earthforce missle fleets (though Sharlin is still an issue there). Narn have their own flavor against them with the mines reducing the Special Action advantage. But reliable tactics? Not much if I can not make the stealth rolls.

Anyway, now we know what the new stealth is going to be so we can start working the numbers again.

Ripple

BTW, when I said stats I mean the variance rather than mean.