Playtest Game Centauri vs ISA

[SolarMacharious]

Hi everyone

My name is mario and I represent the Death and Glory Boys gaming club here in Vancouver. We have been playing B5 for just under a year.

Yesterday we got to a very large game (10 war) and we decided to use all the new playtest rules including the new fleet allocation breakdown chart. I was playing Centauri

Adira
Octurion
Octuron
Primus, Balvarin, Maximus x2
Primus, Balvarin, Maximus x2
Primus, Centurion, Vorchan x2
Primus, Centurion, Vorchan x2
Dargan, Vorchan x3
Darkner x4, Corvan Scout

My friend was playing the white star fleet

Victory
White Star Carrier
3x White Star II
3x White Star II
3x White Star II
3x White Star II
3x White Star II
3x White Star
2x White Star, 2 Nolotar frigates

We played a space superiority scenario (with hyperspace people)

1st turn no shooting. Second turn half my fleet jumps in behind the victory, victory, carrier and one squadron of 4 white stars kill 2 octurions before they can fire a shot. Nolotars and about 5 white stars die. Victory takes a no front firing critical. Third turn the 12 whiet stars jump in behind my carriers, but it is too little too late. White star carrier goes down, victory is critted to uselessness, and 4 more white stars die, and i lose a primus and some vorchans. By the end of turn 4 the ISA player looked at an undamaged adira, 3 functional primi, and a shat load of fighters and surrendered.

Bying down really hurt in this match. I only bought down for two of ten war points, where he bought down with seven. If he had based the fleet around ws gunships instead of white stars, he probably would have got more bang for his buck.

Some thoughts on the game

White star nerf:

Instead of comming in to 10 inches and firing all its guns tyler (ISA player) kept his white stars at range and fired just the beam with two dice. these ships did not change for me, however i dont think they are overpowerd, just scary (if the dice gods are with you). Swarming them with crappy fighters works just fine and its fun to see your opponent break down in sobs when you cause a 6 6 crit with a razik.

Centauri Hunting packs

Barf. Okay personally i hated the rule from the beginning. Forget about all the fance realocating hits crap that you can do, 6 ships in a squadron is broken...BROKEN. I only made one such squadron, 4 darkners and a Dargan, because that is the ONLY battle level ship that can keep up with the little guies, and i was popping white stars and white star carriers every turn.

this is disgusting, get rid of it. I say give the cenaturi ships of the line that gravitic engine rule presented erlier. Id probably never use it but it would be cool.

Track that targe:

unfortunatly never got to use this because the only boresight gun in either fleet was the super lightning cannon on the victory, and if you have to ttt on that, you are doing something wrong.

however i was under the impression that boresight was an INTENTIONAL weakness built into the game design, and the chance (even if it is a slim chance) of successfully negating that intentional weakness makes a balanced ship unbalanced. Just my opinion, not sure if i am right or not.

Move to intercept:

never came up in our game, however i do think that g'quan's should be able to do this special action with a bonus to their roll.

Ramming:

Both me and my opponent made sure to KILL each others crippled ships because we were so grossed out by this new rule, so unfortunatly the opportunity never surfaced.

Priority breakdown:

I was not a fan of this update when it came out because it ment less vorchans. However with the remaining models we orderd form mongoose before they clossed out i was able to flesh out my battle and war choices. However my opponent, who took primarily white stars was severly undergunned. I think this is working towards reducing swarm fleets even though i dont feel the need to do this anyways.

There was a comment in another post that mentioned how another forum member might deal with 40 saggitarious missile frigates in a ten point war game, and the answer was entertaining. It involved hindering that persons physical wellness, and therafter enjoying some refreshment down at a local establishment with decent fork. I wholehartedly agree with this sentiment.

There will always be cheesy lists, no matter how much you change the rules (heck in a 1700 pt 40k tournament list you can fit 3 monoliths, three full sized warrior squads, a lord and 10 immortals, and its legal) and there will always be abilities and rules that are more powerful than others (temporal barrier comes to mind). The point is to choose forces that are fun to play AND fun to play against, thats just being sportsmanlike and it is how we promote our fine hobby. And if there are some morons out there who feel the need to take lists like 10 demos in a tournament, then these people need to be told by you and me that they are not being nice people, if we all just refuse to play with them they will either go away or change their list. This is how you get rid of swarm fleets, not by striving for impossible balance points.

well thats my piece. Keep the playtest rules comming, i love trying them

may darkness consume your everliving souls...always

mario

 

[Burger]

The point is to choose forces that are fun to play AND fun to play against, thats just being sportsmanlike and it is how we promote our fine hobby. And if there are some morons out there who feel the need to take lists like 10 demos in a tournament, then these people need to be told by you and me that they are not being nice people, if we all just refuse to play with them they will either go away or change their list. This is how you get rid of swarm fleets, not by striving for impossible balance points.

In a tournament you have no choice but to play them. If you refuse to play then you surrender the game, and give the cheesemeister full points. He goes on to win the tournament, and thinks "hey this works I'll do it again next time"....

These people are not in it for the fun or the promotion of the hobby. They are in it for the winning, by any means necessary.

 

[l33tpenguin]

The point is to choose forces that are fun to play AND fun to play against, thats just being sportsmanlike and it is how we promote our fine hobby. And if there are some morons out there who feel the need to take lists like 10 demos in a tournament, then these people need to be told by you and me that they are not being nice people, if we all just refuse to play with them they will either go away or change their list. This is how you get rid of swarm fleets, not by striving for impossible balance points.

In a tournament you have no choice but to play them. If you refuse to play then you surrender the game, and give the cheesemeister full points. He goes on to win the tournament, and thinks "hey this works I'll do it again next time"....

These people are not in it for the fun or the promotion of the hobby. They are in it for the winning, by any means necessary.

There really needs to be some way to make fleets like that tourny illegal. Its just not fun :? And the 'in it to win' people need to take a hike.

 

[SolarMacharious]

The point is to choose forces that are fun to play AND fun to play against, thats just being sportsmanlike and it is how we promote our fine hobby. And if there are some morons out there who feel the need to take lists like 10 demos in a tournament, then these people need to be told by you and me that they are not being nice people, if we all just refuse to play with them they will either go away or change their list. This is how you get rid of swarm fleets, not by striving for impossible balance points.

In a tournament you have no choice but to play them. If you refuse to play then you surrender the game, and give the cheesemeister full points. He goes on to win the tournament, and thinks "hey this works I'll do it again next time"....

These people are not in it for the fun or the promotion of the hobby. They are in it for the winning, by any means necessary.

To tell you the truth, Ive been to a few tournaments and never once have I met someone like this.

However I am not suggesting you should forfeit a game like this. You play like hell, be sporting and then inform your opponenet that he has a watermelon for personality (after the points have been calculated of course)

Dinkish people do not learn that they are dinks if you blame the problem on the game. They learn that they are dinks if you tell them they are dinks.

We once had a guy in our gaming club who played swarms of vree. He won all the time. We told him he was a dink, and then refused to play against his swarms of vree. Needless to say he had a brain and stopped playing swarms of vree. PROBLEM SOLVED.

If someone plays hailey and 4 units of long gunners he is playing a cheesy army. But you dont see Privateer press changing thier rules to ajust for this. Or games workshop. Its an intrinsic flaw in any system. People WILL BREAK THE GAME. Regardless of the rules.

It doesnt even have to be a swarm army, would you like to play a 5 pt war agains t 5 sharlins in an asteroid field? Its not just swarms. People will break the game man. Deal with the morons. Its how humans solve their problems.

 

[katadder]

have to agree the ISA would have been better with a gunship and 2 WSs instead of 3 WSs. thats pretty much a no brainer and has been since armageddon had similar breakdowns.

 

[Enf0rcer]

Hey all, I was the ISA player in this game. My thoughts on some of the new rules.

Fleet composition - The new FAP breakdown has the effect of forcing the players to stay at or near the level of the game. Anyone failing to do this will find their fleet lacking. I do not necessarily have a problem with this, it is just an observation. The decision to go with the playtest rules was a last minute thing and my choice to field 3 whitestars per point as opposed to two and a gunship was a result of not maximizing the point breakdown due to not studying it in advance and having an idea of what I wanted the fleet to look like before I started building it.

New WS rules - I noticed a significant reduction in the usefulness of the whitestar fleet under the new rules. I have never been much for closing the blast doors and using the ship as a beam carrier. I usually charge in firing all weapons under the assumption that it is better to kill my opponent then to have him shoot at me. The new rule has forced me to use them as beam boats and I am not a fan. However I see the reason for this new rule and out of all the possible ways to nerf the ship this is one of the better alternatives. I also suspect that it will not be as large of a problem if the white stars are played at battle or raid level, the preponderance of battle+ level ships on the table was what gave them problems and what ultimately made me decide to surrender with over a dozen WS's still on the table.

Hunting packs - I like them, not sure why, just thought it was kind of cool. A large squadron is a powerful thing but a battle level ship really limits it's choices. The Primus/Secondus are very slow compared to most of the lighter Centauri ships. A slow moving fire base would be very powerful but it does rob some of the more nasty ships of the ability to be where they are needed most. This leaves the Laiti and Dargan as your only choices and I suspect that the Laiti is too fragile to fulfill this role. Not sure how to change the rule further or if it needs to be.

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New Missions - I also had the honour of playing the Towering Inferno mission with my crusade EA vs a combined league fleet. Great fun. Loved the mission. I have been looking for something like this for as long as I have been playing the game. It gives a purpose to long range and fast ships. We are going to try it with 4 players and a 6x8 table as soon as we can get enough people together.