Playtest Rules 1.1 - New Ships

[Everyman]

I have to say that I really like seeing the Amar back and it looks good on paper but will have to try it out.

The Chronos missile variant really should have turreted missiles (maybe only 3AD rather than 4AD but not really sure on it) rather than the heavier side firing arcs that are more prevalent on the earlier age ships.

The Vree heavy carrier looks nasty and definately need to test it out this weekend.

I am a little disappointed that the Vorlons did not get a War level carrier variant of the Light Cruiser though.

 

[locarno24]

Abbai:
Petulant-class (sorry, Fetula-class)
My first reaction was it looked a bit wimpy, but with a bit of consideration, the extra shields make it almost hyperion-level (if without the interceptors). Lacks a primary weapon, but if it can get multiple arcs firing it should do ok.

Brakiri:
With the V1.1 gravetic shifter no longer inflicting criticals, a shifter frigate seems fair enough. 4d6 damage is pretty impressive though, especially as the ship is damn tough for a skirmish-priority vessel (up there with up-armoured raider strike carriers). Nor is it exactly slow and unmanouvrable and 8 twin-linked pulsars are pretty good as a secondary weapon. Hell, they're not that bad as a primary weapon at this level.

The fact that you can't dodge it or spoof shifter means that a lot of races are going to HATE this ship. Are you sure it's meant to be skirmish priority?


Centauri:
Amar - fair enough

EA:

Tantalus is fine
Chronos variants are nice - especially since there was no escort ship in the list beforehand.

Missile ship with turreted arc missiles - I don't know, the turreted missile tubes are on the Olympus, whilst broadside fixed racks are on the Apollo. My comment is that something that small would probably have a single forward rack rather than multiple broadsides, but admittedly broadside tubes do encourage flying broadside on to the enemy, as it should.

Balancing the power of the broadsides needs some though - 2 AD missiles seems a little weak (since the missiles are on opposite flanks you won't be getting shots with both in one turn unless there's something odd happening), but on the other hand 4 AD is too good given that it's advanced missile racks we're talking about. Especially with the option of heavy missiles, which would turn the ship into a nasty brawler. I'd personally vote 3 AD broadside.

Does leave the issue of there being no advanced fighting ship in the crusade raid slot - you can either have a tantalus or hyperion (not advanced but decent fighters) or a delphi (advanced but a support ship that you'd only want a few of). Not a catastrophic problem, but a shame.



ISA

Command +2 for a point of dodge and two white star fighters. Fair enough.



Vorlons:

Glad of the Vorlon Frigate - it makes the points breakdown set complete, allowing a much more structured fleet. Very important if you don't want to get punished by the new points splitting rules.


Vorlon....dreadnought?
Bloody hell that thing's harsh.


Vree:

20 Flight carrier command ship without fleet carrier seems odd. I mean this is a fleet centrepiece ship, right?

 

[katadder]

the chronos missile variant i sent across did have turreted missiles but couldnt use variant missiles.
the escort stayed as it was, same as the amar (from E/C war pack)
the vree saucer I sent across did have fleet command, I dont know why it lost that on translation to the playtest rules but assume it does have it. it also had 8AD missiles each tube but that has been toned down.
fetula I though was ok as it has over half the AD of a bimith but no escort trait, is faster and has same shields as bimith. just thought it would ake people use the model more as it is a really nice model.

 

[CZuschlag]

Most are good; I particularly like the return of the Amar. The Fetula looks good, also. Might outdate the Bimith, however; two Fetula vs. 1 Bimith needs to avoid being obvious. It's close now, but the Fetula are indeed better.

The shifter ship is a HUGE problem. Easily-available long-range, arced-everywhere shifters could render whole pak'ma'ra fleets moot. Recommend more Gravitic Pulsars and only one Front-mounted shifter. Synthesis between pak'ma'ra, Comm Disruptors, Gravitic Shifters, and asteroids (or table edges) could be extremely severe. A fleet of Haltanas backed up by Shakara and/or Shyarie may be able to force a whole opposing fleet off the board to be subject to Launch Breaching Pods and Shuttles (if you All Stop and Pivot to keep from going off-board).

The new Vorlon will likely be extremely popular and will need tons of testing.

The rest look OK, even the scary Vree carrier (Tyzmm are living horrors).

 

[silashand]

The new Vorlon will likely be extremely popular and will need tons of testing.

The Dreadnought? I doubt it. You can get almost the same firepower with two Light Cruisers. I think the dread needs something else to make it truly dreadnought-class since as it stands I'd rather have the above or even a Heavy Cruiser instead of this one in the fleet. JMO though.

Cheers, Gary

 

[CZuschlag]

No, the Frigate.

 

[katadder]

2 fetulas have more firepower than a bimith but dont have the escort trait so depends what you want from the ships as you cant depend on kothas to protect you.
also most ships of a lower PL when put 2 v 1 or whatever tend to have more firepower. 2 hyperions have more than 2 omegas, 2 omegas have more than 2 command omegas etc.

 

[silashand]

2 fetulas have more firepower than a bimith but dont have the escort trait so depends what you want from the ships as you cant depend on kothas to protect you.
also most ships of a lower PL when put 2 v 1 or whatever tend to have more firepower. 2 hyperions have more than 2 omegas, 2 omegas have more than 2 command omegas etc.

True, however, in the case of the Vorlon dread you get the following if you take two LCs instead:

advantages:
1/3 more damage potential in the lightning cannon
1/3 more anti-fighter capability on both ships (total 133% more)
the same damage absorbtion capability (total hull points)
no lumbering trait
2" greater speed
one more 45 degree turn

disadvantages:
6" less range on weapons
1/3 less auto-repair capability

In most cases the differences between such ships is not so great, however, in this case the disparity is absolutely *huge*. The so-called dreadnought is not even close to what I would envision for an Armageddon ship and based on this comparison, it's not even a war-level class vessel IMO.

The frigate I agree is definitely worthwhile. Now if I could just get the destroyer with the open "petals" to use as a model for it (or the old heavy fighter model).

Cheers, Gary

 

[katadder]

aah iwasnt on about the dread, i agree its a waste of time. i would even use a heavy cruiser over it due to the 2 weapons which on average cause more damage anyway.

 

[locarno24]

The Fetula looks good, also. Might outdate the Bimith, however; two Fetula vs. 1 Bimith needs to avoid being obvious. It's close now, but the Fetula are indeed better.

Possibly make the quad battery firepower less omni-directional? So forward firepower as is, side and rear tending more towards the frigate hull it's built on

2 fetulas have more firepower than a bimith but dont have the escort trait so depends what you want from the ships as you cant depend on kothas to protect you.

True, but Abbai aren't exactly short of flak on their hulls to start with, and have patrol priority escort ships as well

 

[locarno24]

The Fetula looks good, also. Might outdate the Bimith, however; two Fetula vs. 1 Bimith needs to avoid being obvious. It's close now, but the Fetula are indeed better.

Possibly make the quad battery firepower less omni-directional? So forward firepower as is, side and rear tending more towards the frigate hull it's built on

2 fetulas have more firepower than a bimith but dont have the escort trait so depends what you want from the ships as you cant depend on kothas to protect you.

True, but Abbai aren't exactly short of flak on their hulls to start with, and have patrol priority escort ships as well

 

[Ripple]

Initial thoughts...

The Fetula is nice to see, especially as I like the model. Issues I have with it is it's just a mini-Bimith. We just got back the Bimith from useless land, why are we building it's replacement?

It's only 8 AD of Twl - so against hull 6 - 3ish hits/hull 5 - 5ish hits/hull 4 - 6ish hits. Not exactly fierce here folks unless your getting more than two arcs, and aside from having a rear gun, worse off than the Milani... who can deal with hull 6 and comes with Kotha.

So aside from good to get the model out... what does she do that the abbai need that isn't done already?

Would have been better with some role in fleet strategy, like a troop ship (peacekeepers... give em blue hats) or a dedicated laser boat (3-4 AD laser and some AF maybe)... leave area denial to the bimith fleet defender.

Haltana - still percolating on this one...

Amar - I really like seeing this ship back and I really hate it. It fixes the Centauri low end fighter issue, but it will smack a Milani all over the table, due to speed, carrier and way way better fighters. Admittedly... if it came to eight and fought it out, the Milani may do fine. But with the much better fighters (and likely to have one more on the table), fighters that can intercept as well as attack, and the ability to simply all power right over the Milanis Quad envelope (APtE is 18 inches, Milani threat envelope for quads is 16") that ain't gonna happen.

Now the Milani will do better vs three opponents... but even against two given the fighter disparity, the Amar will walk all over the Milani. I used to use the Milani and the Olympus as good measures of what a skirmish ship should be able to do... Amar feels pretty good and seems good vs Olympus... so maybe the Milani is the one that's off.

Tantalus - looks fairly good... big though...

Chronus Escort - gave up light guns for AF/Escort, only issue for it now is no CBD... okay

Chronus Missile - good.... if you turret even at 3 AD it gets to be better than a standard Chronus due to range and special loads. As is it trade crunch power for range, and throws in a blind spot or two. That's a good mix.

ISA looks good.

Vorlons - would rather have had a carrier at either level to be honest, but at least what we got at raid is good. Not sure about the Dread.

Vree - just problematic too me but I need to try it out. Too many 7 die fighters for my tastes

Ripple

 

[katadder]

on the vree they are only dodge 4+ fighters though and it needs them to make up for losing 32AD of SAP/TL DD weapons.
on antishipping they get 70AD plus an easy to AF 30AD more against the posiedons 96AD from t-bolts.

 

[Everyman]

I know that there was some desire to see some new Shadow ship so I thought that I would throw some out in the hope that maybe the powers that be might consider something for them. I based one on the old AOG scale fighter and the other on the scout. I am also throwing out a new Pak'ma'ra design since thus far they are being completely ignored in P&P with no ship, no admirals, no special rules, no ship changes...nothing.

Shadow Infiltrator Patrol
While it lacks the lacks the powerful weapons and regenerative capabilities of other Shadow ships, the Infiltrator can be grown much more quickly than a scout class vessel. In larger battles, the Infiltrators are often used to support the fighters and deal with any maneuverable quick moving enemies that might threaten the more powerful Shadow ships.

Speed: 11
Turn: SM
Hull: 4
Damage: 8(2)
Crew: N/A
Troops: 0
Craft: None
Special Rules: Atmospheric, Shields 5/1, Stealth 5+
In Service: Until 2261

Weapon/ Range/ Arc/ AD/ Special
Light Phasing Pulse Cannon/ 8/ F/ 4/ Accurate, AP




Shadow Transport (Scout Variant) Skirmish
The transport variant of the ubiquitous scout is often used by the Shadows to move their agents covertly or transport captured psychics of great value back to Shadow bases. With its powerful molecular slicer beam, the transport is often pressed into service by the Shadows as a light support gunship since they have such limited quantities of the larger vessels.

Speed: 10
Turn: SM
Hull: 4
Damage: 18(5)
Crew: N/A
Troops: 0
Craft: None
Special Rules: Atmospheric, Self-Repair 1, Shields 5/2, Stealth 4+
In Service: Until 2261

Weapon/ Range/ Arc/ AD/ Special
Molecular Slicer Beam/ 12/ F/ 2/ Beam, Precise, DD



Shyarie-class Trade Scout (Shyarie variant) Patrol
Often used to scout out new trade route routes, aid in securing mercantile operations and keep watch for hostile raiders by the Pak’ma’ra, the Shyarie is purchased from the Abbai and refitted like many other vessels in use by the Pak’ma’ra.

Speed: 9
Turn: 2/45
Hull: 5
Damage: 12/3
Crew: 13/3
Troops: 1
Craft: None
Special Rules: Anti-Fighter 1, Scout, Shields 8/2
In Service: 2180+

Weapon/ Range/ Arc/ AD/ Special
Plasma Cannon/ 10/ F/ 4/ AP
Plasma Cannon/ 10/ A/ 1/ AP
Plasma Cannon/ 10/ P/ 2/ AP
Plasma Cannon/ 10/ S/ 2/ AP

 

[stepan.razin]

I wouldn't mind seeing the Tantalus have a few Orbital Nukes, that cannot be swapped out.

 

[CZuschlag]

Anybody get a crack at the new stealthy Shadow Stalker?