Playtest rules: Crusade era and 3rd age

[Shut Up Hippie!]

Chronos Attack Frigate:
Please make it finally better then the actuall one in the fleet book.
It's not worth it

not worth it? The current Chronos ship is one of the best skirmish ships in ACTA when used correctly. Flying a squadron of 4 of these babies into the middle of your opponents formations is utterly sick, and having done this I should know! Combined with a scout weapon re-rolls you can often get 16AD of twin linked railgun goodness. trust me.... that hurts! All those pulse cannons add up as well

 

[stepan.razin]

Chronos Attack Frigate:
Please make it finally better then the actuall one in the fleet book.
It's not worth it

not worth it? The current Chronos ship is one of the best skirmish ships in ACTA when used correctly. Flying a squadron of 4 of these babies into the middle of your opponents formations is utterly sick, and having done this I should know! Combined with a scout weapon re-rolls you can often get 16AD of twin linked railgun goodness. trust me.... that hurts! All those pulse cannons add up as well

Its the easiest ship to use, CBD and float around shooting. But I tend to agree, it doesn't need changing, its pretty good as is. The main weakness of Crusade, like the Vree, it has very few hit points, but there has to be a weakness.

 

[stepan.razin]

Tantalus - interesting ship, since my group hardly ever plays planetary assault, this one will stay in spaceport. Probably just use the assault hyperions anyways.

What kind of model will the Tantalus use?

 

[nekomata fuyu]

The Tantalus model uses the head and rotation section of a Poseidon, and the rear hull of an Omega.

 

[l33tpenguin]

The Tantalus model uses the head and rotation section of a Poseidon, and the rear hull of an Omega.

And is ugly as sin

 

[stepan.razin]

Great, got to buy more putty.... Sometimes I wonder why I dont just model the entire rotating section out of green stuff!

 

[Triggy]

Just read thru the 1.1 rules and EA ships.
Here my 2 cents :

Chronos-class Escort Frigate
Give it back the Pulse Cannons the original Chronos had

Chronos-class Missile Frigate
make the Missiles Turreted as the Railguns were, add 2 AD Pulse Cannons to the sides

Chronos Attack Frigate:
Please make it finally better then the actuall one in the fleet book.
It's not worth it

In other words make them all better.

As others have said, when used properly they're one of the better Skirmish PL choices out there - anything at that PL with Hull 6, Interceptors and a turret is pretty fearsome.

 

[Clanger]

The Chronos is a good Skirmish ship.

Having used a squadron of 4 Chronos Missile Frigates in a playtest game vs the Drazi/Abbai. The Fusion Missiles worked well. It stopped the Drazi ships from squadroning and they did not clump up. Okay so it is 1 shot but it split the Drazi / Abbai ships.

The Chronos Escort variant is good as well, Crusade needs an escort. I would have thought that being the main fleet who use interceptors I would like to see a Centauri Guardian Array type system with Earth Force as they are meant to be the interceptor masters.

 

[katadder]

also think of sending chronos missile frigates loaded with heavy misiles into the middle of an enemy fleet. the standard chronos can do 8 damage with railguns to one target at AP. the missile frigate can do 6 to 2 targets at SAP.

 

[CZuschlag]

The stock Chronos is an excellent ship at class. It needs zero revisiting at this time, period.

I don't know if this is the right place to talk about it, but the extension of Fusion missiles to Early EA (note date is 2231+) is a huge problem. Saggis will be able to use these in volleys to kill ships like Whitestars basically for free. One Saggi broadside loaded with Fusions is 4 hits for 10:8 before adaptive on average. You get 2 Saggitarius for every Whitestar. That's a dead Whitestar.

The effect is even more dramatic against the Drakh raiders!

And this is a guaranteed win before you even get two targets in the same Emine effect.

Busted. Early EA should not have access to the Fusion Missile.

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Yeh i do kind of agree there. Theres just too many emines in the game now. Giving saggis emines with stupid amounts of damage would cause the saggis to line up all fire and then jump out behind another ship. Wrong.

 

[wkehrman]

A question on the Saggis tactic suggested (firing then jumping out): don't you give your opponent some easy VPs doing that (Tactical Withdrawal)? Also, as regards the Saggis vs Whitestars: perhaps more attention to the IS dates is in order? I mean this broadly. I understand that in tournaments you can't do this, but you CAN limit the number and type of ships in a tourney. Just a line of thinking, that's all.

A comment regarding the fluff: The Fusion Missile finally gives John Sheridan the nukes he used to kill the Black Star. Pity the standard Hyperion would have no need for such missiles.

About the Fusion Missile: this seems the perfect weapon for those ships where the missile rack is one of several systems. It's wasted on the Apollo, IMHO, as it creates the same problem as above, i.e., tactical withdrawal. Why would I give my opponent points he has not earned?

 

[Tolwyn]

I would be glad if the Chronos would have some more AD on it's Railgun and/or the Pulse Cannons. I have nothing against Hull 6 etc., but some more AD would be nice. 2 AD F/A and 4 AD P/S is not this good.

The use of a Chronos with CBD is oneof the reasons why I largely dislike the Chronos at all.

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Oh thats what the early ea can have instead of new fangled missiles. Nukes!

 

[stepan.razin]

I would be glad if the Chronos would have some more AD on it's Railgun and/or the Pulse Cannons. I have nothing against Hull 6 etc., but some more AD would be nice. 2 AD F/A and 4 AD P/S is not this good.

The use of a Chronos with CBD is oneof the reasons why I largely dislike the Chronos at all.

How is that any different from most other ships in this game on CBD?

 

[CZuschlag]

You typically give your opponent 25-30% of your fleet in VPs plus 5 VP for holding the field of battle.

The rule is, if you can kill 50% of the other fleet for no losses, get out and get the free win.

 

[Tolwyn]

I would be glad if the Chronos would have some more AD on it's Railgun and/or the Pulse Cannons. I have nothing against Hull 6 etc., but some more AD would be nice. 2 AD F/A and 4 AD P/S is not this good.

The use of a Chronos with CBD is one of the reasons why I largely dislike the Chronos at all.

How is that any different from most other ships in this game on CBD?

Hull 6 + Interceptors + CBD + Turret Railgun.
Hard to kill without Beams. But that is not where my problem is.

My problem is the only and single use of the ship. Give it CBD and swarm the enemy with 4 AD, that's it. Nothing else.. I don't want a ship with such a singleminded use and even this without that much firepower. 4 AD is damage, but even an Artemis, a ship the Chronos was meant to replace, has more firepower with its guns in every arc.

I would like the skirmish Chronos with the weapons layout from Sky Full of Stars and the rest of the scores from the 2nd Ed version.

 

[stepan.razin]

I would be glad if the Chronos would have some more AD on it's Railgun and/or the Pulse Cannons. I have nothing against Hull 6 etc., but some more AD would be nice. 2 AD F/A and 4 AD P/S is not this good.

The use of a Chronos with CBD is one of the reasons why I largely dislike the Chronos at all.

How is that any different from most other ships in this game on CBD?

Hull 6 + Interceptors + CBD + Turret Railgun.
Hard to kill without Beams. But that is not where my problem is.

My problem is the only and single use of the ship. Give it CBD and swarm the enemy with 4 AD, that's it. Nothing else.. I don't want a ship with such a singleminded use and even this without that much firepower. 4 AD is damage, but even an Artemis, a ship the Chronos was meant to replace, has more firepower with its guns in every arc.

I would like the skirmish Chronos with the weapons layout from Sky Full of Stars and the rest of the scores from the 2nd Ed version.

Then, you should not have said that you wanna see it made 'better'... you should have said you wanted it different.

Also, when you say that they are hard to kill without beams, what fleet(s) are you referring to?

Mimbari? Narn? Centauri? ISA? Brakiri? Vree? Pakmara? Dilgar? Abbai? Drazi? Drakh? Psi Core? Gaim? Other EA?

You do realize that it only has 16HP... that down right patrol levelesque.

I may be wrong, but Chronos fits Crusade rather well.. a bunch of tough to hit, flexible ships with few hit points, LONG range, and above average fighters. That is why Mimbari have such easy time killing them.

 

[Lone Gunman]

One question. Do I get it right that I now no longer have to bother with the regular Chronos and can instead take the Escort variant every single time? I mean, it still has the railgun and the pulse cannons were already rarely used because of CBD.

 

[eldiablito]

Ok, that Earth E-mine was just too much.

First, the Chronos has a missle variant; I ask why? they already have great range with their battle level ships...

Now, the Chronos can get a superb e-mine. This went too far in this weeks games... After the game, we all talked about how effective they were; the consensus is that the Sagittarius will be even worse if this is made official (do we want to go back to THOSE ol' days?). Besides, if there is an e-mine, why would any reasonable Earth player choose the anti-fighter missles? The e-mine does the same job, at longer range and even can be used against races who do not use many fighters to boot!

As said earlier, the e-mine is already a wierd weapon that makes the Narn and Gaim unique (ignoring the single Brakiri vessel and Pak'Ma'Ra special rule). Why does one of the strongest fleet(s) in the game get this as well?