Points system vs PL

I have no problem dropping the White Stars weapons to 10" for the Beam, and 10" for the Pulsars. Make everyone fight like I do lol.
 
Hindsight said:
I have no problem dropping the White Stars weapons to 10" for the Beam, and 10" for the Pulsars. Make everyone fight like I do lol.

And leave it f-arc :D

This would put the white stars where they should be (per screen evidence).
 
It might take me an extra turn to fire at all... but yea... not much of a change for people who use the White Stars in that knife fight scenario.
mrambassador1 said:
Just a side note, I think the whitestars do very well in roughly raid engagements, which is what they are really designed for in the show. They don't fare as well against bigger (Armageddon) engagements just like in the show. After a big battle in the shadow war sheridan said "We did OK, not great but we held our own. But we lost a lot of ships" Most of the larger battles required Minbari War Cruisers or G'Quans etc. The whitestars in the show didn't fare that well against big ships which is why Sheridan proposed the Victory class of ships "A Destroyer class whitestar" I think the whitestars do perform very much as they did in the show, very well against raiders or smaller targets, but needing larger ships to support in big engagements. If you want battles with whitestars I suggest battles around their PL, for larger battles do what Sheridan did and use larger ships with whitestars in support.
I agree with this, and I don't. A Sharlin is a War level ship, I can take 4 White Stars for the one Sharlin in a Battle level game, three in a War level game. Four White Stars can do a lot of damage to a Sharlin if they stay in one arc, which isn't hard to do for a white star. Get a lucky crit, and I have three ships to fall back on. I just want to make sure the cut isn't so harsh that it isn't logical to take any White Stars to a War level game. I'm penalized for using the ISA's main ship, the White Star, in a War level game, I lose one in the split. I guess I just wish there was a better way.

Buff the big ships, leave the FAP as a clean split. I guess thats just a change of flavor, as right now the game favors the small ship.
 
good to see you back hindsight, I was afraid we'd broken you :(

If you're so keen on using the whitestar (what ISA player isn't) without being penalised I suggest playing mainly raid and battle (or even skirmish for that matter) PL engagements. Most battles are Battle or Raid anyway, and I doubt you'll get many opponents refusing to play at this level. That way you won't be penalised for using the whitestar at all. If you are forced into War level engagements getting 3 instead of 4 whitestars isn't that big a punishment (15 whitestars instead of 20 is still pretty formidable)

I think the designer uses PL to encourage different ships to be used for different battles (if you don't want to use different ships then just use the same PL all the time). Many miniatures games tended to fall into familiar patterns of players using the same army all the time, different sized battles usually just meant more or less of the players favourite composition. The PL system encourages players to use different fleets for different battles. This is a feature I (and others) actually like. That's the irony of trying to "fix" aspects of the game, half the people actually like the thing that others think is a problem (you can't fix a red car by painting it yellow, some people actually like red cars).

As I said, if you want to use whitestars all the time, play 20 pt Raid games instead of 5 pt War. If on occasion an opponent insists on War then the 3 instead of 4 whitestars isn't so bad, just a little punishment. Just keep telling yourself "I don't care if we're not ready. I don't care if we haven't got enough ships. From here on out we hit back and we hit back hard"
 
Is priority level perfect?

No.

Is it a lot simpler than trying to figure out how to spend those last thirty-something points?

Yes.

Does it encourage fleets appropriate to the scenario?

No...well, the current one doesn't...the Powers & Principalities will and the Armageddon one did. The concept of a priority level for the scenario as well as just a points limit is what's important, and the priority system is a lot simpler than some sliding scale of points costs.

Is it awkward to balance?

As noted, balance perfectly, yes. It's not a terribly granular system so there will always be better and worse. But then there are few games even with points systems which don't have cheesemongering brokeness somewhere in their rules (From Nebelwerfers to Daemon Princes to 1st edition Kra'Vak to the Ogre Mark Five)

Balance roughly, no. Whilst it's hard to get all ships of an exact level, roughly fitting a ship into a priority level is easy enough even without the ability to do massed playtesting.




I agree with this, and I don't. A Sharlin is a War level ship, I can take 4 White Stars for the one Sharlin in a Battle level game, three in a War level game. Four White Stars can do a lot of damage to a Sharlin if they stay in one arc, which isn't hard to do for a white star. Get a lucky crit, and I have three ships to fall back on. I just want to make sure the cut isn't so harsh that it isn't logical to take any White Stars to a War level game. I'm penalized for using the ISA's main ship, the White Star, in a War level game, I lose one in the split. I guess I just wish there was a better way.

I suppose that's sort of what the Gunship is there for. I personally would have kept it as the White Star class II - i.e. same hull form, just tougher and nastier, but rarer and only used in more critical confrontations (this is partly because I don't like the gunship model).

The problem is trying to make sure that iconic ships are effective without giving players an automatic choice. The proposed white star 'fix' is a perfect example; reducing the power of a white star's secondary battery just makes people take gunships.

Look at it the other way - Minbari players want to take their iconic ship, the sharlin warcruiser. The lower the priority of the game they want to take one in, the more heavily they get outnumbered - you get an extra white star free at raid priority - and the more ACTA's tendancy towards 'magic bullet' critical hits comes into play.
 
I'm trying to convert a Gunship right now, make it something I'm not ashamed to have on the table, but yea... of our line, I only really like the Blue Stars, the White Stars, the Sharlin and the Victory, and we haven't had a victory in stock where I play in ages... or I'd have one =)

I want to play bigger games, but the Tara'lin just isn't that impressive. I am however curious if the White Star + Minbari Sharlin will become a viable Battle list given the Army of Light variant letting me take as many White Stars as I want. The cost of that magic bullet is in the FAP at that level, and that will have to be something I can come to support. Anything to take the sting out of the Swarm.

And yea, I was gritting my teeth there for a few days, but I think we're really making some strides in the White Star thread, so I owe it to my babies to see it to the end =)
 
Hindsight said:
I'm trying to convert a Gunship right now, make it something I'm not ashamed to have on the table, but yea... of our line, I only really like the Blue Stars, the White Stars, the Sharlin and the Victory, and we haven't had a victory in stock where I play in ages... or I'd have one =)

I want to play bigger games, but the Tara'lin just isn't that impressive. I am however curious if the White Star + Minbari Sharlin will become a viable Battle list given the Army of Light variant letting me take as many White Stars as I want. The cost of that magic bullet is in the FAP at that level, and that will have to be something I can come to support. Anything to take the sting out of the Swarm.

And yea, I was gritting my teeth there for a few days, but I think we're really making some strides in the White Star thread, so I owe it to my babies to see it to the end =)

I agree on the ISA list, Hindsight. If I played ISA, and I'm sure we've all considered it, those are the only models I'd want as well. The WS Carrier, Gunship and Fighter and both stupid concepts and hideous models and never should have happened.

Hopefully the LotR Valen will come out at battle level and give the ISA a decent Rangers ship for larger games, but a lot don't agree with me there...
 
The LT manta ray or the LoTR green brick?

LoTR Valen would be nice in that it's another step towards having the pre-white star range fleet (giving you a choice from white stars).
 
Hindsight said:
I've got cash money right now for a Valen. I'd love to paint one of those babies.

Give yourself 4 months, and you will have 3-4 fleets like the rest of us, or even more like some of us :D

All for the price of a small 40K army
 
Hindsight said:
And yea, I was gritting my teeth there for a few days, but I think we're really making some strides in the White Star thread, so I owe it to my babies to see it to the end =)

I would have been bummed to see you stay away :( You've brought a lot to the forums with you, and also have been making a very good vocal backing for the white star :)
 
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