Proposal: The White Star - The Knife Fight Variant

[Ripple]

Rock paper scissors is a problem.

I don't mind if a particular build is a bit r-p-s but I hate when whole fleets are. The issue with fleets is two folks who want to play together may not be able to buy the ships they want due to them being incompatable opponents, getting frustrated and dropping the game.

It was happening to the Minbari players in fist ed. No one would play them as the stealth mechanic while accurate in some ways, just wasn't fun to play against. Folks were having to buy a second race to find games.

Now it's better, but some other races are suffering the same fate... Gaim and ISA to some degree.

Ripple

 

[katadder]

well as you found fighters do a good job on WSs. so take an avenger as an ally. gives you more fightera and being speed 14 against a range 12 WS they can always get behind if the WS is shooting your ship.

 

[skavendan]

well as you found fighters do a good job on WSs. so take an avenger as an ally. gives you more fightera and being speed 14 against a range 12 WS they can always get behind if the WS is shooting your ship.

Yes and no this particular game was to test the whitestar. In reality they would most probably field a E-mine ship. And all my fighters are dead. I also don't like the idea of having to relly on allied ships. But it is an imperfect world.

So adding and avenger would not do much at all.

 

[katadder]

what did all your fighters die to? they move last, have a speed faster than the WSs tested range and at max only have to face 5 Nials.
with an avenger you get 8 starfuries that have dogfight +3 and 4x however many motherships with now dogfight +4. your fighters would destroy the nials then hang around behind the WSs all day. and do more damage than the hyperions

 

[skavendan]

Turn 11/12

I All Powered to Engines to get away from his fighters and fly around until the game ends knowing I’ve won.

If you look they didn't they took the odd pulsar attack but for the most part I must have lost about 4 bases of fighters out of 12.

So add the emine ship to the element then bang all fighters dead.

 

[l33tpenguin]

BOs + Fleet carrier = :twisted:

 

[Rawwar]

If I'd been pushed by the fighters ie they were causing too much damage I'd have manoeuvred my White Stars so they were facing each other thus giving mutual fire support. This is how I nailed the majority of the fighters as it happens.

I was also razzing around in the middle of his fleet my only concern was to stay outside the front arc of his Motherships and kill both the Hyperions which I eventually did. Then it was game over.

If he'd protected the other ships by placing then in the forward arc of the Motherships I would have merely flown round behind them & shot the Motherships in the ass. In such a confined engagement the White Stars turning ability came to the fore.

 

[eldiablito]

People are commenting about the entire Rock-Paper-Scissors issues; I would argue, theoretically, that this isn't a problem if every fleet had their own version of a rock, a paper and a scissor.

We all know that the white stars are strong against capital ships and weak against fighters. This should be balanced enough so that a cleaver ISA fleet can survive and even win against a fighter heavy, earth fleet (for example). Likewise, there should be some good ships choices to battle against several wings of firebolts (for example).

I know, this is pretty theoretical and offers little solutions, but I think we can all agree that this is the ideal solution that would make a good game.

So, how do we solve this? IMO, just offering allies from a bunch of races is too easy to mess up and have this existing situation; we should refine the ISA fleet so that it has access to Narn, League, Earth and Minbari ships so that it can deal with a Poseidon and firebolts without going over the top. Whew! This all begs the question; Which ships are cannon (enough) and appropriate for the White Stars? Which ships from other races are going to compliment them without making this the "I win" fleet?

IOW, the ISA should work much like the Army of Light list, but have access to fewer, other races, since it has more options like the blue star, the battle level, gun ship and the white star carrier.

This is all my opinion of course...

 

[skavendan]

People are commenting about the entire Rock-Paper-Scissors issues; I would argue, theoretically, that this isn't a problem if every fleet had their own version of a rock, a paper and a scissor.

We all know that the white stars are strong against capital ships and weak against fighters. This should be balanced enough so that a cleaver ISA fleet can survive and even win against a fighter heavy, earth fleet (for example). Likewise, there should be some good ships choices to battle against several wings of firebolts (for example).

I know, this is pretty theoretical and offers little solutions, but I think we can all agree that this is the ideal solution that would make a good game.

So, how do we solve this? IMO, just offering allies from a bunch of races is too easy to mess up and have this existing situation; we should refine the ISA fleet so that it has access to Narn, League, Earth and Minbari ships so that it can deal with a Poseidon and firebolts without going over the top. Whew! This all begs the question; Which ships are cannon (enough) and appropriate for the White Stars? Which ships from other races are going to compliment them without making this the "I win" fleet?

IOW, the ISA should work much like the Army of Light list, but have access to fewer, other races, since it has more options like the blue star, the battle level, gun ship and the white star carrier.

This is all my opinion of course...

As comments go for dealing with fighters this is BULL. They get a carrier with fighters that have accurate guns so don't make me swear on this forum!

The ISA needs no ally that is the hole problem taking one that compliments them makes the situation worse.

I was told to face 5 raid 5 whitestars so i did. They slaughtered me and the only comments I got where change your ALLY choice! Well mmm if they took a proper ISA fleet they would slaughtered me even quicker.

 

[skavendan]

With 5 Ashinta's I could get your WS's in multiple arcs, too. How's 120 AD of twin-linked mini-beam feel?

We played this tonight. It was close till about turn 7 when the ISA stopped failling stealth checks and slaughtered 2 ships.

3 Whitestars servived to my non.

So again another slaughter for the ISA!

 

[Hindsight]

Isn't five White Stars a proper Raid 5 list? I'd have maybe taken 3 I's and 2 II's for some Interceptors or something, but yea... we are the White Star Fleet afterall.

Try the White Stars against the Vree, where arcs aren't an issue. Pop pop White Star Pop. They are the Scissors to my Paper, to your rock, as has been said. Try Raiders, or Vorlons, or anything with a lot of Fighters. Dead White Stars, all over.

If you nerf me, so you have an easier time killing me, I'll die even faster to that thing that I am weak to already. That isn't balance, and that is not what this game needs. We need to move away from Rock Paper Scissors, and into something better across the board.

That said, changing the White Star will not balance this game out before 3rd Edition. The changes that need to happen reach far beyond what can be accomplished in this time window. For all we know the play testing is done, as we're almost to September and it has an October release date according to Previews, and as far as I know Previews doesn't just make that stuff up, that came from Mongoose for them to put in a pre-order code.

 

[skavendan]

Isn't five White Stars a proper Raid 5 list? I'd have maybe taken 3 I's and 2 II's for some Interceptors or something, but yea... we are the White Star Fleet afterall.

It's legal not effient though more like 3 whitestars. a skimirmish class. 2 blues Allied emine ship. that would have killed me alot faster.

blar blar am sick of testing whitestars and no1 seems to care!

So you have a problem with the vree didums.

The problem could easily be changed its in the crits chart and the precise!

 

[Hindsight]

So something like two White Stars, one White Star II, a Dag'Kar, a Rongoth and a pair of Blue Stars? Hrm... I wonder if I can still find a Rongoth in stores... ;-)

 

[skavendan]

So something like two White Stars, one White Star II, a Dag'Kar, a Rongoth and a pair of Blue Stars? Hrm... I wonder if I can still find a Rongoth in stores... ;-)

for a raid level game you would have to take the The Liandra Battle Frigate; shes not that bad a ship. and shes a scout.

 

[Hindsight]

I wouldn't take a Liandra if you paid me.

EDIT - Thanks to the new FAP I can skip Skirmish and go straight for the Blue Stars. I lose 1 Blue Star, or half a Skirmish point for doing this, but that should just go to show how much I hate the Liandra.

 

[kitsune106]

why not? just curious

 

[skavendan]

why not? just curious

well he probably doesn't like the lack of dwarfness lol no AA dodge CBD. it's a reasonable ship. If anyone has any complain it should be that the episode it is in sucks.

 

[Hindsight]

Compared to the Hyperion and the Chronos you get much less AD. The Chronos has 16 to the Liandras 7, with the Hyperion having 28. The Liandra has two of its three weapons Twin Linked, but vs. the Chronos the Turret has 2 dice vs. 4. I realize the special abilities of the guns make up for some value, but we're talking about 7 AD vs 16 or 28, in a game that is very crit heavy, the more dice we roll, the more likely we are to do some serious damage. 7 Dice is low when you consider it doesn't get all the typical ISA defenses like Adaptive Armor or Dodge.

The Liandra has more HP than the Chronos, but no Anti-Fighter or Interceptors (you can use the Flyer Flight as an interceptor I guess). The Chronos is Hull 6 vs. the Liandras 4. The Chronos has five arcs total vs the Liandras 2, so if you lose an arc, you're going to feel it more on the Liandra, where the Chronos at least has a chance of retaining some good guns.

It has a Flight Computer where the Chronos does not, and it has Scout where the Earth craft do not, but the ISA is hardly hurting for Scout, and with 22 crew the Liandra is not as worried about crew damage as the White Star might be.

Hull 6 goes a long way on the Chronos, vs Hull 4 on the Liandra. That means a lot more damage going through, vs. damage being ignored by not rolling high enough. That amounts for some of the Chronos' lesser HP.

The Maximus has Escort and Anti-Fighter 4, the Demos has 16 AD and even when slow loading, can CBD and still have 10 AD. If the Liandra uses CBD it can fire at most 4 AD.

On the Fluff side of things, where my roots are, the Liandra was an old old ship. It would not be something put into service as part of an attack fleet for the Interstellar Alliance alongside Blue Stars, White Stars and the Excalibur. At best, it is a civilian craft, like what we see floating around Babylon 5 and were made into Civilian Craft, but not counted against the fleets intended assortment of vessels.

In the movie, the thing is battered and broken, and barely makes it back for the crew to tell their tale. It isn't something I'd look at and say "Hey thats a mighty ship!" where everything else in the game is at least strong for its PL, the Liandra is a clunky old transport that looks like I spit out my Coca'Cola flavored gum and stepped on it with my new boots.

It does not match the visual appeal of the other White Star craft and comes from a movie that failed to relaunch Babylon 5 as a series, thus not really something I want to swoon over.

Savy?

 

[skavendan]

I don't see why you need anti fighter at all since every whitestar has a accurate weapon. And your lovely broken bluestars. If you play a low PL game skirmish or patrol it is not a bad choice ok there are better ships in other fleets but dont get me started I play Psi Corp I have a limited choices as you cept my allies are EA only.

 

[Hindsight]

Do you need a hug? If you need a hug, you let me know.

I like variety. I just think it'd be nice to have something at Skirmish I could be proud of. Yes, yes there are races with no Skirmish, and yes there are races with bad Skirmish, but that is just as serious as what I am saying.

As an ISA player, I'd never field one. I know of no ISA player who would. My friend who plays ISA offered to give me his for free when I started out, as he simply hates them, and someone else offered me a free Liandra in my second week. I am not alone in this.

Also, the Liandra is unique, so we either play the broken Blue Stars en mass, or use the Nolo'Tar, which is worse than the Liandra, but at least it has Anti-Fighter.