Psi Corps - good? bad? new player needs to know

[cubfan1978]

I asked this with my other post, but it got lost under another topic.

I wanted to maybe start a Psi Corps fleet, but I wanted to know if they have access to the other Earth Alliance vessels or only what Mongoose has listed on the Psi Corps page? Also, to field an average play level fleet, how much needs to be purchased past the initial starter box? How do they play, are the hard to use?

 

[Voronesh]

Psi Corps get access to 3rd age or Crusade era ships. And 2 Points can be bought from their lists.

The last one is often interpreted as anything up to 2 points, but official rules arent wirtten like that, so there might be peeps claiming that it either has to be 0 or 2.....yadda, yadda

On the ships itself i havent actually played them yet, neither do i own a book yet (grrrr), but from looking at burgers shiplist, it seems the Nemesis suffers from the Armageddon syndrome, others seem ok.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I really should finish writing up my thoughts on the Psi Corps fleet at some point...
At lower levels, Psi Corps themselves are relying a lot on their fighters, with the options being either fighter wings, or ships for which one of the major roles is bringing fighters to the board (or a scout, but that's hardly a fighting vessel either). At first, this looks great, as the Psi Corps have fighters which individually are pretty damn scary, but when you factor in that you get half as many Black Omegas as (EA) Auroras, you actually get a better deal with the EA. The same can be said in the comparison between Black Omegas and Shadowfuries - you get half as many Shadowfuries, but this time they don't even pretend to be worth twice as much.
Overall, in all the games I've played so far, the EA requisitions have been vital for using Psi Corps at low priority levels. It's the only way to get hold of some real combat ships.

 

[Ripple]

Have to agree that the firepower output is a bit low on the Psi-Corp.

First thing that strikes me as very funny is the only ship in the Corp not to have AJP is the scout. It is called an escort, and I know that scout really means ew-ship, but just struck me as funny.

I think part of the reason for the low firepower output was the idea of stealth being everywhere...but the stealth levels are kind of low to really defend the fleet at the ranges they have to get to. Sort of the old torotha issue.

It almost feels like the Psi-Corp ships were designed under the old standards for defense and firepower.

Even the mothership worries me due to speed. Stealth is powerful on ships that can force range changes as many minbari can...but much less useful on a ship that cannot move even the one bracket.

Ripple

 

[Knight of ne]

Sadly it seems that the Psi Corps seem to be a fleet that trys to use the best bits of other fleets (minbari stealth, shadow AJE, self repairing) and have ended up as a sub par fleet, there playable and fun but without EA they struggle in games. I find that Black omega starfurys are rather effective actually.

Knight of ne

 

[Triggy]

I think the Mothership, Hunter and Shadow Omega are good, solid warships with the Nemesis maybe being a little below par but nothing too huge. The Shadowcloak is fine but mainly a scout and Patrol PL scouts rarely have much of anything else to boast about. The Fighter Carrier is a bit weak to my mind but it was hard to think of a way of improving it enough without changing its PL. Either way, it's not a warship, it's a carrier. This means Psi Corps fleets tend to do worse at low PLs but this is somewhat mitigated by their taking EA allies where the Chronos and Myrmidon are excellent choices.

 

[Greg Smith]

It is kind of a gimicky fleet. If luck is with you, stealth will work and your fighters will get through anti-fighter fire; if luck doesn't work, you will get shot to pieces.

 

[sidewinder]

Yeah, those shadowfuries are almost worthless. If the range was 3 they would be a little better but its only 2" so they will get shot by AF and dont even have the psi crew to get them that 4+ dodge. They arent a bad interceptor but you dont get enough of them. They are almost as worthless as the real shadow fighters. And a refit to increase stealth on psi corp ships would have been nice.

 

[katadder]

i think at raid and below it plays kind of like raiders with better tech but more fragile as they rely more on fighters