Question of the Minbari

[Sulfurdown]

I'm about to begin a four person campaign and one of my players put the Nolo'Tar on his fleet list. Except this is a Minbari faction he's playing. He's willing to bite it and rewrite the list if I call shenanigans on the inclusion of the N'T.

The only reason I'm not immediately making that call is that, unlike the Whitestar, the N'T is a Ranger ship with an ISD of 1226+. A) the Anla'Shok were rooted in Minbari and B) obviously the Minbari had the tech to build it for a long, long time. :?

Two big questions:

1) What is the forseable impact of adding the Nolo'Tar to the Minbari fleet list, even as a house rule?


2) What if the following was added to the Minbari Special Rules to keep it inline:
Anla'Shok; These are the rare Elite, those that stand watch for the Shadows. When using a Minbari fleet in a campaign, you may spend 1 Fleet Allocation Point at Battle level of your allowance from the following ships; Nolo'Tar or Whitestar. Only one Fleet Allocation Point may be allocated to these ships during any given scenario. These ships will be treated as allied ISA ships, abiding by the Rangers bonus to crew quality and rolling all Refits on the ISA list (They roll Other Duties on the Minbari fleet list).


Opinions? Impacts?

 

[angelus2000]

If I remeber correct, Nolo tars have no stealth but appreciable firepower. In low numbers, I'd expect them to get swatted first from extreme range as most people will try to close quickly with Minbari in order to reduce stealth effectivness. I'd definitly smack a Nolo Tar before attempting to shoot a stealth ship, as I simply have a much greater chance of hitting a Nolo'Tar at 20 over than I would anything with stealth. In close, they will be much more surviavable as there are now more viable targets to shoot at.

In high numbers, It would definitely give the Minbos a much greater advantage than they now enjoy. Minbos will finally have an appreciable swarm style ship to use in High PL battles.


its low PL battles, skirmish and patrol, where it would shine. its quite a decent little skirmish ship, much better than the Torotha, so those low PL battles become much dicier things to win for races that normally enjoy a low PL advantage (Early EA, Narn, Drazi )

 

[emperorpenguin]

1) What is the forseable impact of adding the Nolo'Tar to the Minbari fleet list, even as a house rule?
?

I think it fills a gap for the Minbari. They desperately need such a low PL ship. Been trying to convince the powers that be to include one in 2nd ed

 

[Sulfurdown]

The thing that makes me squimish about the use of the N'T as a Minbari ship is the prospect of a Drazi style swarm fleet backed by the Sharlin-style firepower. If fleets like the EA or Drazi have lost the initiative advantage, then you have battles where the Sharlin is barely ever targeted and just sweeps aside the opposition.

I was hoping some of the "Freelance" playtesters as well as the playtesters and designers could weight in with projections for how it could off balance a fleet. The Centauri are hedging mighty close to that line with how many ships and how spread across the bell-curve of priorities they are, I'd hate to see other fleets be simply ramped up to compensate since that starts an upward spiral toward broken ships being offset by more broken ships.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Every fleet should have viable choices at every level. The concept that races should be "good" or "bad" at any given level is the single stupidest thing I've ever heard in connection with this game.

 

[angelus2000]

Same here Lord David. It why I stopped playing Narn, the total crapfest of Raid PL and slightly lesser crapfest at battle they have and the Arma breakdown screws them royally. I'll admit to being a Big guns, Big ships person. Bin'Tanks are great, but the G'Quan has issues at range, and has essentially duplicate type ships at Raid with all the toughness of its larger brethen but with pop guns in comparison.

The Var'Nics a great ship at the wrong PL (too high) and so's the G'Karith (too low ). IF both of those ships were made raid and balanced appropriately, I do believe I'd play Narn again.

 

[emperorpenguin]

The Var'Nics a great ship at the wrong PL (too high) and so's the G'Karith (too low ). IF both of those ships were made raid and balanced appropriately, I do believe I'd play Narn again.

in that case I can confidently predict you'll be playing Narn again before long.... :wink:

 

[angelus2000]

:shock: :shock: :shock: YIPPEE!! Going to have to seriouskly rethink giving my close friend of mine all my Narn ships now

 

[Da Boss]

Every fleet should have viable choices at every level. The concept that races should be "good" or "bad" at any given level is the single stupidest thing I've ever heard in connection with this game.

I agree - lets have ships for all at all levels - now about the Shadows and Vorlons........................

 

[MustEatBrains]

I agree - lets have ships for all at all levels - now about the Shadows and Vorlons........................

The Drakh are a prime example that it can be done - they are an advanced race (basically the Shadows´equivalent of the Minbari), yet they have proper ships at all levels.

With all the new model coming out, many fleet lists are currently getting a nice boost in flexibility.

Still, being better at certain levels is part of the uniqueness/different styles of play of the different fleets - let´s wait and see what the changes in 2nd ed. will do about that.

 

[Triggy]

I agree - lets have ships for all at all levels - now about the Shadows and Vorlons........................

Well Vorlons are OK at the moment and Shadows are lacking at Battle PL (they are two fleets that don't easily have something other than fighters to take at low PLs). Watch this space...

 

[tneva82]

I agree - lets have ships for all at all levels - now about the Shadows and Vorlons........................

Well Vorlons are OK at the moment and Shadows are lacking at Battle PL (they are two fleets that don't easily have something other than fighters to take at low PLs). Watch this space...

Heavy fighters/fighter capital ship hybrid ala drakh raider comes to mind as 2 possibilities.

 

[Da Boss]

I agree - lets have ships for all at all levels - now about the Shadows and Vorlons........................

Well Vorlons are OK at the moment and Shadows are lacking at Battle PL (they are two fleets that don't easily have something other than fighters to take at low PLs). Watch this space...

Not a great choice for low levels the First Ones fighters are , well quite bad hmm, even if there fighters are fixed for 2nd Ed - be sooo very nice to have more of a choice than at present................

6 or 7 ships would be nice across the levels - including maybe even a Ancient level ship each (Dreadnought, Titan etc)? I think Only the ISa and Raiders have the same lack of choice and Allies help them out.

There are plenty of way of expanding them - Fighter Carriers (literally mother ships) also as suggested above, heavy strike fighters, dedicated antiship ships (at raid/ skirmish) for the Shadows. Escorts and Scouts for the Vorlons - esp now that Scouting does not effect Beams. Perhaps a new special Scout like the new Minbari one (mentioned I think in SP that removes all stealth from target ship)for both fleets

Extra models already exisit in the fleet action scale - re use the "big" transport as a varient on the destroyer - maybe mutiple shorter ranged beams.............use the smaller Shadow scouts as the strike ships.........

 

[angstpuppet]

How about making the Shadow cloud and the Vorlon Planet killer the Ancient level ships for those fleets? They do seem to be the biggest things they field in the show.

 

[tneva82]

How about making the Shadow cloud and the Vorlon Planet killer the Ancient level ships for those fleets? They do seem to be the biggest things they field in the show.

Problem is would they be worth it?

Just because they are capable of blowing planets does not mean they are good in ship to ship combat. That vorlon planet killer beam for example might not be accurate enough to hit small ships accuratly.

Sounds more like scenario specific units(cool ones though).

 

[angstpuppet]

Yeah they likely would only be scenario driven, but isn't that what the Ancient priority level is at this point? I doubt many of us are breaking out our Ancients box set with any regularity, although the last really fun fight I had was all of the Ancients against shadows. Good fight, was reasonably short and even though my Ancients got smoked it was a blast.

 

[Da Boss]

How about making the Shadow cloud and the Vorlon Planet killer the Ancient level ships for those fleets? They do seem to be the biggest things they field in the show.

Problem is would they be worth it?

Just because they are capable of blowing planets does not mean they are good in ship to ship combat. That vorlon planet killer beam for example might not be accurate enough to hit small ships accuratly.

Sounds more like scenario specific units(cool ones though).

The Shadow Cloud seemed pretty good at killing ships..............Volrlon Planet Killer - no idea - but it could be if we want it to be............. god knows how big the model would be though!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tneva82]

Yeah they likely would only be scenario driven, but isn't that what the Ancient priority level is at this point?

But would you be able to beef them enough to make them ancient level? Or would they be more like slow, bloody tough ships with anti-planet special rule and for it's size weak weaponry(Vorlons probably didn't escort them with thousands of smaller ships just for fun) not all that suitable for blowing ships out?

I don't see how putting them at ancient would really be helpfull. This instantly creates expectation on people's mind on how well it should perform and then they would get dissapointed for them being undergunned...And would likely just ignore the whole "scenario purposes only" aspect.

 

[Greg Smith]

Ancient isn't really supposed to be priority level. It just represents unique and very, very hard ships. The PL and VP tables don't cover the full spead from patrol to ancient for example.