Questions from the new guy

[Zeru]

I have recently picked up this game and have played it several times, and I have a few questions.

1) In the rulebook; Double damage, Triple damage, and Quad damage, only affect damage correct? and not crew?

The reason I think this is because every other instance I have seen that talks about increasing or decreasing the "damage" to both of these specifically stats so.

2) Does this game have a standard base size? A friend of mine says he heard no, and this could cause potential problems with fighters who measure from their edge. As a smaller or bigger base can hurt or help them against ships.


I also play ISA, and would appreciate any tips for them, I have found blue stars to be immensely useful, but the White Star gunship seems very scenario dependant, and the White Star Carrier is a beast :twisted:

The normal White Star seems great because of scout, it has helped me alot so far, but the White Star 2's Nial fighter does not seem really worth it to me to give up scout, opinions?

 

[darknight]

the stem size isnt really standard, its best to mount your ships on what is the sturdiest for them, and damage is for both crew and hull

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

Seconding what Darknight said re bases and double/triple/quad damage. Though there is a PDF floating around of "official" base sizes, this was a proposed rule change prior to Sky full of Stars and in no way is actually official.

As for White Stars, the I and II both have their uses. Given that White Stars have no side or rear-firing weapons, and fighters move after capital ships, there's every possibility that a fighter-heavy fleet could swamp white stars with fighters in side and rear arcs, so it's handy to have a CAP to slow that down or stop it (and there's few fighters better than the nial). Also, scout is very useful, but of limited application in mass quantities, while Nials can be useful to increase your firepower projection.

 

[Locutus9956]

Quad/Triple/Double etc applies to both damage and crew. It should also be noted that it applies to any extra damage and crew resulting from critical hits inflicted by said weapons!

Base sizes, nope theres no official size, the main reason for this was to allow people with existing B5Wars fleets to continue to use their fleets without having to rebase them. Personally I think now there are rules about fighters sitting on bases and ingonring stealth 'when in base contact' that there really ought to be official base sizes but as it stands there isnt. Most people tend to play with either the standard ones or hex bases though and most fighter bases tend to be about an inch in diameter so probably best to aim for that sort of point if you use bases mongoose didnt supply!

As for Nials, dont undersetimate them, theyre some of the nastiest fighters in the entire game in all roles, 1 flight may not sound much but fighters can pose a serious threat to whitestars if left unchecked, it only takes a few fighters to nibble their crew down to nothing and since they lack fighter defences of their own they can find themselves being nibbled to death and unable to do anything about it (that said, whitestars can actually OUTRUN most fighters ).

The Whitetar gunship can be good but generally speaking I wouldnt want to field one over 2 Whitestar Is or IIs. Bluestars are for their level truly nasty little ships and if left to run around can cause all sorts of annoyance. They also make excellent initiative sinks. The Victory is an absolute monster, though due to its sheer cost it tends to only get fielded in larger games (well, I tend to try and field mine whenever I legally can but thats just cos its so damn cool rather than it being tactically sound, that said it has brought out some wonderful looks on my opponents faces as I unpack my '5 point battle' fleet of 3 ships . Of course it tends to get massacred but the first couple of turns are generally highly amusing as the Victory rolls forwards and sweeps the small fry out of its path like dirt )

The Whitestar Carrier and Fighter.... well frankly theyre very good ships in game terms but as most of the longstanding folks around here know already, I despise the entire idea that seemed to be behind the original ISA expansion that consisted of sticking the word whitestar in front of random naval classifications! The gunship sort of got away with it, the others were frankly just taking it too far and I still dont like the 'whitestar that eat all the pies' look Which is not to say I have anything against them if anyone else wants to use em, merely that I will never do so

And of course you now have access to the excellent Taralin too, arguably even nastier than a normal Sharlin.

In fact this more than anything I like about the 2nd ed ISA list, the fact that it has slight crossovers with the Minbari and Crusade EA (who founded it). Also since Minbari and Crusade EA are my other two fleets this is very handy for me in terms of being able to field models that cross over!

 

[Na-Po]

Just to add that even on a bulkhead hit you'll get some domages
if under double/triple or quad domage.

if double or triple it should be -1/-0 (hull/crew)
and for quad -2/-0

(guys with rules under your eyes feel free to correct if I did a mistake I'm not home)

 

[Locutus9956]

nope thats correct I believe!

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

and remember that precise weapons add their +1 to all damage rolls, including 1s - meaning they can't get a bulkhead hit.

 

[Zeru]

Thanks alot guys, I appreciate the help.

I was confused by the wording of the Double/Triple/Quad damage traits, guess my white stars might be getting crewed more often.

I also had a question about scout, the way it is worded, it sounds like it allows rerolls on all weapons of that type against a single enemy, does this mean if I declared Molecular Pulsars as my scouted weapon, that all Molecular Pulsars would get a reroll against that enemy?

A friend of mine wanted to know, I have personally just been running it as a reroll for a single weapon, not a single weapon type.

White Star 2s, I noticed, are actually slightly slower then White Stars as well, but I suppose the Nial would actually be somewhat useful for dealing with enemy fighters (although every game I have played so far has had a huge amount of fighters from the enemy, the Vree and the Centauri with their raid level fleet carrier >.<)

The Scout on the White Star has been immensely useful for helping my Blue Stars get rerolls on their hits when they were forced to use a special action on something else, or failed their roll on "Concentrate All Firepower!" So I definatly like it, it also helps when I close blast doors on the White Stars themselves and scout for their secondary weapon.

The White Star Carrier worked great for me the first game I used it in, the White Star Fighters with it really have some teeth, and help deal with enemy fighters. It is also the only vessel in the "White Star" class that has A, and P weapons, which helped immensely.

Even if it does look like an Overweight Pigeon. :lol:

The White Star gunship's only advantage (that I can see) is that it carrier two White Star fighters, which helps with fighter problems alot more then the Nial (I think). But otherwise Two White Stars does seem the better buy to me.

So far I was thinking my Fleet should be either;

5 point Raid

8 Blue Star
2 White Star
1 White Star 2

or

12 Blue Star
2 White Star

or

8 Blue Star
1 White Star
1 White Star Gunship.

I heard somewhere that you can only go up one level from the priority you are at, so Battle is the heighst in a raid level battle?

If not then here is a fourth option (cause im crazy)

4 Blue Star
1 White Star Carrier

as you can tell, I like the Blue Star. :twisted:

 

[Dizzy Vree]

no, you can go as many up or down as you like (dont have rules under nose tho), and the carrier-blue star mix is very popular among "our" ISA players (and its a right royal pain in the arse)

 

[Zeru]

So what do you guys think give the ISA a hard time?

So far the Vree and Centauri (With that Battle level White Star Killer), and I imagine that the Narn would be a problem as well.

 

[Burger]

And of course you now have access to the excellent Taralin too, arguably even nastier than a normal Sharlin.

Unless it's changed quite dramatically from the playtest rules, the Tara'Lin is totally outclassed by a normal Sharoos. It gains Command, a bit extra AF and retains the Sharlin's fighter compliment... but has its weapons nerfed to the point that it is barely even a War level ship!

 

[WereRogue]

Thanks alot guys, I appreciate the help.I also had a question about scout, the way it is worded, it sounds like it allows rerolls on all weapons of that type against a single enemy, does this mean if I declared Molecular Pulsars as my scouted weapon, that all Molecular Pulsars would get a reroll against that enemy?

It's one weapon system on every ship that fires. In a White Star fleet where you don't have a lot of different weapons, the distinction doesn't really matter. However, in fleets with ships with multiple weapon types, it does. And, IIRC, you don't have to declare the weapon systems when you make the stealth roll.

You could, for example reroll the fire from a missile weapon system, and a railgun system from two different ships.

Hope this helps.

-Ken

 

[Zeru]

I think I may have misworded it, If I declare a Scouted target and say "Molecular Pulsars" then does every single ship with a Molecular Pulsar get to reroll that weapon against that target?

If so, that is pretty damn powerful.

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

I think so, and based on what wererouge said definitely. But it would also seem you don't need to just restrict it to the molecular pulsars, not that you can re-roll beams anyway so your only over options are the missile racks, the weapons on the Victory or some ofrm of allied ship supporting your fleet. So yes, it has the potential to be very powerful and very useful; especially if the enemy has high hulls or you get a poor roll on the first throw of the dice.

If I'm wrong someone feel free to correct me.

 

[WereRogue]

I think I may have misworded it, If I declare a Scouted target and say "Molecular Pulsars" then does every single ship with a Molecular Pulsar get to reroll that weapon against that target?

If so, that is pretty damn powerful.

Yes - but you don't have to declare a specific weapon system. You declare a scouted target, and every friendly ship that fires on that target gets to re-roll one weapon system (that is allowed for rerolls, no Beam, TL, or emine) when firing against it.

However, if your opponent kills the scout that's doing the targetting, bye-bye rerolls.

Again, hope this helps.

-Ken

 

[darknight]

thats right, so park your scout round an asteroid field

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

Very nice, can multiple scouts perform that? Obviously only one re-roll is gained, and only one weapon system, but so that one can take over from a destroyed scout that was also providing the benifit.

 

[darknight]

yea i think so another scout can perform the same action on the same ship

 

[WereRogue]

Very nice, can multiple scouts perform that? Obviously only one re-roll is gained, and only one weapon system, but so that one can take over from a destroyed scout that was also providing the benifit.

Yes. Same with breaking Stealth. While you can never get more than a +1 vs. Stealth from any number of scouts, redundancy means that you keep that target "painted" for as long as possible.

Of course, with their 36" (or longer!) range on Scouts, they should be able to stay out of a fair amount of the heavy combat.

-Ken

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

Thanks for the clarification, it's much appreciated guys.