Romulans vs Klingons. Oh my...

[Stu--]

We did a quick game today of the above.
Never done this match-up before and it was not a good one.

The Romulans don't seem to have an answer other than cloaking versus drones.
But even worse that that, the klingon shield rule (half damage vs front) means the plasma torps mostly bounce off.

Anyone have an answer as to how to make a game of Rom v Klink ?

 

[billclo]

I have not played Roms vs Klingons, but I have played Gorn vs Klingons.

Let him flank your bigger ships, keeping them in his front shield arc. You move up some small ships, fire phasers and plasma to eat up both his shield strength and defensive phasers, and then fire the big ship's plasmas (one at a time so that if the front shield drops, the follow-up torpedo's damage isn't halved.

You are going to have to concentrate plasma fire; 3+ ships on one target is common. Use the IDF Special Action as much as you can. Hold as many phasers as you can for drone defense, and try to not let him concentrate multiple ships in one shield arc - if you have 3+ ships all firing drones that all hit on the same arc you're going to be hurting. Try to move such that more than one arc can engage drones, like putting the drone firing ship on the border between Fore and Port/Starboard so that both Fore and side weapons can engage.

Don't forget as the Rom that you can pick the KRC, which has Plasma-D which can act as a ADD, though you have to reload it after using it like that.

The first plasma engagement may only do moderate damage, but try to weather his fire while you are reloading, and let him have it again. My first game with Gorn vs Klingon, I thought great, I only destroyed 1 ship, and damaged another. But if you can weather his fire and let him have it again, preferably on targets that are already damaged or have weak shields, the subsequent salvoes can be telling. Make sure you concentrate fire until the ship goes boom; it's fairly easy to get ship explosions by overkilling with plasmas. :lol:

 

[Stu--]

Hi Bill thanks for the tips.
It was only a small game, bit of a test game really.

We had five ships each (700pt). The Romulans spent the first two turns under cloak but even with the 2+ save ~30 attacks are going to yield 6 hits or so.
Not awful, but probably better than not being cloaked. (though it makes me shake my head with a trek-fan sigh as this happens)

The problem was when uncloaking. We came out close enough to get a good shot (8") which was also close enough for the Klink to overload and blow big chunks out of us.
The game was over in about half an hour (lobbed back onto the shelf in disgust with a longing stare at 'federation commander')

I don't have any issue with the multiple destruction or the lack of drone defence - it's the Klink shields that just appear way over the top.
I mean, in FC/SFB they were roughly on par with the feds to the front, but in this they have the best shields in the game and they get better as you do more damage.

 

[billclo]

Overload range is 6", not 8", so if you can end up at 8" he can't overload on you.

Believe me, I thought the Klingons were way overpowered the first few games as well. I took the advice of more experienced players and just dove in there for a close range fight (try to be over 4" away to keep all those Phaser-2s out of Kill Zone). He can't keep his front shield pointed at all possible enemies if you swarm him at close range. Flank him as much as you can.

Also, it may seem counter-intuitive, but if you have the choice of a closer target but he's pointed his front shield at you, or a slightly worse shot at a Klingon's flank, take the longer flank shot. You'll do double the damage. Otherwise you waste nearly half of your damage against that front shield.

Another trick that works vs the Klingon double shield rule is to not fire all your weapons at once. Fire by weapon system, one by one, until the shield drops. Also remember that if you hit with 2 1-pt phasers, they are halved to yield one hit, but if you split fire with your weapon systems on 2 targets, each one takes one point of damage (1 hit halved but rounded up). Thus if you have 2 worthwhile targets in arc and they are both pointing their front shield at you, and you have a 2 dice Phaser-1 battery, split the dice up and fire one at each target. This yields one hit on each target. If you'd fired both at one target and hit with both, those 2 points of damage are halved (ie, one point is wasted).

If you let him play his game, which is keeping you at medium range and in front of him while he pings your shields away, you lose. Get in there close, and hit him on the flanks and watch the smaller-hulled Klingons burn.

I'm at about 60/40 Klingon/Fed win loss ratio, so I still have some work to do figuring out tactics, but the first 5 games, the Klingons won 100% of the time. Once I started to dive in there and get more flank shots, the win ratio started to go more my way. That reminds me, do pay attention to the suggested map size in the rules. Larger maps give the Klingons too much room to maneuver and they seem to win more often on larger maps. Try a 3'x3' map, maybe with some terrain.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

the main problem the Klingons face with shields is rebuilding/reinforcing. If you get around the side (extremely hard with Klingons due to all the agile ships), the double shield rule actually becomes a weakness as the base levels are worse (D6/7 have 18pt shields so only rebuild/reinforce at 1 die).

Though i don't suppose anyone is using these now that the drone heavy ships are availible :?

 

[Rambler]

Keeper N - Save you D6 and D7s. Wait til the D7D and D6D show up before you write those hulls off...

 

[Stu--]

I agree if you can get around their front shields you can hurt them.
I think that the shield rule is just horrendously over powered vs plasma weapons. It's not a bad rule if you're looking at phasers (half damage) or even /that/ bad vs photons (though losing 4 damage for an overload is a lot) but against a plasma it's a massive bonus - 7d6 should yield around 24 hits but the klinks reduce to 12. There's no basis for that amount of extra protection in SFB or FC.

 

[billclo]

There's no basis for that amount of extra protection in SFB or FC.

I agree, but it's what we have to deal with, and if you remove it, the Klingons are too weak in the shield and hull to be competitive. Would require a major redesign of the Klingon fleet to remove it now...which one could do if you house-rule it of course.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Wasn't worrying about hull redundancy (i actually like the D6/7), more bemoaning the massive drone spam that is occuring in fleets :roll: (could this be that i'm a Gorn at heart :evil: , so don't get to join in). Everything these days seems to have 4 drone racks.

And i'd never say no to bigger Plasma

 

[Stu--]

Keeper, you're obviously playing plasma users a lot.
We found that plasma seems to get shot down too easy - 1 hit (of a phaser) for 1 AD of plasma.
We were going to try changing it to 1 hit does half a hit.
Just curious what you think about that?

 

[Da Boss]

Wasn't worrying about hull redundancy (i actually like the D6/7), more bemoaning the massive drone spam that is occuring in fleets :roll: (could this be that i'm a Gorn at heart :evil: , so don't get to join in). Everything these days seems to have 4 drone racks.

Tend to agree - but that just seems to be a SFU things - loads and loads of drones for most fleets..........

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

The idea has been posted before - can't remember by who, with the twist that phasers count Killzone when used against plasma (still makes a P-3 too good :? ), so that the target ship got reasonable defense, but supporting ships suffered (explains why most Gorn/Romulan (and ISC) ships mount P-1, it can reach out and touch better). Never came to anything.

Also liked storyelf's idea (it's actually in the drone thread (somewhere), though was a more radical review involving special orders and Plasma (actually my prefered option, as it solved the limit on drone strikes per ship as well). It's only when you play fleets outside the 'Plasma Pocket' that things get bad. Especially with the increase in drones (in SFB/FC you get more time to deal with them as the 'travel' to target), and the slight decrease in power of plasma (still scary, but not as much as in SFB/FC - more damage/harder to kill). I actually like the way the game handles plasma, thing they got it right generally, but still think it's too easy to stop.

But then, Gorn at Heart (pass me a roasted tribble)

 

[JohnDW]

Start off uncloaked, have a pair of war eagles on the flank of your fleet, after providing a juicy target for your opponent to go after, zoom in with all power to engines as the last two moves of your turn to flank the target you want to go after, two plasma R's as your first two firing actions hiting the flank of your chosen target, hopefully at under 8" range, should knock down either all their plasma defense for the turn, or knock down all their plasma defense, all or most of their shields, and if you're lucky, some of their hull too! They could probably even be supported by a fast hawk that is not under power drain, which could attempt IDF, as well as throw out some more plasma.

 

[Stu--]

It's an interesting strategy. Bit of a throw-away maneuver though. Those two war eagles are going to be heavily targeted (more or less sacrificial)

Not sure they're going to do enough damage for a good trade.

About the cloak - it's real advantage is that seekers can't shoot you, since it's still possible to hit stuff under cloak (albeit with an 83% save). If you come out, the drone swarm comes to town - sapping most of your phasers.
It's quite nice to have the 6" uncloak maneuver too though not exactly unpredictable

 

[Da Boss]

Terrain is also very important as the ultra annoying drons can not be fired through it, only into it.

If you can keep it between the bulk of the enemy and your Eagles they will be safe

 

[Stu--]

I went back and found Keeper's plasma post which has StoryElf's idea for altering plasma embedded within it.

Not bad ideas, but I agree with the reply you got - McKinstry said:

"I think most of the drone rules will get gutted and until we see Hydrans, Phaser G's are up in the air as well.

Changing plasma before any of the escort or drone rules are set ( Steve C on the ADB board for example indicated Type 2 and 5 were non-starters) seems to invite having to re re-invent the wheel.

Getting the escort and IDF rules right simultaneously would seem ideal and to do that, drones, Phaser-G's and ADD and IDF should all get fixed at once."

I think he is spot on. Basically, the rules are going to be re-written.
Fleet update two was not good (to put it nicely) and I can see it all being binned too.
The thing that annoys me is that I have £300+ models that people actually don't want to play now because they've played once and been dissatisfied with how the game played (the Rom vs Klink game the other day was fun for nobody - the Klink won overwhelmingly and the Rom was slaughtered) and yet months go by without any fixes to the game..

The above probably isn't very helpful, I'm just feeling some frustration that the game seems so broken so long after release and we have to house rule it to death to make a game of it.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

I actually agree with you on the 'wait till it's all there' thing. I generally play either Fed/Kintzi v Klingon or Romulan v Gorn, so alot of the issues don't arise in these games (though i've still to work out how people think the Orion fleet is hard to lose with, Kzinti murder them, even with P-G).

Just thought i'd make Storyelf's solution known.

And i like the rules, but do know of several players that lost interest when the drone issues were the current topic of choice (they were playing the rulebook ships (not Kzinti), and couldn't see what all the fuss was about). They did have no background in the core systems, but some with ActA.

 

[JohnDW]

Yeah, it would be a throw away for the war eagles, but if you're targeting the biggest ship in the fleet this way, it could be worth it, plus with the rest of your fleet uncloaked too, you'd at least have some ph1 support. I guess if you only use ships that are in the rulebook, nothing from fleet update 1, fleet update 2, and nothing from journal 1, so no escorts or scouts, it would be less unbalanced.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Remember the Fleet Updates are playtest material, throw in loads of stuff from those and you can forget about balance.

 

[Zarathustra Suicune]

I must admit, the time I've faced Klingons I've had the same feeling as when I've played against the new grey knights in 40k, they have the shield rule, agile and anti drone, and tend to be cheap as well, with their frigates/escorts outclassing most others, giving them a really nasty advantage in smaller games generally.