S&P47 ACTA Review
- Thread starter Captain_Nemo
- Start date
CZuschlag
Mongoose
They're not; the Precise function on the suicide run will allow for repeated penetration of the GEG. A crit later and a Drakh ship is in deep, deep trouble. The Fast Destroyer is the most worrisome with respect to this. I think the Drakh as listed will have a lot of trouble against carrier or area-effect fleets, of which there are a great many after the revisions. The new Narn Energy mines are also absolutely horrifying to Raider fleets, and may shatter them before the battle truly starts; the new Takata may almost be as bad to the Drakh.
With new fighter velocities and some fighter ranges, it is not all that difficult to get fighter shots without eating Light Raider fire in return, RayB. It wasn't hard, even before; only patience to wait for your shot was needed. Any fighter that gets killed by a stray LR beam probably came in with a huge wave, and thereby was well worth it.
ISA got a few boosts to make up for the crit-weakness, so I don't worry about them as too vulnerable.
With new fighter velocities and some fighter ranges, it is not all that difficult to get fighter shots without eating Light Raider fire in return, RayB. It wasn't hard, even before; only patience to wait for your shot was needed. Any fighter that gets killed by a stray LR beam probably came in with a huge wave, and thereby was well worth it.
ISA got a few boosts to make up for the crit-weakness, so I don't worry about them as too vulnerable.
Sulfurdown
Mongoose
My first concern is the shadows and how underwhelming the Shadow Ship in Armageddon is compared to the hunter. But I'll wait until the end of August to actually see the revisions (no open day for me. 
)
Second is the Drakh, I'm still troubled by the Raiders being Skirmish level swarm ships with the addition of another Cruiser at that level (If I read the article correctly). It seems to displace the raiders. [Note: I'm not suggesting the Raiders move to Patrol as is, but moved lower with a commiserate reduction if the Skirmish level is now the province of some form of Cruiser.]
The last and biggest concern of mine - does this mean that if I'm going to continue to play CtA I'm going to have to dedicate the funds each year to purchasing the new fleet book? It's not really the funds ($30 a year isn't horrible) but the eventual collection of invalid books that I've blown money on each year and are out of date, just taking up space in my basement the next year. That's assuming that all the fleet special rules are included with each fleet so that the main rules book doesn't need to be updated each year as well.
EDIT:
)Second is the Drakh, I'm still troubled by the Raiders being Skirmish level swarm ships with the addition of another Cruiser at that level (If I read the article correctly). It seems to displace the raiders. [Note: I'm not suggesting the Raiders move to Patrol as is, but moved lower with a commiserate reduction if the Skirmish level is now the province of some form of Cruiser.]
The last and biggest concern of mine - does this mean that if I'm going to continue to play CtA I'm going to have to dedicate the funds each year to purchasing the new fleet book? It's not really the funds ($30 a year isn't horrible) but the eventual collection of invalid books that I've blown money on each year and are out of date, just taking up space in my basement the next year. That's assuming that all the fleet special rules are included with each fleet so that the main rules book doesn't need to be updated each year as well.
EDIT:
One of my big concerns for the Skirmish level swarm stems from a couple games I've played versus Nial. My Light Raiders were absolutely chewed apart by a middling sized group of Nial. Even when I could get the Nial in that abyssmal 8" range (LR constantly nose to nose), I was either failing the Stealth check or just out right missing the beam rolls. The Nial didn't do a tremendous amount of damage but they got their shots far more often with far more dice (racking up criticals). That was only a few games, though and possibly skewed die rolls, so I'll leave that as a possible qualifier.CZuschlag said:
The Hobbybox
Mongoose
Having helped playtest some of the Gaim I can say that Drahk will probably be fine.
A lot of the photon bomb armaments on the Gaim ships came in batches of 3 or 4 dice. So on average only 1 or 2 of those might hit the Drahk ship and at least one of those damage points gets GEG'd.
Same goes for fighters in general. I don't know what Pirv is complaining about, most times I've fought Drahk the fighters were next to useless as it was 1 in 6 chance to actually crit, plus a lot of the crits only scratch the surface, unless you get vital systems, of course.
Gaim fighters may cause a problem, but they are a finite resource if you use them as a missile.
A lot of the photon bomb armaments on the Gaim ships came in batches of 3 or 4 dice. So on average only 1 or 2 of those might hit the Drahk ship and at least one of those damage points gets GEG'd.
Same goes for fighters in general. I don't know what Pirv is complaining about, most times I've fought Drahk the fighters were next to useless as it was 1 in 6 chance to actually crit, plus a lot of the crits only scratch the surface, unless you get vital systems, of course.
Gaim fighters may cause a problem, but they are a finite resource if you use them as a missile.
see thats the problem with giving guys justa week 
e-mines either narn or otherwise will get one ship if you play right. now on a light raider an emine hitting on 3+ (through AP) if its got say 6AD will hit 4 times, 12 damage, 11 cos of GEG. your raider is still alive and he has fired the e-mine. also to get big e-mines its gonna be bigger ships and you will swarm them with raiders.
against the hull 5 ships you can reduce that to 3 hits and 9 damage less a GEG of 3 or 4 is no worrys.
and thats using triple damage e-mines.
the Gaim have single damage ones so wont get through hadly ever.
ok you say fighters - 1st they have to hit, thats around 8-10 max fighting one ship, if its hull 5 then probably 6 hits, then 2 of them crit.
to be screwed you have to lose the GEG, initialyy from getting one of the few crits, which isnt a high chance of getting and then a 1 in 6 chance of getting the GEG on some ships (higher on others).
again if against the light raiders then probably 6 hit, but it dodges 3. 1 crit plus 2 other damage. hardly enough to say its unbalanced.
its my opinion that the drakh will pose the biggest problem for the Gaim, not the other way around. as as their main ships can hardly damage you then you can fire main guns and stuff on fighters which are easy enough to hit (although they may dodge).
e-mines either narn or otherwise will get one ship if you play right. now on a light raider an emine hitting on 3+ (through AP) if its got say 6AD will hit 4 times, 12 damage, 11 cos of GEG. your raider is still alive and he has fired the e-mine. also to get big e-mines its gonna be bigger ships and you will swarm them with raiders.
against the hull 5 ships you can reduce that to 3 hits and 9 damage less a GEG of 3 or 4 is no worrys.
and thats using triple damage e-mines.
the Gaim have single damage ones so wont get through hadly ever.
ok you say fighters - 1st they have to hit, thats around 8-10 max fighting one ship, if its hull 5 then probably 6 hits, then 2 of them crit.
to be screwed you have to lose the GEG, initialyy from getting one of the few crits, which isnt a high chance of getting and then a 1 in 6 chance of getting the GEG on some ships (higher on others).
again if against the light raiders then probably 6 hit, but it dodges 3. 1 crit plus 2 other damage. hardly enough to say its unbalanced.
its my opinion that the drakh will pose the biggest problem for the Gaim, not the other way around. as as their main ships can hardly damage you then you can fire main guns and stuff on fighters which are easy enough to hit (although they may dodge).
Sulfurdown
Mongoose
EDIT 2: I've not really tested the larger SFoS Drakh Cruisers against any fighters and I'd imagine even the Nial would be hard pressed to do anything more then a crit or two before being wiped out. But with the singular beam weapon I saw an inordinate amount of "No Fire" crits that make the light raider useless in one crit. (It was a bad couple games... I'm a little bitter...)
so you can dent the raiders. you cant dent the light (main stay of the fleet) or fast cruisers or anything bigger. also you have to use on average a 4AD bank to damage a heavy raider once (hull 5, average 2 hits with AP). if you manage a whole 3 damage to a raider with all your photon bombs its not a huge problem as i will be shooting you back with my precise beam.
katadder said:
I use the photon bombs against the raiders and the fighters against the cruisers. This keeps the raiders from dodging and keeps the light cruiser and the fast destroyer from breathing. Once the light cruisers and destroyers are dead, any fighters I have left kill raiders.
Dave
My issue with the 108 fighters isn't that it's overpowered. It's that there'll be 108 little bits of plastic/counter/card floatng around the table, keeping track of them will be a nightmare.
Yeah, using the new All Stop And Pivot they can fire 60 missiles every turn. Whoever suggested 1 weapon system firing on ASaP should be... *censored*katadder said:
Burger said:
lol you should have seen the 5pt battle game we tested
116 fighters and 54 breaching pods. that was fun. oh and BTW the fighters didnt do a huge amount to the EA fleets as the EA just intensified defensive fire. what did the damage was the Gaim assault ship (but its been toned down and fixed since then).ok the drakh dont have AF, but as i pointed out in a PM to czuschlag you can only get so many fighters in, they need to crit seek which even with precise isnt many and then you have to hope to remove the GEG (and that he doesnt repair it) otherwise your fighters are used up and your ship cannot handle the drakh ship.
Davesaint said:katadder said:see thats the problem with giving guys justa week
I completely agree. I wish I had a month. Our groups playtest report was 13 pages long.
Dave
yep, and thats from a week of OMG, new codex syndrome. from the few comments we got to see some of it is obviously that.
with a month you may have actually figured out that these things have been balanced over the course of a year and are not as bad as you feel.
if you want unbalanced Gaim try the 1st try that i saw when i came in, i showed these were broken by running 5pt Battle Gaim against 5pt War Minbari and the Gaim raped them (they had DD e-mines back then that fired every turn and the fighters were 3AD of SAP, TD(?) precise death).
The new playtesters need to keep the feedback coming in (but to Matt/the playtesters not on these boards) and we need to let them know where we've been coming from but be open to their opinions too.katadder said:Davesaint said:katadder said:see thats the problem with giving guys justa week
I completely agree. I wish I had a month. Our groups playtest report was 13 pages long.
Dave
yep, and thats from a week of OMG, new codex syndrome. from the few comments we got to see some of it is obviously that.
with a month you may have actually figured out that these things have been balanced over the course of a year and are not as bad as you feel.
if you want unbalanced Gaim try the 1st try that i saw when i came in, i showed these were broken by running 5pt Battle Gaim against 5pt War Minbari and the Gaim raped them (they had DD e-mines back then that fired every turn and the fighters were 3AD of SAP, TD(?) precise death).
It's very difficult with only a couple of weeks to cover everything but this tier 2 testing could prove to be very valuable indeed (if a little short for my taste).
I've received bugger all feedback on the 100+ typos and 40+ balance issues I've reported. Including not knowing how FAPs are meant to be split: the description and table don't match the examples at all! I reported that the same day he sent the rules out... a week later, I still don't have an answer. It's not quite what I expected.Triggy said:
Still, if in a few months the issues I've reported come out as major problems, at least I can say "told you so". And some of them are, MAJOR problems
