Shadow Fighters - Just why

[Greg Smith]

I agree. Matt's article didn't address the main problems with the Shadow fighters:

1) They cost the same as Whitestar fighters but are inferior.
2) They cost Shadows twice as much to replace in campaigns.

It doesn't help that Alan Oliver's fighter article is wrong about shields helping against anti-fighter.

 

[Lone Gunman]

The shadow fighter has the unique distinction
of being the only fighter with the shields trait.
Unfortunately this doesn’t protect them in a
dogfight, however it does make them especially
difficult ships to kill with anti-fighter defences.
Their main weapon is short ranged, forcing them
to enter anti-fighter range, but between hull
five and the shield, they have a good chance of
surviving this to unleash their polarity cannon on
the enemy, which will hurt.

Not the only error in the article. Not only do shadow fighters come only in wings of 2 and not 3, but also the article says that shields would work against anti-fighter. As per the rule book, this isn't the case. So, to say it breavly, I can't see any tactic in the article that would work, shields don't effect anti-fighter and there are only 2 per wing. What's that about?

So, can we then conclude from the article that shields on fighters are now officially intented to work against af and that there are now 3 flights of SF per wing?

 

[Burger]

So, can we then conclude from the article that shields on fighters are now officially intented to work against af and that there are now 3 flights of SF per wing?

No, the shields thing is a mistake since it is a submitted article not written by anyone from Mongoose. No disrespect to Alan for a great piece of work but a lot of this kind of mistake does get through in his articles.

The "three of them" thing is referring to attack dice on the shadow fighter, not flights per wing. 5 would be too much IMO. 3 seems about right.

 

[animus]

I find it ridiculous that Mongoose doesn't check articles in their own magazine! "It's not written by Mongoose" is crap - it's in a Mongoose publication so it should be gospel. It's not a freakin' fanzine - it's Mongoose's mouthpiece. This kind of defense of this company is getting old. At some point Mongoose is going to have to act like a professional company - fix its distribution and edit its own books.

Beyond being stunned by the misinformation being spread by Mongoose, I'm also not pleased that the Shadow Fighters haven't been fixed yet.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I find it ridiculous that Mongoose doesn't check articles in their own magazine! "It's not written by Mongoose" is crap - it's in a Mongoose publication so it should be gospel.

I would find the idea of not haviong fan-based material _as_ fan-based material abhorent. In short, S&P has to be a forum through which fans can present their own materials and views on the games. Whether or not you agree with them is another matter.

When we present gospel (official) material, it is marked as such.

I'm also not pleased that the Shadow Fighters haven't been fixed yet.

Would be if there was anything wrong with them.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Would be if there was anything wrong with them.

As per the article there should be no problem with the Shadow Fighter, but the problem is that the article says that the shields would work against anti-fighter and that there are less fighters per wing as stated in the article.

:arrow: If what stands in the article would be true, it would be a reasonable bomber. As the article is wrong about these two points, the shadow fighter remains what it is, the worst and most expensive fighter of the game. I bought one blister before 2nd ed, and I'm not going to buy another one as I will never field them, accept when they come with an ancient shadow ship. :?

 

[Burger]

I'm also not pleased that the Shadow Fighters haven't been fixed yet.

Would be if there was anything wrong with them.

It seems that 18 pages worth of people here disagree with you. Including several of the playtesters and many of the long-term players. Very very few people defend the "2 per wing" situation, in fact I think you are the only one!

 

[MongooseMatt]

in fact I think you are the only one!

A voice in the wilderness

Then again, I think I am the only one that prefers the original 1e White Stars!

 

[Locutus9956]

Ok first off Matt, I know some of the posts were somewhat uncivil but that kind of dismissive reply is frankly a little insulting. The fact that the vast majority of people on the forums including nearly all the long term players and several of the official playtesters think theres at least SOMETHING not quite right should give you pause for thought....

That said I do think some people havent really READ the S&P article very carefully:

Matt never says the shields help keep them safe from antifighter. In fact the exact words are:

However, the combination of
Shields and Hull 5 ensure it can actually reach the
target without getting blown out of the sky. That
Hull 5 also gives it some measure of protection
against those pesky point defences that have
recently (within the past thousand years) come in
vogue.

Matt only refers to the hull 5 part being helpful vs point defences (and indeed it is, albeit not hugely).

It is quite rightly noted however that you DONT get three per wing as mentioned in the article, you get 2. If you got 3 that would actually be somewhat better.

 

[Burger]

in fact I think you are the only one!

A voice in the wilderness

Then again, I think I am the only one that prefers the original 1e White Stars!

"I'm right, the World is wrong" ?

I wonder what Mr. Sebastian would say about that?

 

[animus]

I would find the idea of not haviong fan-based material _as_ fan-based material abhorent. In short, S&P has to be a forum through which fans can present their own materials and views on the games. Whether or not you agree with them is another matter.

You shouldn't allow incorrect rules and mistakes into your magazine regardless of the author. There are objective errors in the article - not just opinion, ie shields vs. AF and number of flights.

What if I wrote for S&P and made a statement like "Since shadows are immune from any weapon not based on ancient technology, the league races can never damage, let alone defeat the shadows." Is that my opinion or have I made an error? Would you let that get into your official magazine?

 

[Locutus9956]

As an aside, I appreciate S&P being a fan forum to an extent but when alls said and done surely someone decides who's articles are published in ther and who's arent?

Frankly as is frequently the case with S&P tactics articles I find some of the tactical advice in their to be complete arse.

The autho for example completely fails to comment on the option to have fighters work as interceptors now (a reason to keep them near your own ships.. and for that matter to take some things like the sentri over the razik with its weak weapons.... and notes that the shadow fighters 'shields make it tough to kill with antifighter weapons... funny I thought they made 'no difference whatsoever'). Would it really be that hard for someone to just read through the article before publishing and perhaps email its author to point out that he's actually got a rule wrong and might want to change that part before putting it in print?

 

[locarno24]

One other thought with regards to campaign costs of shadow fighters; they do cost a lot to replace but on the other hand should (in theory) be able to reduce losses - they are the only fighter capable of doing its own tactical withdrawl without having to try for a crash landing on a carrier, which will then have to jump out without getting shot to snot.

Of course a Fleet Carrier would just say "Screw you, hippies, I'm outta here!", jump out and leave its fighters behind, and not really care, but that's a problem of there being not a fleet carrier, not one with the Spitfire itself. Once again, as Believer in G'Lan said, you've got the problem that the spitfire is waaaay too good at the one job it's designed to do to increase the number of flighter per wing - but not good enough at other roles to cope with the problems arising from the resulting small numbers and - critically - damn all support from anything else in the fleet list.



Rather than a debate about how to improve them, I'm wondering how people actually use them?

I've tried a couple of games - admittedly not the low-point games I'd hoped to play.

One thing that seems to work ok when I've used them is to keep them back - either on board the ship or in hyperspace - for most of the battle, and only deploy them when I see something vulnerable. Prime targets are gunship packs without fighter cover or anti-fighter, crippled ships that have lost their antifighter, or vessels at or behind the enemy lines if the enemy fighters are sent forwards to attack your ships.

Just deploy them normally and they will not reach the enemy lines before being picked apart by enemy fighters and flak.

The trick of 'wait till all the fighters come after your ships, then launch tube/hyperspace your spitfire packs to the other side of the board and blow away the things left without fighter cover' will only work once*. But its not a bad way to limit the amount of attack craft your opponent is prepared to send after your capships, which in turn means more shields left operational when the normal shooting phase rolls around....
Your fighters might achieve nothing, but if his don't either that can be a fair trade.


*And not even then, against Vree. Bloody Frizbees.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Matt only refers to the hull 5 part being helpful vs point defences (and indeed it is, albeit not hugely).

To be fair, it could only be one better

 

[Burger]

Matt only refers to the hull 5 part being helpful vs point defences (and indeed it is, albeit not hugely).

To be fair, it could only be one better

To be fair, it only needs to be one better... or 3 per wing... but 19 pages of posts are saying that it needs to be better somehow.

 

[H]

Matt only refers to the hull 5 part being helpful vs point defences (and indeed it is, albeit not hugely).

To be fair, it could only be one better

Oi, stop posting and go hollow my mothership ;-)

just kidding. personally, after all these pages, i'd just let the shields count. would mean they have to be hit by 2 AF attacks, and 2 fighters would need to be involved in a dogfight (ok that bit needs some work) either way, 18 pages about a fighter, blimey!

 

[Sulfurdown]

I get the feeling that the article was written a while ago while there was still a lot of transition between 1E-Arma and 2nd Edition. 1E/A Shadow Fighters came in 3 per wing and if it was written before all the howling about the Shields/AF I can easily see how that could be missed. I think the time lag between when the Mr Oliver sent it in and the publishing that needs to allow for some forgiveness from the peanut gallery. (myself included.)

 

[Da Boss]

Hi - its me - the person who loves to hate the shadow fightersas they are - read Matts article and ............

first of all thanks for taking the time to write it - although if the article needs to be written to explain why the Shadow fighters are not rubbish that seems to suggest an awful lot of people are concerned?

It was an interesting read - EDIT - I think as has been pointed out below that the 3 was refering to the AD not flights - hmm my mistake in reading that.

You state
Once a horde of Shadow Fighters reach their target,
they are unleashing AP and Double Damage
attacks -

the horde maybe being 2 fighters!

Start stacking flights up
(such as in a proposed 5 flights/wing rules change
suggested on our forums) and you have something
that will tear a new one on any major warship.
Which is exactly what the Shadows intended.

so are you saying we should have 5 flights or not? Most confusing? I presume you mean get all the fighters to attack one major ship - past its antifighter and escorting fighters.

no mention of why the Shadows pay double for their fighters in campaigns - ships most def yes - fighters no!

Why do Vorlons (who have an excellent fighter ) fought them last night - had 6 hits on my ship from one fighter alone, have 3 flights to Shadows 2? The reason its escapes attention is beacuse you fixed it in 2nd Ed - great job Sorry but I don't think you did the Shadow fighter any justice at all.

If you want to make them a swarm make a swarm not a solitary pair........


Previously you state that the Shadows are not intended to fight the Vorlons - but that is exactly what happened in the last Great War and in previous conflicts going back to emergence of the Shadows to assault the First Ones? Darkness and Light (your publication) confimrs these - or is that now discarded / out of date?
You also state that the Ancients designed their drones about the same time - So the Shadows designed the worst possible type of drone to fight the Volrons who have advanced anti-fighter on ships and fighters. Also Didn't bother coming up with a way to conter the enemy Volron fighters.

 

[Greg Smith]

[
To be fair, it only needs to be one better... or 3 per wing... but 19 pages of posts are saying that it needs to be better somehow.

It seems that from the article, Matt thinks they are 3 per wing. Which might explain a lot.

He mentions that no-one complains about the Vorlon fighters - but they get AAF, a 3" range weapon and come 3 to a wing. They are actually pretty good.

 

[Sulfurdown]

No, Matt isn't say it's 3 per wing. He's talking about the Weapon System having 3AD.