Fighters move last, so will never be in arc of the shadow beams, and have no real reason to 'pack up' against the shadow ships..
Troops are necessary for some scenarios, and are very useful against anything but the shadows/vorlons. Don't just think in terms of a duel between the ships, think in terms of what can this ship do for me against a majority of foes.
Same thing for interceptors, shadow beams ignore it, but their fighters' and scouts' weapons don't. Against most everybody else it's useful.
Yes, the shadow will out maneuver the Warlock, unless the EA player takes a single point and buys way down to patrol, which the shadow player cannot do. Now even though you are SM, you'll find yourself out maneuvered.
Your assessment of the T-bolts does not take into account crits if the shields are knocked down for them or they wrack up the yahtzee moment. Four T-bolts have 8 AD, vanilla, 8 AD AP between them... so they are hitting roughly 4 times a turn. Shields would bounce it on average, and self repair does indeed cover an average of 7 a turn even if shields are removed... but... you aren't likely to hit an even average per turn... so some turns you'll get none, other turns eight or twelve. One of those turns you pull a good crit and you can punch out a trait for a turn or two, or jack pot the 6-6 and drop 24 points on him. As the young cannot hit the T-bolts without their consent due to movement sequence and size of arcs etc... unless there is a turn limit in the scenario the young will eventually lose... it's just do you have the time to wait for the dice to come around to the right set of rolls.
Your right about the psychic abilities being rare outside of a campaign, but it is still there.
As said above, yes the EA will lose initiative and that will make getting a beam on the Shadow harder, unless the EA buys down. Shadows can only buy down to raid, EA has a deadly beam at raid and can buy all the way down to good patrol ships. Yup, they'll lose initiative, but that just means they fire second with their big ship lined up (or worse the squadron of hyperions... far more dice and not as likely to be lost to precise beams).
Close Blast Doors the warlock and you get a 5+ save vs all damage and crew scored against the ship. Yes you can only fire one weapon while doing that, but at some ranges or positions you don't care, at other times its worth the limit to firepower. Since roughly a third of all damage done to you goes away I called that a third bigger... my terms are probably not right there, math is something I tend to do by feel.
One on one, you bet, younger vs Warlock, younger wins unless there is no turn limit (annihalation scenario, fighters win), a luck crit (warlock has precise missiles, younger gets a lost trait, goes adrift, loses weapons, gets the -4 speed while still well in front of the warlock, gets a few -1 AD crits), the fighters pull get a good turn going or the EA (assume third age so +3 with the command bonus vs the +6 on the shadow, EA still wins a good bit) get the line up and pins you. Just saying with all the options for a lucky roll, it's not as unlikely as you'd think.
Right Hand of God mentioned the vorlons in his comments that the shadows and vorlons got the short end of the stick in second ed. Your responses is what I've largely been responding too, in which you tended to claim they were better off than 1st ed, and verging on over the top for the shadows.
I threw them in for completeness in my response, you didn't give any specifics in the first part of your response so I didn't go into it either really, and kept the specifics for the shadow vs others questions. So far I haven't seen good evidence that the shadows are broken locally due to the weaknesses I've talked about (pin, fighters, lack of sufficiently low pl sinks, vulnerable to trait/maneuver/AD-arc losses).
I am certainly open to being convinced though I just don't think the one on one comparisons are a good bet for doing that. You need to look at how does that interact with other ships due to initiative system, bore sight is posited as a big limitation for the warlock, and it is, but much less so than against other opponents due to the shadows not being able to buy down far enough, etc.
What you put forth was that the shadows were leaning to being overpowered, and you had not mentioned how you were getting round the list of weaknesses I have above, so I threw them up. You answered some of them, but I've put up a few counters to your answers... discussion...
Anyway... round two... ding....=)
Troops are necessary for some scenarios, and are very useful against anything but the shadows/vorlons. Don't just think in terms of a duel between the ships, think in terms of what can this ship do for me against a majority of foes.
Same thing for interceptors, shadow beams ignore it, but their fighters' and scouts' weapons don't. Against most everybody else it's useful.
Yes, the shadow will out maneuver the Warlock, unless the EA player takes a single point and buys way down to patrol, which the shadow player cannot do. Now even though you are SM, you'll find yourself out maneuvered.
Your assessment of the T-bolts does not take into account crits if the shields are knocked down for them or they wrack up the yahtzee moment. Four T-bolts have 8 AD, vanilla, 8 AD AP between them... so they are hitting roughly 4 times a turn. Shields would bounce it on average, and self repair does indeed cover an average of 7 a turn even if shields are removed... but... you aren't likely to hit an even average per turn... so some turns you'll get none, other turns eight or twelve. One of those turns you pull a good crit and you can punch out a trait for a turn or two, or jack pot the 6-6 and drop 24 points on him. As the young cannot hit the T-bolts without their consent due to movement sequence and size of arcs etc... unless there is a turn limit in the scenario the young will eventually lose... it's just do you have the time to wait for the dice to come around to the right set of rolls.
Your right about the psychic abilities being rare outside of a campaign, but it is still there.
As said above, yes the EA will lose initiative and that will make getting a beam on the Shadow harder, unless the EA buys down. Shadows can only buy down to raid, EA has a deadly beam at raid and can buy all the way down to good patrol ships. Yup, they'll lose initiative, but that just means they fire second with their big ship lined up (or worse the squadron of hyperions... far more dice and not as likely to be lost to precise beams).
Close Blast Doors the warlock and you get a 5+ save vs all damage and crew scored against the ship. Yes you can only fire one weapon while doing that, but at some ranges or positions you don't care, at other times its worth the limit to firepower. Since roughly a third of all damage done to you goes away I called that a third bigger... my terms are probably not right there, math is something I tend to do by feel.
One on one, you bet, younger vs Warlock, younger wins unless there is no turn limit (annihalation scenario, fighters win), a luck crit (warlock has precise missiles, younger gets a lost trait, goes adrift, loses weapons, gets the -4 speed while still well in front of the warlock, gets a few -1 AD crits), the fighters pull get a good turn going or the EA (assume third age so +3 with the command bonus vs the +6 on the shadow, EA still wins a good bit) get the line up and pins you. Just saying with all the options for a lucky roll, it's not as unlikely as you'd think.
Right Hand of God mentioned the vorlons in his comments that the shadows and vorlons got the short end of the stick in second ed. Your responses is what I've largely been responding too, in which you tended to claim they were better off than 1st ed, and verging on over the top for the shadows.
I threw them in for completeness in my response, you didn't give any specifics in the first part of your response so I didn't go into it either really, and kept the specifics for the shadow vs others questions. So far I haven't seen good evidence that the shadows are broken locally due to the weaknesses I've talked about (pin, fighters, lack of sufficiently low pl sinks, vulnerable to trait/maneuver/AD-arc losses).
I am certainly open to being convinced though I just don't think the one on one comparisons are a good bet for doing that. You need to look at how does that interact with other ships due to initiative system, bore sight is posited as a big limitation for the warlock, and it is, but much less so than against other opponents due to the shadows not being able to buy down far enough, etc.
What you put forth was that the shadows were leaning to being overpowered, and you had not mentioned how you were getting round the list of weaknesses I have above, so I threw them up. You answered some of them, but I've put up a few counters to your answers... discussion...
Anyway... round two... ding....=)
)
