Short battle report: Centauri vs Pak'Ma'Ra

[tneva82]

LaranosTZ used pak'ma'ra fleet which was going to be new experience for me. I opted for non-beam team centauri fleet. Pak fleet(nasty buggers) consisted of 3 halik's, 2 ikorta, 2 sunhawk and 8 bombers(we weren't quite sure on how many you got per wing. I agreed for 4).

Myself I went for centurion, dargan, ellutarian, 2 vorchan and 2 maximus. Way too little fighter cover despite going for raziks for all 3 fighters. Should have swapped maximus for say corvan and squadron of raziks. Or 2 squadrons. Those bombers were scary!

Laranos deployed ikorta's on left, haliks in center and sunhawks on right. Bombers in middle. I got grand idea of "blow sunhawks in turn 1, then sweep on rest of them) so deployed on right wing. Turn 1 thus consisted him relocating and me moving into range with dargan and centurion CAF'ing sunhawk each. And 2 vorchan went into range to one of them. The one near vorchans got blown up allright but second survived. Not so effective plan afterall. Ellutarian just dented halik for some damage.

Turn 2 and I started to swing by toward haliks with exception of vorchan which made sharp turn and headed straight toward sunhawk that APTE'd behind my fleet. Bombers made their presence felt and caused nice damage to second vorchan(I think. Game was played midnight on my time so memory bit hazy ) though lost 2 of them to raziks(which got then shot out of sky. AF weapons on those fighters and hull 2 razik does not mix well!). Dargan and centurion fired at halik's causing some medium damage but nothing serious. Sunhawk was blown though not by Vorchan ironicly. I think it was ellutarian who found it in range of twin arrays barely.

One halik was immobilised at this point from losing engines. Dargan got blown apart from torrent of AP DD firepower pak's were throwing at me. Help help! Need interceptors! Centauri high command! Install those at raid ships NOW!

Turn 3. Centurion was my last main battleship(so to speak) so came around to mob up on immobilised halik. Maximuses moved to cover it's rear from fighter swarm. One halik(I think this was the one with weapon fluctuation critical hit) moved fast to intercept ellutarian and vorchan prepared to shoot at it as well as ellutarian.

In fighter phase razik removed another bomber and got killed. Then those nasty bombers fired at centurion and blew out front weapons of centurion. For good. 6-3 critical hit. Oh dear...

With this I had very little SIGNIFICANT firepower left...

Ellutarian blew out halik in one go though was more due to rolling 6-6 critical with it's DD precise torpedoes. This left vorchan AGAIN without anything to shoot(second turn in row) and to make useless vorchan even more useless it was then crippled and skeleton crewed in one shot from halik. Oww bugger.

After this game was over pretty fast as Laranos had to leave anyway. I managed to destroy second halik as well and was then in position to move into his rear arcs opening jump points and get out. I had taken out 2 patrol ships and 2 raid ships and lost 2 skirmish and raid ship. Not that big difference but with escape bonuses he got paks likely won in points anyway.

Wasn't point in staying there. Twin arrays and slow loading torpedoes don't make good ship killers. Especially against 2 ikorta's with their 2 interceptors. Meanwhile his plasma nastyness would shred my fleet for good.

Good game. Was interesting experience to face paks. Those bombers are very nasty against centauri's. Little fighters, very weak rear weaponry...

Good thing he didn't have more of them

And those pak ship's aren't that bad themselves. All that plasma weaponry causes nice holes to hull 5 ships without interceptors. I remembered in game why I liked centurion's so much over dargans: More damage/crew! Too bad about losing front arc...

 

[locarno24]

"Aaaagh! Aaagh! The Patrol Boat Torpedoes, they hurt so much, the goggles, they do nothing...."

Seems to be a pretty common complaint against the Pak fleet.
Well - not complaint, exactly, but observation. A solid fighter screen is pretty much mandatory....

The Maximus didn't seem to help you much. Torp shots come from outside flak range, so you might as well use them agressively and go for the Pak torpedohawks; with hull 6 and an interceptor they're as well qualified as anyone to hunt them down...Maximus en masse with some Razik wings in support would probably be a pretty effective fleet to field against the squids.

 

[tneva82]

"Aaaagh! Aaagh! The Patrol Boat Torpedoes, they hurt so much, the goggles, they do nothing...."

Seems to be a pretty common complaint against the Pak fleet.
Well - not complaint, exactly, but observation. A solid fighter screen is pretty much mandatory....

Centauri's have extra trouble as they have trouble with any enemy not in front...Very funny to have them in rear of your ship with no weapons in that arc. Though in case of centurion managed to semi-cover it with maximuses though since fighters shoot first wasn't much of help. They effectively took out centurion in one go anyway.

The Maximus didn't seem to help you much.

Fighters removed 3, centurion 2 with twin-arrays, maximuses yet another 2. One bomber survived.

 

[Triggy]

Sounds like a really good game with some good tactics and unpredictable events. The pak'ma'ra do have a little edge on the Centauri due to their super heavy fighters but perhaps that's a lesson to learn about needing a fighter screen in general.

 

[tneva82]

but perhaps that's a lesson to learn about needing a fighter screen in general.

Yep. I think I would definetly had better chances had I swapped one skirmish ship for corvan(scout could be handy) and fighter squadron.

 

[tneva82]

Another game was played. Same players, same races, different fleets.

Pak fleet was nasty suprise of 10 sunhawk, 5 ikorta. Say something about long range bombardment!

Centauri fleet was primus, sulust, altarian, maximus, 4 razik's(plus razik's onboard), 2 rutarians. I was expecting more of torpedo bombers...

So he deploys 3 squadrons of 5 across board. Ikortas on far right. I deploy on far left.

Turn 1: Damage badly sunhawk, blow another. Lose sulust to CAF squadron of sunhawks(that's unholy firepower).

Turn 2: Scratch some more sunhawks. Altarian blows one(damaged from last turn), primus another. Another was heavily damaged. This turn his firing against primus was ineffective. 1/1

Turn 3: Fighters come into play and mob up one sunhawk. Primus toasts another I think.

After this sunhawks passed past primus. Fighters kept chasing them toasting yet another(I think) before failing utterly which cost them in numbers a lot when nasty pak AF weaponry got to shoot. Primus and altarian destroy one ikorta before they speed past primus front arc. Side arrays manage to immobilise one of them though...

Then primus come abouts into rear of ikorta squadron(which fails to do same). At this point Laranos opted to quit as he was in very bad position. My primus was practically undamaged(that 1/1 from earlier turn...) and was tailing his ikorta's who weren't likely to get primus into front arc any time soon...Altarian would mostly have been toast soon but would have got to shoot at sunhawk first.

Last several turns I got heaps of crits rolled. Results weren't that substantial(apart from that immobilised ikorta) but damage kept mounting up, especially with DD weapons.

Nasty fleet though. Bit better luck(by all rights altarian should have died when 5 ikorta's CAF against it...) and he could have wiped the floor with my fleet, though primus was solid cornerstone(hull 6 and interceptor 2 is great help vs paks!).

And to my suprise those fighters WEREN'T useless as I thought. I simply used them to mob up near-dead sunhawks from last turn. If they blow sunhawk first they live...Alas at one point full squadron failed to mob sunhawk and as a result most died.

And that pak save is very nasty! At one point I nearly killed undamaged sunhawk in one go but save kept it alive(or even from crippled though that was thanks to CBD boost).