Some of the new ships/fleets
- Thread starter Locutus9956
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Locutus9956
Mongoose
Triggy said:
Havent checked in with this threa for a while but I think the above is pretty bloody accurate.
We've already houseruled the Demos to 8AD Ion cannons round our way and so far that seems to be working pretty well. We didnt have a Gaim player last time round but we'll see about that as and when we have to....
Tzarevitch
Mongoose
As I recall, the Gaim repelled the Narn by ground force superiority and after a while the Narn simply stopped trying.
The problem with the Gaim is the photon mines have hyper long range, AND Turrets AND burst weapons AND Armor Piercing AND several weapon batteries per ship. This gives them unparalleled flexibility. They can basically depth-charge repeatedly across the board. It means they don't ever have to face the enemy and consequently they can minimize an enemy speed advantage. True they can't crit but against skirmish or lower (and some raid vessels) they don't have to. They can simply sand-blast smaller ships to death. Trully I don't know what the Drazi in particular are supposed to do against the Gaim.
The thing that irritates me is the Gaim got multiple small 40" batteries of E-Mines but when I asked why the Narn K'Tan (designated as an escort) didn't get 20" pulsar mines instead of its its silly 1-shot 2d E-mine and why the Dag'Kar's E-Mine wasn't broken down into 2 launchers for greater flexibility the response was that would be too powerful against fleets like the ISA. :roll:
Far and away the biggest offender is the Shuuka (skirmish) queen ship. Its photon mine range needs to be reduced to 30" max and it needs to loose 2d. It has the same firepower as the Shaakak (raid level) but has far greater flexibility and is cheaper.
The photon mines should be FA not turreted and give the Gaim some other shorter ranged secondaries in the other directions (8'" light pulse cannon like the Narn or something) so they are not so massively reliant on the photon mines in all directions. This forces the Gaim to actually use tactics rather than sit there and fire photon bombs. Also consolidate the small multi-launchers into 1 big launcher. That will give speed fleets like the Drazi or the ISA a chance.
The last thing is the other Gaim "weakness" - queen loss - is mitigated by flight computers. Why do the Gaim have flight computers at all? It makes no sense. The Narn, Centauri and EA don't have them and these are the great powers of the younger races. Generally only older races like the Minbari had them. How did the Gaim suddenly develop flight comuters? Also what is the point of giving the Gaim a weakness then giving them a system that takes it away? Also the "weakness" is mitigated by the Gaim simply using nothing but queenships. Nothing in the rules stops them from doing this. In fact, the general superiority of the queenships tends to encourage them to.
Tzarevitch
The problem with the Gaim is the photon mines have hyper long range, AND Turrets AND burst weapons AND Armor Piercing AND several weapon batteries per ship. This gives them unparalleled flexibility. They can basically depth-charge repeatedly across the board. It means they don't ever have to face the enemy and consequently they can minimize an enemy speed advantage. True they can't crit but against skirmish or lower (and some raid vessels) they don't have to. They can simply sand-blast smaller ships to death. Trully I don't know what the Drazi in particular are supposed to do against the Gaim.
The thing that irritates me is the Gaim got multiple small 40" batteries of E-Mines but when I asked why the Narn K'Tan (designated as an escort) didn't get 20" pulsar mines instead of its its silly 1-shot 2d E-mine and why the Dag'Kar's E-Mine wasn't broken down into 2 launchers for greater flexibility the response was that would be too powerful against fleets like the ISA. :roll:
Far and away the biggest offender is the Shuuka (skirmish) queen ship. Its photon mine range needs to be reduced to 30" max and it needs to loose 2d. It has the same firepower as the Shaakak (raid level) but has far greater flexibility and is cheaper.
The photon mines should be FA not turreted and give the Gaim some other shorter ranged secondaries in the other directions (8'" light pulse cannon like the Narn or something) so they are not so massively reliant on the photon mines in all directions. This forces the Gaim to actually use tactics rather than sit there and fire photon bombs. Also consolidate the small multi-launchers into 1 big launcher. That will give speed fleets like the Drazi or the ISA a chance.
The last thing is the other Gaim "weakness" - queen loss - is mitigated by flight computers. Why do the Gaim have flight computers at all? It makes no sense. The Narn, Centauri and EA don't have them and these are the great powers of the younger races. Generally only older races like the Minbari had them. How did the Gaim suddenly develop flight comuters? Also what is the point of giving the Gaim a weakness then giving them a system that takes it away? Also the "weakness" is mitigated by the Gaim simply using nothing but queenships. Nothing in the rules stops them from doing this. In fact, the general superiority of the queenships tends to encourage them to.
Tzarevitch
Totally agree with Tzar. In particular, the Shuuka's e-mines. Against a White Star, a Shuuka will typically get 2 hits with one tube, 1 hit with 2nd and 3rd, and no hits with the 4th. After adaptive armour, that is typically 3 damage and 3 crew lost. Whereas a Dag'Kar will typically get 3 hits, triple damage, for 4.5 damage and crew loss -- but with slow loading. So in 2 turns, 2 Shuukas will do 12 damage (enough to kill the WS) whereas in 2 turns a Dag'Kar will do less than half damage. Dag'Kar has torpedoes, sure, but the Gaim has fighters so I'll ignore both.
Shuuka needs to be dropped to 30", and the plasma bombs consolidated into fewer tubes, say 2 of 4AD each, and made F arc.
Shuuka needs to be dropped to 30", and the plasma bombs consolidated into fewer tubes, say 2 of 4AD each, and made F arc.
Centauri_Admiral
Mongoose
emperorpenguin said:
But I'm Centauri!!!!!!!
Did I ever mention that I'm cute? . . . . . . . but IN PURPLE; I'M OUTSTANDING!
Locutus9956
Mongoose
Totally agree with Tzar, as I and many others have said many many times, all over the place the problem with the Gaim is NOT the fighters, or the tougness or even flight computers and breaching pods.. its the fracking photon bombs.
First of all, theyre all turreted so it doesnt matter how cunningly you outmaneuver them or outflank, them cunningly use terrain, hyperspace etc. They still shoot you just as easily without any effort on their part.
Secondly theyre in multiple batteries so they can carpet a huge area.
For me though its not the ship damage from thats the issue, its more a case of how easy it makes it for the gaim to clear out any fighter cover. And the few ships it does work very well against are the smaller more fragile variety (like most escorts.....).
Now much has been made of how 'easy' it is to take out Gaim fighters once they switch to crewed missiles but, again most people only convert them the turn before they hit and to be quite honest this overlooks the shocking tactic of um... NOT converting them. Sure its only 1 AD. But 1 AD that fires first, moves last and is multiplied by 14 thousand.....
I'm not saying the Gaim fleet as a whole is overpowered and I actually LIKE the fighter swarm concept, but I do think anyone who can honestly look at the skirmish queen ship and even more so the raid carrier and say 'yep, that's completely balanced and not even a smidgeon overpowered' needs to write a nice long tactics article about how to counter them if they dont want people to think theyre smoking something very potent.....
First of all, theyre all turreted so it doesnt matter how cunningly you outmaneuver them or outflank, them cunningly use terrain, hyperspace etc. They still shoot you just as easily without any effort on their part.
Secondly theyre in multiple batteries so they can carpet a huge area.
For me though its not the ship damage from thats the issue, its more a case of how easy it makes it for the gaim to clear out any fighter cover. And the few ships it does work very well against are the smaller more fragile variety (like most escorts.....).
Now much has been made of how 'easy' it is to take out Gaim fighters once they switch to crewed missiles but, again most people only convert them the turn before they hit and to be quite honest this overlooks the shocking tactic of um... NOT converting them. Sure its only 1 AD. But 1 AD that fires first, moves last and is multiplied by 14 thousand.....
I'm not saying the Gaim fleet as a whole is overpowered and I actually LIKE the fighter swarm concept, but I do think anyone who can honestly look at the skirmish queen ship and even more so the raid carrier and say 'yep, that's completely balanced and not even a smidgeon overpowered' needs to write a nice long tactics article about how to counter them if they dont want people to think theyre smoking something very potent.....
[Omicron]Urobach
Mongoose
I had an battle last weekend against my mate.
He had played an Gaim fleet to test it. I came with Dilgar...and goes with an BIG lose.
my mean: the Gaim are not generaly overpowered.
especialy ships.... we all know the ship, i think :evil:
the fighter swarm of gaim fleet is not the problem, i like it.
it reflects the race...gaim-insectoid-swarm...OK. :roll:
BUT...: the photon bombs. this are just to powerful and over the range.
fix this weapons as secondaries. The gatling lasers as primarys.
He had played an Gaim fleet to test it. I came with Dilgar...and goes with an BIG lose.
my mean: the Gaim are not generaly overpowered.
especialy ships.... we all know the ship, i think :evil:
the fighter swarm of gaim fleet is not the problem, i like it.
it reflects the race...gaim-insectoid-swarm...OK. :roll:
BUT...: the photon bombs. this are just to powerful and over the range.
fix this weapons as secondaries. The gatling lasers as primarys.
Not to invoke another game, but one thing star fleet battles got very right was the sever limitation of turret weapons. The moment you put primary (read long ranged) weapons in turrets the best tactic is to run away firing over your shoulder as long as possible. Front mount those things and the gaim at least have to use up special orders to keep range.
Lots of good points have been made all through this thread since I last posted, and no good defense of the gaim has been put forward.
A few pages back an MI asked what types of games we play...
We generally know what player we're up against, but often not the specific race or scenario.
We generally play Space Superiority, Call to Arms, Annihalation or Carrier Clash. Assasination is also fine. We use the random terrain method listed in first ed, the rolling a D6 for each square foot of the table, on a six there is something there. Dust clouds are roughly 12 inch diameter cirlces, asteriods are roughly 6 inch diameter cirlces, planet varies a bit, we don't usually play with moons.
We also play set games for testing, with what we would normally take to a 'tourney' where we have to take the same fleet vs a variety of opponents.
Ripple
Lots of good points have been made all through this thread since I last posted, and no good defense of the gaim has been put forward.
A few pages back an MI asked what types of games we play...
We generally know what player we're up against, but often not the specific race or scenario.
We generally play Space Superiority, Call to Arms, Annihalation or Carrier Clash. Assasination is also fine. We use the random terrain method listed in first ed, the rolling a D6 for each square foot of the table, on a six there is something there. Dust clouds are roughly 12 inch diameter cirlces, asteriods are roughly 6 inch diameter cirlces, planet varies a bit, we don't usually play with moons.
We also play set games for testing, with what we would normally take to a 'tourney' where we have to take the same fleet vs a variety of opponents.
Ripple
Hmm, I just came back from playing Gaim with my Minbari in our current campaign. I pulled off a win but a fair part of that was knowing who I was up against. I took an Ashinata and 2 Troligans in a 5 point Raid fleet. I took out all the Queen ships and the Stuteeka fled off the table but my fleet was pretty badly mauled in the process.
There was luck involved on both sides. I pulled off an IDFP with the Ashinata on turn 2 which severly blunted the fighter attacks. I did take a 6-6 crit on one Troligan from an incoming fighter which hurt a lot! :x However next turn a 6-6 crit on a queen ship which evened things up. All my ships will be returning to HQ for repairs for the next 2 turns. The Ashinata was 3 points away from death and both Troligans were close to being crippled.
Basically I won because I took 2 of the 3 ships in the Minbari fleet best suited to facing Gaim and didn't bother with fighters. If I had taken a typical Minbari fleet I suspect there would not have been much left. Definitely a case of Rock-Scissors-Paper based on my (limited) experience.
There was luck involved on both sides. I pulled off an IDFP with the Ashinata on turn 2 which severly blunted the fighter attacks. I did take a 6-6 crit on one Troligan from an incoming fighter which hurt a lot! :x However next turn a 6-6 crit on a queen ship which evened things up. All my ships will be returning to HQ for repairs for the next 2 turns. The Ashinata was 3 points away from death and both Troligans were close to being crippled.
Basically I won because I took 2 of the 3 ships in the Minbari fleet best suited to facing Gaim and didn't bother with fighters. If I had taken a typical Minbari fleet I suspect there would not have been much left. Definitely a case of Rock-Scissors-Paper based on my (limited) experience.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Well last week my two hunters killed a Drakh cruiser in one round. Last night they couldn't kill a bunch of transports. Broken? they were more then broken, they were knackered beyond repair.
Greg Smith said:
same with a lot of ships. The Adira is a beast, yet I took one out in two rounds of firing with a G'Vrahn (arguably a top war ship) with minimal damage in return, I have lost a trolligan in one shot, and crippled a G'Vrahn in one shot. luck plays a huge part in this game with your dice rolls. over time this could even up the supposedly "broken" ships. people need to be playing more games before deciding. The issue with campaigns is you do pick your fleets to deal with your opponent. It has to be stressed as before, this game is not designed purely for tournaments. The downside to this is that some fleets will do better than others in a tournament situation.
the above campaign story is how it should be, a balanced game means even the winner will be terribly mauled.
It worries me to see again, complaints about e-mines, I'm getting a bit peeved with complaints no matter what is done with them, and them getting changed time and again! E-mines aren't broken, the ships carrying them may be!
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
I don't think e-mines are broken. I think they should be exclusive to the Narn. It gives them an edge all their own. Handing e-mines to the Gaim is just like 40K's dreaded codex-creep...
Centauri_Admiral
Mongoose
Lord David the Denied said:
You bloody wait till you've been on the recieving end of a few narn emines; you'll soon change your mind.lol
Centauri_Admiral
Mongoose
hiffano said:
you try being on the receiving end of demos squadrons. . .[/quote
Point taken.
