Slightly Norse John
Mongoose
Did this late last week, didn't have time to post it before the weekend (utter madness, incidentally- rowing is a lot easier than walking up a muddy foreshore, the tide was out);
Andy came round, and we both decided to twink out to a high degree, to put the brokenness of these fleets to the test; we rolled the scenario randomly, he subtracting and me adding, it came out as War level anyway, 5 point Assassination. Asteroid fields on both flanks, the centre of the board was clear- about as counterproductive for him as the terrain could get, really.
We used what I could remember of the Armageddon points split rules;
he, playing the Narn, ended up with one Bin'Tak, two G'Quan, one T'Loth and two Dag'Kar, and burnt two War points on Skirmish ships at six each, ending up with two Sho'Kar, two Thentus, and eight Ka'Tan.
Eighteen Frazi flights accompanied this; area clearance by E-mine followed by mass fighter strike made a major element of his battle plan- I think. We would have used the new fighter sequence, if any of them had got that far.
My Centauri fleet was, under the circumstances, utterly predictable. I spent two points on Battle level, two on Raid, and split one between Skirmish and Patrol. And yes, I munchkinned.
Three Tertius- Ruthless, Relentless and Remorseless, one Balvarix, Indefatigable, two Sulust Sirdar and Scythian, four Prefect, Polaris, Protector, Punisher and Profligate, four Darkner, Gladius, Falchion, Spatha and Dalcassian, four Corvan, CAT, PET, MRI and ECG.
I had actually hoped to do worse. Just how well this lot worked makes it embarrassingly obvious that it is, in fact, utter cheese.
The game lasted three turns. First turn, a particular problem became obvious- the Narn skirmish swarm has real problems operating as part of a fleet with bigger ships. I initiative sinked as well as I could, but was unable to resist reacting just a bit, mainly hazarding Corvan, but pushing a couple of Prefects forward which he was able to target.
The Ka'Tan simply move too fast for the Bin'Tak and G'Quan to support; if they come forward looking for targets, which they did, I can pick my range and be just outside his guns and just inside mine. Normally the enemy does their best to break a sequence like that, but wth boresights, he couldn't; he had to move up ships to support those he had already hazarded, whch meant I got a run of predictable moves out of him. Only two of the Ka'Tan survived the first fire phase.
An additional benefit; the Narn should do well with fighters. So many of their ships carry one flight, they can begin to roll a very healthy attack swarm forward from the word go. He had fourteen of eighteen flights in the air at the beginning of round 1, grouped into attack squadrons and moving by the fire phase. This is where I nailed him. The fighters only move as fast as the skirmishers; so his attack groups were passing through his line. There wasn't enough room for them to pass clear- one or two good explosions can wipe out a fighter force in that situation. They did.
Once he had picked his jaw off the floor, round 2. Again closing to contact. He had the Bin'Tak anchoring the right of his line, the G'Quan centre and left; I was packed pretty close together too, and E- mine barrages were doing damage to my lighter ships. I was swinging in and right, hoping to take the G'Quan on the bounce and move in on the flank of the Bin'Tak. The Narn simply couldn't move fast enough to cross me up; the most they could do was edge closer to each other. Much laserfire later, both G'Quan and one of the Dag'Kar were down.
Round 3 completed the massacre. Relentless had scored a 4-6 crit on the Narn flagship at the end of round 2, Ruthless moved in and claimed the kill. For reasons of length, posting now; analysis later.
Andy came round, and we both decided to twink out to a high degree, to put the brokenness of these fleets to the test; we rolled the scenario randomly, he subtracting and me adding, it came out as War level anyway, 5 point Assassination. Asteroid fields on both flanks, the centre of the board was clear- about as counterproductive for him as the terrain could get, really.
We used what I could remember of the Armageddon points split rules;
he, playing the Narn, ended up with one Bin'Tak, two G'Quan, one T'Loth and two Dag'Kar, and burnt two War points on Skirmish ships at six each, ending up with two Sho'Kar, two Thentus, and eight Ka'Tan.
Eighteen Frazi flights accompanied this; area clearance by E-mine followed by mass fighter strike made a major element of his battle plan- I think. We would have used the new fighter sequence, if any of them had got that far.
My Centauri fleet was, under the circumstances, utterly predictable. I spent two points on Battle level, two on Raid, and split one between Skirmish and Patrol. And yes, I munchkinned.
Three Tertius- Ruthless, Relentless and Remorseless, one Balvarix, Indefatigable, two Sulust Sirdar and Scythian, four Prefect, Polaris, Protector, Punisher and Profligate, four Darkner, Gladius, Falchion, Spatha and Dalcassian, four Corvan, CAT, PET, MRI and ECG.
I had actually hoped to do worse. Just how well this lot worked makes it embarrassingly obvious that it is, in fact, utter cheese.
The game lasted three turns. First turn, a particular problem became obvious- the Narn skirmish swarm has real problems operating as part of a fleet with bigger ships. I initiative sinked as well as I could, but was unable to resist reacting just a bit, mainly hazarding Corvan, but pushing a couple of Prefects forward which he was able to target.
The Ka'Tan simply move too fast for the Bin'Tak and G'Quan to support; if they come forward looking for targets, which they did, I can pick my range and be just outside his guns and just inside mine. Normally the enemy does their best to break a sequence like that, but wth boresights, he couldn't; he had to move up ships to support those he had already hazarded, whch meant I got a run of predictable moves out of him. Only two of the Ka'Tan survived the first fire phase.
An additional benefit; the Narn should do well with fighters. So many of their ships carry one flight, they can begin to roll a very healthy attack swarm forward from the word go. He had fourteen of eighteen flights in the air at the beginning of round 1, grouped into attack squadrons and moving by the fire phase. This is where I nailed him. The fighters only move as fast as the skirmishers; so his attack groups were passing through his line. There wasn't enough room for them to pass clear- one or two good explosions can wipe out a fighter force in that situation. They did.
Once he had picked his jaw off the floor, round 2. Again closing to contact. He had the Bin'Tak anchoring the right of his line, the G'Quan centre and left; I was packed pretty close together too, and E- mine barrages were doing damage to my lighter ships. I was swinging in and right, hoping to take the G'Quan on the bounce and move in on the flank of the Bin'Tak. The Narn simply couldn't move fast enough to cross me up; the most they could do was edge closer to each other. Much laserfire later, both G'Quan and one of the Dag'Kar were down.
Round 3 completed the massacre. Relentless had scored a 4-6 crit on the Narn flagship at the end of round 2, Ruthless moved in and claimed the kill. For reasons of length, posting now; analysis later.
