The Neroon-class

[Silvereye]

I have been thinking about this for a while, and cannot readily see any justification of using one, when the other smaller (if you can call a Sharlin or Neshatan small) Minbari ships can cover the same roles better. I fear it will be relegated to join the Troligan in the Minbari's list of ships that aren't good enough simply because there are better options available elsewhere.

To me its selling points are, the masses of Fusion Cannon. OK the Improved Neutron Lasers are nice but significantly lacking as the AD is all spread out. Its like a cross between a Sharoos and a Morshin with upgraded lasers.... As a ship I would want to keep it advancing forward (at Bin'Tak speeds) to get those masses of fusion cannon into play, or sit it back for a turn or two to clear the fighters. If it was sat back, then I'd want to CAF! but that stops the fighters launching. Once you close in, the extended range on the Lasers becomes negligable and 2 AD is pretty lousy. At close range the Stealth is also weakened meaning more hits will come through and the damage and crew levels are laughable. Like it says in the description, they have simply tried to do too much with the ship.

What could you take for your points instead? A Sharkaan Advanced Warcruiser and Morshin Carrier will cover all the Traits. You can then CAF to your hearts content with the same AD of Improved Neutron Laser, while the Morshin spews Nials into the fight. You also have a spent less than an Armageddon point. 2 Sharlin Warcruisers? You loose out on some of the Traits, but carry the same number of fighters it also triples the amount of Neutron Laser fire going the enemies way.

I just cannot see the value of a Neroon compared to what else you might take instead.

Can I ask the playtesters for their views of this ship and how it performed in the playtests?

 

[prelude_to_war]

Good question. Sounds like the Minbari peaked at War level and additional ships beyond that are superflous.

With all of the chaos of the new fighter rule I can see those fusion cannons coming in handy. Other than that, about the only other benefit I see is that it's a new mini for Minbari players.

 

[CZuschlag]

If this wanted to be truly, truly terrifying, with the new stealth mechanic already leaked to us, it could have been Stealth 6+. Ugh! That'd certainly be Armageddon.

 

[Voronesh]

I can mostly agree here.

The Minabri seemd confined to raid-war lvls. The rest doesnt seem to be able to keep up......

Sure Armageddon lvl ships arent supposed to be as good as 2 war lvl ships, but still id have expected a little bit more. All round long range firepower rarely cuts it in ACTA methinks......

 

[Silvereye]

It is not the all round long range firepower thats the problem, it's the fact there is not much of it in any arc and they have put it on a fleet carrier. It leaves you having to make a really significant choice as to how to use the ship in the opening turns. You want to CAF, but you also want to get a fighter screen launched. And splitting the roles into 2 or more ships is the only way to do that properly.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

For me it'd be two Sharlins, no question. Aside from being the archetypical ship of the Minbari Federation it also has really frightening firepower to the front with its nuetron lasers, and carries enough Nials to keep the enemy's fighters away. Plus there has to be a psychological impact to seeing a Sharlin across the table from your fleet, especially for relative newcomers to the game...

 

[Silvereye]

For me it'd be two Sharlins, no question.

But you then you would loose the Command and Fleet Carrier abilities. I am not trying to discover what people would use instead, the Sharkaan/Morshin 2 Sharlin comments in my first post covers that, but I am looking to see if anyone can find a valid tactical use for one, where it is picked first or second on the fleet roster.

 

[Voronesh]

Right of the bat not really.

Most of the time a ship higher up in priority offers you some kind of new tactical option. Like Hyperion is fast and deadly, go up to Omega, little extra firepower, but more fighters and alot more staying power, go up to Warlock, you actually get a seriously nice mix of firepower, the secondaries get a huge 15" range, plus precise missles.....

Now the Neroon. The command bonus is nice, but i never liked command version of ships, cause the command bonus could never hide the huge loss of survivability and firepower you were taking compared to an actual warship of that lvl. Extra flights, well not too much of a bonus.
The only thing it can do, that others cant is fire in all directions, but with 18" secondaries, i can only see that as an advantage in a HUGE furball, or when your in the middle of the board and even want to affect battle on BOTH flanks.

Otherwise i have no idea.....

 

[SylvrDragon]

My biggest problem with the Neroon is the crew score. What were they thinking in giving it a score of 50? Sure it's got more damage, but that doesn't mean a thing with such a relatively low crew score! We all know crew is the score to watch on mosy ships, since it tends to drop faster, so this ship can't take the take amount of firepower that a single Sharlin can and a single Sharlin can lay down almost as much firepower.

Tactical uses...None. It's a worthless ship in my opinion. The ONLY possible use I could see for it would be to use it as a decoy. Just hope your opponent gest scared of it and tries to kill it before he tries to attack the real ships. Though I think an Armageddon level ship is too costly for such a tactic, but it's all I can really see it being used for.

For note, considering that Sharlin's aren't exactly the hardiest ship out there, I consider it completely wrong to have an Armageddon level be flimsier than what is probably the flimsiest war level ship in te game...Not insulting the Sharlin mind you, love the ship and I make use of them when ever I can, I'm just pointing out the ship's weakness.

 

[David Anla Shok']

I'm in the "take two Sharlins" camp. I expect more from an Armageddon level vessel.

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

I can see a time where the Naroon would be used, 20-30 point Armageddon battles where you really need to rack up Armageddon level ships just to keep the number of figures in use down.

But in more normal level games, at battle priority and below the Naroon offers less victory points when destroyed than a pair of sharlins or other war ships.

Also not all battles are determined by allocation points, there might be campaign situations or special scenarios where you can only send one ship, and a Naroon is generally better than a single Sharlin.

 

[Burger]

Wow... thread necro! Almost a year!

But in more normal level games, at battle priority and below the Naroon offers less victory points when destroyed than a pair of sharlins or other war ships.

Well there's an optimistic method of fleet selectin for you :lol:

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Well, I was pushed to find a valid reason for taking one.
Best I could come up with on short notice.

 

[Locutus9956]

The Neroon sufferes from the problem that its trying to do a bit of everything, a bit command shippy, a bit fleet carrierish, a bit big-ass dreadnoughty. The trouble is it doesnt really EXCEL at any one of those roles.

There are plenty of WAR level ships in many fleets that can match or exceed the command rating, as far as fighters go if you want that youre probably better off with 2 Morshins, and as for firepower and toughness sure its quite a durable and well armed ship but when your talking about long ranged engagements (and with Minbari, lets face it, you ARE if you have any common sense!) the side and rear arcs become less important than a big forward punch (hence why the Primus is such an excellent ship), and for that your FAR better off with 2 Sharlins over a Neroon.

Basically, the Neroon is all well and good but can you honestly say that you would EVER rather take one than, say, a Sharlin, a Tinashi and a Morshin? The Morshin give you same fighter and command capabilities as the Neroon on its own, plus MORE fighters from the Sharlin and the Sahrlin and Tinashin combined have far more effective firepower than the Neroon!

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Make that a Sharkaan, Shantavi and Morshin and your on! That way your getting the massive forward improved neutron laser firepower.

By the way, are we talking armageddon or e2 ships here?

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Actually, looking at the e2 Neroon, it's a more viable choice, although still not a shoe-in as a better option than a pair of Sharlins.

 

[Triggy]

Actually, looking at the e2 Neroon, it's a more viable choice, although still not a shoe-in as a better option than a pair of Sharlins.

Surely that's a good balance though, where either option is viable and powerful...

 

[MustEatBrains]

I think how much the Neroon actually gets used depends heavily on the new miniature, whenever it will come. Hard to say for 2nd ed without knowing the actual stats, but in Armageddon the Neroon was an interesting allrounder. I guess I wouldn´t use one in most regular one-off games, but it would be something I´d like to include in a campaign fleet.

 

[katadder]

the 2e neroon has more firepower all round (TL fusion guns) and more damage making it a far more viable ship and well worth taking now IMO.

 

[MustEatBrains]

Nice! Now all we need is a miniature for it, but with all the new releases recently, I don´t think that anyone can complain that Mongoose doesn´t bring us enough new stuff...

Still, I liked the basic design of the Armageddon miniature; it were just the added details like the strange motor block and those toy-gun barrels that I didn´t like.