Totally unofficial "Fluff" fleets

[Captain Kremmen]

Guys,

I want to play a few friendlies with unofficial ship varients, orientated about the ships in the series as much as possible. The following is my current ideas, I would be interested in hearing if others have had any good ideas for this type of thing.

Centauri
Ban the Prefect
Ban The tertius
I don't have any Dargans and only one sulust so not really bothered about them.
In compensation take a standard Primus but allow it 4 flights of Sentri rather than 2.
Vorchan - Add 2 AD of extra plasma accelerator to make it a descent skirmish level ship.

Narn
G'Quan gets 4 beams rather than 3
Ban Ka'Tan's
Not sure about Ka'toc.
T'Loth, Maybe keep it as is but add an extra Frazi or so.

Shadow
For pure fluff games I think the shadow cruiser may be a little underpowered so may count armageddon level as 1.5 X War rather than 2 X As I don't have any other armageddon level ships this isn't a major issue.

Drazi
Sunhawks, not sure making them hull 5 would probably be too strong for Patrol so maybe just another 4-5 hull and crew, or maybe up them a bit and make them skirmish. They seem very similar models to the strikehawk. Maybe have similar stats to a Warbird but hull 5 instead of 6 and a couple of extra AD to compensate and make it a skirmish level ship. Sunhawk model just looks too big and too good to be a patrol level ship?

Kremmen the Heretic :twisted:

 

[Locutus9956]

the drazi thing is part of the AoG heritage, in B5 Wars the Sunhawk was in fact a more powerful and expensive ship than the Warbird/Strikehawk.

Not entirely sure WHY mongoose felt the need to swap these two around, I cant think of any occasion in the show where you see both ships onscreen anyway so its hard to judge which version is closer to 'canon' but personally as much as I love ACTA when it comes to fluff and general ship info I far prefer the B5Wars books, theyre just more detailed (and JMS himself SAID they were right and thats good enough for me )

 

[Wulf Corbett]

the drazi thing is part of the AoG heritage, in B5 Wars the Sunhawk was in fact a more powerful and expensive ship than the Warbird/Strikehawk.

Interestingly, in Shadow Dancing, there's mention of "Sunhawks and other medium-class ships", but the only Drazi craft visible are clearly what both AoG and Mongoose call Warbirds (caged power 'egg'), as well as Sky Serpents (which Mongoose have ignored in the scenario!)

Wulf

 

[TGT]

Centauri
Ban the Prefect Nope just reduce its beam
Ban The tertius nope just reduce the secondary weapon suite and abide by year dates
I don't have any Dargans and only one sulust so not really bothered about them.
In compensation take a standard Primus but allow it 4 flights of Sentri rather than 2. Nope its powerful enough and needs no additions
Vorchan - Add 2 AD of extra plasma accelerator to make it a descent skirmish level ship. YES

Narn
G'Quan gets 4 beams rather than 3 ABSOLUTELY YES!
Ban Ka'Tan's Probably ok with this
Not sure about Ka'toc. NOPE
T'Loth, Maybe keep it as is but add an extra Frazi or so.
No need its crap in comparison to the T'Rann, give it a fwd Beam and then Yes

Shadow
For pure fluff games I think the shadow cruiser may be a little underpowered so may count armageddon level as 1.5 X War rather than 2 X As I don't have any other armageddon level ships this isn't a major issue.

??? Nope

Drazi
Sunhawks, not sure making them hull 5 would probably be too strong for Patrol so maybe just another 4-5 hull and crew, or maybe up them a bit and make them skirmish. They seem very similar models to the strikehawk. Maybe have similar stats to a Warbird but hull 5 instead of 6 and a couple of extra AD to compensate and make it a skirmish level ship. Sunhawk model just looks too big and too good to be a patrol level ship?

I agree but "a bird by anyother name" just call the skirmish level shiop a sunhawk

 

[Right Hand of God]

More calls to ban ships?

why not just settle it once and for all and make everyship exactly the same, give them all emines, stealth and beams, maybe that will reduce the number of complaints, but then again I seriously doubt it

 

[Voronesh]

Well.

It is hard to balance ships yourself, when you have to press em into exactly the priority lvl....

And yes some ships are plain unbalanced.

And the Prefect only needs a weaker beam, the its good to go.

Tertius either the beam or the secondary weapon is reduced to AP, to fit the Vorchans Plasma accelerator......

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Sorry guys I am not trying to restart an ongoing row about Tertius and Prefects. I chose the word "Ban" badly.

I am only talking about friendly games just for me, and only when I am trying to play a "Fluff" game. Hence the concentration on T'Loth, G'Quan, Primus and Vorchans, purely because they are the ships you see in the series.

If you hypothetically wanted to play a pure fluff game, and make the Vorchans as powerful as they appear to be in the series, would you slightly increase their strength?

Actually I think I am already regretting doing this post, there isn't a delete button is there???

Kremmen

 

[Slightly Norse John]

The Vorchan's too outclassed as a hunter- killer because it can't land damage reliably enough on heavier hulled ships. It's not for use at it's own level; it's a pack hunter, intended to swarm on larger ships, better off with small numbers of heavier dice. They really need Super AP back to be worth taking.
If they did, I'd probably use them as reaction anyway, to support the beam line.
There's an 'edit' button, you can remove all the text from the post but that might be going a bit far.

 

[Ripple]

Yeah, no need to delete.

Agree about the Sunhawks. Given their low damage/crew numbers the hull five idea would work okay I think. As is they serve no purpose as they are useless as initiative sinks. I use the Jumphawk quite a bit and its basically a hull 5 Sunhawk that's been up gunned. Darn thing dies long before any of the Warbird/Strikehawks. Given the all boresight nature of the ships, it shouldn't hurt most opponents if the Suns are a tad better.

Ripple

 

[philogara]

Sorry guys I am not trying to restart an ongoing row about Tertius and Prefects. I chose the word "Ban" badly.

I am only talking about friendly games just for me, and only when I am trying to play a "Fluff" game. Hence the concentration on T'Loth, G'Quan, Primus and Vorchans, purely because they are the ships you see in the series.

If you hypothetically wanted to play a pure fluff game, and make the Vorchans as powerful as they appear to be in the series, would you slightly increase their strength?

Actually I think I am already regretting doing this post, there isn't a delete button is there???

Kremmen

You can delete your message (a small cross in the top left) but I guess it would leave the rest of thread behind. Anyway you shouldn't, you are entitled to an opinion, and personnally I like the idea of fleets concentrating on the ships we see.

Though we obviously do need some extras, otherwise some fleets would be very sparse, I think it just gets carried away with the number of variants. Okay, MGP have got to make their money (isn't that what a new version every year is for :wink: ), but all these variants and new hulls are just fuelling the balance/unbalance debate.

 

[LordClinto]

Just watched the last couple of episodes of season 4 last night, and saw this one:

What about a pure fluff fleet of White Stars (apparently without nials) that could be "outnumbered" (according to Ivanova at least) by Shadow Omegas (with all of their flights of 'furies & t'bolts) and still destroy all of them?

I remember seeing around 20 White Stars & at least 6 Shadow Omegas (outnumbered?).

How does that work?

 

[lastbesthope]

Just watched the last couple of episodes of season 4 last night, and saw this one:

What about a pure fluff fleet of White Stars (apparently without nials) that could be "outnumbered" (according to Ivanova at least) by Shadow Omegas (with all of their flights of 'furies & t'bolts) and still destroy all of them?

I remember seeing around 20 White Stars & at least 6 Shadow Omegas (outnumbered?).

How does that work?

SFOS P.184, has 8 Shadow Omegas listed vs 20 WS, no Nials and the Omegas get their T'bolts, at least, nothing says they don't.

LBH

 

[Triggy]

Just watched the last couple of episodes of season 4 last night, and saw this one:

What about a pure fluff fleet of White Stars (apparently without nials) that could be "outnumbered" (according to Ivanova at least) by Shadow Omegas (with all of their flights of 'furies & t'bolts) and still destroy all of them?

I remember seeing around 20 White Stars & at least 6 Shadow Omegas (outnumbered?).

How does that work?

They were outnumbered, but that's only because they counted the Thunderbolts too.

I've counted them up on slo-mo and the most you ever see is 24 White Stars and 6 Shadow Omegas. I guess the Call to Arms scenario has 8 for balance.

 

[LordClinto]

But what practical chance would 20 or 24 White Stars have against 6 or 8 Shadow Omegas?

SFOS P.184, has 8 Shadow Omegas listed vs 20 WS, no Nials and the Omegas get their T'bolts, at least, nothing says they don't.

LBH

Don't have this book yet. Is this a battle report or a "historical" report?


Anybody ever try that fight?

 

[lastbesthope]

It's a scenario in the Sky Full Of Stars supplement, a historical one for players to try.

LBH

 

[Triggy]

But what practical chance would 20 or 24 White Stars have against 6 or 8 Shadow Omegas?

SFOS P.184, has 8 Shadow Omegas listed vs 20 WS, no Nials and the Omegas get their T'bolts, at least, nothing says they don't.

LBH

Don't have this book yet. Is this a battle report or a "historical" report?


Anybody ever try that fight?

Well given that Shadow Omegas in Armageddon are basically still War level in ability (even though they're Armageddon to take), the scenario is actually pretty fair.

 

[lastbesthope]

Well given that Shadow Omegas in Armageddon are basically still War level in ability (even though they're Armageddon to take), the scenario is actually pretty fair.

Slight flaw in your logic there Triggy, the Shadow Omegas in SFOS can't be Armageddon to take, Armageddon doesn't exist in SFOS, that and it's a War PL choice :lol: , and the Armagedon one in Armageddon is beefred up in comparison.

LBH

 

[Slightly Norse John]

We tried it at Strathclyde, two Shadow Omega and three White Star players, and it depends on the tactics. If the White Stars deploy more or less evenly- and they deploy first, the natural if silly thing to do is a ring facing out- the Shadow players can emerge on one side of the blob'o'WS, and get a round of pounding away at the half a dozen or so closest to them, maiming them very nastily, before the rest can get into the fight. Then they can roll up the Army of Light, picking off the WS faster than they can kill the Omegas.
It's not agility, it's distance; an evenly spread WS group will be largely out of supporting distance of each other, to begin with.
In a straight fight, probably the WS; the scenario conditions even it up a lot, maybe too much- it's a real tactical test for the White Stars, you don't have to do anything not usually expected of them but you have to do it almost flawlessly. There's no room for mistakes at all.
With armageddon WS, forget it; low power pulsars and reduced Dodge, you're toast.