Tournament Saggitarius: Raid or Skirmish?

[Davesaint]

Some one who decides to field 10 Sag, is going to have an amazing first turn and then start to die horribly. Espcially if the opponents are Minbari or shadows (using scouts esp).

I can't wait to see the Sagx10 fleet face off against the 2 Hunter + Scout fleet in the Vassal tournament. I face the Shadow fleet later today with my Vorlons but expect it to be over in short order.

Well I am toying with the Idea, we are practising for the Q-Con Tourney. So I am going to give it a go, and see what happens. I am sure Hash and Burger would be up for a laugh :twisted:

Reverman,

I saw the 10 Sag fleet rip apart Preludes Vorlons. There are 2 big problems with the 10 Sag Fleet.

1 - Too much firepower - 60 missles SAP Precise Range 30 turn 1 possobly all CAF'd. Minimum 20 missles turn 2. If they get any come abouts on turn 2 it could be more. Turn 3, Likely 60 more missles. Ugh.

2. - Hard to kill for a Skirmish level hull. Hull 5 with 2 interceptors and in the high 20's for damage. You can't kill them fast enough.

At the end of Preludes battle with the 10 Sags, I think there were at least 4 possibly 5 Sags left. The Vorlons were all dead.

Dave

 

[Locutus9956]

It occurs to me that both my and davesaints example were against Vorlons/First ones WHO DONT EVEN TAKE CRITS! Now consinder how much naster those PRECISE missiles could potentially be against anyone else. Even if you dont kill the enmy anything that gets speed 0'ed and doesnt have 30" non boresighted return fire is out of the game!

 

[prelude_to_war]

I think a test using Minbari should be done. With any luck, if the slow-loading Sags miss their stealth rolls then maybe the Minbari have a shot. 5+ stealth would be in order which means Sharlins, Leshaths and Morshins (?).

 

[Locutus9956]

Thats not really to say the 10 sag fleet isnt broken though. If ANYONE fails their stealth enough the Minbari are virtually indestructible and if thats the ONLY way to survive against that fleet then there is something very wrong.

 

[prelude_to_war]

True but if you subsribe to the theory that a given power fleet has it's weakness in 'X', maybe the Minbari are it. Especially given the fact that the Sag weapons are all slow-loading.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the Sags are broken. I'm just playing Mongoose's advocate here because I know they're reading threads like this and will make adjustments accordingly :wink: .

 

[prelude_to_war]

As an aside, I do think if I had a rematch using my Vorlons with a slightly tailored fleet, the game could be much closer. That was only my 2nd game using Vorlons...

 

[Lord David the Denied]

If I understand this correctly, the Saggitarius-class missile cruiser takes more than one turn to reload. So the owning player volley-fires them so a constant rate of fire is maintained. That's not exactly rocket science, is it?

Forgive the pun...

 

[Triggy]

Actually I think a 5 Shadow Scout fleet would be better than the Minbari fleet due to still not taking criticals. At hull 5 (and even at hull 6) the Shadow Hunter simply can't take that much damage - it relies on manoeuvrability to evade too much fire and against 10 Sagittariuses then one is basically dead after a single (or maybe two) rounds of fire. After this you just can't win. However, if there is terrain/hyperspace then you can get amongst the enemy and the battle is even again.

The Sagittarius isn't quite so superior against most other fleets but is still better. Statistically it should be reduced to 4AD on each flank and given its tactical inflexibility, this makes it still a hard hitting long ranged ship (for Skirmish level anyway) but needing of a backup of more conventional ships to keep trouble of their backs. If it's upped to Raid level then it becomes way too bad a choice again and will rarely get chosen, especially by those who've run the numbers.

When all's said and done most people agree that there are two ships that need altering and these are the Shadow Hunter (make hull 5) and the EA Sagittarius, who has a harder choice as to what to do but certainly needs something!

 

[Locutus9956]

The thing with the volley firing them is that that doesnt really make any difference you'll still fire the same number of shots over the course of two turns. The trick is that the sags have missiles in every arc so it can fire all its missiles on one side then turn to fire a different arc while that one reloads.

 

[Geekybiker]

The thing with the volley firing them is that that doesnt really make any difference you'll still fire the same number of shots over the course of two turns. The trick is that the sags have missiles in every arc so it can fire all its missiles on one side then turn to fire a different arc while that one reloads.

Yah, oddly enough moving the missle from the front to the sides really made this a more effective ship for its role. It you're smart on open terrain, you'll fire every rounnd.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

It does sound like a bit of a killer. Isn't there any defence against missiles the other races can use?

 

[Locutus9956]

Its not that missiles are more powerful than other weapons (in fact they are less damaging than most beam weapons but as they are precise they score more crits) its just that the Sagittarius has possibly too MANY of them for a skirmish level ship.

Although I actually think its not so much the firepower of the Skirmish Sag thats the problem its that its too tough. If it was, say, hull 4 with 24 hits and the same hull it might be a fairer ship as you could simply blast them to pieces to reduce the torrent of missiles (though I still think that just doesnt work as if you take lots of them theyre still too powerful).

I really think that the tourney version of the Sag is a good ship but it just needs to be raid level and then its fine If you want missiles at Skirmish level take Olympus

 

[Chernobyl]

Of course there's a defense...its called interceptors. That is, if you have them! missiles are the EA's Beams...

Chern

 

[Lord David the Denied]

What races get interceptors, then? I'm under the impression only the EA get them. Is that totally wrong?

 

[Chernobyl]

Centauri have interceptors on some ships, Raiders have them on some ships, Abbai have them in buckets, brakiri have them, ISA has them...

 

[Lord David the Denied]

So, I was totally wrong then...

*shrug*

It happens. I'm a n00b...

 

[Benjamen the Wolf]

Centauri have interceptors on some ships, Raiders have them on some ships, Abbai have them in buckets, brakiri have them, ISA has them...

ISA only have Interceptors on the VCD, and thats a war level choice. Besides that, 4 interceptors on a single VCD is not going to put too much of a dent into the 60 potential missiles that 10 sags could put out in a single turn of firing.

The White Stars don't have interceptors at all, but do have Dodge AND Adaptive Armor, so might be able to survive long enough to get within range of the Sags. Anyone tried taking 5 White Stars against this 10 Sag fleet? I'd be interested to know the results as I will be playing a White Star fleet. Just not in this tournament y'all are discussing.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well were talking about the tourney ships here dont forget so the whitestars have only a 4+ dodge so theyll still on average get hit by half teh missiles that score hits in the first place. Adaptive armour WILL help alot in this case but it wont protect them from crit effects which will probably leave the whitestars virtually dead anyway quite quickly. Simply put I dont think ANY fleet can beat the 10 sags except by sheer fluke, they simply put out too much firepower for ANYTHING to last against:

Taking the WS example: 60 missiles hitting on 3+ (SAP) so thats 40 hits of which half will be dodged, so 20 hits. Thats at least 1 dead white star on turn 1 (not counting crits). Turn 2 they should do much better but I still dont rate their chances of winning (will have to try it sometime though (and all in all I still think they fit the normal profile for a RAID level ship) In fact the tourney Sag reminds me somewhat in terms of firepower and toughness of the Centauri Sullust (which is raid level...)

 

[prelude_to_war]

I actually took on 5 Whitestars with the following:

2 Sags
1 Apollo
1 Nova
2 Olympus

I took out a Whitestar on the first turn via CAF and with all of the missiles I ended up winning. 'Movement 0' type crits or 'No Weapons May Fire' were what did the Whitestars in. Crew loss crticials were also common.

Davesaint will have to refresh my memory but he felt the Sags were overpowered at that point - and I only had 2 Sags (and an Apollo + 2 Olympus' for what they're worth in terms of missiles).

 

[Triggy]

If you have terrain to screen you in or you can jump in on top of them then you may have a chance but not otherwise.

Personally I believe that the Sagittarius is not good enough at Raid level and too good at Skirmish. Either take the SFoS Sagittarius and beef it up a touch or take the Tournament one and tone it down a touch. One or the other needs to be done to produce a balanced ship.