Triggy's Armageddon Ship Analysis

[Triggy]

OK folks, expanding on my current looks at ships in my previous analysis thread: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16899&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 I've looked at the ships changed by the Armageddon pdf and reviewed my take on the ships that remain unchanged. Ships that are brand new to Armageddon and not in the pdf will have to wait their turn...

There are several "issue" ships such as the Sagittarius, Ka'Toc, Ka'Tan, Sulust, Prefect, Tertius, etc. and I have paid particular attention to these vessels.

Here's the summary of the overall findings, with much of the explanation in the above thread but I'll be happy to explain my reasoning to anyone who cares to ask. Debate is encouraged too There are a lot of ships very slightly better or worse than normal and this variation is expected too. I've not mentioned it when a ship is slightly better or worse but not so much that I consider it to be under/overpowered.


EA

Generally a good fleet with only two ships overpowered in my opinion.

Sagittarius - It should basically be a Raid PL ship. I think we've all said our piece on this often enough, not least of whom, me.

Hyperion Assault Cruiser - With the uprating of its damage from SFoS, its "standard" guns are also better in many ways to those of the main Hyperion. A small drop from 6AD to 4AD on the medium plasma canon would be enough.

The Explorer, Shadow Omega and Nemesis could do with slight rises in crew values and the Omega Command Cruiser and Hyperion Command Cruiser are pretty weak for their PL. Personally I'd drop the Command Hyperion's crew and damage to that of a normal Hyperion and call it a Raid PL ship. The Command Omega, I'd up its damage to 60, its front heavy laser cannon to 8AD and the front heavy pulse cannon to 16AD. Also, the Artemis Escort is a little on the weak side and could probably do with upgunning it on the front to 16AD and 8AD on the aft.


Minbari

Nice fleet. The changes in stealth are beautiful at balancing them! The Ashinta and Esharan are a tiny bit weak but nothing major.

Tigara - The one ship that would need reducing in power slightly is this. Simply take precise of its molecular disruptors and the job's a good'n.

Nial - Needs two flights per wing as per the tourney pack. One flight doesn't cut it as a viable fleet choice.

Centauri

Mostly a great fleet except for the three ships mentioned earlier. I did an extensive look at them on paper and my experiences against them in real life so far haven't changed my point of view. The Demos wants a fair jump up in damage points to 25/7 and crew to 30/8 and the Secundus a little boost on its forward heavy array to 16AD but nothing drastic.

Prefect - The mother of all overpowered ships at the moment (barring the Sagittarius) IMO. Hull 5 and the problem goes away, its improved firepower is matched by the reduction in manoeuvrability.

Tertius - Drop the plasma accelerator to 4AD and then you have a real choice about whether to take this ship that hits harder than the Primus or the Primus that has fighters to back it up...

Sulust - Return it to its tournament stats (i.e. 3AD rather than 4 on its beam) and all is well again.


Narn

The big ships here for review are the Ka'Toc and Ka'Tan. Try as I might though I can't see how they're too powerful. Yes, in packs they are tough (very tough) but certain fleets hammer them and the lack of turns is a killer if you can get past them or reduce their numbers and use initiative sinks against them. The precise on the Var'Nic is just what was called for Other than that, the Narn are good to go!


ISA

Don't know exactly what will be happening to the Victory, Carrier or Gunships in Armageddon but keeping the tourney White Star stats is great and the SFoS WSC-2 is still a nicely balanced ship and starting to come out of the White Star's shadow.


Vorlons

Bearing in mind the typo on the Light Cruiser, I like the Vorlon fleet a lot. They are a good fleet, particularly at Skirmish and Raid PL due to high regeneration values and a relative inability of the enemy to concentrate enough firepower at them in time. However, they remain a good threat.


Shadows

Another great fleet list but this time there is one exception.

Shadow Ship - I'm afraid for Armageddon PL, this is too weak. I'd take two Hunters any day of the week. Raise its damage to 300 and give it 10AD on the beam and it'd be perfect in my book. I have to admit though that I haven't actually played a game with it though and that'll be something I'll be trying soon.


Dilgar

Basically a very good fleet. All the ships are good options to take with only one ship borderline too good.

Rohric - It's a bit too tough and I'd lower the front bolters to 6AD.


Drakh

Another very good fleet, in this case a lot harder to master than most others but with some great tactical elements once you get to know them. Again, only one ship possibly too good and one possibly too weak (the Light Raider but in this case it serves a specific role and I probably wouldn't change it).

Light Cruiser - A bit too tough for my liking. Reducing its hit points to 24/5 and crew to 24/5 is probably enough and still retains its feel.


League

No problems here. Good fleets all of them. The Vree are a little weak on the Xorr but otherwise almost all of the ships are well usable. One exception though.

Brakiri Halik - Guns are reasonable but the ship isn't tough. One area needs strengthening and I'd raise its hull to 6.


Raiders

Everybody's favourite punchbag. On a ship to ship comparison (with the new fighter rules) the Raiders come out OK on most counts but their lack of variety absolutely kills them. More ships is the way out of this I feel, not changed stats. Hopefully the Raider Nova will do some of the work, as will the ability to take a point of allies again (that wasn't available in the tournament lists).


Overall only 8 ships I'd tone down a bit and 7 ships I'd tone up. Not bad really And out of them, there are only three (Sagittarius, Prefect, Tertius) that I feel are big enough changes to deserve urgent attention. Good job on the ship balances overall Mongoose and playtesters, very nearly there on "Zen" ship balance over the entire game


One further question about ships with self repair and damage/crew scores - why are the crew scores always lower than the damage scores? Doesn't this more than negate almost all of the purpose of the self repair as most of the time the ship will lose its crew long before it loses its damage...

 

[emperorpenguin]

Good analysis there Triggy

one thing though, Raiders can take allies in the tournament list!

 

[katadder]

sorry but the tertius is what a primus should have been plus fighters, this is a battle ship, the primus is a stand off laser.
prefect not that hard, killed one easy today using Vree, also slower and not very manouverable.

as for ka'tocs, ka'tans. yes they suffer from manouverability but one has 3 dice of beam (one at triple damage) one has 4 dice of beam. they come with fighters and 10 of them in a 5 point raid has been mentioned earlier are unbeatable except by things like the sagi fleet.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

I disagree with your analysis of the Centauri fleet, Triggy. I don't think the Tertius is overpowered, really. Perhaps a slight reduction in firepower would be in order. Drop the front plasma accelerator to 6AD and drop the rear one altogether. That'd make it perfectly acceptable to most people, I think. Remember that the "overpowered" secondary guns are only range 10" so won't be firing for at least one turn, maybe more depending on the fleets' movments.

As far as I can see the Prefect is fine. It's meant to be more heavily armoured than the Centurion, that's the point, so dropping its hull to 5 isn't a suitable fix. Not that it needs a fix in my opinion. The loss of a turn is crippling from my point of view; against an enemy more agile than the Vorlons a Prefect can be out-manouevred fairly easily.

The Sulust is totally fine as it is. The tournament pack sold it short. The same is true of the Dargan's loss of firepower.

The Demos needs some tweaking to be viable at raid level. More hits and crew, probably interceptors 1 would see it right.

I'll be glad to playtest these ships with you, Triggy, to test this. Soon as I have everything built and ready to use.

 

[Dennbok]

I agree with Triggy on the Tertius issue - I just can't bring myself to take the Primus or Secundus when that beast is available.

 

[emperorpenguin]

sorry but the tertius is what a primus should have been plus fighters, this is a battle ship, the primus is a stand off laser..

I agree with Triggy, the Tertius has no real drawback compared with a Primus. As for being a stand off ship? It's still in many people's eyes one of the best ships at its PL, the Tertius is then an improvement on that.

 

[emperorpenguin]

The Sulust is totally fine as it is. The tournament pack sold it short. The same is true of the Dargan's loss of firepower.
.

The Sulust is a no-brainer at 4AD of lasers, the only problem was that in the tournament list the range was dropped (which I didn't notice in playtesting!)

 

[Silvereye]

Tigara - The one ship that would need reducing in power slightly is this. Simply take precise of its molecular disruptors and the job's a good'n.

Can't really see any benefit in that. You need to get to 8" of the enemy to use the molecular disruptors and that leaves you in the -1 Stealth bracket.

The Tigara is designed to be a very good knife-fighter of a ship. Dropping Precise will not quite cripple it in that role (it still has the 4" anti-matter converters in the fore), but it will reduceit to the point when you start looking for Teshlans or Ashintas that do not need to get in point blank so can hide behind their Stealth. Remember the Molecular and Anti-matter weapons are interceptable.

 

[Celisasu]

For the ships I'm familiar with I agree with Triggy completely. His analysis is extremely good.

 

[Locutus9956]

Just out of curisity, David the Denied, have you often/ever played OTHER races than centauri AGAINST them?

I don't mean to sound rude but you seem to be the first one to complain when anyone suggests lowering the power of any centauri ship at all and even complained that the primus WASNT good enough once if memory serves.

Now Im not saying the Centauri are broken (far from it) but I did think the Sullust tourney fix was a very good move as the SFoS one was verging on beardy. Can't say I've ever really fought against a Prefect but as for a Tertius, the REASON I've never faced one is that both Centauri players at my local club have refused to use them in the past as they felt them to be unfair.....

Again please don't take this the wrong way, merely suggesting you try evaluating the Centauri from the other side of the table...

 

[Ripple]

Triggy

What are you using as baseline for the various PL's? Specifically damage, crew, hull, expected damage output.

Comments

Dilgar - Surprised I do not see the Targrath on the list. With it's very long strike range (movement plus range on weapon) I find the Bolters more effective than most lasers. The fact that it also has a long range capacity and an interceptor soaking weapon with near identical range has effectively removed the main limitations of the Bolter main weapon. What ships do you think it compares favorably with?

League - I find the Bimith lacking myself. The ship does not have the combo of speed and/or range to do the job it needs to do. I have used them close to a dozen times and not once have I gotten a single decent return on the ship. (Well once, but my opponent could see I was having a bad time and drove three ships into range deliberately to let me try and get some dice rolled.) Who do you consider a close match?

Xorr - Tried this ship again and did fairly well, but that was soley because I was able to jump in behind my opponent. Personally feel this ship needs a boost in damage or a dodge of 6+ or something. It simply cannot survive SAP beam attacks which are very common in this game. Would be different if it had a gun that could respond at beam ranges.

Another general note... did you take into account the change in fighter rules? Been pushing things around a bit and it seems the lower hull ships are going to have much bigger problems than before, specifically those without a defense system. Not sure the relative value of defense system/hull has stayed the same in the new enviorment.

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Just out of curisity, David the Denied, have you often/ever played OTHER races than centauri AGAINST them?

I don't mean to sound rude but you seem to be the first one to complain when anyone suggests lowering the power of any centauri ship at all and even complained that the primus WASNT good enough once if memory serves.

Now Im not saying the Centauri are broken (far from it) but I did think the Sullust tourney fix was a very good move as the SFoS one was verging on beardy. Can't say I've ever really fought against a Prefect but as for a Tertius, the REASON I've never faced one is that both Centauri players at my local club have refused to use them in the past as they felt them to be unfair.....

Again please don't take this the wrong way, merely suggesting you try evaluating the Centauri from the other side of the table...

I've not played against a Centauri fleet so far. There were two of us in Triggy's tournament but that went the way of the dinosaur. Like I've said three or four times, I'm happy to take part in playtesting these ships, so I'll be quite happy to play the OpFor units and see how they play from the other side.

I maintain that the Sulust is totally fine. Its beam is powerful but that's basically all it can do until the enemy gets close, then it's got twin arrays to fall back on. Like the Primus, it's a one-trick pony, but unlike the Primus it doesn't come with fighters or a jump point to try to escape if things turn ugly. It's not hull 6, it doesn't have loads of damage and crew, it's only got 1 45 degree turn and packs no appreciable secondary armament, yet you all whine that it's "broken."

 

[katadder]

i did play a game against a tertius/sullust and prefect combo with Vree and it wasnt too bad, in fact we crippled the prefect in one turn.

 

[Triggy]

Thanks for the comments folks, I'll come back to the Centauri with an explanation of my reasoning shortly...

Triggy

What are you using as baseline for the various PL's? Specifically damage, crew, hull, expected damage output.

Comments

Dilgar - Surprised I do not see the Targrath on the list. With it's very long strike range (movement plus range on weapon) I find the Bolters more effective than most lasers. The fact that it also has a long range capacity and an interceptor soaking weapon with near identical range has effectively removed the main limitations of the Bolter main weapon. What ships do you think it compares favorably with?

League - I find the Bimith lacking myself. The ship does not have the combo of speed and/or range to do the job it needs to do. I have used them close to a dozen times and not once have I gotten a single decent return on the ship. (Well once, but my opponent could see I was having a bad time and drove three ships into range deliberately to let me try and get some dice rolled.) Who do you consider a close match?

Xorr - Tried this ship again and did fairly well, but that was soley because I was able to jump in behind my opponent. Personally feel this ship needs a boost in damage or a dodge of 6+ or something. It simply cannot survive SAP beam attacks which are very common in this game. Would be different if it had a gun that could respond at beam ranges.

Another general note... did you take into account the change in fighter rules? Been pushing things around a bit and it seems the lower hull ships are going to have much bigger problems than before, specifically those without a defense system. Not sure the relative value of defense system/hull has stayed the same in the new enviorment.

Ripple

On the general points first - fighters are compared both to each other and to a mixture of lighter and heavier ships. I have semi-quantified their dogfighting and anti-capital ship abilities and that combines for a rating of the ship. There are one or two like the Thunderbolt and Vorlon Fighter that are better than the others and a couple like the Frazi and Kotha that are slightly worse (when bought as wings) but generally they're all at least competative and are a worthy choice in a fleet. As for the Armageddon changes being taken into account - I did this with my last analysis (I assumed they'd shoot at least once on the enemy...) so nothing really changes here.

Generally two points better dogfighting ability makes a ship worth two enemy flights in a dogfight. Other factors like weapons also count so dedicated anti-fighter flights without heavy weapons (e.g. Minbari Tishat) can be worth the same as an anti-capital ship fighter (e.g. Drazi Sky Serpent). As a note, I did include the value of fighters in the ships that carry them as they are a fairly essential component of many vessels!

You've also reminded me that in SFoS Minbari only get one flight of Nials per wing. To be fair this ought to be two flights like in the tourney lists!


For the other ships I haven't actually used a baseline as such. I started by comparing four fleets at once, starting with Raid level ships and expanding out and trying to find a common ground of similarly performing ships. After this, I try to compare each ship to at least two others, one as similar as possible and the other(s) quite different in ability. I also compare ships to at least one ship of a different PL, matching two against one and averaging out the combat. I make a number of assumptions such as a closing speed of 10" per turn (unless a ship's speed is significantly different), boresighted weapons shooting in the first turn they're in range and at 50% effectiveness thereafter (shooting every other round effectively), beams hitting with 0.2, 0.4, 0.7, 1.13 and 1.78 hits respectively against hulls 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2, precise multiplying damage by 1.5, masters of destruction multiplying by 1.25 (yes, I've averaged the effects of criticals overall), ships with good all-round weapons hitting with 100% effectiveness from the fore, 50% from starboard and port and minimal effect from the aft (unless designed specifically to be an aft attacker, this has little impact anyway), interceptors having precisely calculated average numbers of shots they stop, Ancients' ignoring criticals being roughly equal to the ability to choose special actions, and many other assumptions besides.


I've agreed with you on the Xorr but the change would be small so haven't really suggested anything. The entire Vree fleet is about 25% less effective than most others but SM is their saving grace that is probably worth something similar. All of their ships are roughly in balance with each other so I didn't want to tamper too heavily with them.

A couple of comparisons for the Targrath for you are the Centurion and the White Star. Particularly the Centurion - both hard hitters, just as fast and just as manoeuvrable, with no interceptors and hull 5. The Targrath on average just kills the Centurion in two rounds and you may be thinking this is insanely good (which it is), but guess what? The Centurion does the exact same proportion of damage back (although split over different weaons ranges)! Targrath does 12 shots = 6 hits x double damage x 1.25 for MoD = 16 hits per turn (ish). The Centurion does 4 damage with its matter cannon, 4.67 with its battle laser and 8.9 with its twin particle arrays. Given that half the damage comes from longer ranged weapons and half from shorter, I'd say it's a pretty even matchup. Believe me, the matchups against other races for the Targrath are similar.

Bimith I've played with and against several times and find its role as centre of the fleet pretty useful. Not to mention it's very tough (particularly against non-beam fleets) and its firepower makes it a great ship to have in amongst the enemy. Stats wise, if the enemy can keep it at range then they will do fine but if the Bimith gets close then anything more than two arcs shooting at the enemy will make it way better than anything the enemy can throw back at them.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

i did play a game against a tertius/sullust and prefect combo with Vree and it wasnt too bad, in fact we crippled the prefect in one turn.

The Tertius was the man of the match in that game, without doubt. The rear guns made a big difference when the Vree got in behind it.

The Sulust wasn't spectacular at all, only getting to fire the twin arrays once and the beam wasn't exactly tightly-focused death either.

The Prefect was blasted by a Xaak command saucer and crippled in one turn of firing before it could even open fire. So much for the "broken" hull 6. Its "overpowered" beam didn't get to be used as it took -1AD critical in turn 1, but I can't see it blowing Omega destroyers out of the sky in one shot.

 

[Rynar]

I also agree with this analisys, I only feel that the Saggi should be tweaked down a bit instead of raising it to raid PL once more like in SFOS.

The Tertius is a must compairing its stats with a Primus, The only reason A centauri player would pick one over a primus everythime unless you set a "game"year before it was launched.

The Prefect is too strong with a hull increacse to 6 for the same PL.

The Tourney Sulust is better than the SFOS one.

greetz rynar

 

[katadder]

but thats also the whole idea of having years, ships get more powerful, you could say the same about alot of ships within the same PL about why would you pick this one, but then more powerful ones generally have a later year.

you say the sulust is overpowered, what about a tigara or a hyperion at raid, both with far mroe firepower (altho hyperion needs to boresight his beams)

 

[emperorpenguin]

but thats also the whole idea of having years, ships get more powerful, you could say the same about alot of ships within the same PL about why would you pick this one, but then more powerful ones generally have a later year.

you say the sulust is overpowered, what about a tigara or a hyperion at raid, both with far mroe firepower (altho hyperion needs to boresight his beams)

the tigara is beard at the moment but with the new stealth rules it should be ok, hopefully.
The Hyperion has great firepower but weak damage resistance. They attract fire like nobody's business and usually go bang as a result.

The 4 beam Sulust might be "one trick" but put that trick in a well rounded fleet and it'll tear opponents to shreds.
I'm a centauri player after all and I can see which ships in our fleet are just a bit too good cos I always take them!

 

[katadder]

same with your lack of survivability hyperion, other targets are more dangerous in theory. the hype has more firepower up close and it also has fighters which are usually thunderbolts. which if playing a 5 point raid against the 3 "broken" centauri ships you wont see many fighters over there cos the 3 broken ones dont carry any. each thunderbolt flight from the EA side has 4AD 2 of which are AP and a nova can carry 4 flights at raid level. also at battle now dont forget the triple damage beam that the marathon carries.

or the narn who can have 12AD of ship busters loaded into their tubes as well as that all round firepower, lots of damage soak and some frazis.

minbari have their nice beams and stealth staying far away as possible.

we gonna say all these are broken too? seems to be anytime someone doesnt like a ship they say its broken cos its better than any other in its class. the 3 broken C ships all come without fighter support or even anti fighter weapons, watch those Nials, thunderbolts and frazis tear into them.
its like the whitestar wawawa thats broke so it gets changed, the fact that people dont see its weakness - yes AA and dodge (altho antifighter missiles can get it) but next to no crew which it cant repair like its hull, how many ISA players are left with intact floating whitestars? i know i am. and besides their 1 dice beam (which lets face it is 50/50 on most peoples ships as they take hull 6) it doesnt have alot in secondarys that i tend to see get stopped by interceptors half the time.

 

[Locutus9956]

The real issue with the 4AD sullust is the same as with the saggitarius, used individually its not too bad. But try playing 5 point raid against 5 Sullusts, sure once you get in behind them theyre not a real threat but nothing will survive to GET there. Cunning use of terrain and hyperspace can minimise this threat but its still a little too good.

The Tertius as Ive said before I havent actually played but it seems to me that the real problem with it is that it plugs the gap in the rear arc that is the Centauri fleets only real weakness and that brings up balance issues.

(Its the same problem I had with the original versions of the Neshtan/Veshtan, they gave the Minbari ship that were very tough even WITHOUT stealth and that I had big issues with (the SFoS versions were ok but the problem there was that I couldnt think of ANY situation Id ever take a Neshtan over a Sharlin!)