Where's the Narn Love?

A

angelus2000

Mongoose
After reading on these forums a bit, I've noticed a distinct lack of narn threads. As someone whos got several narn minis in the mail, I'd like to be the thread to ask questions, loves, and gripes about the brawlers of the ACTA verse.

SO to start I got some questions about a few ships. Ive got fleet box, smoe dag'kars and rongoths coming. I love Mr G'quan, Ka'tan laser love. I've kinda like rongoths cause thier damage sinks from hell. And Dag'kars are a fightres worst nightmare.

But what other ships out there are the really handy ones to use? I've got SFOS, but Narn Skirmish and Patrol seem to be on the weak side to me.
Thentus seems odd, G'kariths very weak, the scout cruiser looks like fighter bait.

Can any other Narn PLayers out there give me a ship-by-ship breakdown by thier opinions and testamonials?
 
Hi there!

Not a Narn player myself but have certainly faced off against a few (one in particular who I'm sure will respond to your post soon!) .

Just wanted to say I disagree with about the skirmish ships - Narn have some of the very best skirmish level ships in the game, check out the Ka'Toc or even better, the Ka'Tan variant in SFoS - it has a total of 4 Beam, Super AP, DD attack dice, Hull 5 and quite sturdy for a Skirmish ship.

It may not *sound* impressive compared one v one to other big ships like say the Centauri Primus or EA Omega, but remember you get to take MORE of these ships per point! Believe me, lots of smaller ships will beat a big tough ship 9 times out of 10...well if you're fighting at 5pt Raid at any case.

The G'Karith isn't that bad either, sure it's only Hull 4 and will die horribly against Beams but it does have mines which it can fire every turn front and back - I'd rather pick a G'Karith and a Ka'Tan than 1 Dag'Kar anyday (2 Skirmish = 1 Raid) - still I suppose it does depend on your opponent and the PL level you are fighting at.

I'm sure you will have fun finding out - good luck with, no doubt, your many battles to come!
 
think its reaverman we waiting on here.

but my views, the narns have some of the best skirmish ships going with the ka'tan/ka'toc. then they have the most aggressive scout with that 3AD beam which is not boresighted. also the sho'kar is good for opening JPs behind the enemy to bring your ka'tans out of as abley demonstrated to me at the last tourney. the thentus is also useful at skirmish haveing 4 AD of beams, 2 of which again are not boresighted and its fairly quick at turning.
 
Actually, the Ka'Toc is the one Skirmish ship I do really like. It just I couldn't wrap my head around the others.

May be a psyche hole on my part. I tend to APTE G'quans and rongoths straight into the middle of their lines, then cut loose with everything. its how I tend to beat the one centauri player I used to play. Minbari are going to be easier to beat now too. Like I said, brawler here
 
angelus2000 said:
After reading on these forums a bit, I've noticed a distinct lack of narn threads. As someone whos got several narn minis in the mail, I'd like to be the thread to ask questions, loves, and gripes about the brawlers of the ACTA verse.

SO to start I got some questions about a few ships. Ive got fleet box, smoe dag'kars and rongoths coming. I love Mr G'quan, Ka'tan laser love. I've kinda like rongoths cause thier damage sinks from hell. And Dag'kars are a fightres worst nightmare.

But what other ships out there are the really handy ones to use? I've got SFOS, but Narn Skirmish and Patrol seem to be on the weak side to me.
Thentus seems odd, G'kariths very weak, the scout cruiser looks like fighter bait.

Can any other Narn PLayers out there give me a ship-by-ship breakdown by thier opinions and testamonials?
Click to expand...

Their are some Narn players out their, we are just few in numbers.

OK Great Ships - Bin Tak, arguably one of the best warships of the game, solid, with a good hard hitting weapon loadout. Ka'Toc/Ka'Tan, ok, sure, they pop easily against big ships, but have one of the best weapon loadouts in their priority, fielded in squadrons, can take larger ships down with good play.
Good ships - Rothan, not as many dice as a rongoth, but it actually has punch, takes a lot of damage, and apart from it's short range, can be a menace to civilised shipping, Sho'Kar scout. Keep it at a distance for a while and it's a great ship, redirecting fire, ok stealth, and a good set of weapons, bringing it into battles later on, it's a surprising battle winner, Var'Nic, needs to be played well, sweeping round on the flanks, it's forward firepower has to be respected, and it's pretty maneuvreable for a "big" ship
poor ships - The G'Quan. I may get a bit of a gasp and some stick here, but it's slow, unmaneuvreable, has a pretty poor main weapon for it's class, and e-mines are still a specialist weapon. sure it can soak a lot of damage, but it's not the ship it was pre sfos (I know e-mines were seen as broken, but the G'Quan got such a hit when they downgraded). The Dag'Kar - Can have it's uses but is a one trick pony, and got hugely nerfed in SFOS, if you can get a refit of advanced jump engines on one of these babies, will rip most ships apart with a salvo of shipbreakers, other than that, it is an anti fighter ship, little moor. The Sho'Kos. "possibly" the worst patrol ship in the game, but the torpedo varient is fun when used in numbers.

Other than those, most ships are pretty middle of the road. The G'Quonth and G'Tal are pointless ships, the Bin Tak and G'Vrahn are way better optins, but the Mag cruiser is "interesting" if nothing else. I will however say, the Frazi is an excelent anti capital ship, even without the stupid new fighter rules.
 
I have to admit, I like a skirmish level scout with some offensive capabilities, and much better durability then almost any other scout out there. Since the Narn are also primarily boresited for their big guns I'm suprised more people don't use the scouts to really increase the efficiency of Narn lasers.
 
I was wondering, has Mongoose ever given any thought to trimming down the Var'Nic to make it raid level, so the Narn can finally have a competent raid level ship?

The Rongoth/Rothan are limited use. They are too slow to act as true destroyers despite their name and their weaponry is uninspiring. The best that can be said about them is they take damage well, they aren't boresighted and they have the same lousy speed and turn that the G'Quans. That doesn't sound bad except that's all they have the offer.

The T'Loth/T'Rann set are similarly limited. Personally, I like the T'Rann better than the T'Loth. It has less punch and even shorter range but it is more likely to actually get to shoot its non-boresight weapon and it brings 4 flights of frazis to the table instead of 1. The good news is both can take a lot of damage. The bad news is they will tend to do just that against other races superior raid ships.

The less said about the Dag'Kar the better. It has too many e-mines and not enough Ion Torps, and is both slow AND fragile (a deadly combo for its crew). Dropping a pair of e-mine launchers in favor of more ion torps and speed would work wonders with this ship.

Honestly, raid is the black hole of the Narn fleet (2 old-timers and a bombardment ship). I think trimming the Var'Nic so it fits into raid level would work wonders both for the Narn and for the Var'Nic. As the Var'Nic stands now, it is the red-headed stepchild of the battle level ships. It costs a battle-level choice but doesn't hit like one. Cut some HP, crew and weapon dice or possibly reduce its hull to 5, and it would make a superb raid ship instead of an iffy battle ship.

Tzarevitch
 
Tzarevitch said:
I was wondering, has Mongoose ever given any thought to trimming down the Var'Nic to make it raid level, so the Narn can finally have a competent raid level ship?

The Rongoth/Rothan are limited use. They are too slow to act as true destroyers despite their name and their weaponry is uninspiring. The best that can be said about them is they take damage well, they aren't boresighted and they have the same lousy speed and turn that the G'Quans. That doesn't sound bad except that's all they have the offer.

The T'Loth/T'Rann set are similarly limited. Personally, I like the T'Rann better than the T'Loth. It has less punch and even shorter range but it is more likely to actually get to shoot its non-boresight weapon and it brings 4 flights of frazis to the table instead of 1. The good news is both can take a lot of damage. The bad news is they will tend to do just that against other races superior raid ships.

The less said about the Dag'Kar the better. It has too many e-mines and not enough Ion Torps, and is both slow AND fragile (a deadly combo for its crew). Dropping a pair of e-mine launchers in favor of more ion torps and speed would work wonders with this ship.

Honestly, raid is the black hole of the Narn fleet (2 old-timers and a bombardment ship). I think trimming the Var'Nic so it fits into raid level would work wonders both for the Narn and for the Var'Nic. As the Var'Nic stands now, it is the red-headed stepchild of the battle level ships. It costs a battle-level choice but doesn't hit like one. Cut some HP, crew and weapon dice or possibly reduce its hull to 5, and it would make a superb raid ship instead of an iffy battle ship.

Tzarevitch
Click to expand...

I agree that Narn raid level ships are their achiles heal to an extent, but the var'Nic is hugely underated, and is actually an excelent battleship when fielded with the right tactics. Admitedly, it is poor in standard Narn tactics, but I think it will be an excelent support ship for the G'Vrahn, plus, being so small, it's amazing how many opponents overlook it, then wonder what just hit them :)

The Dag Kar just needs a minor hull upgrade and it would be fine.... maybe it should be dropped to skirmish with the Saggi.
 
Not with the amount of firepower it potentially puts out; give it an extra point of Hull or boost it's engines to speed 7, maybe, or possibly both, but a change in PL would be just too good without downgrading the stats as well.
The T'Rann and T'Loth are actually a lot faster than they appear, but they're not battle winners against any major race, they're the ships you use to draw attention and delay defeat while your smaller ships do the danage to the enemy.
The Var'Nic on the other hand has real unfulfilled potential; I'm beginning to think that it might be a much more effective integrated fleet element than the G'Quan.
I'm mainly playing this from the other direction, usually Centauri, but a Raid-5 composed of a Var'Nic, four Ka'Tan/Ka'Toc- or three and a Sho'Kar- two Sho'Kov and a Frazi wing could make a coherent, hard- hitting strike force.
Partly it's just been dumb luck, but I've never had a fortunate Bin'Tak. Maybe it's the players, but they never seem to live up to their potential for me. The G'Karith and G'Sten are actually useful reaction units; take a couple, no more than one in five maybe, to cover the Ka'Tan and Ka'Toc's flanks and rear.
 
Ok I started with EA but am looking at Narn as my Second fleet.

What do you guys think of the Narn Reinforcements Box as a start to building a Raid Fleet (Working up from there):

This box set contains;

2 Thentus
2 G’Karith
2 Sho’Kar
1 Rongoth
1 Varnic
18 Gorith fighters
 
it's not a bad set, the Thentus is a decent ship, it has 4 dice of beams, whish is on a par with the Ka'Tan which some would say is the best skirmish ship of the game. It's got ok maneuvreability and it's speed is decent. The Varnic I have already mentioned, and the Rongoth i would seriously use as a Rothan, the G'Karith is a bit flimsy, but the mines are useful against fighters, and the sho'kars are probably the best "battle" scouts available.
 
The odd thing about the Thentus is that it's less useful at lower priorities but it goes up in value at higher ones. Those weak weapons don't matter so much when facing hull 6 ships meaning it's bringing the twin linked to bare only. But vs. hull 4 or 5 ships they hurt. The real problem the Thentus faces is that it's only a solid skirmish ship vs. the greatness that is the Ka'Toc/Ka'Tan. The Sho'kar and G'Karith at least have specialist roles that they're good at(battle scout and fighter clearance respectively). The Thentus suffers from being best at everything as opposed to the more specialist ships.

The Dag'Kar should probably stay Raid and get a boost to crew, damage, and hull. Say hull 5 and a small boost to crew and damage to give it the survivability it needs.

The T'Loth sucks. I'd sooner take the Rongath or Rothan and they're subpar ships themselves. At Raid I'm far more likely to just take all skirmish ships instead.

Battle has the same weakness. The G'Quan isn't all that hot. Probably needs a boost to it's main lasers as the very least. I mean we saw it actually knock back a Shadow Vessel at one point in the TV series. So those lasers have to be more impressive than they are currently. I want to like the Var'Nic but it just doesn't really manage to fit into my fleet. Good forward firepower with high maneuverability but it tends to have a low success rate from the games I've seen it used in.

The Bin'Tak is good. It makes other ships go "squish" as long as you don't fail a stealth roll. *Mutters about stupid Minbari*

I don't like the Sho'kos or Sho'kav but you'll need them if you roll up a patrol engagement. The Narn are definately at their best at Skirmish level and they have a great War level ship that just lacks the proper support from decent battle and raid level ships. Most of their existing ships could easily be fixed with just minor tweaks. The only one I'm not sure how to fix is the T'Loth since it's "theme" seems to be really high crew and damage which combined with it's pitiful weapons armament means that it might be too strong if you upgun it too much but as it is, is way too weak.

Can't speak for the G'Vrahn or Ka'Bin'Tac as I haven't seen the stats on them.
 
G'Quans are bad, mmkay? Fighting them hurts, mmkay? STAY AWAY FROM G'Quan's!!!
Seriously. They're terrors to fight against in any campaign I play. They are my Everest.
 
Had a G'Quan in the center of an enemy fleet. Got to throw every die it had. My opponents main reaction was 'so what'.

Piles of not good dice are still not good dice. The forward firepower is pretty tough with the ship-breakers but you have to get so close and you have such a restricted move that most folks simply gun it and move over you on APtE or stop short the previous turn.

From the show I would expect those forward lasers to be mean. Like was said above, they stop a shadow ship, and three of them hurt a shadow enough to make its buddy come pick it up.

Its too bad as I love the ship.

Ripple
 
The Var'Nic just feels to me like the old Royal Navy battlecruisers in that they seem to fight best below their weight class. They do work well with Ka'Tocs/Ka'Tans because they can keep up.

I like the G'Quans. They are kind of short ranged if you want to do real damage though. They just need the ability to swith e-mine types during a fight (and possibly an additional die on the lasers). The problem with them is that standard E-mines don't do much damage, and the silly rule that doesn't allow you to switch in a fight makes matters worse. (Has anyone ever heard of a multi-feed ammo magazine in B5?)

Ship-breakers rock but the range is too short and the ship is too slow. You have to weather a lot of fire to get into range, but if you make it you can blow his doors off. (I destroyed a Tinashi in one pass with a G'Quan once). Also, the G'Quan is so slow it is hard to use them with the excellent Ka'Toc/Ka'Tans. The destroyers need to get into the fight quickly, but the G'Quans are too slow to support them.

Tzarevitch.
 
The thing about G'quans that I've noticed that a single one isn't great. They've got the secondaries but they are slow, unmanueverable, and the boresight beam weapons not so hot. But when you play higher PL pickup games, like a 5 or 6 pt PL game, and have 2 or 3 or 4. they get very tough indeed. If I had my wish, I'd nerf the launchers down to 1 mount with 6 AD and boost the beams up to 5AD.

Var'nics a great ship thats too beefed up and at the wrong PL. Pairs of Raid Stat Var'nics would be terrors running around the battlefied. Its a Battle Level ship that you cant form the core of the fleet around.

Dag-kars I tend to use solely as supports. Ionic Mines and wide burst all the way. 2 of them and you can kill every fighter tha launches and keep any special actions from occuring. Ionic hurts you to, but it does keep enemy ships from APTE, which can give the G'quans just the right setup to dump the shipbreakers in. But again, its too strong at at the wrong PL. I'd love to lose half the launchers, up the ion torps, and make it skirmish level. Hell, I'd take a soley Mag gun and Ion torp variant.

My main question at the top I guess was mostly related to the raid level ships. Rongoth and T'loth feel more like a half-assed Battle PL ship than a Raid level. If the rongoth was tweaked down in Dam/and crew, it would make a good counterpoint to the Ka'toc at Skirmish level. Rongoths escort and support the G-quans, will Ka'tans help the new Raid level Var'nic pick up the leftovers.

G'kariths seem be the opposite. I look at the fluff and weapons mix and it feel more like a raid level ship, but doesn't have the hull or damage that would seem to go with it


Heres what I would normally take in a 5pt Battle Game

2 G'quans (shipbreakers)
1 Dag'Kar (ionics, wide burst)
2 Rongoth
3 Ka'tan

Essetianlly, the G'quans are placed centre, with the Rongoths ont eh flanks. Dag'kar behind them, with the Ka'tans behind and either righ or left flanked.

Dag'kar drops wide burst and ionics to disrupt and kill fighters and ships. Rongoths and G'qauns APTE to quickly close. With Ka'tans behind. After the rongoths and g'qaun gett done shooting at everything in sight, the Ka'tans drop beams on the leftovers


Sound like a workable battle scenario?
 
Tzar, thats the reasoning behind the rongoths. They are much more suitable. The thing Ive reliazed more about the Ka'tocs is that they cant really be the first ones in. They get CAF'ed and wiped off the board. And being that their Boresight only, they actually need to go last. WHich kinda wipes away any initiative sink use they may have had. Which is where the rongoth comes in. They can be used as initiative sinks as there is no Bore weapon on them.

Like I said, Narn has some great ships, just at the wrong PL. And unlike Saggis, it acutlly hurts us :twisted:
 
One ship I haven't seen mentioned here that sits in the skirmish bracket is the G'Sten, it seems this ship seems very limited use..if any. I occasionally like to through one of these in behind a couple of ka'tans as people immediatey expet them to G'Karith's and those front guns are nothing to be quaffed at either!! I have taken out several ships using the G'Sten much to my opponents surprise.
Skirmish level is best for the Narn as everybody knows and I won't repeat what everybody has said about the various ships.
However I cannot say enough take rothan's - they aren't bad, tough damage soakers and can actually inflict damage too! That non boresight plasma cannon can be a god send for your fleet!
I normally stick to the G'Quan at Battle level but the Var'Nic is a good ship to accompany squadrons of skirmish ships attacking from the flanks due to its manevourability.
The New G'Vrahn will be a good ship and I can see it taken over a Bin'Tak at times due again to speed and agility!!
 
Well I think everything that could be mentioned about the Narn, has already been done. All I can say, is that the Sho'Kar is a great little scout ship and one of the most agressive scouts I have seen.
My only advice would be, load up with Skirmish ships. Whilst adding the odd G'Quan, and Raid ship.

Oh, and Ionic Burst are quite useful. The look on your opponents face, when you bugger up his CAF and other SA's is priceless :twisted:
 
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