The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

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NukeHavoc
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The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by NukeHavoc »

Damon, Tom, and I played a 3-way 750 point battle last night and we gen'd a lot of asteroid fields, including one that dominated the center of the map. And I have to say, it had a huge impact on the combat (pun intended). Tom took one of his ships in to evade the pounding that Damon's destroyers were giving him ... and hit an asteroid.

If you get hit by an asteroid, you take a number of attack dice equal to the speed you were going when entering the asteroid field. These attacks are Accurate, Multihit 4, Slow.

You do not want to get hit by an asteroid. IIRC Tom's Church ship took 3 crits after it failed to maneuver around the asteroid which was pretty nasty. On the other hand, his frigate also made a run for the asteroid field to evade my destroyers. It also got hit, but only took light damage.

The upside was 3+ stealth for both ships. I spent an entire round trying to unload on Tom's ships, to no effect. Granted 3+ isn't huge (you miss on 1-2), but when you're outgunned or outflanked (or worse, both) running into an asteroid field is a legitimate tactic ... all the more so when the enemy fleet is Decados. :)

Asteroids also make an effective screen for fighters. At first glance fighters have a better chance of evading asteroids, which opens up some interesting tactical opportunities. :)
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EvilGenius
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by EvilGenius »

Sounds fun, wish I could have been there. :)

Tom, you played a Church fleet? How did it stack up against Hawkwood and/or Hazat?
Another daring escape for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff!
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Lars Porsenna
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by Lars Porsenna »

Martyr fighers hurt owowow!

Damon :D
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Fen's Ego
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by Fen's Ego »

EvilGenius wrote:Sounds fun, wish I could have been there. :)

Tom, you played a Church fleet? How did it stack up against Hawkwood and/or Hazat?
I made a poor tactical choice in the 2nd round, which put my destroyer in range of Damon's Hawkwood with none of my ships in range to return fire. His 7AD with Slow put the initial hurt on, but I really shot myself in the foot with that asteroid encounter. Overall terrible rolling on the night (especially rolling three crits on MYSELF with my own dice) didn't help, despite dominating on Initiative rolls. Other than that, if I had been more familiar with the Church, I could have avoided much woe.

Church rolls with Heat Blasters - like the Kurgan - but I outfitted my three craft with Brothers Battle. These Troops counter the Inaccurate trait with the Theurgic power of Blessing (Accurate) - a 'free' Theurgic power that doesn't require a 1,000 pt fleet, which is kinda cool, but costly as you need to have more Brothers Battle Troops than any other kind of Troop per ship. So, essentially I had the benefit of Slow without the Inaccurate trait. Brothers Battle are considered Elites (+1), which is a nice bonus for Boarding Actions, which Damon later learned the hard way.

I included the Light Carrier, which has a Craft rating of 12, a no-brainer for fielding additional fighters. I chose to upgrade 4 of them to Martyr fighters, which were...pretty f*ing effective when I finally put them to use. However, my 2nd tactical error was having these suicide fighters run escort duty for my Carrier AND equipping them with Electronic Rutting Boars. On Damon's first salvo on my Carrier, he had like 7 hits. Automatically (b/c I don't think you can choose when to use the ERB) my Martyr Fighters went down - though in hindsight, I may have forgotten to roll Dodge for them and just took the hit-splosion. I managed to reclaim two of them, and launched them out two turns later. I targeted the pair of Hawkwood Destroyers that had hammered my own asteroid-eater and both hit, thanks to Accurate, Guided and Slow traits. On a successful hit, the OTHER TWO awesome traits kicked in: Devastating +1 and Multihit D6. One Destroyer was able to soak most of the damage, but the other had already taken somewhat of a beating and was reduced to a burned out hulk.

Damon flawlessly executed a boarding action on my Carrier, but my three supporting fighters were able to knock down 3 of his 10 boarding troops (a rare instance of my rolling well on the night). Once inside, they confronted my 6 Brothers Battle and 4 Marauders. So in spite of some of my poor choices, I managed to destroy one ship and capture another. Had we played a few more rounds, I probably would have lost my Destroyer, but reducing Damon's Hawkwood from 4 craft down to 2 and beefing up my fleet with his relatively unscathed Galliot brought me back from the brink...just in time to confront Ken's Hazat onslaught.

Oh yeah, another important thing I forgot was to add the Heat Blasters Crew crit bonus when I crit-hit my two worthy foes :cry:

All in all, we put a LOT of rules through their paces. Asteroids, Dogfights, Furballs, Boarding, Boarding Defense, Gattling Lasers, and the importance of using lucky dice. Never had so much fun getting my ass handed to me :wink:
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EvilGenius
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by EvilGenius »

I really like how the Church fleet is designed on paper. The ability to add some Brothers Battle to overcome the deficiency of the Heat Blasters is a really nice touch, as is the standard fighter with the EMPulse weapon and the heavy fighter with the Gremlin Gun.

I'm sad that Tom already has the Church as his second fleet. :*(
Another daring escape for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff!
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Lars Porsenna
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by Lars Porsenna »

Bob, in the fluff background there are like 5 different church factions, not all of which get along with each other. For example, Tom's fleet could be the Urth Orthodox sect (i.e. one lead by the Spacepope), whereas your's could be Temple Avesti (think Jesuits with flamethrowers)...

Also a correction on Tom's reccollections above: the Hawkwood destroyers only have 4AD of guided, slow missiles; the 7AD are light lasers which are accurate, burnout, precise -- essentially critseekers once shields have been knocked-down.

And yes, had I known that the Brothers Battle were all over his fleet, I would have made a better decision on whom my Galliot would overrun... :)

Damon.
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EvilGenius
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Re: The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field...

Post by EvilGenius »

Yeah I hear you Damon. But i think it's more about fleet diversity. No one is really running li Harlan or al malick. Or the Vau. :) so yeah, I like the church fleet but if I get any more ships it will be a fleet we don't have. :)
Another daring escape for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff!
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