The Road to Schaumburg, take 2
"Experiment" number 2 was double carriers. Two Relthoza carriers, loaded with 6 fighters and 2 interceptors each, form the backbone and heavy hitters of the list. A squad of carrier frigates with 4 bombers makes up the "oh shit, where did they come from?" component of the list, while regular workhorses are represented by one squad each of drone frigates, Relthoza light cruisers, and Ba'Kash cruisers with weapon shielding.
We played a modified Recover Resources, mission 1 from the Schaumburg Prime Offensive primer. I like this version far better than the standard one as picking up the objective is less random, and you have to hang onto it while trying to steal any from your opponent. Still not a mission that my dice like very much, but it wasn't as bad as some other attempts at it I have tried.
The intention of this list was that the two carriers would hang back, hiding under their cloaks and granting each other Stealth through the Systems Network, and fling fighter tokens out to 24 inches. That part didn't really work, mostly because I didn't have an escorting shunt cruiser on either one of them to grant the extra range from Split Berth. It might work better with at least one of the SRS tokens being bombers, but the fighters just don't do enough damage.
Number of dice is the real problem with this list. Almost all of my squadrons have a maximum of 12 AD, which isn't enough for tough targets (like those blasted Terran battlecruisers). 4 frigates, 4 bombers, 6 fighters, Ba'Kash cruisers at most ranges: all of them are only 12 dice, and the carriers max out at 9. The other problem is that while I have cloak and stealth on most things, and retractable plating on the Ba'Kash cruisers, nothing has a DR/CR any better than 5/8. That's just too fragile for 900 points.
The Ba'Kash light cruisers are a good choice with the rest of my list. I actually like them better than the heavy cruisers because they don't lose all that much firepower by leaving the Retractable Plating closed, and Pack Hunter on cruisers is a very nice thing to have. In this particular game they started in a gas cloud, failed their disorder check, and continued failing it for most of the game, making their Pack Hunter rule fairly useless. Not a fault of the unit, just bad dice.
So, while I like the idea of the twin carriers, it doesn't work as a primary. I'd be better off with my older lists of one battleship and one carrier, especially since the Relthoza battleship makes a pretty good carrier of its own, and it has a lot more firepower. The carriers are cheaper, of course, but extra wings and some points don't completely make up for their lack of firepower and toughness.
For my next trick, I think I will be running a battleship and a full squad of heavy cruisers, loaded with biohazard. With the heavies, the Ba'Kash cruisers, and possibly the Relthoza battleship, I will have very good boarding numbers, although I will need to get better at boarding since I've never been very successful at it. Could skip the boarding entirely and just use the biohazard to deal with targets that have Weapon Shielding.
We played a modified Recover Resources, mission 1 from the Schaumburg Prime Offensive primer. I like this version far better than the standard one as picking up the objective is less random, and you have to hang onto it while trying to steal any from your opponent. Still not a mission that my dice like very much, but it wasn't as bad as some other attempts at it I have tried.
The intention of this list was that the two carriers would hang back, hiding under their cloaks and granting each other Stealth through the Systems Network, and fling fighter tokens out to 24 inches. That part didn't really work, mostly because I didn't have an escorting shunt cruiser on either one of them to grant the extra range from Split Berth. It might work better with at least one of the SRS tokens being bombers, but the fighters just don't do enough damage.
Number of dice is the real problem with this list. Almost all of my squadrons have a maximum of 12 AD, which isn't enough for tough targets (like those blasted Terran battlecruisers). 4 frigates, 4 bombers, 6 fighters, Ba'Kash cruisers at most ranges: all of them are only 12 dice, and the carriers max out at 9. The other problem is that while I have cloak and stealth on most things, and retractable plating on the Ba'Kash cruisers, nothing has a DR/CR any better than 5/8. That's just too fragile for 900 points.
The Ba'Kash light cruisers are a good choice with the rest of my list. I actually like them better than the heavy cruisers because they don't lose all that much firepower by leaving the Retractable Plating closed, and Pack Hunter on cruisers is a very nice thing to have. In this particular game they started in a gas cloud, failed their disorder check, and continued failing it for most of the game, making their Pack Hunter rule fairly useless. Not a fault of the unit, just bad dice.
So, while I like the idea of the twin carriers, it doesn't work as a primary. I'd be better off with my older lists of one battleship and one carrier, especially since the Relthoza battleship makes a pretty good carrier of its own, and it has a lot more firepower. The carriers are cheaper, of course, but extra wings and some points don't completely make up for their lack of firepower and toughness.
For my next trick, I think I will be running a battleship and a full squad of heavy cruisers, loaded with biohazard. With the heavies, the Ba'Kash cruisers, and possibly the Relthoza battleship, I will have very good boarding numbers, although I will need to get better at boarding since I've never been very successful at it. Could skip the boarding entirely and just use the biohazard to deal with targets that have Weapon Shielding.
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