Nobody Important
Sergeant
718 Posts
    
 | | 12/06/2006 1:16 PM |  Alert | The general concensus is the SSB is a balanced game when fought between Light and Dark Sides. Many posts indicate that fighters, even with their short lifespan, are the key to victory. I just thought I'd point out the two broken fighters that each side fields.
Light Side: Anakin Skywalker's Jedi Interceptor.
What breaks this 8 point fighter is Jedi Evasion which reduces damage by one point. That isn't much except that very few ships can reliably deal the two damage shot it takes to destroy it. Being an interceptor allows it to choose who to engage allowing it to avoid most combatants. The only DS fighters that can shoot him down with less than a critical are the Cloakshape, Droid Tri-Fighter (both with only a single +1 attack), Vader and General Grievous. Class 3 ships don't do much better with only Boba having any real chance. Virtual immunity to point defenses make this a hard target for Class 2 ships. Combine that incredible survivability with two attacks at +5 for 2 and it is the must have fighter for the lightside.
Dark Side: TIE Bomber
This Assult fighter is nothing special until you can recognize the power of long range bombing. Targetting rules generally make fighters two spaces away from ships irrelavent but that is where the TIE Bomber strikes. Unless the LS can engage (and probably destroy) the Bomber it can play hit and run with Class 1 and Class 2 ships all day; either move last so you can shoot but they can't or move far enough away they can't engage.
Honorable Mentions:
Rebel Cruiser - Fighter launch ship that can "Fly Casual" to avoid destruction.
Wild Karrde - Best of the 19 pt ships due to Advanced Comm and variable command counter.
B-wing Fighter - Max Dmg 9 vs. Cost 6
Trade Federation ships - huge Hull values with only a small drop to defense when reduced.
Papatine's Shuttle - Variable command, invicible at range with TIE escort.
Slave I (Boba) - Only non-fighter capable of dealing more damage/round than it can take.
Infinite Fighters - cost 2.5 times what they should but if launched 3+ times become worth every point. Would anyone be interested in infinite TIE Bombers for 10 points?
Of course both sides need ships to launch their fighters which makes them valuable and the Interdictor as a counter.
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
| | 12/06/2006 2:15 PM | Alert | I like both bomber units (Tie&B), but they have low defence so I can imagine that opponent's fighters will try to take them out by any means.
Is it really true that you can use 'fly casual' only once per turn? Then it isn't as effective for Nebulon than it could be. Still, it is strong.
Anakin's fighter looks really strong... Probably it's really something that darkside player must take into account. That means that in era-specific games, there should be several Tri-droids in the fleets, and probably Grievous too. Btw, non-era ship Virago also has a chance against Anakin.
Infinite fighters need more capital ship durability and firepower for them to be effective, so there will never be very much of them as they cost after all. Well, Vultures at least. | |
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/07/2006 3:49 AM | Alert | I'd disagree that the rebel cruiser deserves the term "honerable mention". It should be in first place as the most obviously undercosted of all the units.
If anything in the whole game needs to be errata'd it's this ship.
The Tie-bomber is indeed the best of the bombers. But if the darkside can't get fighter-superiority it's too vulnerable to be effective. the X-Wing & B-Wings in comparisson both tend to "give as good as they get" in a dogfight.
Anakins interceptor is a unique, so you can't play multiples to break the game. And two of the best anti-fighter-fighters {Y-Wing & Droid Tri-fighter} can both do 2 damage, so jedi evasion is only a partial defense against them. Now if Vader's Tie had jedi evasion that could have been broken, since the Y-wing would be unable to finish it off, once it was damaged.
An infinite Tie-Bomber wouldn't be as usefull as you might at first guess.
Launching the thing 3 times, flying it into range of the enemy capital ships & getting it killed to re-launch. Takes several turns per launch. By the time you reach the 3rd launch the ship-2-ship combat will have been going for a lot of turns. If the darkside carriers are still alive at that point. It's because they won the ship-2-ship fight. So there are no targets for the tie-bombers. It's a very clear "Catch-22" for this strategy, it only works if you don't need it.
Worst unit in the game, undoubtedly goes to the Sith Infiltrator. Undergunned even compared to ships like Tantive-IV. This things sole ability is "Cloacking device". And tractor beams are both scarce & virtually irrelevant. To make this ship worth 17 points the cloacking device needs to be changed to something like;
"This ship can only attack or be attacked by adjascent enemies". Which would make it effectivly a fighter with 5 hull.
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evilmerlin
Skirmisher
42 Posts
| | 12/07/2006 5:32 AM | Alert | | I would prefer the cloaking device to give it bonus defence when attacked by non-adjacent enemies. So it won't become a 5 hull fighter. | | | |
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/07/2006 7:02 AM | Alert | The defense bonus would have to be huge to compensate for the approximate 6 point overcosting of this ship. And the basic defense is only a pitiful 14.
Something between +8 to +10. Anything less than that and it's still not worth it's cost. Besides, a lot of the fiction on cloacking devices, says they block targetting systems in both directions. Just improving defense, leaves the Infiltrator still able to shoot at long range. | |
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Nobody Important
Sergeant
718 Posts
| | 12/07/2006 11:58 AM | Alert | Thanks for the additional input.
The Rebel Cruiser is definitely a beast but that is in part due to the support it receives. Without a few command counters prevent damage it can fall quickly. Secondly, you need fighters (which the LS does quite well) to make it work most effectively. It is the cheap fighter launch that makes it so good as the DS has to eliminate twice as many ships and FL 1 isn't affected by Interdiction.
I chose the two fighter as "most broken" although they aren't really when considered as a whole. Each of those two fighters is practically invulnerable to a large number of ships the other side could be fielding. The wise fleet designer has to recognize that to prevent the one big weakness that can destroy the fleet.
The Infinte Figher formula looks like (basic fighter cost x 2.5). If you play a quick game (the standard) none of them are really worth it as an offensive weapon. If you start streching out games (and launch times) they become more relavent.
I'd agree the Sith Infilitrator is one of the worse units in the game. In combat other units are just as bat but the ineffectiveness of Cloak real make it irritating. I'd give it a +2 Defense rating vs. non-Adjacent units which is in line with other effects. I'd also have given it a big surprise that can only be used against adjacent figures. Say a Space Bomb +4/4 only usable against adjacent non-fighters.
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/08/2006 2:22 AM | Alert | Posted By Nobody Important on 12/07/2006 11:58 AM
Thanks for the additional input.
The Rebel Cruiser is definitely a beast but that is in part due to the support it receives. Without a few command counters prevent damage it can fall quickly. Secondly, you need fighters (which the LS does quite well) to make it work most effectively. It is the cheap fighter launch that makes it so good as the DS has to eliminate twice as many ships and FL 1 isn't affected by Interdiction.
While most fleets using rebel cruiser combine them with Wild Karde & other command ships.
They still look undercosted on their own. e.g. 8xRebel Cruisers + fighters would be easier to destroy, they would also have more firepower & a higher launch rate.
An example of how undercosted they are is;
6 Rebel cruisers V's Executor. Executor has DR-1 which is a major advantage against the 1 & 2 damage weapons on the cruisers. However the rebel cruisers will (on average) win this fight. And they have a lot higher fighter launch rate. For the Executor to have a chance to win it needs to get above average luck early in the fight to reduce the rebels firepower.
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Don't worry about the current metagame. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, bad, or the best ever. In 2 years time, set rotation will ban everything. | |
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
| | 12/08/2006 2:50 AM | Alert | Posted By XAos on 12/08/2006 2:22 AM While most fleets using rebel cruiser combine them with Wild Karde & other command ships.
They still look undercosted on their own. e.g. 8xRebel Cruisers + fighters would be easier to destroy, they would also have more firepower & a higher launch rate.
An example of how undercosted they are is;
6 Rebel cruisers V's Executor. Executor has DR-1 which is a major advantage against the 1 & 2 damage weapons on the cruisers. However the rebel cruisers will (on average) win this fight. And they have a lot higher fighter launch rate. For the Executor to have a chance to win it needs to get above average luck early in the fight to reduce the rebels firepower.
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/08/2006 3:58 AM | Alert | Posted By Sean-Khan on 12/08/2006 2:50 AM
This isn't a fair comparison. Rebels must invest a lot more points to fighters than the Empire. In straight comparition, SSD would be almost invincible.
On their own, without fighters etc.
Bare in mind that the SSD is one of the better ships to fight rebel cruisers with. Since DR-1 negates about 2/3rds or the cruisers firepower.
Ceratainly the SSD will have 150 point of allied ships. But the rebels will have 156 points extra.
Can you define a specific reason why my comparisson is invalid.?
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Don't worry about the current metagame. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, bad, or the best ever. In 2 years time, set rotation will ban everything. | |
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
| | 12/08/2006 5:20 AM | Alert | Er, you were comparing them without fighters and they would win? Sleepy day again for me... So, you said "And they have a lot higher fighter launch rate". Sorry, I thought you included them in the comparison. My bad.
But let's see, just 6 cruisers against executor - average rolls.
I'd say that rebels can get average of 4 damage through the front shield on 2 turns (defence 18 vs. atk +3, maybe one crit), during which SSD would destroy one cruiser and maybe damage another. SSD goes for damage control. Next 2 turns - one cruiser goes down, maybe another too, and cruisers inflict 3 damage to SSD. SSD can choose to go for damage control if needed. If cruisers go for side shields ( I don't think they all can do it at once), they are asking for one highly accurate additional attack.
At this point, Executor is still full strength with 5 damage (bot command counters gone), and 2-3 of the cruisers are gone. I don't think that the situation looks very good for rebels at this time. Executor has moved forward some amount - if this goes on, executor might have a chance to use broadside in addition to frontal - I still have not much experience on this ship, but I can see that slowness really hurts it. And, without protection, SSD might want to stay back to protect it's weak aft shields. So maybe it should move forward only when there's 2 cruisers already down.
Still, one would expect SSD being even stronger against these ships. Once SSD gets damaged, the situation turns, so if Rebels get a few lucky shots (crits) in the first turns, situation might be different. Damage control (or possibly raising shields) would be essential for SSD.
That's how I would see it. Luck is always a factor, but I believe I got it more or less right with averages. Or am I forgetting something?
Personally I think I'll usually play very capital -heavy when playing empire - Eliminating Rebel fighter launchers fast is important. | |
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/08/2006 6:34 AM | Alert | Posted By Sean-Khan on 12/08/2006 5:20 AM
Er, you were comparing them without fighters and they would win? Sleepy day again for me... So, you said "And they have a lot higher fighter launch rate". Sorry, I thought you included them in the comparison. My bad.
I guess my including the sentence about fighter launch was confusing. So that was probably, "my bad." The point I was making with that sentence was that if the ship-2-ship combat was mutual annihilation, the nebulons were still the better option because of their launch rate.
Maths on this are;
rebel cruiser
lasers damage only on a crit (1 in 20)
turbolasers damage on 15+ & do 1 extra damage on a 20 (7 in 20)
so thats 8/20 damage per salvo.
SSD;
1 hit from SSD flips a cruiser but that only losses the 1/20 laser.
2 hits destroys a cruiser. Criticals are almost irrelevant.
hits are 11/20 & 10/20 for the 2 weapons. The class-3 Nebulons will easily dodge the spinal/broadside weapons.
So executor destroys 1 rebel cruiser every 2 turns. (it should get 1 extra hit in 20 turns of fireing)
It takes 12 damage (including both damage controls) to flip Executor.
Thats a total = 12*20/8 = 30 salvoes from rebel cruisers. The cruisers get the following number of salvoes;
6 turn-1
6 turn-2
5 turn-3
5 turn-4
4 turn-5
4 turn-6
So the average result at the end of turn-6 is 3 dead rebel cruisers & executor flipped (both command counters used)
Once it's flipped the rebels firepower increases to 29/20 damage per turn & the executor remains unchanged.
so 7 more salvoes should finish executor;
3 turn-7
3 turn-8
2 turn-9 (all over with 2 surviving cruisers)
Rebel fire is a large number of shots (60 dice rolls just to reduce the Executor) So it's likely their rolls will average out.
SSD's fire is only 2 shots per turn & hence Executor could get lucky. But it needs to get lucky early to significantly reduce the rebel firepower.
The best chance Executor has is if both it's turn-1 shots hit. To destroy a rebel cruiser at the first turn of the fight.
But thats only 27.5%
And even with that the most likly outcome is that one ship (probably the SSD but could be a Nebulon) will survive with a couple of hit points left at turn-11. i.e. an easy kill for almost anything.
Refinements of those figures;
For some of it's shots the Executor is targetting a Nebulon "reduced" on the preceeding turn to finish it off. With a +2/20 chance to hit. So it avearages an extra hit about turn-7.
And the Rebels have 6 spare points which could for example be a B-wing that is launched adjascent to the Executor on turn-4 (ouch)
The rebels have the option to close range for side shots (along the diagonals) these net improve the rebels fire by +4 (i.e. 50%) and the SSD's by +3 tohit on each gun (i.e. 30%) Thats a small net advantage for the rebels. But might be unfeasable depending on what the other 150 points of darkside fleet are doing. | |
Don't worry about the current metagame. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, bad, or the best ever. In 2 years time, set rotation will ban everything. | |
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/08/2006 7:21 AM | Alert | Spinal/broadside guns fire along a 2 square wide line. Not the whole bow/side arc. Thats moderatly well hidden in the rule book. But it is explicit.
So the nebulons just have to get out of the line of squares directly ahead of the SSD (+1 more square in case it manuvers for a braodside). As class-3 ships they can easily achieve that. Even a class-2 can usualy do so after taking only 1 round of fire from the spinal gun.
The most common targets for broadside guns is finishing off fighters missed by the point defense.
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Don't worry about the current metagame. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, bad, or the best ever. In 2 years time, set rotation will ban everything. | |
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Sean-Khan
Commander
2656 Posts
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XAos
Underboss
2316 Posts
London
| | 12/15/2006 4:32 AM | Alert | I did a compareable analyis of 6-ISD's V's 13-Nebulons (312 points each)
The Nebulons win easily in the ship-2-ship gunnary.
Since the nebulons also have twice the fighter launch of the ISD's. It's clear that the Nebulons are brokely undercosted.
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Don't worry about the current metagame. It doesn't matter if it's ugly, bad, or the best ever. In 2 years time, set rotation will ban everything. | |
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