Flagship: The award goes to the Hacan's venerable Arretze on this one. She's not designed to board, to move quickly or to be a gunboat but she could do just about any of them. With a defense rating (hull + shields) of 14 and all that room for fancy kitty tech, this thing is a monster. A bit hard on the wallet though...but worth every credit
Escort: The cheaper of the Norr escorts seems the best buy here. As only two races really have them it's not hard to put the Norr on top in this group. The Sol escort is more expensive for less of a vessel.
Carrier: Well if we're still talking economy than the Nova wins hands down. Thirty points for a well-balanced carrier and the ability to project force with fighter, she's got my vote. With strength five beams she'll surely hold her own although you can't exactly build a fighter wing with her, three squadrons is a little light. The Narnatok is a good buy but she'll run you a few more points plus the fighters to load her.
Scout: Well if a good Scout is on your shopping list, take a test drive in the Lezon from our friends in the Letnev, for the same cost as the Akmal you get more armor, and a better beam. Sure you give up some legroom and a warhead or two but the extra power in the guns will be there time and time again. I might even be able to get you one with cupholders and traction control, perhaps a racing stripe?
Blockade-Runner: Our feline friends take home another award for this year's model Otoha in my book. This gem is much cheaper than her Norr counterpart and very well balanced. She'll be able to make it anytime you need that extra bit of speed.
Gunship: The Quinarrac's got this one, Ladies and Gents. She's inexpensive, well balanced and has a decent torpedo load to boot. If you've got to reach out and touch somebody, this is the boat to do it in.
Large Cruiser: I think the Human's have a fine entry for this class. Their dreadnought is a hulking behemoth of warfare, well defended and hard hitting.
Medium Cruiser: This one, my salespeople tell me has to go to the Saratoga, her defense rating is twelve and she's got room to spare. Though she's a bit lacking on the guns that's quickly corrected with a bit of tech. The Hercant pulled a close second in our trials but for three points more, she just doesn't have the staying power.
Small Cruiser: The Olowana's taking this one home. She's a bit harder on the budget then her Sol counterpart but those two extra points get you double the shields, another torpedo and more room for upgrades like a state-of-the-art sound system or a new set of blasters.
Fighter: The Letnev've got this one. She moves like a butterfly on liquid Schwartz and stings like an killer bee with a blaster rifle.
Bomber: This one goes to the Hacan. This little wonder moves in and loosens those balanced torpedoes of her and before you can track the guns to her, she's gone. Got more armor than anybody else too.
Well that's our report for this time and remember our sales motto: "If you make it through the day, it's a damn fine ship!"
ARMADA: Fully compatible with the Red Alert disk game published by Wizards of the Coast, Armada introduces the rich and popular Twilight Imperium universe to the disk game format. Filled to the brim with ships of war, personnel, strategy disks, and scenarios, Armada allows players to take control of one of the four major races of the crumbled empire who must battle for glory and survival in a war-torn universe. This series is introduced in four unique starter sets (Barony of Letnev, Emerates of Hacan, Federation of Sol, Sardakk N'orr) and Booster Display units. Release Date March 2001. - Game Trade Magazine (GMT 12) - February 2001 Issue, page G-19
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 22:23:06 -0000
From: taijiamerichinese@hotmail.com
Subject: Are awesome (RED ALERT!) ships ruling/ruining
the game?
I finally got to play with DWiseTiger, my favorite gaming buddy.
We sat down with my full collection and put together 60 points
of ships per side. I took a fully tricked out Klingon Battleship
with the
ability to fire double range, strength 9, fire-again-if-scoring-a-
crit, admiral-double-fire against the federation admiral-double-fire,
strength 9, fire-again-if-you-score-three-hits, extra shields
Enterprise and the Agamennon.
Neither game was remotely close....
In the first game I got caught in a situation where I had to turn near the edge of the table, and was being closed upon by the Enterprise. 27 points of shot totally gutted the Battleship. THAT'S TRIPLE FIRE FOR THOSE OF YOU TRYING TO DO THE MATH. (pardon, but I have no other method of emphasis).
We set up again and I made some slight changes thinking, "maybe it's just my tactics." The game became a cat and mouse until I baited the dynamic duo into making a run on me. I took captain-2x out of the equation with Klingon Intel, and opened up on the Enterprise. The extra shields (good choice) saved him and, even without the big boy, he trashed the B'Ship with the double beam and a torp from the Ag.
Sour grapes aside, here is the question: Is the ability to double, and triple, fire such a great idea (read: good for the game) when a 39 point ship is able to destroy a 60 point ship in one fell swoop; or when it turns a game into "who shoots first wins"?
Don't get me wrong. I still love the game, but am disturbed at the capabilities of the UberShips....
Mojo
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 21:32:48 -0600
From: "Kevin E. Allen" <keallen@mail.stic.net>
Subject: Re: Are awesome (RED ALERT!) ships ruling/ruining
the game?
<snip>
Multiple fire is probably the most powerful thing in the game. I honestly think the Pulse Phasers are about the only disk in the game which is truly broken, but am willing to wait and see what happens as things develop.
The description leaves a little to be desired, however... What
exactly does "fully tricked out" entail? Sacrificial
shields? An crew with attack/raise shields orders? Drex to avoid
extra crits? Khor'tal to take out his double-attack crew, and
Co-intel Operative to cancel the third? Shield enhancements of
your own? Trnasporter enhancements and Koord,
perhaps, to take over their ships? For the cost of that Extra
Disruptor Battery you could almost have gotten a well-decked M'Char.
Everyone seems to be working under the theory that a double
or triple attack with a high beam weapon is unstoppable... It's
formidable, but hardly ruinous to the game. If you play that,
and everyone plays that,
then yeah - typically first shot wins. However, you stated that
the extra shields made a difference for him. Same could have been
said for you. Initiative and command are commonly overlooked,
as are last-first move pattern tactics.
The other thing I find funny is that these examples always
seem to use the Klingons as the losing side... A Klingon boarding
party is probably the most broken thing in the game right now
- they are, quite literally,
unstoppable once they manage to get aboard. None of the races
can match their combat values, swarms of defending Security are
easily dealt with, and the extra personal tech makes them devastating.
Nobody ever seems to use them, though.
So, how to stop the MegaBlast, race-by-race:
Federation: Shield enhance, Sacrificial Shields, Industrial Replicator to keep them coming back. Troi + Kolrami for an unmatched ability to react.
Klingons: Boarding, Co-Intel, Khor'tal.
Romulan: Cloak-and-run, Singularity Torps (Watch them close against a volley of 9-damage torps...), Tovas (Oh, ACT? Sorry, it's CS now)
Ferengi: Zalkonian Projector (Offensively or defensively... Note that it does NOT require an AC/T or flip, so can be used at ANY time)
Cardassian: Vacet to keep order variety coming, and Sacrificial Shields... Cardassians can't stop it as well as the others, but with Legate Ghemor canceling out Intel crew effects and Vacet flipping things back, they do it better than any other, so can just out-gun the gunner.
This goes back to a lot of what I used to see in the days I played the SWCCG. Someone would come up with a tactic which was nasty and easy to play, and everyone would go ballistic about how it was ruining the game. The reason everyone is seeing the MegaBlaster is because it's EASY - all the beam enhancements you can get, an ATT/ATT, maybe a chain with a ACT/ATT and a ATT/ATT, definitely the Pulse Phasers, and VIOLA! Instant debris field. Coming up with ways to avoid it is a lot trickier, though. If you look for em, they're there.
- Phoenix
keallen@mail.stic.net
Well I can't speak for the designers, but....
Each faction has at most 1 guy who has 2x fire. You can string up guys with fire/ATorC, but most (if not all) of these crew are Bridge crew, and it only takes 1 crit to remove them and you only need to hit for 1 on shields to try for a crit. Yes this is all random but the idea of risk is there, now I have seen it in every game that has points. Someone always finds a combination that just really works out and then use only that. It's like in RISK, anyone who has played it much can tell you start in Australia and you will likely win, have they changed the rules? No. In Magic they Ban and restrict cards, In GW games they just rewrite the rules all together. Klingons are the best at dealing with this though as you have 1 crew who can cancel a fire, and 1 you can flip to flip some other crew. I think there is a counter to each disk, the multi fire ones are just ones that stick out as powerful.