Auzor wrote:Etellerandet wrote:The TT space marine fleet where kind of a weird animal because of the strike cruisers. To properly explain it, let me first explain something importent about the TT version of the game. The TT version was first build with a string focus on movement and concentrating fire. Two cruisers moving along side each other and firing would be able to take out each others shield each turn, so you had to either concentrate fire from several cruisers or fire at them from the front or rear to actuelly do damagde.
The other really importent thing is that turrets could fire several times each turn, but you had to either fire at torpedoes or at airplanes. So if you choose to fire at the first airplanes that hits you, then you could fire at all the airplanes that came, but you would be open to torpedoes.
The last really importent thing was leadership and special orders. You needed them to make a leadership test to for example reload ordenance, lock on, brace for impact etc. If you failed a test for special orders, then you could make no more special orders that turn. A leadership test was done by rolling two dices and then trying to get equal to or under your leadership score, that ranged from 5 to 10 depending on fleet admirals etc. You could get re-rolls in different ways and they where costly and importent.
Lightnings strikes where called hit-and-run and worked by you rolling on a table. 1 did nothing, while 2-6 took out different sub-systems until they where repaired. A 6 would also deal a small amount of damagde. Space marines would add 1 to this value when they use hit-and-run and subtract 1 when hit-and-runwhere used against them.
Now with these rules the battle barage was a monster of epic proportion protected against the most common ways to take down battleships. It had the higest armor in the game all around, high shield and turret value, lots of hit points, big weapon batteries, bombardment cannons, torpedoes and launchbays. Now having all this stuff was cool and all. You could fire of a salvo of torpedoes at an enemy cruiser and if he used his turrets to defend himself, then your airplanes would hit him straight after. It was also kind of a problem though. If you wanted to maximize your weapon batteries and bombardment cannon, then you wanted to lock on, but to use your ordenance, you would need to reload ordenance. This was not that big a problem for the battle barrage, but it was for the Strike Cruiser.
See the Strike Cruiser, just like the battle barrage had a little bit of everything, but on the body of a light cruiser, which meant that it wasn't what you expected at all.
It was not hard as a rock, because it had only 1 shield and 6 hit points, compared to 2 shields and 8 hitpoints of a cruiser. That meant that an attack that would deal 1 damagde to an imperial cruiser, would almost cripple a strike cruiser.
It was rather horrible as an aircraft carrier as the small strenght of its launchbays meant that 25% of the time the average cruiser would be able to shot them all down before getting hit.
It was bad at boarding actions. Space marines get +2 in boarding action, but chaos for example got +1 and because the strike cruiser had fewer hitpoint, the chaosplayer would get +1 more, leaving them on equal fighting ground. But because the defending player could add turrets to his hitpoints, then a strike cruiser only needed to take 1 point of damagde and then he would be outnumbered 1 to 2, which meant that the chaos player would have the upperhand.
The strike cruiser where bad at actuelly hurting other cruisers. Because of the low weapon battery and bombardment cannon values you could expect no more than to take down 2 shields if you where in a good or perfect firing position. You had to lock on to actuelly be able to expect to damagde the enemy ship.
It was bad at hit-and-run atttacks. Space marines might get +1 on hit-and-run attacks, but you could only make a teleport attack if you had equal or more hitpoint than the ship you wanted to attack, which the strike cruiser rarely had. Also you couldn't make a teleport attack the same turn you used a special order and you already want to lock on and reload ordenance.
So to actuelly get anything out of your strike cruisers, they would either have to run with in pairs (One exhanging launchbays to get torpedoes) or with a small escort. Torpedo escorts where lovely for it. They could take down a shield or two with their firepower, thus enabling your strike cruiser to actuelly hit with its crit heavy cannon, while at the same time forcing your opponent to either use his turrets at torpedoes or aircrafts. Space marine escorts where very good. They where faster and the torpedo escorts where also hevaier armored than their imperial counter parts.
So that often left space marines with less and weaker cruisers and slightly more and better escorts than their enemies. The equaliser here was the strong leadership of the space marines. Where a an imperial navy ship would have betwen 6 and 9 in leadership. The space marines had betwen 8 and 10. Their admirals where cheap and so where their rerolls. Ramming where really hard for other fleets, because you first had to succede an all-ahead special order and then another leadership test to hit, but pretty easy for space marines because of their high leadership and for a lone strike cruiser without escort, it might have been the only way to get through the enemies shield. A space marine player could send his ships through astroid fields and hit from unexpected direction, because he could actuelly be sure that his ships would be able to steer it safely.
I doubt the devs will include anything that shows the good leadership from the game. It would be cool if they did, but as long as they are fast and have bombardment cannons, then I guess I am happy.
An important tidbit in comparing the strike cruiser to an imperial cruiser: the
/drumrolls..
Point cost.
The lunar & gothic were 180 points; the dictator with launch bays .. 220 points.
The dauntless was 110 points, regardless of version.
the strike cruiser was.. 145 points.
Take a dauntless, lance version.
1)Exchange the front-only lance with a 270° arc bombardment cannon; lose some accuracy, gain
triple the crit chance, much better odds of hitting eldar, and of course, broadside ability: side weapons battery + bombardment cannon focused on a single target.
2) Add a launchbay, with durable assault-boat fighters; launch and decide if you want to use them as assault boat or fighter. oh, and as space marine, a bonus to boarding.
3) Better leadership.
4) Better armor, because the dauntless did NOT have the armored prow.
5) twice the turrets; okay, from 1 to 2 is not hugely impressive.
Compared to the TT dauntless, the strike cruiser is a
steal IMO.
Those assault boats may be crap due to small numbers vs a BB, but they can murder escorts pretty handily I think.
Strike cruiser also turns *twice* as fast as an IN cruiser; unlike the IN, the SM are actually pretty good about moving and focusing all fire into a single ship.
-> Overall, with a battlebarge, the strike cruiser I think is pretty fine.
The problem is implementing that into a computer game, where armor doesn't matter nearly as much.
Edit: had to go elsewhere.
Another way to look at the strike cruiser, as you did, is to compare it to an actual cruiser.
The Dominator is clearly a *very* different beast, with 12 dps, and nova cannon.
Compared to the lunar:
180->145 points: 35 points cheaper.
Same turrets, -1 shield, -2 HP; but faster and also faster turning. Also: I think in TT, shields did benefit from armor, meaning against normal macro fire, the shields would average out to be the same, except from the front...
Lose 2 dps of macro, for 1 dps of bombardment.
6 torpedoes traded for 2 (=1 in BFG:A) launch bays.
and then of course, SM boarding, leadership etc.
Now, 35 points is not enough for a SM escort.
However, consider the fleet:
a dominator, a dictator, a lunar, a gothic, and a dauntless. Total 880 points. (blood for the bloo..!). Total 5 ships, 4 launch bays (2 in BFG:A).
Or, 6 strike cruisers, for 870 points. 1 extra cruiser, despite bringing a Dauntless. 12 (BFG:A: 6) launch bays.. and those are "resilient" strike craft, acting as both fighters & assault boat. So yes, a normal cruiser may have 25% chance of destroying both squadrons in a wave. When there are 6 waves hitting that cruiser, the average is still 6 assault boats making it through.
4 bomber squads hit a strike cruiser (so no thunderhawk-fighter cover..): 1 killed by the turrets.
3 x (D6-2): average of 5 attacks, going vs the armor. We'll say, on average, 1 point of hull damage.
Which is better: 6 assault actions, or 100 damage? I think I'd take the 6 assault actions..
