What is the correct way to use IN against chaos?

[Zelnik]

IF this is a campaign, consider this tactic.

I call it an assassination mission. 

Play a battle, increase the odds of him bringing in the target ship.  Load your fleet with at least two or three nova cannons and plenty of torps.

For the first few rounds, act normally, while moving your ships into a position for an alpha strike. Then HIT THE TARGET WITH EVERYTHING YOU GOT! short range nova cannons, torpedos, bombers, make sure the ship DIES.  Then, when it dies, disengage with whatever you have left.  Sure you lose the mission, but the enemy ship you needed to kill is dead. You lost the battle, but the war just got a LOT easier.

[Vaaish]

As long as dice determine damage, the game is in the hands of the dice. No way around it. Telling a guy that's trying to learn how to play his fleet better that the game was lost before he put a model on the table isn't all that constructive. I'm n ot flipping out, just asking that you provide the guy with something more constructive than "ha, your screwed might as well pack it up or use my own personal rules."

Explain how changing SO disrupts game balance, but do it in my thread.  I don't think you have a leg to stand on here.  It better be good.

I'm not listening to complaints about changing core rules from the editor of an ezine that publishes changes to core rules.  Actually, once I get these written up fully I'd like to submit them to Warp Rift for publishing.

Of course we'll publish it, it IS related to BFG no matter how misguided I think it is. Although, I don't think I'll bother providing any explanation your thread since you've just said you were going to ignore whatever I say simply because I edit a fanzine that publishes rules created by fans. Sadly, I can't say I expected more.


anyway, back at the topic on hand, it would be good to get a bit more information as to what happened and what you are playing, Trickster. If you are playing a campaign, it sounds like you might have had some severe losses at the start of the campaign leaving you with fresh ship on LD6 or rolled poorly. In either case, low LD doesn't kill the game. You need to think a bit harder about how to use the battlefield to your advantage and work to get your ships out in once piece even if it means losing the battle. That means you should try to stay near the edges of the board so you can disengage without requiring a LD test by just turning off the edge of the board. You'll probably need to squadron a lot more since you can't afford to lose dice from BM interference. If possible squadron with any higher LD ships and try to keep those from being the closest target so you have better odds of SO and prevent them from being targeted. Long range weapons like NC are also good since they are SO independent.

[afterimagedan]

From my experiences, negating some of the long range benefits that the Chaos have over the IN is the AAH method. Getting close enough to smash them with torps, punch through their center with ramming (if you can), and try to use both of your broadsides. That would be the optimal situation. Obviously, the Chaos player has plans of his own and isn't just letting you do what you want. The list I like to use it a Retribution, 2 Dictators, 2 Armageddons, 2 Lunars, and whatever else I can fit in. I use them as a huge shield wall and keep escorts/2 lance dauntless behind to protect them/do additional damage.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

@Phithisis,

The OP is asking for tactics to use. Please stick to that. I think that's the second time you have tried to insert your rules in a post which is not related to it. Please refrain from doing it again.

[Phthisis]

@Vaaish

You misunderstand.  I'm not going to take criticism THAT I changed the rules from you.  Criticism on HOW I changed the rules is exactly what I have been begging for.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would point out any imbalance in my thread.


@Trickstick
BFG is a great game.  But like any strategy wargame there are bad match-ups and sometimes victory isn't in the dice.  Sometimes youre just screwed.  Apparently people think my comments were designed to crush your spirit.  On the contrary, I just want you to understand that you had the chips stacked heavily against you in that situation.  The game was still worth playing if you like the game and your opponent.

Strategy wise, there are some lessons to take from this experience.  First, the IN fleet is heavily dependent on SO, therefore Ld is very important.  You need to do your best to mitigate bad leadership rolls.   First of all, squadron a lot.  A Ld6 ship in a squadron with a Ld8 ship is essentially Ld8.  Second, take advantage of the ability to place your admiral on any ship you like.  Put him on a ship in a squadron that needs to RO   often, like Dictators.  Third, buy some rerolls.   Squadroning is free, but the admiral & rerolls can set you back the price of a cruiser.  This isnt teneble in smaller games, is ineffective in larger games and can't offset a truly awful set of Ld rolls.  Rerolling on Ld6 still sucks. 
That still sounds gloomy, doesn't it?  Well, as I said before I'm not happy about the way Ld works.  But IN is really a great fleet!  And the advice you got here about combating Chaos here has been spot-on.
Is your Chaos opponent experienced?  Once youve got the AAF tactic down, things get a lot more interesting vs Chaos.

[Trickstick]

I am playing in a campaign at the moment, I thought I had mentioned that but must have forgotten. The worst thing is that both of my dictators rolled ld6 at the start. This leaves me with only the mars as a decent carrier, as it is my flagship.

I actually won a raid last night. We were playing "the raiders" and I took and apocalypse, dominator and two dauntless light cruisers against four slaughters. Not technically a legal list as the dominator should be a reserve ship but we only figured that out afterwards and it is a campaign game anyway. I lost both dauntless but took out two slaughters and crippled another. The apocalypse managed to get a +5cm speed refit too, which is nice.

Anyway, I had never considered staying close to the edge in order to make fleeing easier, so thanks for that advice Vaaish. I think I need to break my 40k mentality, where the board edges can be very dangerous places to be.

At the moment I have 3 opponents and a few more on the horizon. I'm the only pure Imperial player by the looks of it.

Player A has an inquisition based fleet, with a fair amount of navy ships, a blackship and an Inquisitorial cruiser, plus a load of grey knights ships.

Player B is the experienced chaos player, he was the one who taught us how to play and has been playing longer than any of us. He likes slaughters and carnage class cruisers, with one or two desolators and devastators mixed in.

Player C uses the planet killer and a good mix of cruisers. The planet killer can be really annoying if it takes out ordnance. However, the main gun has been nicknamed "the shield-tickler" after some poor shooting.

Other than that there is a guy who plays Tau and a guy getting into space marines, possibly using the armageddon list although he may go pure.

[horizon]

Cool to hear about all those people playing.

Not technically a legal list as the dominator should be a reserve ship but we only figured that out afterwards and it is a campaign game anyway.

In a campaign your complete campaign roster must obey the 'rules'. Eg 3 cruiser to take 1 reserve cruiser.

However when playing the battle itself one does not need to follow the 'rules', one may bring any ship/squadron from his roster.

So, in a campaign, you can field 1 Battleship + 4 escorts in a game if that is what you want.

As long as the roster is legal.

[Trickstick]

Oh that is fine then. I only have one battleship, two battlecruisers and one reserve cruiser on the roster, with about 7 normal/light cruisers.

[Vaaish]

If your mars has decent LD as the flagship, I would think about squadroning the dictators with it in battles and using them as shields. That way you can get your ordnance reloaded and with the 2010 FAQ you aren't required to disengage the entire squadron if one ship leaves. If you play your cards right you should be able to start building your LD even if you ended up disengaging early to prevent ships from getting crippled.

[Trickstick]

We seem to have missed that bit of 2010. That makes squadrons a lot more viable.