@Russ: It hasn't been my experience that it is mostly psychological. In a team game, 3 ships with NC destroyed a cruiser two turns in a row due to nice scatter rolls, odds are that out of 3, 1 will directly hit anyway. The damage was compounded by the fact that you have to brace before you know if you will be hit directly or not.
Odds disagree with you my friend!
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Of course there will be times when someone defies them and rolls 3 straight hits in a row ( ~4% chance of that happening by the way ). And the more Nova cannons an enemy fires directly over a single ships stem the more likely damage will be dealt. But your comment on nice scatter rolls sounds suspicious: remember that a ship only takes d6 hits IF the base is within the 1.5cm hole of the template. If the template just touches the bases then the ship only takes a single hit. This means that when rolling the scatter die with the template placed directly over a ships stem, at ranges from 45cm-60cm you have to either roll a hit OR only scatter 2cm (roll a 2 on 2d6, 1/36th chance) for the cruiser to actually take d6 damage. Otherwise, the template will possibly only touch the base since it scattered from the middle. At the longest ranges you roll 3d6 for scatter...it's impossible to scatter less then 3cm so you guarantee yourself it will scatter off the base without doing d6 hits if you don't roll a hit on the scatter die.
What fleet do you play?
Tactics for you:
1.) Don't crowd ships together such that a single NC template can touch or scatter onto another ship
2.) BRACE FOR IMPACT: If the enemy just hit you with one NC and is placing another over your ship to attack, USE Brace for Impact if your shields are down! With BFI it's VERY hard for an enemy to destroy a cruiser with 3 NCs.
3.) Close on his fleet fast to deny him the use of his NCs
4.) If possible, target and cripple the ships with NCs first. You don't even have to destroy the ship if there are bigger concerns on the board. Just get the ship to half hull and it can no longer fire that NC. Then you can relax the distance if needed.
I frequently play an IN / Space marine opponent who loves NCs. He will take 3 or even 4 in 1250- 1500 point games. It's my AC that I worry about, not cruisers. With AC he can clear out a large wave of bomber and fighter easily since they are a large targets and the NC template only has to touch the ordnance.
I've never found it problem or a need to make any limiting rule on NCs. But the first few games I played against them I thought they were to powerful too.
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Best of luck,
Russ