Escorts-Do's and dont's of squadron composition

[Sigoroth]

you are correct
we play VP for when the squadron is destroyed
but i cannot recall the last time anyone disengaged an escort squadron for that rule to apply

So the only thing you don't do is pay the 25% VP for when a squadron is crippled?

[fracas]

Pretty much


I guess we don't disengage because we are competitive in play? (actual play rather than vp)
Or that we would rather continue to play if we can.

[Talos]

@ Fracas so you guys don't play for victory points in one off games? Just win or lose? That's kind of refreshing, to be honest...

So do you guys run larger escorts group then? If you don't worry about vp, being able to mass firepower for a bigger squadron is probably worth it.

[fracas]

We just play. Frequently doubles, sometimes with odd combinations.

But regarding escorts we tend to like the idea of them so they are frequently present but size remains largely on points available as well as fleet taken.

My take is that if both players didn't enjoy the game then both lost

[Zarathustra Sucuine]

Are cobras any good? I have 6 Falcions, 6/9swords, 6 firestorms at the moment and I am thinking of ordering some cobras. An idea was to just have a squad of three hanging around/behind my Apocalypse or my Retribution Battleship to prevent enemy escorts/light cruisers getting behind them.
Any thoughts?

[Jimmy Zimms]

Are cobras any good? I have 6 Falcions, 6/9swords, 6 firestorms at the moment and I am thinking of ordering some cobras. An idea was to just have a squad of three hanging around/behind my Apocalypse or my Retribution Battleship to prevent enemy escorts/light cruisers getting behind them.
Any thoughts?

Well I love them but OTOH I am an ordinance whore so not surprising. They're slightly less effective after the 2010 FAQ and the fact that torp salvos are the same size regardless of size. You really can shotgun scatter salvos out and force your opponents into turning or manuvering around them. More effective against Chaos than Eldar IMO though again, BFG:R holofield enhancements make them viable again.

[horizon]

Cobra's are good.

And since they launched small markers per ship anyway the FAQ2010 didn't effect them a lot regarding torpedo marker size. Only when massing them. But I would only mass torpedo with Cobra's if they are in 30cm range anyway.

[Sigoroth]

Are cobras any good? I have 6 Falcions, 6/9swords, 6 firestorms at the moment and I am thinking of ordering some cobras. An idea was to just have a squad of three hanging around/behind my Apocalypse or my Retribution Battleship to prevent enemy escorts/light cruisers getting behind them.
Any thoughts?

Cobras are the premiere IN escort and they and their variants (Widowmakers, Vipers) are a good choice. They excel at: strafing runs, where they can release their torpedoes in a single large salvo down the line of the enemy, hitting several ships; escort hunting, where their torpedoes (either combined or individually) can be used to good effect destroying enemy escorts; or in a pinch, as CAP busters, by firing their small torp salvoes at interposing enemy fighters so that larger torpedo salvoes from other ships can get through unmolested. Their direct fire isn't any good on its own, but can add another dice here or there, which could help reach a crippled/destroyed threshold. Otherwise they can be used to take potshots at enemy ordnance.

Swords are also great workhorses of the IN, having decent firepower, reasonable armour, good turrets, flexible fire arcs and a good price. So while they have no glaring weaknesses, their role is pretty limited. Their job is simple; get to the enemy's soft spots and unleash hell at close range on LO.

Falchions (one of my personal favourites) are slightly less viable than either the ubiquitous Sword or Cobras. They are, essentially, a Sword that sacrifices some direct fire capability to broaden their role somewhat.  The niche that they fulfil best is as CAP busters. They sacrifice very little in this role. A Cobra assigned to CAP busting duty devotes pretty much their entire usable firepower to the role. A Falchion in the same role however will have 3 times the remaining firepower of a Cobra. Nothing to sneeze at. A Falchion can also gain some slight offensive capabilities from its torpedo. A single torpedo could still pose a threat to a 1 turret target but they're better used in conjunction with bombers, to either force the enemy to fire on the torpedo to allow the bombers a free pass or to just take advantage of the fact that enemy turrets have already fired on bombers. At which point salvo size becomes irrelevant and the single torpedo of a Falchion is worth just as much as a torpedo from any other salvo.

There are some downsides to the Falchion though. To begin with it only has 1 turret, which is quite detrimental (this has been "fixed" in BFG:R). Apart from this, the bulk of its firepower is WBs, like a Sword, and so, like a Sword, it should be used in a hunter-killer kind of role, whereby it attempts to flank the enemy to get into the rear arc, preferably while on LO at close range and abeam of the target. This manoeuvring requirement does sometimes conflict with the role of CAP busting. This is less the case when the opponent actually leaves his fighters in CAP (ie, base contact), for which it doesn't matter from what angle the torpedoes come in, so long as they can get a firing solution on the ship. However, when the fighters are placed forward between his lines and your torp boats the positioning of your Falchions may be insufficient to the task. Hence it is sometimes hard to reconcile the disparate role requirements of the Falchion. Similarly you are sometimes faced with the choice of LO or RO. As a hunter-killer you want to be locking-on, but you could also find yourself in a situation where your torpedoes could have been used offensively (a free shot at a target that's likely to shoot at bombers, for example). While I always recommend locking-on in such a situation, the loss of the torpedoes in this situation does make the Falchion an inferior choice to a Sword.

In short, if you are aware of all the roles and circumstances pertaining to the Falchion, have a need for a CAP busting force, know how to use escorts in general and intend to not spend many points on them, the Falchion is a good choice. Otherwise you should take either Cobras or Swords.

The Firestorm is a piece of poo. Avoid.

I would normally leave it there, but since the BFG:R version is actually usable I should say a bit more on it. The firestorm sacrifices fire arc versatility in favour of greater firepower. It also has slightly greater versatility than the Sword, in that it can do OK against escorts and armour 6+. Due to this latter factor it has less need to manoeuvre to the rear of a target. However, 40% of its firepower is still WBs and it is still just an escort, so being at the rear of the enemy is both the best and safest option. However, the frontal fire arc of the lance is quite debilitating. Moreso than that of the Falchion's torpedo. The Falchion's torpedo is a small portion of its total firepower and since it doesn't combine well with its direct fire weaponry (ignores shields, suffers attrition to turrets, can prematurely detonate to BMs) it is actually best to fire them against different targets. This is not the case with the Firestorm. The lance is a major component of its firepower and should be combined with its WBs against a single target. However, not only will this make it harder to achieve a LO solution due to the extra manoeuvring requirements, it also means that the Firestorm is pointing at its target when it fires. If its target survives (or has a ship in close formation with it) then they will be able to return fire into a closing escort, rather than an abeam escort. This could turn out to be disastrous for the Firestorm.

It should also be noted that, under ideal circumstances, there is sod all difference in firepower between the Sword and the Firestorm. For example, let's say you've gotten into the rear arc of a capital ship within 15cm on LO. A squadron of 3 Swords would average 4.44 damage, whereas a squadron of 3 Firestorms would average 4.47 damage. Given that it's easier to achieve LO under those circumstances with the Sword and it presents a more defensible aspect to return fire it's best to just use the Sword. Firestorms only really outperform Swords against SMs (they're alright against Necrons too). Conversely Swords are even better than in the comparison shown when used against Orks, Tau Kor'vattra, Nids, Chaos and vanilla Eldar (CE, CWE & DE).

[AndrewChristlieb]

On Firestorms i use these almost exclusivly for killing cripples. 5 or 6 chasing a crippled cruiser is usually more than enough to take it out and since your chasing the enemy the front arc is much less of an issue. In a pinch they can take on individual cruisers, even from abeam. I also tend to roll a boat load of fours so im rather partial to lances .

I got a chance to run my 10 man Ravager blob w/ deathskulls upgrade (looted torps) last night and O_o it was stupid. Planetary Assault with my Orks attacking and i got first turn and got to setup the other players Emperor right outside my deployment zone . Crappy shooting from almost my entire fleet did 4 hits after brace saves and then the Ravagers launched a total of 53 torpedoes O_o most of which were wiped out by turrets and brace saves but i still managed a solid 4 hits from them alone and smashed the bridge keeping them from disengaging next turn. They also brought an orbital dock to one hit left from full and raked two Dominators prow on (they had gone line abeam infront of my kroozers) and scored 3 hits against one and 2 against the other (both were already crippled). Those were the only three salvos i got out of them but they did some stupid damage and let my fighta bombaz wreak havoc. The +1 leadership for squadron size really came in handy too as they rolled a ld 6. Lost one Ravager to a random nova cannon scatter and my kill kroozer was crippled to his entire fleet destroyed, he failed every attempt to disengage and just had really bad ld tests all around (7 failed attempts for his Mars and two Dominators to come off standby :/). Anyway point being the "lotz" squads were crazy good, maybe a bit too good with looted options.

[Sigoroth]

On Firestorms i use these almost exclusivly for killing cripples. 5 or 6 chasing a crippled cruiser is usually more than enough to take it out and since your chasing the enemy the front arc is much less of an issue. In a pinch they can take on individual cruisers, even from abeam. I also tend to roll a boat load of fours so im rather partial to lances .

I got a chance to run my 10 man Ravager blob w/ deathskulls upgrade (looted torps) last night and O_o it was stupid. Planetary Assault with my Orks attacking and i got first turn and got to setup the other players Emperor right outside my deployment zone . Crappy shooting from almost my entire fleet did 4 hits after brace saves and then the Ravagers launched a total of 53 torpedoes O_o most of which were wiped out by turrets and brace saves but i still managed a solid 4 hits from them alone and smashed the bridge keeping them from disengaging next turn. They also brought an orbital dock to one hit left from full and raked two Dominators prow on (they had gone line abeam infront of my kroozers) and scored 3 hits against one and 2 against the other (both were already crippled). Those were the only three salvos i got out of them but they did some stupid damage and let my fighta bombaz wreak havoc. The +1 leadership for squadron size really came in handy too as they rolled a ld 6. Lost one Ravager to a random nova cannon scatter and my kill kroozer was crippled to his entire fleet destroyed, he failed every attempt to disengage and just had really bad ld tests all around (7 failed attempts for his Mars and two Dominators to come off standby :/). Anyway point being the "lotz" squads were crazy good, maybe a bit too good with looted options.

So you got to start in position to fire with fully reloaded torp boats against an undefended target. This is pretty much as good as it gets, particularly as the difficult part for Orks is getting in position, being reloaded when they are and getting past the enemy AC screen. With none of these problems to deal with, I don't think it's too much to expect that they would perform well. Swap around the luck on those leadership tests and you would be cursing them for useless.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Oh the Emperor was crap ill be the first to say it . By the time they got to the planet tho the mars and dock were pumping fighters pretty steady, the one that surprised me was the two dominators, rolling against armor 6 and they were both braced the Ravagers were still able to knock of 5 hits... That just seems impressive to me :/. The dock was less so as it was stationary, the first four waves went to cap and the three turrets really mopped up but still caused 5 hits there after bracing too. I dont think i would have said they were useless if i got bad leadership tests, they actually failed to reload as often as they did reload this game, which sucked given the 150cm of nothingness i had to go through facing 3 novas in orbit . Im just a little put off by the cheap rerolls, easy leadership boost, and ability to reload all with one order. Oh well after i run them a few more times i may change my mind but these did so much more than my Ravagers did playing on the gothic list (with upgrades they were pretty pricy tho 430, but this was atill less than the Emperor which was at 490).

[horizon]

Yeah, big skwadrons with the Ld bonus are also suddenly hard targets to take down!

[ThaneAquilon]

Howdy folks! So Talos mentioned xenos escorts in his OP. I'd like to add to that question, as really I'll be benefitting from it.

So for Eldar, I play MMS and BFG:R, no MMS Shennanigans. I've noticed that most list have both mixed squadrons, and large ones at that. Why? this thread has mostly agreed that 3 is the correct number, and pure. What makes it so that eldar uses the exact opposite composition? Is it because the escorts fulfill more of the "line ship" role, damage wise? Shoudl I still be seperating Nightshades and Hellebores, due to RO? given that escorts are my damage output, should I be using CL and cruisers as support for the excorts?

For Tau, Castellans and Defenders. They seem like 50 point cobras. yet every list I see includes Castellans. Less so for defenders. I get that orca's and warden are paid for in part, and so take them, and the warden I've used haev done their jobs pretty well, but the larger escorts just don't seem to be worth 50 pts to place 2 torps. fro 100, just buy an emmisary, and get a much more effective warship. Can anyone enlighten me? I don't feel like str 2 batteries at 45cm make up the difference. Oh and the messenger feels like free VP. a lone escort, even surrounded by capitals, with just get instantly destroyed. free 50 pts. I'd prioritize that, especially with it's tracking system.

thanks ahead of time, ladies and gentlemen.

[Jimmy Zimms]

I play MMS and BFG:R, no MMS Shennanigans.

  Second verse, Same as the First! You mean MSM?

[horizon]

no MMS Shennanigans.

What?

I've noticed that most list have both mixed squadrons, and large ones at that. Why?

Which lists have mixed ones and large ones?

this thread has mostly agreed that 3 is the correct number, and pure.

3 is a number I prefer but I can see the merit of 5 a lot.

What makes it so that eldar uses the exact opposite composition? Is it because the escorts fulfill more of the "line ship" role, damage wise?

How do you mean?
First of all they are xenos, being different makes sense then. In my Corsair list I do not run mixed squadrons at all:
3 Nightshades
3 Nightshades
3 Hemlocks
3 Hemlocks
3 Aconites

In a 1500pts list.
Add Void Stalker, Aurora + Command.

If I run my Hero list (one option):

Hero
Void Dragon
Aurora
Solaris

3 Nightshades
3 Nightshades
3 Hemlocks
2 Hemlocks  + 3 Aconites

See, I add the 2 Hemlocks to the 3 Aconites to get an uneven number.

With Corsair you have more escort shuffling anyway since the core is escorts.

Shoudl I still be seperating Nightshades and Hellebores, due to RO? given that escorts are my damage output, should I be using CL and cruisers as support for the excorts?

Ideally, yes, the Nightshades should always be single so they can concentrate on ReLoad.
Hellebores have less need to do so, at times they will have more benefit from a LockOn. They can forfeit their ReLoad, especially if other ordnance is near.

For Tau, Castellans and Defenders. They seem like 50 point cobras. yet every list I see includes Castellans. Less so for defenders. I get that orca's and warden are paid for in part, and so take them, and the warden I've used haev done their jobs pretty well, but the larger escorts just don't seem to be worth 50 pts to place 2 torps. fro 100, just buy an emmisary, and get a much more effective warship.

Wella, the Castellan always had design difficulties. The FW variant from IA3 was a Defender copy with a better turn rate.
Currently the 50pts are high edged, but the escort has a good strike range due its missiles. A beefed up Infidel for most part.
You see this escort a lot as most people run pure FW fleets. And that the old Emissary designs have always been poo; it was never a choice, so that is why a lot of Castellans have found a place in fleets these days.

The new Emissary is better but still not ideal (25cm speed... which the Castellan also should have...).
3 hits on an Emissary is a crippled Emissary.
3 hits on a str3 Castellan squadron is 1 down, 1 shield down => uncrippled.

With turret massing Castellans are also more safe againt enemy ordnance.
If you run them under Custodian wings they'll gain benefits on their Railguns.