I just got to play my first real game of Battlefleet Gothic! It was a ton of fun, and I am - as I said to my opponent at the close of the game - very eager to expand my collection and learn to be actually good at this game.
I won't go into a detailed battle report, because I'll probably get too many things wrong, but here's the most important lessons I feel I have learned:
1) My Chaos collection is just fine. There are a couple of things I could add if I really wanted to, like devestations or murders, but I can build a powerful, killy fleet with the stuff I have.
2) My Imperial collection, on the other hand, just isn't as good. I have decided to do the following:
• Replace my dominator with a tyrant. The slightly better firepower of the dominator just isn't worth losing access to the torpedoes of the tyrant... which help the tyrant work better with the gothic, which is the primary purpose of my second cruiser, anyway. A second nova cannon... the problem seems to be that while it's powerful, it prevents me from using the core strategy of the Imperial fleet effectively. Luckily the conversion is pretty easy, even post-painting.
• I need to two or three dauntlesses. Apparently, dauntlesses are nice because they are the Imperial ship that doesn't fight like an Imperial ship (versatile, mobile, fast, rather than relatively slow and heavily armed). My opponent informs me that, additionally, a dauntless makes a good escort for a battleship, because it's mobile enough that it can play the midfield game, helping out the cruisers, and still whip around and back up the battleship if it ends up in danger.
• I need cobras, but slightly less than I need the dauntlesses.
3) Upping my ordinance game is important to playing Imperials. Once I turn my dominator into a tyrant, I'll be able to play some very sneaky games with torpedoes and nova cannons, as well as softening up the opponent to receive my steam-roller like charge through the center of his fleet.
4) And, finally, a tactical note about the use of attack craft. If I have more bays than my opponent, I should play offensively with waves of bombers (for the capital ships) and shark boats (for the escorts) protected by fighters. If my opponent has more bays, I should just give up and play defensively with fighters on CAP. There's no middle ground - either you dominate or you lose.
What do you think of these lessons? Am I learning the right things?
