Imperial: Dauntless. As good as I think?

[studderingdave]

I am looking at picking up a decently sized imperial fleet to match my chaos and orks for games with others before BFG dries up any more. Reading through the books I found the Dauntless to be a really good piece for the table plus I dig the sleek look. What are some experiences with the dauntless in fleets? and what should I be using with it in a 1500 - 2000 point fleet?

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

Run it with an escort squadron as a flanking force.
What type of Duantless do you want to run? Lance or Torpedo?

[studderingdave]

I figure I would pick up 2 of each.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I like them, theyre very fragile tho. Use them pretty much exactly like escorts.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

I would say run torp Duantless with cobras or falcions and lance onces with firestorms. That way you get concentrated firepower and not worry about turrets or shields diminishing your attack to where it is no longer effective.

[fracas]

Andrew is right
They are super escorts more so than light cruisers

[RaptorEvolved]

I am looking at picking up a decently sized imperial fleet to match my chaos and orks for games with others before BFG dries up any more. Reading through the books I found the Dauntless to be a really good piece for the table plus I dig the sleek look. What are some experiences with the dauntless in fleets? and what should I be using with it in a 1500 - 2000 point fleet?

The nice thing about the dauntless for me is the Odd number of the Lance variant, if it's crippled it will still have 2 lances, Running them with escorts is great in lists that have a couple battle-cruisers. Personally I like to take 4 or 5 as a flanking attachment when I can

[horizon]

The most dangerous thing to them are enemy ordnance.

Both variants have their pro's but a single torpedo dauntless can kill a battleship a single lance dauntless cannot.

[Lord Duggie The Mad]

I've only played a few games with the lance Dauntless' I have running around but I thought they were pretty good for 110 odd points.  I'd second the comment about pairing them with their escort class equivalents. 
It's a bit of a concern that they have to turn head-on to target with their primary weapons given a single shield and 5+ prow armour so I tend to use them more as a skirmisher or escort chaser.

3 firestorms may be potentially a little more resilient (smaller targets, more turrets, multiple 'effective' shields) and slightly more maneuverable but I like the idea of a Dauntless filling up a required cruiser slot for purposes of fielding the heavy hitters.  Put it this way: you can get 3 Dauntless cruisers and a retribution (or emperor if that floats your boat) for under 700 points.  Could be fun...


Cheers,


LDTM