Re: FB2 Fleets (or "How I Learned to Hate the Savasku")

Mark Reindl wrote:

>The first game against the NSL went pretty well.  At the outset of the
>game, I was outnumbered 3 to 1 (we played a 3200 pt. game, and I >was
a bit heavy on capital ships since I don't yet own too many smaller
>ones).  I had two carriers (a light and fleet carrier), and a variety
of >smaller ships; the smallest being one destroyer. >

IOW the carriers and their fighters made up over half of your entire
fleet,
both in mass and in points. Out of curiousity, what were your other
ships - I'm guessing at BB+2xCS+CL?

>My opponent had, among the 21 ships at his disposal, frigates,
>Waldburg and Waldburg/M destroyers, two Markgrafs, a Maria Von
>Burgund, three Kronprinz Wilhelm cruisers configured for escort duty,
>and a Von Tegetthoff SD.  I had a total of 11 squadrons of fighters,
he >had none.

He didn't carry anything in the fighter bay aboard the von Tegetthoff,
then? OK, both of you wasted one fighter bay so I guess it evened out.
(Bringing empty fighter bays to a battle is IMO a waste of points - the
effective cost of the bay is around 40-50 points depending on the ship
you use, and you can usually use those points in a more profitable way 
:-/)

>I let my fighters work for six full turns before engaging him 
>with my battle line.

Given how fighter-heavy your force was, you had no other choice. You
don't seem to have used the fighter morale rules, though? If you did
use them, you must've been extremely lucky not to have most of your
fighters go berserk and spend all their endurance early on...

>They neutralized the escort cruisers first,

OK so far

>then went after the missile destroyers and other small ships.

Um... Why go after his *missile* destroyers, unless you had already
killed all of his other small ships (which it seems you hadn't, since
one FF survived)? Given the number of scatterguns on your ships, his
salvo missiles were by far the least of your worries.

[snip]

>Although I did win the game, the outcome concerned me, because it
>appeared as though the Kra'vak have a hard time standing up to other
>fleets unless they use large amounts of fighters.

Considering that you don't seem to have actually used any of the KV's
advantages against human fleets in general and the NSL in particular,
that sounds as a somewhat hasty conclusion :-/

NSL ships are favourite targets for the Kra'Vak: slow (which means easy
both to target with K-guns and to outmaneuver) and lots of armour
(which doesn't give much protection against the bigger K-guns). They do
however have quite heavy beam batteries, and tend to outgun the KV in
the (F) arc in the 0-12mu range band (and also in the 30-36mu range
band where their B3s can hit you and you can't hit back). Because of
this, trying to attack NSL ships head-on at point-blank range is
usually a bad idea for the Kra'Vak. In fact, trying to attack *anyone*
head-on at point-blank range is usually a bad idea for the Kra'Vak.

However, if the KV are able to attack the NSL ships from the 12-30
range band, or are able to attack from other angles than the NSL (F)
arc (preferrably the rear 180 degree arc), the tables are turned. Which
of the two attack options is easiest depends on the movement system you
use - IME it is easier for the KV to control the range in Vector, while
in Cinematic it is easier for them to control the arc (unless the enemy
slows to a standstill and spins in place, in which case you're close to
the Vector situation again). Unless the table is so small that the NSL
can sit still in the middle and cover *all* of it with their beams, the
KV should be able to carry out their first attack, or even the first
few attacks, from positions of their own choosing.

If the enemy ships have heavy human-style (single-layer) armour, and
NSL ships do, remember to use your K1s+fighters against different
targets as your heavier K-guns to avoid destroying armour unnecessarily
- NSL ships in particular can be destroyed without losing all their
hull boxes when hit by heavy K-guns. DDs and smaller are generally good
K1 and fighter targets due to their weaker armour. Against multi-layer
- ie., Phalon - armour, K1 plinking and fighter attacks can wear down
the outer armour layers enough to let the big guns inflict more hull
damage.

>Also, the disparity in ship cost seems to make it prohibitive for the
>Kra'vak to even want to close the range

Why on Earth - sorry, "why in space", or possibly "why on Zha'Vak" -
*would* they want to close the range? Closing from range 14 to range 11
will increase *your* firepower by 33%, but it'll increase *their*
firepower by 100% or more (often much more). In addition you increase
the risk of having the intended target end up outside your (F) arc if
you go closer.

The only times you should attempt to attack up close is when you *know*
that you're going to outgun them (eg. when attacking carriers, or when
you can attack into their (A) arc and you're certain that they aren't
going to coast and thus be able to shoot back with their all-arc
weapons), and when they're threatening you with fighters/missiles/
plasma bolts and you need to end the battle before you run out of
scatterguns.

>During the second game, I played against a Sa'vasku fleet.
>I had nine ships, he had eleven (including six destroyers; it was a
>somewhat smaller game).  I had no fighters, and he  had two escort
>carriers, although he didn't use them to  launch fighters.

...so against the one enemy where you really, *really* want fighters to
give him something else than your ships to spend his power on, you
didn't have any :-(

>He began firing with his SD at 72" range, chiming in with his other
ships
>as the range closed.  I managed to kill a couple of destroyers, 

Hm. With the big K-guns you needed about as much damage to kill two DDs
as you need to knock the first power generator off the SD. Did they
maneuver enough to stay out of your (F) arc, so you could only use the
K1s?

>but then lost a destroyer and a heavy cruiser on the way in.  On the
last
>turn of the game, my battledreadnought ended up within 6" of his SD.
>He had coasted in, and so used all of his power points to fire weapons
>at me.

I hope the reason you allowed it to *coast* to within 6mu of your ship
was to line up your main guns against it! If he wants to get close to
your ships, at least force him to allocate power to his engines...

> In looking at that game, it was pretty apparent that the fact that
the
>Sa'vasku don't need to allocate any power to defense is a pretty
>overwhelming advantage against the Kra'vak.

The only KV weapon able to force the SV to allocate power to defence
(ie. to defensive weapons, not the D pool) are their fighters.

>Also, the fact that we don't play with Damage Control rules tends to
>give them a strange advantage as well.  

More importantly for you, it gives the Kra'Vak a disadvantage against
*everyone*, since their main weapons tend to be larger than those of
most other races (ie., they get more firepower back for each successful
repair roll).

>I do like the Kra'vak, but in my (admittedly limited) experience with
>them, they seem to be overpriced for what they do.

That was a pretty common reaction for new KV players during the
playtests. Those who faced experienced KV players for the first time
seemed to consider the KV quite *under*priced instead, though :-/

>So, what I'd like to know is:	Have any of you who have more
>experience with one or both of these alien fleets seen the same thing,
>or am just being whiny?

The SV are overpowered against everyone, but the KV gets a worse deal
than most. You're not *just* whiny; the odds were rather heavily
stacked against you - and they would've been so even if you had chosen
a better fleet mix and been more observant about where coasting SV
ships would end up :-/

>And second, if I am being whiny, what sort of tactics can you suggest
>for playing the Kra'vak effectively without having to rely too much on
>fighters,

Against the NSL I think you *are* whiny <g> The KV have three
advantages in this matchup:

1) a firepower advantage at medium ranges even in the NSL's (F) arc,

2) weapons which bypass much of the NSL ships' passive protection 

3) the maneuverability to make sure that the KV *aren't* in the NSL's
(F)
arc (or at the very least that they are at medium range, if you're
playing
Vector), and that their own weapons are trained at the enemy.

Against the NSL, the KV fighters don't figure in any of these three
advantages (though against anyone with screens, and the ESU in
particular, they can be included in 2) ).

Unfortunately your carrier fleet replaced both 1) and 2) with fighters,
and 3) on its own isn't enough to win battles. When you learn how to
use all three of the above advantages, you'll do much better.

IME the KV's most dangerous FB1 enemy are the NAC, and particularly the
lighter NAC ships (CH and down) - they're fast enough to stay out of
the KV (F) arcs much of the time, and have decent wide-arc beam
batteries (but trying to use those (F)-arc P-torps of theirs against KV
is rather futile!). FSE can be dangerous as well, due to their high
maneuverability and their relatively large number of all-arc weapons,
but their missiles are next to useless against Kra'Vak maneuverability
and scatterguns. Against the ESU you have the same advantages as
against the NSL, with the additions that your fighters too are able to
ignore the main passives (in this case screens) and that it is less
critical to keep K1/fighter and K2+ targetting separate due to the
ESU's lesser use of armour.

>and/or countering the advantages of the Sa'vasku,  particularly when
>playing Kra'vak.

Much harder. Some things which help, but aren't enough:

* Use fighters to draw off fire from your ships.
* Try to keep the range open (ie., outside range 12) - they gain more
than
you do by getting close. You know where they'll end up if they coast,
so
don't go there yourself unless you have to! 
* SV ships of cruiser size and up are heavily enough armoured that you
want to keep K1 and K2+ targetting separate as far as possible.

Various measures to adjust the SV in general have been discussed in
other posts.

Dean Gundberg wrote in reply to Mark, regarding the KV/NSL battle:

>One thing you did stumble on was a weakness the KV have against a
>fleet of lots of small ships and from your description, that is what
you >faced.  The KGuns can do some massive damage, but if your target
is >a frigate, that could lead to lots of wasted overkill.

However, only the biggest K-guns do enough damage to overkill frigates
badly - and unless I'm very much mistaken, Mark didn't have more than
two K5s when fighting the NSL. Most of his ship-mounted guns were K3s
and K1s, and they're just the right size for killing escorts :-/

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry