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Dainty Twerp wrote:the problem isn't that the KoB ships are weaker, it's that they aren't as easy to use.

Mathematically, the KoB battleship is actually weaker. A side-by-side of the KoB BB versus the FSA BB makes this painfully evident. Weaker gunnery at range, weaker defenses in general but especially with regards to boarding, at a higher point cost.

When you throw in the mechanic that subtracts dice from each turret before pooling AD, it lags further. At its optimal performance in RB2, the KoB BB could throw 16 dice at a single target with linked fire. If you take 2 HP in damage, your RB2 firepower drops to 11. After 2 damage, you lose 5 AD. FSA battleship by comparison throws 15 dice in RB2. After 2 damage, its firepower goes to 12. 2 damage, 3 AD lost. This gives the KoB BB the least longevity out of all the BBs, especially since its only real role is as a fire support platform.

The Battleship has weaker stats overall, but what really kills it is the multiple turrets.

Yeah, the BB for the Brits is a bit lacking, however when the dreadnoughts come out all brit players will get one, that thing is really good. 6 turrets for no drop in fire power, elite crew and prussian level AP? Yes please.

The way my Warhammer 40k going with both Tau and Orks, Dystopia wars is looking a strong option LOL. I will poss go for the FSA as I like to play a "sit back" game

Just had my first game as the KoB, and I ahve tos ay the "painful weaknesses" are not as bad as the internet would make out. My opponent played PE and basically attempted to flank with his frigates and rush the centre with his capitals. To counter I sent the frigates out and hammered the BB and some of his frigates with linked gunnery and torps. As he dealt with the frigates I crossed the T with the capitals and focused fire on his ships one at a time to bring them down. I traded most of my frigates for his whole fleet.

My thoughts on the brits

There's no set way to play them like the other factions, you have to use superior positioning and screen your capitals well because they are quite fragile in comparison. The torpedoes are really good.

If I had to sum them up I'd say cross the T at RB2 and focus fire. Cluster your capitals and screen with your frigates.

Anyone got an estimate for army tiers yet?

Air > Navy > Land.

Dreadnoughts > non-Dreadnoughts.

If you make an air superiority list whose only ship support is Dreadnoughts with escorts and frigates, you're probably on the right track, regardless of faction.

Daba wrote:Anyone got an estimate for army tiers yet?

Well, it depends. If you are looking at just the starter boxes or starter boxes + carriers, it seems to me that Prussia leads the way, with Blazing Sun and FSA about tied in the middle, and Brittania bringing up the rear. The thing is, as Sourclams points out, the new ships due out this year could radically change that equation, not to mention the new factions that are on the way (Antarctica, France, Russia, and Turkey, I believe).

sourclams wrote:If you make an air superiority list whose only ship support is Dreadnoughts with escorts and frigates, you're probably on the right track, regardless of faction.

This =

Seriously though, I agree that the type of list you describe would pretty much dominate, thanks in no small part to the obscured flyer rules; it is pretty much a fully min-maxed composition.

Ok, so overall for the factions that have rules what would help boost for Brittania?

You got the card deck?

Miss Dee wrote:You got the card deck?

I have, I recommend you get a deck. The cards add a lot to the game without complicating it.

I got mine, minis not painted still waiting for Wayland to get the foam trays

Alright, I've played a few more games as the birts and definitely can't wait for some new stuff to come out

So far however I've been impressed with the bombers, the frigates and gunships, holy god gunships. These things are amazing in every sense of the word. BB level torps, higher defenses than cruisers, more HP as well. In the game I used them they sunk a cruiser first activation and did most of the work in sinking another cruiser and a battleship. Still lost because my opponent had that damn Zeppelin and I did not. So yeah, air beats land.

Anyone else think boarding is a bit OP? Its not affected by damage and has a massive threat range (17" for a prussian frigate squadron, who can easily take out a brit BB) and then you get massive VPs for it.

Just got me some EotBS Scout Gyro (medium) fliers. They are fun to use, and I think I'll be going for two squadrons of three. They're also like the only EotBS models out by now that don't have fixed firing broadside arcs, which is cool, because I was getting tired of having to twiddle the damn things until the arc was just right. Got in sweet game with them the other day as well, when the two primary weapons got a barrage that was only 2 hits off a double-critical on an undamaged Prussian battleship. The thing rolled a 12 on the table and disappeared into the ... well at our club we say into the warp, because who takes this seriously? But yeah, good, good fun. I also realized that EotBS frigates can link their broadsides with their turrets and then link them with the rest of their squadron. Now, with a full squadron of four, max firepower of a volley like that (range band 1) is 21 dice. 21! Their battleship could only manage that if it was hitting on 5's for God's sake!
Well, other than that, any advice with what to do with my cruisers? They have good fixed broadsides and rockets, but I dunno what to do with the torpedoes in the front, and they're a little faster than normal, but I dunno what I could so with them tbh, may just switch them out for the fliers or something....


And yes, EmilCrane, boarding is OP.

how many in the pack?

So does anyone know how to actually counter prussian frigates simply motoring on up and boarding you? Its getting annoying that I can't stop all of them. It doesn't help that in a squadron they have enough AP to take out my battleship in one go.

escorts as the british. escorts are your friend as the KoB BB is worst against boarders. and focus fire against the frigates if your PE opponent is a bumrush boarder.

Miss Dee wrote:how many in the pack?

Assuming you meant the medium fliers, 2 in a pack.

EmilCrane wrote:So does anyone know how to actually counter prussian frigates simply motoring on up and boarding you? Its getting annoying that I can't stop all of them. It doesn't help that in a squadron they have enough AP to take out my battleship in one go.

You've just discovered why the British battleship is regarded as 'bad' by the DW community.

The only advice I can give you is 'play the dreadnought'.

You're never going to get the mileage you want out of your battleship against either FSA or Prussians. Both factions have the means to either shoot its rather meagre defensive stats to death or simply board and overwhelm its pathetic AP/AA scores.

sourclams wrote:
You've just discovered why the British battleship is regarded as 'bad' by the DW community.

By SOME in the DW community. I'd hate to troll over the arguments into this forum from the SG one, but the British BB isn't that bad, it just has to be played more carefully than say an FSA battleship that can keep running away or a Prussian BB that HAS to close, if you ram it down your opponents throat you're begging for it to get boarded, and its role is more of blasting things smaller than itself. Having said that, i've proxied a number of Dreadnaught + BB lists and have had huge success with this, particularly since a few of my opponents read the forums and have been infected with the 'KOB BB is garbage' syndrome until i've show them otherwise .

But yes, match it up with a DN, give it two shields, and have it screen the DN from the opponents heaviest hitter and launch torps and shoot the remaining turrets at immediate threats to the DN. perfect tagteam, and saves me points on giving the Majesty DN some shield gens.

The Brittainian BB is bad for it's cost because of having only 6AP, the same as the cruisers of the FSA, who aren't the boarding faction but with BB prices.

Another problem is it has low defense, unless you sacrifice firepower making it ineffective where other BBs have a dedicated slot for shields or sacrifice something less important than a turret (if you would sacrifice the broadsides or a torpedo line for shields, rather than a main turret wouldn't you do that instead?).

If it costs the same, but you have to 'play more carefully' with it while it doesn't yield bigger rewards it is by definition worse.

EmilCrane wrote:So does anyone know how to actually counter prussian frigates simply motoring on up and boarding you? Its getting annoying that I can't stop all of them. It doesn't help that in a squadron they have enough AP to take out my battleship in one go.

Ack Ack is your friend, hence CPTPromotable's comment on escorts, Use link fire with enough escorts and you can probably nerf the AP of the frigates enough to make it less of a threat.

As for the KoB BB, it isn't so much a terrible ship, it just requires more finesse than the others factions, where as the FSA and PE ones can just point and fire (or whatever, you know what I mean) the KoB (and to a lesser extent the EotBS) BB needs a bit of care and strategy when moving (namely on the EotBS ship, you need to keep in the front arc until you are right up in their grill, then turn around and unleash broadsidey goodness).

I really need to get some more games in (have only played 2 games so far), speaking of which, anyone in Cwmbran/Cardiff/Ebbw Vale who wants a game feel free to PM me.

Why are there no players in somerset other than me?

Miss Dee wrote:Why are there no players in somerset other than me?

I know that feeling, the only person I know well enough who plays (who incidentally got me into the game in the first place) has just moved back to Kent.

I find non-GW miniatures games are represented very poorly in Wales in general, especially the type of areas I come from

Daba wrote:The Brittainian BB is bad for it's cost because of having only 6AP, the same as the cruisers of the FSA, who aren't the boarding faction but with BB prices.

Another problem is it has low defense, unless you sacrifice firepower making it ineffective where other BBs have a dedicated slot for shields or sacrifice something less important than a turret (if you would sacrifice the broadsides or a torpedo line for shields, rather than a main turret wouldn't you do that instead?).

If it costs the same, but you have to 'play more carefully' with it while it doesn't yield bigger rewards it is by definition worse.

but it will yield bigger rewards...by careful positioning i can put more guns/torps on target than any other BB. Fore torp arc on one ship, broadside torp arc on another, and turrets where i feel like. careful positioning, better reward. no matter how i position the FSA BB, i can't get the same amount of dice(though i do have my tricks for that beast as well ) and the prussian BB, while also being able to hit multiple targets, must get right up in their face on both sides with a bunch of secondary weapons that decrease with damage, unlike the torps.

and yes, torps are susceptible to CC, but torps get stronger the closer you get, CC values are almost always lower than AA, there's a smaller effective range for a squadron to cover itself with CC, which the enemy will either not do or i can take advantage of him bunching up in other ways(hawks with mines anybody?), and damage taken on targets increases as range decreases, making them better than rockets in every instance except arcs of fire, and ability to fire at aerial targets, though who would fire rockets at an aerial vessel anyways when you look at their AA values.

I'll probably run some frigates as escorts next game, I'll lose frigates but he has a massive fixation with boarding my battleship so I'll play to that.

CPTPromotable wrote:

sourclams wrote:
You've just discovered why the British battleship is regarded as 'bad' by the DW community.

But yes, match it up with a DN, give it two shields, and have it screen the DN from the opponents heaviest hitter and launch torps and shoot the remaining turrets at immediate threats to the DN. perfect tagteam, and saves me points on giving the Majesty DN some shield gens.

You've fallen into the classic trap for 'weak unit justification'. A bad unit plus a good unit does not make for two good units.

You have a battleship for 180 pts, and a Dreadnought for 230 pts. 410 overall.

I take two Dreadnoughts. 460 pts overall. At the margin, I spend 50 points for a gain of more than 25 points of DR, CR, HP, AP, AA, CC, and AD. That adds up to more than most ships have for base stats.

Seriously, you are handicapping yourself if you're not building your KoB fleet around Dreadnoughts, subs, and bombers. Don't just take my word for it; Mutton has several very good threads detailing the good and bad units in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leigen_Zero wrote:
As for the KoB BB, it isn't so much a terrible ship, it just requires more finesse than the others factions, where as the FSA and PE ones can just point and fire (or whatever, you know what I mean) the KoB (and to a lesser extent the EotBS) BB needs a bit of care and strategy when moving (namely on the EotBS ship, you need to keep in the front arc until you are right up in their grill, then turn around and unleash broadsidey goodness).

If a Long Fang squad can take 6 guys with 5 Missile Launchers for the same points as a Devastator squad with 5 guys and 4 missile launchers, Devastators don't require "more finesse", they are simply worse than Long Fangs.

If there was something to actually quantify this assessment of 'more finesse', like a weak defensive line with a massive boarding payload then you'd have an argument.

sourclams wrote:

If there was something to actually quantify this assessment of 'more finesse', like a weak defensive line with a massive boarding payload then you'd have an argument.

What I meant by the post was that whereas with, for example, PE you have a single focusable tactic that you can always use without too much thought process (i.e. get up close, board the other ship). Whereas with the KoB battleship you have to really think about what you are doing in order for it to be effective (i.e. you can't use it as a 'point and click' weapon).

You need to spend turns setting up the ideal fire arcs to get the most out of it.

And when you do, you're still not much better off than the other ships who have been firing effectively all game, nor do you get the devastating effect of a boarding action.

More Finesse is about risk/reward in a way, but it's all risk and little reward.

I've just been browsing the spartan games forums, and someone there suggested running the KoB battleship with 2 shield generators and letting your torpedos do the killing.

I'm guessing it's a pig to try and kill something with 2 shield gens on it (and would make disruption generators a bit more useful) if the tactic caught on, and although you lose turret firepower, you still have those very good british torpedos.

Leigen_Zero wrote:I've just been browsing the spartan games forums, and someone there suggested running the KoB battleship with 2 shield generators and letting your torpedos do the killing.

Yeah, the 'justification of desperation'. Just because no other battleship can take two shield generators and shoot torpedoes all game doesn't necessarily mean doing so is valuable or useful--especially for 180 points.

Torpedoe reliance, as a mechanic, reminds me of Ahn'Qiraj from World of Warcraft; to beat Ahn'Qiraj, you needed a specific type of incredibly rare, marginally useful equipment (Nature Resistance). To get that equipment, you had to beat bosses in Ahn'Qiraj, including the boss that required Nature Resistance equipment to beat.

Same sort of catch-22 with torpedoes. They're a late-game weapon, only really useful as small screening ships have been eliminated and a couple points of damage have been put on big ships to soften up CC. That means early game you have to rely on gunnery to do that sort of yeoman's work. Gunnery is not something that a KoB with 2 shield gens has a lot of. Just take a Dreadnought.

I'm guessing it's a pig to try and kill something with 2 shield gens on it (and would make disruption generators a bit more useful) if the tactic caught on, and although you lose turret firepower, you still have those very good british torpedos.

Funny thing is that a KoB BB with 2 shield gens is only marginally more durable than an FSA BB with a single shield generator. The FSA throws 9-15 dice, the KoB throws 4-10 dice plus torpedoes. The inability to kill much wouldn't be so bad by itself, but boarding then becomes a no-brainer and the KoB's now-gimped gunnery is even less capable of hurting boarders on their approach. If only there was some way that KoB players could pay a nominal point cost to get significantly better gunnery, armor and defenses! Oh, Dreadnought.

PE you have a single focusable tactic that you can always use without too much thought process

Funny thing is that at RB2, KoB optimal range, Prussian gunnery is on par with KoB gunnery for the battleships while defenses are overall higher. The PE player has two 'tricks'; close for the obvious boarding action, or shoot.

It really is Long Fangs versus Devastators. One gets more guns and bodies. The other doesn't. "Finesse" doesn't cover up that discrepancy.