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So, I've made a purchase of a French Starter box and I'm tempted to get a carrier next week. But there are a few questions that I must ask, and where better than the cages of the Admirals and Commodores of the Armee sur Mer?

I picked the French because of the Aesthetic quality. I liked their streamlined looks, something which almost pulled me into the Antarcticans (apart from their ghastly bombers). But how does the French handle? Is it a long range force, mid-range, short range, even? Is it designed to go toe-to-toe with everything, or sit back and pound the enemy with cannons?

Reading through the French Fleet list, I have noticed that most of their weapons are less effective once outside of range band 2, which would imply a more close up sort of fleet, but I am notoriously bad at reading armies (my CQC Tau is a story my brother won't let me forget )

Thanks for you time,
LoT

Lord of Timbraxia wrote:So, I've made a purchase of a French Starter box and I'm tempted to get a carrier next week. But there are a few questions that I must ask, and where better than the cages of the Admirals and Commodores of the Armee sur Mer?

I picked the French because of the Aesthetic quality. I liked their streamlined looks, something which almost pulled me into the Antarcticans (apart from their ghastly bombers). But how does the French handle? Is it a long range force, mid-range, short range, even? Is it designed to go toe-to-toe with everything, or sit back and pound the enemy with cannons?

Reading through the French Fleet list, I have noticed that most of their weapons are less effective once outside of range band 2, which would imply a more close up sort of fleet, but I am notoriously bad at reading armies (my CQC Tau is a story my brother won't let me forget )

Thanks for you time,
LoT

Congrats! Their a tidy little force :3
Playing against them (so till someone else answers, your stuck with second hand experience i fight for the empress lol ) they can be fearsome. They have some of the best AA firepower in the game, and those heat lances can be pretty fearsome. however dont over rely on them, with its short range, its not gonna be more than a mid-late game gun outside of certain circumstances, but it can be a strong deterrent against boarding ships (though i forget if its affected by damage or not atm ><.

The french have some gorgeous models, however they have their limitations. They lack a bombing force, and when it comes to generators well...they try. I get its value, but its never really done much to stop me tbh. They DO lack escorts i believe too, however they have pretty good use of supporting cruisers to make up for it. Their frigates are ok, nut their destroyers are pretty damn tasty *drools* (though compared to the EotBS anyones destroyers are great xD).

On the plus, they work bes at the mid range. Whittle your enemy down at RB3, and finish off the stragglers at RB2. Anything that DOES survive those heat lances as they close in only has more heatlances to look forward to. As for boarding you, well i think your AA more than makes up for the AP on the defence, scarily so. If they try boarding, let them, once their marines have finished clogging your AA guns with their bodies, counter board their weaknd force.

Thanks chap.

Yes, they do suffer from an Escort deficiency, but I only really just noticed their lack of bombers. The generators are things I'd probably forget about anyway, so its just one less thing to tax my brain with :p

I don't intend to do much in the way of boarding, but thanks for the tips on repelling them. Could come in handy as one of my opponents plays Prussians!

 Lord of Timbraxia wrote:
Thanks chap.

Yes, they do suffer from an Escort deficiency, but I only really just noticed their lack of bombers. The generators are things I'd probably forget about anyway, so its just one less thing to tax my brain with :p

I don't intend to do much in the way of boarding, but thanks for the tips on repelling them. Could come in handy as one of my opponents plays Prussians!

Even the starter set, the "bomber" unit it gives is a plane hunter. Dont get me wrong, dont forget to apply your cloud generator when you can cus it COULD save you from that one last shot tho every little helps after all.

Not just the prussians you have to be careful of, the EotBS has some pretty respectable boarding due to the amount of fire tokens and gas attacks we can do, and the british have their elite marines to keep them going.

Ha and their lack of bombs is pretty literal, hell even in the tiny fliers

I've been told that a lot of our weakness in Escorts can be made up for with the subs. Small, maneuverable and long ranged, a squadron is only 5 more points than a squadron of those limp little frigates. And with 360° on the mortars you can move away leaving mines behind you. And I'll happily toss 8 AD out to range band 4 any day. And the bonus of indirect fire sure don't hurt either.

No Dive Bombers? That's just odd. But not much we can do about that one. Then again we have flying battleships and our HQ Fortress makes every other nations look like toys.

 Sanguinary Dan wrote:
I've been told that a lot of our weakness in Escorts can be made up for with the subs. Small, maneuverable and long ranged, a squadron is only 5 more points than a squadron of those limp little frigates. And with 360° on the mortars you can move away leaving mines behind you. And I'll happily toss 8 AD out to range band 4 any day. And the bonus of indirect fire sure don't hurt either.

No Dive Bombers? That's just odd. But not much we can do about that one. Then again we have flying battleships and our HQ Fortress makes every other nations look like toys.

aye with some of the better large/capitol flyers in the game, the lack of bombers isnt that bad. We havnt startedplaying on the land yet, however were predicting it to make the french TFs near useless except for hunting other TFs

For the most part, I'll just be sticking with my starter units until I get them all painted, but I'll bear the Subs and the Flying HQ in mind

That said, the look of the Sub never really hit any notes with me, and I do like the look of the Dreadnought and the Support cruisers.... GAAAH CHOICES......

After playing a few games with my RoF I can honestly say I was quite wrong about the Lyon FF. We have a damn fine frigate. Just use them in squadrons of 4. That gives you 1 to practice paint schemes on and 2 full squadrons from the starter fleet box.

And... BUY THE DREADNOUGHT! The Charlemagne is a major ass kicker.

 Sanguinary Dan wrote:
After playing a few games with my RoF I can honestly say I was quite wrong about the Lyon FF. We have a damn fine frigate. Just use them in squadrons of 4. That gives you 1 to practice paint schemes on and 2 full squadrons from the starter fleet box.

And... BUY THE DREADNOUGHT! The Charlemagne is a major ass kicker.

Haha most if not all frigates are like that The game itself your gonna want to put things in full units. Also give that air dreadnought a go, is scary as hell to go up against

on another note, the french are getting another small, a skimmer to be precise meaning you can have a full skimming force (our Rof player is very excited about this)