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The spartan forums go round and round with complaints about the effectiveness of the hachiman class dread, but that discussion aside, how do you think it's intended to be used?

It seems to me, undergunned as it appears, that the ship is designed to pick something nasty of the enemy's, head towards it guns blazing, then ram and board it. Thoughts?

Nah they gom round and round on the effectivness, or more accuretely the ineffectiveness of the KoB battlership. The EotBS dreadnought is let off the hook more often than most.


Let us look at it though. The Hachmian is an inferior dreadnought, it is markedly weaker than the others principlally because the rest can , i.e. always will, have two shields. I exclude the Antarcticans in this as I havent seen their army list. However despite being notably weaker its is also notably cheaper. A five point discount from start, plus its one shield is included in the price, wheras other dreadnoughts need pay 40pts to shield up. All in all the 45pt discount makes the vessel worthwhile.

The second reason the Hachiman is still worthwhile is because it still has the upgraded defences of a dreadnought, excepting double shields, so on its own or with escorts it will fulfil the dreadnought role in game of being a damage sink. Furthermore it delivers on firepower with three decent turrets. Secondary firepower is markedly inferior to other dreadnoughts but still long ranged and lethal.

All in all the vessel is not a waste of points, it still retains a niche role, even if it is closer to the faction battleship than any of the other dreadnoughts. Also despite its weakness its discount even it out and its a powerful ship by any account, underestimate it at your peril. 230pts all in price is reasonable if not stellar. Given the right price even the bad designs of the KoB would find favour.

Not knowing specifics of the ship or game, let me give you my experience with under-gunned large ships...

Typically they are damage sponges, as Orlanth mentioned. While they may not have the firepower to throw against equal size ships, they are a huge threat to smaller ships.

Instead of pitting them against other dreads try using it to hold up squadrons of cruisers, or even escorts. Also use it to block areas of the board your opponent might want to move through.

Remember, its a big ship, that takes a lot of punishment and holds decent firepower...which means the enemy cant simply ignore it. Instead of making it a center piece or big gun, use it to harass and annoy your enemy.

That's kind of the conclusion I came to. While it won't do as well against other dreadnoughts it seems more than capable of wiping out a frigate squadron a turn while mining off a section of the board (mines? On a dreadnought? Really?). I have noticed that the Japanese ships have low damage ratings but very high crit ratings, so maybe you're right maybe it will prove quite sturdy even with only one shield generator.

I tried it out again in a game yesterday afternoon vs FSA. They did not have a dreadnought. Most of his time was spent trying to kill my Inari gyros, but when he did decide to take some RB2 shots at my dread, it wasn't difficult to damage it. Again like with a few other Japanese units, the DR is very low so they get damaged easily - but the CR is very high, making it hard to get that lucky shot and creating a big gap between a damaging roll and a critically damaging roll. It also makes it into a HUGE jump to get a double crit, meaning even if the enemy gets very lucky, they're unlikely to get SO lucky that they get the double.

Unfortunately it did very little. Torpedoes, rockets, turrets and even a ram all underperformed, even in their roles of hunting down smaller targets. Can't blame the rules there though, seems like just some bad rolling - six dice should be able to kill a frigate, for example, at least when fired repeatedly over three turns.