retroactive AAR was: [GZG] More beta ships

First off, when I bought the IJSF minis I had in mind something like what I
had already seen in NSL vs NAC
vs ESU vs whomever engagements: generally stand-up
fights, fleet vs fleet, with fighters playing a small
part (hampered initially by our mis-reading of the
rules).

As such, the first few engagements I played were similarly done: ships vs
ships, leaving fighters out since I thought they were unjustly hyped and were
actually a point-suck.

Japanese ships fared poorly. I used the movement to whatever advantage I
could, but there was no 'pop out of cover, fire, duck into cover' here: its
all hanging out in the black and light hulls combined with no armour meant bad
news. Yes, i had enough thrust in some scenarios to pop all or most of my
vessels into a
given area to combine fire/overwhelm an opponent, but
my NSL buddy was getting pretty sure (and justifiably so) that he could simply
stand anywhere on the board and wait for me to come to him; his endurance,
sometimes with a single BB or DN, would prove to
outlive +/- 2000pt IJSF fleets.

So i branched out into homegrown IJSF/KV hybrids using
Cold Navy ships having seen that K-guns gave my
favourite antagonist (NSL) fits. It worked.

Then I tried Vins ships and liked them a lot: they have strong enough hulls
and sufficient punch to be able to weather more than one brushing glance
against
an armoured fleet, and my NSL-guy started to get a bit
more worried.

I tweaked some of the unofficial JSF and VinShips to come in line with what I
saw work well: ammo endurance (remove SMPs and add PTs) and slightly upped
armour. Now Mr NSL was going home irritable (understand that while I dinna
always WIN, he had grown so accustomed to NEVER LOSING A THING that any losses
made him feel weakened).

As for fighters: I'm still not sold. even MASSIVE
numbers of fighters seem to get popped willy-nilly by
Mr NSL's ADFC pickets (home-grown) and I rarely have
that certain feeling that says 'damn, now THAT is gonna hurt him!' when using
fighters.

But my whining is for naught: the KV player in our group (Coleen, Callsign
KILLSTICK) just scares us ALL
with K-guns, etc. Mr UNSC claims no worries, but who
can tell with that guy? he's always claiming to be so neutral...

> --- Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:

> ***
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
> [quoted text omitted]

Jeff "My dice hate me!" Fearnow Gaming to keep War out of RealTime!

"'DESTROY THE WITNESSES!!. Chaffing aside, I have no answer: I Excrete Sour
Cream!" www.wigu.com, 29 Jan 2003

XT350/DOD#1890

Seen Serenity yet?
http://www.serenitymovie.com