Federation Commander

[edwinfeds]

Find that the firepower of Andromedans vs a Galactic fleet is very disproportionately in favor of the Galactic fleets.
So how can 2 Andromedan intruders with mix of Mambas, cobras and a sensor ship fight a 10 ship Galactic fleet.
1) Prepare for a long drawn out fight. The Andromedans should plan on fighting no closer then 8 hexes from the Galactic fleets. He should fire his Th's and immediately Displace away to recharge heavy weapons. The displacement should be as far from enemy fleet as possible so that on the next turn while recharging your TH's you can move as slow as possible to prevent using up too much energy. You can always displace again during the next turn you are moving speed say 16 as necessary to keep your distance from Galactic powers ships that are trying to close with you.
a) Why would the Andromedans need to conserve power with all the Batteries they have? The players I play have found out that they do not want to shoot the Andromedans unless they can fill up the PA's of the Andromedans and do internal damage. Any other result just gives more power for the Andromedans to use. So now they just chase the Andromedans around causing the Andromedans to eventually run out of power and then become an easy target to finish off. A side note, the galactic players use suicide shuttles constantly in battles but have stopped using them on Andromedans, as since they are not shooting at the Andromedans, I would run into their suicide shuttles on purpose and holler give me power. Yes the group I play with were not amused.
B) So as you can see when fighting a long battle with Andromedans power management is key. So this requires a good size battle map, if you are far enough from an enemy ship that moving speed 24 they will not catch you as you recharge your TH's, on Sub turn 7 other phase if you are an intruder you transport a Mamba 5 hexes out in front of your movement and the intruder moves towards the Mamba. Timing your movement so that at the beginning of the next turn the Mamba can now set a speed of 24 and puts a tractor on the Intruder. The intruder than can have a speed of zero to recharge power to it's batteries and the Mamba moving maximum speed with acceleration should be able to tow the intruder at 3 hexes per sub impulse. Intruder then will be at near full power for the next turn. Just be sure at least 16 hexes from enemy fleet when doing this.
Then go back after Galactic fleet and shoot your Th's and run away again to recharge. Eventually you should start causing enough damage to win.

[storeylf]

From what you are saying the problem is that the galactic players have not worked out the tactics to deal with all the odd stuff the Andros can do.

2 Intruders and satellites is somewhere around 1050pts give or take depending on exact mix of sats. I'd certainly being playing on a good size map with that force, so I'm with you there. The Galatics ought to have a scout ship as well, certainly no one round here would not come with one at that point value. That should still leave about 6+ cruisers worth of enemy in offensive ships (or some combination with that sort of firepower).



The best range to fire at is heavily dependent on enemy. Firing your TRHs at 9+ is not good though, against an enemy scout you are looking at averaging only 21 damage (less after battery reinforcement). That probably won't even take out an enemy cruisers shield. If you go running to rearm then he can just drop speed and regenerate shields meaning you achieved little if anything. You can throw in phasers, but at that range your phasers suck big time against a scout, and cost you a lot of energy. Given the displacement tactics you are talking about I'm assuming you have your satellites in the hangars so they are not firing?

At range 8 you increase your TRH damage to mid 40s. That is better, internal damage which is not readily repaired. But it exposes you to a lot more firepower at the same time.

The enemies ~6 cruisers can out put quite a bit of firepower. I won't go through all of them, but quite simply 530 points of Intruders cannot face a 1000 pt galactic fleet and win any battle, long or shot range, without some other mitigating factor. At longer ranges many galactics can out shoot you and all can out regenerate you if you seek to play that game. Those empires who struggle long range may well me EM, meaning you just can't effectively engage them at all. At shorter ranges you simply go pop against anyone.


Your next tactic is to displace away. You only have 4 displacement devices and you seem to want to be sure of displacing next turn as well if the enemy close, does that mean you are not having the satellites out, or you had them out and then left them behind to face the enemy alone?

Displacement can fail. With 2 Intruders to displace there is almost a 1/3rd chance that 1 or both your ships will fail to displace, potentially leaving you with an Intruder close to the enemy, and another now some distance away. You had better hope you have enough time to get your 2nd DisDev attempt, other wise you are down one Intruder.


The next stage is where it sounds like your opponents are yet to learn anti Andro tactics.

If you fired at long range and tickled the enemy shield, followed by running away then they can just slow down and repair the shield. They can play that game better than you under such circumstances.

Alternatively, the fight is on in which case you should never feel safe doing speed 16 at this point. The galactics have got to pressure you. That means speed 24 plus 8 if needed. One of your intruders is probably hurting, and they should be piling in on him (unless you failed to displace and are a dead duck next to them already). Ideally they will be threatening the intruder/satellites that were not shot as well (so that they have no urge to slow down and conserve power), but that may be less important. If you are going speed 16 you will be forced to displace, which may fail again. You will quickly discover you need speed 24+, and that you can't do it after 1 or 2 turns without giving up a whole lot of other stuff.

You say your players never fire if they can't take out the PAs. This is is a major blunder at this size of fight. You choose your target and generally never stop shooting at it. Don't shoot other Andros, 1 target at a time unless a sure cripple/kill presents itself and is worth it. Disrupter fleets at 1000 points can put out 50-60 damage per turn at range 15, and 100 per turn or so at range 8. The few empires who can't really do anything beyond short range can pretty much go speed 32 with spare power so they will be closing very fast (where they tend to really hurt). Your scout can mitigate that to some extent, but when your scout is out he will become priority target number 1 - that is more need for displacement devices to help him as he pops fast.


Your mamba-intruder tactic is a nice idea, but probably of no real use. If the enemy are so far away that it is safe to use then it is presumably because they are busy chasing the other Intruder that they have been targeting, going speed 0 with the 2nd one is just removing a threat to worry about.



My experience of fleet level games with Andros has led me to conclude that offensive use of your satellites is vital. They need to be out of the hangars and getting involved early. An initial launch designed to surprise the enemy as to where may be useful, but is also very expensive. Whilst there are variants on the theme, they are largely sacrifices that weaken the enemy so that later in the game a damaged fleet faces much harder to kill motherships. The other way around is possible as well, sacrifice motherships (for a heavy cost in enemy damage of course) so the more energy efficient satellites are facing weakened enemies towards the end.