• Registered: 2011-09-26
  • Posts: 21

Topic: Mass seekers

I'm looking for opinions on the overpowering nature of mass seekers.  I was running a fleet on thursday (based on the Battlefleet gothic Orks) that had a significant portion of its firepower tied up in Torpedo volleys.  The design I was using combined: FF arc, 15 hex range, volatile, catastrophic and seeker.  The escorts fired three dice worth and the terror ship fired 6 dice worth. 

It seemed that the combination of huge numbers of seekers (at one point a 30 mass cruiser was looking at 60+ incoming) and the -3 to hit penalty for the catastrophic ability made it rather pointless for my opponent to even waste his firepower on the torpedos (he shot at my ships instead). 

Has anyone else found seekers (especially with the mods that make them harder to hit) overpowering?

  • Registered: 2006-01-17
  • Posts: 740

Re: Mass seekers

My friends & I here in Florida have dealt with this in several ways. 
We only allow a weapon to have only two weapons traits.  The Acr trait does not count against this limit.  The Seekers you made would have to give up either volitile or catastrophic weapon trait.  But that does not really solve ur problem.
What I have done is to have the ship that is targeted with a cloud of seekers charge into the enemy formation.  I overload the engines and charge in recklessly.  If the enemy forces fire at it/destroy it, then they wasted their seekers from the turn before. 
I have also made 3-hull ships with a CR=50 that I call AA PGs.  They have Fire Control and their AA weapons have range=3, Acr, Tls, Rpt.  On the turn after the Seekers are fired, I have these PG-AAs move to three hexes from the ship targed by Seekers and they help protect the targeted ship.
Seekers with Acr & Dx3 or Cts are -4 to hit.  Short range +FC will reduce this to -2.  If you shoot down just half of the seekers, and add the fact that they don't cause harm until the next turn, they become not-so-formitable.
Cheers

  • Registered: 2011-09-26
  • Posts: 21

Re: Mass seekers

We only allow three weapon traits and no more than one can be a damage modifier.  We also don't allow expendable (as such).  I never thought of using the engine overload rules to go out in a blaze of glory.  I'll have to look into that.

The complaint seemed to be that after a certain point ships didn't need to bother with point defense because they were being overkilled by such a large margin.  My counter point was that all of that overkill was wasted points on my side of the equation, since I could have spread fire over more of his fleet and not lost so many hits to overkill.

  • Registered: 2006-07-24
  • Posts: 158

Re: Mass seekers

Are the seekers being aimed at one ship only? Or do they fling seekers at all your ships?

  • Registered: 2006-07-24
  • Posts: 158

Re: Mass seekers

The disadvantage of seekers is that they don't do anything initially. If we exchange fire, yes you will probably have twice as many shots as me. But I'm not taking any damage for two firing phases, whereas you are. Meaning you will do a lot of damage to me, but I won't feel it until I've crippled your fleet.
The weakness of Seekers is in fighters and drones, especially drones. Seeking weapons are virtually useless against them. They can also be shot down, the enemy fleet clustered together can often reduce your bombardment down to harmless confetti.