Terrans: Making Long-Range Work

It's Dreadbeard with a alternative way to play your favorite rock'em sock'em spaceships.

Terrans don't have to fight at close range if you don't desire, this is often forgotten in the endless list of Beam weaponry. What I'm going to do is present a few alternate list choices that can take your game from one fought face-to-face to one that is played far behind friendly lines.

First, Tier 1's. The obvious choice for any Terran player is to take one of the two styles of Battleships. Why not right? They hit hard, throw more attack dice than a lot of ships, and come stock with Shields out the yin-yang . Well, I suggest taking the Terran Palisade Battlestation.

"But...but they don't have a model for sale yet, Dreadbeard, how am I supposed to field it my fleet?" How about a generic Spartan space station, you might even have one sitting around in the bits box!

<<<< TA-4 Star Port

                        OR

 Geminon Class Repair Station>>>>


With the Palisade, you get two forms of long-range firepower, with one definitely being stronger than the other. First of all, after upgrades, you get Beams all the way out to 40". Holy crap! Not to mention that is out of every single arc of fire. With clever placement, you should be able to attack two units in a single activation. It also has 12 Attack Dice (AD) for Torpedoes that can be Nuclear! "Yes please, I'll take two!" Not to mention that this thing has a Dreadnought-grade Damage Rating (DR),  Critical Rating (CR), plus Shields. Try it out, you might be surprised.

Next up is the Tier 2 selection. Most Admirals would reach for the Cruisers. I say no more! Take Destroyers. Holy cow, 12 AD out to 32" and 14AD out to 24".  That's a spicy meatball, especially since you should be taking the Nuclear upgrade, making it a spicy Nuclear meatball. The Destroyers are also maneuverable, have a 0" Turn Limit, an 8" Movement rating, one Shield, and are one of the few ships in the game with the Hidden Killer rule. What more could you ask for?

"Well I need something to hold objectives....."

Obviously, poor Zoidberg meant: "Shield Cruisers".

Yeah, why not? With 3 Shields per cruiser which save on a 3+ instead of 4+, good luck getting Critical Hits reliably on those bad boys. Pull up to the objective, make yourself comfortable, and give the finger to any that try to take your objective. 

Finally, the Tier 3's. well you only have two choices for this slot and one isn't long-range based so we take the Armsmen Frigate squadrons. Since Torpedoes don't require line of sight and each squadron has 10AD Torpedoes out to 48", no where on the board is safe. All shall be destroyed. 

So try it out and you might be surprised at how effective it really is.

In closing, a sample list might look like this:

 

+++ Long Range Sample (1000pts) +++

+++ 1000pt Terran Fleet Roster +++

+ Tier 1 + (220pts)
    * Battle Station (220pts)
        * Palisade (220pts)
            (Bigger Batteries, Maneuverable, No FSD, Sector Shielding, Weapon Shielding)
            +1" Mv (10pts), Beam Primaries (10pts) (Beam Weapons), Nuclear Torpedoes (10pts) (Nuclear Weapons)
            * Interceptor Token (10pts)
                2x Interceptor (10pts)
+ Tier 2 + (360pts)
    * Destroyer Squadron (210pts)
        * Artemis Squadron (210pts)
            * 3x Artemis (210pts)
                (Hidden Killer, Maneuverable)
                3x Nuclear Fore (Fixed) (30pts) (Nuclear Weapons)
    * Shield Cruiser Squadron (150pts)
        Aegis (50pts), Aegis (50pts), Aegis (50pts)
+ Tier 3 + (420pts)
    * Frigate Squadron (120pts)
        * Armsmen Squadron (120pts)
            4x Armsmen (120pts) (Beam Weapons, Difficult Target)
    * Frigate Squadron (120pts)
        * Armsmen Squadron (120pts)
            4x Armsmen (120pts) (Beam Weapons, Difficult Target)
    * Frigate Squadron (90pts)
        * Armsmen Squadron (90pts)
            3x Armsmen (90pts) (Beam Weapons, Difficult Target)

    * Frigate Squadron (90pts)
        * Armsmen Squadron (90pts)
            3x Armsmen (90pts) (Beam Weapons, Difficult Target)

-Dreadbeard signing off-