Ships Of The Rense Pt 6: The Spectre Battleship

SeerK here with another installment of “The Ships Of The Rense”. We are coming to the end of the series. We have one more tier one vessel after this installment. It seems fitting one of the main command ships of the Rense Navy is named Spectre. A Spectre is a ghost. A silent shadow lurking in the dark. It is also the name of the antagonistic organization from the James Bond series. Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Also strangely fitting due to the role the Rense Navy plays in the Dindrenzi Federation.

Engineered and built by The Directorate for the Navy as it began to take on the role of spies, secret police and Elite cadre above the normal main line Dindrenzi fleet, the Spectre is a formidable ship. Equipped with Tried and tested Dindrenzi Rail Guns /'and Directorate Plasma weaponry it is more than a match for all but the heaviest vessels. It also is the hub of Intelligence gathering for any Rense fleet.

Lets take a look at the Spectre. We have a good DR of 7 and CR of 11. Eight hull points, good crew and assault points. Excellent point defense and mines. Weaponry with long range in all arcs except the rear. We also have a shield, which is a rarity in the Federation Navy. A wing capacity of 4 gives us some options. I like to go with Interceptors or bombers, it depends on what I am planning on doing with the ship. Fighters are actually a good choice in most situations though as they have the ability to multi task. They can do offense and defense.

We have two hard points with several good options. I almost always choose the -1 turn limit option as one of them. This is mainly because of the fixed fore main kinetic weapon. I know this is also a default choice for Dindrenzi Fleet Marshals as well. Any opportunity to make our ships more maneuverable should be taken. You need to be able to get your weapons to bear as quickly as you can.

Adding AP is nice but the options I usually have a hard time choosing between is the additional 2” of movement, which takes the ship up to a move of 9,” and the Ops Center MAR.

I choose based on what I am purposing the ship for. If it is my primary tier one ship I usually go for movement. People do not expect fast moving Tier one vessels from the Dindrenzi. Our upgrades are Special Forces, which I also always take and Precision strike for the Kinetics. As I typically do not bother with precision strikes I don't take this option.

We do have quite a few options for Escorts. We can take up to three Sirens, a single Cerberus and up to three escorts from Zenian League members. With the Marauders rules out this also opens up options as the fleet building section specifies that you can take OSO or STL escorts if it states the ship can take Zenian league or Kurak escorts. I am kinda sad that it states OSO and STL as I would love to take the Grief escorts from the oroshan. Its like Having Dindrenzi bucklers that you can either have AP or PD on albeit 5 points more expensive. Which is ok as it has more guns and a better CR than the Buckler. But I digress....

The Escort options are varied and this is where you have to make some tough choices. Sirens are good as they add a point defense screen few can penetrate and you can use Target Resolution on 3 systems if you have three Sirens, or a much easier command role at long range. If I run sirens this is usually when I run Bombers or Fighters if I am running wings. I run Sirens if I am sitting back and trying to hit targets at range. Ships that rely on close range shooting find themselves in the danger zone quick as they close. Target Resolution can really increase your damage output at close range.

I take the Cerberus if I am going to be getting into the thick quick. Especially if I think I am going to have to square off with a Dreadnought. The Cerberus adds a lot of fire power for engaging big ships and it can deal with cruisers and escorts with gusto. For instance, I do not combine fire when dealing with carriers. The Spectre can deal with a carrier pretty well on its own. If the Carrier has Cruiser escorts or Gunship escorts the Cerberus is well equipped to deal with them on its own. This way I can inflict a maximum amount of damage on a squadron made up of medium and larger ships. You can also do a nice one two with your torpedoes if you give the Cerberus the Torpedo Spook MAR.

If you are willing to sacrifice your fleet tactics bonus, this opens up some other interesting options. Dindrenzi Buckler Escorts add some additional fire power with some mid to short range gun racks which can be nice for taking out frigates and smaller vessels. I find the power of frigates oft underestimated. Having a gun escort gives your larger vessels some better protection in the form of offensive power vs small vessels, that is when fired separately they hit easier.

Relthoza escorts are nice if you are planning on hitting a target with a massive assault. Having 6 additional AP can be nice. Granted you don't get the benefit of Special Forces on these guys though. Directorate Escorts are actually pretty nice They give you the PD of a Siren and they are unmanned so they do not suffer penalties from having 0 crew. You can also give them assault points. The Marauders give you access to one escort, the STL Trader Penitentiary class, which gives you access to Grav weapons. They are restricted by the Tractor Beam rule, but if you want to be that guy and push things into planets this is the escort for you.

All of these Escorts are nice, but may not add anything as good as your standard ones. It really depends on what you are trying to do. I personally don’t like using allies that take my Fleet Tactics bonus to 1. You kind of get used to having the first activation when you have a fleet tactics of 3.

The Spectre is a nice ship, but it does have some weaknesses. Compared to other Zenian League Battleships it is a little under most on hull points. The Directorate battleship also has 8 hull points, but it can have 2 shields. When you compare it to a Terran Battleship it is a little lacking in a point for point comparison. The Apollo/Razorthorn is 20 points cheaper with 2 shields base. It is a point less on DR and CR, but you have a lot of options to really kit it out and three hard points. It comes down to out maneuvering the Terran commander and trying to stay out of his optimal firing arcs and ranges. The Terrans benefit from Weapon shielding as well so in a slug fest the Spectre is on the loosing end as it takes damage.

You have a vulnerable rear arc as well. You must drop your mines to cover your rear. You must not forget to drop the mines. Drop them in a good staggered pattern to cover your rear area as to discourage ships from shunting in close or making it difficult to get a good firing position for ships maneuvering to get your rear arc. This especially gets very important as you make your way into the battle field.

The Rense have Expensive ships so you have to build smart and play smarter. Well thats all for now. We bring “Ships Of The Rense” to a close in our next installment. We cover our last vessel. Occupying the top of the current food chain we have the Banshee Dreadnought.

Until then, crush the Alliance and as always...

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!

New Marauders Of The Rift: First Impressions

SeerK here.  Well as many of you may or may not know Spartan has updated the rules for the Marauders Of The Rift.  The Fleets from the old source book are now updated to 2.0 rules.  There have been some major changes and it would seem the story line has been moved forward a bit.  You can find the new rules on the Spartan Games Blog.  Well at least you could until they had some site problems and it crashed. They lost about a days worth of data, which would include the new rules.  I am sure we will see them back up Monday or Tuesday.  I downloaded a copy though just in time and printed it out.

Spellduckwrong and I tore right into the new rules and played a 1000 point game to try them out.  I decided to field a strait Oroshan Fleet while Spellduckwrong went with the biggest threat currently facing the galaxy.  I speak of course of the fleet known as only The Pathogen.  The Syndicate is back and merged with the Rift Traders.  They form the STL or Syndicate Traders League.  The fleets are still distinct though.  The STL is loosely affiliated with the Alliance of Kurak although they will still alley with Zenian League fleets, albeit at a higher points cost. STL Syndicate and STL Traders are Nautral Allies with the Terran Alliance.  Omnidyne and the Corsairs have banded together as OSO or Omnidyne Special Operations.  Both fleets are also still distinct though.  They are loosely affiliated with the Zenian league, but will work for the Kurak at a higher points cost.  The only real exception is any Works Raptor fleet cannot contain Omnidyne ships.  They are corporate rivals and would not be caught dead working together.

The Oroshan are strait up mercenaries.  They will work for anybody willing to pay as contracts have been thinning out in the Directorate systems.  The Pathogen is an entirely different kind of fleet. They have several vessels that are named as they are "full grown".  The rest of the entries are composed of stat blocks for infected ships.  They also have only one kind of SRS token.  It covers basically the job of a fighter, interceptor and bomber.  They also regenerate lost wings when they destroy an opposing wing.  The pathogen are kinda scary.  They are like a storm.  Building momentum as they go.  played right they can quickly outnumber you.  As you loose ships they add them to their ranks.

I am pretty impressed with the first presentation of the rules.  I know there may be some tweaks and changes before they see print, but there is a lot of cool stuff in this new fleet manual.  I would have to say the flexibility and ability to customize the fleet and even the ship squadrons in the fleet is what has me most impressed.  The Traders and the Corsairs have so much flavor and customization options.  Adding shields at the expense of crew, adding to the damage and critical rating at the expense of mobility. Adding wings and weapons in exchange for MARs and other stuff.  The combinations are many and let you design a fleet with flavor and a specific purpose.  Also the Reformer class Battle Station available to the STL Traders is kinda scary.  It is very similar to the old Supermax-89, which sadly is not in the book for Supermax fans.  It has Tractor beams...........that is it has grav weapons that can only be used in control mode.  With the potential of being able to move 6 inches and have launch tubes, that is kinda scary.

So back to Spellduckwrong and I's game.  As we were trying out unfamiliar fleets we opted for a strait up Border clash mission. We had 1000 points each.  I ran the following list.

Armageddon Dreadnought with 3 Grief Escorts

4x Defiler Cruisers

2x 6 pack of Slayer Frigates

1x 4 pack of Slayer Frigates

Spellduckwrong ran the following.  He has the Pathogen Section of my print out currently so forgive the lack of names.

Named Battleship

Named carrier

2x 3 named cruisers

2x 6 pack named frigates

I have to add one thing to this abbreviated battle report before I go further.  My dice were on fire and we were both using fleets that were brand new to us.  This was very apparent as the game progressed.  The Oroshan have a fleet tactics of 3 and the Pathogen 1.  I took the first activation for most of the game.  Turn one was relatively uneventful.  I managed to reach out with the beams on the Defilers and damage one of the Pathogen cruisers.  Despite not having and port or starboard weapons, other than torpedoes, I have to say I like the Defiler almost more than the Cerberus.

Being able to take them in a squadron of 4 and give them Pack Hunter is pretty awesome.  They are a DR 4 CR 7 with a shield rating of 1.  In range band 2 a full strength squadron can throw 22 beam dice.  Yeah you read that right 22 dice.  I was in range band 4 when I opened up and that was with 7 dice.  Not to shabby.

Turn 2 saw our fleets close in to lethal range.  I started lighting up Spellduckwrong's cruisers with mine and the Dreadnought got into the mix.  His Cruisers were taking a major pounding.  He did however get his 2 squadrons of frigates in and a huge frigate dogfight ensued in the middle of the board.

I managed to destroy most of the cruisers by turn 4 and I also thinned out his frigate swarm despite his capturing of 2 of my frigates.

The real clutch manoeuvre happened in turn 4 for Spellduckwrong though.  His carrier finally decided to join the show and dropped a mine in the midst of my frigate swarm.  Now a few of the Pathogen ships have mines.  They do not have real high ratings, but they do have one aspect that can be pretty deadly for small craft.  The mines can have the

Bio hazard MAR.  So if it damages your frigate it may not do enough hull points to kill it, but if it only has 1 crew point its dead.  I managed to loose almost 2 squadrons of frigates to one 3 die mine.  This tipped the balance.  In the end It was a duel between my Dreadnought and his heavily damaged carrier and battleship.  Granted I may have been on the loosing end of the duel as all Pathogen ships have self repair.  The game did not go past turn 7 though and it ended with a 12 to 2 victory for me. 

All in all I was impressed with the Oroshan and will be adding some ships to my fleet.  They pack a punch and with the addition of the Battle Carrier to their fleet roster they can actually be fielded as a patrol fleet.  I feel as though a rematch is not going to go as well for me.  Spellduckwrong is a very canny opponent.  It was very clear to him that playing the Pathogen as a standard non tentacle space herpes clear fleet was not going to work.  The real key in our game was he should have shunted his cruisers in.  This would have put them in assault range of my big ships.  Also taking a full sqaudron would have maxed out the assault points.  They have 5 each so I would have been hard pressed to repel boarders even with my dreadnought.

In closing I just want to say I love the new manual. It really pushes and tests the game mechanics.  It also adds a lot of flavor.  Now if only I can get me some Planetfall......


Until next time Crush the Alliance and as always....



REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Lets Talk Tournaments

SeerK here.  So there has been a rather big discussion over at the Spartan community forum about a regular Spartan Web Community.
tournament format.  Dreadbeard has spearheaded the drive to try and get some across the board standards for tournaments in the Firestorm community.  If you want to get into the real nitty gritty of the conversation you can find it at the

Essentially we are trying to avoid what is ever present in a lot of tournament communities, 40K cough cough...., that is a lack of uniformity and consistency.  Variety is the spice of life, but when you are trying to compare players and lists and strategy, it is very difficult when the rules vary a lot and format covers a wide range of points and scenarios.  don't even get me started on how rules are interpreted or ruled on in tournament FAQ's.

Now that's not to say there won't be variation.  There always will be.  Having a pool of scenarios and missions as well as a format standard to go from actually is really beneficial, especially for people new to running tournaments or trying to get a fledgling community off the ground.  Having an across the board standard also makes it easier to make lists.  Again this is especially true for new players or players that are new to tournaments.

The other big reason for this push is because we are planning two larger tournament events in 2014 and 2015.  This first Event will be taking place at UCON, link and dates to your right and we have a proposal submitted to run an event, which will be the same format as the tournament at UCON, at the big show in 2015, Adepticon.

Nothing is 100% yet or set in stone by any means.  proposals have been submitted and now we have our fingers crossed.  I am hoping the community shows their support by emailing the conventions and once an event is for sure signing up.

So now that the cats are out of the bag stay tuned for more information as it develops.  I am looking forward to UCON this year.  I may be doing some other games if time permits.  We are looking at 900 points and 4 rounds for both events. As it stands we will be using the 2 list standard as well.  Doing war log or just plain tournament compatible missions is really what we are trying to develop. There are some that are just not well suited to tournaments.  We have it down to any mission with an attacker and defender is generally not well suited for tournament play.  We have had mixed reviews on the escalating engagement mission as well.

So we are trying to keep it simple.  Objective holding and killing opposing fleets.  Mixing up the deployment zones and trying to keep things fresh and fun.  The next local tournament here in Lansing will be using our first drafts of some new missions.  me thinks a 2nd tournament War Log tracker may have to be started once we have a nice set of tournament standard missions available for use.  Have to keep everything consistent to get good data.


Well that is all for now.  I wanted to think out loud a little as it were.  Also Check out the new pictures of the Palnetfall stuff from Claymore 2014 over in the U.K.  Holy crap I am excited for this game.  Check them out here on the Spartan Community Forum.

Until next time crush the Alliance and as always....

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Ships Of The Rense pt5: The Argus Carrier

SeerK here once again with the "Ships of the Rense".  In this installment we break into the tier one vessels of the Rense System Navy. Argus in Greek mythology was a giant with 100 eyes.  He was a watchman of sorts.  The Argus is such a vessel in the Rense navy.  With is multitude of wings it can act as a fleets lookout and fearsome guard.  The Argus class carrier is what I like to call a "True Carrier".  There are very few true carriers in the game.  What is a "True Carrier"?  Its a ship with the capability of carrying 12 wings.  Not many of the games carriers can carry two full SRS tokens.  Although this can be deadly it is not as hardy as a Battle carrier or battle ship.  It must have support.  This generally means like modern aircraft carriers it is almost completely dependent on its strike craft and escorts for defense and a bulk of its attack power.  I feel the Argus falls into this category.


I feel as though the Argus got slightly nerfed in transition from 1.5 to 2nd edition.  The nerf was needed though as it would have made the Argus way better than any other carrier in the game.  I speak of course about how the Deck Crews and Quick Launch MARS changed between editions.  Essentially to have both MAR's you have to go all in.  Since you only have 2 hard point spots on a carrier you cannot take both Deck Crews and Quick Launch as well as having +1 shield or +4 wings.  You could have your cake and eat it to in the previous incarnation of the ship, but that would have made it pretty over powered in 2.0.

So that begs the question, How should I outfit my Argus?  Well its honestly completely situational.  There is no end all beat all combo.  I do tend to run my Argus the same way though.  This is because of the roll I usually have it fill on the table.  The real questions you have to ask yourself is, What Do I want?  What do I want the Argus to do in the game?  What is its roll?  This helps you for a base.  You are not going to equip a Fleet Marshals vessel in the same way as a Carrier supporting another tier 1 vessel.

When I run the Argus as my main command vessel it is loaded for defense.  I give it the +1 shield and Deck Crews MAR.  I load up on interceptors and support shuttles.  I give it the torpedo spook MAR and a pair of Spooks to escort her.  In this way my command vessel can attack at range and protect the vessels around it.  A 6 pack of interceptors is pretty nice for protecting your flotilla against torpedo and SRS attacks. As long as one survives you can replenish the token thanks to the deck crews MAR.
If I am on the attack I still give it the spooks as escorts, but I give the carrier +4 wings and the Quick Launch.  I then load up on fighters and bombers.  I usually shunt deploy this set up as the quick launch gives me a few extra inches so I can get early attack runs from my SRS.  Now you have be be careful with the shunt deploy.  As you can only launch one token at a time you will have to choose wisely for your initial strike, both with positioning of the squadron and which target you are hitting with the SRS token.


So the real key to using the carrier successfully is making sure you are clear as to its role in the list.  if its geared for attack it makes no sense to have it sit back and plug away with torpedoes.  You might as well have taken a whole squadron of cruisers. I know its hard sometimes as you need a relatively inexpensive tier one vessel to act as your Fleet Marshal.  A carrier all by itself is a sitting duck though.  I am firm believer that you must have escorts with it.  Those escorts being Spook cruisers.  By the time you figure in theses guys, flights and upgrades you might as well use a Spectre as your tier one vessel.  In very small games you can kinda get away with a lone carrier, but you have to be very sure and very cautious with it.

Carriers have a very niche roll in the game.  They are specialty vessels.  The only ones that can really go toe to toe with other tier one vessels, besides other carriers, are Battle Carriers.  Sadly the Kurak Alliance has a lock down on the good Battle Carriers.  The Ryushi in particular.  Never try and go toe to toe with a battle carrier with a regular carrier.  You are going to have a bad time.

When you build a list with a carrier as your primary tier one vessel, you must build the list around the carrier.  This is kinda like how most modern navies are built.  The U.S. Navy is basically divided up into carrier groups.  You have a large fleet built around the carrier.  It acts as the main HQ as well as the eyes and ears. It also provides the long range striking power in the form of its aircraft.  Fire and movement is the basis of any modern military tactic.  Avoiding detection and striking enemy positions without giving away position is key in navel warfare.  So we want swift ships that can "avoid detection" as it were, when we are building a fleet around a carrier.

We also want to establish a battlespace around the fleet, that is an area where you are confident in your ability to detect, defend, attack and neutralize threats before they can cause harm to the group.  This would generally mean in game terms using ships that can hit hard and avoid getting hit.  It also means operating in a formation and maintaining the formation with the Admiral at its heart.  This means you need room to maneuver.  Open space gives you lots of room.  Avoid giving your opponents cover in the form of debris and asteroid fields.  Get them into open space to fight them.  Running a successful carrier list relies on making sure you engage the enemy fleet on your terms.   No plan survives combat so have some contingencies.  


Well that's my two cents on the Argus and carriers in general.  Next time in "Ships Of The Rense" we get down to our final two vessels.  Up first is the backbone of any RSN fleet.  The usual choice of most Fleet Marshals.  The Spectre Battleship.


Until then, Crush the Alliance and as always....


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!

The Clash At Epsilon Indy: Sunday Tournament Results

This past Sunday at Evolution games The Clash At Epsilon Indy went down.  Spellduckwrong once again was our T.O. and Uber Vanguard. We had 10 players this time around and again we had a decent mix of Kurak Alliance and Zenian League fleets. If you are curious as to how the battle log went and any trends popping up I am pretty sure Spellduckwrong has the full statistical work up over at the Spartan Games Community, or will be putting it up soon if he has not posted it.  I am sure you are a bit curious as to who our top finishers are though.

So this time around the winners were....

1st. Dave Wangen aka "SMD_Vogrin", Directorate
2nd.  Austin  Proux aka "Demomaster", Sorylians
3rd Josh Linde aka "SeerK" , Rense System Navy

That is right I placed this time round.  Booya!  I played Demomaster in round three and it was rough.  We had hold the Waygate for a mission and he had almost maxed out his tier three choices.  I had so many small ships to deal with it was borderline ridiculous.  I ran two different lists, as is customary when tournaments take place in this particular area.  I ran the same list in round one and round three, both times against Sorylians.  I am still confused with why many on the interwebs hate on the Sorylians.  They are a solid faction with a lot of variety and killing power.  In fact, the frigates have earned my number 2 spot in most hated ship in the Kurak Alliance.  Right behind the Hawker light cruiser....I mean Frigate.

Those of you curious about what I ran , here you go.  The tournament, and me thinks our future ones, was 900 points.  you can bring two lists.  Both lists must use the same primary Fleet.  I, of course, ran RSN.

List 1

Spectre Battleship x1
-1 turn
Special Forces
+2AP


Cerberus Heavy Cruisers x3

Cerberus Heavy Cruisers x3

Bulwark Frigates x3

Bulwark Frigates x3

List 2

Banshee Dreadnought x1
-1 turn
+1 shield
Special Forces

Spook Cruisers x3

Spook Cruisers x3

Bulwark Frigates x3

Bulwark Frigates x3


I was trying to go for a balance between number of activation's and fire power.  This can prove difficult for RSN fleets.  Many Kurak Factions outnumber and our gun you .  The real weak points in both lists were the three ship squadrons of Bulwarks.  In groups of three they loose effectiveness for some reason.  I think I may do two minimal squadrons and use the tac card that allows you to combine like ships to make one uni then have a squadron of Works Raptor corvettes to add some scout to the list.

I am finding it is very handy to have scout to redeploy units.  You can use a valuable unit to bait your opponent into bringing his big guns into whatever location you want basically.  The real trick is not to make it to obvious that is what you are doing.

I am also finding it very annoying that Sorylian frigate squadrons can contain 5 frigates and have pack hunter as an option.  This seems a little unnecessary to me.  The dice pool is pretty big and not duplicated by any small ships in the Zenian League that I am aware of.  Makes the Frigate squadrons very deadly to cruiser sized vessels, in fact it makes them kind of deadly to larger vessels as well.

The one game I used the list two in was actually against another RSN player.  It was very informative match though.  I think from now on my spooks will be traveling in packs of 6.  Operating in concert, my two squadrons manged to inflict quite a bit of damage despite my lackluster rolls in the first two turns with the torpedoes.  I hammered a squadron of Cerberus Cruisers with the torpedoes until I reached beam range and then dropped the cloaks and went full bore.  One heavy did manage to survive until the bitter end though.  I always for get what its like to be on the receiving end of a Cerberus squadron.  Spooks on their own are not bad but lack the one two punch when you have just one squadron.  The two squadrons ganging up on one target really was effective, especially once I reached beam range.

I have to say I am never running my big ships without escorts of some kind ever again.  It really never occurred to me how much fire they actually draw.  The Siren is also pretty robust for an escort so that helps.  My big ships took a fair bit of fire being all by themselves.

I am still working with good ways of taking down point defense to really make my torpedo attacks count.  Since there is a lot of cloaking shield equipped ships out there.  I have not been using a lot of SRS craft for the same reason, at least when on the attack.  That will be the experiment for the coming weeks until the next tournament.  Well that does it for my current thoughts post tournament

Next time I will be continuing with the Ships Of The Rense.  The Argus is up as our first Tier 1 vessel.  I also plan on doing an unboxing of Rivet Wars.  Evolution games gave me their demo copy to open up and read up on so Farseer Re-rolls and I can give the game a whirl.  More on that next week.


Until then crush the alliance and as always



REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!

Ships Of The Rense pt 4: Cerberus The Guardian Of Hades

SeerK here after a little break to let people catch their breath. Its been a furious pace the past month in regards to posts. I thought I would continue our coverage of the Rense System Navy. We are almost done. We are now breaking into the big boys. Tier one vessels are the biggest and the most deadly. The Rense Navy, and other Zenian League alliance fleets, have a bridge between tier one and tier two. I speak of course of the heavy cruiser. Specifically I am talking about the Cerberus / Hellhound heavy cruiser.

The Cerberus is quite a beast. Although it has the typical damage and critical rating of a heavy cruiser is packs some above standard weaponry that has a very long range. It can reach out with its kinetic and torpedo weapons to 48 inches. This is pretty impressive. Whats more impressive is what a full squadron can put out in its optimal range band. Range band two is lethal distance for a squadron. 18 dice from its kinetic weapons makes it dangerous for even dreadnoughts to get this close.

As with all RSN vessels you benefit from the Elite Crew MAR. You also have the option of giving the Squadron the Special Forces and Torpedo Spook MARs. Although these later two MAR's are there to allow the Cerberus to mix with Spook squadrons and act as a capital accompaniment for the Spectre Battleship, these make Squadrons rather resistant to boarding actions and makes their torpedoes much more lethal. Although you can also give the squadron Precision Strike, I have not made much use of this particular MAR. I plan on trying it out more in the future though, especially after SMD_Vogrin showed me the potential of it with his Directorate. I found my point defense systems off line way more than they should have been.

The Cerberus is though and can stand toe to toe with larger vessels when you have more than one in a squadron. In a patrol fleet its also a tier one choice. In larger fleets it gets bumped down to a tier two. I like to use the Cerberus as my tier one choice in a patrol fleet, mainly because of the fire power a squadron of 3 brings and how hard it is to kill all three ships. This does put your admiral on a ship that is less resilient than a Spectre Battleship, but for the points, 270 for a squadron of three with no upgrades, you get more firepower and more hull points spread out over three vessels. It is harder to gain battle log for your opponent in this situation.

In larger fleets I always take at least one squadron of Cerberus and send them out to hit priority targets. I will go one to one versus cruiser sized vessels and I will concentrate fire on heavy cruisers and battleships. They are a hunting pack and gain target priority rather quickly. This can be beneficial as this brings ships into lethal range and keeps the heat off of your larger ships. They are ideal for hunting admirals and hitting problem squadrons. I really like using them to pick off Gunships as that class of vessel usually cannot play the range game with the Cerberus. You are able to soften up a Gunship squadron pretty well before you get into optimal range. If do it right you are dealing a killing blow by the time you reach 24 inches away. Using your Bulwarks in support can really enhance your ability to pick off larger targets. I am all about synergy, maybe its from years of playing Eldar.

The Rense Navy is similar. Points wise you tend to be outnumbered against many different fleets and builds. So you have to use your squadrons in support of one another. The Cerberus is a hub of sorts. They are tough and heavy hitting, but must be used in conjunction with your smaller vessels to really get the one two punch. I have noticed that the Rense Navy as a whole lacks a major punch. The larger vessels can deal damage, but you really have to hit targets with more than one squadron. This usually takes the form of a capital ship squadron hitting a target then a frigate squadron finishing it off. Once again an example of the Rense Playing at being a core fleet but really should be mixed with other Zenian League ships to get the one two punch or fill a gap the Rense are lacking for the given scenario.

This is why people should really design their fleet after determining what kind of game you are playing the rule book says to do. This would also be why when doing tournaments we like using a format where you make 2 premade lists that you can use over the course of the tournament. Given the missions before hand you can plan your two fleet lists accordingly.

Well thats all for now. I hope everybody had a good 4^th of July. The Liberation of Omicron Theta went well until our Terran Grand Admiral was summoned by home command IE the Wife. We did manage to make it through 3 turns though. I will go over it some more later. Spellduckwrong may have some musings on games of that size as well. It was a good first try as experiments go.

Next time in “Ships Of The Rense” we will delve into the first of the tier one vessels. The basis of modern American Naval groups and the home to my 89^th Pioneer Bomber Group also know as “The Angry Angels”, The Argus carrier.

Until then crush the Alliance and as always,

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Liberation of Omicron Theta And Other News.

SeerK here to start July off.  As you may or may not have noticed we have added a couple of new writers to
the staff.  Oninotaki Joins us.  Oni is a GW ex pat and rabid war gamer and miniature collector.  He is going to be talking about a bunch of different topics including his own game which is currently in the works.  Everybody should be familiar with the up and coming Melcon VP of Acquisitions SMD_Vogrin.  He is joining us full time to share his wisdom in navigating the ways of the directorate.  He was also a Press Ganger for Privateer press.  So welcome the new additions and I look forward to posts in the future.  I also look forward to some posts from our less heard from authors...wink wink.


In celebration of the 4th this year we are doing something a little different.  Instead of the usual fireworks and adult beverages we are going to throw down this Friday at the FLGS, Evolution Games.  The Omicron Theta system is on the edge of the storm zone and is in need of liberation from the hands of the Terran oppressors.  what better way to celebrate Independence day than to send in a massive battle fleet to liberate the good peoples of Omicron Theta and bring them into the protection of the Federation.

6 players will be deciding the fate of the system this Friday.  Myself, Spellduckwrong and SMD_Vogrin will be bringing our Dindrenzi, Rense System Navy and Directorate forces, respectivley, to battle the Forces of Dreadbeard, Bigmek SkrapKlaw, and AAron, I apoligize I forget his forum handle.  Terrans, Sorylians and Kurak Alliance vessels shall be making an attempt to repel a heaping dose of freedom.

Each Player will be bringing 1600 point grand fleets.  Every player has an admiral with one being the overall force commander and worth extra battle log.  We will be playing on a rather large board as well in a neat configuration that Dreadbeard came up with as we were planning this shindig this past week.  Its going to be an "L" shaped with some special rules that we will talk more about this weekend when the battle report hits the blog.  So stay tuned.

Before Friday I will also be continuing my "Ships Of the Rense" series and starting into the Tier one vessels.  Next up is the bridge between tier two and tier one.  The Cerberus Heavy Cruiser.


Until then crush the Alliance and




REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!