Federation Commander

Played a couple of duels on Saturday against a Neo Tholian, once in a Fusion/Fighter Hydran ship and once in a Gorn ship. My opponent is experience in SFB and FedCom, but inexperienced with Neo Tholians (as was I with the Gorn).

In the first matchup, I got the better of him (with the Hydran) but it was pretty clearly just through a mistake on his part which I don't expect he'll make again -- in deploying his webs to block my "parent" ship and one stack of fighters, he let another stack of three fighters get to range 3 on him.

In the second matchup, I got in one good punch (again, due to a mistake that he won't make again) but then he was able to fence me off with those darned webs for so long that he repaired every last bit of his internal damage while poking at me with his phasers through the web doing damage in small increments (but that built up over time).

After all of that, I was left wondering... in a 1-on-1 matchup where a NeoTholian was played with no blatant mistakes, how could he be beaten? Those webs block all incoming direct fire, but allow the NT to fire phasers back. They also slow down drones and plasmas enough to make them much less likely to hit and much less significant if they do.

Disclosure: I haven't read the FULL rules in the expansion pack -- I skimmed his copy but was largely trusting his recall. So there may be vulnerabilities there that I missed.

But what ships would make a good counter to them and what strategies would you suggest I try next time.

In the meantime -- I think I'm going to be choosing a Neo-Tholian for my next battle


Scott
Austin, TX

Don't be afraid of going into a cast web. You can fire direct-fire weapons out of a WEB hex with no penalty (5M1e), and you will be through the WEB in pretty short order - depending on your baseline speed and the strength of the WEB.

Most people see a web and think "Oh well, no way I can get through that" and forget you can go through them..albeit slowly.

Nothing more satisfying than to see the look on a Tholians face after he throws up a WEB and then moves up next to it to hit you with phasers thinking he's safe from return fire, only to see you plunge into the WEB and hit him with full overloads at range 1 or 2

texastwister wrote:In the meantime -- I think I'm going to be choosing a Neo-Tholian for my next battle

IMHO - Neo-Tholians are pretty bad ships. They have crappy arcs on thier phaser 1's.

Take a look at the original Tholians with the Web Caster Refits, specifically the Heavy WEB Cruiser with both Web Casters and a WEB. It is an awesome ship against seeking weapons races and has the ability to Cst WEB.

Also consider the DPW. Disruptors, Photons, and WEB Casters.

And As Always, the original Tholians have pretty decent fire arcs on phasers- depending on the ship.

love my DPW
as has been stated just drive into the web, if hes in range to shoot you, you're in range to shoot back. and unless hes put alot of energy into the web especially for blocking 5 hex free standing webs hes not going to have much energy left for weapons.

TJolley wrote:Nothing more satisfying than to see the look on a Tholians face after he throws up a WEB and then moves up next to it to hit you with phasers thinking he's safe from return fire, only to see you plunge into the WEB and hit him with full overloads at range 1 or 2

That actually is one of the mistakes I caught him in. He was under the impression that he could not be fired upon while behind or on a web hex. When I, desperate for an "angle" took some time to review the rules and found that I could fire into the web w/o consequence he was pretty frustrated. But after that, he figured out how to corral me pretty well and repaired his damage over time.

But yeah... guess I was one of those who assumed that flying into the web would be a losing proposition and didn't even really try that tactic.

A problem with (Neo-)Tholians?


Well, there is this race of beings from M81 who have a track record, when it comes to web breaking - and I'm sure they will be along from the Home Galaxy soon enough.


They did say that they had to leave their dreadnoughts at home, though.

Heh, I was the opponent. Never having played neo-tholians in the past I thought it might be a good workout for me to see what could be done. It took a couple games to get into the zone for that weapon. What I have found however is interesting, and Ill point it out here for Scott as well as others:

1. Webfist. This is a great weapon, and accurate at long range.

2. dont fire web expecting to catch people in it. Use it as a firewall and a means of escape after a pass. If you are good at traditional saber dancing techniques, the web makes it easier to keep distance.

3. The other useful tactic is to fire web in front of you and fly throught it. This causes will drasticlly divert or slow down pursuing wepaons and ships.

Lastly the web, like any other device, such as cloaks, disdevs, esgs, etc, has strengths and weaknesses. If you use it right, it can be devestating.

If you use it wrong it can be devastating...to you

DNordeen wrote:If you use it wrong it can be devastating...to you

it was the first game we played