Federation Commander

For a Fleet Scale Duel I chose a fed ship I never previously used, the NCA (80 Points). My opponent used the Lyran "running tiger" fast cruiser (80 Points). On turn one we each set a speed of 8 and accelerated periodically untill we reached range 8. We exchanged fire, but I scored a partially overloaded photon hit, knocking out his forward sheild. I took an burn through to my lab, and he took some minor internal damage.

On turn two we did some fancy manuvering, but I made a tragig mistake that allowed him to get to range 2 without my front faing him. I fired phasers through the downed sheild, but he could bring all his weapons to bear and score a lo of internals one me, knocking out a photon .

Turn three was rather simple. I fired my last photon and phasers, he returened the fire but got lame results (I had managed to bring a new sheild to face him). Our ships had about equal damage, and it would have gone on for a while had it not been for his accursed ESG . If only my marine raid had done it's job...

So my question comes, how can feds fight Lyrans? They can't get too close without eating flaming ESG death, they can't do damage at a range.

Is everyone having the same ESG problems and hasen't figured a way around it yet? (Other than Web Casters)

The best advice is probably to stay out at around range 8. You've got better phasers than he does, and range 8 is a good range for photons if you can't get into point-blank range for some reason (as is the case here).

And stay out of his centerline (always good advice against pretty much everyone except the Gorn, where it doesn't matter so much).

That's difficult with fed manuverability, but I'll give it a shot.