Elf fleet

[cjbennett22]

I just bought a bare minimum elf fleet, no paint, no sails, no masts from ebay.  1 hawkship, 2 eaglships, 1 dragon ship.

I have masts that should arrive in the mail any day now and can make my own sails and of course glue and paint the models up.  I also have 3 dragon riders that I believe were shipped to me by accident with the chaos fleet a ways back.  So the fleet will end up being a weak bloated 1000 point fleet (too many flyers and a very "strong" wizard), really needs 1 more hawkship squadron.

But what are the tactics to elf fleets?  I learned of a few for the empire and chaos and have since played them out and figured them out a little bit better.  Any body play them still?  most everyone plays empire, chaos, brettonians and orcs from what I see all over.

thanks

[Dave]

Haven't seen the elves played yet. They're fast, and get to move/shoot/move I believe. Like Brets, staying with the wind is key.

[cjbennett22]

how many points would you say is a good nominal fight with this game?  is it 1,000 points?

the chaos fleet is heavy into ramming attacks so the battle turns into a massive junk pile with all the close combat boarding and sinking. 

So I find that a sub 1,000 points is adequate, like the 850 I played with my brother to show him the game.  Maybe with 2 more "shootier" fleets, without chaos, it would be more of a cannon festival.

I have begun bidding on Dwarf ships as well, start piecing that fleet together 

[Dave]

Most of my fleets are around 1050. Chaos is a little more because they have so many ships.

[cjbennett22]

so for my new elf fleet, when I purchase wardancers as a troop type, are they additional to the crew or do they replace the crew.

ex:
hawkships have a crew of 1.  If I buy a wardancer troop for the squadron and I decide to place it on the banner ship, does that ship now have 2 crew or still just 1?

Received my masts in the mail today as well so I can replace all of the broken pennant sticks on the tops of my chaos ships and put their new pennant flags on them that are coordinated with the templates I made up.  I have exactly the right amout of masts left to finish the ships I have in my elf fleet.  Before I make those guys though I need to finish the templates of my Imperial fleets.

It is very difficult when you have to try and remember which template is which ship!  ha

[Dreadaxe]

Q-"Do you get +1 in a boarding for having an Elf Wardancer counter in your crew stack?"

A- As stated in the rulebook, Wardancers don't add to your boarding dice roll, but instead allow you to re-roll it if you think you can roll higher. (White Dwarf 172, Man O' War: Questions and Answers 2 by Andy Jones (April 1994))


Q-"When in a boarding action are Elf Wardancers killed?"

A- The Wardancer counter indicates that some or all of the crew are Wardancers, not that there are Wardancers aboard in a addition to the normal crew. The counter is not removed until all the crew is dead. (White Dwarf 172, Man O' War: Questions and Answers 2 by Andy Jones (April 1994))

[Dave]

Reading closely, I think the warsancers are just an upgrade to the ship. They're not a crew counter, but rather give your ship an ability while it has crew.

[cjbennett22]

That's the way I was leaning.  It's just odd to me that their hawkships only have 1 crew counter, I was hoping that the wardancers could make it two.

And looking at the fleet list, 1000 points gets you just barely over half of the number of ships an equal size chaos or empire fleet gives you.  I will be playtesting them soon, just need to paint them and print out the templates.

[cjbennett22]

Now that I have the elf fleet, and dragon riders on the table.  Can flyer's scuttle a ship?  I have 2 empire ships sitting abandoned on my table right now because the dragon riders have killed off all of the crew.  I want to sink them so they can't just transfer a crew counter to the ship and keep it going but does a dragon know how to set charges and blow the ship up? 

[Dave]

You can only scuttle a ship if you've captured it, and to do that you need your crew on it.

[cjbennett22]

Well dang, I really am trying to find a good use for these flyers but they just seem to be coming up short everywhere.  It's still a huge harassment to kill all of the crew on a ship and making your opponent split up the crew on another ship to keep it going.

I need to figure out when to make a trip out there so we can play a couple games and you can straighten me out  haha

looks like me and the fam might be stuck here in Michigan though.

[cjbennett22]

just found this in the rule book.  I was looking for how many battle honors an abandoned ship pays out and it is considered sunk.  So dragons can pick off a squadron of iron fists easy and still help out with war galleys.  Anything left abandoned gives out it's full battle honors.  Also, interestingly enough, below the water line hits are totaled but nothing about wounds.  So a dragon rider with 4 wounds could take 3 and still not give anything up for battle honors.

Either way I am starting to be just fine with flyers instead of the "they wrecked the game" like everyone seems to feel about them.  Since there is no break point like in warmaster, its all about getting those battle honors in the amount of turns allotted.

fyi, I played a game to playtest the new elves between last night and tonight and even though it looked really dire, the hawkships swung out of the way for the dragon and eagleships to just tear up the line of 6 war galleys and then held on one more turn against the wolfships and the greatship to get the win 17 to 5 battle honors in a 5 turn game.  not a legal fleet though, only 1 dragon rider allowed but I had 2.  killed off all of the crew of the ironfists and killed the gryphons with the dragons as well as 1 wargalley.  in the last turn just moved everything through the remaining empire line of wolfships and a greatship and didn't give up a shot.  Elf ships are allowed to move through wreckage.

[Dreadaxe]

just found this in the rule book.  I was looking for how many battle honors an abandoned ship pays out and it is considered sunk.  So dragons can pick off a squadron of iron fists easy and still help out with war galleys.  Anything left abandoned gives out it's full battle honors. 

Only for play to limit time

Also, interestingly enough, below the water line hits are totaled but nothing about wounds.  So a dragon rider with 4 wounds could take 3 and still not give anything up for battle honors.

Either way I am starting to be just fine with flyers instead of the "they wrecked the game" like everyone seems to feel about them.  Since there is no break point like in warmaster, its all about getting those battle honors in the amount of turns allotted.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzuax690epm8ts1/FAQ%20compilation%20from%20Dart%20Frog%27s%20page.doc

Q- "It says on page 24 of the Man O' War rulebook that a vessel's Battle Honors depend on the number of below the waterline hits it has, yet things like Sea Monsters don't have below the waterline hits. How do you work out Battle Honors for them?"

A- Sea Monsters don't have below the waterline hits, that's true, but they do have their Battle Honor value printed on their templates, as do all other vessels and creatures. (WD2)
The rule about Battle Honors being the same as a ship's below the waterline hits is a simplified version  of  the  real  situation,  and  only  applies  to  the  basic  ships  you  get  with  the  game.
(WD2)(Dartfrog's note: A good rule of thumb to go by is 1 battle honor for every 25 points. This helps in working out battle honors for ships with lot of Man O' War cards as well.)

[cjbennett22]

So other than a time limit or turn limit, how do you end the game?  Who wins?  I guess I never actually even thought of anything else.  I always just rolled a dice to add to six rounds of fighting.  1-2 =7 rounds, 3-4=8 rounds, 5-6 = 9 rounds.

or do you go until an admiral is killed?

and those rules, though they explain a lot, in my instance the greatship has an ironshark at its tail, head and 1 on each side, all in contact.  the greatship could not move at all to pick up santa clause let alone their captain. 

also in those rules, the nurgles rot counters can build during boarding actions but not from the catapults?  I don't understand, there must be something missing in the text. (its about the third page of chaos rules.

[Dreadaxe]

So other than a time limit or turn limit, how do you end the game?

Right.

Who wins?  I guess I never actually even thought of anything else.  I always just rolled a dice to add to six rounds of fighting.  1-2 =7 rounds, 3-4=8 rounds, 5-6 = 9 rounds.

Time limit is little different than turn limit. I don't know if it's the same meaning for the author. I like your system of expense time.

Another idea could be a breaking point to 50% like this scenario
https://sites.google.com/site/mowgerzat2015/scenarios/ronde-2/rupture

or do you go until an admiral is killed?

Warmachine style
Admiral give +5 pts if kill to abordage or captured.

also in those rules, the nurgles rot counters can build during boarding actions but not from the catapults?  I don't understand, there must be something missing in the text. (its about the third page of chaos rules.

?