Are cruisers obsolete?

[angelshard]

More terrain helps but it does not solve everything. Three expert spotters turns any terrain from cover to obstacle. And it is not so difficult to but them into the fleet.

 

Three expert spotters is by no means easy to get unless your fleet has a unit with expert. And as an EotBS player I've pretty much given up on IDF. 

 

In my experience cruisers are often ignored in favour of more threatening medium units and can contribute quite a lot to a fight. 

[BuckDharma]

Without getting into case by case cruiser reviews, I do not find cruisers to be, in general terms, obsolete.

 

I find that it is often true to say that cruisers provide an excellent value in the form of a hidden benefit. What benefit you may ask?

 

Because I very often find that cruisers offer a large number of HP for the point cost.

 

Everyone tends to focus on AD pools, AP numbers, etc. In other words, "offense". Many cruisers are also good values in this regard. But the secret value I often find in "regular" cruiser models is the amount of activations required to wipe out the squadron relative to the total point cost.

 

Tribal is a truly wonderful example of this. The Tribal is not a mind-blowingly good AD pool group, but it is still good. The AP are not amazing, but in a pinch 8-12AP can accomplish a lot in the right situation. DR-5 CR-6 isn't overly impressive, but good. Shield-2 also good, but fairly standard. Everything about the squadron screams, "good, but nothing really special".

 

However, the squadron brings you 15HP for 225 points. (So what you may ask, a dread has less HP, but so much higher DR and CR that it is MUCH better!) The thing is though, that those 15 HP come in the form of 3 targets, and that can make all the difference. It takes a couple of crits and an extra hit to kill just one of these things, and the remaining two are still quite useful. You really need to kill two to render the group semi toothless. (A single cruiser can still hunt smalls or damage a medium potentially, plus boarding is mostly neutralized.)

 

The other hidden efficiency for "regular" cruisers is VP ratio. Your opponent generally gets less VP return for killing them compared to the firepower needed to take them out. (In the same way that battle cruisers are more efficient in terms of firepower/point cost, they are also a greater risk in terms of VP to your opponent. Strategic value ensures this.)

 

That is where the value comes in. The squadron is juuuust powerful enough that it will be painful to ignore. If it gets into range band two undamaged, it can toss around a 14AD turret strike, and a 16AD torpedo strike, pretty easily. Further, those weapons are redoubtable/tertiary as the case may be. So you cannot just cripple...you have to kill these ships. A Tribal with just one HP left is still quite dangerous to you.

 

It's those HP that make cruisers, and not just the tribal, far from obsolete in my mind. If you need to pour in 4 crits and 2 hits to render my group "ignorable", it means you had to put out a lot of effort, thus allowing my other elements to act with less focus on them. And it did not cost me a ton of points to absorb your efforts. On the other hand if you ignore my cruisers, I can make you pay for doing so with a number of effective attack options, and generally a good bit of flexibility. (Cruisers often have multiple ways to be useful, more than one offensive system, boarding, etc.)

 

So yes, gunships are great and all, as are battle cruisers. I love them too. They all tend to offer more firepower per point spent on the models. Still, I want my regular line cruisers in my list to punish my enemy for focusing on my gunships/BC's, etc. (And that is before even factoring in smalls, who also probably require some focus, as ignoring them is often a very dangerous course of action.)

[Lifegiver]

Capital cruisers are solid units that disturb the "kill all medium" victory condition for little points. That is why I prefer them over gunships. 

 

Light cruisers are very situational, and the only way to get them to the enemy alive is flanking, because they require little fire to take down, making them good targets to the enemy. True, they hit smalls on 4+, but the other way round smalls are still faster and also good at killing light cruisers. There are good light cruisers like the prussian ones but also below average ones like the EoBS Nakatsu.

[hubaj]

Very interesting thought, BuckDharma. I have not played with my Uhlan very much, but I will consider fielding them a couple of times and find use for them.

[ohm]

They are a solid core in my lists. As mentioned earlier, points efficiency is the key attraction for me here. I <3 my Tribals. Solid, well rounded ship that can perform a variety of roles. 

 

Dao, Georgetown, Uhlan, Gladius are all common sights in my meta, the only exception is CoA player that loves his Fresnels. 

 Dao? Really? Wo-Dao have so much more guns. After new orbats, the Dao are better, but how did you play with Daos before?

[Nicholas]

Before the update our local CF player uses them mainly as boarding ships that are armed with guns. He then retired for a bit and is now looking to come back post-update.

 

I've used his models for some games (check out the CF sub-forum) and the Dao spam is really fun. That 24 AP boarding threat + Long Range Assault commodore doctrine is brutal. 

[BuckDharma]

The Dao is another great example of "standard" cruiser excellence!

The cost is not too high, they have enough gunnery to do damage, and the boarding threat is....impressive. Decent broadsides also.

Sure the Wo Dao has much better AD from gunnery, but the standard Dao takes a lot of damage to bring the squadron down to being mostly ineffective....and at minimal cost in points and VP gain for your opponent.

[CDR_G]

I use the heck out of all my cruisers except for the Suvorov -- that thing really is obsolete.

 

It sounds like your meta is very focused on one thing. Breaking it is situational, but depriving the enemy of activations as efficiently as possible is usually sound. Making them pay for big, expensive deathstars by capturing is often spoken highly of. Without more information I can't provide anything specfic, but if a force is designed to pivot on a fulcrum, either take the fulcrum or render it less useful.

I had bad feelings about the Suvorovs, Then a player put two squadrons deployed forward in the Advance zone. Yeah it got my attention but 21 AP x2 is not something to ignore especially if you have set up elsewhere. I now use Suvorovs fairly often If you focus on them are you ignoring the Khatanga the rush (so to speak) of other RC units. Surprisingly a tactic that has worked well (even with just one Squadron).

[Nicius]

As standard cruisers go, I really like my Dieppes. My Uhlans have had a bit of an issue with magazine explosions in the past, but last game they actually performed pretty good (and I think two of them even survived the game). I find that a unit of Uhlans gives me a lot of flexibility in my fleet lists because its a decent cruiser for a decent price. It gives my opponent a choice; do I shoot the approaching Hussars/Donnerfausts, the charging boarding cruisers, the charging corvettes or do I devote my firepower to the big scary battleships that are following the cruisers.

 

I think both the Tribal (nasty persistent bugger that one) and the Raj Devak are pretty decent cruisers. Devaks put out near gunship firepower at RB3 and are a nasty boarding prospect. They can however be dealt with.

[CDR_G]

Cruisers die. But so do smalls, you just mind less.

Cruisers are the best bang for the buck target wise. so people like to hit them. That said  they can be very dangerous. So dangerous that people focus on them often at the expense of other even more dangerous ships.

I find the Georgetown to be mainstay and good firepower for the PV.

Is there a non-dread ship the would a squadron Gladius cruiser to nip inside 8" of you?

[Sky Captain]

My Uhlans have had a bit of an issue with magazine explosions in the past, but last game they actually performed pretty good (and I think two of them even survived the game

Don't you hate it when those traitors don't pull their weight?

I use mine mainly as oversized Arminius. They rearly survive a battle, but I think that is a testement to the thread they represent.

[Grey Mage]

I like using Sigurds in advance deployment, same for Tanuki, but for very different reasons lol.

[Bratr]

Well I still don´t see why use for example FSA, KoD, CF or especially RC cruiser. For + 10/15 points per ship can Russians and Americans get airship, that has roughly the same fire power, better boarding, better speed and more durability..

But OK maybe it is just my gaming style..

[Lerriano]

I certainly get the impression from the aussie orbat that the kestrel is the cruiser, but only because they don't actually have one.

[desubot]

Well we have tender cruisers that kinda split up the roll of shooting and boarding. love the crocs. has the same power as our only large ship and the boarding threat is really good with auqatic assault.

 

Personally love taking them and the Kestrels. quick, harder to touch as they are in the air, and are relatively fast.

[Lerriano]

Well we have tender cruisers that kinda split up the roll of shooting and boarding. love the crocs. has the same power as our only large ship and the boarding threat is really good with auqatic assault.

 

Personally love taking them and the Kestrels. quick, harder to touch as they are in the air, and are relatively fast.

Yes the 5s to hit shielded medium and the heavy dice to hit tiny subs are a great combo for boarding! And FRICKIN-LASERS are always great fun!