So... how are they doing?

[DSW 41]

So, how are the Russians performing for y'all?

 

I'm having some difficulty with gunnery. It looks like you are required to buy certain units if you want to have impact in the game, and those units aren't gunnery. The meta is a 4 turn game with a force you have to spend 2 turns closing and eating fire just to participate.

 

I don't want that. I don't want to play the "you have to do this every time" fleet.

[Veldrain 376]

Sadly their RB3 firepower is the mortar side of the fleet and yes, it is much easier if you have some of it in your lineup.  Pure gunnery can still work if you are able and willing to throw most of your mediums into advanced deployment. 

[Sebenko 978]

Deffo on the weaker side of the balance see-saw.

More importantly, they're still very dull and one note.

[Soltan 109]

RC since the release of the last ORBAT : One beast and all the rest is expensive, slow and incapable of doing something before being wipe out of the board !

Fortunatly the new PLC are much fun to play with

[Nazduruk_Bugzappa 1,814]

I usually supplement my gunnery fleets with Krichevs, Chanys, etc

This gives something in rb3-4 that isn't a mortar, and can still draw attention from the rest of the fleet,  so they can get into effective range with minimal damage.

[Seph 177]

They aren't doing too good. As in, I haven't won a single game with the Russian Coalition since 2.0 hit the shelves.

I find that my Core force must be 4 Rostov, 3 Chany and a Kostroma if I want to play the game. Without the fore guns, my opponent can deploy however he wants and get a 100% safe first turn. Unless he does a mistake, that's enough for him to build momentum, kill my ships by order of priority and never, ever let go of his advantage. Likewise, the Kostroma is mandatory: the range and speed disavantage is already crippling from a strategic point of view, if I get out-activated too I'm basically never in position to force a bad move out of my opponent.

As for the rest of the list... it's pretty grim. So many entries are basically unplayable due to terrible speed and range. Since 1/ RC armor isn't anything to write home about anymore (Ablative Armor is a Shield Generator on average), 2/ RC gunnery can't take a hit (AD isn't high enough to fight back after a crit or two) and 3/ boarding is a delirious dream at best (this isn't 1.1, every cruiser can board better than the Suvorov now), you're mostly left with long-range glass cannon ships.

That's not the RC I signed up for, so I keep trying to make Tank N' Spank work. And failing, for now. I have fun playing my fleet so it's okay but winning a game would be cool too, once in a while. 

 

Edit: I'll mention though that things are a bit better in Armoured games. The White Army suffers from extremely underpowered Larges but the rest of the ORBAT is pretty nice.

[Veldrain 376]

Do you use advanced deployment?

[Nazduruk_Bugzappa 1,814]

6 hours ago, Seph said:

They aren't doing too good. As in, I haven't won a single game with the Russian Coalition since 2.0 hit the shelves.

I find that my Core force must be 4 Rostov, 3 Chany and a Kostroma if I want to play the game. Without the fore guns, my opponent can deploy however he wants and get a 100% safe first turn. Unless he does a mistake, that's enough for him to build momentum, kill my ships by order of priority and never, ever let go of his advantage. Likewise, the Kostroma is mandatory: the range and speed disavantage is already crippling from a strategic point of view, if I get out-activated too I'm basically never in position to force a bad move out of my opponent.

As for the rest of the list... it's pretty grim. So many entries are basically unplayable due to terrible speed and range. Since 1/ RC armor isn't anything to write home about anymore (Ablative Armor is a Shield Generator on average), 2/ RC gunnery can't take a hit (AD isn't high enough to fight back after a crit or two) and 3/ boarding is a delirious dream at best (this isn't 1.1, every cruiser can board better than the Suvorov now), you're mostly left with long-range glass cannon ships.

That's not the RC I signed up for, so I keep trying to make Tank N' Spank work. And failing, for now. I have fun playing my fleet so it's okay but winning a game would be cool too, once in a while. 

 

Edit: I'll mention though that things are a bit better in Armoured games. The White Army suffers from extremely underpowered Larges but the rest of the ORBAT is pretty nice.

I can see your reasoning. However, my "must haves" are completely different to what you take. I take Rudnitsky repair ships, either as a full squad or as single attachments.

Instead of using the Sturginium Overload to initiate a boarding rush, try it right on the first turn, while most of the fleet is close enough to take advantage of it

[DSW 41]

This really does bum me out. I liked the character and different style of the Russian vessels, but the game rules and the advancement of all the other fleets have rendered them pretty much ineffective. 

If they could operate at RB1 as effectively as half the other fleets out there, and were actually the toughest nuts to crack, I'd feel better about them.

 

 

[kimek 61]

I also feel that RC deserve Close-Quarter Gunnery MAr on their Primary Weapons SO very much. Extra HP also wouldn't hurt... for the overall slow movement. 

[Seph 177]

On ‎25‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 6:24 PM, Veldrain said:

Do you use advanced deployment?

Every time I've used it ended in disaster, I don't really trust it anymore. To be fair, I mostly tried it with surface ships, which are a less than stellar option (they only get sunk faster). Submarines or skyships might have a bit more luck. And the time I tried to advance deploy a Heavy Bunker wasn't too bad.

On ‎25‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 11:33 PM, Nazduruk_Bugzappa said:

I can see your reasoning. However, my "must haves" are completely different to what you take. I take Rudnitsky repair ships, either as a full squad or as single attachments.

Instead of using the Sturginium Overload to initiate a boarding rush, try it right on the first turn, while most of the fleet is close enough to take advantage of it

I never gave the Rudnitsky a chance before, so I tried it when I finally got an open week-end (yesterday). I played one repair ship in attachment with 3 cruisers and two in an independant squadron deployed behind a Borodino. I expected nothing and well... they did just about that. They did show promise though, especially the pair, but the opponent (FSA) kinda countered them with Punitive Gunnery - the cruisers sank way too fast for the repair ship to do anything.

On the other hand, I've tried two ideas which turned out decent. The first was not fielding fighter planes. I tend to use fighters a lot since the surface ships certainly aren't clearing the skies on their own, but that's wasting the awesome RC bombers. Going for four wings (local + Kostroma) of bombers made them pretty much unmanageable. The dive bombers can take a full wing of fighters to the face and win the dogfight with enough planes left to go on an attack run. It doesn't take many wings to keep the other side's planes very busy,

The other idea was fielding a lot of single-ship squadrons. In this case, an Azov and two lone Pesets. It paid out rather nicely: the Pesets are a free turn 1 activation against non-KoB forces (very important IMHO to avoid early casualties), and even a single one can seriously mess up a cruiser. The Azov is a meaningful activation by itself and probably one of my preferred RC entries - tough but no overpaying on armor, good firepower, affordable price.

There's still a lot to improve though. My 1.1 playstyle relied heavily on target saturation and the ORBAT doesn't do that well anymore, especially compared to KoB or PE options. The incoming models (Gun Corvettes, Light Cruisers and Large Submarine) have a good chance of helping though.

[Bratr 175]

So what changes in ORBAT would you like to see? What is your wishlist for next ORBAT update?