One of the benefits of Gothics is that they do not rely upon perfect positioning to get maximal effect. This allows the IN player to just try to get enemies in all 3 arcs, rather than try to get into a favourable aspect or range. This means you're free to finesse your knife fighter ships more aggressively without worrying about needing to put your Gothic in there too. The Gothic will be able to support from further away, regardless of the target's aspect or armour, or any blast markers placed by your knife fighter. All this also makes it easier to LO with the Gothic. On the issue of weapon batteries, it's true that you need WBs in your fleet. But you don't necessarily need them on all your ships. You can make your fleet all-purpose while still using specialist ships. Such as the Dominator or Emperor for example.
Against Necrons the Gothic can be used, rather devastatingly, in two main ways. Plowing into the enemy fleet so it has enemies on both sides, preferably while locked on, it can then either try to focus fire and force a single ship each side to BFI, or, by taking a leadership test, it can split fire. This last one is great when you want to do damage and your opponent has a whole lot of unbraced targets to choose from. Putting a single lance into a couple of escort squadrons and a couple of cruisers on one side, and a couple of lances into some cruisers and a Cairn on the other really twists a Necron player's panties into a bunch. Particularly if one or more of those ships are near a cripple threshold. The decision to brace or not against such incidental fire can be agonising. The Necron player is left thinking 'on the one hand, he might miss, and if he doesn't miss I might still save, but on the other hand, he's ignoring my main defence (armour) and I don't have any shields to absorb hits'. Typically a Necron player, faced with such a dilemma and being unable to accurately guess _which_ ship(s) will take the hits will decide not to brace. This gives you the maximal chance at causing damage. Then you focus fire your other Gothic into the ships you really want to brace. 😏
Kudos for that last necron remark. :)
One of the benefits of Gothics is that they do not rely upon perfect positioning to get maximal effect. This allows the IN player to just try to get enemies in all 3 arcs, rather than try to get into a favourable aspect or range. This means you're free to finesse your knife fighter ships more aggressively without worrying about needing to put your Gothic in there too. The Gothic will be able to support from further away, regardless of the target's aspect or armour, or any blast markers placed by your knife fighter. All this also makes it easier to LO with the Gothic.
On the issue of weapon batteries, it's true that you need WBs in your fleet. But you don't necessarily need them on all your ships. You can make your fleet all-purpose while still using specialist ships. Such as the Dominator or Emperor for example.
Pretty sure that all of the downvotes are from Space Marine players, maybe a few Orks players as well.
Im just getting started with BFG for the Horus Heresy (to hold me over til GW actually releases the Heresy Version). I appreciate your ship reviews!
Against Necrons the Gothic can be used, rather devastatingly, in two main ways. Plowing into the enemy fleet so it has enemies on both sides, preferably while locked on, it can then either try to focus fire and force a single ship each side to BFI, or, by taking a leadership test, it can split fire.
This last one is great when you want to do damage and your opponent has a whole lot of unbraced targets to choose from. Putting a single lance into a couple of escort squadrons and a couple of cruisers on one side, and a couple of lances into some cruisers and a Cairn on the other really twists a Necron player's panties into a bunch. Particularly if one or more of those ships are near a cripple threshold.
The decision to brace or not against such incidental fire can be agonising. The Necron player is left thinking 'on the one hand, he might miss, and if he doesn't miss I might still save, but on the other hand, he's ignoring my main defence (armour) and I don't have any shields to absorb hits'.
Typically a Necron player, faced with such a dilemma and being unable to accurately guess _which_ ship(s) will take the hits will decide not to brace. This gives you the maximal chance at causing damage. Then you focus fire your other Gothic into the ships you really want to brace. 😏