| Brood Brother |
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Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2005 3:40 pm
Posts: 520
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I once played an RT fleet in a BFG campaign, and after much battling and thinking here are my conclusions:
1) What is this fleet about?
The first problem a player intending to play with RT is that their supplement states that a RT cruiser can be selected as part of any other fleet with the exception of a tyranid or necron one (Imperial and Tau fleets can get an RT cruiser for every 1500 points, but trust me, you are going to play small games with RT fleets or get blasted). Then, how can you field a pure RT fleet?
Take a close look at fleet lists: they have restrictions in the way of "you need at least this number of escorts for each capital ship" and the like. But, have they any restriction as "at least ?you must include one ship of this kind in your fleet"? and the answer is, most of the times, NO. So select a fleet, any fleet, the use your points to get only RT ships. May seem dirty and brute, but according to the rules you can do that ?
Now, what race should you select? if you are playing a campaign, you should select a raider fleet, as RT fleets are almost useless in pitched battles. My advice is that you select either corsairs (so that you will be able to use their special rules, and also get some ships from their list which could very well go with a themed RT fleet) or an eldar fleet (so that you will get +1 Ld). As i said, it's dirty, but totally legal.
2) Fleet composition
Now, What should you buy? You need an RT cruiser, obviously. Then you can get up to 6 dedicated escorts, and any number of useless armed transports. Let me analyze your options:
RT cruiser: it's beautiful, it's sleek, it rocks the people who played 40k first edition... but it's useless: you only have batteries, 45 cm range at most, so you have to close to your enemy AFAP. Problem is that your prow is NOT armoured, so your enemy will get hits against you at 5+ against an approaching target. If you have to "Brace for Impact!", you should begin thinking about your next RT cruiser's name. An the best of it all is that this cruiser, as it's the only capital ship on your fleet, is a magnet for enemy shooting. A shame that you must get one...
Xenos Vessel: a waste of points. Unless you are to get the advanced targeting grid (1 out of 6 chances, so very unlikely), they are too expensive for a ship of this type (compare it with iconoclast class chaos escorts... you will blush!)
Recomissioned Vessel: capable of launching a vast amount of torpedoes, cheaper and stronger than their IN equivalent. All in all, your best choice.
Auxiliary Vessel: you could buy this things(3 of them), but most of the time their are not worth the money compared with the recomissioned vessel, so, why should you bother?
Armed transport Vessels: This is your sad workhorse, the only ships you don't have any restrictions for buying them. Unfortunately, they are not really fast, their weaponry is almost useless and it is not clear what you should use them for, aside for giving your opponent something to shoot at. Unfortunately only the most foolish of your opponent will attack them instead of your dedicated escorts or your cruiser. If used for mass attacks their low cost point can male the difference, but then you will have lots of problems with explosion markers from your first lines which will slow down your progress... it can be kind of Agincourt disaster, with your merchants being the french knights. Anyway, you are most probably having to field them just for using up all of your points, so... well, maybe you can use them as a shield against ordnance (because, as you can understand, you don't have anything capable of launching fighters).
So these are my rather desperating conclussions about RT fleets. Very beautiful but mostly useless on their own 
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"It would be most ilogical if i let you kick my ass"
-Spork, son of Spoon son of Fork
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