Are missiles in Eclipse too powerful? What are the effective counters?

Having played Eclipse a couple of times on iOS, and also in cardboard format last night (for the second time actually); I am starting to think Missiles may be a little too powerful. Basically, if you have dreadnoughts loaded up with computers and missiles (e.g. +4 computers, and 4 plasma missiles, that's 8 dice per dreadnought), they seem unstoppable. Are they though?

Lots of shields and hull points, and a single ion cannon, may well be one possible counter. The game we played last night, Annie had dreadnoughts with lots of shields, that would have driven mine back for sure; hence, I was eager to form an alliance with her. I was also once driven back in an online game, where Aneurin had defensive space-stations.

So, we only played to turn 7 last night, but I'm sure if we carried on, and people made a concerted effort, you could have all taken me down. Perhaps, if weaker players had formed alliances with other weaker players, rather than with stronger players? If I had been attacked on 2 or 3 different fronts? I only had 2 dreadnoughts, they could easily be pinned by a couple of sacrificial intercepters...

Anyhow, there's an interesting strategy guide on BGG. Haven't read it all yet, just the section on counters to missiles, but maybe worth a read...

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1163520/advanced-eclipse-strategy

BGG wrote:Countering Plasma Missiles: the all-out plasma missile build (basically no weaponry but missiles and computers and no hulls) seems broken to beginner players, so everyone needs to know how to counter this type of build. The basic counter is to load up on Improved Hulls and Phase Shields, with one cannon, potentially just the basic cannon, and no computers. The idea is to survive the onslaught of the missiles, then the attacker has no choice but to retreat (if possible) or lose all ships. Some missile builds add a cannon to still have a chance to win the fight if the missiles don’t wipe everything out. Another counter is to pin the missile ships and invade the attacker’s territory. Try to avoid letting the plasma missile player accumulate massive numbers of ships. Better to chip away at their materials, killing a few ships at a time, even at less desirable odds, rather than wait until they have a massive fleet. Missiles are a game changer when they enter play, but they do not break the game. Missiles cannot remove victory points earned through discovery tiles, reputation tiles, or technology (unless you get completely wiped out of the game, which is unlikely).

As I said yesterday - yes Hull and Shields are the counter but the missile guy still has a huge advantage in that the fully loaded missiles can be used to attack and gain extra sectors easily from ancients or other weaker players that don't have the shields - giving more resources to his race and ultimately meaning that losing a ship isn't that costly... he just rebuilds it next round.

The player with extra hull and shields still has an epic fight on his hands against ancients...

to me the only strategy is to all gang up on that one player...

Aneurin wrote:As I said yesterday - yes Hull and Shields are the counter but the missile guy still has a huge advantage in that the fully loaded missiles can be used to attack and gain extra sectors easily from ancients or other weaker players that don't have the shields - giving more resources to his race and ultimately meaning that losing a ship isn't that costly... he just rebuilds it next round.

The player with extra hull and shields still has an epic fight on his hands against ancients...

to me the only strategy is to all gang up on that one player...

Yeah, absolutely agree; it makes no sense for weaker players to be fighting each other, if a stronger player is running rampage with missiles!

Maybe a house rule is needed; e.g.

Missiles cost 2 energy.
Max of 2 missile tiles on dreadnoughts, max of 1 on other ships.
Can only upgrade to missiles on one ship type.
Defender can also use his ships move value as shields (like this idea).
Remove missiles from the game altogether (seems a bit drastic).

Also, I think in the expansion, there are some techs and upgrades and stuff that weakens or counters missiles.

Well then buy the expansions

I've got the expansion but not played it. I could sell it you

Kes wrote:I've got the expansion but not played it. I could sell it you

Thanks Kes, will give you a shout when I'm ready to take the plunge!