So what's the big deal about the Emperor class?

[Gryphon]

More specifically, what can it do that the Mars class doesn't do better?

You basically trade 2 ordnance bays for a Nova Cannon, better turrets that can actually hit stuff at 12k and 72 points (for which you could get a widowmaker for the long range scanning, though I'd just get some extra augur probes instead). Sounds like a much more well rounded long range support platform to me...

Which isn't actualls surprising, since that is a very odd role for a battleship to begin with, as a lot of their point budget goes into tons of shields and HP, making them ideal for brawling.

Battlecruisers otoh, being glass cannons, are much more suited for the role.

So why is everyone going on and on about it? Whats the big deal?

[Ashardalon]

it has 10k detection range up to 12.5k and its a lot thougher then a widowmaker
an experienced chaos or eldar player will try to take out your widowmaker as soon as possible
a emperor is a lot harder to kill then a widowmaker
probes are also easily dodged and beacons have a long reload
it is a decent ship to counter long range fleets, especially with its ability to mwj 12k range
so it can be a good anvil for the hammer folowing up

not sure where you you see everyone going on about it tho
the retribution has been the favored battleship for a long time, and that one does fill the close range brawling role

[�[Dire_Venom]�]

The emporer is also one of the slowest ships in the game, as well as trading the classic Imperial 75 armour prow for a 10km auger array (giving it 50 armour all round which is pretty bad)
It's macro power is quite meh, and imperial ordance bays are nothing special, especially only 4 of them. Any experianced player could easily mitigate all of the bomber runs/damage, making the retribution the far superior choice. You will likely get a lot more damage and use out of the lances than the bombers except vs escorts and the occasional Lc. That being said it does provide good fighter cover, which the imperials have a hard time fielding but it costs a lot of points for that :/
It just gets kited to death and is ignored till everything else is dead. It sucks at ramming (50 armour bow -_-), and even with the 12.5km warp jump it doesn't have the firepower to make it very threatning.
I'm the other hand a power ram from an upgraded Retribution will just about oneshot some ships and it has the speed to make it possible.

To a degree the retribution even has better damage projection, with upgrades you can get 50% accuracy at 15km ranage with lock on for 2/3 rds uptime.

[Emetann]

The emperor shows better potential when you use its assaut fighters rather than bombers. 4x2 assaut actions at 10km range is quite good.
Considering that Imperials can get the imperial assassin, your lighter ships may have trigger mutiny

Of course it has extremly low damage per second for a battleship but its ability to nullify ennemy dps by focusing weaponnery system is a different gameplay you are looking at.

The best point is its detection range equal to its ordonance range. That way there is no way to hide from them by running silent, which is the nightmare of every carrier-type fleet

[Ashardalon]

assasin is teleport only

[Emetann]

I said lighter ships, not ordonance. Im not sure what you understood. I was meaning that assassins strike along with assaut boats are a good sync

[Ashardalon]

while its a great upgrade at 450pts battles
when you can field a BS the battles are too big to get enough advantage out of the 2upgrades and a favor you need to make that usefull
combine that with needing small ships to maximize your assasin strikes
so that leaves your emperor unsupported, LC's cant prevent your emperor from being singled out and destroied leaving you with only LC's
and boarding actions from a BS will not make an assasin sucses more likely
the assasins will make the boardings more likely but by the time they sucseed enough to be worthwile your emperor will be downed so you wont have assault boats
so the combo emperor + assasins is not a viable tactic

[�[Dire_Venom]�]

Since the extra LS was removed from the SM favour that while strategy has been pretty sub-optimal and no longer compedative. It's just too rng and can have little to no effect for the 3 upgrades + favour required.

[Emetann]

I know this is not competitive, but this is fun

Get your tau for eveything else

[�[Dire_Venom]�]

Originally posted by Emetann:

I know this is not competitive, but this is fun

Get your tau for eveything else

Tau certiantly are fun, but if you understand the game you can be very compedative in all factions. Inexperienced players are the ones who struggle the most against tau.
An eldar strike run can easily oneshot half of the ships they can field, an Ork ranged fleet can counter 90% of the ordance and out brawl them at range while fielding more than 50% greater hitpoints.
A good chaos fleet can kite them resonably well, and tau low hitpoints make them horribly vunrable to massed lance fire.
An imperial brawling fleet can negate most of their damage by boosting in prow on to mitigate most of the damage before ripping them apart with AP rounds.
And a good demiurg fleet is a ton of fun to play and field 2-3 times the max dps of the Custodian.