Brakiri Syndicracy: Initial Thoughts.

With my Narn fleet taking a backseat for now, I've been steadily working at getting my Brakiri fleet ready for action. Aesthetically I've always thought they are one of the better looking factions that appears on screen during the series. There wasn't much variety but I've been pleasantly surprised that Agents of Gaming managed to not only  keep  to the design beats of the only ship we see, the Avioki, but expand that to a fleet that is coherent, and has variety in what are obviously several different design lineages.

Mongoose with ACTA on the whole simply re-used the same models, so the ships look the same. Except the Brivoki. that thing is an abomination. What were they thinking when they added it?

Since I will be piloting them in our next campaign, I thought I would share my initial thoughts on the Brakiri fleet and what strengths and weaknesses I can see. It's always useful to do so you can manage your expectations on the tabletop and always a pleasant surprise when you discover something that you initially dismissed as awful is actually a really good pick.

The Brakiri Ship Roster

The core rules give the Brakiri 20 choices when picking their fleet. 19 in the fleet book, and 1 in powers and principalities. There are also a number of unofficial expansions which increase that. The Dilgar War (I couldn't find who the author was), The Wave (Richard Bax) which is for 1st edition but could easily be modified for 2nd and a single ship in Police ships. for a total of 28 choices. I will definitely be able to use the core 20 ships, but, as you should always do with unofficial things, I will be asking permission from opponents to use the others.

How you can run them

There are 4 ways to run Brakiri as presented in the core rulebooks. Firstly you can run the fleet as a totally Brakiri force, which is how I will be doing it. Secondly, you can use them as part of a League Of Non Aligned Worlds, and they are, I would argue, one of the better fleets in the game even if you can only use ships with an in service date up to 2259. You can use them in an Army of Light fleet, but that limits you to using the Avioki only, and finally you can use them in a raider fleet, although the number of ships you can pick is limited.

The Pak'ma'ra also use some Brakiri ships in ACTA, the Ikorta and Halik, but they weapons are different so I wouldn't really count them.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Brakiri have a very average initiative of +0, this isn't the worst but is well below a lot of the other races. expect to lose the initiative a lot, and treat those times you go up against the likes of the Abbai or Pak'ma'ra as a special treat.

The ships have an average speed, being limited to 6 or 8, and half the ships they have available are lumbering. The main defense looks to be above average damage and crew values, with interceptors being limited. Anti fighter is almost ubiquitous, but can be somewhat limited in strength. Brakiri ships also carry a surprising amount of troops, so boarding actions can be an option, and being boarded is by no means the end of a ship.

An Ikorta, A solid Skirmish ship with a frankly ridiculous number of troops

For weapons It's a mixed bag. The Graviton Pulsars are present on all non fighter ships, either as a primary or more commonly a secondary armament. They have a decent 12" range and AP but are single damage only. This falls into the better range for close range weapons. you can outrange some races, such as earth alliance and Narn with them, and most other races you face you will be fairly certain that if they are in range with secondary weapons, you are too.

For primary weapons you are generally limited to 18-20" range. Graviton Beams are excellent. They have double damage, are not bore sighted, have an above average number of shots, but are slow loading. you will have to make these shots count when you take them. Medium Lasers have a slightly better range, are again double damage beam weapons, lack the slow loading trait, but unfortunately are bore sighted. Outside of 20" though, Brakiri long range weapons are VERY limited. The Kaliva has 35" range but thats about it unless you are taking War priority ships where things improve slightly. No long range missiles for the Brakiri I'm afraid.

Not the greatest fighter, but its fast and its what we've got

Brakiri carry their fighters on dedicated carriers. Non carriers do not carry any, which means if you want fighters, you need a carrier. The Falkosi is the best at dog-fighting but is obviously inferior to Starfurys, Sentris and the like, although it is superior to some others. Where it shines is its speed and the ability to support capital ships and act as an interceptor battery. In a pinch it can attack enemy capital ships but is very vulnerable to anti fighter, The Pikatos by contrast is optimized for attacking enemy ships, with a long raged (For fighters) weapon. In the absence of long ranged firepower on capital ships, they at least give the Brakiri the opportunity to speedily attack ships in the back field.

The Riva is unusual, powerfully armed and slow, but since it can't be carried by any carriers i'm not sure about it's utility. I'll try it out and see how well it performs.

The Brakiri do have one unique weapon, the graviton shifter. This is present on 2 ships, the Tashkat, and the Haltana. This frankly amazing weapon allows the Brakiri to turn an opposing ship by up to 45 degrees. While it is an opposed Crew Quality check to do so, it pairs very well with the Shakara and its comms disruptor, this Abbai weapon does no damage, but reduces an enemy ships CQ by 2 until the end of the next turn so you can combo these to move enemy ships so they are running straight towards asteroid belts, ruin their aim with boresight weapons, and as an added bonus, if you hit an enemy ship with more than one, you can do them an automatic d6 damage per shifter past the first.

A final observation. The fleet seems to be somewhat skewed towards the higher priority levels when it comes to capital ships.

What are my top picks?

The Brakiri fleet roster has some very solid options at every priority level except Patrol, where you are limited to fighters only, or buying a skirmish choice, but there are some standout ships for me. Firstly, the Haltana from Powers and Principalities looks like the strongest Brakiri ship for me, tier for tier. Great utility from the graviton shifters, it retains the forward pulsars of the Halik, on which it is based, and best of all, it's a skirmish choice not a raid choice. I think you want to take them as pairs to maximize the damage it can do to a single target, you can get 2 of them for the same cost as you can a single Halik or Haltona. Those are solid options as well. they are reasonably tough, especially for raid level, have good speed and agility, and are well armed. I'm expecting to be fielding all 3 versions of them quite a lot. The Shakara will also go nicely with the Haltana, its comms disruptor making turning enemy ships that much easier.

The Torsha, which i will use as a Brokados. You are going to need carriers in your fleet.

The other standouts for me are the Brokados and Brikorta. they are both carriers and provide much needed fighter support and on top of that they both have a decent, though not outstanding, amount of firepower, especially for carriers. They will pair nicely with a Halik with its frankly ridiculous anti fighter 8 and escort to clear out enemy fighters, and you can get the anti fighter up to 16!

What about the unofficial ships?

The ones that stand out for me are the Kabrik, Rakarta and the Antoph. there are no Patrol level ships in the official fleet list which will make certain missions at that level very difficult. Recon sweep as the attacker at patrol will be practically impossible as the attacker, and almost as difficult as the defender. so having some patrol options will remedy that somewhat.

A very solid Patrol ship

Of the two, the Kabrik is perhaps the best. It is very fragile but has excellent (for Brakiri) speed and agility and hits very hard, and it brings breaching pods to the mix. best of all you get a pair of them. The Rakarta is also an interesting pick being a scout, but it's almost as fragile and less maneuverable. But they are both patrol options which fills in a weakspot in the official list. I would definitely favour the Kabrik.

The Antoph, the best when it comes to looks

The Antoph is also an interesting Raid choice. The canonical pre-cursor to the Avioki it looks awesome, and is roughly analogous to the Haltona. Its a touch slower, a touch tougher, but less well armed with an interesting mix of weapons.

The Iroka is a somewhat more niche choice. It too is a raid ship and the hull description is similar to the Antoph. It brings an excellent ranged punch with a 24 inch range Grav cannon, and fills a similar escort role to the Halik, but is far less resilient with only just over half the damage, which is similar to a lot of skirmish ships.

I will be very interested in how my initial thoughts translate into reality. In the meantime, I have ships to paint.

A painters work is never done

Do you agree or disagree with my initial thoughts? what have I missed? what ships do you think are the best? How do you use them?

Miniature STL's by Tyrel Lohr on Cults3d