Reply To: Japanese torpedoes stupidly OP? Discussion welcome.

[Enioch]

The ship selection in the starter set is abysmally bad.

IJN torpedoes are made to kill big ships – anything from a CA (heavy cruiser) upwards. They are very good at that. They are not as good at killing DDs and CLs. Guess what the starting set gives the USN? That’s right – heavy cruisers, that are made to be murdered by IJN torps.

The USN (and any fleet, really) has very clear answers to IJN torpedoes and those are:

– Dive bombers. The IJN DDs have relatively bad AA and 2-3 DBs will typically cripple or outright kill a DD with Devastating damage on a 3+ to hit.

– Light cruisers. Anything with Fast Tracking, Twin-linked or Light gun turrets will neutralize the DDs’ dodge buff at high speed and murder them at relatively long range.

– Cheap destroyers. Find something that costs around 40 or 50 points and swarm the IJN fleet destroyers with cheap shitty hulls. What are they gonna do? Dump their Long Lances to kill a 40-point hull?

-Smoke. Use smoke to break line of sight (you need it to launch torps).

IJN torpedoes have an insanely low skill floor to use, but even the most basic fleet building and tactical play will neuter them something fierce. It’s just sad that the starting set does not give you the necessary tools.