I have done both warsun barony and Fleet log Barony. I've teched and not teched early and late. Here are my take aways from the faction. You are not only a tech hungry faction, but you are the premiere resource faction. Every time i've done well as Barony I had resource planets in my slice. If you can pair that homesystem with 6 or more resources in a nonhome system you're golden. Now you can build the flagship r2 or even r1 depending on timings. Crucially it usually also means you get to ignore trade, and other factions get to be resource poor usually by virtue of not having as many resources available. This also means that if you were going to get warsuns you can now afford them without turning to others for help. Your Dreads are powerful, but having Warsuns really unlocks alot more firepower within this faction. I dont think people have seen the Barony go warsuns too many times, but NES+Durainum with warsuns just works. Ofcourse they could direct hit it, but there are 4 direct hits in the action card deck and its a very large action card deck. The flagship is king of small scale combat. Being able to sustain and repair every round means they have to send alot of fighters and use dreads of their own to fight this powerful god machine. And the more red tech you have the better this is. Does this always work? No. Sometimes you have Muatt's and Hacans and they bring down individual fleets that can sometimes overpower a barony fleet, but what do these have in common? Usually not destroyer 2. THis is the hidden tech that players often neglect. They shred fighters, and are easily replaced. You should use your resource advantage to build up and take Mekatol rex. You do not care about who takes custodians. You're coming there next and you're bringing much more firepower than they have available, and you're consistently bringing more firepower so long as you have it unlocked and ready to respond. You'll also be able to see usually who on the table is building fleets react accordingly. This is where support for the throne comes in. You either use it as a poison chalice. Offering it up as payment to a greedy player looking for an early victory. "Look i'll take these planets and give you support." Any seasoned player will notice you never said you'd stop at those planets and that you have no incentive not to continue eating into them to help slay them for the table ofcourse. Or you eliminate the biggest threat on the table. You swap supports with the titans player or the Vulraith player. Why do you take mekatol rex? To deny easy mecatol points to the rest of the table. To deny the one taking custodians 6 influence, to stabilize your own influence and best of all. You get to fight there without appering aggressive, but also crucially. It is from Mekatol Rex you potentially have access to all of the control objectives around the table.
Thank you for watching please like and subscribe to the channel if you enjoyed the video. I have more videos like this one in the works. I'm interested to hear your thoughts so please let me know in the comments.
When you did those simulations, there is one thing you missed out on. Both lizix and sol with those 3 dreadnoughts and a flagship can load way more fighters than barony can. Also consider that ex. lizix can't research non-euclidean and they have much less incentive to go for duranium, so they probably (at least i do) go for fighter 2 so the benefit becomes more apparent. Sol will not go for a dread fleet but a carrier fleet with like 20 fighters. AND on top of all that both sol and lizix get neural motivator at the start so they have a much bigger chance to come across a morale boost or direct hit. You cannot compare a factions fighting capability with placing the same fleets against each other. Imagine having a naalu player with a fleet of 3 dreads and a flaghip cuz that would be pretty dumb.
Hey there, i am not that experienced with TI4. Whenever I play a faction, that uses fighters n stuff I find it hard to produce a lot of them bc of production value of the docks. How would an experienced player solve this?
@@timschewe9117 this problem is solved the best during the drafting of your slice. If you plan to play naalu or sol you need to have a system like fria-abyz that being one with 2 planets with both having 2-3 resource value. If you have double dock in a system like that and if you are lucky enough to get a good attachment (getting scan link early is very helpful) it is possible to have a system with 10 production value. That would allow you to produce 2 carriers and 8 fighters in one go. In my opinion that approach is necessary cuz space dock 2 is not worth sacrificing your tech tree unless you are playing saar.
I don't disagree necessarily but the point of the simulations were just to show how potent Barony's abilities can be. Their Armada ability lets them be the player with the bigger fleet in most situations so they could just as easily have destroyers tagging along to counter fighter swarms
First plant space docks on planets with high resource values. Second build two or more fighters each time you produce instead of trying to build them all at once.
While you present a number of reasonable points, I can't say that I agree with you assessment. Here's my contrarian rebuttal as to why Barony still suffers from a number of weaknesses: 1] Instead of a 2C4I start, they have 1.5C3I which limits their early expansion potential. You can take 3 planets with 3 infantry, unless you play Warfare, but then you're spread pretty thin. Barony does NOT have a "top-notch" starting fleet; 2] Your military might is more of a glass cannon in the opening rounds, and the Barony's tolerance for early unit losses is poor. Your experience may differ, but I would be more cautious when up against Argent, Mentak, Sardakk, Titans, etc.; 3] Before those juicy sustain damage-generated TGs start coming your way, you have to unlock the Commander. The easiest/cheapest way is to buy 4 more destroyers, but then your investing in units that have no capacity or the sustain damage ability 😢; 4] Barony's 2 commodities really hurt in an X-1 meta, and your PN may not be as sellable as you think. Your proposed gunboat diplomacy means risking the loss of units you can't afford to sacrifice early on, finding yourself spread too thin and unable to defend adequately and drawing the wrong kind of attention from everyone else at the table because of your early aggression. Your suggested strategic pivot once the Commander is unlocked seems like a plan formed in a vacuum- there are a number of factions that will not meekly yield to your "lightning warfare and rapid dominance" bravado, and the Commander will not be able to fully compensate for when your table shuts you out of Trade; 5] A 6 resource home system is great, but remember you need to pay for expensive units, numerous techs, various spending objectives, etc. The lack of influence impacts your CC economy as well unless you want to use Warfare to redistribute your tokens, but then you won't be unlocking your Commander if your timing is off; 6] Your Commander ability is NOT the equivalent of TG independence, and I laughed when you listed *Centralize Galactic Trade* as an "easily scored objective". Yes, combat will generate some TGs, but you also need to replace lost units, pay for Munitions Reserves, deploy your mechs, research your "crucial techs", etc. I'd be surprised if there's enough left over to achieve a stage 2 spend objective. Also, you make it sound like your opponents are just bending the knee while you're achieving all this glory, which I doubt is really the case; 7] Barony may or may not be "the dreadnought faction" as you claim, but it certainly is a tech-dependent faction. Unless your double-teching early game, your DN2s aren't coming online until R3, and their abilities won't be amplified by the likes of NES, DA or LWD until even later; 8] You are correct that Barony tends to be a late game faction, but with many games lasting only 5 or 6 rounds, that leaves precious little time to execute your scoring objectives. You can always double-score with Imperial, but then you're NOT picking tech, trade or diplomacy to refresh your home 6 resource home system (or better planetary combo). I'm NOT saying that Barony is a bad faction, but apparently my practical experience with them is very different than yours. IMO, they continue to be handicapped by some significant deficits in the post-POK era, and the Commander's ability is not sufficient to generate the kind of consistent wealth you've presented in your video. Happy gaming!🖖
![Barony of Letnev - First rounds for BEGINNERS [Twilight Imperium 4, PoK]](/img/1.gif)
I have done both warsun barony and Fleet log Barony. I've teched and not teched early and late. Here are my take aways from the faction.
You are not only a tech hungry faction, but you are the premiere resource faction. Every time i've done well as Barony I had resource planets in my slice. If you can pair that homesystem with 6 or more resources in a nonhome system you're golden. Now you can build the flagship r2 or even r1 depending on timings. Crucially it usually also means you get to ignore trade, and other factions get to be resource poor usually by virtue of not having as many resources available.
This also means that if you were going to get warsuns you can now afford them without turning to others for help. Your Dreads are powerful, but having Warsuns really unlocks alot more firepower within this faction. I dont think people have seen the Barony go warsuns too many times, but NES+Durainum with warsuns just works. Ofcourse they could direct hit it, but there are 4 direct hits in the action card deck and its a very large action card deck.
The flagship is king of small scale combat. Being able to sustain and repair every round means they have to send alot of fighters and use dreads of their own to fight this powerful god machine. And the more red tech you have the better this is.
Does this always work? No. Sometimes you have Muatt's and Hacans and they bring down individual fleets that can sometimes overpower a barony fleet, but what do these have in common? Usually not destroyer 2. THis is the hidden tech that players often neglect. They shred fighters, and are easily replaced.
You should use your resource advantage to build up and take Mekatol rex. You do not care about who takes custodians. You're coming there next and you're bringing much more firepower than they have available, and you're consistently bringing more firepower so long as you have it unlocked and ready to respond. You'll also be able to see usually who on the table is building fleets react accordingly.
This is where support for the throne comes in. You either use it as a poison chalice. Offering it up as payment to a greedy player looking for an early victory. "Look i'll take these planets and give you support." Any seasoned player will notice you never said you'd stop at those planets and that you have no incentive not to continue eating into them to help slay them for the table ofcourse. Or you eliminate the biggest threat on the table. You swap supports with the titans player or the Vulraith player.
Why do you take mekatol rex? To deny easy mecatol points to the rest of the table. To deny the one taking custodians 6 influence, to stabilize your own influence and best of all. You get to fight there without appering aggressive, but also crucially. It is from Mekatol Rex you potentially have access to all of the control objectives around the table.
Thank you for watching please like and subscribe to the channel if you enjoyed the video. I have more videos like this one in the works. I'm interested to hear your thoughts so please let me know in the comments.
My favorite win I have ever had was with Barony, avoiding a bad initiative order by winning with a final point for an active secret objective.
Their hero coupled with fleet logistics can score those precious action phase secret objectives
Good video 👍
I hope others TI factions will come soon
Thank you. My next video will be on The Winnu
When you did those simulations, there is one thing you missed out on. Both lizix and sol with those 3 dreadnoughts and a flagship can load way more fighters than barony can. Also consider that ex. lizix can't research non-euclidean and they have much less incentive to go for duranium, so they probably (at least i do) go for fighter 2 so the benefit becomes more apparent.
Sol will not go for a dread fleet but a carrier fleet with like 20 fighters.
AND on top of all that both sol and lizix get neural motivator at the start so they have a much bigger chance to come across a morale boost or direct hit.
You cannot compare a factions fighting capability with placing the same fleets against each other.
Imagine having a naalu player with a fleet of 3 dreads and a flaghip cuz that would be pretty dumb.
Hey there, i am not that experienced with TI4. Whenever I play a faction, that uses fighters n stuff I find it hard to produce a lot of them bc of production value of the docks. How would an experienced player solve this?
@@timschewe9117 this problem is solved the best during the drafting of your slice. If you plan to play naalu or sol you need to have a system like fria-abyz that being one with 2 planets with both having 2-3 resource value. If you have double dock in a system like that and if you are lucky enough to get a good attachment (getting scan link early is very helpful) it is possible to have a system with 10 production value. That would allow you to produce 2 carriers and 8 fighters in one go. In my opinion that approach is necessary cuz space dock 2 is not worth sacrificing your tech tree unless you are playing saar.
I don't disagree necessarily but the point of the simulations were just to show how potent Barony's abilities can be. Their Armada ability lets them be the player with the bigger fleet in most situations so they could just as easily have destroyers tagging along to counter fighter swarms
First plant space docks on planets with high resource values. Second build two or more fighters each time you produce instead of trying to build them all at once.
The best space combat faction and best ground combat faction should be two separate categories
While you present a number of reasonable points, I can't say that I agree with you assessment. Here's my contrarian rebuttal as to why Barony still suffers from a number of weaknesses:
1] Instead of a 2C4I start, they have 1.5C3I which limits their early expansion potential. You can take 3 planets with 3 infantry, unless you play Warfare, but then you're spread pretty thin. Barony does NOT have a "top-notch" starting fleet;
2] Your military might is more of a glass cannon in the opening rounds, and the Barony's tolerance for early unit losses is poor. Your experience may differ, but I would be more cautious when up against Argent, Mentak, Sardakk, Titans, etc.;
3] Before those juicy sustain damage-generated TGs start coming your way, you have to unlock the Commander. The easiest/cheapest way is to buy 4 more destroyers, but then your investing in units that have no capacity or the sustain damage ability 😢;
4] Barony's 2 commodities really hurt in an X-1 meta, and your PN may not be as sellable as you think. Your proposed gunboat diplomacy means risking the loss of units you can't afford to sacrifice early on, finding yourself spread too thin and unable to defend adequately and drawing the wrong kind of attention from everyone else at the table because of your early aggression. Your suggested strategic pivot once the Commander is unlocked seems like a plan formed in a vacuum- there are a number of factions that will not meekly yield to your "lightning warfare and rapid dominance" bravado, and the Commander will not be able to fully compensate for when your table shuts you out of Trade;
5] A 6 resource home system is great, but remember you need to pay for expensive units, numerous techs, various spending objectives, etc. The lack of influence impacts your CC economy as well unless you want to use Warfare to redistribute your tokens, but then you won't be unlocking your Commander if your timing is off;
6] Your Commander ability is NOT the equivalent of TG independence, and I laughed when you listed *Centralize Galactic Trade* as an "easily scored objective". Yes, combat will generate some TGs, but you also need to replace lost units, pay for Munitions Reserves, deploy your mechs, research your "crucial techs", etc. I'd be surprised if there's enough left over to achieve a stage 2 spend objective. Also, you make it sound like your opponents are just bending the knee while you're achieving all this glory, which I doubt is really the case;
7] Barony may or may not be "the dreadnought faction" as you claim, but it certainly is a tech-dependent faction. Unless your double-teching early game, your DN2s aren't coming online until R3, and their abilities won't be amplified by the likes of NES, DA or LWD until even later;
8] You are correct that Barony tends to be a late game faction, but with many games lasting only 5 or 6 rounds, that leaves precious little time to execute your scoring objectives. You can always double-score with Imperial, but then you're NOT picking tech, trade or diplomacy to refresh your home 6 resource home system (or better planetary combo).
I'm NOT saying that Barony is a bad faction, but apparently my practical experience with them is very different than yours. IMO, they continue to be handicapped by some significant deficits in the post-POK era, and the Commander's ability is not sufficient to generate the kind of consistent wealth you've presented in your video.
Happy gaming!🖖