Xandathrii Race Guide (R16)

[Stoom]

Just like last round, Xan will be one of the deciding factors in the game and in my opinion they are highly underestimated.
They’re the key to Anti Fi/Fr/Cr and have nice Anti De/Bs ships.
As always this is also their weakest point, their low armour and impossible to build enough anti all.

On to the main fleet, which will be most likely mass Co:

Xan Co (+ Fi)

Fireblade: Co -> De
Arrowhead: Co -> Fi
Dagger Co -> Roids

Phantom: Fi -> Co
Vsharrak: Fi -> Fr


Anti Co (+ Fi):

Harpy: Fi -> Fi
Phoenix: Co -> Co
Pegasus: De -> Co
Spider: Fi -> Fi
Recluse Fr -> Co
Phantom: Fi -> Co
Arrowhead: Co -> Fi
Tzen: Fr-> Co
Interceptor: Fi -> Fi
Cutlass: Fi -> Co
Thief: Co -> Fi
Assassin: Fr -> Co


With a Co fleet you can just about hit any race but Ter (Which will be pretty messy). The biggest disadvantage of going with a Co fleet will be that you’ll need to send Fi along for anti Co/Fr.

Terrans:
As I stated above hitting Terran with a Co fleet is hard, since you’ll need to focus on Phantom/Fireblade/Daggers with a bunch of Arrowheads along against Harpy.
Fireblades will do good against Pegasus in the beginning, but when people focus more and more on De fleet things will turn out to be pretty messy.

Cath:
A Co fleet will be great against Cath. Cath will be rushing for Fr and only have the Recluse against Co, which will be out attacking mostly. A fleet of Arrowheads/Daggers will do good.

Xan:
Hitting Xan with a Co fleet will be ok, Phantoms are lousy ships vs. the Arrowhead, only Tzens can do damage on Co but just I suspect many people will neglect the Fr fleet a bit and not many Tzens will be around. Insert Vsharraks to be safe from Fr defence.


Zik:
Zik will be the beaten race if you ask me, many will go Fi/Co and we all know those are in no way able to steal your Arrowhead-heavy Co fleet. A lot will chose ETA over Fr research so especially in the beginning hardly any Assassins around and ofcourse there’ll be the Vsharrak to tag along with your Co’s.

Then the Frigate fleet. The Xan Frigate fleet is in a way about as strong as last round, only there is a bigger variety of anti Fr available.

Xan Fr

Tzen: Fr -> Co
Ghost: Fr-> Cr
Sabre: Fr-> Roids
(Peacekeeper: De -> Bs)
(Predator: De-> Structures)

Anti Fr:
Gryphon: Co -> Fr
Syren: Cr -> Fr
Beetle: Co -> Fr
Tarantula: Cr -> Fr
Vsharrak: Fi -> Fr
Pirate: Bs -> Fr


As I said before, Xan Frigates are really strong, Tzen’s kill Beetles with ease (which will be neglected by many Cath’s). Only tough nut to crack is the Gryphon with it’s high armour, but with high init/low dmg Co defence won’t be the main problem. Vsharrak is therefore the only viable ship against Frigates, but I wonder if there’ll be enough of those going around.

Ingal Cr/Bs defence is the biggest worry for Xan’s. Syren’s alone aren’t that big of a problem, and most Terran will tag them along on their Bs fleet. Combining them with Tarantula’s however (Faking will help a lot here!) it’s a horror for many.

Defence against Frigates for Zik will be a crime, however they have got the Pirate, which is like the Marauder last round, it will take a while before it is common. I included Peacekeeper as a possibility in your Fr attack fleet, Pk’s take care of the Pirates, whilst your Ghost target Marauders.

Personally I think a Xan Frigate fleet will be great and gives you many options, Cath’s and Zik will be your main targets, but also Terran and Xan is ‘ do-able’. Maybe include some Arrowheads in your Frigate fleet! (Or ofcourse fake Fr with Co).


As for their defense ships, Xan will be again a race to rely on.
Phantom/Arrowheads for anti Zik Fi/Co , Vsharrak’s for Anti Cath/Xan Fr, Fireblade against (mainly Zik) De, Ghost against the mighty Cath Cr fleet and Broadswords for Terran Battleship fleets. That makes 6 ships who can make alliance-ETA!

Ingal Wraiths will be a great asset aswell because of their low init vs Barghest and Buccaneers.

[-Blue Moon-]

gj stoom, well thought out <3

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Stoom

Ingal Wraiths will be a great asset aswell because of their low init vs Barghest and Buccaneers.

Have to say I prefer the idea of keeping some fireblades home instead... You're very unlikely to afford enough wraiths to kill off a whole DE fleet, so I'd stick to the stuff that does more damage: fireblades! Against ziks, they shoot first anyway, against terrans they cause more damage for less cost. Using 400k anti DE against 1m DE in each case:
Fireblade vs ter
Wraith vs ter
Fireblade vs zik
Wraith vs zik

Otherwise, I like the analysis! Xand success may well depend quite a bit on what ziks do. If ziks steal a lot of arrowheads then xands will find it difficult to hit them with FI/CO. If ziks don't build assassins without stolen arrowheads, then there will be little or no need for xands to send vsh on attack meaning that more are available for defence...

We shall see!

[Stoom]

Originally Posted by Gate

Have to say I prefer the idea of keeping some fireblades home instead... You're very unlikely to afford enough wraiths to kill off a whole DE fleet, so I'd stick to the stuff that does more damage: fireblades! Against ziks, they shoot first anyway, against terrans they cause more damage for less cost. Using 400k anti DE against 1m DE in each case:
Fireblade vs ter
Wraith vs ter
Fireblade vs zik
Wraith vs zik

Otherwise, I like the analysis! Xand success may well depend quite a bit on what ziks do. If ziks steal a lot of arrowheads then xands will find it difficult to hit them with FI/CO. If ziks don't build assassins without stolen arrowheads, then there will be little or no need for xands to send vsh on attack meaning that more are available for defence...

We shall see!

I've thought about going for mass Fb's aswell but now you're assuming an entire Terr De attackfleet, and you put half the amount of value in Fireblades. While I agree on Fireblades rock against Zik, it is a bit unrealistic imo, that's a whole lot of Fireblades (or Wraiths) for a Xan! Also it is really depending on the fleetcombo for Terran De. I suspect there will be more Pegs then Barghest, especially in the beginning. So building early wraiths might turn out pretty usefull. (Same for Fireblades if later on Barghest will become more used then Pegs.)

[s7n]

Thanks Stoom, going xan myself been trying to find something like this

[isildurx]

Very nice guide.

My main problem with xan(what made me not choose em or think bout em ) is that they far too often will have parts of their roiding fleet tied up in alliance defence so that too often you might have to get a new target or fake\hope ur target is a noob in order to get through with your fleet.

I was cath last round, and attacking half the round without vipers sucked

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Stoom

that's a whole lot of Fireblades (or Wraiths) for a Xan!

If you're not going to wipe out the enemy, then fireblades are the best choice as wraiths are far less efficient. If you're not going to wipe out the enemy (or close enough), you're guaranteed to take hideous losses in return, so I'd much rather cause 47 dmg:cost than 40 dmg:cost!

eg with less fireblades
eg with less wraith

Building both wraith and fireblade presents another problem; if you don't wipe out the terran, then both pegs and barghests get to return fire. If you could afford to spend a lot on anti DE like in my first reply, your losses would probably be far higher. The 450k value in fireblades kills 350k but loses 290k, if you were to go for both wraiths and fireblades, you'd get something like this.

I suspect there will be more Pegs then Barghest, especially in the beginning. So building early wraiths might turn out pretty usefull. (Same for Fireblades if later on Barghest will become more used then Pegs.)

I still think the problem is going to be that you simply can't build enough wraiths to wipe out terran barghest. Sure, for the first few days, there will probably be a greater expenditure on pegs... but after that, I don't see much of a point. You can scare of xand CO fleets with it, but it's always guaranteed to shoot and nearly kills at a 1:1 ratio; meanwhile the only defship it kills first is the viper which should not play such a huge role and causes crap damage anyway. Logically, barghests should be the most common DE; cath CR can roid an unwary terran so a good # of barghests should be present to prevent this. And then there's the marauder; with so many ziks, the barghest again should be a priority ship!

So I still say ignore the wraith, in my opinion! If you were a huge xand, then a handful could be worth it to prevent annoying suiciders taking out some of your CO each time but that's about all I see.

[Stoom]

Fair enough, you got me convinced!