Starter Fleet Guide:Willow
TF Willow
Consisting of three beam destroyers, two sensor corvettes, and three gun corvettes, TF Willow is designed to take and hold objectives.
Difficulty: Hard
Strengths at a Glance
* Powerful distributed light assets * Ability to grant vision across battlespace * Assets are compartmentalised and so can be disposed of to gain control of points * Keystone destroyers to defend points
Limitations at a Glance
* Unable to directly fight an enemy fleet * A certain base skill level and map awareness required * High micro/actions per minute is encouraged
Community Maintainer: XenophonOfAthens
Within the multiplayer skirmish setting of Nebulous Fleet Command, the most common form of game-mode is the Control Point game mode. In this game mode, teams (usually of 4 versus 4) must fight for control over a series of capture points, which allow teams to accumulate points until a set amount, usually 1000[1]. It has become common in this game mode to have players using fleets specialised in providing vision for their teammates and securing and defending capture points. These fleets are known as “Cap fleets” and Task Force Willow is a prime example of an ANS “Cap fleet.”
Sprinter Capping Corvettes: Perverse Axiom, Daggers Drawn, & Synchronous Dysfunction
There are three main elements to Taskforce Willow. Chief among them are the three gun armed Sprinter-class corvettes labelled Gun-1, Gun-2 and Gun-3. These don’t hold enough warheads, or powerful enough missiles to take down a large OSP warship, but they aren’t designed to do that. They are instead designed to get on a point, fence with OSPN Ferryman class shuttles and try to not to die too quickly. These are very expendable and don't even have point defense turrets. When placing them on a capture point at the start of the game, keep their radar's off and rely on other nearby ships for tracks so as to remain safe from ARAD seeking and ARAD validated missiles. Once the initial attacks at the start of the game have passed, you can safely turn the radars back on.
Sprinter ELINT Corvettes: Cloaked Intentions & Golden Iris
The second element are two Pinard equipped corvettes. These are meant to be dispersed assets and are NOT to be sacrificed on capture points at the game's start. Together, they can help the fleet and team provide valuable intel as their ELINT tracks can be triangulated. You may wish to toggle these ships' radars on or off to keep them undetected.
Keystone Beam Destroyers: Beyond Conventional, Word Cadence, & Basal Reflex
The third and final element of Taskforce Willow are the three Beam-armed Keystone class destroyers. As most Nebulous maps have three capture points that need to be controlled to secure a positive ticking score, with cover usually within 6km beam range, each of these destroyers can be deployed to a point after it is taken to deny any attempts to seize it back. The destroyers, while having no other secondary weapons, do have powerful Mk90 'Aurora' PDTs which will snipe out enemy rockets and missiles. Make sure to toggle the Battleshort button when using these Keystones, but keep an eye on the health of the beam and cancel fire orders as soon as the target is confirmed dead.
Overall, every element of Task Force Willow has been built to assist players in capturing points, defending points and getting vision around the battlespace. Despite compromises made to ensure the ease of the fleet for new Nebulous players, it is one of the hardest starter fleets to learn and master. It has many warships to control, requiring a higher amount of actions per minute. The fleet requires map awareness and some knowledge of the game’s scoring system to use to full effectiveness. It also cannot fight enemy heavy fleets head on, and will lose to OSP starters such as Kyanite Squadron, Cobalt Squadron, Garnet Squadron and Zircon Squadron unless they walk into a beam ambush while trying to push one of your capture points. In this way it actually has comparable firepower as TF Ash, but greater survivability, able to sprint multiple beam ambushes instead of one flash in the pan. But fighting head to head is not the intention of the new Task Force Willow. Instead, Willow will decisively deliver victory for the Alliance teams thanks to its supreme ability to provide map vision and control the capture points on a map.
Missiles
SGM-1 Ceremonial Arming Missile
A SGM-100 Balestra Missile with a Wake-Homing Seeker and a size 4 HE Impact warhead. This missile is not intended for offensive usage, or indeed any usage at all during a typical match. Arming missiles exist so that a ship with an arming missile counts as being offensively armed, an important feature in the Control game-mode most multiplayer matches take place within. Thus, firing this missile is not advisable, besides in very niche circumstances.
In Game Description
Consisting of three beam destroyers, two sensor corvettes, and three gun corvettes, TF Willow is designed to take and hold objectives. Cloaked Intentions and Golden Iris can be positioned in open space to provide scouting with their Pinard ESMs, while the other corvettes can be distributed widely to capture objectives and harass enemy light assets with 120mm guns. The Beyond Conventional, Word Cadence, and Basal Reflex provide the heavy firepower: their beam cannons will destroy anything the foe can bring to bear, but only at short range and with the element of surprise. Keep them hidden behind cover near objectives, ready to peek out and deny any capture. Beware, none of your ships can stand up in a frontline fight and are vulnerable to enemy craft. Let your teammates cover your weaknesses and focus on playing the objective.
Example Gameplay
- ↑ 1250 pts on maps with 7 capture points
