At 7 AA you are doing the routine of regular aborts and occasional kills of aircraft. With the gunnery you’ve got a puncher’s chance of a destroyer vital or of hitting a battleship. But you get to do it twice because of Sustained Fire. And you also get your secondaries. So with all of that they’ll want to kill you right away or keep destroyers at a distance. Armor 5 bounces off destroyer and light cruiser guns as well as secondaries, and some heavy cruiser fire. Vital 10 means you won’t vital this with a battleship smaller than Nagato. And if you have to shoot this with your big battleship guns then you’re already at a disadvantage because there must be better targets out there you would like to shoot.
The text of Evade Torpedoes is incorrect, replace with
Evade Torpedoes - Once per game, when an enemy unit would make a Torpedo attack against this unit, you may roll a die. On a 3 or higher, the Torpedo attack automatically misses instead. This unit can't move during the Sea Movement phase the turn after it uses this ability.
The compensation is US cruisers don't have torpedoes. An equivalent IJN cruiser can take you out with one hit. And your second shot has to be a destroyer.
The closest comparison is probably Maya (and Haguro). At 20 pts with mains, 2nd, full LL load, 4/10/3, Flag 1 and AA 7. Plus SA boosts to AA.
Rav always say costing should be compared within the same navy, but based on this I think an argument could be made for a cost of 17 for Minneapolis. But I think LLs make a very significant difference!
Within the US, Quincy is the closest but arguably just a little better than Minneapolis at 16 pts. Certainly equivalent. San Francisco was very popular at 16 points when it came out but AA 6 lets it down. But it is still the "go to" if you really want to buff your chances of winning initiative.
With the Forumini heavy cruisers USS Wichita is my favorite and a close comparison at only 15 pts. With Radar Fire Control it is definitely the "go to" in Darkness. But it is a class of one.
At 17 points we get a comparison to the "light" cruiser Montpelier. Slightly weaker mains, but a bone breaker in every other way including Radar Fire Control and Range 1 AA. (But we know Monte and Haguro were a little overdone. Even so, they exist.)
The US comparisons put Minneapolis at 16 I think.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!
I would be okay with dropping Evade Torpedoes for a cost of 15. I would not be happy about dropping Sustained Fire. That extra shot is the partial offensive equalizer to not having a torpedo attack.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!
There are already torp related SAs avaiable to usn cruisers
Only defensively. What is important here to me is giving it another attack to compensate for not having a torpedo attack. This is a big weakness of US cruisers that makes them almost useless IMO. If USN doctrine was to rely on gunnery, then it is gunnery that should be supported.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!
Yeah, Mont & Quincy should be up to 18. If dropping the torp ability off this, I still see it around SF. I would probably still pick the extra AA over survivor though with FL & SF about equal depending on fleet setup. All depends if a second SA is substituted in for ET or not and how weak or strong that is.
For me it just reinforces that I could not comfortably play this game in depth without re-costing units as needed, it would do MY HEAD IN!
"That's right son, join the navy. Get behind a bloody big gun and knock the hell out of somebody"
"We went out, got our arses kicked, then came back again"