How are people dealing with this? Yesterday I played a game and this 1 ship literally stalled the whole board an other three players from moving against nekro. I found this to be extremely difficult to deal with as there was no way it could be done without the help of another teammate as doing so would cripple you. Any advice would be welcome because as it stands we felt the ship was way to good.

Okay, the fact that it stalled the whole board meant that the player used it exactly the way it should be used. It is a defensive stall tool. Here's the thing though...it takes his forces out just as well as yours when it splodes. Dealing with it takes a little bit of planning, but you have to remember that it's a defensive flagship, not really an offensive one.

Scenario 1: Nekro fleet with a flagship.

The flagship is slow as hell and can be in only one place at a time. Make sure you have two fleets. If they've parked it in a system with other ships guarding it, don't go after that system. Go after the other planets that they have. Chances are you'll get more victory points anyways that way. Use light wave deflectors if you have to, or some other way to get your fleet anywhere that thing isn't. Either way, it can still be in only one place at a time. The fact that it can only move one space at a time means that judicious use of flank speed action cards or the warfare strategy can make it impossible for them to catch you if they do decide to chase you with it. Make sure you DON'T research type IV drive so that it doesn't become fast. To limit losses in a scenario where they do catch you, make sure that you split up your fleet, that way if they do decide to charge you with the thing, you only lose half your ships.

Scenario 2: Flagship alone as a blockade.

Send one or two ships against it. It only hits on nines, I've seen two destroyers take the thing out when it was alone. In a price battle you're still going to win. Also remember...you cannot activate the same system twice, BUT you can move through an activated system. Use a fleet of faster ships (Cruisers, destroyers, XRD carriers), again with warfare or flankspeed to go through the space it used to be, and get at the stuff it was guarding. And again, see point 1. You don't have to take the system it's in to score points. Even if they turtle in their homeworld system, a player with JUST that system isn't going to win if all their other planets are gone.

Scenario 3: Flagship with a fleet, and several other nekro fleets.

To be fair, if you've let the nekro get to this position your problem is much bigger than just the flagship. Again, Remember that you can move through systems that have been activated. Make sure you have more than one fleet as well, use one to take it out (not one with your carriers) and the other to take territory. It's a flagship, it's still fairly expensive for them to replace, and again, it can only be in one place at one time.

I thought about all of these scenarios but he had it in a very favorable defensive position and getting around it was extremely difficult. Furthermore, I couldn't think of a realistic way to not leave myself wide open from another player. I defiantly felt I had no answers

Again, I'd say then you had a much bigger problem than just the flagship. If you have neighbors that you're worried about, that's when I'd suggest getting diplomatic. Trade agreements, border exchanges, the last thing you want to happen at the table is to have zero friends. Yes, at the end only one person can win, but especially with militant races such as the nekro, you really want to have an ally to start with, and possibly do whatever you can to prevent them from getting the ball rolling early in the game. Almost all races have a kind of "critical mass" where if you let them get a certain combination of planets and/or forces, they become a serious problem. For the nekro...make sure you don't give them free tech, and don't let them build up massive military fleets that can possibly result in more free tech.

Just curious, what was the general setup? I'm guessing that by favorable defensive position, you mean that he had convenient placement of red systems that prevented easy access to his worlds?

I did play 3 times with the Necro Virus and i noticed im my games that others are not willing to attack them because they don't want to give them a change to get a Free Tech.

while i think if i whould have the Necro against me i whould try to keep them small afterall they are a Virus and spreading them makes them extreamly dangerous

if u are with more players then try to get some agreements that races with lower tech attack them

and there flagship is easy to destroy last game my flagship was destroyed by PDS fire that whas pre battle so it was destroyed without destroying all the other ships in that system, afcourse i was a bit stupid to go in alone with my flagship should have bring in a fighter or some other cheap support .

personaly i have more problems with the Arborec ones they settle on a planet it is really hard to kill them they spread really fast.

First off: The Nekro Flagship is a psychological weapon. And from the sound of it, in your game this worked pretty well. In most games described here.

It slowly, inevitibly crawls towards you and you can't do anything about it, except for accelerating the process by jumping in front of the oncoming train.

But you don't want to, since this ships explosion is even beneficial for it's constructors.

As a Nekro you can als look at this ship as your way to directly research. Anything you like that has already been developed by any race on the board - you just have to get there. Considering it's price, that is an affordable way of research - it still has to get to it's goal after all. A Tech Hunter just needs to be stalled and diverted.

Thus the terror of this ship. Even if you do destroy it with something cheap, you'd rather not want to.

A Nekro Player will probably not fly this ship in a Fleet while there are races present who can exert direct hits on chosen targets.

In a game where Nekro does not get attacked by other players, they have a relatively comfortable reign.

Go where you please, the others won't touch you.

This is why I love Nekro, and one of the reasons why I love giving them to new players.

This race in the game animates players to learn about using their military and being agressive, and that losing one or two ships isn't so bad - you can just rebuild them after all.

The Flagship can be used as a defensive tool - since noone wants to touch it if possible - but I disagree that this is the way it should be used. As I said, it's a constant threat. If it moves, people start wiping the sweat from their foreheads. It's a hunter. And once it sits on someone else's homeworld...

This ship is as offensive as it gets. It's strength grows with the size of the enemy fleet.

It does not add much to the actual fight, but it's the Big Red Button to bring to the party - the one that noone yet knows what it does. (That actually happened when we first played this expansion - the game ended with much laughter - thanks for that FFG )

Trying to starve the Nekro of techs is often tried, but merely cripples those players agreeing to do so.

Of course, Nekro tries to latch onto a High-Tech player, but one thing is constant: They will always stay behind tech-wise. They will never get better than any of you.

And this is why they NEED to attack all of you, else everyone else will run away. Non-agression-pacts with the Nekro are very interesting scenarios in TI3

I don't think this ship is too strong, but it is the most different of all the ships.

Personally, I fear the Arborec-Incubator much more... (and like to play it

Type IV drive does not make the Flagship faster. The technology does not work for Flagships. (Or was there a change to that in a recent FAQ?)

Must have updated...in an earlier version of the FAQ type IV did affect flagships, but clearly not anymore. So no worries then regarding type IV, add it to the list of weapons you can use to outrun the thing.

One other way I've managed to get rid of the thign...deep space cannon. If you keep barrier fleets in the areas that it's going to be approaching, especially if it doesn't have much support, good way of getting it. If you get a direct hit! AC, also good to save if the player is forced to put the hit on the flagship, most I know don't send it with dreads or war suns because of how expensive they are.