Specialist Arms Forum
Battlefleet Gothic => [BFG] Rules Questions => Topic started by: RayB HA on April 09, 2010, 02:45:24 PM
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Hello everyone,
I'm going to collate all post 2007 FAQ and then add this to a newer and eventually official BFG FAQ 2010.
Please help by putting up Fleet Specific rules questions unanswered by the 2007 FAQ or are unclearly resolved in official material.
There are two other topics, one for general rules questions and ordnance questions.
General Rules Questions: http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1352.0 (http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1352.0)
Ordnance Questions: http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1362.0 (http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1362.0)
I will be adding answers to the questions by editing this first post.
If an answer has the term ‘needs HA ruling’ it may change before publication.
Thank you very much for your help,
RayB HA
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Attack Ratings
Imperial: 2
Chaos: 2
Orks: 3
Eldar: 4
Dark Eldar: 4
Craftworld Eldar: 3
Space Marines: 3
Necrons: 4
Tyranids: 3
Tau: 2
Imperial, Chaos and Space Marine Fleets
***The prices for the Emperor and Retribution should be changed in Armada as in the rule book. (Add to existing FAQ statement)
Imperial Power Ram: The Power Ram may be taken by any Imperial capital ship with a 6+ prow unless it has a Nova Cannon. This is for any Imperial fleet list.
Imperial Grand Cruisers contributing to Battleship Requirements: Imperial grand cruisers count as cruiser for the purposes of the three you require to field a battleship.
Apocalypse Class Battleship: Replace the Apocalypse class battleship’s thrusters critical special rule with placing a blast marker in contact with the ship at the end of its movement. Or a ‘Gets Hot’ special rule. (Needs HA Ruling)
Adeptus Mechanicus Leadership Test to Shoot at Drifting Hulks: If this test is failed you may shoot at the closest target or take another leadership test to shoot at a different target, this may be another drifting hulk.
Adeptus Mechanicus Refits: When a 6 is rolled on the leadership table you may pick your refit instead rolling for it randomly, you don’t get an extra one. If an Archmagos is bought for a ship you do not roll on the leadership table for this ship and can therefore not pick your ships random refit if a 6 is rolled, unless it is the same one picked by the Archmagos. The Archmagos’ ship only has two refits.
Adeptus Mechanicus Escorts and Turret Strength: Escorts do not get an additional turret like the capital ships.
Chaos fleet requirements: As Battleships, Grand Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers all have their own requirements you may use the same cruisers for these requirements. E.g. You could have a fleet comprised of 2 Cruisers, 1 Heavy Cruiser(requires 2 Cruisers), 1 Grand Cruiser(requires 3 Cruisers or Heavy Cruisers) and a Battleship (requires 3 Cruisers or Heavy Cruisers).
Multiple Chaos Marks of Slaanesh: If a ship is in range of the affect of multiple marks of Slaanesh it is only affected once. (Needs HA Ruling)
Chaos Murder Class Cruiser Variant: The Murder variants broadsides consist of four weapons batteries and two lances all at 45cm range. These are broadsides and so have port or starboard arcs.
Warp Cannons and Brace For Impact: Warp Cannon do not ignore brace saves!
Chaos Repulsive’s optional third shield: The Chaos Repulsive Grand Cruiser can have a third shield for +15pts but must then have a large flying base.
Chaos Lords as Fleet Commanders: You cannot have a Chaos Lord as your Fleet Commander in the 13th Black Crusade List.
Combining the Chaos Space Marine and Chaos boarding modifiers: Chaos come with a +1 boarding modifier and as the Chaos Space Marine upgrade does not replace this they are combined for a total of a +3 modifier.
Multiple Marks of Chaos on a Single Capital Ship: It is not possible to have multiple Marks of Chaos on a single capital ship in the 13th Black Crusade fleet list. Note: The Chaos Incursion Fleet list in the rulebook allows the Warmaster to have multiple Marks of Chaos.
Abaddon the Despoiler and Chaos Space Marines: If you buy the Chaos Space Marine upgrade for a ship commanded by Abaddon it is further improved.
It’s Leadership of course will remain at 10.
It will have a total +4 boarding modifier (+1 for Chaos, +1 for Abaddon and +2 for Chaos Space Marines).
Teleporter attacks have a +2 modifier, this can be further improved with Terminator Teleport Assault rolling 2D6 and taking the highest.
Other Hit and Run attacks will have the +1 bonus from the Chaos Space Marines.
The ship will also score 2 points in a Planetary Assault scenario.
The ship may take a Mark of Chaos, if a Mark of Khorne is taken the ships boarding value is quadrupled! Note: If a mark of Tzeentch is chosen you will gain no benefit unless Abaddon is killed as you may only use one command re-roll per turn. (Don’t get excited, this needs a HA ruling!!!)
Chaos Daemonships Haunting: When a Daemonship is ‘haunting’ or is spectral it can suffer damage from fire critical hits and may repair critical hits while in the warp. Daemonships may not make repair rolls in the end phase they are deployed.
Daemonships Scattering Off The Table: If a Daemonship scatters off the table when deploying place the Daemonship so that its base is completely on the table on the point of the table edge indicated by the scatter dice.
Daemonships Repairing Above The Crippling Threshold: If Daemonships repair enough hits to uncripple themselves they will still count as crippled for purposes of victory points and for losing leadership in campaigns unless they started the game crippled.
Daemonships Repairing In Campaigns: Daemonships do not automatically regain hits after each battle. They have to be regained either in a game by warp translation or by expending repair points.
Eldar: Corsair, Dark and Craftworld Fleets
Eldar Ordnance and Turrets: All Eldar Ordnance has stealth and can only be hit by turrets n a 6. This includes Vampires, Assault Boats and Orbital Mines.
Eldar Corsairs and Craftworld Eldar as Reserves: (Needs HA ruling)
Solar Sail Arcs: An easy way to determine a ships facing in relation to the sunward edge is to place a bearing compass over the ship and draw the shortest possible line from the ships stem to the sunward edge. The arc this line passes through is the sunward facing, or sunward arc.
Void Stalker point restrictions: In a Corsair fleet list you may only have a Void Stalker in your fleet if your fleet list is worth 1000 points or more. This is very strict, if you are playing a 1000pt game and your fleet list is 995pts or less you cannot field a Void Stalker. (Needs a HA Ruling)
Craftworld Eldar Dragonship weapon typos: The strength of the Dragonships weapons battery option should be 14, the torpedo option should be 8 and the launch bay option should be 4. (Needs HA Ruling)
Eldar Hero points cost: The Eldar Hero should cost 100pts instead of 150pts. (Needs HA Ruling)
Flame of Asuryan fleet restrictions: You require a Hero to field the Flame of Asuryan. The Flame of Asuryan counts as a Dragonship in the Craftworld list and a cruiser in the Corsair list.
Flame of Asuryan’s weapons: The Port and Starboard Pulsar Lances should be labelled Keel. They share a single weapon entry and so will be affected when weapons strength is halved for whatever reason. The launch bays carry Vampire Raiders at no extra cost. (Needs HA Ruling)
***(Dumped) Craftworld Eldar Shadow Hunters: Shadow hunters only have normal weapons batteries or a normal lance. The special rules for shooting ordnance is removed and replaced by strength 3 turrets. Note: roll turrets before holofield saves.
Dark Eldar minimum movement: Dark Eldar do not have a minimum movement requirement. Note: if a ship moves less then 5cm it counts as a defence for shooting purposes.
Dark Eldar Hit & Run Attacks: Dark Eldar receive a +1 to all of their Hit & Run attacks excluding Impaler Assault Modules. Slavetaking may be performed instead of any Hit & Run, including teleporter attacks. Brace saves may be taken against Slavetaking.
Ork Fleets
Ork Warlord Limitations: Ork Warlords maybe purchased for every full 500pts in the fleet including the value of the Warlord. So you may include two Warlords in a fleet worth exactly 1000pts but only one Warlord in a fleet worth 995pts. (Needs HA Ruling)
All Ahead Full and Command Checks: If an Ork command check is failed Ork ships not already on All Ahead Full may not then be put on All Ahead Full.
Fighta-Bommas: Fighta-Bommas are fighters with a speed of 25cm. They may also attack like bombers with D3 attack runs instead of D6. Fighta-Bommas count as having +3 to turret suppression. E.g. If a wave of 4 Fighta-Bommas attacks a cruiser with 2 turrets they will have (D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+ turret suppression(2) attack runs. Note: If each Fighta-Bomma marker attacks individually they will have (D3-2)+ turret suppression(2) attack runs, which is far more offensive.
Fighta-Bommas and turret suppression: When a wave of fighta-bommas attacks a ship you must decide if any of the markers will forgo their attack runs in favour of turret suppression. This is in addition to the inbuilt +3 fighter suppression.
Space Hulk’s Low Orbit Table: Space Hulks do not have a low orbit table! They’re stem sized after all.
Space Hulk on All Ahead Full: Space Hulks can use All Ahead Full but cannot gain extra movement. This will allow them to attempt to ram, but given the size and poor leadership of a Space Hulk it’ll only be viable against defences. (needs HA Ruling)
Necron Fleets
Brace for Impact and Reactive Hull saves: Necrons do not get a 4+ brace save, the Reactive Hull save replaces it and for all intents and purposes is treated as a brace save.
Warp Cannons Ignoring Reactive Hull Saves: Warp cannons ignore reactive hull saves unless the Necron ship is braced.
All Ahead Full: Inertialess drives merely replace the bonus distance travelled, all rules concerning All Ahead Full still apply so weapon strengths are still halved.
Star Pulse Generators and Nightmare field on Lock-on: Neither of these weapons my fire if on lock-on special orders. (Needs HA Ruling)
Tyranid Fleets
Vanguard Fleet List Instinctive Behaviour: You may test for instinctive behaviour for all your squadrons even if a squadron fails. (Needs HA Ruling)
Hiveship fleet list requirement: You must include at least six escorts for each Hiveship in your fleet.
Re-rolling Synaptic Control: You may test for synaptic control over a ship which failed the test the same turn including other Hiveships.
All Ahead Full under Synaptic Control: If a Tyranid ship is put on All Ahead Full special orders while under synaptic control it gains 4D6cm to its movement instead of 2D6cm. (Needs HA Ruling)
Spore Cysts in a Ship’s Stats: Where the number of spore cysts is written as a turret strength they also count as the shield strength as noted in their special rules.
Spore Impacts: Spore impacts only occur at the end of each movement phase. (Needs HA Ruling)
Bio Plasma ignoring holofields and reactive saves: Bio Plasma only ignores shield in a similar fashion to that of ordnance only they cannot be shot by turrets either! Bio Plasma does not ignore holofields or reactive hull saves. (NEEDS HA Ruling)
Feeder Tentacles and Massive Claws during the opponents turn: Feeder Tentacles and Massive Claws may not attack a ship that made contact during the opponents turn. Note: they may board as normal however!
Ship Sizes Relevant to Movement while grabbed by Massive Claws: The sizes for the purposes movement while grabbed are exactly the same as ramming, so from biggest to smallest: Defence>Battleship>Cruiser>Escort. (Needs HA Ruling)
Massive Claws and disengaging: If a ship is grabbed by massive claws it cannot disengage until free of them.
Tyranid Ordnance Limit: The Tyranid attack craft limit is double that of normal fleets. (Needs HA Ruling)
Taking Tyranid Refits: The refits included in ‘Evolution of The Hive Mind’ may only be taken in campaigns unless your opponent agrees.
Multiple Tyranid Refits: A Hiveship can have three ‘different’ refits and may therefore have four reinforced carapaces, two extra spore cysts and another refit. A cruiser could have the three reinforced carapaces (as four would make it a Hiveship unless in a one off game with your opponents permission) and two extra spore cysts.
Accelerated Healing: The two extra repair dice are added after the halving of the dice for having a Blast Marker in contact with a vessel.
***(Dumped) Extra Spore Cysts Refit Cost: Extra Spore Cysts should cost 20pts each instead of 10pts. Note if a cruiser has this refit it must also have a large base. (Needs HA Ruling)
Cruiser Clash Scenario: Instinctive behaviour is all you can do with your cruisers in this scenario. But as this is a somewhat unbalanced scenario I would encourage the use of one Hiveship and three cruisers vs an enemy fleet of four cruisers. Note: The Hiveship would not be accompanied by escort drones.
Tau Fleets
Bor’kan Gravitic Launchers: The Bor’kan Explorer variant’s gravitic launcher fire arc is front.
Tracking Systems and Special Orders: Tracking systems are fully functional under any special order.
Tau Orbitals: Orbitals follow all High Orbit and Satellite defence rules.
Tau Waystations and Niccassar Rigs deployment: Waystations and Rigs are defences that maybe deployed anywhere within the Tau deployment zone. In the case of an Orbit Lost critical hit the only effect is the lose of a hit point unless the waystation or Rig is within the gravity well of a planet or moon.
Leadership of Nicassar Dhows equipped by Rigs: Nicassar Dhows fielded in this way have leadership 8 and the Rig has leadership 7.
Niccassar Dhows used in the Forge World Fleet List: The only way to field Niccassar Dhows is either with a ship with compatible grav hooks or as defences in scenarios that allow them.
Fleets of Demiurg: At time of writing there is no official Demiurg fleet list and no effective way of fielding a Demiurg Mercenary Fleet.
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Things I've seen come up:
Further clarification about ordnance waves vs single markers (overlaping, stacking, etc)
Chaos Lords not counting as Fleet commanders (mainly due to the missing armada pages, but a FAQ clarification would be good).
Repulsive extra shield
I'll add more if I can think of any.
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Ray, shall I mail you the FAQ's you/HA did for Warp Rift? Adding them to a more complete FAQ would be cool.
Craftworld Eldar:
clarification on how the Flame of Asuryan can be taken in a fleet. (eg in relationship to the Hero).
Dark Eldar:
do they have to move minimal half distance or not.
Asteroid fields:
ammend the rules back to the old rulebook.
Ork Fighter Bombers:
Clearer writing of the rules.
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Thanks guys,
I can grab the stuff from Warp Rift, I'll do it soon.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Very, very exciting!
Here are some problematic questions:
Shooting by squadrons: It says on page 38 of the rulebook (page 7 of the Advanced Rules PDF) on the very last line, that ships firing at different target aspects, ranges, etc calculate their firepower individually. This is incredibly misleading, as it sounds as though if there's any ship in the squad that has a modifier to its firepower, every single ship has to calculate firepower on its own and none of them may be combined. Only by careful study of the example on the following page could you become clear on this point.
Shooting at squadrons: the rules on page 38 are clear, but seem very odd when applied to squadrons of capital ships. Can I really not choose to pick out specific ships in this case? Am I allowed to take a cheap gun ship, squadron it with an expensive carrier that makes no sense squadroned, and then say, "haha, I have an 8 hit buffer before you can hit my good ship and there's NOTHING you can do about it"?
When Fighters leave CAP: what happens? Clearly they do not get 'bonus movement' due to moving along with the ship in the move phase, then getting a full move in the ordnance phase. How exactly do they move off the ship, are they placed in contact with the base?
Brace for Impact: can you make saves against hits on shields? This is clearly a 'no' in some sections, but appears to be a 'yes' in other places. Clarification is needed; I would hope that you do get to make the save.
Massing Turrets: Is there any limitation on how many ships can join in? What if I have a cluster of four ships with around one in the center, does it get +4 turrets?
Blast Markers: When placing blast markers on a ship that touches bases with another ship, you can place the Blast Marker so that it touches both. Is there any limitation on this? What if there are three ships all touching each other in a group, can you place the Blast Marker in the center so it touches all three?
Furthermore, note that when escorts in a squadron are massing turrets in a line, all their shields after the first are pretty much negated, because when each ship explodes it leaves a blast marker, which if placed in contact with the next escort down the line leaves it completely vulnerable to hits from the same broadside, or shooting later in the turn. Or is this not legal?
I know Horizon already mentioned this, but I wanted to add about Ork Fightabommas: do they count themselves as fighter support?
Ships on top of one another: this is a big one. There appears to be no convention for what occurs when ships stop on top of one another. It's commonly played as "stop the model, mark the correct position of the ship and keep playing." But is there anything that stops me from starting the game and saying, "Okay, all my ships are starting stacked on top of one another." !?
I'll write more if I think of them. This is too awesome! Let us drink and dance in the streets!
Moox
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Thanks Moox, you're awesome!
Roy, what about asteroids? Leadership and damage allocation within escort squadrons?
What's the question on the Flame of Asuryan?
Vaaish, what's missing from the armada pdf?
I'll be getting the HA to answer some of these questions and look over some of these points. Please be patient.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Ray, the armada pdfs are missing the first 9 pages that detail fleet ratings, reserve ships rules, and clarifies that the chaos lord is not a fleet commander.
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BFI and capital ship squadrons.
can only one ship brace for impact rather than the whole, using its own leadership ofcourse? and thus limit the squadron ability to go on special order next turn but not halve the other ships forced to be on BFI as well.
Attack Crafts.
can you stack if using markers?
or if using epic bases, represent # in wave with # of models on base?
Fighter and turret suppression.
lets have this included publically?
Dark Eldar
Let them have a Battlecruiser size ship? I know models won't be available but players can customize. GW releases rules without models all the time in 40k and FB so why not BFG as well?
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Vaaish,
Oh yes, I remember now that was a throw back from when it was all fragmented. Unfortunately that's in GW's hands, however we could add a brief summary of the missing content.
Fracas,
No single squadron member can go on special orders. ***Unless it was a squadron of 2 and the other member is out of formation... Note: the ship out of formation will only be able to BFI if the rest of its squadron is completely destroyed.
I doubt stacking will make it, but fingers crossed.
You want a public inclusion of fighter support... isn' it allready?
Although frequently asked this FAQ won't add extra content to fleets.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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A summary of the missing info would be fine, though a poke to GW to get it added to the site would also be nice :)
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Fracas,
No single squadron member can go on special orders. ***Unless it was a squadron of 2 and the other member is out of formation... Note: the ship out of formation will only be able to BFI if the rest of its squadron is completely destroyed.
I doubt stacking will make it, but fingers crossed.
You want a public inclusion of fighter support... isn' it allready?
Although frequently asked this FAQ won't add extra content to fleets.
Cheers,
RayB HA
too bad about BFI
crossing fingers for stacking
fighter turret suppression is not in any official documents as far as i know
too bad about not adding anything new :)
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Roy, what about asteroids? Leadership and damage allocation within escort squadrons?
What's the question on the Flame of Asuryan?
Asteroids: in the current rulebook the the leadership test for AAF has been removed (3d6 instead of 2d6) and something else.
On the Flame of Asuryan. Read both Doom of the Eldar and Yriels Raiders. There is no option to take the Flame of Asuryan.
A ruling by Bob has been that when a Hero is taken the Flame of Asuryan may be taken. The Flame then belongs to the parent fleet in terms of determing reserves.
But that was in the forum and never put in a document.
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Chaos Space Marines and Boarding: Does a CSM boarding bonus stack on the Chaos +1 bonus for a total of a +3 modifier?
Blastmarkers and Base-to-Base Ships: I think this was ruled on already, but it is very muddy...if a ship has a Blast Mark in base contact then that blast marker effects all other ships that are base contact with the ship that has the blast marker? whew!
Reference: http://www.portmaw.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?28896 (http://www.portmaw.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?28896)
Resilient AC vs Waves (at least I need an official clarification): If a T-hawk touches a wave of 4 fighters, it removes one, passes it's +4 check, but is it now considered to have "come into contact with another ordnance marker" since there are 3 more fighters in the wave? Or is the wave treated as a single incident and the T-Hawk stays in play? If it is considered a second incident then does the Thunderhawk remove a second marker prior to being removed from the table?
Also, it is stated that Thunderhawks (possibly all resilient craft) can only remove one enemy marker during a given ordnance phase, so if a T-hawk intercepts a fighter, saves and then the opposing player moves a fighter to intercept the the T-hawk in that same phase, does the fighter stay and T-hawk removed?!
Source of question: Armada pg21 (Imperial Fleet PDF pg11) 2nd to last paragraph in right colum: "Thunderhawks can only remove one enemy marker in any given ordnance phase...if a thunderhawk marker uses its save to remain in play and come into contact with another ordnance marker in the same ordnance phase, it is removed normally".
Fighters on CAP...wait ship exploded: How do you treat fighters on CAP when the ship they were in base contact with just exploded? Are they still a squadron for the purpose of test against the BM generated and the potential lance shots from warp drive explosion or are they treated individually? Or do they go down with the ship?
Fire Criticals: The damage also stacks with fire criticals? i.e. if I have 3 fire criticals at the end of a turn I take 3 damage?
Russ
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You want a public inclusion of fighter support... isn' it allready?
Unfortunately it's a part of the missing 9 pages that Vaaish referred to. So getting GW to post those pages would be gold.
Russ
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Russ c,
Thanks for your questions.
There is no mention of fighter suppresion in Armada that that I can find.... it was in the 2002 annual though.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Can you clarify the Orks Fighta Bomma rules. It really is confusing. If you keep the wording but can you insert an example on how it should be done like in the BBB for bombers?
I remember there was an answer given on turning waves AC or a long line of torps (for those which can turn) which have moved up to their max distance. The answer was something like you pivot from the center or something. Maybe that can be cleaned up and added?
I'll try to remember other questions.
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
An example of Fighta-Bommas will be added, after I try to put forward better rules for them. ;)
I've put in a description of how to turn torp salvoes, I'll clean this up.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Roy, what about asteroids? Leadership and damage allocation within escort squadrons?
What's the question on the Flame of Asuryan?
Asteroids: in the current rulebook the the leadership test for AAF has been removed (3d6 instead of 2d6) and something else.
On the Flame of Asuryan. Read both Doom of the Eldar and Yriels Raiders. There is no option to take the Flame of Asuryan.
A ruling by Bob has been that when a Hero is taken the Flame of Asuryan may be taken. The Flame then belongs to the parent fleet in terms of determing reserves.
But that was in the forum and never put in a document.
Sorry to stir on this one, but could it please be reviewed again rather then using a previous non-FAQ ruling? The Hero rules does not state that the ship automatically becomes one fleet or the other nor does it state that it is required for the FoA to be taken. On top of this the ship is designed identical to that of the Craftworld Eldar and the Yriel's Raiders PDF is clearly written from the viewpoint of a Craftworld Eldar (it even has a picture of the Craftworld Eldar Fleet on the first page).
Officially ruling that the FoA is required to take a hero permanently makes the ship's cost 470pts. Ruling that the ship is CWE means Corsair still have access to it at 470, but CWE would have an additional ship choice of a matching ship in their fleet (3 options currently) without this massive added cost.
Thank you for taking these points into consideration.
On a separate note, could we have a clarification on the "Up to one turn" label on the reload ordinance markers? Our local group couldn't find any reference to this in to the rules and to the contrary the reload ordinance states that it does not hinder maneuverability.
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Russ c,
Thanks for your questions.
There is no mention of fighter suppresion in Armada that that I can find.... it was in the 2002 annual though.
Cheers,
RayB HA
Darn, your right. Wow, so BMs touching one ship don't affect other ships in base contact if the BM isn't touching them as well!? This is certainly opposite to how most people over at Port Maw instruct. It helps escort squads be more survivable when sticking together for mass turrets, but I kind of liked that it was a balancing negative to the positive you get for being in base-to-base.
Thanks for recognizing and addressing my questions. I'll see if I dig up anymore that felt significant during my time at Port Maw.
Russ
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Well, I guess that this event is finally one significant enough to join this board for. Here are
some things that I have been wondering about. Well, it turned out that some became quite a lot of things, and as far as I know, none of them have a real answer so far (although that might also be because nobody really cares about most of these things.) Hopefully you will find something useful within this list.
Boarding Torpedoes
1) Must boarding torpedoes still roll to Hit as normal, or will they immediately make Hit & Run attacks. The text under Boarding Torpedoes mentioned no attack roll, but it seems a lot of people are still in favour of doing so.
2) Are they still removed if they collide with a normal Torpedo Marker? What about another set of Boarding Torpedoes?
Boarding
1) Is the Turret value of the Defender part of its Boarding Value or merely a static 'bonus'? This becomes important when a vessel has a rule which doubles its Boarding Value, begging the question if the Turret value is doubled as well.
Tyranids
1) As mentioned on Port Maw, is the normal value for AAF orders still +4d6?
2) Synaptic Control states that every Hive Ship may attempt to override Instinctive Behaviour separately. Can one Hive Ship attempt to control a Cruiser or Escort Squadron another Hive Ship failed to control, effectively meaning a Tyranid Fleet has a number of re-rolls equal to its amount of Hive Ships minus one each turn?
3) Can Hive Ships attempt to control other Hive Ships? (I suppose there is nothing in the rules preventing them from doing so, but it just seems a bit odd.)
4) Blast Markers when Boarding. Could the FAQ entry be reworded somewhat to match the intent? If the Tyranids gain the +1 bonus whilst the other side gains not, it is the other side that ignores the Blast Marker, not the Tyranids.
5) Do Feeder Tentacles and/or Massive Claws function if an enemy vessel collides with the Tyranid one instead of the other way around?
6) The same for Spore Clouds. Is a Blast Marker placed/point of damage inflicted when an enemy moves over a Tyranid vessel?
7) What are the different sizes used when determining if a ship grabbed or grabbing with Massive Claws can still move? Are they the same as the four categories for boarding or something else?
8) Is the Ordnance Limit for Tyranids doubled or waved entirely? The 2007 FAQ lists both versions which has sparked some serious debates.
9) Is a Hive Ship's Torpedo option supposed to be Strength 6? This is more than double the cost of the Strength 4 Salvo available to the Cruisers.
10) In the Vanguard Fleet, what happens if a squadron fails its Leadership Test? Are the others prohibited from attempting to override Instinctive Behaviour as with normal fleets?
11) The Hive Fleet states that you 'may include between 6 and 12 escort class ships for each hive ship.' Does this mean that not including Escorts is also an option, or is including at least six escorts per Hive Ship mandatory?
12) Could you give a statement saying that the Evolutions of the Hive Mind can or cannot be used outside of campaigns? Without them, most of the fleet is pitifully weak, but with them, you risk having the 14 Hit, 6 Spore Hive Ships as a common sight...
13) Are the two dice from Accelerated Healing added before or after the halving of the dice for having a Blast Marker in contact with a vessel?
14) Mega-Spore Mines state they are not intended for Escorts, but it appears that only Hive Ships will be capable of actually using them. Is this supposed to be the case, or should Cruisers also be capable of acquiring them somehow? (I'm mainly asking this as 'normal' Orbital Mines specifically prohibit their usage on Battleships, so limiting Mega Spore Mines to battleships seems odd.)
15) Does a vessel with Mega-Spore Mines lose the ability to launch normal ordnance in turns it does not use the Mines? The description seems to imply this.
16) In a Cruiser Clash, are the Tyranid Cruisers prohibited from doing anything other than following Instinctive Behaviour as they do not have a Hive Ship to guide them?
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clarification of reserves rules?
like can DE take Craftworld or Corsairs as reserves?
IN taking chaos ships. etc
also, does admech count as imperial or a separate "race"
and what is admech attack ratings?
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Hi Russ, Ray,
the page Russ is refering to:
http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=124.0
downloadable in that thread/post.
I think it is edited.
cheers,
keep it up Ray.
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Questions:
*) Eldar sunward arc.
I know everyone uses the pependicular line technique but could this be taken in the FAQ.
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@ Commx
A number of your questions where answered in a Q&A on Tyranids with the HA in issue #18 of Warp Rift. But, as Horizon said. It should be collated with all other warp rift HAs and compiled into the new 2010 FAQ.
Oh Ray, can you make the 2010 FAQ include the 2007 FAQ text so there is only one FAQ to source?
Thanks again for taking action on this!
Russ
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Blue Dagger,
The Flame of Asuryan is a character ship, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to have to place a fleet commander on board. Keep in mind the Flame of Asuryan was used in a pirate fleet for some time, it’s not out of place in either list.
However, there should be a GC for CWE using the Flame of Asuryan model. This wouldn’t be a character ship and would be customisable, just like Dragon ships.
Reload doesn’t affect movement in anyway. How can this be misinterpreted?
Russ c,
Yes, blast markers only take down the shields when they are literally in contact with a ships base. Note: when ships are in base contact and are shot at the shooting player gets to place the BM, that’s the negative. So the BM will take down at least 2 shields (unless the shooting player doesn’t wish to do this for some reason).
When this FAQ is finished it will be combined with the 2007 FAQ. Don’t worry there will only ever be one official FAQ!
Commx,
Thanks for your questions.
The Nid blast marker boarding issue was resolved in the 2007 FAQ.
The hive ships torpedo option is as written in armada, however the entire nid list needs to be reworked.
Mega spore mines may only be used by the Hiveships. In earlier versions cruisers and escorts also had the option of launch bays, but this was abandoned in favour of making the Hiveships bio factories. Yeah, the mine launchers replace the launch bays as it says under their description.
Fracas,
I’ve listed the races for reserves. So Eldar, CWE and DE are all separate. In the admech rules it states that they are an IN list.
Cheers,
RayB
HA
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Blue Dagger,
The Flame of Asuryan is a character ship, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to have to place a fleet commander on board. Keep in mind the Flame of Asuryan was used in a pirate fleet for some time, it’s not out of place in either list.
However, there should be a GC for CWE using the Flame of Asuryan model. This wouldn’t be a character ship and would be customisable, just like Dragon ships.
Reload doesn’t affect movement in anyway. How can this be misinterpreted?
Understandable, if it's an official ruling then I will play as such. Just hate being forced to waste an additional 50pts that could go to better upgrades.
On the reload markers provided it states that you can make "Up to one turn", but there is nothing about that limitation in the rules. Some may interpret this as Eldar players must chose to make one turn in the Movement phase or one turn in the Ordinance phase, since the marker states you may only make up to one turn.
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Hi Roy,
Thanks for the link.
What is this method of finding the correct Eldar speed band? I just put a compass over the ship and then draw the shortest possible line from the stem to the sunward edge.
BlueDagger,
Right, I'll add a note about reload.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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clarification of reserves rules?
like can DE take Craftworld or Corsairs as reserves?
IN taking chaos ships. etc
also, does admech count as imperial or a separate "race"
and what is admech attack ratings?
No, because DE and Eldar are considered a different race for the game purpose, much like IN and SM are a different race.
Ray, not really a rules question but with the Nid rules on taking multiples of the same evolution upgrade on only one slot, I really think the upgrades are too cheap. Cheap enough that you can have a ship with maxed out 6 shields and higher damage points comparing it to a ship of another race. I really think the points should go up a bit.
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
An example of Fighta-Bommas will be added, after I try to put forward better rules for them. ;)
I've put in a description of how to turn torp salvoes, I'll clean this up.
Cheers,
RayB HA
Thanks.
The torp turning is simple enough. What about a wave of AC? Say 6-8 markers? What if they have reached the maximum distance they can move, say 20 cm? In theory, a single marker can pivot, simple enough. But if a wave does it, there is a problem of the outer edge getting a speed boost when it pivots. If it manages to brush a target's base then the wave attacks.
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What is this method of finding the correct Eldar speed band? I just put a compass over the ship and then draw the shortest possible line from the stem to the sunward edge.
That is the method. :)
But the rules are more confusing.
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The Nid blast marker boarding issue was resolved in the 2007 FAQ.
Actually, that was the text I was referring to. I feel it is rather unintuitive, but that could just be me I suppose.
Now, in response to the other answers:
1) If Escort Drones are now mandatory, could they be allowed - or even required - to be squadroned with the Hive Ship they are supposed to be, well, escorting? That way they could actually play Meatshield as you (the HA, not the individual) claim it was intended. (I realize it is not an actual question, but I feel it warrants asking as mandatory escorts is quite a big thing too.)
2) If Escort Drones become mandatory, the suggested "Hive Ship + Three Cruisers" suggested for Cruiser Clash would actually be an illegal list.
One minor Tau question
1) Tracking Systems specifically mention that BFI does not affect them. Does this mean other Special Orders do?
Necrons
1) Could you give us a definite list of what the Reactive Hull can save against? Even a simple statement it functions exactly as a BFI save would do.
2) In the Fleet List, the Sepulchre states: "A single tombship may be upgraded to carry a Sepulchre. Note that there is no requirement for a Necron fleet to include a Sepulchre and it is actually quite normal for them to consist of Scythes supported by Jackals." What exactly does this mean as you supposedly require a Tombship to put it on to begin with? Or were Scythe's supposed to be able to have it as well?
Blast Markers
1) Do Defences count as ships for the purposes of Blast Marker Removal? I suppose not as this would make it impossible to re-raise their Shields due to their inability to move away. I know the Ramilies specifically states an additional d6 Blast Markers are removed from itself each End Phase, but I cannot find such a rule for 'lesser' Defences.
Thanks for the responses so far!
X
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Hi Commx,
in the rulebook, under planetary defences, don't know exact location it is stated that you roll a seperate d6 for blastmarker removal on defences.
cheers,
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Hi Commx,
in the rulebook, under planetary defences, don't know exact location it is stated that you roll a seperate d6 for blastmarker removal on defences.
cheers,
Yeah, I was certain that I had seen a rule like that somewhere, but when looking over the list of Planetary Defences, I couldn't find it any more. It turns out to be under the general rules for Planetary Defences on page 36. Who would have expected them to be in the obvious place...
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Horizon's post on Tauonline led me to a look over here, but some of the rulings surprised me enough to join up and start questioning. ;D
So to start it off.
Blast Markers and multiple bases: When a ship has multiple bases in contact and its shield goes down, the blast marker may be placed anywhere on this ships base potentially taking down other ships shields up to a maximum of three in total. (Needs a HA Ruling)
My main contention with this is the next bit that was ruled on, there's no reason to limit the negatives when the positives are found in equal measure. Shield amounts should go down by the maximum possible if the players are deciding to fit in the maximum possible massed turrets. Why should the penalty stop at three when the turrets can go far beyond this?
Massed Turret Limitations: There are no limitations to the number of ships you can benefit from when calculating massed turrets. This is particularly effective for Necron escorts where you can ‘stack’ an escort squadron, giving a six strong escort squadron 6 massed turrets! Note: bomber attack runs are only affected by the ships actual turrets strength.
Ork Fleets
Fighta-Bommas: Fighta-Bommas are fighters with a speed of 25cm. They may also attack like bombers with D3 attack runs instead of D6. Fighta-Bommas count as having +3 to turret suppression. E.g. If a wave of 4 Fighta-Bommas attacks a cruiser with 2 turrets they will have (D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+ turret suppression(2x4).
Fighta-Bommas and fighta support: When a wave of fighta-bommas attacks a ship you must decide if any of the markers will forgoing their attack runs in favour of giving fighter support. (Needs a HA Ruling)
This one is odd to me.
The first and second part aren't particularly fair, so if your going to be "fixing" things, I'd start there. A fighter suppression of three is ridiculous. Fluff aside, the game mechanics of the Orks just do not justify being three times the fighter of other navies.
Why not use simple(r) errata? I've seen it suggested before that every Ork Fighta-bomma has/contributes +1 to the overall fighter suppression total. Larger wings are still very deadly, but you don't have silly cases like 2 bringing down all the turrets of a ship when Imperial/Eldar/Tau/etc. need many times the number to do so, but still retain a nice level of lethality all around. This, in totality, makes the Ork FB very much inline with the rest of the fleets in the games versions or fighters/bombers. You may only have a D3 bombs, but the added ability of the suppression, the numbers you can throw out (twice the normal limits of launch bays), more than make up for some partial speed loss.
Much more fair all around, which is something I'd like to see continue to happen in BFG (fairness being one of the bigger draws of the game compared to GW's normal stock).
(The suggestion originally found here actually. http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=699.0 )
Necron Fleets
Brace for Impact and Reactive Hull saves: Necrons do not get a 4+ Brace save, the Reactive Hull save replaces it.
About time it was officially addressed. This one has been no small personal headache of mine. :P
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
I’m not going to re jig any points values in this FAQ that aren’t mistakes. (The Nid list really does need to be completely reworked, especially with the new background material hitting the shelves).
Commx,
On the previous FAQ and boarding with BM’s: there are 2 points that cover this, are you missing one?
Escorts can’t be squadroned with capital ships! If this were the case in the Nid list it would definitely be mentioned!
The Sepulchre could be taken by Scythes in an earlier version of the rules. I don’t think this needs mentioning in the FAQ though.
Defences do remove BM’s, d6 at the end of each player turn, as described in the rule book on page 36. Actually whether or not its in both player turns is something I’ve seen come up before.
Enderwiggin,
The maximum of 3 shields taken down by a single BM is in the previous FAQ, however I disagree with it for the reasons you’ve mentioned, hence the ‘Needs a HA Ruling’.
Ork FB’s are way too good with +3 turret suppression IMO. In fact I’ve been pushing the idea of +1 fighter suppression well before the 2007 FAQ. I hope this will change.
I ‘was’ on the side of allowing FB’s to make their turret suppression attack even if destroyed, a kind of kamikaze attack. However I don’t mind losing that.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Commx,
Escorts can’t be squadroned with capital ships! If this were the case in the Nid list it would definitely be mentioned!
RayB HA
I know that they can't do that currently. But since you already changed the 'may' into a 'must', meaning at least 90 points of Escort Drones are required per Hive Ship, I was just wondering if you could make it so instead. ;)
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I wasn't aware the "needs a HA ruling" was being utilized in such a way. I thought the written stuff in the first post would be how it appeared in the errata/Faq and not just subjects being brought up.
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Enderwiggin,
Good point, the 'needs a HA Ruling' means that it could change at time of publication(or at the very least I have a problem with it). If it says needs a HA ruling please comment on the rule if it is important to you.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but the answers so far are unlikely to change.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Another Tyranid one, which would also be addressed by a fleet redesign. I can't remember this myself but was it addressed somewhere whether it was 3 upgrades total for a ship of 3 TYPES of upgrades with being able to max out the particular upgrades if you wanted. As it is, if it's the latter it is quite possible to make extremely hard to kill hive ships.
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lordgoober,
It seems pretty clear in Armada: A Hiveship can have 3 different refits, and may therefore have 4 reinforced carapaces, 2 extra spore cysts and another refit. A cruiser could have the 3 reinforced carapaces(as 4 would make it a hiveship unless in a one off game) and 2 extra spore cysts.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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[ignore me please]
Russ
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Ray, isn't that a bit much for an extra shield on the Repulsive? I had in my files from the old site that the extra shield was 5 points which brought the repulsive up to 245 points with the lance upgrade.
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Hi Vaaish,
checked it up and I have it at 15...
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It's possible I wrote it down wrong, but since I've never had a chance to bring the repulsive to the table it's never come up.
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lordgoober,
It seems pretty clear in Armada: A Hiveship can have 3 different refits, and may therefore have 4 reinforced carapaces, 2 extra spore cysts and another refit. A cruiser could have the 3 reinforced carapaces(as 4 would make it a hiveship unless in a one off game) and 2 extra spore cysts.
Cheers,
RayB HA
Actually it wasn't clear hence the need for the clarification via FAQ. And hence I stand by my claim that since that is the case, the Evolution upgrades are too cheap and really need to be reworked. I don't mind the Hiveships getting all those goodies. But I do mind that they can do it for cheap.
I also noted the change you want for the Apocalypse. I'm of the opinion that the Apoc should not suffer from the thruster crit but rather from the engine room crit. Now I think it should still take the +1 damage but to minimize it, the Apoc should be able to fire up to 45 cm without any problems on LO. The fluff does support this. Anythign beyond 45 cm and the engine room crit kicks in.
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While we are spitballing here, any chance that the Oberon could get it's batteries straightened out? It's pretty tough to justify it as it stands vs the emperor and boosting the batteries back to 60cm would go a ways for fixing that.
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Spitballing......
fix blastmarker rules back to original rules: block line of fire and do not count as all around on a base.
Thus marker placed in direction from fire. Thus port marker = starboard no intervening marker.
This is also helpful to massed escorts as they can no longer be dropped all at once with 1 marker.
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Just tossing this out there, i noticed in the 2007 FAQ that doubles roll on reload ordinance was removed from the game. Any specific reason behind this? It seems that it would go a long way to balance the rather OPness of ordinance.
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
Nids Refits: Okay, I’ll add a clarification, to me it’s quite clear though ïŠ. Nids need to be reworked, but especially for campaigns. They should only be a raiding fleet in normal campaigns.
Apox: Engine room stops you from turning, the trade off is supposed to be lack of speed (note: with a thrusters crit you can’t make the 15cm to turn anyway).
I personally don’t want any actual damage caused unless there is a roll for it. This could be done like ‘gets hot’ weapons from 40k, so a roll of a 1 causes a thrusters crit (1’s can be rerolled to avoid this as its on lock-on).
There should be an option to go on standard LO though.
Vaaish,
The Oberon won’t change, I’m the only one in the HA that wants it to be good.
Roy,
Bm’s aren’t going back to the old rules. If a BM is in contact with a ships base it counts as being in contact from all directions.
BlueDagger,
The ‘Fix’ for AC was the AC limit: You can only have as many AC on the table as you have appropriate Launch bays. The run out on a double was mostly unpopular and was extreme when carriers came into the equation.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Too bad about the oberon, as it stands now I don't see it taken very often despite being the cheapest BB.
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Yeah,
Ray are their specific reasons why Bob & Nate won't change the Oberon?
hmm. I can see a problem: with increased batteries it will suddenly become the most popular battleship. Can see the tricksyness here.
...and.... the Oberon will be the best gunship and a carrier!
Broadsides
Retribution: 12 wb @ 60 plus 3 lances @ 60
Oberon: 16 wb @ 60 plus 2 lances @ 60
Gives the Oberon a higher wb equivalent. (1 lance as 3 batteries).
Tricky to raise the ranges.
Pity on the blastmarkers, since the old rules advocated much more tactical positioning.
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ork re-rolls, should they be focused on the ork ship the warboss is on, or every ship in the fleet?
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hmm other rules issues....
Clarify the effect on eldar ships that are struck by the nova cannon template (aka, not direct hits), since it is an area effect, do they get a holofield save?
Ramming detonation: If a ship goes all ahead full to ram, and is destroyed, and explodes, does it explode upon impact of the enemy ship, or at the end of it's movement
Necron: Can necron ships use star pulse generators and Terror feilds when locked on, though they would not get the effects of being locked on (always seemed absurd that they couldn't)
Tau: Can the forgeworld fleet have unlimited Dhows, with no restrictions to grav-hooks.
What are the fleet restrictions for a demiurg fleet (as suggested in the Tau section)
Tyranid: Can a ship disengage when clamped by a vessel with massive claws.
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Also, i take the Oberon ALL THE TIME, and so do many in my gaming group.. Oberon is amazing.. don't go dissing it!
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Zelnik you tend to take all the ships all the time and they are all amazing when you do. I don't think I've seen more than one list that contains an oberon outside of a few newer players.
Horizon/ Ray:
Perhaps then the upgunned oberon should swap point values with the retribution.
365 for the Apoc and Empy
345 for the Oberon
335 for the retribution
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Back on the Eldar Hero and the reserves:
I said this at Port Maw:
Yeah. And you know what? It isn't worth it!
In a Craftworld fleet I would want Corsair Escorts but then I have to take Shadowhunters which aren't that great. Craftworld cruisers don't need Corsair Cruisers.
Vica versa it is the same switched.
I would prefer:
Corsair / Craftworld could normally reserve per rules.
The Hero changes this into a 1:2 ratio.
Heck, Yriel's fluff says a 1:1 basis I think.
As it stands the Hero is only cool to have if you really like the Flame of Asuryan in one of the fleets. The reserve rules just don't cut it given the nature of both fleets.
Would the HA be willing to ammend that?
Another:
Will the weapon question on the Craftworld Eldar Dragonshp be fixed (aka the never taken Pulsar or Torps)?
And this has never been adressed:
Can a fleet have a ship with multiple 'named' upgrades.
eg, the Mars can take a targetting matrix, can my second Mars also have that upgrade. Or is it restricted to the Imperious?
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I Do take all the ships all the time. Everyone is allowed an obsession, and mine happens to be BFG... This means i spend time playing with all the toys :D
the Oberon is there because it is meant to be a cheap all-around battleship. 45cm range is not so bad, since the enemy MUST close on you to attack. Having the combo of fighters, bombers, a-boats, lances and a st 16 battery is nothing to frown at.
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Chaos Murder Variant: Can you please clarify in the new FAQ that the Murder variant is 4 weapon batteries@45cm and 2 lances@45cms instead of 10WBs@45cm. The wording in the BBB is complete rubbish and this question comes up from time-to-time.
Wording in BBB: "...can be armed with Firepower 4 and Strength 2, 45cm lances on their gun decks, for no extra points" ???
Thanks Ray,
Russ
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Celestial Phenomenon, Planets: If opponents are both on (within) a planet template can they fire at enemy vessels also within the template as normal (including torps) or planets treated as no attack zones? If torps can be fired "within" a template might I assume they detonate at the template edge?
This came up a few games in which we had large planets on the table...
Russ
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Vaaish, Roy,
I would prefer the Oberon to have better range and the Ret to have +2 WB’s each side. But they come as a comparative package so both happen or neither do.
Zelnik,
Forgeworld were going to write a Demiurg Fleet list IIRC, unfortunately a free lance modeller who made Demiurg escorts vanished with the masters and all talk of the fleet list in the studio stopped. This was round the same time as Armada’s release.
Good question on the massive claws!
Roy,
The Eldar Hero sucks. It’s only there for the Flame of Asuryan, the bonus reserves rule is just there to add character. Sorry that’s not what you want to hear. But I’ll ask the HA and see if we can make CWE and CE the same race for taking reserves. Doubtful though.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Thank you SO MUCH once again for doing this, Ray! A couple more questions.
Exploding ships' Blast Markers: The placement of all those blast markers (8 or more) is almost entirely un-addressed. How are the BM's placed? As centrally as possible? What if there are ship bases there, and there are enough blast markers to hit the base? This comes up a lot. Are the BM's ever stacked?
Murder variant: The wording for the optional (firepower 4, strength 2 lances at 45 cm) Lance Murder, if not nonsensical, is almost entirely misleading to sound like 6 lances (!) to a side.
Defending "On the Line": forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere. What happens when a ship finds its target "on the line" between two target aspects? Defender chooses (reverse of attacker choosing for his weapons being "on the line")?
Firing torpedoes with Multiple Ships: This mainly comes up with Ravager class escorts. When do the torpedo salvoes "appear"? When the escorts are clustered together it is quite typical for one of the escorts to roll a high number of torps, producing a salvo wide enough to hit another of its fellow salvoes, or another escort in its squad, or even quite a few of its friends! Do the torps instantly attack?
Ordnance placement timing: Following the previous question, when are attack craft actually placed on the table, and when are torpedo salvoes angled? If angle chosen at firing, is that when the marker is placed? Should be immediately upon firing, but this can lead to several problems including the one above. Note that a strict interpretation of the rules, should the torps be placed and angled immediately upon firing, would result in the torps attacking the ship that launched them!
Splitting weapons fire against a single ship: This has to be illegal, but an official ruling explicitly stating as much is required. Against a foe with no shields, I can get FP=FP!
More to come, my good sir.
Moox
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WHOH.
How do you justify reducing the strength of the dragonship's battery? These ships are supposed to be Battlecruiser level/flagship craft. Remember that the Craftworld Eldar have NO battleships.
Leave it as it is. I play this fleet EXTENSIVELY and it works just fine.
Also, no ship in any eldar fleet has more then a st 6 torpedo, even the battleship only has LC4.
This fleet is easily one of the least... the LEAST that need this kind of modification.
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Moox,
ordnance is being put on the table in the shooting phase.
moved in the ordnance phase.
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WHOH.
How do you justify reducing the strength of the dragonship's battery? These ships are supposed to be Battlecruiser level/flagship craft. Remember that the Craftworld Eldar have NO battleships.
Leave it as it is. I play this fleet EXTENSIVELY and it works just fine.
Also, no ship in any eldar fleet has more then a st 6 torpedo, even the battleship only has LC4.
This fleet is easily one of the least... the LEAST that need this kind of modification.
I think (hope) he meant to bump up the torp and lances not degrade the gun battery. As is there is no point in taking the lance or torpedo on the Dragonship since the AC and Batteries are so much more powerful.
Similar to taking lance escorts. Without the Pulsar Lance rule on escorts they are rather fail and no point in taking.
Er ok, just noticed the update on page one that Dragonship gun battery was taken down to a 12 and Torps upped to 8. The Dragonship is the only decent Carrier for CWE, so most folks are going to be taking it for the 4 launch bays not the torpedos, though 8 torps is a nice addition. Seems to be a nerf that is rather unjustified.
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That's what I am saying.
Completely unnecessary. PLEASE remove that, unless you want to risk upsetting the balance for the entire fleet.
As far as I was aware, NO one was complaining about the effectiveness of the dragon ship. Lay off.
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Tyranid Spore Cyst Upgrade: Forgive any ignorance, as I'm not actually a Tyranid player, but...
Isn't +10points for a Spore Cyst upgrade really really cheap. You get:
- +1 Shield to shields that already don't halve when crippled
- +1 Turret that does not halve when crippled
- The turret can fire at both types of ordnance
Just wondering what the general feeling is on this one since I don't have an informed suggestion.
What about lowering that Repulsive extra shield cost!? ;)
Russ
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Yes, they're very cheap. That is why everyone takes them if they have the chance. Of course, it is also part of the reason why "opponent's permission" on the use of Evolutions will virtually never happen...
Now, for a bit more FAQ:
1) The example provided for Fighta-Bommerz seems to be off, as it lists them as gaining two attacks each due to Turret Suppression. This conflicts with the clarification earlier which states that a Wave can gain no more Suppression attacks than the target has turrets.
2) Whilst on the subject, do Turrets reduce the Attack rolls of Bombers even if they chose to target Torpedoes instead of Attack Craft?
3) Tyranid Cruisers have the option of taking two Strength 4 Torpedo Markers which cannot be launched as a single salvo. How should they be placed upon launching?
4) Can more than one Radiation Burst occur per game? Unlike the Solar Flare it has no rule saying this is impossible.
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I can answer the last part of your question.
Radiation bursts CAN happen every turn (and it makes plenty of sense when you think about it, being so close to a freaking STAR).
Seeing as solar flares specifically mention it happening only once, and radiation bursts did not, i interpreted it as it could happen every round on a roll of a 5+
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Tyranid Spore Cyst Upgrade: Forgive any ignorance, as I'm not actually a Tyranid player, but...
Isn't +10points for a Spore Cyst upgrade really really cheap. You get:
- +1 Shield to shields that already don't halve when crippled
- +1 Turret that does not halve when crippled
- The turret can fire at both types of ordnance
Just wondering what the general feeling is on this one since I don't have an informed suggestion.
What about lowering that Repulsive extra shield cost!? ;)
Russ
Yes, it is cheap, however with the new rules, this won't be cropping up as often.
The repulsive upgrade is giving you a chance to make an incredible ship even better then before. Considering what your getting for 230-240 points, a 15 point shield upgrade should not phase you.. I will certainly take it!
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Hi Zelnik, Ray,
Craftworld Eldar Dragonship (see opening post:
In the Eldar MMS house ruleset we have incorporated 12 batteries / 8 torps, this with left shift for batteries instead of always closing. This works perfectly fine (at a higher price!).
4 Pulsars would be too much. Really.
The Flame is their battleship equivalent.
And face it an Eldar vessel with 12 batteries & 8 torps or 3 Pulsar and 4 AC is still incredible at 260 points!
Compare to Eclipse: +1 Pulsar, +1 armour for +10points. Plus assault boat & aspect warrior options.
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Hi Zelnik, Ray,
Craftworld Eldar Dragonship (see opening post:
In the Eldar MMS house ruleset we have incorporated 12 batteries / 8 torps, this with left shift for batteries instead of always closing. This works perfectly fine (at a higher price!).
4 Pulsars would be too much. Really.
The Flame is their battleship equivalent.
And face it an Eldar vessel with 12 batteries & 8 torps or 3 Pulsar and 4 AC is still incredible at 260 points!
Compare to Eclipse: +1 Pulsar, +1 armour for +10points. Plus assault boat & aspect warrior options.
But this isn't a ruleset, it's what is considered an offical FAQ that most play by. I agree that 4 pulsars may be powerful, but 12 Battery is rather lackluster for the point cost. A Wraithship IMO is a terrible choice for AC so that leaves the Dragonship, so why would you want to take the torpedoes? A nerf of an already limited option fleet is rather uncalled for.
The Flame is NOT their Battleship equivalent because it's officially not theirs. So now your looking at 370 base for a FoA (minus 100 for the "typical" admiral that would normally be needed) which point for point isn't as good as a Void Stalker.
As it stands besides looks and fluff there is little reason to take CWE over Corsair and now the reasons are becoming more slim. if your going to nerf the Dragonship then give CWE the FoA since there is almost no reason for corsair to want it.
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Horzion.
I respect you as a fellow developer and a good person, but don't you DARE start using an opportunity to fix real problems with a game, that we all love and adore, as a green light to start making changes to make your own personal ruleset more viable. People may like MMS, but in tournaments, and in casual play, people will not use them.
Just because the change 'benefits' MMS rules does not justify the change. MMS is not official and it probably never will be.
Don't touch the dragonship, Specialist games made it that way for a reason.
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Taking Tyranid Refits: The refits included in ‘Evolution of The Hive Mind’ may only be taken in campaigns unless your opponent agrees.
Hey Ray,
How does such a ruling work in a tournament setting?
Russ
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Mark of Slaanesh: Do the affects of multiple MoS stack? (i.e. If there are two ships with MoS within 15cm does the enemy vessel suffer a -4 LD?
Russ
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Moox,
Thanks once again for you questions.
Zelnik,
The Dragonship options have to be balanced with one another, so 12 EWB’s = 3 Pulsars, 8 Devil torps = 4 ELB’s. 16 EWB’s was just too much, I suppose it might be arguable that 14 would be more appropriate but I’m pretty sure 12 will be the final number.
I do realise this doesn’t work so well for the Shadow only having 12 instead of 16 but there is no reason to copy such a specific misjudgement. i.e. the dragonship having only 9WB’s!!!! But then again the Shadow is cheaper than the Ecplise.
Russ c,
I’ve opened the question of increasing the cost of spore mines, and lowered the cost back to 15pts for the Repulsive.
Nids in tournaments wouldn’t be allowed to take them unless the tournament rules allowed it (that’s where the opponents permission bit comes in).
Commx,
Turret suppression is up to the number of turrets per bomber. If the fighta bommas didn’t have the inbuilt +3 turret suppression they would have to have 2 fighters each in the example given, so 4 FB’s and 8 fighters!
Nids only launch boarding torps, you could place them over one another.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Since we are "fixing broken numbers" then how about changing the Shadowhunter's lance to a pulsar lance? The hemlock and shadowhunter are nearly identical, but Shadowhunter's senselessly don't have pulsar lances.
Your nerfing an already underrated fleet that only has 3 ship choices without a costly upgrade.
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Hi All,
I've just reached the 20,000 character limit for the first post!!!! So I'm going to have 2 seperate topics for fleet specific questions and general rules questions.
Bare with while I sort this out.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Zelnik, Bluedagger,
I'm not saying MMS should be taken onboard (though if Ray Bell is playing with MMS.... what does that say for the future? In 2045 that is for a new rulebook? haha).
The Craftworld fleet isn't underrated. It is quite good actually.
The Flame is a battleship equivalent and point for point an even match to the Void Stalker, just do the math. That 5+ vs 4+ armour means a lot.
Dragonship, so you rather never take the 3 Pulsars because you like the 16 batteries so much? I rather see equal choices. 12 Ewb = 3 Epl.
When I heard of the idea to drop the batteries to 12 I was wary at first as well, but now I am acceptive.
And with this FAQ the Flame is sort of officially theirs if you take the Hero. But I am wondering what a non-character version would look like. Ray?
They do not have 3 choices (they DO if batteries stay at 16!). When looking at the variants you have this (excl Flame) :
4 battlecruisers
4 hunter cruisers (wraith)
2 escorts
That is 10 choices.
There are fleets with less choices.
Shadowhunter,
indeed a fix is needed. Perhaps not a Pulsar but the same lance as the Dark Eldar use or a bit like that?
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Hi All,
I've just seperated the BFG FAQ 2010 into two topics. This one is for Fleet Specific Questions and the other is for General Rules questions. Don't be affraid to post all of your questions in this topic if you wish, as the reason for the 'split' is purely because of the forums character limit.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Roy,
Shadow Hunters were being looked at to have 3 turrets instead of thier ordy killing rule. But thier weapons would be changed to 3 normal WB's or a single normal lance.
I'll put it in with a 'needs HA Ruling'.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Hi Ray,
the Craftworld Eldar does not need anti ordnance escorts. Compared to the Corsairs they have enough Attack Craft available.
The hitting on a 4+ was neat.
3 turrets? I mean... under official rules no Eldar has turrets so your are creating something awkward there. (Unless you go completely different rules for the Craftworld Eldar in their basic core rulings... ;)
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Awkward? In an Eldar Rules set, you must be mistaken! :P
The Shadow Hunters turrets represent it shooting ordnance at close range with its normal weapons (It can still shoot at long range at the same time). Keep in mind the 4+ to kill ordy was there because the shadow hunters are supposed to be super nible not because they have awesome targetting arrays.
On 'need', if you have Shadow hunters hunting ordy waves you can be more offensive with your AC and maybe even trade them in for torps! Also if you want you could use them by putting them on CAP (massing turrets).
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Please for the love of whatever deity, stop modifying CWE while we are on the ground bleeding. Yes, we have 3 ships. There is three ships with changeable configurations which is nice, but still 3 ships. Changing a ship that isn't doing anything spectacular for it's point cost on a fleet that isn't winning tourneys isn't just isn't necessary. If you feel like making changes, then delve into ordinance balance more.
The FoA is not equal to a a Void stalker in the slightest. A Void Stalker has 4 45cm pulsars and 2 more hit points. Yes, 4+ vs 5+ is impressive, but not enough to fathom a 15cm and 2 Pulsar increase as not better.
3 turrets for the escorts is a terrible idea. If I'm taking escorts (big if) it is to shot down ordinance, not ram into it and risk getting hit or waiting for someone to foolishly go after the escorts and not my turret-less cruisers.
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Zelnik, Bluedagger,
I'm not saying MMS should be taken onboard (though if Ray Bell is playing with MMS.... what does that say for the future? In 2045 that is for a new rulebook? haha).
The Craftworld fleet isn't underrated. It is quite good actually.
The Flame is a battleship equivalent and point for point an even match to the Void Stalker, just do the math. That 5+ vs 4+ armour means a lot.
Dragonship, so you rather never take the 3 Pulsars because you like the 16 batteries so much? I rather see equal choices. 12 Ewb = 3 Epl.
When I heard of the idea to drop the batteries to 12 I was wary at first as well, but now I am acceptive.
And with this FAQ the Flame is sort of officially theirs if you take the Hero. But I am wondering what a non-character version would look like. Ray?
They do not have 3 choices (they DO if batteries stay at 16!). When looking at the variants you have this (excl Flame) :
4 battlecruisers
4 hunter cruisers (wraith)
2 escorts
That is 10 choices.
There are fleets with less choices.
Shadowhunter,
indeed a fix is needed. Perhaps not a Pulsar but the same lance as the Dark Eldar use or a bit like that?
NO. The flame is a grand cruiser, the 8 hits and it's 30cm weapons make this pretty clear.
And how someone takes the dragonship is not for you to decide, and st 3 pulsar lances are plenty powerful, but REDUCING the strength of a vessel that is supposed to be the lynchpin of the fleet, which contains all of the weapon power involved is not how to do it. Why not increase the pulsar lances to 4?
The dragonship is not a fancy version of the Shadow cruiser. It's meant to be a battlecruiser level vessel.
I am telling you that this change is TOTALLY unnecessary, and YOU were the one who brought up MMS rules, not us.
Do. Not. Change. The. Ship.
You should be more worried about rules ambiguity then adding or reducing firepower from a ship. I can't fathom why your even trying to change it when there are more pressing matters to worry about, like the engine issue with the Apoc.
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Hi BlueDagger,
NOT 3 ships. Sorry but look: There are 10 configurations, 8 capital ships.
If you want you can write the Imperial Navy also as configurations:
Imperial Hull:
choose:
port/starboard : 2 Lance / 6 WB
or
port/starboard : 4 lance
or
port/starboard : 12 wb
prow:
nova or torps
So, one box and I have written the Gothic, Dominator & Lunar. They could have spread out the Craftworld vessels and give them all a seperate entry but they didn't.
Imperial Navy & Chaos aren't also winning many tournaments, Adepticon has as last 4 winners Orks, Tau, Tau, Dark Eldar. Not even Corsair Eldar.
Flame vs Void Stalker :
keep in mind that 1 Pulsar equals 4 batteries,
Flame: 16 wb + 2 PL = 16 + 8 = 24.
Void : 8 wb + 4 PL = 8 + 16 = 24.
Armour 5+ vs 4+ and 8 hits vs 10 hits is an equal thing.
The Void Stalker has a large base, the Flame a small one. (Large = easier for Nova, boarding and Ordnance)
The Void Stalker has better range & arcs on the weaponry.
The Lances on the Flame cannot be crippled or downed by brace (ah well, I know what Ray wants to do : pulsar = keel).
The Flame has aspect warriors
The Void Stalker will have a slight attacking edge but defensively seen the Flame is better.
questions:
Ray,
will the Pulsar position on the Flame be switched? :(
will the Flame have the option to take Vampire Raiders (Assault Boats)?
warning...
By all, the old SG days relive with frantic discussions! :D
3 Pulsar is powerfull but much less then 16 batteries. Thus why take Pulsars?
Pulsars at 4, yes that has been my inititial thought as well but people scream in horror of these prospects.
16 batteries is more then battlecruiser level. That is, with the always Closing, Battleship level.
Yes, I brought up MMS to show 12 wb can work. You are making a little more if it. But, alas, maybe I wasn't clear enough? :)
And I do agree with BlueDagger & Zelnik that the Shadowhunter turret idea is not good.
And I do want to push this:
When a supreme admiral is taken in the Craftworld Fleet this allows for the inclusion for the Flame of Asuryan (give it a class name: Void Dragon for example as it has been promoted with) in the fleet. Heck, drop the auto aspect warriors on the Flame to do so.
That is 100pts to take the Flame, a 50pts lowering to take the Flame.
That is not unbalancing to the game at all in any possible way.
I think Zelnik & Bluedagger will see an agreement on that....?
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I preferr to call it a "hero ship"
Okay, why don't i put it to you this way.
Wraithships are equipped at LIGHT CRUISER levels, their advantage is a better armor and 6 hits (you can remake an aurora perfectly). These are your BASIC craft.
Dragonships are equipped at Battlecruiser level (16 is punchy, but its ALL they get.) All your doing is shifting the strengths around with no real need, the fleet is balanced and more then capable of doing the job it was meant to do.
In fact, I have never seen anyone complain about this before.
Also, I am far more afraid of st8 eldar torps on a cruiser then i am with 4 pulsar lances.
I would be OK with the +1 pulsar lance then i would be with -4 battery.
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Hi all,
Fighta Bommas: I didn't realise what I did there! Their turret suppression is per wave not marker. But a single FB will still get +3 fighter suppression, that was the point I was trying to get across. Sorry for the confusion, I guess I was getting a little burnt out by the healthy influx of questions. :)
CWE: Look, I realise it's horrible when 'your' fleet gets targeted for 'down grades', but please stay calm and constructive.
The Dragonships are still awesome! An extra chunk of firepower and leap of survivability in comparison to the Ecplise or Shadow. And for what? 10pts! Now granted there's more to it than that, they're in different fleet lists after all. But still...
The Shadow Hunter is a waste of space in the original rule set, literally only being taken when you have spare points. The trade of a single 4+ shot at ordy to 3 turrets on a ship with holofields and the capability of massing turrets is great. Especially as they can temporarily mass in the first movement phase defending against ordy before the 2nd move. Also keep in mind that you won’t be up against too many waves of ordy so those 3 turrets will be wasting those single AC markers one at a time and as they’re turrets you can kill loads of AC with one escort in one turn.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Shadowhunter:
Thus 3 turrets hit on a 4+, remaining AC attacks against a 4+ armour, with hits to be saved on a 2+ (holofield)?
I dunno, I think the original rule (hit ordnance on a 4+) was a better representation of nimble then this: bristling gun turrets.
Nah, if you stay with msm I would not add turrets to any Eldar ship at all. I really hope you and the rest of the HA will reconsider this change.
Just make that lance better and a battery. With original rules. Same ordnance hunter, but more worth it even in normal fights (heck they are the last line of naval defence for a Craftworld). And not odd...turrets...
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I need to beg to differ about the shadowhunters.
I actually played a 1500 game against tyranids, and those shadowhunters were INVALUABLE to my victory. Hitting ordnance on a 4+ is vital for the defense of the fleet against bombers and a-boats... they simply can't field enough fighters to really protect them against the ordnance heavy fleets of Tau and Tyranid.
I love the little guys, the fleet is not built around it's escorts, but it's cruisers instead.
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Hi Roy,
Ah yes, the Flames Keel Pulsars. Thanks for reminding me! :)
As a reward I’ll put forward the idea of reducing the Hero to 100pts.
Also Vampire Raiders should be part of the ships basic stats!!!
Shadow Hunters:
Original version: 3 EWB’s/lance getting a single 4+ to hit ordy instead of a 6.
You can shoot ordy at 30cm.
‘Better’ version: 3 WB’s/lance getting a single 6+ to hit ordy. 3 turrets.
Combined with holofields this will give you 3 turret shots and then 2+ saves vs damage. Keep in mind bombers attack runs will be reduced by 3! Only torps are slightly iffy.
You will be able to mass your turrets with other ships, given Eldar movement this could be extremely effective.
You can use your full turret strength even when braced!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Sorry buddy, but turrets are an eldar no-no... not only that, where would they fit 3 turrets on such a small ship?
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..and, the fact is that massed turrets currently is still at the end or beginning of movement phase and not between.
Hero 100pts, standard assault boats, but keel Pulsars. Well, I can live with that. :)
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Zelnik, Roy,
The Shadow Hunters don’t literally have turrets. It’s just a game mechanic representing their ability to dogfight with AC!
Cheers,
RayB
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I'm all for the 100 pt admiral for the flame as that would allow the use of taking the Flame without the waste of 50pts as some people do not care to take corsairs and prefer pure CWE. Thank you for that.
May I ask why the change to the FoAs Pulsar? Once again an unnecessary change, one step forward two steps back.
Still not a fan of the turrets idea, they will be just as useless as they currently are as the only thing currently good about them is anti-ordinance. You need something to bolster them offensively. We run and gun, not suicide turret run into torpedoes.
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Honestly, There really is no reason to change the FoA. Just because it has weapons you can't disable doesn't make it OP. It's still an ELDAR vessel with crits on 4+. Usually when it gets crippled it gets disengaged.
I don't mind a cheaper version of the eldar Hero though.
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Hi Bluedagger,
here is the reason for the Pulsar swap. Now the Flame has 1 port / 1 starboard. This is the only Eldar ship with port/starboard weaponry.
The Eldar critical hit table has no port/starboard damaged.
Thus these Pulsars will always be working even if crippled and braced! Always 1+1=2 Pulsars available.
Now, with 2 Pulsars in the Keel it is subject to criticals and goes down from 2 to 1 to 1 (The Void Stalker goes from 4 to 2 to 1) with braced/crippled.
Rewriting the crit table for one ship is kinda harsh.
warning
tell that it isn't overpowered to that Imperial Navy opponent when my crippled/braced Flame, unable to move out, still fired 2 Pulsars and scored 5 hits....
Na, true, ain't that much overpowered but it is nicer and more into the rules.
I mean if we argue turrets on a Shadowhunter we can argue this as well.
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Also, the turret value is really not necessary. The rule about hitting ordnance on a 4+ IS the representation that they are so good at dogfighting smaller craft.
The ability to eradicate an entire wave of craft on a 4+ is frightening to a tyranid or tau player.
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I am not done with the Dragonship.
Look, IF this is a process where you listen to the players, it's pretty clear that no one wants this change.
IF this FAQ is really just what a group of people, whom few of us have ever talked to and no one knows how they got their position, want in the next version PLEASE say so.
Why the heck are you even WORKING on the eldar, when there are more pressing rules issues at hand??
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If the fact that the port/starboard is the issue then make them prow as well. It would be a subtle change a that point that no one should really get up in arms about.
Consolidations of my thoughts at this point...
FoA - 100pts admiral to take or 150 hero if you want corsairs
Dragonship - Leave the WB alone, consider a 4s pulsar if worried about "not taken", 8 torpedos is a bit excessive and they are used for AC first and foremost.
Wraithships - Don't try to find something wrong with this one
Shadowhunters - Scrap the turret idea, consider pulsar lance rule for the lance to bring it in line with corsair.
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If the fact that the port/starboard is the issue then make them prow as well. It would be a subtle change a that point that no one should really get up in arms about.
Consolidations of my thoughts at this point...
FoA - 100pts admiral to take or 150 hero if you want corsairs
Dragonship - Leave the WB alone, consider a 4s pulsar if worried about "not taken", 8 torpedos is a bit excessive and they are used for AC first and foremost.
Wraithships - Don't try to find something wrong with this one
Shadowhunters - Scrap the turret idea, consider pulsar lance rule for the lance to bring it in line with corsair.
1. I agree.
2. Again, i agree. 6 eldar torps are bad enough :D
3. No kidding
4. Again, can't agree with it. They are there for a reason, Craftworld eldar are NOT an escort fleet like the corsair. Just leave them alone, your trying to fix problems that don't exist here.
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CWE are consuming this thread please discuss CWE in this Topic:
http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1354.0
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Well, I'm a small fry swimming with some big fish, but for your consideration Ray...
Tyranid Evolutions: I'm not a big fan of rules that require permission. I'd prefer a rule that can simply stand in all situtaions (i.e. tournaments, friendly games, campaigns etc.). I also feel that it's a part of Tyranid's flavor to have customizable ships using evolutions. Having a rule that requires permission will probably lead to tournaments that simply don't allow evolutions. With this in mind, might I propose leaving the rules of 4 carapaces and 2 spores for campaigns intact, but simply stating that for any non-campaign matches a player may take half this quantity (i.e. Upto 2 carapace and 1 Spore).
This removes the need of permission and sets a clear standard while at the same time avoiding extreme Hive ships, but still giving Tyranid players the ability to pick up a very respectable 12hp/5spore Hive ship in tournaments and friendly games. Lastly, it doesn't mess with campaigns as it's definitely cool that an extended campaign can result in a monstrosity! :)
Thanks for the consideration on the Spore cost as well!
Cheers,
Russ
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Russ c,
A major flaw of the old 40k nids was that there was too much customisation making it difficult for opponents to know what they were fighting. Having to be constantly reminded of upgrades and occasional special rules doesn't make for a good tourney or 'stranger' game.
Even though this weakens the fleet I feel this is a sound judgement.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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I agree with Ray on the nid thing and given that I believe the nid fleet that didn't take the upgrades ended up more in the middle of the pack so I don't think it overly weakens the fleet.
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Well, on the tyranid front, at Adepticon we had a 12 man 1500 point BFG tournament (about average for the event) with this fleet breakdown.
2 Tyranid, 2 Chaos, 2 Space Marines, 1 Tau, 1 Necron, 1 CWE, 1 Corsair Eldar, 1 Ork, 1 Dark Eldar.
One of the Tyranid fleets had 2 of the 14/6 monstrosities. That fleet won best general and if it had been a little better painted (one of the judges was a lot harsher than the other and gave the fleet a 0 for the paint score based on the criteria involved) would have won overall by one point. The final game table was against the Tau fleet and the Tau player could do practically nothing to the hive ships (I'm 99% sure he was using counts as rules for his FW ships and had 3 explorers).
The other Tyranid player was unupgraded and ended up in 8th place and in 9th place on the battle scores.
There were actually quite a few complaints about the hive ships from the first player. So much so that I'm considering a limitation on the number of upgrades to 3 per ship instead of 3 types per ship for 2011.
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I think I posted this over on port maw, but my sentiments are that evolutions are campaign upgrades that create interesting hero ships that are unique to the campaign over time. One of games just breaks them beyond belief as I think the adepticon results showed especially given no other race has access to them outside of the campaign.
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How should i put this...
I have fought and beaten tyranid evolved fleets. I can SAFELY say that they are a righteous pain in the ass, and my loss ratio well outstrips my victory ratio.
Honestly the best way to deal with this is to simply restrict their use to campaigns.
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Uhg, got us off topic again. Getting back to actual rules clarifications...
Imperial Power Ram: It's only mentioned in the Gothic Sector list, can it be taken in all fleet list? Also, can you clarify that it can only be taken by +6 prow ships without a Nova Cannon.
Blastmarkers and Moving Away: I've also noticed that many new players are confused about instantly regaining shields when moving away from a Blast Marker. Perhaps this is caused by the current entry in the 2007 FAQ:
"A vessel is considered to be moving through blast markers even if it is moving away from blast markers it is in contact with at the beginning of the movement phase..."
Explorer Bor'kan Gravitic Launchers: I just thought I'd point out that the fire arc says "-" and not "Front"
You're a trooper Ray!
Russ
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Russ... the power ram is quite clear in its wording that you have to have a 6+ prow and mount a prow ram. A NC is not a prow ram therefore it can't get a power ram. I'd also wager it's intentional that the power ram doesn't appear in other lists just like the Dominator doesn't or the Veteran captains aren't available to every list.
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I understand that a vessel with a NC can't take a power ram, but...
It's obviously not clear that any other vessel can since this question comes up from people. The reason why there is confusion by new BFGers is the rule says a ship with a "+6 prow and a prow ram". That is the only place in the entire rule set the word prow ram is used. When I was new I searched everywhere for what a prow ram is thinking it was something more specific then "a +6 prow without a nova cannon". What is never stated is that a ship that doesn't have a nova cannon is considered to have a prow ram.
One can assume by looking at pictures, but not everyone does. Simply changing the sentence to "a +6 prow without a Nova Cannon" clears this up without any ambiguity.
I still request for the rewording to be included in the FAQ.
Russ
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Interestingly enough the rules say Imperial Capitol ships with a 6+ armor that mount a prow ram may have a powered ram for 5 points.. i have used this in every IN fleet, i see no reason NOT to allow it in the other IN fleets.
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I don't think it would be an issue to allow other IN fleets access to it given the rarity that the upgrade appears and the small percentage of the time it actually comes into play, but I would argue that you simply having used it in every IN fleet is perhaps the poorest reason why other lists should have access to it. The rules for the power ram are not in any general section on refits nor is it listed anywhere except on the fleet list page for the gothic sector fleet. Within the context of that fleet it allows them to be taken and provide flavor to the list. Just as you cannot take veteran captains which provide flavor to the bastion fleet lists in an armageddon fleet list because they are not listed there, I see no reason prow rams would be allowed since they are not offered as an option in any of the other fleet lists outside of the Gothic list.
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Well, time to go through the PDF's again and make up some extra questions and - as it seems we're now 'modifying' fleets a bit as well - a few remarks...
1) Ramilies Starfort: If this is to be considered as a cluster of four Defences in base contact with each other (something you mentioned in relation to Boarding by a Space Hulk) does that mean they are capable of Massing Turrets together for a maximum of seven?
2) Escort Carriers: May these use the Orbital Mines upgrade? The first line of the Orbital Mines entry says 'Any ship', but after that it mentions 'only Cruisers' (and not Battleships).
3) Although they are apparently intended for the Convoy scenario, is there any reason players should not be allowed to use the alternate freighters if they wish to spend the points for them?
4) Special Torpedoes: Could you please do something about either the randomness or the prohibitive cost (or preferably both?) ;) As it stands, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for any sane individual to purchase them.
5) Orbital Mines: To be honest, these could do with a speed increase to 15cm. Currently many capital ships and virtually every escort can easily outrun them so have no reason to worry about triggering Minefields and the such.
6) If an Adeptus Mechanicus vessel tests to fire at a Hulk and fails, may it still attack an enemy that turn? If so, may it take a new Leadership test to target an enemy other than the closest?
7) The Adeptus Mechanicus Leadership table mentions that you may choose a Refit if you roll a six. Is this in addition to the random one? The sentence is ambiguous, but the notes under the Archmagos entry seem to imply that it is (otherwise the 'thus no more than two Refits' statement is meaningless, as you would still have only two Refits if you did place your Archmagos aboard a ship that rolled a six).
8] Do Adeptus Mechanicus Escorts still gain the +1 Turret like the capital ships, or is this considered part of the 'Refit Table' they do not use?
Well, that's all I can come up with right now. Until we meet again! ;D
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Here is a question
Endeavor, Edurence, Defiant.
Should they be upgraded with the 6+ armored prow?
Also on the power ram spike.
It's a pretty simple upgrade, with limited use, and there is NO reason why other imperial fleets should not get it. Until someone gives me a good reason why this simple little upgrade, which every imperial fleet has the requirements for (ram spikes and a 6+ prow) should not get it?
Frankly i always viewed it's omission as a typo.
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Zelnik, it's not in the other fleet lists. Whether or not this is a typo that's a rock solid reason for why they don't get it. If HA want's to allow it in the other lists I've no problem with it, but as it stands your argument holds just as much water as me saying I think the dominator should be in every list and I view its omission as a typo since it can be taken in the gothic list and I can take cruisers in every other IN list.
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Hi Commx,
some admech questions: nice.
5) No way.. mines are mean lean strong already.
7) You roll Ld for all vessels and then you place the Magos.
Every ship takes 1 Gift. If you roll a 6 on the dice for LD you may choose that 1 gift. If you have the Magos he takes one additional Gift with him. That's the way I read it.
8 ) It is written a bit too wieldy but no they do not get an extra turret.
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I beg to differ on your statement. The dominator is a ship.
The power ram is a 5 point upgrade... that is a huge difference, thanks.
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Ok then, we can use the veteran captains. by your reasoning I should be allowed to take them in any fleet, not just the bastion list. Honestly, it doesn't matter what the points were or are for something, the point is the same that if the option isn't listed globally or isn't in the list regardless of how few points it is, you can't take it in the list.
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...Vaaish now your just being unreasonable.
I would agree with the veteran captian idea... IF every imperial fleet had to roll 2d6 and pick the lowest LD.
The difference here is that the rule relies on a bit in the pack. The description of Battlefleet Cadia is very specific.
Again, It just seems logical and reasonable that since the BIT is universal in all imperial fleets... why not the upgrade?
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Activated Blackstone Fortress
Do the warp cannons also bypass BFI? That would give the 750 points a bit more punch.
Ork Fighta Bommas
I'm confused by the second paragraph. What is meant by 'fighter-support'? To use them as fighters against cap?
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Hi Commx,
some admech questions: nice.
Hello there Horizon,
Just weeding through every official PDF I have for potential issues, so they were bound to come up eventually.
5) No way.. mines are mean lean strong already.
I agree they are rather potent when they get to attack, well, anything. However, their current speed is making it rather unlikely that they will be capable of actually catching anything to deal said damage. Heck, I wouldn't actually mind halving their firepower for a five centimetre speed boost. That would make them more of a 'reliable floating nuisance' than the 'easily avoidable yet lethal doom orb' they are now.
7) You roll Ld for all vessels and then you place the Magos.
Every ship takes 1 Gift. If you roll a 6 on the dice for LD you may choose that 1 gift. If you have the Magos he takes one additional Gift with him. That's the way I read it.
That is indeed one way to read it, but as I mentioned in my previous post, this interpretation renders the sentences about combining the effects from rolling a six for LD and having an Archmagos meaningless. As such a sentence is present in both paragraphs, I find it hard to believe this is a typo. Under the interpretation that a the chosen Refit is an additional one they do make sense, as they prevent a ship from having three Refits - the standard one, one from the Archmagos, and one from rolling a six.
8 ) It is written a bit too wieldy but no they do not get an extra turret.
I agree this is probably the intent considering the Escorts do not cost more points than in any other fleet, but the text specifically mentions the table itself by name, not the Gifts of the Omnissiah rules it is part of.
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I think we've gone on enough about this but if following the rules is unreasonable, so be it. Regardless if the bit is universal, the rules that allows access to the upgrade are not. They are very specifically placed in the gothic list itself as a note on the list and no other list mentions the upgrade. It's invalid to base an argument on the availability of a piece in a kit as a reason to allow the upgrade in lists where it is not found. By the rules we have we cannot assume that the access to the power ram is universal. It may well be that the particular forges which supply the gothic fleet favor the power ram while those in other sectors do not. Whatever the reason, we don't have the option listed elsewhere and by what we have, we can't take them unless we make a house rule or the HA rules to allow the rams in all fleets.
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Imperial Power Ram: The Power Ram may be taken by any Imperial capital ship with a 6+ prow unless it has a Nova Cannon.
Thanks for this inclusion Ray, but can you please also rule on the legality of Power Rams outside of the Gothic fleet? For the very least it will settle Zelnik and Vaaish! :D
Russ
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Why don´t Orks have a power ram ?
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trynerror: 'Cause Ork's don' need no stinky shiny spikey fing on da front to ram a git!
russ_c
That ruling just solved the issue actually. It says clearly "any imperial capital ship"
Can we move on to the Endeavor and it's variants now?
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I’m not feeling in top shape at the moment, one of my house mates gave me an illness so if my answers sound fevered or more crazy than usual, that will probably be why.
My enthusiasm got the better of me. I’m not going to push the following:
Changes to points in the Nid evolutions table.
Changes to the CWE Shadow Hunter (any change is too radical for an FAQ).
Power Ram: This should be available for all IN fleets, it was just forgotten. I thought it was clear but I’ve added another sentence to be super clear.
Orks do have a power Ram: imagine their +2 hits over the 8 norm as Ork shields (that have to be ‘repaired’) and a boarding/ramming bonus.
Zelnik,
The Endeavour and its variants don’t and shouldn’t have a 6+ prow.
Commx,
I realise my answer to your Ramilies question is slightly different, I’ll highlight this one for the HA.
Transport variants were only intended for use with the convoy scenario but I’ll bring this up.
Special torps are fine as they are. Most will only take them if they have a few spare points but that’s alright.
Orbital mines can be monsters! Once you get within 10cm you can choose targets if you can place your ship correctly. I’ve seen a Dictator Dauntless combi kill a chaos cruiser outright with this! (granted, the BFI saves were lacking).
AM questions, nice! Damn, I was sure that refit sentence got sorted out!!! The ‘meaning’ should have been deleted!
AM escorts don’t get the extra turret, it is stated that their profiles are unmodified, but that is quite hidden though.
Don Gusto,
Thanks for the proof reading! :)
Warp Cannons don’t ignore BFI.
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Hey there,
I just had another look at the Fighta-Bommerz example, and it is still conflicting one of your own rulings - this time the one directly beneath it. The latter states that Fighta-Bommerz needs to choose between providing Turret Suppression and making actual Attack Runs, whilst the example clearly shows them doing both at the same time. Which of these is the correct one?
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Commx,
This is in addition to the +3, So, only handy against ships with 4 or more turrets.
Cheers,
RayB
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Hi Ray,
at Port Maw I've written that special torps are plain useless. (check the special torpedo threads).
Why no 6+ prow on the Voss Light Cruisers? As it stands they are quite poor. Only the Endeavour being somewhat of an effect and the Defiant utter and pure crap (from experience).
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I find it strange that the Voss light cruisers are slower than a chaos standard cruiser. Thats what disturbs me most on their profile even though i think horizon is correct that at the moment at least the Endurance and Defiant are not worth their points.
And a Question:
Is it possible to use a venerable Battlebarge in the Amageddon Fleet List? As all other space marine vessels can be used and the VBB was introduced after creating the Armageddon List i wondered if that is possible. And it would be very cool to be able to use my custom made VBB in my list.
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I think special torpedoes would be fun if the random mechanic were removed. It would give you something to take for those times when you have a few free points and no ships to fit into them.
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@special torpedoes
Maybe there could be a rule that cancels the random but only one ship per 500 or 1000 points can have special torpedos that would recude the "all vortex" danger.
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I need to make a point.
I have currently 12 ships as part of my Segmentum Solar Fleet.
6 are Endeavors, 3 are Endurances, 3 are Defiants.
They even have the fancy custom made Voss prows attached (made from resin, done by an awesome guy in the UK, who was nice enough to sell them to me for cheap)
To say that i have used them extensively would be a drastic understatement, and I use 2 endeavors and 1 endurance in my 1500 Seg Solar tournament fleet.
So when I say that these ships are woefully underpowered, I mean it.
Compared to the Dauntless, these ships are over-priced. While I do not agree fully with Horizon (I rather like the Defiant), I do agree that these ships would do well to justify their increased cost with a 6+ prow. YES this means that they would be able to use a ram spike, but if you look at the ORIGINAL models, AND the artwork in the book, they actually are BUILT with ram spikes.
I would like to know why you think they are not deserving of a relatively small change. It's not like we are making their weapons or torpedo's stronger, nor making them any faster. Really all it does is increase their longevity on the table.
If anything, we can make the 6+ prow an upgrade for +5 points or so.
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at Port Maw I've written that special torps are plain useless. (check the special torpedo threads).
I disagree.
Short Burn, Melta and Vortex Torpedoes are well worth their points (especially with the ruling on fire criticals), Barrage Bombs are not. The other two are nice but just gimmicks.
With the random generation you have a 50% chance of getting something useful for you points, I think that's ok.
Maybe there could be a rule that cancels the random but only one ship per 500 or 1000 points can have special torpedos that would recude the "all vortex" danger.
But the torpedoes used would probably still all be vortex. If you could choose the type, they would need separate points costs.
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On the note of spec. torps.
They really are not meant to be "mainstream" weapons, just things to use to fill in points if you have them. You run the risk of getting something rather useless, but if you roll that 5 or 6, your enemy suddenly has hell to pay for underestimating them.
Leave em as they are.
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Special torps are only really there to add a little character and burn extra points. They won't change.
The Endeavour and its variants are supposed to be worse than the Dauntless and as such cheaper (about 100pts each). It's ram spike is purely cosmetic.
***The Defiant got those damn lances! Something which I hate! It should have stayed as 2wb's and 2 torps. All of them at 100pts. The fear of it being too ordy heavy spawned those... lances. Either way they won't change in this FAQ.
5pts is way too cheap for a 6+ prow. 20pts maybe, but it should be a percential upgrade.
Cheers,
RayB
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The Endeavour and its variants are supposed to be worse than the Dauntless and as such cheaper (about 100pts each). It's ram spike is purely cosmetic.
The problem is, they aren't about 100 points, they are 120 points or 10 points MORE expensive than the dauntless.
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My point exactly Vaaish
Ray, have a look at the imperial navy section, you may find yourself surprised there.
The Endeavor series were meant to be Cruiser escorts (like how the dauntless is meant to be supported by escort craft). Thats the reason behind it's stronger port and starboard weaponry, and it's slow speed. It was meant to move and suppliment the power of larger ships.. unfortunately, they utterly lack the staying power that they need.
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20pts for a 6+ prow on voss cl is too much,.... but wait...
You say 100pts for them? Cool, add those 20 to get 120 which is the current costing (right?) including a 6+ prow!
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And a Question:
Is it possible to use a venerable Battlebarge in the Amageddon Fleet List? As all other space marine vessels can be used and the VBB was introduced after creating the Armageddon List i wondered if that is possible. And it would be very cool to be able to use my custom made VBB in my list.
I guess the question has been read over.
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Caine-HoA,
Sorry about that, but as the 'geddon list is Imperial it can only take Imperial reserves. And the VBB won't be dropped straight into the list. Sorry.
All you that Endeavour,
I know how expensive the blighters are, they were 'supposed' to cost about 100pts. I'm sorry if I misled you. Nothing will change for these guys in an FAQ. The game intention for them is to pair each one with a full cruiser to bolster the weapons of the full cruiser quite specifically. Making thier torps str 8 (or just using the str2 to clear fighters on CAP), making 6str AC waves if with a Dic, or adding complementary firepower with the Lunar. Ofcourse you can use them on thier own but they tend to suck.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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where do you get this info, Ray?
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@RayB
I understand what they are ment for but that doesnt have anything to do with the costs that are too high. it doesnt matter whether its to expensive when used with a cruiser or alone. In Both cases its too expensive. Other ship costs have been changed in FAQs as well so what prevents altering them?
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If they where supposed to be 100 then say that in the FAQ. What is the problem with that? Printed material?
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Then we have a choice.
We either keep the 120 point cost, and give the Endeavor, Endurance and Defiant a 6+ prow
OR
we reduce their cost by 20 points.
either choice will bring the ship into balance with it's point cost.
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The Endeavour is not going to change in this FAQ! Drop it!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Alas, pity. Then we can only hope you start up an Armada revision thread soon. ;)
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Now that these matters have been resolved, I will endeavour (:P) to get back to asking further questions for the FAQ.
One remarkable thing which just struck me when thinking about what you said about the Space Hulk boarding a Ramilies and being counter-boarded afterwards:
1) Although a Ramilies cannot be boarded within the scope of a game, could it actually board a vessel foolish enough to end its turn in base contact itself? And if it could, would it actually be capable of 'losing' considering the target would normally not even be capable of attempting a boarding action?
And a bit about Tau Orbitals:
1) Are Orbitals considered to be 'normal' Defences in every way unless specified otherwise? I presume so, but it would nice to have it actually stated.
2) If Orbitals are bought as Waystations, where must they be deployed? In the Tau Deployment Zone, in Gravity Wells, either of those, or both at once (which is more often that not impossible)?
3) Nicassar Dhows have a Leadership of 'Parent+1', does that mean they will automatically gain a Leadership of 8 if part of a Nicassar Caravan?
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Maybe it should be clarified whether the spores of tyranid escorts are used as shield as well or only as turrets.
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Well at the very least we are starting to narrow down what can and cannot be done. It would help, Ray, if you could set out the guidelines for what CAN be changed.
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Caine-HoA,
The only 'changes' that can occur are in correcting errors. This can be text that is open to multiple interpretations, a bog standard typo, a forgotten addition, or minor changes to anything not in armada or the rule book.
Commx,
Good to see more questions!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Something that struck me as never written?!?:
If an Eldar ship is hit blastmarkers placed if holofield saves. Now the Eldar ship has three markers in contact. How many times does it have to roll for damage from blastmarkers next turn? Three times? Or Once?
:)
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Actually it was clearly written, when a ship with no shields move through blast markers, you roll only once, even if you move through several blast markers.
While this does not SAVE the eldar, it makes them not die when they move through the remains of the imperial ship they just blew up.
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Ah yes, that was the one. Doh.
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Well that is sort of a typo. I dont want you to change tyranid only to clarify if the escorts do have shields because its a bit confusing how it is written in Armada. For Hive Ships and Cruisers instead of Turrets there stands "Spores". For Escorts there stands "Spores" below the category "Turrets". Nevertheless in the special rules at the beginning stands that "Spores" can be used as Shields and/or as Turrets.
So its kind of an interpretation if the Spores below Turret category for escorts means that they can only be used as Turrets. In the beginning my player group never read it like that and always played tyranid escorts with shields. So i think thats a point that should be clarified in the FAQ.
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Hello,
I beg my pardon because it’s not a rule question, but I and my gaming group has come up with a suggestion about eldar asteroid jumping tactics. It seems to me that a game where an eldar player sit behind an asteroid field and wait for an opportunity to jump out of it and than get behind is a little bit counter productive. Even if opposing fleet will make a daring attempt to push through an asteroid field and engage enemy, eldar will still get two rounds of “free†shooting minimum. This makes any assault by non-necron forces against competent eldar player almost suicidal and the game will stuck. Eldar will not come out from his hideout and his opponent will maintain 61 cm distance.
Maybe it will be wise to add a rule that if an eldar ship moves through the asteroid field with a speed above 10 cm it will suffer a point of damage on D6 roll of 6.
This will make asteroid jumping somewhat unrewarding, and will especially punish an escort heavy eldar fleet.
Fluff wise I think it’s quite dangerous to speed up in asteroid field without any shielding with all those micrometeorites and their unexpected orbits.
So I will gladly hear of what do you think of it. Maybe such test should only be taken once per turn?
Ps Sorry for my English
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Ack! So many replies! Have to skip a lot.
Ray, much as I agree with your sentiment about limiting the FAQ to clarifications about rules and typos, I think this is also a perfect time to fix the ships in Armada. It;s been what? 4 years since Armada came out? Especially since you did open the gates with suggesting modifying the Dragonship (though it is yours to close as well).
Really, at the present cost of the Endeavors, they should be given 6+ prow armor but remove the lances and weapon batteries attached to them and stick with the torps. This means the Endeavors would be inferior to the Dauntless in terms of firepower.
The Oberon should really be given its WB range back and cost it at 355 points. Yes it will become the best battleship but if you add +2 WBs to the Ret and fix the Apocalypse (I like the 40k Plasma disadvantage being used), then the difference will not be that different that people will be having a hard time to pick their battleship of choice.
The Despoiler's armament stats should also be fixed. It just doesn't look correct with what the model shows.
Desolator's lance strength should be increased to 6 but the cost should go up appropriately.
Here's to hoping I can still connect later.
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As long as the Desolator keeps 25cm speed.
Despoiler: agreed. Just swap it around. (prow : 4lb, p/s 2 Lb). Drop prow lances and increase p/s batteries to (at least) 10.
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25 cm speed for the Desolator can be kept. Just raise the cost appropriately. Most likely at 350-360.
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Don,
There has been talk of asteroid fields also having dust cloud properties. It makes sense, but this is such a radical rules change it won't happen in an FAQ.
Everyone else,
After this FAQ is finished I'll start another sticky thread about the possible changes to the fleets for when the rules are actually revised. Where the first post will be a list of the changes.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Question.
Can you shoot at an asteroid? maybe convert it to a dust cloud on a "critical" roll of 6?
are there rules against shooting celestial phenomenas?
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There are no rules FOR shooting at them so you cant. The only exception i know are mine fields (which are not really celetial phenomenas).
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Shooting asteroid field = x attacks against ships inside asteroid field? Maybe asteroids, being large and all have armour value of 6?
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Well that is sort of a typo. I dont want you to change tyranid only to clarify if the escorts do have shields because its a bit confusing how it is written in Armada. For Hive Ships and Cruisers instead of Turrets there stands "Spores". For Escorts there stands "Spores" below the category "Turrets". Nevertheless in the special rules at the beginning stands that "Spores" can be used as Shields and/or as Turrets.
So its kind of an interpretation if the Spores below Turret category for escorts means that they can only be used as Turrets. In the beginning my player group never read it like that and always played tyranid escorts with shields. So i think thats a point that should be clarified in the FAQ.
BTW i still wonder if that would be a necessary clarification.
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Okay, on the remarks about the ships put foreword.
Desolator:
I don't know about the design changes for this ship, I always viewed it as it being a fast, not the strongest, but nimble battleship. Meant for speed and attacking smaller ships. When i view it firing, i always viewed it as a 'staggered' fire, not all of the weapons opening up in the same salvo.
Increasing it's lance strength to 6, and adding it's speed and torpedo value... that would make it better then the Apocalypse battleship.
Personally, I like the idea of it staying the way it is. a Cheap, 300 point battleship with acceptable firepower.
Lets not forget that Chaos's punch comes from the cruisers. The IN relies on their battleships for real whack.
Despoiler
Again... not what the despoiler was meant for.. If you Wanted it to be punchy, keep it's prow lances, however it's the torpedos that really make this ship dangerous (added with it's launch capacity)
So on that note, I say leave the ships be. If they were going to be changed from what they are, it would have happened by now.
If you want punch in a battleship, take the planet killer, otherwise, rely on the repulsive and your other cruisers.
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Ages ago we used to shoot at asteroid fields as if they were minefields, just to try and wreck an Eldar players hiding place. Hmm, I can't remember why we stopped using that house rule... Oh yeah, our Eldar players whine too much! ;)
Cheers,
RayB
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Zelnik, the Despoiler has a gaping prow launch bay on the model. More people would take the vessel if it actually had a prow launch bay in the stats.
It has two battery slots on each side, equal to a Murder/Carnage so that should be 10 batteries.
It is still a carrier and those prow lances are and have been stupid. The issue may not have been up recently but has been an issue in the past on SG forum by a great many. Like everyone.
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Reserves and Daemonships: Are Daemonships, "ships" for the purpose of taking it as a reserve or are they rules that apply only to ships ever in the 13th Crusade list?
Russ
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Ages ago we used to shoot at asteroid fields as if they were minefields, just to try and wreck an Eldar players hiding place. Hmm, I can't remember why we stopped using that house rule... Oh yeah, our Eldar players whine too much! ;)
Cheers,
RayB
can we revive it?
maybe as an experimental rule?
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Russ,
Yeah you can take a daemon ship as a reserve! It's actually a reserve example in Armada. I'll make this clear in the FAQ.
Fracas,
I suppose it's possible, I'll ask the rest of the HA.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Trust me when i say this, Horizon, i agree with you. However, these rules have been set in stone for some time, and if we can't even change the prow of the Endeavor to 6+, how can we possibly change the Despoiler?
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....perhaps in the soon to open thread by Ray...?
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I appreciate that RayB spends his time for the BFG community for this FAQ. And i would be happy if the other thread would indeed be created to round up some more issues.
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Russ,
Yeah you can take a daemon ship as a reserve! It's actually a reserve example in Armada. I'll make this clear in the FAQ.
Fracas,
I suppose it's possible, I'll ask the rest of the HA.
Cheers,
RayB HA
Oh, are those rules missing from the PDF files? I don't own the actual book so I've never been straight on what the reserve rules where until you posted them.
Russ
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asked in another thread but probably more appropriate here
1. can SM bombardment cannon be shot simultaneously with regular batteries from the same ship/squadron, thus preventing the column shift generated if batteries fire first or afterward?
2. same with Orks heavy gunz.
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... no, because neither are batteries.
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... no, because neither are batteries.
Both weapons are stated to be batteries in their respective entries and this does make the issue less then crystal clear. I think Fracas asks a perfectly valid question that should be addressed in the FAQ regardless that most groups have accepted they are considered different weapons.
[Edit] Actually, bombardment cannons are clearly explained to be a different weapon type in there entry, but it does say "Bombardment cannons fie in the same way as weapon batteries..."
Russ
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Shooting asteroid field = x attacks against ships inside asteroid field? Maybe asteroids, being large and all have armour value of 6?
This wouldn't work I suppose. Eldar can jump over an asteroid field and sit behind. And I disagree with the 'field as a gas cloud' thing. It will cause a 5 cm speed reduction and will produce a blast marker. I think that a chance to be hit on a 6 in a case of high speed will preserve an Eldar ability for exceptional navigation and will make constant asteroid jumping suicidal.
About shooting at asteroids... well it's a difficult issue. Firstly an asteroid field is a big thing and you must vaporize asteroids in order to remove them. Maybe it is possible to vaporize a portion of a field with nova cannons or massive batteries fire. Maybe it would be rational to remove a portion of asteroid field covered by nova template after several successful battaries hit or nova hit. I think that there is more pressing concerns in rules right now, but, well, shooting at the scenery and blowing things up IS fun.
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Don,
It would be pretty extreme to destroy cellestial phenomenon. Shooting at asteroids could just cause BM's (like when shooting at a mine field), so as too slow and if lucky damage Eldar ships travelling through them.
Thinking on the subject further, Eldar just have to pass a leadership check to avoid the effects of dustclouds anyway!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Heck, just make Eldar MMS and the issue of sitting in and jumping out of asteroid fields is no longer an option. ;)
Or fly into the field yourself. Just a Ld test.
To be honest I find it daft to create special rules for shooting at celestial phenomena because one fleet/race can abuse this.
That is ridiculous.
It is obvious what the problem is and it isn't the asteroid field.
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Horizon,
It's still cool to be able to shot at asteroids even it has a minimal effect. :)
Eldar need to be redone, but not in an FAQ! It will be one hell of an adventure!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Heck, just make Eldar MMS and the issue of sitting in and jumping out of asteroid fields is no longer an option. ;)
Or fly into the field yourself. Just a Ld test.
It is obvious what the problem is and it isn't the asteroid field.
First of all, I was not this serious about shooting at asteroids.
About flying into the asteroids. I know about it, thank you, it even works against unwary eldar. But, as I have said, you will be exposed to ‘free’ shooting for about 2-3 turns. It's more than enough. And even when (if) you get into it you will be too battered to do something, and eldar may simply abandon the field and jump to you rear.
I forgot to mention it but I mean that eldar special rules should help him to avoid bigger asteroids while a random chance to be hit by some micrometeorite must be unavoidable at a high speeds even with thier superior navigation.
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shooting at asteroid and producing a blast marker there would be very cool indeed :)
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Warp Cannons (again) ;)
So if warp cannons do not ignore BFI and the reactive hull save of necron ships is always treated like BFI, that means they always get to save against warp cannons, even when they are not on BFI. Right?
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Eldar Haven Class Spire
Forgeworld no longer has rules to download....
What are the stats Ray?
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I'm not quite sure if this should be here or in the Ordnance thread, but here goes:
As they have their random launch capacity, how much do Ork Cruiza's pay for the Mine Launcher upgrade?
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Don Gusto,
Good catch. Necrons shouldn't get thier reactive hull save unless they are BFI'd. It needs a ruling though.
Roy,
The Spire deserves an article in Warprift. And a seperate pdf. Are you game?
Commx,
Orbital mines cost 5pts per launch bay, where a Kroozer has 4 bays, so +20pts. For random strengths, you'd have to pay for the maximum possible, this would only be for the Hammer. (Space Hulks are defences so they can't have mines!!!)
Note: Space Marines shouldn't be allowed Mines!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Yup, hit Warp Rift with a cool Have Spire article. I'm ready for it.
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Hi,
question
does Bio Plasma from Nids negate the Eldar holofield? yes or no?
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Ork Hulk
Can an Ork Hulk use the All Ahead Full special order?
Would it be able to turn at the end of its next move if it did?
;D
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I asked this one (in relation to ramming with a Space Hulk ^^) on the old SG forum once.
Answer was: Yes AAF is possible, but does not change the speed of 10cm (and the test to ram ist always 3D6). AAF excludes turning other than from gravity wells.
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I do not know if this has been answered or not, but..
Why can't i use the star pulse generator and terror field while on lock on? They should not be AFFECTED by it, so you don't re-roll misses, but you should still be able to use them.
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Trynerror,
AAF on a Space Hulk is for unlikely ramming.
Zelnik,
It's a game mechanic, not one I'm fond of.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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then why not change it? please explain Ray.
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Dameonships and criticals: When Dameonships go back into the warp do they suffer affects of criticals, i.e. are they affected by fire critical in the warp? If so, do they get an opportunity to save against it?
Thanks,
Russ
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Well that is sort of a typo. I dont want you to change tyranid only to clarify if the escorts do have shields because its a bit confusing how it is written in Armada. For Hive Ships and Cruisers instead of Turrets there stands "Spores". For Escorts there stands "Spores" below the category "Turrets". Nevertheless in the special rules at the beginning stands that "Spores" can be used as Shields and/or as Turrets.
So its kind of an interpretation if the Spores below Turret category for escorts means that they can only be used as Turrets. In the beginning my player group never read it like that and always played tyranid escorts with shields. So i think thats a point that should be clarified in the FAQ.
As it was not answered and just last week i had an tyranid player that always uses escots WITH spores as shields pls clarify it in the FAQ. Can tyranid escorts use their spores as shields or not?
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Russ,
Daemonships count as still being in play for the purpose of criticals.
Caine-HoA,
I put this in the FAQ a while ago, they do count as shields.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Ah ok sry i guess i read that over.
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As far as the Demonships are concerned. How does the hull point repair roll correlate with the critical hit repair roll as they both occur in the end phase and the first would affect the other?
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I still have not gotten an answer about lock on and SPG and Terror field....
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Yes, Ray answered it. The FAQ wil not adress it.
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But i was not given a reason and it just seems stupid to not let the player use it.
can we have a list of all the HA approval requiring rules, and the ones that cause the most dissent? We really don't want to move off topic here.
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BFI and Slavetaking: the slavetaking alternative to hit&run critical is chosen after BFI save correct? In other words Slavetaking is a form of hit&run that you're allowed a standard BFI save against correct?
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What does the actual rule say?
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"The Dark Eldar receive a +1 on Hit & Run attacks (meaning they will normally succeed) but may forgo rolling on the Hit & Run Critical Hit table in return for +10 VP's. This +1 modifier is only applied to Slavebringer Assault Boats, not Impaler attacks."
Hmm. As it reads in the BBB for A-Boats, after rolling for turrets, you go straight to the Hit & Run attack's critical table roll. I would say the defender recieves a BFI roll for every AC squadron that wants the +10 VP option just like he should get a BFI roll for any squadron that makes a successful Hit & Run attack.
This does bring up an interesting question, do Dark Eldar get +1 modifiers to Teleport Hit & Run attacks? I would suggest they should as it is their style of attack.
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Should be able to BFI.
Since there is a rule saying the DE get a +1 modifier for H&R attacks then they should have it.
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Actually Admiral, that is the rule on the +1 for Hit & Run attacks. But it specifically states its only applied to the Slavebringer's with no mention of Teleport Attacks. Clarification from Ray on this would be really helpful.
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Orks AAF and Failed Command Check: After failing a command check to go on SO can any other Ork vessel elect to go on AAF?
Relevant quotes in question can be found in the following discussion:
http://www.portmaw.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?39434
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Actually Admiral, that is the rule on the +1 for Hit & Run attacks. But it specifically states its only applied to the Slavebringer's with no mention of Teleport Attacks. Clarification from Ray on this would be really helpful.
Ah, I missed the part about the Slavebringer. Then the +1 to H&R would not apply to Teleport attacks.
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Crippled Daemonship and Haunting (Repair): A Daemonship is crippled. It drops into the warp and returns un-crippled. Do you score victory points as Crippled or Disengaged at the end of the game?
Daemonship and Warp Translation: It's stated that "In the End phase of any Chaos turn, after the first, they may enter play from the warp..." and then it says under Spectral Daemonships "It is not entirely present in real space... At the end of any subsequent Chaos End pahse it may complete the translation to real space."
Correct me if I'm reading this wrong, but this means that any Daemonship that starts the game off the table can not be placed on the table until the end of Chaos turn 2 and won't materialize until the end of Chaos turn 3, which means it won't be able to move or shot until the beginning of Chaos turn 4 at the soonest!? :-\
If that is correct, now imagine using Haunting to disengage and come back repaired. The game would have been done 3 hours ago! (I'm not petitioning for a rules change, but with rules like that the upgrade should be FREE! :D Or, at least modified so materializing can take place at the start of a turn without option to go on SO...maybe. Also, change it so you can place the ship at the end of your first turn.)
Daemonship and Moving: Ray, why was it ruled in the last FAQ that they can't move? I get the other rulings about shooting etc., but being able to simply move gives them an actual purpose as a LD disruptor. That might just make it worth taking for a unique strategy. As it stands it seems quite pointless to invest 20+ points.
Russ
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1. No, if a demoship de-cripples itself, it no longer counts as being crippled.
2. You may start with a demonship in normal deployment if you wish, but you don't get the opportunity to haunt until you translate out, and back in again.
3. Balls if i know, it CAN be useful if you get lucky with your translation roll.
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Zhukov,
Daemonships may not make repair rolls in the end phase they are deployed.
Dark Eldar Hit & Run Attacks: Dark Eldar receive a +1 to all of their Hit & Run attacks excluding Impaler Assault Modules. Slavetaking may be performed instead of any Hit & Run, including teleporter attacks. Slavetaking maybe braced against.
Russ c,
Orks All Ahead Full: If an Ork command check is failed Ork ships not already on All Ahead Full may not then be put on All Ahead Full.
Daemonships Repairing Above The Crippling Threshold: If Daemonships repair enough hits to uncripple themselves they will still count as crippled for purposes of victory points and for losing leadership in campaigns unless they started the game crippled.
On the point of Daemonships sucking: They can be deployed conventionally gaining auto-disengagement and can regain hits every other turn while repairing crits. Not to mention acting as a pretty sweet bullet shield for other parts of your fleet, or mopping up ordnance while braced and then disengage.
On the stationary aspect, you can always disengage then redeploy in the following turn. Granted that’s not that great but it’s not terrible either. The -3 leadership penalty from an invulnerable 30cm speed cruiser was too strong, the no movement change was for balance.
Thanks for your help everyone,
RayB HA
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The -3 leadership penalty from an invulnerable 30cm speed cruiser was too strong, the no movement change was for balance.
I suspected this was at least part of the reasoning. Unfortunately the reverse effect seems to have happened where they are ineffective as a disruptor because of the time to materialize. It's to bad there wasn't a balance point between the two extremes where they could still move, but instead of MoS stacking, it trumped the Daemonship LD effect giving you a moving -2 LD ship with the Mark and a -1 without it or perhaps Marks have no effect with non-materialized ships. Having not playtested this, I conceded it might still be to powerful, but food for thought. I mean, your still wasting 40+ points on the strategy! (Once again, curious but not petitioning).
Thanks for the other rulings. The Ork AAF is good to have clarified because it seems you've ruled against the majority at Port Maw who've participated in the conversation! :)
Russ
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Oh Ray, I don't feel the need for this in the FAQ so please don't yell at me for posting this here, but can you confirm whether the scenario I outlined about materializing is true? If a daemonship is selected to begin the game off the table, it won't be able to move or fire until turn 4 right?
Russ
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i think it should be added to the FAQ for both demon ship and orks AAF
especially since i disagree with orks AFF ruling
imo, there is no command check if no roll is made.
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Russ,
If a Daemonship starts off table it won't be able to shoot until turn 4 at the earliest.
Fracas,
Going on AAF with a ship you failed to Reload/Lock-on is a little ridiculious. However, Orks do need all the help they can get. I'll get a ruling.
Cheers,
RayB
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The question was about all the ships that didn´t test for anything at all, yet. It´s not possible for the ship that failed obviously, so the ruling should exclude this ship for AAF.
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Yeah Ray it's about the OTHER vessels in the fleet since each vessel/squadron can attempt only one SO a turn.
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Orks need help but I don't think they need it in the choosing of the SO phase. Again, as I pointed out in the Port Maw thread, they are passing the AAF Command Check automatically but it does not mean they are not making the AAF Command Check.
I want the help from Orks to come more directly in the form of changes to the number of weapons it has and the way Heavy Gunz work. Orks should get more WBs as in lots more WBs but they should be getting an accuracy penalty. So the target armor value gets +1 up to a max of 6. Heavy gunz should either ignore BMs since the range is so short but they should get more of them too and still do their double damage on hits. Speaking of which, Ray can you clarify how Shields and BFI saves work against the Heavy Gunz? Do Shields and BFI save against the shot or the damage?
Simply allowing the Orks to continue making AAF SOs after failing another SO check does not really help them much in any way. Anyway, the obvious sequence is really simple. Do your AAF moves first before you decide to do another SO which the Orks may or may not pass.
Fluff-wise, confusion would reign much further in a horde where leadership is low.
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Fracas,
Going on AAF with a ship you failed to Reload/Lock-on is a little ridiculious. However, Orks do need all the help they can get. I'll get a ruling.
Cheers,
RayB
didn't think of that. would indeed be ridiculous for an ork ship that failed one SO to be able to go on AAF
maybe this would be one of those things you do
like firing batteries before lances
to go on AAF before you test for other SOs
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If you failed a command check and were then able to put ships on AAF you'd be able to do so for ships you intended to reload or lock-on. This kind of flexability isn't really the intention of the rule. As I said Orks need all the help they can get now, afterall if Orks get re-done this can always be redefined.
You save against each point of damage, so if 4 Hvy gunz hit an escort squadron you'd total up 8 damage then save as normal.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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So when 4 Heavy Gunz hit a 6 ship Sword, then Sword A takes Hit 1 on the shield then saves against Hit 2, then Sword 2 takes Hit 3 on the shield then saves against Hit 4 and so on and so forth? How about Eldar holofields? Against the shot or against the damage?
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
Your example is a little unclear... Hvy gunz cause 2 points of damage per hit, you save vs each point of damage caused. Just like if a NC scored 4 points of damage you'd roll a save for each point of damage past shields, not for the NC's damage in total.
Hvy Gunz are battery weapons, so holofields just cause the right shift, nothing more.
Cheers,
RayB
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Hi All,
As the speed of questions for the FAQ is slowing to a trickle, further answers will be added in bold to help me add them to a single FAQ document.
I’m going to mention anyone who has got any questions nailed onto the FAQ. If this is okay with you please let me know.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Admiral_d_Artagnan,
Your example is a little unclear... Hvy gunz cause 2 points of damage per hit, you save vs each point of damage caused. Just like if a NC scored 4 points of damage you'd roll a save for each point of damage past shields, not for the NC's damage in total.
Yes, it's a bit unclear. I know the question has popped up before so it was kind of confusing how one saves against the HG damage. So, as a further clarification against escorts with total of 8 damage from HGs:
Sword A takes Hit 1 on the shields.
Sword A tries to save vs Hit 2. Succeeds.
Sword A tries to save vs Hit 3. Fails. Destroyed.
Sword B takes hit 4 on the shields.
Sword B tries to save vs Hit 5. Fails. Destroyed.
Sword C takes hit 6 on the shields.
Sword C tries to save vs Hit 7. Succeeds.
Sword C tries to save vs Hit 8. Succeeds.
Damage resolution resolved. So is this how it would work out?
Hvy Gunz are battery weapons, so holofields just cause the right shift, nothing more.
Cheers,
RayB
Ah yes, true.
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Are the ships listed in the rulebook and BFG Armada the only ships counted as "official"? There are many more ships in the internet, for example the Falchion cruisers and the Anguish Battleship created by the BFG email group.
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What is on the sites of GW + FW is official.
Rest is not.
*except FAQ2007.
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The most important thing to me about the Ork AAF ruling is that it clarifies the vocabulary:
1. "do not need to pass a command check" = "still makes a command check roll but with automatically pass"
instead of the 2nd way some people have understood the sentence:
2. "do not need to pass a command check" = "you do not make a command check"
So, to clarify your stating that definition 1. is the meaning of the statement "do not need to pass a command check"?
Russ
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One last question for now:
1) Normal Shields and Spores create Blast Markers, and Holofields create Blast Markers upon saving a Hit. But what about a Necron Reactive Hull? Currently it is the only defence mechanism which does not mention Blast Markers. Is this intentional or an oversight?
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Commx,
It's intentional, Necrons completely ignore BM's anyway!
Cheers,
RayB
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Do Necrons then actually function like ships with no shields (like Eldar or other ships with shield collapse)?
Thus take possible hit from blastmarker when flying through them?
Also, when suddenly turrets take roll of shields against asteroids Necrons get a huge boost. If they need it...
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What is on the sites of GW + FW is official.
Rest is not.
*except FAQ2007.
Not even everything at the SG site is official so ask first. AM, CWE and Powers of Chaos are official. The SM PDF isn't yet AFAIK.
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Do Necrons then actually function like ships with no shields (like Eldar or other ships with shield collapse)?
Thus take possible hit from blastmarker when flying through them?
i have wondered about this as well
if no shield, they should be vulnerable to a hit, not a blast marker.
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Admiral, what SM pdf?
Back in the old SG site days everything was official in the official section, that did not have the SM pdf (with dominion fleet right?) in it.
GW transfered everything except Rogue Traders & FAQ2007 to their page.
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under REACTIVE HULLS in the Necron rules:
"all Necron ships with a reactive hull are immune to Damage, Leadership and Movement modifiers from solar flares, radiation, gas clouds and blast markers.
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Admiral, what SM pdf?
Back in the old SG site days everything was official in the official section, that did not have the SM pdf (with dominion fleet right?) in it.
GW transfered everything except Rogue Traders & FAQ2007 to their page.
Ok. Haven't checked the SG site for a while.
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Everything on the US site is Official. The unofficial SM pdf is not on the site.
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Demiurg. We have established they don't can't have fleet commanders or use re-rolls. So the only reason why they aren't an official fleet is because we don't want to write "It takes two-three Bastions to field each Stronghold. You may use Rouge traders in Demiurg fleets"? It seems to me it is beneficial to have new people to the game have a reason to buy more than one model (or package of two cruisers) of the Demiurg product line. Seems like a simple solution to me.
-Zhukov
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Demiurg. We have established they don't can't have fleet commanders or use re-rolls. So the only reason why they aren't an official fleet is because we don't want to write "It takes two-three Bastions to field each Stronghold. You may use Rouge traders in Demiurg fleets"? It seems to me it is beneficial to have new people to the game have a reason to buy more than one model (or package of two cruisers) of the Demiurg product line. Seems like a simple solution to me.
-Zhukov
adding an admiral and reroll options (these don't vary that much from fleet to fleet) as well as a limit like 2-3 bastions per stronghold make alot of sense and would give them full fleet status (with limited models)
btw, weren't there rules for a demiurge escort being worked on sometime past?
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These where unofficial, though I know Ray worked on Demiurg (or was it Kroot?) with Xisor (who has left BFG... but it still online at the BL forum in case someone is tracking him).
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Demiurg should be sorted out, even if unofficially in Warp Rift. Same for Kroot, but who owns a warsphere beyond the die hards with that outragous price tag?
Cheers,
RayB
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i must be a diehard then
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Fracas,
Good for you! I love my Kroot Warsphere, but for its megre influence in the game I never use it.
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Ray,
People play with Kroot Warspheres but they use scratchbuilt or other models for them.
The Demiurg though. It's mentioned 5 times they can be fielded in a fleet of their own. It's stated in the rules currently they may not have fleet commanders or use fleet commander re-rolls. In the fluff it states 2-3 Bastions escort each Stronghold when they assemble for war. So we seem to have all the rules already there, all we need to do is just make it "official". What exactly is stopping us from doing this?
-Zhukov
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Zhukov,
The obstacle preventing us from just making an official Demiurg list is the varied collaboration between Forge World and Specialist Games. However, Andy Chambers made the stats for the Stronghold so I don't think the Demiurg is any FW employees baby.
We lost the master for Demiurg escorts, but we do have the Demiurg looking escort from the Rogue Trader escort blister.
Another problem is the shear boring nature of having a single class of cruiser, with no escorts and only one light BB.
The best solution IMO is to have a comprehensive RT list that can be warped into a Demiurg list, Kroot List or Pirate list.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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What happend to the Nicassar Dhow ? They seem to have vanished without trace and I can´t get any today.
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Tyrnerror,
This isn't really the topic to ask that ::). I'll speak to the mail order people.
Cheers,
RayB
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Just noticed that Necro rules say nothing about crippled necron raider squardrons. Do they ignore that and always disengage at 25%? Do destroyed raiders count as 100% or 200%? Not sure if this was answered before.
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Trynerror,
Sadly it looks as though Nicassar Dhows will no longer be sold. I'll make a few more inquiries, but I'm not hopeful. :'(
Mazila,
Raiders use the normal Vps for escorts but count as 25% destroyed if they disengage.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Thank you very much Ray. So I´ll have to make my own somehow.
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Automatically passing command checks
After the issue with Orkz and AAF came up I noticed that Dark Eldar have the same situation with CTNH. The Dark Eldar rules are worded more clearly though.
Maybe it would make more sense to clarify this in the general rules/special orders section.
Ork Warlord Limitations
Both Ork lists include a very clear example about how many Warlords can be taken in a fleet (at the end of the warlord entry). The current wording for the FAQ 2010 ...
Ork Warlords maybe purchased for every full 500pts in the fleet including the value of the Warlord. So you may include two Warlords in a fleet worth exactly 1000pts but only one Warlord in a fleet worth 995pts. (Needs HA Ruling)
... contradicts these (one less warlord).
Is that intentional, are Warlords deemed too powerful?
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Don,
DE CTNH: Well as these are clear I'm not sure it needs further mention. :D
Ork Warlord: It still needs a HA ruling, but this is to do with the lack of clarification in the pirate list. (this will be made clear).
Cheers,
RayB HA
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An Ork fleet can include a max. of one Warlord
per 500 points. le, if the fleet is worth up to 500
points, it may have one Warlord. If it is worth 500-
1,000 points two Warlords may be included, etc.
This requires further clarification?
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:-[
No it doesn't.... Doh, I'll get rid of this as orks need all the help they can get.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Why? If you build a competitive Ork fleet (Terror & Terror & Terror Kroozers) they are good. (Adapticon winner couple of years ago, re: Deadshade (warseer).).
Orks need help on their escorts I reckon.
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Q: Does the 13th Black Crusade require a warmaster at 750 pts an above? Even if it does not contain any capital ships?
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Fracas,
A Chaos fleet worth 750pts or more has to have a capital ship. This is in the FAQ.
Cheers,
RayB
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Powers of Chaos (Terminus Est and Nurgle) pdf questions:
i) When are the other battleships released like the intro says? (Evil question).
ii) The Terminus Est has a Mark of Nurgle coming with it (in the points). In the fleet list my Warmaster has a Mark of Nurgle in the costs. Do I have double Mark of Nurgle now? Thus another +1 hit to the Terminus Est? Or am I just wasting 35 points for nothing?
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Roy,
They will be released when Lord of the Rings is sacrificed to the share holder gods!
You don't get another mark of nurgle, instead minus 35pts from the warmasters cost.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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So, that'll be in the FAQ? Cool.
hmm, I kinda like LotR SBG. I hope they ditch WHFB.
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Well, you don't have to release an actual model to sell but it would be nice to have stats then just have the player convert their own Chaos character battleship.
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Roy,
Well it will be up for discussion. We(HA) have plowed through most of it, I'll throw the late questions in after we've sorted the ones that are in the topic starters.
Admiral_d_Artagnan
Indeed, it might be an idea to have a competition (similar to how the Vengeance got made), of course there still won't be a model released but it might be cool. Don't get excited the others might not be up for this!
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Ah, good to know you started working on the final FAQ2010 (I've got this tournament coming up in september...).
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Hi Ray,
some friends looked at this :
[quoteFighta-Bommas: Fighta-Bommas are fighters with a speed of 25cm. They may also attack like bombers with D3 attack runs instead of D6. Fighta-Bommas count as having +3 to turret suppression. E.g. If a wave of 4 Fighta-Bommas attacks a cruiser with 2 turrets they will have (D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+(D3-2)+ turret suppression(2) attack runs. Note: If each Fighta-Bomma marker attacks individually they will have (D3-2)+ turret suppression(2) attack runs, which is far more offensive.
Fighta-Bommas and turret suppression: When a wave of fighta-bommas attacks a ship you must decide if any of the markers will forgo their attack runs in favour of turret suppression. This is in addition to the inbuilt +3 fighter suppression.
[/quote]
and found it utter confusing compared to the current mess.... lol
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Hey, competition would be neat. I would join. LOL!
And yes the current FB rules are more confusing than the last the 2007 FAQ. Which was simple actually until people who couldn't accept that Orks could actually have more attacks than Eldar complained.
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fighter suppression with regular bombers (rather than orks fighter-bombers)
B x (D6 - (F - T)) with B is the number of attacking bomber, F is the number of fighter escorts in the wave, and T is the of defending turrets; limited by (F-T) is <= 0.
or is it
B x (D6 - T) + (F - T) ?
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Before I had understood it to be (D3-T)+3. Simple enough.
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fighter suppression with regular bombers (rather than orks fighter-bombers)
B x (D6 - (F - T)) with B is the number of attacking bomber, F is the number of fighter escorts in the wave, and T is the of defending turrets; limited by (F-T) is <= 0.
or is it
B x (D6 - T) + (F - T) ?
Ha, I see how it is fracas! You just don't trust my formula over at portmaw! :D It's neither of those formulas...
You roll for a D6 for each bomber and subtract the turret value from each D6, where (D6-T) is >= 0
Then you add F at the very end of the bomber calculation. F cannot be greater then T ( F <= T ) Thus you get the formula that is different then both you've presented:
(BD6 - B*T) + F
Your second formula is close, but you do not subtract the turret value from the number of fighters. Additionally, you can't express the bomber attacks as B*(D6-T) because that implies that you roll a single D6.
But, your probably looking for a response from Ray! :)
Russ
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not you russ :)
just that it is unsettling to think i may have been playing it wrong :(
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Russ is right on standard bombers/fighters.
Admiral d'Artagnan is right on fighter bombers. As is how it should be imo.
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with your interpretation against T6 ships the only component of the wave that causes damage is the fighter. thus a wave of 3F + B would cause 3 attacks, which is better than a wave of 3B+F! that seems odd that fighters does the damage regardless of what the bomber attack roll is
with my formulation a wave of 3B+F against T6 is 3x(D6 - 5) or 0-3 attacks at best
and a wave of 3F+B causes (D6-3) or 1-3 attacks
thus variability remains with the bomber roll.
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Hey
I'm all for new ships , always cool to have something to convert. If there is interest in a competition I am all for it !!
Matt
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Fracas.
D6-5 will be 0 or 1.
When it is 0 then you have:
3x0 = 0
So only if you roll a 6 you will have 3 attacks.... otherwise 0.
In the ruling 3b + f or b + 3f it all depends which ship they are attacking. The higher the turret rating the better the fighter will work. Against two turret ships more bombers will do the job.
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with your interpretation against T6 ships the only component of the wave that causes damage is the fighter. thus a wave of 3F + B would cause 3 attacks, which is better than a wave of 3B+F! that seems odd that fighters does the damage regardless of what the bomber attack roll is
with my formulation a wave of 3B+F against T6 is 3x(D6 - 5) or 0-3 attacks at best
and a wave of 3F+B causes (D6-3) or 1-3 attacks
thus variability remains with the bomber roll.
Warning I'm about to talk fluff...I know, shocking, but enjoy it while you can:
I believe the logic of the fighters attacks is they are actually distracting the turrets to allow some more bomber attacks to be successful. Thus, the attacks are still coming from the bombers. But yes, from a mechanics perspective it does appear the fighters are the only thing attacking.
Russ
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fighter turret suppression should be just that
the fighters distract the turrets from attacking the bombers
T-F such that it cannot be <0
then the remaining turrets degrade the bomber attacks
(D6-(T-F)) per B
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I'd just like to point out that the "fracas formula" provides a slightly higher number of possible attacks, but in return provides worse odds of doing damage against high turret value ships. For example, 2B+2f against 6T would result in exactly 2 guaranteed attacks with the current rules, but would provide the possibility of 0-4 attacks in your formula, where ~66% of the time you'll be doing 0 attacks.
Just stating the facts to help compare the two,
Russ
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Formula wise / rule wise the option by Fracas (D6 - (T-F)) is very elegant.
But indeed, the effectiveness should be tested out.
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Roy,
Thanks for sharing your confusion! :D
Fighta-Bommas are fighters that may attack as bombers with an inbuilt +3 turret suppression no matter the number in the wave. Note: If ALL the fighter bombers in a wave are destroyed no attack runs will be made because there are no longer any bombers to attack.
So we have 4 FB's versus an Emperor BB, The Ork player elects to have 2 FB's as pure turret suppression. The Emperor shoots down 3 of the FB's, leaving only one FB acting as a bomber as the ones acting as pure turret suppression get killed first automatically. The FB will have (D3-5, 0) +3 FB in built turret suppression and +2 pure turret suppression from the 2 FB's. So in total the FB's get 5 attack runs against the Emperor!
If the same formation went up against a Dictator with its 3 turrets, the maximum attack runs would be 3.
Ah FB turret suppresion, what a monkey! Hmm, to keep things even scaled we could dissallow FB's acting as normal turret suppression. That way the Ork player won't be rewarded for the enemy having more than 3 turrets.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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I would prefer turret suppression to be the following: each bomber may have a fighter gift a single unmodified attack run. FB's would have 1 inbuilt.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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(D6-(T-F)) per B
a wave of 4 against 1 turret
4 bombers = 0-5 attacks per bomber x4 (10 mean)
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 1-6 attacks per bomber x3 (10.5 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 1-6 attacks per bomber x2 (7 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 1-6 attacks per bomber (3.5 mean)
a wave of 4 against 2 turrets
4 bombers = 0-4 attacks per bomber x4 (6.66 mean)
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 0-5 attacks per bomber x3 (7.5 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 1-6 attacks per bomber x2 (7 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 1-6 attacks per bomber (3.5 mean)
a wave of 4 against 3 turrets
4 bombers = 0-3 attacks per bomber (4 mean)
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 0-4 attacks per bomber x3 (5 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 0-5 attacks per bomber x2 (5 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 1-6 attacks per bomber (4.5 mean)
a wave of 4 against 4 turrets
4 bombers = 0-2 attacks per bomber (2 mean)
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 0-3 attacks per bomber x3 (3 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 0-4 attacks per bomber x2 (3.33 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 0-5 attacks per bomber (2.5 mean)
a wave of 4 against 5 turrets
4 bombers = 0-1 attacks per bomber (0.66 mean)
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 0-2 attacks per bomber x3 (1.5 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 0-3 attacks per bomber x2 (2 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 0-4 attacks per bomber (1.66 mean)
a wave of 4 against 6 turrets
4 bombers = 0 attacks per bomber
3 bombers + 1 fighter = 0-1 attacks per bomber x3 (0.5 mean)
2 bombers + 2 fighters = 0-2 attacks per bomber x2 (1 mean)
2 bombers + 3 fighters = 0-3 attacks per bomber (1 mean)
i think :)
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This (fracas formular) is like we played it most of the time in our round. We misunderstood it when we first read the turret surpression rule.
So i guess we had a lot of playtesting :-) Ive to say we didnt have big problems with it, and now as i played with the correct rule for a while i like the "fracas" version more...
Maybe because im not very lucky in rolling dice and play Tau a lot ;-)
The effect is that mid range turrets are overwhelmed a bit better by bombers and thats ecactly what i think is needed. who attacks turret 5 or 6 ships with bombers... thats not their part of the work to do, but they should still be worth it vs turret 3 and 4 targets and thats ecactly where the official rule makes them worse than the "fracas" version.
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JUST WONDERING IS THIS FAQ EVER GOING TO A DOCUMENT or is it just becoming a glorified rules forum. Our group in Denver, CO is concerned that there is TO much lobbying by people for the rules to go the way they want // Sorry we're just a little fustrated on how some of the discussions are getting side tracked ???
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Hi patghiggins,
which discussions. Discussions are good. If only one person commented we would be in big trouble. I see discussions as a good thing.
Read post #1 by Ray Bell. This will be a document and as far as I can see it'll be on the GW site. The subjects which have been marked 'needs HA ruling' can be subject to change before publication. The rest will be 1:1 in the document.
I just hope the HA selects a few people the final document before publication and lets them read it to see if the explanations are clear enough and without confusion.
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Hi patghiggins,
There will be a final document incorporating old and new FAQ. This will be tested for clarity.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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For balance sake could High Admiralty consider
1. Removing corsair holofield against attack crafts (not torpedoes)? given they attack at such close range anyway, visual targeting can be performed instead of relying on targeting sensors. this will make corsair eldars weaker against all fleets except necrons (ha!). i think the combination of current holofield and MSM makes them a bit too much.
With regard to craftworld eldar i would think they should change as well.
As dark eldar do not use shadowfield, i can envision their technology make the ship like a darker patch of dark space, thus making them hard to visually target, shadowfield should still get their save against attack crafts.
2. The necron hull armor is living metal, perhaps they should not get their saves against hits by torpedoes. Most space torpedoes are likely to be nuclear and while a thick armor can protect the crew inside from radiation, the hull would receive the full effect of the radiation. This simple change would provide just a chink in their armor and would make Necron a bit weaker against all fleets.
The net result would be for player to field a balance fleet of batteries and lance, torpedoes and attack crafts.
just food for thoughts
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I think that removing the holofield save against AC sounds nice on paper, but your are really making them extremely weak against ordnance heavy races like tau. If I were exploring options to adjust the holofield I'd think about adjusting the save value before adding exceptions to special rules.
2. seems rather arbitrary and doesn't make a lot of sense. Surely bombers can carry high yield warheads too, so why not extend this to them? Living metal isn't alive in an organic sense anyway so I don't think it would be affected by radiation in the same manner. I don't think that this is really going to give balance. I think there would be better results in balancing the Necron fleet by adjusting the fleet compositions rather than the durability.
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hmm,
On the holofield thing. I am not fond of that idea. This will further increase the strength of Chaos against Eldar. As it stands Chaos is the best opponent after Necrons vs Eldar due their long range weaponry across the fleet. Chaos is also noted for its good ordnance. Thus Chaos would gain another asset. The Imperial Navy on the other hand will never be an ordnance heavy fleet like Chaos, though the IN would benefit.
But in the end I think it is creating too many special rules with extra's.
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I think one small way to fix eldar is to force them to take 1 cruiser per 500 points. That way they won't have that many those nasty escorts.
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Then, when I would be an Eldar player using msm, would ask for a rule that opponents must take 1 or 2 escorts per capital ship.
Nah, that fix ain't gonna work. Craftworld Eldar are cruisers only.
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Forget MSM, since it is not official and has nothing to do with FAQ.
Well craftworld Eldar do not bother me tbh, i am trying to fix mass nightshade and hemlock builds with my idea.
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Forget MSM, since it is not official and has nothing to do with FAQ.
Really! AWESOME! WIN!
;)
msm = official
mms = unofficial
Well craftworld Eldar do not bother me tbh, i am trying to fix mass nightshade and hemlock builds with my idea.
Fix = both at least + 10 points in cost.
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UPS, misread ;D
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with my proposed changed for eldar holofield, most fleets will be a bit better against eldar, and the order of their competitiveness would not change.
i see ac being sent in to get a better look at the target, and make a hull straffling attack.
regarding proposed change for necron against torpedoes, it amuses me some that the strongest fleet torpedo wise might be orks (upward of a S6 salvo from an escort? whoa!) who might have been designed by the old ones to fight the necrons. The other fleet that would do well would be tau, who might have been modified by eldars. ha ha. btw, eldar would also do better against necron.
so while chaos might do better against eldar, they won't do much better against necrons.
while you can both change the saves for holofield and living hull saves, i think accross the board changes might be too much. more importantly, imo specific chinks/angles of weakness make a fleet more interesting to field, and to fight against.
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Hi Fracas,
Holofields: We won't be changing the holofield mechanic, (I would like to, but now is not the time).
If you got rid of Eldar's defence against AC this would greatly tip the scales when tailoring a fleet to kill Eldar. AC are already good against eldar anyway. All those blast markers slowing them down in their 'run away phase' and having the ability to actually reach them in an asteroid field.
Reactive Armour: Once again this isn't really the time. Even still it's not fluff accurate, and this is a pretty weird vulnerability. Everyone excluding SM's, Chaos, Nids... oh and Necrons would benefit from this in a meaningful way. Orks not so much either as they can't combine torps and have poor leadership. Also Necrons can go crazy when massing turrets (granted this will be limited in the new FAQ), so torps (unless they have stealth) will be hard pressed to get past thier defences.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Ray,
thanks for the considerations.
one more thing. given all the discussions and work so far, would the HA consider going further and put out BFG 2.0? an all in one bound book would be awesome for all of us, as well as expand the number of us once the 2.0 book is on store shelves.
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If we did put out a BFG 2.0 I would imagine it would be as an online resource only. (It could include every fleet though.. :)) We would need the go ahead from GW though.... I'm not hopefull, but fingers crossed.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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If it ever happens make seperate pdf's for every fleet. This will be easier to manage in case of updates and bandwith when downloading.
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Indeed, in a similar fashion to how the rulebooks are fragmented at present, but keeping the page numbers as if they were one book.
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Yeah, but Ships of the Gothic Sector split up and all Chaos vessels (from Armada & rulebook) in one pdf.
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If there was a BFG 2.0 I don't believe there would be a need to have multiple Chaos, Imperial or Ork lists if done correctly.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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pdf would be awesome if there was an option for all in one.
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I would say all in 1 rules pdf
all in 1 campaigns
then all in 1: Imperial navy (all ships, all lists, etc.)
all in 1: Chaos
": Tau
": nids
.... you get the Jist.
GW probably won't make a bfg 2.0. they'd have to hire on Horizon to redo eldar and ray might get pouty. (j/k!)
____
on another note. what about expanding the armada 'modifications' to include fighter bomber upgrades at a cost per LB?
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any thoughts to change the kroot sphere from a defense to a ship for purpose of movement and as a target?
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Any thoughts to make the Overlord a more appealing choice?
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As far as the Kroot, I would increase it's speed to at least 15cm and increase the range of it's weapons to 45cm.
-Zhukov
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Ramilies questions:
In the end phase do you a) remove 1d6 blast markers in total or b) remove d6 blast markers from each quadrant?
If the answer is b), maybe you should specify whether each quadrant get a separate roll or you use one roll and apply it to each quadrant separately.
The wording in the Armada rulebook is very ambiguous as the word "just" confuses the whole sentence. It reads like the writer was distracted mid-sentence and changed what they intended to write.
"In the End phase D6 blast markers are removed from the whole of the Ramilies fort, not just D6 blast markers per quadrant."
Also, I was sure the Ramilies rotated 45 degrees each turn, but I can't find where I read that.
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Hi Dan Lee,
You've just reminded me of something I really want to 'fix'.
Proposal: Any BM's on a Ramilies base will take down a shield from each quadrant! (which given that they are getting massed turrets is as is in the rules).
So if the station has 4 BM's in contact none of the quadrants will have shields, if any of the quadrants are crippled, only 2 BM's are required to drop those quadrants shields.
What do you think?
Cheers,
RayB HA
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I would argue no. First off, this seems like too much anyway and significantly weakens the Ramilies. But secondly, I always thought that when it said "each quadrant has it's own shields" that it means each quadrant has it's own shield generators, which means that blast markers on one quadrant will not affect the other's. At the same time though, ya'll make the argument that one blast marker takes down the shields of every vessel of an escort vessel that are in base-to-base contact (which I totally disagree with btw).
-Zhukov
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Defences are already weak. Weakening them further is a bit too much.
In the fluff it is said: 'a ship is a fool trying to fight a space station.'
But A mere cruiser blows it to little pieces without much trouble. A fix for the defences, even rethinking/designing them, would be welcom.
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Reminds me of a forgotten wip article I have stored on my pc...
About how defences really should be.
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In my mind:
- they are more easily hit, being stationary.
- to compensate: more shields and heavy armour (6)
- always a BFI save of 4+ without reducing weapon strength; they are build to last.
But open to suggestions ;)
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Maybe not a BFI save but higher structural integrity = more hitpoints
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Hi Dan Lee,
You've just reminded me of something I really want to 'fix'.
Proposal: Any BM's on a Ramilies base will take down a shield from each quadrant! (which given that they are getting massed turrets is as is in the rules).
So if the station has 4 BM's in contact none of the quadrants will have shields, if any of the quadrants are crippled, only 2 BM's are required to drop those quadrants shields.
What do you think?
Cheers,
RayB HA
I agree with Ray on this one. Zukov, I understand how you feel about this significantly impacting a Ramilies. Personally I love this model and use it every now and again, but the Ramiles is a MONSTER for the points, gets four shields per quadrant and removes D6 blast markers at the end of every player turn. Ray’s ruling addresses a significant oversight and brings the Ramilies in congruence with how BM’s affect all the other ships in BFG. Regardless of how you feel about BM’s affecting multiple ships, the ruling was made way back in 2002 to counterbalance massing turrets, and as a whole it has been well understood and accepted by a vast majority of the BFG community in all that time. Incidentally, this is NOT a ruling- the HA’s have to get together to discuss it, but I like it and think it makes sense.
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What's the point of having 4 shields per quadrant if you effectively only have 4 shields total because of the BM rules?
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Good point. None really when bm count on all quadrants.
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Vaaish makes a great point. If you do this, make a Ramilies essentially 4 shields total not four per quadrant, then you should reduce the points cost accordingly.
(As an aside, EVERYONE sorta complains that escorts have zero survivability in this game and a lot of that has to do with the blast marker ruling. In the many games I have run and played in, not using this rule (but still saying when one escort dies the blast marker placed eliminates the escorts shields that were in base to base contact with it), escorts actually LIVE :) so generally accepted in the BFG community..... well sorta it is. ;) )
-Zhukov
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If the Ramilies lost all of its shields as appossed to just a quadrant's I can't really see much extra damage being caused. Only the odd pot shot from the other side, unless you're crazy and are putting all your ships in LOS of each quadrant!
The fact that escorts are in base contact is that they would otherwise die against Assault boats or are launching torps. To limit this weakness try mixing in 2 ship squadrons to break up the BM cascade, or place the closest escort away from the massed group to take the first couple of shots on his own.
Cheers,
RayB HA
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Regardless of damage potential, if you only want it to have 4 shields total then make it that and adjust things, but don't say it has 4 shields per quadrant but make 4 bm drop the shields on all quadrants.
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Then, indeed, an entry with the Ramilies has 4 shields in total. Not per quadrant.
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hey folks, it's been a while
Just read through the PDF... So far it's pretty great with a few exceptions
The profile and rules for the Phantom Lance concerning Craftworld Eldar escorts remain unchanged but replace their special rules with the following: Shadowhunters are so nimble that they can even pursue attack craft with ease, harrying the smaller vessels with an agility impossible for other escorts. When attacked by any ordnance (both torpedoes and attack craft, even if in the same ordnance phase), they count as if having one turret. Make this roll before making the normal holofield save. Enemy fighters are still attacked first as they would against turrets normally, but bombers do not get any bonus for this.
Drop this garbage (thats right, this rule is garbage.). No one likes the idea, and it's good enough that they get a 4+ to shoot them down. GET OVER IT.
Flame of Asuryan‟s weapons: The port and starboard pulsar lances should be labelled Keel. They share a single weapon entry and so will be affected when weapons strength is halved for whatever reason. The launch bays carry Vampire Raiders at no extra cost. The port and starboard pulsar lance fire arcs are left/front and right/front respectively[/b]
So good until the very end... how do you justify this final rule of FLR? why not just make it all 45 cm and call it "Craftworldy Void Stalker"? Everything is FINE but keep it front only. the Flame is good enough without this absurd rule.
Ork fleets have access to the Grunt escort. By definition, this escort has the same profile as the Ork Brute with the following changes: 35 points, Armor 6+/5+, 2 turrets. Special rule: The Ork Grunt is constructed primarily to act as a huge armored assault ship. It counts as having 4HP when attempting to board or being boarded. Otherwise this vessel has no special ramming abilities different from any other Ork
escorts. Grunts may be easily represented by mounting Brute models on a large (battleship) base. Only by basing these models on a large base may they use the Grunt profile and point cost
Who the heck came up with this absurd idea??! This is a FAQ, not a new book. It's not our place to add new ships to the game.
Multiple Tyranid Refits: A hiveship can have three „different‟ refits and may therefore have four reinforced carapaces, two extra spore cysts and one other refit. A cruiser could have the three reinforced carapaces (as four would make it a Hiveship!) and two extra spore cysts. Keep in mind that if the fleet does not desire or by restrictions cannot have another hiveship, then the fourth reinforced carapace refit cannot be taken by a Tyranid cruiser.
I thought we were not letting nids use refits in one shot games?
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Hi Zelnik,
well you are fashionably late. ;)
The Flame: aside of the wrong wording in the end I have no issues with the swinging arcs that much. It won't be adapted in MMS 2.0 if one may ask. ;)
On the Nids. I dunno.
The Grunt was long in the pipeline ircc.
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Classes do that to you, real life can be such a female dog.
It just seems odd to make them FLR, and totally throws off how the thing will be used, i don't see the need for the swinging pulsars.
And i stand by my statement where the shadowhunter rules are garbage.
The grunt? We don't have the right to add new stuff to an official document. We just DON'T. This is not supposed to be a fan supplement, it's supposed to be the official rules update for the game. Not only that, i don't see the need for this ship in the Ork fleet.
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Why not add new ships? This is as close as we get to a rules/game update as well as breath some new life into the game
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I agree with Fracas on the matter.
And unless the Orks fundamentally will change such an escort won't have an impact at all.
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Because we are NOT gw. Even if they have abandoned effectively the game, only GW has the right to add new content. We do not have the same flexibility that blood bowl has with their LRB. I play orks, I love my boyz, I have won with them before, but like the goblin blood bowl team, they are meant to be a challenge (or challen'j).
If you want to breathe new life into an already healthy game, go join the BFG project and work with us in fan made content.
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By GW do you mean the suits that manage the company and the product lines?
Or the game designers and rules arbitrators as represented by the HA and tasked and designated with maintaining the game system?
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Hey Zelnik,
the High Admirality is installed by Andy Hall who works for Games Workshop. While the HA is not GW employees they do give their material, ideas and FAQ's to them. So it is the HA that designs new fleets, ships and rules.
Also, with Armada being gone from the GW store the pdf's finally go into a real living rulebook status. We can start to alter the rules for Nids, Necrons and Marines. Update the pdf's and done. No conflicts with rules being sold.
So effectively same status as the Blood Bowl LRB.
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Until I see it in writing, I won't believe it. As in, an official statement.
I don't care if the rules are determined by suits or gamers, without authority from the owners of the game, we simply DO NOT have the capacity to do this.
Being a devil's advocate is important, because if we dive in and screw with the rules, we risk ruining the delicate balance of this game.
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We not. The High Admirality has and had the authority! They made the Ship of Mars rules! The FAQ 2007. The FAQ2010 (within weeks on the GW site).
This time around they run down new rules with us before posting them on the GW site. That's great.
The HA are the owners of the game as they have always operated under the licence of Andy Hall who is GW.
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...well NOW i know that :P
I was not aware they made the Ad Mech rules..
Alright alright you win Horizon.
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I have a question concerning the Armageddom Gun:
what happen when u fire against an asteroid field?
It stops the armageddom gun?
Can u hit something inside the asteroid field (eldar ;D)?
Thank u for your attention.
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Yup.. blocks LOS really does mean blocks LOS. your breaking big rocks into small rocks, but Nova cannons don't do anything special either.
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maybe this is a faq question, if not it's the result of the confusion in my mind:
do Dictator and Mars have 3 turrets? I now that it is written that they have 2 turrets, but I sometime read about carriers having 1 turrets more than the ships comparable to them (especially IN battleships and chaos ships)
Edit:
Thanks to horizon, I discovered that the number of turrets is written wrong in the pdf written in my language, I never compared it to the English version that must be the one that has been upgraded
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Dictator has 3 turrets. Mars has 2.
No typo. Intentional.
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Kinda curious why that is though.
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I have always been curious on the flipside, why those that contain attack craft also tend to almost always have more turrets.
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Hi,I'im sorry guys but i have a few questions:in the faq2010wip pdf file chaos space marines boarding bonus is +2 while in the rules in the first post is +3,tyr needs 6 escorts per hiveship while in the pdf is 6 escort drones per hiveship..which version is correct?these are only examples,which faq version have we to play ?
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I think the +3 for the CSM's is combining the base +1 Chaos modifier with the +2 because they are Marines. Correct?
-Zhukov
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yes it is explained in the first post of this topic in this way,but instead in the pdf file it explains that the +2 modifier of chaos space marines replaces the +1 modifier for chaos....so in one case chaos marines give a total of +3(+1 for chaos and +2 for space marines) and in the other they obtain "only" a total+2....i don't know which version i have to use....(using chaos against tyr it may be important)
-faq 2010 pdf version:"Chaos come with a +1 boarding modifier. The Chaos Space Marine upgrade in Armadas replaces this, providing them with a total +2modifier (before all other modifiers are applied normally)."
this topic rule version(page 1): "Combining the Chaos Space Marine and Chaos boarding modifiers: Chaos come with a +1 boarding modifier and as the Chaos Space Marine upgrade does not replace this they are combined for a total of a +3 modifier."
and now? ;D ???
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Honestly, and Im a primarily Chaos player, I would take away the +1 chaos has to boarding actions to begin with.
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The previous version of the FAQ2010 added the CSM+2 to the chaos+1 for a total of +3.
In the current version the CSM+2 replaces the chaos+1.
This is explained in the boarding example on page 10 and also in the chaos racial section at the start of page 20.
Not yet official though. ;D
This thread was started 6 months ago, the rules on the first page are outdated.
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The previous version of the FAQ2010 added the CSM+2 to the chaos+1 for a total of +3.
In the current version the CSM+2 replaces the chaos+1.
This is explained in the boarding example on page 10 and also in the chaos racial section at the start of page 20.
Not yet official though. ;D
This thread was started 6 months ago, the rules on the first page are outdated.
Right, I just mean I wouldnt have the +1 in a chaos fleet to begin with. I already get superior and cheap cruisers, boarding torps, and assault boats for free. At least give the poor Imps even odds when they try to board. I don't see why they wouldn't, poor bastards.
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Warp cannons ignore reactive hull saves unless the Necron ship is braced.
Boo! Hiss! Warp Cannons should completely ignore the Necron save, even when braced. No way should Necrons get a 2+ save against the 750 points of space relic that was specifically designed to kick their arses back to the void! :o
Similarly, Eldar should get their 2+ holofield save against the lance-based weaponry on the space relic that was designed by an Eldar god specifically to combat their enemies! >:( It pre-dated their holofield defence ffs! So, what, they decided to make a defence that would work against lances of races that haven't even cropped up yet, but neglected to get it to work against known weaponry, like this massive lance boat or the Necrons weapons? ???
If anything, Eldar weaponry should be anti-Necron, not the other way around!
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I agree with Sigoroth on the matter.
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I do too, but lets remember, it's difficult to create a super-weapon and have a super-defense that can compensate for it. The Warp cannon literally TEARS REALITY, and the sensors on the blackstone are eldar in origin, so it's reasonable to say that they could cut through holofields without issue. no defense is perfect.
When it comes to the necrons... well.. i would say it reduces their save to 4+
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Is it really Eldar in origin? I thought the Old Ones had a hand in it. But either way, they are c'tan defense platforms. Guns that use warp energy.
Doesn't really mean they are anti-necron ships. I dont really care either way, I doubt ill ever come up against one with necrons.
However, fun ctan rules would be great to have, then put a blackstone in the other fleet :)
BFG is the real scale that Ctan belong on, or an Epic supermodel.
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I do too, but lets remember, it's difficult to create a super-weapon and have a super-defense that can compensate for it. The Warp cannon literally TEARS REALITY, and the sensors on the blackstone are eldar in origin, so it's reasonable to say that they could cut through holofields without issue. no defense is perfect.
When it comes to the necrons... well.. i would say it reduces their save to 4+
Other races brace for impact by manning repair stations, dropping bulkheads, etc. Necrons put more energy into their hull. Different ways of bracing, hence the Necrons get a different brace save. Since the BSF should bypass Necron defences normally then they should also bypass them when braced. Also, the C'tan and Necrontyr have no defence against the Warp. They have no presence in it. It is anethema to them. Hence their grand plan to try to seal off reality from the warp.
Since Eldar sensors don't negate holofields I don't see why the ABSF would. Particularly as holofields would have been developed after the ABSF was. How could its design take into account something that hadn't been invented yet? Why would the Eldar not make their holofields work against it? They did know all about it after all. Even if holofields were around at the time of its construction, why would Vaul have made it work against Eldar defences?
Is it really Eldar in origin? I thought the Old Ones had a hand in it. But either way, they are c'tan defense platforms. Guns that use warp energy.
Doesn't really mean they are anti-necron ships. I dont really care either way, I doubt ill ever come up against one with necrons.
However, fun ctan rules would be great to have, then put a blackstone in the other fleet :)
BFG is the real scale that Ctan belong on, or an Epic supermodel.
It was made by Vaul, the Eldar forge god specifically to beat the crap outta Necrons. We're talking before the Eldar rise to power here, where any ships they had were primitive compared to human standards. Whole flotillas of mixed race ships would fall to the Necrons. They are not C'tan defence platforms. C'tan = Necron gods. ABSF = Eldar gods.
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Guys, i know the fluff says so, but i am more worried about balance.. One of the few things that has never been budged in the games before is the benefit of Brace for impact. Removing that entirely is DANGEROUS. I suggest you instead reduce the 2+save to 4+, which is PLENTY bad for the numerically challenged necron fleet as it is.
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Do you really think it is unbalancing that something like an activated blackstone fortress only available to Chaos being a mayor point sink gets a better shot at Necrons?
This is such a rare happening in games I cannot see it as dangerous at all.
And yes, Necrons may be numerically challenged the one battle they will outnumber the opponent is when the opponent deploys such an activated blackstone fortress.
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Indeed, and also the ABSF can't go on LO.
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The Ad Mech rules need some clearing up, as has no doubt already been pointed out in this 23 page long thread. In this particular case I'm referring to the rather silly rules covering the "random" refit combined with an Archmagos. In the leadership rules it says that you can pick your refit if you roll a 6 unless there is an Archmagos Veneratus on board. So if I have an Archmagos Explorator I'm fine according to that rule.
Of course, later on it says that the benefit that the Archmagos brings (so both kinds) cannot be combined with a refit selected because it rolled a 6 for leadership. But then it says meaning that a ship will never have more than two refits from the Mechanicus Gifts table which is absolutely loony tunes. There's nothing that suggests that there'd ever be more than 2.
And from the first page of this thread:
Adeptus Mechanicus Refits: When a 6 is rolled on the leadership table you may pick your refit instead rolling for it randomly, you don’t get an extra one. If an Archmagos is bought for a ship you do not roll on the leadership table for this ship and can therefore not pick your ships random refit if a 6 is rolled, unless it is the same one picked by the Archmagos. The Archmagos’ ship only has two refits.
Which is just wrong. You roll leadership before determining where you're going to place your FC. So you do roll leadership for the ship which gets the Archmagos.
The upshot of all this is that out of all 3 places where this rule is written it is not right in any of them. We all get the point, particularly due to all the damn reiterations, but it would help if you could write the rule clearly for once.
Now, with criticism of your (HAs) inability to write anything legible out of the way, I'd like to move on to criticism of the actual rule. Let's have a look at how it stands as it is now. Chuck an Archmagos on ship, get whatever refit you want. Roll for random refit, if you double up you get to choose. So 1 in 3 chance of getting what you want for your second refit. Now, let's have a look at what would happen if we got rid of all the rules governing this interaction and simply allowed the player to choose their FC's refit after the random roll.
Roll Ld for fleet. Either place FC on a random refit ship or one that has rolled a 6. In former case you have a 1 in 3 chance of getting the 2nd refit you want (not OP). In the latter case you get both refits you want but will likely end up reducing the ships leadership to 8 (not OP) because who the hell would take the Veneratus? If you do take the Veneratus and then go and put it on a ship that rolled 6 for leadership then you're just paying 100 points for the refit really (not OP). If you're determined to put your FC on a specific ship regardless of the leadership rolled then you will have a 4 in 9 chance of getting both refits you want (not OP). So, since none of these results are overpowered or terribly abusable then why not just cut down all the rules? It should read:
An Archmagos may select 1 refit from the Mechanicus Gift table. This refit is in addition to, and selected after, the one rolled for randomly
No really poorly written rule clarifications that add nothing to the game.
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Yeah, somewhere in this thread I pointed at the fact that Ld is rolled for fleet commander placement in regards to that rule.
And, indeed, the intention is clear, the wording unnecessary violent. :P
In my AdMech fleet I roll Ld for the vessels. If my Retribution rolls a 6 I will place my ArchMagon on a less expensive ship, if the the Retribution rolls something else I add the Magos. And ofcourse, take the AWR upgrade, I mean, it is the best and needed on the Retribution.
In your italic rule suggestion you are forgoing the '6' on the dice for leadership? Plus I would add for clarity that no refit can be taken twice. This is obscured as well in the rules.
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Hell, as pricy as admech are I say make a way for them to just pick their poison :)
But maybe part of the fun is the random tech?
Another complaint. The Ark Mechanicus should be capable of having 3 refits, due to its specialness. If I understand it correctly, it comes with 2, and adding a Magos does nothing. (?!)
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Not true, the Archmagos Veneratus is a must choice for the Ark thus it already has it incorporated.
I advocate dropping the needed ArchMagos (and take away 1 refit as well).
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Already incorporated, do you mean it already has one at the points listed for the ship?
Otherwise its a 515 point ship with no third refit 0.o
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Yeah, in fact it is a 515point ship with 2 refits.
I mean the Emperor would be, ehm from the head, 500pts with a Veneratus and 2 refits.
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Looking at what that battleship can accomplish, 515 seems a bit, a lot, ludicrous.
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In your italic rule suggestion you are forgoing the '6' on the dice for leadership? Plus I would add for clarity that no refit can be taken twice. This is obscured as well in the rules.
No, that rule is in the leadership rules, the one I propose would be under the FC entry. So they would just interact as usual. Perhaps replace the "randomly" with "normally". Maybe an example to illustrate the interaction and a disclaimer adding you can't take the same refit twice.
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Are we talking about the Arc? Good lord, it's the third best battleship in the game. It's pricing is quite appropriate considering it's LD, weaponry and upgrades.
Why would you take it instead of an emperor? because it has better hitting and staying power then an emperor! 6+ armor, nova cannon, and stupid huge firepower.
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Heya,
I think it is outedged by the AdMech Retribution with a regular Magos. In an elite fleet which is outnumbered you can use every points you can spare.
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Heya,
I think it is outedged by the AdMech Retribution with a regular Magos. In an elite fleet which is outnumbered you can use every points you can spare.
Ya, well assuming the Oberon fix makes it to officialdom then I'd rather an AdMech Oberon with basic leader. Ld 9, 4 AC, 6 turrets, 2L@60cm + 16WB@60cm with AWR as well as another upgrade all for 75 pts less than that overpriced Ark. Comes off fairly well against the Retribution too. Loses out on a slightly superior lance but picks up 4 left shifted (ie, range ignoring) WBs which is about even. Has an extra turret, +1 Ld and 4 AC. The Ret can close of course, using torps and eventually breaking the enemy line, but the Oberon will be sitting back and shooting all the while the Ret is on approach. Not bad for +10 pts. Both ships work though (or will), unlike the Ark.
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What change to the Oberon was proposed?
Also, 16 new players showed up when the local GW shop started a BFG league. When the 5 people in my playgroup go next time, that will be at least 21. Surely those kind of numbers will show GW that there is excitement worthy of restarting BFG :)
Although, GW being what it is, I'm not sure if I want them messing with the rules again :)
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The Oberon should get (back!) all batteries at 60cm for +20pts. I slightly disagree as it will become the best battleship all the way.
Cool your BFG group is large and enthusiast.
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I kinda prefer it cheap, honestly.
Also, I propose Chaos loses the +1 boarding advantage. And Chaos is my main fleet.
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On the change to the Flame of Asuryan I support the modification of the lances to a single profile Keel, but could we please nix the part about each one being front left and front right? This makes for a VERY odd profile. If it was s2 arc F/L/R that would be a little more sensible, but even that is not really needed. I'd like to see it Keel S2 arc Front.
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I agree.
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We were playing a game DE vs SM recently and one of my SMSC blew up in the middle of DE formation. My opponnent used the "ride the wave ruling" - was that correct or he was just supposed to take BFI save and thats it?
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He should take the hits.
Riding the wave is only for solar erruptions and those celestial problems.
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then it also needs to be clarified in the FAQ
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A player at my club is convinced that Scythes are printed wrong in the necron rules, and that their Weapons Batteries (Lightning Arc) should be Left/Front/Right instead of Left/Right. Is this true?
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L/R it is. No typo.
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Never fear. I'm in the midst of making and playtesting a much more fun Necron fleet for him :)
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I posted similar things below under another Dark Eldar rules topic but this topic seems to be correct place to ask things.
Questions and suggestions about Dark Eldar Rules:
1-Attack Crafts
In 2007FAQ it says: 'Dark Eldar attack craft re-roll misses and enjoy any other benefits of equivalent Eldar attack craft'. I didn't noticed any sentence in a 'Draft 2010 FAQ v1.1' file or in first post of this topic. Will this sentence removed from 2010 FAQ?
If not, is this sentence means;
Raptor Fighter may re-roll 4+ save to remain in play?
Razorwing Bombers may re-roll misses in it's attacks?
Slavebringers may re-roll misses (1s) when enemy also has hit&run modifier (i.e. Space Marines)?
Impaler Assault Modules may re-roll their missed 4+ saves against enemy Fighters AND may re-roll missed (1s) hit&run dices on first d6?
I suggest to keep this rule (Dark Eldar attack craft re-roll misses). In fluffwise Dark Eldar pilots are best of best when compared to any others. Combat drugs, raids, 'High Speed Addiction', centuries of experience for raiding... all of these fluffwise themes makes Dark Eldar pilots deadliest ones of the Gothic sector (and probably of all galaxy).
And having any other benefits of equivalent Eldar attack craft is logical when compared to their technological similarities in this subject (i.e. Dark Eldars also uses Eldar Torpedos). And this rule's praticaly only change is Dark Eldar Razorwing Bombers now may re-roll number of hit dices.
2- Mimic Engines
Minic Engines are one of the trade mark features of Dark Eldar fleet but unfortunately overcosty when compared to it's effectiveness. And also makes fleet building very difficult.
Dark Eldar escorts becomes 70 points and cruisers become 250+ points (270-290) and unless you made regular combinations like 3 mimic escorts + 1 mimic cruiser with bays (this combination is 500 pts).
Also mimic engines have no use against necron or tyranids and have little use against most senarios (raids, etc)
And 70 points for Armour 4+ escort is very expensive!!!
So I suggest mimic engines will be default 'free' feature OR cheaper for Dark Eldar ships.
And in Draft v1.1 2010FAQ file i noticed this sentence : 'The Dark Eldar mimic engine described on p.54 of Armadas is unchanged, but it loses its ability to not be targeted by enemy ships in the first turn if it launches ordnance that attacks enemy ordnance or ships.' This will make Mimic Engines less and less effective especialy when compared to point cost of that upgrade! So please DON'T! :( :( or make Mimic Engines completely free.
3- Ordnance
'Eldar Ordnance and Turrets: All Eldar Ordnance has stealth and can only be hit by turrets n a 6. This includes Vampires, Assault Boats and Orbital Mines.'
Is this rule covers Dark Eldar?
4- Impaler Assault Modules of Tortune Class Cruisers
'Single' assault module is expensive and less effective than any other options. I think for Tortune Class ships Impaler Assault Modules' strength 2 (or described as 'dual' ).
5- Victory Points for Impaler Assault Modules
I suggest after succesfull hit and run attack with Impaler Assault Module attacker may choose to take 30 Victory Points instead of rolling 2d6 for critical hit.
Thanks for your efforts to make game easier to play.
Cihan
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I concur, keep the oberon as it is. 45cm REALLY does not make that much of a difference in the long run, unless your some.. some kind of sissy who keeps their battleships AWAY from the combat...
communists...
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Love oberon as is. Cheapest Imperial battleship :)
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I concur, keep the oberon as it is. 45cm REALLY does not make that much of a difference in the long run, unless your some.. some kind of sissy who keeps their battleships AWAY from the combat...
communists...
Well, firstly, you are completely wrong. This ship does NOT close with the enemy, therefore the extra range is essential. Secondly, if the ship had the option to upgrade its range for 20 pts then it would still potentially be the cheapest BB. I myself see zero difference between making it mandatory or optional, since as far as I'm concerned if it were an option it would still be mandatory anyway. I suppose making it optional would allow for the possibility that some noobs or numbskulls might fall into the trap of not taking the extra range. But that's their problem.
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Problem with 60cm for the Oberon would be the fact it'll turn into the best IN battleship by a large margin.
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Problem with 60cm for the Oberon would be the fact it'll turn into the best IN battleship by a large margin.
Better than the Emperor? I thought you were of the opinion that AC was overpowered ... Besides, this is simply a clear indication that the Retribution is crap. The Oberon has efficient broadsides. It has terrible dorsal weaponry, no prow armour, weak prow WBs instead of torps and is slow. The Retribution should be able to surpass it as a gunship. The fact that it doesn't just means the Ret is crap.
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Because it'll be cheaper then the Emperor.
Same dorsal (10 @ 60cm)
Broadside 6wb + 2l in addition @60cm.
That dorsal is slightly better then 3 lances (despoiler, retribution), better then Desolator (6wb).
So it'll become the best gunnery BB with addition of ordnance.
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Because it'll be cheaper then the Emperor.
Same dorsal (10 @ 60cm)
Broadside 6wb + 2l in addition @60cm.
That dorsal is slightly better then 3 lances (despoiler, retribution), better then Desolator (6wb).
So it'll become the best gunnery BB with addition of ordnance.
Well, the dorsal is actually only 5WB@60cmLFR, which is weaker than the Desolator. In fact, it's the weakest dorsal armament in either Chaos or the IN. The very least it should get is 60cm range. The prow weaponry is a match for it, and there's the +1 Ld there and certainly 9 torpedoes are worth more than 5WB@60cmLFR (though the +1Ld is quite valuable, we're only talking weapon strengths here).
However, since you seem to be ignoring ordnance for the purposes of finding the best 'gunship' for the IN, we'll take the Emp/Ober prow and dorsal weapons as one strength 10 weapon. You said that it's better than 3 lances. Er, no, it's not. If you're at close range, sure, if only just. But this is not a ship likely to get to close range. At long range I would say that 10WBs slightly edge 2 lances. At least, it's my preference anyway. But 3 lances? Forget the WBs, the lances are stronger.
So, if we're just taking guns into account, at 60cm the (fixed) Oberon could put out 16WB + 2L while the (cheaper) Ret could put out 12WB + 3L. At long range 1 lance is worth at least 4.5WB, therefore the Ret comes out on top in terms of guns, is faster, has prow armour and is cheaper. The Oberon has +1 LD. Therefore title of best 'gunship' goes to Retribution. Now, if we're going to take ordnance into the equation, I posit that the Oberons 4AC with +1 LD for reloads is better than the Rets +9 torps, in utility at least. So I'd prefer the Oberon. If you're of the opinion that torps are better then no doubt you'd prefer the Ret.
Still, since we're talking AC now, the Emperor comes into the equation with its 8 AC. If you believe the AC to be OP then the Emperor is even more OP than the Oberon. So the Oberon wouldn't be the best of all. In fact, I have no idea why the Oberon's ranges were downgraded in the first place. When the ship was first introduced no one thought it was OP. No one thought it was stronger than the Emperor. People might have preferred it to the Ret, but the Ret was 365 pts at the time and the Oberon was 335 pts. Now with the Ret being 345 pts it is certainly much more competitive against the Emperor and the (slightly weaker, significantly less favoured) Oberon.
What the original Oberon did, and what the Emperor still does, was allow an efficient long range platform. Both ships you sat in your back line, abeam to the enemy, pumping out ordnance and supporting the fleet with long range fire. If you did this with the Retribution you would be wasting your prow armour, your extra speed and your torpedoes as well as the off-side firepower (which was stronger than the Emperor's). Therefore to get the most out of the Ret you closed with the enemy. Of course, doing so meant you wasted the range on your broadsides.
This is why I don't like the Ret. It wants to close, therefore doesn't need the extra range, therefore didn't need to sacrifice broadside firepower to get the range. Firepower 18 at 45cm (1.5 x an Armageddon) would have been a great fit. Since the Oberon has practically the same long range fire as the Ret but not near so many redundant features when it chooses to act as a long range fire platform then I prefer it. The AC is always handy.
However, the Oberon is not nearly as efficient as the Emperor. It is a carrier but would prefer to LO, getting more from doing so than the Emperor and getting less from reloading than the Emperor. Also, the Oberon has increased off-side firepower compared to the Emperor, which is all but useless, unless the enemy is foolish enough to make a concerted effort to surround it. The larger possible AC wave of the Emperor makes its AC more than twice as good as that of the Oberon too. The Emperor really is the more deadly ship. The Oberon is just for those that want a gun platform that isn't as tremendously conflicted as the Retribution and which still helps to contribute to AC numbers. The Oberon should never have been nerfed. The Emperor is by far and away the most powerful IN battleship.
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Was the Oberon ever cheaper? I somehow remember 315 points.
If it stayed as it currently is, and was 320, that would be awesome.
A question on the Admech. I just noticed that the omnissiah's victory is a member of the 'ark mechanicus' class battleship, but a character vessel.
How exactly does a normal ark mechanicus differ from the OV?
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Was the Oberon ever cheaper? I somehow remember 315 points.
If it stayed as it currently is, and was 320, that would be awesome.
The Oberon was an Emperor clone with 4 AC replaced by 2L@60cmL+R for 10 pts less. Otherwise identical. So it was always 335 pts. When the Ret and Emperor swapped points the Oberon got nerfed to stay at 335 pts rather than increase by 20 pts like the Emperor.
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Was the Oberon ever cheaper? I somehow remember 315 points.
If it stayed as it currently is, and was 320, that would be awesome.
A question on the Admech. I just noticed that the omnissiah's victory is a member of the 'ark mechanicus' class battleship, but a character vessel.
How exactly does a normal ark mechanicus differ from the OV?
An Ark Mechanicus is their version of a Venerable battle barge and is not a class per se. They are all rock-hard, and they are invariably different from each other, with the "Omnissiah's Victory" being one example.
- Nate
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Noted, so there is not currently any other vessel that bears the Ark status besides the OV we can take, noted.
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I kind of struck upon something while I was working the night shift the other day.
This is another alternate proposal to how AC work. It will be more than the HA wish to do because a real update seems to go against whatever their MO is. But bear with me, for theory and sake of local play.
Not discussing price changes in carriers, though this will almost surely cause them to not need to be as pricey. I find its best to argue out the actual rules before points costing is discussed. I will along with the rules, the logic that led to them.
Turrets roll to shoot down ordnance, they roll their dice and then they are mostly done.
Bombers are certainly nowhere near the size of 200 foot long torpedoes packed with ship-killing explosives. There is no way they could do exponentially more damage. They do however benefit from seeking out the weakest armor, and through this can sometimes achieve more precise strikes at weak points. Bombers roll 2d6 against the weakest armor of a ship.
Fighters protect the bombers on their attack runs, and run interception/diversion as needed. If there is not at least one remaining fighter marker in a wave to divert enemy fire after turrets have been rolled, bombers only roll 1d6 on their attack runs. Markers that have the option to act as fighters must have their role in the attack run declared before turrets are rolled.
Fighter bombers act as both fighters and bombers. When attacking a ship, markers with the fighter-bomber rule roll 1d6 against weakest ship armor, but do not have their roll reduced by lack of dedicated fighter markers.
Assault boats work as normal. Surviving fighters in a wave with assault boats, -1 if bombers are also in same wave, may give a +1 bonus to the hit and run roll of the assault boat at a 1:1 ratio, as they cover the advance to the most optimal boarding location.
It always bothered me that bombers could do more damage than torpedoes could, to massive city sized ships covered in armor.
I feel these rules brings AC down to a good attack option with its own advantages and disadvantages. It also saves minutes in the game by eliminating a dice mechanic.
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Depending on the number of turrets, bombers and torps, I can definitely see bombers doing more damage than torps. When one is considering a bomber marker, it's not only representing one bomber but a squadron of them meaning 8-12 craft per squadron. More craft means more numbers of attacks. So I don't see a problem there.
The problem with AC in BFG is that there is no attrition. There should really be attrition in the games instead of AC being launched turn after turn with no loss in efficiency until the ship is crippled or the launch bay gets a crit. How to represent the attrition is a bit tricky though as problems will crop up.
First, of course, the issue on how the rule should be set up. I'd make it that a fighter marker hitting a bomber or AB marker means that marker is lost for the game. Fighters attacking another fighter marker they roll D6 and who wins survives with the loser losing the marker for the duration of the game. When turrets hit the bombers or AB, the bombers or AB roll a D6. on a 4+ they live to fight another day. And probably some more mechanics but those would be the basic.
Second would be the decision on how many squadrons a carrier can carry per type. Before there was talk about twice the LB capacity per type. So for total LB of 4 that means 8 total markers. For IN that means 4 fighters and 4 bombers. For Chaos, it will be trickier as they now have to figure out which markers they want to take: fighters, bombers or assault boats for the 8 markers they can have for a 4LB ship.
What would be the effects on the game? Mainly, there will be issues on managing the counters as one has to note down which squadron has been destroyed or not.
Next, fighters will now be forced to escort the bombers or protect them to prevent the bomber marker from being lost for the duration of the game.
It will be difficult to make but I think the AC rules should be going that route.
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You are right about there being more than one bomber, though 4 or 5 seems to be the right number for a squadron. Their combined mass may come close to equaling a torpedo.
Difficult should be a key word that perhaps your route isnt the overall best. It really comes down to preferring realism or simplicity more, I think.
Other than that, no complaints?
Edit: Just realized I posted this in NOT the ordnance thread. so sorry. >-<
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Why are you complicating the hit and run rolls? The roll is for the disembarking strike force shooting stuff up inside the ship where fighters would have no effect not for the AB's contact point on the ship. Any AB that make it through the turret fire can be assumed to have penetrated the hull relatively close to their targets or at least close enough that a surviving fighter isn't having any more affect on the situation since the AB is now past the ships defenses.
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In my post, I explained that fighter support would be allowing a more optimal boarding location. Its included so that fighters have a use in ship actions, because in the fluff they would be supporting the bombers/boats.
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Fighters shouldn't have any affect on such thing. It's an unnecessary complication that removes the specialization of races like Marines by letting anyone with fighters snag the +1. There is also no reason that fighters would have any affect on the fighting going on inside a ship. It's not like the AB are wandering around looking for a place to park. They know where they want to go and ram through the hull, having a fighter present wouldn't make a lick of difference where they are pointing the nose of the AB.
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Well, marines would be getting a +2. Its situational, because it means you chose to have fighters over more boats, and it also only applies to one boat per everysurviving fighter marker. I know the fighters don't have anything to do with what goes on inside the ship, the reasoning is that with escort they are able to find more favorable areas to land closer to their targets that are better protected by turrets.
But if its seen as OP then of course its open for discussion.
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Apocalypse class BB:
Thrusters Crtical but not a Thrusters critical is awkward. It should either have the damage or no critical at all. One idea that we've come up with is to swap the Thrusters Critical for a Weapon Battery Offline Critical for whichever broadside has lances firing over 45cm. It makes sense: direct power to lances and you blow them out. It's a bit odd engines would be affected.
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you mean 30cm? I like it.
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I'd heard a rumour it would be 45cm, but it's possible I'm confused. Yes, I think it does make sense.
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45 cm because we want the Apoc to be firing normally up to 45 cm. Anything over 45 cm and it takes the port/starboard crit.
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No, FAQ2010 Already Has that the Apocalypse suffers NO hitpoint damage, the critical still applies. It's a plus.
I do like the Adm_A idea. We all do.
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I do thing the 'Critical hit but not all the effects of that Critical hit' is ridiculous, particularly as the Critical isn't even directly linked to the weapons.
Much better to have a Port/SB Offline critical for any side that fires over 45cm.
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Actually, if you read the fluff for the apoc it does say that the unreliable power conduits are prone to drain power from the drive system if the lances are fired at extended ranges. It does sort of make sense in that the drive system is likely to be tightly coupled with the reactor systems and the added strain on system by firing at long ranges is complicated by the power conduits being inefficient and sucking more power than they should leaving less power for the drives to use for maneuvering. So basically whats happening isn't the weapons getting burned out or knocked off line by their inability to handle the load, it's the reactor that has problems supplying all the power needed to both the drives and weapons.
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Exactly. I think it makes a lot of sense.
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Personally, I am ok with the Apoc getting the damage as part of the crit to avoid the crit but not all the crit effects as long as the Apoc can fire up to 45 cm normally without any crit.
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Sigoroth came up with a good idea:
When the Apoc fires over 30cm, place a Blast Marker on the opposite side. Reduces shield strength, speed, and prevents it from turning without an order, but does no lasting damage (unless combined with incoming fire), and regenerates in the next turn without a repair roll.
I'm totally in favour of this version.
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Well, thats creative.
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1. could the tau merchant be given option for second shield rather than 2 extra HPs?
and could it get option to take 4 hooks? (instead of port/starboard rail guns)
2. second turret for falchion?
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I think the merchant fits the HA definition of a broken ship. Who takes it for itself?
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Sigoroth came up with a good idea:
When the Apoc fires over 30cm, place a Blast Marker on the opposite side. Reduces shield strength, speed, and prevents it from turning without an order, but does no lasting damage (unless combined with incoming fire), and regenerates in the next turn without a repair roll.
I'm totally in favour of this version.
I like that too.
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I'd agree Fracas, on the Merchant. Falchion as well.
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I went a little farther through FAQ 2.3 so here are my thoughts on Imperials and Chaos.
In the Rulebook on p.108, a Mars battlecruiser may purchase a third turret for an additional +10 points. On p.109/115, the correct price for an Overlord battlecruiser is 220 points.
In Armada, the correct price for an Apocalypse battleship on p.12 is 365 points, and the correct price for an Avenger grand cruiser on p.15 is 220 points.
The price adjustments for the Overlord and Avenger should also apply to page 28 of Armada.
The Apocalypse Class battleship‟s special rule on p.12 of Armada when it undertakes Lock-On special orders and fires its lances greater than 30cm does not take effect unless firing greater than 45cm. Additionally, it does not take 1Hp damage for the Thrusters Damaged, even though the critical damage still affects the ship, is cumulative and must be repaired normally. All critical damage taken in any manner besides this special rule affects this ship as it would any other normally.
This needs a bit of rewording. If the special rule doesn't apply under 45cm and part of the special rule increases the range from 30cm to 60cm then it is impossible to fire between 30cm and 45cm.
Imperial grand cruisers count as cruisers for the purposes of the three you require to field a battleship. This does not affect that they count as battlecruisers in the fleet list, meaning two cruisers are required for every grand cruiser in the fleet, and the Imperial fleet may have one grand cruiser or one battlecruiser for every two cruisers in the fleet, not one and the other.
Any particular reason for the change to the rules as written on page 28 of Armada?
The point cost for the Endeavor and Endurance light cruisers listed on p.18/27 of Armada are 110 points each. The Defiant listed on p.19/27 is 120 points.
Did you forget there is also a fleet list on page 28 of Armada? It needs the prices adjusted too.
Adeptus Mechanicus vessels may always be taken as reserves by an Imperial Navy fleet, regardless of what fleet list is being used or whether or not they are using allies. Adeptus Mechanicus vessels may ignore the rule preventing them from firing upon or boarding friendly drifting/blazing hulks in an attempt to deny victory points to the enemy or induce catastrophic damage (this does not apply to non-Mechanicus vessels in the fleet). This is to prevent their technology from falling into xenos or heretic hands and only applies to Mechanicus vessels shooting at Mechanicus drifting hulks. In order to do so, it must actually be a ship from the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet list, not a Mechanicus model painted to be part of a standard or reserve Imperial fleet. The leadership test to do so is not a special order; if it is failed, the owning player may shoot at the closest target or take another leadership test to shoot at a different target, which may be another drifting hulk. Mechanicus vessels may shoot at enemy drifting/blazing hulks normally.
I was with you right up until you let them try another test to shoot another friendly hulk or avoid targetting the closest enemy. This is just strangely different from how shooting at anything other than closest enemy ship or ordnance works for everyone else. The same complaint applies to the Necron rule.
Adeptus Mechanicus escorts cannot use the ability of their capital ships to purchase an additional turret.
I assume you mean that AdMec escorts do not come with a free extra turret like the capital ships do.
Any vessel that earns or pays for a refit to carry Thunderhawks may then ONLY carry them, and its launch bay capacity is reduced by half (rounding up when applicable). Escort carriers may not be upgraded to carry Thunderhawks! This applies for Thunderhawks, including when rolling a 7 against the Space Marines table on p.157 of the rulebook.
I assume that the Thunderhawks gained from the appeals chart use all the rules for Thunderhawks on page 21 of Armada and get the +1 to hit and run for being Space Marines.
Because the four quadrants are essentially in contact with each other, blast markers in contact with the base can be placed to affect the quadrant taking fire and the adjacent quadrant closest to the line of fire as well, but not the other quadrants that would otherwise not be taking fire.
This seems to work a little differently than for shooting at ships in base contact with each other. I'd reword and rework it to be more similar.
Only a Space Hulk can attempt a boarding action on a Ramilies, if it does so it is up to the Ramilies player to decide if additional quadrants beyond the one (or ones in the case of bases overlapping) in contact take part. This does not affect hit and run attacks, which take place normally.
Since it is a unique situation a little more explanation may be needed on how to carry out a combined defense against a boarding action. I assume all participating quadrants add their hits together for boarding value but do they all add their turrets? I also assume if the Ramilies loses such a boarding action that the player controlling the Ramilies decides how the hits are distributed and all participating sections have a chance at a critical.
The Armageddon Gun overcharge “planet killer†shot works as follows: the ship must declare it is charging over three consecutive turns. No leadership check is required, but the ship may not turn, shoot or go on any special orders, including Brace For Impact. Once started, the process cannot be stopped, during which time the ship gains +2 shields. After the movement phase of the third turn, the ship immediately fires by moving the Nova Cannon template directly in front of the vessel 60cm (not 90cm). If any part of the template touches any ship‟s base, that ship is completely destroyed, no saves allowed. The first planet or moon touched by the center hole is removed on a 2+ in D3 turns and replaced by a 2D6 by 2D6 asteroid field. This shot can fire through asteroid fields but will not remove them by doing so. After firing this shot, the Planet Killer must pass a reload ordnance special order for two turns to bring the Armageddon Gun back online, during which time it may not fire any weapons at all but moves normally.
I always assumed that when the Planet Killer was using its special rules for exterminatus that was it using its "planet killer shot." This rule is so very strangely different from how that works as to seem like a different weapon entirely. If you really want to let the Planet Killer use its super shot in non-exterminatus missions I'd do something like this. The super shot only has a range of 15cm (for exterminatus you need to be in low orbit implying extremely close range). When firing the super shot no other weapons may be fired in the same turn. Place the template and kill any and all ships under it. I'd possibly also allow the destruction of moons at this range but not actual planets (blame it on too much atmosphere dispersing the blast). Once a super shot is fired the Armageddon Gun will be charging for the forseeable future and may not be fired again this game.
All restrictions for battleships apply to the Planet Killer. In other words, you need to field at least 1,000 points of ships AND meet fleet list requirements to field it as it were another battleship.
I think "as it were" should be "as if it were".
The Chaos Repulsive Grand Cruiser can be modelled on a large base. If it does so, it may have a third shield for +15pts. It must be modelled on a large base to have this this refit available for the cost indicated. This is not a normal refit and can be used in one-off games or in addition to any other refits earned normally in the course of a campaign.
"If it does so" should be "If it is".
In the Rulebook on p.120, the correct price for a Styx heavy cruiser is 260 points.
This also needs to apply to page 128 and page 46 of Armada.
Chaos Murder Class Cruiser Variant: The Murder variant described in the notes on p.123 of the rulebook has broadsides consisting of four weapons batteries and two lances, all at 45cm range. These are broadsides and so have port and starboard arcs. There is no restriction as to how many of this variant are used in a Chaos fleet list as long as it does not exceed the number of Murders that follow the basic profile for this vessel.
Why is the Murder variant limited to only half the Murders in your fleet where other similar refits are not?
Warp Cannon that ignore shields and weapons that behave as such also ignore holofields and any other similar mechanisms, such as armor saves, spores, etc. Warp Cannon on an Activated Blackstone Fortress or any similar weapon mechanic do not ignore brace saves!
If you're going to mention holofields here I'd also mention reactive hulls here. If a reactive hull ship is braced against a warp cannon is it a 2+ save or a 4+ save?
Chaos Lords as Fleet Commanders: You cannot have
a Chaos Lord as your Fleet Commander in the 13th
Black Crusade List in Armada.
This implies you could use a Chaos Lord as fleet commander in a 12th BC list. Also, in a 12th BC list you might want to prevent a Warmaster and Lord from being on the same ship.
Renegade Imperial vessels in a Chaos fleet. The
Imperial Navy has taken great pains after the 12th
Black Crusade to ensure that its warships do not fall into the foul hands of Chaos. While only the most seasoned and august of ship captains command the Emperor‟s battleships and battlecruisers, this is not always the case for its escorts and second-line warships. For every 1,500 points in a Chaos fleet, one cruiser from any Imperial Navy fleet list up to 185 points and/or up to four Imperial Navy escorts may be taken. Special refits, rules, Nova Cannon, Chaos Lords or Chaos Space Marines may not be taken for Imperial Navy vessels used in this manner, and cruisers suffer -1Ld for going renegade. Imperial Navy escorts need not be in a single squadron and may be interspersed within other Chaos escort squadrons if desired. These vessels do not count as reserves, they count as Chaos vessels in all respects.
In the current Powers of Chaos document you upped the limit to 6 escorts so I thought you might want to do that here also. Saying that "rules...may not be taken" for these ships doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This would seem to prevent traitor Dauntlesses from getting +D6 on AAF and things like that.
Chaos Daemonships Haunting: When a Daemonship is „haunting‟ or is spectral it can suffer damage from fire critical hits and may repair critical hits while in the warp. While in the warp, a Demonship gets the same bonuses to its rolls to repair critical damage as it gets to repair hits. However, Daemonships may not make repair rolls in the end phase they are deployed.
First of all, all references to "Demonships" should be changed to "Daemonships". I like that fires burn and crits are repaired in the warp. It's a little odd that they will be repaired faster and faster and saying it the way you did is a bit odd. It implies that the Daemonship does repair rolls for hits while in the warp, which it doesn't. Disallowing repair on the turn the ship comes back from the warp is a bit odd and isn't really clear on whether you are preventing repairing crits or saying that if you repaired crits in the warp you don't get to repair hits when you reappear.
Daemonships Repairing Above The Crippling Threshold: If Daemonships repair enough hits to un-cripple themselves, they will still count as crippled for purposes of victory points and for losing leadership in campaigns unless they started the game crippled.
I would have ruled the opposite here. There is already so little incentive to disengage and rematerialize a Daemonship because it probably won't have a whole lot of time to act before the game is over that I would at least let people use it to earn a few points back.
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Hi Masque,
mail me at horizon@epic40k.co.uk
Or check your pm. :/
On the Apocalypse:
I read it as this:
standard range = 30cm
On Lock On range up to 60cm.
But when firing under 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit does not apply.
Above 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit applies.
Funky. I like that.
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Hi Masque,
mail me at horizon@epic40k.co.uk
Or check your pm. :/
On the Apocalypse:
I read it as this:
standard range = 30cm
On Lock On range up to 60cm.
But when firing under 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit does not apply.
Above 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit applies.
Funky. I like that.
I'm really bad at checking for PMs but let me know if you didn't get mine, I'll keep on top of them. On the Apocalypse, I'm pretty sure that is the intention, but it's worded poorly. And I like it too.
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Hi Masque,
mail me at horizon@epic40k.co.uk
Or check your pm. :/
On the Apocalypse:
I read it as this:
standard range = 30cm
On Lock On range up to 60cm.
But when firing under 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit does not apply.
Above 45cm while on Lock On the crit hit applies.
Funky. I like that.
Interesting. Too complicated.
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Every game has complexities, if you think this is too complex, playing eldar or nids will crush your mind :P I like it.
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I didn't find it complicated at all, even with that wording. :)
It is a pretty good solution to eliminate some problems and bring the ship into its own fluff (medium ranges) without having to alter the profile (which they cannot do).
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I dislike the range actually being extended when on LO. It means that you have to pass an order to fire at all. That is bad. I have played the ship and I have failed its LO and the subsequent re-roll. I didn't just lose the ability to reroll misses, I lost the ability to fire at all. That is bad.
I prefer just making it 60cm range with the caveat that if you fire over 30cm you put a BM on your base to represent the power drain.
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Sig, with non-firing you mean above 30cm then?
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Hi Masque! GREAT WORK!!! THANKS!!
I went a little farther through FAQ 2.3 so here are my thoughts on Imperials and Chaos.
In the Rulebook on p.108, a Mars battlecruiser may purchase a third turret for an additional +10 points. On p.109/115, the correct price for an Overlord battlecruiser is 220 points.
In Armada, the correct price for an Apocalypse battleship on p.12 is 365 points, and the correct price for an Avenger grand cruiser on p.15 is 220 points.
The price adjustments for the Overlord and Avenger should also apply to page 28 of Armada.
Actually, we have replaced ALL ship references that refer solely to point values throughout the FAQ to state, “For every reference in the Rulebook and Armada, the correct price is…†Example: For every reference in the Rulebook and Armada, the correct price for an Overlord battlecruiser is 220 points. This way we don’t have to worry about missing a page reference somewhere and creating a future question as to whether ships are more expensive when used in one fleet vice another, etc. For special rules applying to particular ships, the individual page references are still included since these don’t normally apply to fleet lists.
The Apocalypse Class battleship‟s special rule on p.12 of Armada when it undertakes Lock-On special orders and fires its lances greater than 30cm does not take effect unless firing greater than 45cm. Additionally, it does not take 1Hp damage for the Thrusters Damaged, even though the critical damage still affects the ship, is cumulative and must be repaired normally. All critical damage taken in any manner besides this special rule affects this ship as it would any other normally.
This needs a bit of rewording. If the special rule doesn't apply under 45cm and part of the special rule increases the range from 30cm to 60cm then it is impossible to fire between 30cm and 45cm.
Good catch. I replaced “take effect†with “cause critical damage.â€
Imperial grand cruisers count as cruisers for the purposes of the three you require to field a battleship. This does not affect that they count as battlecruisers in the fleet list, meaning two cruisers are required for every grand cruiser in the fleet, and the Imperial fleet may have one grand cruiser or one battlecruiser for every two cruisers in the fleet, not one and the other.
Any particular reason for the change to the rules as written on page 28 of Armada?
I’ll be honest- I don’t know where that came from. Fixed.
The point cost for the Endeavor and Endurance light cruisers listed on p.18/27 of Armada are 110 points each. The Defiant listed on p.19/27 is 120 points.
Did you forget there is also a fleet list on page 28 of Armada? It needs the prices adjusted too.
See note about Overlord. Fixed.
Adeptus Mechanicus vessels may always be taken as reserves by an Imperial Navy fleet, regardless of what fleet list is being used or whether or not they are using allies. Adeptus Mechanicus vessels may ignore the rule preventing them from firing upon or boarding friendly drifting/blazing hulks in an attempt to deny victory points to the enemy or induce catastrophic damage (this does not apply to non-Mechanicus vessels in the fleet). This is to prevent their technology from falling into xenos or heretic hands and only applies to Mechanicus vessels shooting at Mechanicus drifting hulks. In order to do so, it must actually be a ship from the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet list, not a Mechanicus model painted to be part of a standard or reserve Imperial fleet. The leadership test to do so is not a special order; if it is failed, the owning player may shoot at the closest target or take another leadership test to shoot at a different target, which may be another drifting hulk. Mechanicus vessels may shoot at enemy drifting/blazing hulks normally.
I was with you right up until you let them try another test to shoot another friendly hulk or avoid targetting the closest enemy. This is just strangely different from how shooting at anything other than closest enemy ship or ordnance works for everyone else. The same complaint applies to the Necron rule.
This was word-smithed poorly and is fixed. Firstly, there should have been a paragraph break after the sentence ending in “allies.†Secondly, how the AdMEch handle their ships getting hulked is intentionally different. To address this better, let’s re-cap how ships can normally shoot at hulks:
Hulks cannot be fired upon or boarded by friendly vessels or ordnance in an attempt to deny victory points to the enemy or induce catastrophic damage. Torpedoes that hit a friendly hulk still inflict hits normally, but torpedoes cannot be deliberately aimed at friendly hulks.
While enemy ships can choose to fire on a hulk, they do not have to pass a leadership check to ignore one if it is the closest target. A player can fire on an enemy hulk if it is not the closest target, but it must make a leadership check normally.
Having said so, this is how it should apply to the Adeptus Mechanicus and Necrons:
Adeptus Mechanicus vessels may ignore the rule preventing them from firing upon or boarding friendly drifting/blazing hulks – see p.12 concerning shooting at hulked vessels. They will do this in an attempt to deny victory points to the enemy or induce catastrophic damage, to prevent their technology from falling into xenos or heretic hands. This rule only applies to Mechanicus vessels shooting at Mechanicus drifting hulks, and not Imperial Navy, reserve or allied vessels in the fleet. In order to do so, it must actually be a ship using rules from the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet list, not a Mechanicus model painted to be part of a standard or reserve Imperial fleet. Mechanicus vessels may shoot at enemy drifting/blazing hulks normally.
The leadership test part of this rule was overly contrived and has been removed. Good catch.
Adeptus Mechanicus escorts cannot use the ability of their capital ships to purchase an additional turret.
I assume you mean that AdMec escorts do not come with a free extra turret like the capital ships do.
Correct, and this has been re-written as such.
Any vessel that earns or pays for a refit to carry Thunderhawks may then ONLY carry them, and its launch bay capacity is reduced by half (rounding up when applicable). Escort carriers may not be upgraded to carry Thunderhawks! This applies for Thunderhawks, including when rolling a 7 against the Space Marines table on p.157 of the rulebook.
I assume that the Thunderhawks gained from the appeals chart use all the rules for Thunderhawks on page 21 of Armada and get the +1 to hit and run for being Space Marines.
Correct, and this has been re-written as such.
Because the four quadrants are essentially in contact with each other, blast markers in contact with the base can be placed to affect the quadrant taking fire and the adjacent quadrant closest to the line of fire as well, but not the other quadrants that would otherwise not be taking fire.
This seems to work a little differently than for shooting at ships in base contact with each other. I'd reword and rework it to be more similar.
Correct, and this has been re-written as such.
Only a Space Hulk can attempt a boarding action on a Ramilies, if it does so it is up to the Ramilies player to decide if additional quadrants beyond the one (or ones in the case of bases overlapping) in contact take part. This does not affect hit and run attacks, which take place normally.
Since it is a unique situation a little more explanation may be needed on how to carry out a combined defense against a boarding action. I assume all participating quadrants add their hits together for boarding value but do they all add their turrets? I also assume if the Ramilies loses such a boarding action that the player controlling the Ramilies decides how the hits are distributed and all participating sections have a chance at a critical.
This entire section has been re-written for both simplicity and clarification.
The Armageddon Gun overcharge “planet killer†shot works as follows: the ship must declare it is charging over three consecutive turns. No leadership check is required, but the ship may not turn, shoot or go on any special orders, including Brace For Impact. Once started, the process cannot be stopped, during which time the ship gains +2 shields. After the movement phase of the third turn, the ship immediately fires by moving the Nova Cannon template directly in front of the vessel 60cm (not 90cm). If any part of the template touches any ship‟s base, that ship is completely destroyed, no saves allowed. The first planet or moon touched by the center hole is removed on a 2+ in D3 turns and replaced by a 2D6 by 2D6 asteroid field. This shot can fire through asteroid fields but will not remove them by doing so. After firing this shot, the Planet Killer must pass a reload ordnance special order for two turns to bring the Armageddon Gun back online, during which time it may not fire any weapons at all but moves normally.
I always assumed that when the Planet Killer was using its special rules for exterminatus that was it using its "planet killer shot." This rule is so very strangely different from how that works as to seem like a different weapon entirely. If you really want to let the Planet Killer use its super shot in non-exterminatus missions I'd do something like this. The super shot only has a range of 15cm (for exterminatus you need to be in low orbit implying extremely close range). When firing the super shot no other weapons may be fired in the same turn. Place the template and kill any and all ships under it. I'd possibly also allow the destruction of moons at this range but not actual planets (blame it on too much atmosphere dispersing the blast). Once a super shot is fired the Armageddon Gun will be charging for the forseeable future and may not be fired again this game.
Doing so would create yet a third set of rules for this weapon. The “Planet Killer†rules for this weapon are taken (unchanged) right out of the Macharia’s End scenario on p. 153 of Armada. They are reproduced here because that was one of the pages that never made it into the PDF version of the rules.
All restrictions for battleships apply to the Planet Killer. In other words, you need to field at least 1,000 points of ships AND meet fleet list requirements to field it as it were another battleship.
I think "as it were" should be "as if it were".
Oh yeah? How about “as it is†? :)
The Chaos Repulsive Grand Cruiser can be modelled on a large base. If it does so, it may have a third shield for +15pts. It must be modelled on a large base to have this this refit available for the cost indicated. This is not a normal refit and can be used in one-off games or in addition to any other refits earned normally in the course of a campaign.
"If it does so" should be "If it is".
Good catch. Fixed.
In the Rulebook on p.120, the correct price for a Styx heavy cruiser is 260 points.
This also needs to apply to page 128 and page 46 of Armada.
See note about Overlord. Fixed.
Chaos Murder Class Cruiser Variant: The Murder variant described in the notes on p.123 of the rulebook has broadsides consisting of four weapons batteries and two lances, all at 45cm range. These are broadsides and so have port and starboard arcs. There is no restriction as to how many of this variant are used in a Chaos fleet list as long as it does not exceed the number of Murders that follow the basic profile for this vessel.
Why is the Murder variant limited to only half the Murders in your fleet where other similar refits are not?
Good question, except that this is not a “similar refit†to anything in the game. This “refit†essentially changes the ships entire class and would be treated as a class change were it in any other fleet list in the game. However, this rule is broken in that it requires ships to use ships (remember the Endurance/Defiant debacle?) so we changed this to a point restriction.
Warp Cannon that ignore shields and weapons that behave as such also ignore holofields and any other similar mechanisms, such as armor saves, spores, etc. Warp Cannon on an Activated Blackstone Fortress or any similar weapon mechanic do not ignore brace saves!
If you're going to mention holofields here I'd also mention reactive hulls here. If a reactive hull ship is braced against a warp cannon is it a 2+ save or a 4+ save?
Another great catch. This is fixed so that reactive armor is mentioned as also ignored, but reactive armor saves while braced are NOT ignored. This way Necrons aren’t purposely treated more unfairly than any other fleet that can still brace normally.
Chaos Lords as Fleet Commanders: You cannot have
a Chaos Lord as your Fleet Commander in the 13th
Black Crusade List in Armada.
This implies you could use a Chaos Lord as fleet commander in a 12th BC list. Also, in a 12th BC list you might want to prevent a Warmaster and Lord from being on the same ship.
Both of these are fixed.
Renegade Imperial vessels in a Chaos fleet. The
Imperial Navy has taken great pains after the 12th
Black Crusade to ensure that its warships do not fall into the foul hands of Chaos. While only the most seasoned and august of ship captains command the Emperor‟s battleships and battlecruisers, this is not always the case for its escorts and second-line warships. For every 1,500 points in a Chaos fleet, one cruiser from any Imperial Navy fleet list up to 185 points and/or up to four Imperial Navy escorts may be taken. Special refits, rules, Nova Cannon, Chaos Lords or Chaos Space Marines may not be taken for Imperial Navy vessels used in this manner, and cruisers suffer -1Ld for going renegade. Imperial Navy escorts need not be in a single squadron and may be interspersed within other Chaos escort squadrons if desired. These vessels do not count as reserves, they count as Chaos vessels in all respects.
In the current Powers of Chaos document you upped the limit to 6 escorts so I thought you might want to do that here also. Saying that "rules...may not be taken" for these ships doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This would seem to prevent traitor Dauntlesses from getting +D6 on AAF and things like that.
Another great catch. The escort number is changed to six. Also, we changed this to “weapon refits†so that the Dauntless can keep it +1D6/AAF but we don’t have ships getting Nova Cannon, Tyrants getting up-rated guns, etc. No we are NOT address this to the point of absurdity, such as Tyrants getting uprated guns from salvaged Chaos vessels going renegade and returning the favor, etc.
Chaos Daemonships Haunting: When a Daemonship is „haunting‟ or is spectral it can suffer damage from fire critical hits and may repair critical hits while in the warp. While in the warp, a Demonship gets the same bonuses to its rolls to repair critical damage as it gets to repair hits. However, Daemonships may not make repair rolls in the end phase they are deployed.
First of all, all references to "Demonships" should be changed to "Daemonships". I like that fires burn and crits are repaired in the warp. It's a little odd that they will be repaired faster and faster and saying it the way you did is a bit odd. It implies that the Daemonship does repair rolls for hits while in the warp, which it doesn't. Disallowing repair on the turn the ship comes back from the warp is a bit odd and isn't really clear on whether you are preventing repairing crits or saying that if you repaired crits in the warp you don't get to repair hits when you reappear.
All of this was fixed to make the repairing criticals both easier to understand and easier to use. IF it can repair itself in the warp, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be very effective (though not automatic) at repairing critical damage as well.
Daemonships Repairing Above The Crippling Threshold: If Daemonships repair enough hits to un-cripple themselves, they will still count as crippled for purposes of victory points and for losing leadership in campaigns unless they started the game crippled.
I would have ruled the opposite here. There is already so little incentive to disengage and rematerialize a Daemonship because it probably won't have a whole lot of time to act before the game is over that I would at least let people use it to earn a few points back.
Okay- fixed!
By the way- I also fixed the way Necrons shoot at their own hulked vessels in the same manner it was fixed for the AdMech.
- Nate
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Hi Masque! GREAT WORK!!! THANKS!!
I'm just glad I can be helpful. The thoughts I'm passing on here are similar to those I always have when I read a GW FAQ but here I can actually influence the document to make it better instead of simply suffering through bad grammar, vague answers, and unanswered questions.
Chaos Murder Class Cruiser Variant: The Murder variant described in the notes on p.123 of the rulebook has broadsides consisting of four weapons batteries and two lances, all at 45cm range. These are broadsides and so have port and starboard arcs. There is no restriction as to how many of this variant are used in a Chaos fleet list as long as it does not exceed the number of Murders that follow the basic profile for this vessel.
Why is the Murder variant limited to only half the Murders in your fleet where other similar refits are not?
Good question, except that this is not a “similar refit†to anything in the game. This “refit†essentially changes the ships entire class and would be treated as a class change were it in any other fleet list in the game. However, this rule is broken in that it requires ships to use ships (remember the Endurance/Defiant debacle?) so we changed this to a point restriction.
How is the Murder variant significantly different to the many, many, many ships that can trade torps for something else or vice versa on their prows? Even if changing broadsides did justify counting it as a seperate class while changing prows did not, most classes aren't limited anyway.
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The lance Murder isn't interesting to most so limiting them will be more of an unnessecary gimmickk.
Nate, when are you finally changing the AdMech part about leadership rolls and Magos placement. It is still wrong. :/
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All of this was fixed to make the repairing criticals both easier to understand and easier to use. IF it can repair itself in the warp, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be very effective (though not automatic) at repairing critical damage as well.
So you're saying that instead of repairing crits normally they get to roll to repair crits when they translate back into realspace just like they would to repair damage?
Also, can we fix resilient ordnance? Remove all the silly special rules about stopping and losing fighter status, etc, and just have it that they can only attempt one save per turn.
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Also, can we fix resilient ordnance? Remove all the silly special rules about stopping and losing fighter status, etc, and just have it that they can only attempt one save per turn.
+1.
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Sig, with non-firing you mean above 30cm then?
Correct. I went abeam immediately to get long ranged fire.
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Also, can we fix resilient ordnance? Remove all the silly special rules about stopping and losing fighter status, etc, and just have it that they can only attempt one save per turn.
+1.
+2?
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+3
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+3
Yes.
They do NOT lose fighter status and only get to use their save once per turn.
Sorry I took so long to get back to you all, but we were hard at work getting everything finished.
You are still going to see lots of extreme examples concerning resilient ordnance, but in a nutshell, that's how it works.
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+3
Yes.
They do NOT lose fighter status and only get to use their save once per turn.
Sorry I took so long to get back to you all, but we were hard at work getting everything finished.
You are still going to see lots of extreme examples concerning resilient ordnance, but in a nutshell, that's how it works.
I think you're missing the point. The point being that the only special rule differentiating resilient ordnance from normal ordnance should be that they get one 4+ save per turn, usable against ordnance interaction.
Since this would be the only special rule then once a resilient fighter removed, say, a bomber, if it fails its save it's removed as normal, if it passes it now counts as a normal fighter and can continue on and remove another target. If it has enough movement left of course.
The injunction against continued movement after 1st interaction (and the losing fighter status till end of turn rule) only made any sense as a limiting factor when there were no ordnance limits. That way a passed save would simply give you more fighters next turn, potentially amassing an armada of fighters while still intercepting.
In the current setting where there are launch limits then the stopped movement makes no sense. For example, let's say that my opponent has some Mantas in play. I send out some fighters, half his Mantas stick around. Now I just ignore them. He can't attack me with them this turn, since they can't move. He can attack me with them next turn, but he could have merely relaunched more bombers and done that anyway. Same with THs.
Similarly, if I send out some resilient fighters to deal with my opponents overwhelming AC superiority then I'm supposed to be getting more mileage out of my superior fighters (so 4 fighters should take out 6 enemy). As it is though, I'm not. Sure, some might save and stick around, but they've just got to sit there and watch as the opponent bombers fly past and attack my ships. So my 4 fighters took out ... 4 markers. What was the point of being resilient again?
So, to reiterate, drop all the special rules around resilient ordnance. They just get one 4+ save per turn, otherwise play as normal.
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Hey, has anyone else noticed that the third largest ship, and the second largest resin kit, only has ten hits?
Thats right, for some reason the Stronghold Battleship, which is bigger and more imposing then imperial battleships... six up armored prow and all.. is only 10 hits. What gives?
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Hey, has anyone else noticed that the third largest ship, and the second largest resin kit, only has ten hits?
Thats right, for some reason the Stronghold Battleship, which is bigger and more imposing then imperial battleships... six up armored prow and all.. is only 10 hits. What gives?
Model size doesn't exactly equal hit value. Look at Ork Kroozers. About the same size if not smaller than IN cruisers, yet more hits. Then there's the battleships, more than twice the pewter and 2 more hits than a Kroozer?
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those are -orks-... nothing applies normally to them.
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those are -orks-... nothing applies normally to them.
True. So true.
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Well, I don't think the kroozers are accurate in size anyway. Alot of the escorts arent, we know. It is after all a blown up representation of whats on the stem, so its not canonical, I'd think. Maybe the Stronghold is 10 hits because of the tiny amount of crew aboard, I always rationalized the extra 2 Ork hits to lots of crew. But I'd be totally ok with 12 hits on it, it does look quite intimidating.
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Thats why I took imperial and chaos cruisers and 'ork'd' them out. They look FAR more intimidating now.
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I started doing the same but a couple weeks ago :) Post pics.
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All of my fleets will be posted in the general gallery when they are all PAINTED.... i still have to finish my IN and Eldar corsair fleets before i will allow pictures to record any of them.
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Zelnik-picture-leaks.... ;)
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Am I the only one who looks at the 20 bombardment cannon broadside of the space marine vbb and gag?
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No. I like it. It is expensive. It is short ranged and not as overpowered as the original S.O.: 12 lances @60cm.
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I do think it's a touch OP. The weaponry becomes too efficient without having WBs to clash with, and the loss of range (compared to standard BB) isn't so big a loss, as the WBs would only be worth 8-9 normal WBs at that range. So you lose 8-9 WBs over 1/3 your range and convert 12WB from hitting on 5's or 6's to hitting on 4's in the other 2/3. Then there's the 4+ crits.
At firepower 10 the BC will usually get only 5 dice as a linebreaker (less firepower and range than original S.O.) and 7 dice when turning to present broadsides to oncoming ships (more firepower, less range than original). Given that the original S.O. was overpowered the loss of range is a balancing factor and the fluctuation around the strength 6 of the original (sometimes less, sometimes more) is balanced. The ability to get +2 dice against defences or close range closing capital ships is balanced by the loss against abeam escorts or abeam cap ships at normal range.
I would add in the third TH at a small price hike though (5-10 pts), for the sake of reason. If some reason can be shown as to why it has only 2 THs instead of 3 for no other gain then I'd be fine with it.
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I think its just so the thing loses something, or else why wouldn't every ship have all those BC? I assume its storage space for all the magma bombs.
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I do think it's a touch OP. The weaponry becomes too efficient without having WBs to clash with, and the loss of range (compared to standard BB) isn't so big a loss, as the WBs would only be worth 8-9 normal WBs at that range. So you lose 8-9 WBs over 1/3 your range and convert 12WB from hitting on 5's or 6's to hitting on 4's in the other 2/3. Then there's the 4+ crits.
I would add in the third TH at a small price hike though (5-10 pts), for the sake of reason. If some reason can be shown as to why it has only 2 THs instead of 3 for no other gain then I'd be fine with it.
I think lowering the broadsides to FP8 BCs on the SO while giving back the third TH would make for balanced ship. Would now become FP16 BCs in one arc.
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I noticed that in the armageddon fleet list a master of the fleet gets one re-roll. However in the marine list he doesn't
is this supposed to be this way?
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too bad the final 2010 FAQ does not fix the merchant
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Yeah... poor merchant. The least they could've done was reduce the cost to 90 points.
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I noticed in the BFG FAQ 2010, for the dragonship it says
The strength of the Dragonship‟s weapons battery
option is , the torpedo option is 8 and the launch bay
option is 4.
It doesn't actually say the strength of the weapons battery.
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Are you reading 2.6?
It says 14 for wb.
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BFG FAQ 2010 (FINAL 20101231) Is the version it says when I'm reading it from the google documents folder.
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BFG FAQ 2010 (FINAL 20101231) Is the version it says when I'm reading it from the google documents folder.
He's right- the Dragonship fpr-14x30cm battery somehow got snipped out. I have NO IDEA how it got deleted in the final copy. There's also a minor spelling error someone else caught that somehow got missed throughout the whole editing process. I will put out an amended copy tomorrow. I want to wait an extra day to make sure there aren't any more cobwebs in the works.
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One more thing: The bit about Imperial Grand Cruisers counting as one of the three Cruisers to take a Battleship needs to go. We talked about this before and you agreed but it never happened.
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One more thing: The bit about Imperial Grand Cruisers counting as one of the three Cruisers to take a Battleship needs to go. We talked about this before and you agreed but it never happened.
I received this by e-mail from two diferent people. Yep, we're fixing this too. :)
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You might want to check on the SO. I think FP20 Bombards are too much. Probably have to knock it down to FP8 BC broadsides instead of the current FP12.
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Hey Nate, I had another question I came across;
Abbadon has a +1 to H&R attacks from his vessel, and CSMS add +1 to H&R attacks. Does this mean that if both abbadon and csms are on a vessel they receive +2 to H&R attacks? You mention everything else but this in his section...
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If a ship that doesn't have to move (I.e. a dark eldar ship) stays in an asteroid field will they have to make a LD test every turn to avoid damage?
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Nate, you should mention that Kroot warspheres can land without being destroyed. It isn't actually described in the rules other than 'kroot warspheres grant 3ap when they land.
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they land like any other vessel that can, moving off the edge of the table that counts as 'ground'
AKA... you see a sphere on a planetary assault mission, you hope you kill it before it lands!
Question. If a vessel already comes with a lord and a mark, do you need to purchase both a warmaster and mark for said vessel at full points? (In the case of the Conqueror or other special vessels that come with lords and marks already)
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they land like any other vessel that can, moving off the edge of the table that counts as 'ground'
AKA... you see a sphere on a planetary assault mission, you hope you kill it before it lands!
Question. If a vessel already comes with a lord and a mark, do you need to purchase both a warmaster and mark for said vessel at full points? (In the case of the Conqueror or other special vessels that come with lords and marks already)
I know, it just doens't actually say it. It's one of those things where it implies it, but doesn't state.
Also the profile for the Q-ship is wrong (I think) as it says in the special rules that shooting at it will produce 2 blast markers (and thus prove it to be a q-ship) but in the actual stats it has only 1 shield. It would make sense that this would be 2 as it is quite costly.
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i think its in the FAQ that it should have 2 shields.
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Hi, I'm posting this in the fleet section because my second question is the important one.
When a ship on AAF goes on BFI during its movement (due to ramming, ordnance attacks, asteroids ...) does it still continue for the full distance (basic movement + 4d6)?
I guess so, but I'm not sure and can't find anything definitive in the FAQ.
Even more interesting: Does a Necron ship on AAF retain its full move AND the ability to turn every 20cm when it switches to BFI?
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In example 1: yes full distance moved. BFI done.
Necrons: per letter of rule: yes move full with turns and all.
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What, you can brace when initiating a ram?
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anytime you face damage, so once you hit and before he rolls for ramming damage on you, you may attempt to brace.
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In example 1: yes full distance moved. BFI done.
Necrons: per letter of rule: yes move full with turns and all.
But where in the rules is the part I can't find?
Where does it say that BFI doesn't override AAF?
Because there is one very clear statement - that a ship can NEVER be on more than one special order at a time. If a ship braces on AAF and continues moving under AAF rules, then it IS using 2 special orders at the same time.
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Hey folks. I have a problem.
A friend of mine wants to use the Conqueror, but I just had a look at the FAQ. No warmaster can be on the same ship as a lord. The Conqueror has a lord as part of it's points. Does this mean it cannot be the flagship?
IF i want to use it as a flagship, Do i take it -as is-, or do I spend the 125 points? Also, in the Khorne fleet, you MUST spend 25 points for the mark of khorne... but the Conqueror already has it...
So are you wasting 125 points in getting a warmaster for the ship?
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How do criticals work on Activated Blackstone Fortresses?
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Today I had a match against Necrons and we had the following situation:
My Orkz had put a ton of assault boats in front of his Cairn, so that it couldn't avoid them.
A fair distance away (over 60cm) the Necrons have a squadron of 3 Jackals. The Jackals go AAF with the intention of intercepting the assault boats (by moving into/through them). AAF roll for extra speed is a 4 for a total movement of 80cm. So far so good.
First Jackal moves, contacts the first assault boat squadron and the squadron goes on BFI before rolling for turrets (That Jackal is then destroyed by rolling a 1 for his save but this is not important).
Second Jackal moves - on AAF special order or on BFI?
40cm with one turn or 80cm with one turn every 20cm?
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Both, the BFI is initiated after AAF has come into effect, so it and any other Jackals in the same squadron will move 80cm and are on BFI at the same time. This is the same principle as when ramming, you speed up, moves, brace just before impact (ld passed in order to hit at all, thus you risk taking damage and may therefore attempt to BFI) and then smash into/through the target.
So in effect this would reduce weapon strength twice as both AAF and BFI halves weapons.
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Correct. We will not be releasing an update to the FAQ to clarify this, but I can loop this in before we send the completed projects off to Games Workshop.
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Thanks for answering Nate.
I'm sorry I didn't bring this up earlier but it only came up recently (playing too much eldar I guess :-[). In the FAQ (even the old one) it says:
"A ship or defense can never be on more than one special order at a time ..."
In my opinion this doesn't leave much room for interpretation and the section for BFI only mentions RO.
If a cruiser (20cm speed) on CTNH went on BFI after moving 5cm, could it still make 2 turns? And if it was squadroned, the other ship as well???
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hey, i seem to recall a change to the Solaris, making it's WB 45cm and ignoring range shifts.. It's not in the faq.. Am i hallucinating or something?
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hey, i seem to recall a change to the Solaris, making it's WB 45cm and ignoring range shifts.. It's not in the faq.. Am i hallucinating or something?
That's MMS.
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Thanks for answering Nate.
I'm sorry I didn't bring this up earlier but it only came up recently (playing too much eldar I guess :-[). In the FAQ (even the old one) it says:
"A ship or defense can never be on more than one special order at a time ..."
In my opinion this doesn't leave much room for interpretation and the section for BFI only mentions RO.
If a cruiser (20cm speed) on CTNH went on BFI after moving 5cm, could it still make 2 turns? And if it was squadroned, the other ship as well???
The way I see it is involuntary movement must be adhered to for the entire squadron as soon as that squadron has been activated. For example, a squadron of escorts go on AAF. The first is moved (therefore activating the squadron) but runs into torps so the squadron braces. Now the remaining ships, having been activated, must move straight ahead their maximum movement. Same goes for Burn Retros. However, consider CTNH. You successfully go on CTNH, move straight into a bomber wave and brace. You don't get your second turn because it is not mandatory, it is voluntary.
Similarly if, in the shooting phase, you have a locked on vessel firing some of its weaponry at a nearby ship, which then explodes and forces you to brace, you do not get the benefit of LO for the remainder of your fire. This is not official of course, merely a way of looking at it.
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I agree with sig. You fired the engines, your in for the ride one way or another. If you decide to buckle your seat belts, it doesn't change the fact that the ship is traveling at ludicrous speed.
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hey, i seem to recall a change to the Solaris, making it's WB 45cm and ignoring range shifts.. It's not in the faq.. Am i hallucinating or something?
That's MMS.
Ahem.
I SEE BACON IN THE WINDOW!! THE COLORS!!!
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Ahem.
I SEE BACON IN THE WINDOW!! THE COLORS!!!
Bacon!?! Where!? :P
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I understand that chaos has easily available assault boats through dreadclaws. But why the free boarding torps? I suppose this fits their raider theme?
What I really don't understand is the +1 chaos gets to boarding. Chaos is by far my primary and most played fleet, but I disagree with them being more hardcore than IN crews.
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Regarding the Tyranid FAQ:
"You MUST take 6 Escort Drones for each hive ship in the fleet"
I can't believe that is in the FAQ.
My gripe with this is that it completely destroys the variety in the Tyranid fleet list. It basically makes the Hiveship at least 90 points more expensive, and forces you to take the same generic Drones at the detriment of cool things like Vanguards, Krakens and Cruisers.
It is also particularily crippling when you consider the only real restriction in the Nid fleet list: only 2 Cruisers per Hiveship. 1 Hiveship + 2 Cruisers is close to 500 points, not including escort drones. Meaning that at 1000 points you are either stuck with 1 Hiveship - 2 Cruisers and 500 points of escorts (!) or 2 Hiveships, 12 Drones and virtually no Cruisers.
Basically what I am saying is that if the aim was to restrict the number of Hiveships, this is crippling because at 1000 points you cannot replace the loss of a Hiveship with a couple of Cruisers.
Not mentioning that Krakens and Vanguards (a very interesting unit for tactical play: his marker-light ability coupled with the instinctive behaviour table makes for some real interesting play as you try to maneuvre these guys close to your target, not to mention having one around is the only way to target ordnance waves) will also get the shaft at 1000 points in favour of boring slow Drones.
The Hiveship is key to the Tyranid list: it unlocks cruisers, provides synapse, provides practically the only source of AC (which is ESSENTIAL to Nids), and only source of long range firepower. I find it hard as it is to make a balanced and flexible list at 1000 points without using refits, but the Drone thing just ruins it.
If you want people to take more escorts over Hiveships, make that "you must take 6 escorts (any type) for each hiveship in the fleet". That will make more balanced lists without destroying the variety in the Nid list. This would make a whole lot more sense too with regards to the initial wording in Armada: it seems they wanted people to take between 6 and 12 escorts per Hiveships, which would be similar to the restriction on Cruisers (i.e. you need Hiveships to unlock the rest of your army; makes sense fluff wise too).
Rant off :)
That said I really appreciate all the work that's been done here, especially in the Nid list which is patchy as hell (missing costs in the fleet list, missing descriptions, confusing L/F/R options etc... and I'm not even going to get started on the "Are refits legal?" thing ;) )
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I like the must take 6 drones rule.
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Its very fluffy. You should take more, but its a minimum ;)
And...drones are really good!
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I don't particularly mind it. My first read through missed that it was limited to just the escort drones instead of 6 escorts total. I agree it will likely see some upsets to the Nid list, but I can't say it will be particularly bad since you won't be spending 60 points on refits for each hive ship. If you take the bioplasma discharge you are only really spending around 30 points extra per hive ship for the escorts so it shouldn't greatly change anything except those lists that took only uber hive ships by replacing the spores and carapace with drones.
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I'm with Innocent on this one. I think this rule kinda nerfs a lot of the advantages of the Tyranid fleet.
-Zhukov
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So it's a tradeoff between a hiveship and more escorts then? *grumble grumble* time to get the hobby knife and murder some Hormagants again ;)
Reading through it again I can see the benefits, especially if I can have 18 escorts for a Hive ship, but it is going to change the list for sure in 1000pnts games. Time will tell.
Oh and I missed the entry about the -1ld when attempting to ignore closer targets for hiveships with drones, a nice boost I guess :)
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What advantages Zuk? If a few, incredibly powerful ships is a tyranid advantage, I'd say they kinda messed up on the feel in the first place.
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How about:
- Loss of synapse
- Loss of AC
- and most importantly: loss of mobility via the only fast and maneuvrable ships in the fleet: Krakens and Vanguards.
Again, this will simply sacrifice interesting units like the kraken and vanguards in favour of slow short range drones.
Also, another problem I forsee with the drones is that it is overkill. 6 drones at 1000 points is more than enough. Who needs 12 drones, i.e. 48str weapons batteries or 24 shield ignoring lances? half that number is more than enough to deal with anything that comes within their range. This rule basically forces us to put points were they are not needed, resulting in restricting and potentially boring lists.
I'll definitely give the "new" list a try. But playing around with the fleet options I find it extremely restricting. Again this is at 1000points and it is partly due to the bizarre costing values in the Tyranid fleet list (no intermediate i.e. 200ish point ships, and no carrier options apart from the Hiveship) coupled to the cruiser restrictions. But I think tampering with this already complex balance is risky. We will see.
What I'd like to know is what motivated the Drones choice over Krakens or Vanguards?
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Innocent: I don't think this is quite true. How many points did you previously spend on refits for your ships in your nid lists? If you were bulking out your Hive Ships the odds are your list will trade those refits for most of the required escorts leaving you with a similar number of points to take vanguard and kraken.
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I suppose 'escorts' in general would be good, or just limit it to three drones. But for 15 points each, its not so limiting for great escorts...
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Do people really use the bio-plasma on the Escort drones?
Move 15cm, range 15cm, Forward *only*, and only 45 turns ... that just does not sound like a useful/effective combination. I really can only see the 30cm Pyro-acid batteries being useful on them, which ups their cost to 20. Ok, sure, it's still pretty cheap, but not as cheap. ;)
Personally, I think thematically it fits requiring Hive Ships to have at least 6 escort drones each. I do agree with Innocent, however, that it seems to make the Tyranid lists a bit more constrained and "standardized", especially combined with the loss of the customization of the evolutions.
Perhaps Tyranid Cruisers should get the option to purchase Ld 7 synaptic control, which would make them semi-useful in instances where purchasing an additional Hive Ship (now also requiring the purchase of +6 escort drones) is impractical.
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Bio-plasma drones are incredibly powerful, in no small part due to their cost: for 90 points you get 12 shield-ignoring lances, which is practically an instant cripple/kill to anything they touch.
Also remember that being escorts they can turn at any stage of their movement, meaning that they are still pretty maneuvrable. Basically anything in their front fire arc within 30cm will get crippled/hulked.
Also, they Lock-On automatically :o (EDIT: if within 15cm at the start of their turn, got a bit carried away here...)
I have used them in 2 games now against In and Tau (still learning with Nids, and I've never used refits either) and in both games they were the killer blow. My opponents had a tendency to ignore them, being so small, slow and meaningless, but when they got into range in the later stages of the game they would instantly hulk a cruiser.
Note that one of the reason I always use them is because they are the cheapest option. I would love to try something else but if I am going to have to have 6 per hiveship than I have to keep them cheap or sacrifice some Krakens :-[ (this is at 1000 points game, which is sort of the standard size we play).
I like your suggestion of making some cruisers synapse. Also give them the option to carry AC, and we are coming very close to making them playable and a meaningful alternative to Hiveships.
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Nid drones are stupid, STUPID good for their cost. My only complaint is I feel their armor should be weaker.
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Yes nid cruisers are supposed to be immature hives so why don't they have limited synapse I'd say leadership 6 or 7 tho and make 7 quite a bit more than 6 so its not like a no brainer. This would be perfect for cruiser clash or vanguard fleets.
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I know I'm quite late to this discussion, but I have to add my two cents.
Innocent: I don't think this is quite true. How many points did you previously spend on refits for your ships in your nid lists? If you were bulking out your Hive Ships the odds are your list will trade those refits for most of the required escorts leaving you with a similar number of points to take vanguard and kraken.
This attitude is exactly what is wrong with the "must take six escort drones" rule, and why it is so frustrating.
Many of the changes made to the tyranids in the 2010 FAQ don't seem like they were made by tyranid players who want to make the fleet more interesting, fun to play, and in line with the background of the race. On the contrary, they appear to have been made by tyranid opponents who play against powergaming 'nid fleets, and dislike it enough to get their complaints head all the way to the top. This ruling, considering that the wording in the original rules is unambiguously the opposite, makes me think it is an unfortunate case of the latter as well.
The problem with the attitude that you, Vaaish, and others who share your opinion, have, is that it's completely missing the point. Sure, escort drones are very good, and sure, I do like to take them in large numbers. But to take that and say it means there's not a problem forcing me to take them in every game is nonsensical. We don't have a rule that for every cruiser they take, chaos players must take a Murder class. We don't have a rule that for every cruiser Orks take they must take three Brutes. That a ship is good is no justification for why you should have to take it.
As for saying that it fits the fluff of the tyranids, this is both inaccurate and irrelevant. As far as inaccuracy; whilst it is very common for Hive Ships to be surrounded by hordes of escort drones, the main descriptor of Tyranids is 'adaptability.' If they are running into a situation where their escorts keep getting obliterated for no gain, they are not going to keep using small escorts. While it might be relatively rare to see a fleet without many or any escort drones, it is by no means improbable or unlikely, no more so than a venerable battle barge, inquisition black ship, rogue trader commanding a Carnage class, etc. As far as irrelevance, how fluffy the fleet lists are terms of encouraging/forcing players to take lists that represent the typical sights of the 41st millineum has never been a priority. The original publication of the BFG rulebook talked about how there's no reason not to take whatever fleet list you want if it could happen. The current rules committee seems to, where tyranids aren't involved, adhere to these principles as well, as with the aforementioned examples.
My main issue, though, comes from the statement, "How many points did you previously spend on refits for your ships in your nid lists? If you were bulking out your Hive Ships the odds are your list will trade those refits for most of the required escorts leaving you with a similar number of points to take vanguard and kraken." This statement assumes that all 'nid players do little other than take hulked-out hiveships and plod down the board spitting out ordnance.
But what if I wasn't bulking out my hiveships? After all, my answer to that question would be "zero." I've taken huge hiveships before, but I find I enjoy taking lists that have a few hiveships as a focal point and a lot of cruisers, vanguards, and kraken for envelopment. Now all of the lists I like to run are illegal without major tweaking - redesign, really. You might argue that 15 points a pop is cheap, and that's true, but when you have to take eighteen drones in a three-hiveship list... 270 points is a lot of points! But okay, let's say I'll likely be getting some escort drones anyway, so the normal 'penalty' might be more along the lines of 150 points or so. That's still four to five kraken, six vanguards, or a cruiser I could have had, the difference between making a 'flank and envelop' list viable or not. (Not to mention if I actually didn't want to take any escorts...)
Where the whole "the odds are your list will trade those refits for most of the required escorts," idea becomes patently ridiculous is when you remember that the 2010 FAQ also restricts when and where Tyranids players may use these upgrades in the first place. Now, according to the FAQ, Tyranid players aren't taking all of those refits anyway, so why force them to spend the points in, after a fashion, the same place? I thought the idea was to encourage tyranid players to do something else? ::)
Saying something that boils down to 'it's a justified change because all 'nid players are the same powergaming cheeseball,' is pretty insulting. This being a hobby game, not just a board game, the composition rules are supposed to encourage people. Telling 'nid players to screw off because nobody liked playing against them is no way to encourage them to play, to engage them in the hobby. The same people who decided that 'nids have to take six drones per ship came up with venerable battle barges for space marines. This uncommon (and therefore unfluffy, according to some lines of reasoning) option was created in the name of allowing space marine lists to have more variety, so it absolutely stuns me that the commitee would then turn around and say, "Oh, but 'nid players should have their options restricted, shouldn't they?" What could possibly be the justification?
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idea becomes patently ridiculous is when you remember that the 2010 FAQ also restricts when and where Tyranids players may use these upgrades in the first place. Now, according to the FAQ, Tyranid players aren't taking all of those refits anyway, so why force them to spend the points in, after a fashion, the same place? I thought the idea was to encourage tyranid players to do something else?
Mycen, as you said you are late to the discussion and you are missing the point entirely. The discussion was about the affect on lists in use before the the FAQ and how the changes in the FAQ would affect those fleets in the FUTURE. Yes, the FAQ restricts the use of refits which means that no one is spending points on them right now, that wasn't the case at the time the discussion was being held. The idea was to make nids stop using refits in one of games. I believe the drone requirement was a bit of a surprise when it showed up but the comparison to points spent on refits vs the required drones was valid at the time of the discussion.
. While it might be relatively rare to see a fleet without many or any escort drones, it is by no means improbable or unlikely,
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? If something is relatively rare it is by nature unlikely to make an appearance.
The original publication of the BFG rulebook talked about how there's no reason not to take whatever fleet list you want if it could happen.
How has this changed any with the FAQ? If you want to take whatever you feel like you can still do it if your opponent approves just like it's always been.
This statement assumes that all 'nid players do little other than take hulked-out hiveships and plod down the board spitting out ordnance.
95% of the lists I've seen for nids personally and seen new players or tournament players post included refits prior to the FAQ so it's not an assumption that ALL did this but it is based on the evidence that a majority did.
"Oh, but 'nid players should have their options restricted, shouldn't they?" What could possibly be the justification?
Nids where the only fleet that could take whatever refit they felt like in a one of game without having to "earn" it in a campaign. What made nids so special to have that consideration?
You seem frustrated in particular that the drones are required, I'm guessing that's mostly because whatever list you run or were planning to run got hit because of the changes. My question would be, do the changes make nids under powered or incapable of variety in lists or that they just aren't the sandbox they were prior to the FAQ?
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The only problem I see is that the nid players are restricted to escort drones for their minimum escorts now. As of Armada at least the rules stated you had to take 6-12 with every hiveship (pg 91 Armada; Each Hive ship allows the Tyranid player to purchase 6-12 escort ships and 0-2 capitol ships)... the faq just confirms that yes you HAVE to take 6-12... no big deal there as this is as its always been. The FAQ ruling should be replaced with must take a minimum of six escorts, of any type.
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Mycen, as you said you are late to the discussion and you are missing the point entirely. The discussion was about the affect on lists in use before the the FAQ and how the changes in the FAQ would affect those fleets in the FUTURE. Yes, the FAQ restricts the use of refits which means that no one is spending points on them right now, that wasn't the case at the time the discussion was being held. The idea was to make nids stop using refits in one of games. I believe the drone requirement was a bit of a surprise when it showed up but the comparison to points spent on refits vs the required drones was valid at the time of the discussion.
Fair enough. LIke you said, I'm late. (Like, two years late :P) But now we're in 'the future', so what about now?
. While it might be relatively rare to see a fleet without many or any escort drones, it is by no means improbable or unlikely,
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? If something is relatively rare it is by nature unlikely to make an appearance.
I don't think it's contradictory at all, I said relatively for a reason. If I see twenty Ferraris a week that's a lot of exotic sports cars, they are not uncommon. But relative to how many other cars I see they are rare. It is rare compared to the norm, not rare to encounter at all, i.e. while an individual ship or crew may never encounter a hive fleet without escort drones, the Imperial Navy as a whole would be familiar with such compositions. It's not like fielding the Seditio Opprimere, where there is only one of them in existence.
The original publication of the BFG rulebook talked about how there's no reason not to take whatever fleet list you want if it could happen.
How has this changed any with the FAQ? If you want to take whatever you feel like you can still do it if your opponent approves just like it's always been.
I merely brought that up as an example of mindset. But, to address your point, it has 'changed' with the FAQ because if I don't know my opponent and they don't know me, in my experience they won't be comfortable tossing the rules out of the window just because I don't like some of them. I normally play pick-up games, so I have to lay out all these arguments each time? I find the new ruling irritating, but not that much! :)
This statement assumes that all 'nid players do little other than take hulked-out hiveships and plod down the board spitting out ordnance.
95% of the lists I've seen for nids personally and seen new players or tournament players post included refits prior to the FAQ so it's not an assumption that ALL did this but it is based on the evidence that a majority did.
Fair enough, this may be true after all. The minority being left out is a unavoidable circumstance sometimes, it just always bothers me, as when it comes to my lists (in this and other games) I tend to be in that minority.
"Oh, but 'nid players should have their options restricted, shouldn't they?" What could possibly be the justification?
Nids where the only fleet that could take whatever refit they felt like in a one of game without having to "earn" it in a campaign. What made nids so special to have that consideration?
I wasn't referring to the refits thing at all, actually. The arguments for why 'nids should be allowed to do this have been repeated ad naseam, no need to rehash them here. Suffice it to say I am not against Tyranid refits being disallowed in normal games. I think that, while it tends to kill the usefulness of their cruisers, it's a perfectly fine rule. It encourages 'nid players to actually use tactics, rather than just ram their invincible battleships down the opponent's throat and expect to win. It also makes the refits actually have a point in campaigns. Previously it tended to go, "I get refits! Oh, I already took them all..." ::)
The 'restriction' I was referring to is how a hivefleet now is required to spend a number of points in a certain way that is not always compatible with the build and tactics of the fleet, thereby limiting their effective builds and tactics.
You seem frustrated in particular that the drones are required, I'm guessing that's mostly because whatever list you run or were planning to run got hit because of the changes.
Yes, and hit hard! Why else would I care, right? ;) Prior to this FAQ, if I didn't use refits for my hive ships, a reasonable rule of thumb was one hiveship per 500 points. This is no longer the case, as the required drones will eat up most the remaining points. So now I can either take few enough hiveships to have an effective number of fast elements, or take a greater number of hiveships but not very many fast ships. This leaves me either without sufficient synapse coverage or without a list that can do much more than 'castle'.
My question would be, do the changes make nids under powered or incapable of variety in lists or that they just aren't the sandbox they were prior to the FAQ?
In my opinion the changes do not make the Tyranids underpowered, but they do make them incapable of variety in lists.
Before the FAQ there were several options for tyranid fleets, from one hiveship and many escorts to all hiveships and no escorts. One could take a few hiveships with many escort drones, creating a durable and powerful but slow formation, or one could take a few hiveships with many vanguards and kraken, creating a loose formation that can cover a large area of the board and encircle the enemy fleet.
Now the one hiveship option and the no escort options have been deep-sixed. Taking a few hiveships with lots of fast escorts is still allowed, but much harder to do effectively, as you are saddled with a number of ships that are too slow to contribute to the envelopment. So what we are left with is a situation where every tyranid list will look more or less the same, a number of hive ships surrounded by escorts, with cruisers and kraken/vanguards relegated to a support role due to lack of numbers.
There is still room for variation thanks to the flexible options each captial ship has, but in terms of broader list types I do think a lot of the variety has been eliminated. While I think that the 'sandbox' level of flexibility they had really fit the 'nid theme and background, it did have game-breaking potential that was too great to ignore. But I think that swinging too far in the opposite direction is just as bad.
As has been said numerous times, if the goal was to eliminate overuse of refits, that is easily accomplished by simply disallowing them. I just don't see how the new escort requirement contributes anything to making the fleet more enjoyable to play, whether as or against.
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Fair enough. LIke you said, I'm late. (Like, two years late ) But now we're in 'the future', so what about now?
To be honest, outside of a couple of lists posted and some questions about if refits were allowed, I haven't seen or heard much from the nid players on how their lists are doing post FAQ. Your post seems to be one of the first strong reactions I can remember. Personally, while the limit does seem a bit crazy if you are used to complete freedom in fleet composition I think they end up promoting more variety in fleets since the extra escorts tacked onto the hiveship makes the cruisers more interesting.
The 'restriction' I was referring to is how a hivefleet now is required to spend a number of points in a certain way that is not always compatible with the build and tactics of the fleet, thereby limiting their effective builds and tactics.
I think you are correct in terms of the traditional Nid fleets, but prior to the FAQ how often did you see a Nid cruiser get considered or taken? Or how often were escort drones used over the other types? My point here is that the old builds and tactics might need to change but in the end more builds might be useful despite the restrictions.
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Fair enough. LIke you said, I'm late. (Like, two years late ) But now we're in 'the future', so what about now?
To be honest, outside of a couple of lists posted and some questions about if refits were allowed, I haven't seen or heard much from the nid players on how their lists are doing post FAQ. Your post seems to be one of the first strong reactions I can remember. Personally, while the limit does seem a bit crazy if you are used to complete freedom in fleet composition I think they end up promoting more variety in fleets since the extra escorts tacked onto the hiveship makes the cruisers more interesting.
The 'restriction' I was referring to is how a hivefleet now is required to spend a number of points in a certain way that is not always compatible with the build and tactics of the fleet, thereby limiting their effective builds and tactics.
I think you are correct in terms of the traditional Nid fleets, but prior to the FAQ how often did you see a Nid cruiser get considered or taken? Or how often were escort drones used over the other types? My point here is that the old builds and tactics might need to change but in the end more builds might be useful despite the restrictions.
*shrug* I can't speak for the whole 'nid community, but I know I loved fielding cruisers pre-FAQ, I typically had at least two. (I have a beautiful little ten hit, +5cm speed, claw/claw/bio-plasmaX2 baby that I built, it hits the table almost every game. 8)) With the new FAQ I would say they are about the same in terms of attractiveness as they were before.
They become much less effective, as, aside from torp/torp cruisers, without refits they are too fragile and cumbersome to take advantage of their most effective weapons. Tentacles and claws don't work at all after a few hits, and fpr16 batteries or S4 lances aren't all that attractive on a slow light cruiser. :-\ But since it's harder to use the points left over after purchasing hiveships and escort drones now, they become more attractive as points fillers, since they aren't impacted by the escort limits. So I go from taking them because they're good to taking them because I don't really have anything else I want to spend the points on.
As far as escort drones, I used those all the time - a normal fleet (when I wasn't trying for fast envelopment tactics) would have around 14 or so. As people have already mentioned, they're deceptively awesome.
It just seems to me that rather than more builds being useful, it's just that different builds are useful. Nothing a 'nid player couldn't have done before, but now they don't have a choice, as the old builds are illegal. That certainly accomplishes the goal of changing up the metagame, but in a rather artificial and temporary way. (Now the 'nid players will all do something else, but you'll still see 95% of them doing the same thing.) It just doesn't seem like it adds anything to the fleet to me.
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Well if you need more feedback from Nids player, I can say that I totally feel like Mycen. I was going to write a response but he ended up saying the exact same thing I wrote!
First I don't and never have used refits.
Secondly it may not look like much but those 6 extra drones really change the way you have to play. They are extremely slow and short range, meaning that if you want to make them count your entire fleet has to slow down to their pace. Who takes an army option that is not going to be used in a game?
Also, to compensate for the slow drones I have to max on launch bays. Not a lot of people like dealing with that much ordnance. But I see no other alternative if I don't want to be blasted by long range fire.
Before I could have a slow core with a carrier hiveship and 6 drones, and the other hiveship could be kitted out with weapons batteries or anything else and be more independent than the core. Now it's one big block of 2 hiveships and 12 drones. The other option is to take just one hiveship but you are taking a huge risk (if you loose it it's game over) and then you have to take cruisers that are near useless.
Cruisers, seriously what can you use these for? They are too slow and unmaneuvrable (20cm / 45°) to be decent light cruisers or close combat ships. They only have 6hp and a 5+ armor so cannot be ships of the line or ramships. No long range weapons or launch bay options. The only marginally useful configuration is the dual torps one, and then you will have to keep them far behind so that they don't get crippled by the first Lunar sneezing. I just find them too weak, too slow and unmaneuvrable to be of any use. It's a shame they don't have access to refits. With the refits I could see myself creating ramships, assault ships etc...
I know that I don't have to use the FAQ, but it is pretty much regarded by everyone in our gaming circle as the rules. As 99% of it is great and very helpful I have no problems with this, but I have to live with slowing down my list. I see the drones thing as a stop gap measure until the community can come up with a fleet that is balanced but yet retains it's character. I don't have enough games under my belt to contribute much myself yet, but I'm starting to pick up a few things. If I come up with clever ideas I'll make sure to share them.
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Secondly it may not look like much but those 6 extra drones really change the way you have to play. They are extremely slow and short range, meaning that if you want to make them count your entire fleet has to slow down to their pace. Who takes an army option that is not going to be used in a game?
This is exactly why the escort drone rule should be removed and the standard 6-12 of ANY escorts should be the option.
The fleet was also intended to include ships with refits, the problem is a few people taking advantage of that. The cruisers are not bad at all when you makes a 165pt 8 hit 25cm speed line cruiser with 8 torpedoes and 8 p/s batteries or a 175 pt 8 hit 25cm speed "battle"cruiser with 4 torps, 8 l/f/r batteries and 8 p/s batteries.
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So what kind of fleet lists are you running or planning to run with the FAQ nids then? I'm curious to see how things run with the changes. I see the point abut it being any type of escort rather than just escort drones but how much would that change your play style or list if the restriction wasn't there?
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I dont play nids my self, but my buddy plays a heavy cruiser/ kracken list and its fast he has no need to put the bloat on the hive ship because of the speed. The two cruisers listed are some of his and they hurt :P.
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Well here are my 2 main lists:
Carrier Hiveship
8 launch bays and 8 torps - 305points
6 Plasma drones - 90points
Gunship Hiveship
6 launch bays, 16 front WBs - 320points
6 drones - 90points
4 Vanguard drones with tentacles - 100points
2 pyro-acid Krakens - 80 points
Total: 985 points
There's room for another drone or a str 4 torpedo marker.
This list has the exact shortfalls that Mycen listed: it's a castle list. The only thing it can do is sit back and churn out AC, mostly because of the slow drones. The 4 vanguards 2 krakens are no way enough numbers to be a credible long range threat.
I was also attempting to take advantage of the vanguard - Gunship Hiveship combo (http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=123904.0) , as I think it is one of the most beautiful synergies in the game. But with only 4 vanguards I'm not sure it can work (they will get shot to pieces, not enough numbers and other threats to cover them).
Second list:
Carrier Hiveship
8 launch bays and 8 torps, ld9 upgrade - 345points
8 Plasma drones - 120points
5 vanguards - 125 points
5 Pyro Kraken - 200 points
Dual Torps cruiser - 100 points
Dual Torps cruiser - 100 points
Total: 990 points
More balanced, but as the tyranid player I am not 100% comfortable playing this list. First if the hiveship dies it's pretty much game over (the rulebook does not even say if you are allowed to disengage your other ships). The Ld upgrade is a must if you only have one hiveship, you want to minimise the ld tests you fail. Sure it's an advantage to have ld9 for your entire fleet, but if you fail one test the consequences are much worse than in a normal fleet: all the remaining ships that do not have to reload ordnance go on auto pilot (and that means most of the time moving dumbly ahead at half speed or towards a planet).
Secondly I quickly hit the limit of 18 escorts. Note that I have more than 6 drones (8 exactly) to give the hiveship more protection, I could swap one for an extra vanguard but that does not make much difference.
I have more Vanguards and Krakens, but I cannot afford a gunship hiveship to do the pretty cool combo. So they just rush on a flank with the Krakens and harass whatever is there. They also tend to die fairly quickly if the opposite player focuses on them. Again, as Mycen said not enough numbers to do a truely effective envelopment maneuvre.
The Cruisers are point fillers because I have hit the 18 escorts limit. They will just sit back and churn out torps, otherwise every opposing cruiser and their dog will shoot at them and they will die in the blink of an eye.
Again, as Mycen pointed out every tyranid list will be a variation of one or the other of the above (unless you play Vanguard list, I have yet to try). Feel free to correct me if i am wrong or if you have a list and strategy vastly different from the aboves, I would be more than happy to learn new tricks :)
If the 6 drones rules was instead 6 escorts, I could do the following:
- Get more vanguards and krakens in the first list, maybe even ditch the 6 launch bays on the gunship hiveship. This way the gunship can support a decent group of fast escorts which in turn provides marking for the gunship.
- Ditch the 2 cruisers in the second list, ditch the ld9 upgrade and 2 drones. I have enough points to afford a hiveship gunship.
- have 2 cheap hiveships and max out on fast escorts.
The 6 drones rule really constricts me to a castle type of gameplay.
As I said, I have to max on AC because I have no other way to protect my ships from long range fire. I know it frustrates some of my opponents.
I am thinking of trialling the following house rules:
- Turrets fire against Tyranid ordnance gets a +1 to their roll. So under normal condition each turret will need a 3+ to destroy ordnance rather than 4+.
- Weapons batteries get a left column shift when shooting at Tyranid ordnance. This is on top of any other column shift they would get.
This way my tyranid fleet does not loose it's character, it is still a swarm of small organisms, but my opponents will be hopefully more comfortable with dealing with the ordnance and I will have to rely on something else to do the damage.
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I wouldn't change your ordnance rules, if your opponents are cool with house rules, see if they'll play the rules as any escort. Shouldn't be hard to convince most people to play refits also, especially if your not cheesing it up.
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Very true. I forget that if the other player agrees you can play them. I will definitely use them on some cruisers to try to make something useful but not overpowered.
However if playing without refits and following the FAQ rules I don't see much else I can do than the above.
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I'm noticing your lists are both 1k points. Do you play 1500 points often? It's pretty much the standard point value for most games and that extra 500 points could help out your options considerably. Evan as an IN player I have to cut corners to get everything into a 1k list I need.
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yes we play mostly at 1000points, that's the best we can fit in an evening at the club. I've played a few games at 1500 but they are not the norm.
Granted at 1500 points I can add another hiveship. I would still be stuck with a bucket load of Escort drones though which restrict my movements. The whole problem is that the Nids are the only list were this has happened (we HAVE to take something slow and boring) when all the other lists have had increased flexibility and options.
It's also pretty rude in my opinion to force someone to play his list in a certain way.
I'm not trying to criticise or belittle the work that has been done on the FAQ, but show the frustration that this rule has caused in an otherwise great document.
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I was thinking that the extra 500 points could be used to double the krakens and vanguards as well as take a couple of cruisers instead of the hiveship since that seemed the element you were worried about in 1k games. I think I see your problem though. If you drop a hiveship you can't take enough stuff to fill out the points because of the 12 escort limit and two cruisers, but if you take a second hiveship you end up with low numbers of any other escort and have to take the cruisers.
I'm not entirely familiar with the requirements for hiveships, but are the port/starboard options required? It seems you could get a s16 prow battery ship for 260 points and 350 including the drones. With the carrier one that would give you 250 points for kraken and vanguard. It does leave some holes with the lack of any port/sbd weapons but it would give you options even if you had to take a battery you still have some options.
I'm almost 99% positive that the fleets and point value these changes were considered at was 1500 points so the 1k point value is far more limiting. Looking at it more closely, the issue is most acute in the 1k point band. Drop to 500 points and you end up with a hiveship, 8lb, 8 torps, and 10 escorts. It's a respectable force and there is a bit of variety to be had despite the required drones not really much more limiting than an IN list. 750 points also has a pretty fair range of options based around a single hiveship or going the vanguard route. 1500 points has some options as well, but when you hit 1k you have this odd gap.
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At 1500 points one does have more options, but the situation isn't entirely different. I'm trying to build a list for Adepticon, compare my pre- and post-FAQ lists.
My tentative Pre-FAQ looked like this (I had only playtested it a few times, so there were still a few changes I was considering):
320 - Hiveship
Prow Pyro-Acid
Thorax Pyro-Acid
Port/Starboard Launch Bays X 3
305 - Hiveship
Prow Torpedoes
Thorax Launch Bays
Port/Starboard Launch Bays X 3
300 - Hiveship
Prow Bio-plasma
Thorax Bio-plasma
Port/Starboard Bio-plasma X 2
Port/Starboard Launch Bays X 1
250 - Vanguard Drones X 10
Feeder Tentacles
210 - Kraken X 6
Massive Claws
105 - Escort Drones X 7
Bio-plasma
7 - Fighter Marker
The idea, as you can probably guess, is pretty simple. The two launch bay hiveships are on one side of the table by themselves, the plasma hiveship, kraken, and vanguards are on the other, whilst the escort drones bridge the gap between them. The dual hiveships march up and act as the focal point for the enemy fleet, while the rest of the ships charge across the board to form a net that comes in from the side. It allows a lot of flexibility, as anywhere the enemy chooses to run they will be facing a powerful element, and the other side can move in for backup. At the same time it has its vulnerabilities, the fast element has limited synapse control, and the slow element is vulnerable to being forced to always be braced from concentrated fire. It is interesting to play, and relies on... daring, shall I say?
I was considering either dropping a kraken and a few drones to fit in either a dual claw cruiser or a dual torp cruiser. A dual claw cruiser with the bio-plasma hiveship would provide a credible distraction or even a threat if they chose to let it get close. The dual torp cruiser would solve the problem of one torp marker not being enough. (Although I was against ordnance-light fleets the few games I played, so it didn't make much of a difference.)
Now that list is quite illegal though, so some changes are required. :-\ This leaves me looking at something like this:
300 - Hiveship
Prow Pyro-Acid
Thorax Pyro-Acid
Port/Starboard Launch Bays X 2
300 - Hiveship
Prow Pyro-Acid
Thorax Pyro-Acid
Port/Starboard Launch Bays X 2
100 - Cruiser
Prow Torpedoes
Thorax Torpedoes
120 - Escort Drones X 8
Bio-plasma
120 - Escort Drones X 6
Pyro-Acid
175 - Vanguard Drones X 7
Feeder Tentacles
175 - Vanguard Drones X7
Feeder Tentacles
210 - Kraken X 6
Massive Claws
The Hiveships sit in the center of the board, with the eight bio-plasma escorts screening them and the topr cruiser sitting behind them. Vanguards and Kraken on one flank, Vanguards and Pyro-Acid Escort Drones on the other. The tactical concept really needs no explanation.
It's a more boring than my first list, but not that bad a list. The only two problems are:
First, it lacks launch bays. Eight LB and two torps for a 1500 point tyranid list is pretty sad. I could swap one hiveship for a carrier hive, but that would mean dropping a LB on the other, so my net LB strength isn't really different, and I lose a lot of shooting. I could drop a drone and make them both carriers, of course, but then I don't have any shooting.
Second, it only has two hiveships. Before the FAQ this would not have been a problem, as I could make the hiveships durable. But now that they're limited to being slow grand cruisers, going up against a 1500 point fleet with only two hiveships is not an attractive option. Even an IN opponent will have enough long-range firepower so that crushing one hiveship early is not a difficult proposition. Remember, he only has to cripple it, and with the -5cm for blast markers and the large base, I can't even clear all my blast markers without going AAF. This means I effectively only have three shields, not four.
I'm almost 99% positive that the fleets and point value these changes were considered at was 1500 points so the 1k point value is far more limiting. ... 1500 points has some options as well, but when you hit 1k you have this odd gap.
Which of the above lists would you rather play against? Which do you think would provide a more interesting game?
The issue is that, unless I want to play the most boring list ever, I basically can't take more than two hiveships at anything short of 2000 points.
Sure, I could save a few points by dropping port/starboard weapons on the hiveships, giving me more points, but then I have no launch bays. As Innocent pointed out, without any long-range weapons, LB strength is the Tyranids' only protection at range, and they become increasingly important as the points level rises and long-range weapons become more prevalent. I need a lot of them, but can't have a lot of hiveships (without having no ships that move faster than 15cm ::)) so I'm a little bit stuck.
yes we play mostly at 1000points, that's the best we can fit in an evening at the club. I've played a few games at 1500 but they are not the norm.
Granted at 1500 points I can add another hiveship. I would still be stuck with a bucket load of Escort drones though which restrict my movements. The whole problem is that the Nids are the only list were this has happened (we HAVE to take something slow and boring) when all the other lists have had increased flexibility and options.
It's also pretty rude in my opinion to force someone to play his list in a certain way.
I'm not trying to criticise or belittle the work that has been done on the FAQ, but show the frustration that this rule has caused in an otherwise great document.
This is exactly my problem.
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Personally, I think either would provide an interesting game. With the nid ordnance being allowed 2x the markers in play for your LB strength, you've got equivalent s16 bays which isn't bad (inferior ordnance not withstanding). Both lists seem to have the option for the play style you want, albeit the first list gives you more room for error with the third hiveship.
Have you given the modified FAQ 2010 list a go yet to see how it performs both with your original strategy and with a modified one? Thinking it through and thinking what I'd be taking as IN or Marines or Chaos in the 1k and 1500 point ranges these don't seem that bad. Even with short range and low torpedoes you've got a lot going for you with the amount of stuff on the board and I think I'd be hard pressed to clean out all or enough of that before it hit.
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Just an aside, escort drones can't be put into squadrons of more than 6; only the Kraken and Vanguard drones are 6-12. Unless I read it wrong...
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Just an aside, escort drones can't be put into squadrons of more than 6; only the Kraken and Vanguard drones are 6-12. Unless I read it wrong...
I think this is incorrect Seahawk: p91 of Armada, Squadrons: "Tyranids do not follow the normal squadron rules when forming up the fleet. Tyranid Escorts come in squadrons of 1 to 12 vessels, while all other types are individuals and may not deploy in squadrons."
You might be thinking of the Vanguard List on p90, which is a completely different list: only Vanguards and Krakens can be fielded, and yes in this case they have to be in squads of 6 to 12.
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Wow, I totally read it all as a single two-page fleet list. FAIL. Thanks!
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No probs :)
As an aside, the Vanguard List would be much more interesting if we were allowed to buy ordnance for it like the normal fleet list.
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Two quick questions (plus a third related question):
Eldar/Dark Eldar question, mentioned in the 2010 FAQ but I'd just like a clarification.Eldar and Dark Eldar ships can make a leadership check to ignore all effects of celestial phenomena such as gas clouds, solar flares, etc. Escorts may re-roll this result for free.
The current wording means that Eldar and Dark Eldar can fire straight through asteriod fields/planets/warp rifts without penalty, as long as they pass a leadership roll (which escorts can re-roll). Is this really the case? I'm asking because I'm not entirely convinced that a combination of eldar technology and cunning can really let a ship fire through 6000km of rock. I could understand how they could shoot through gas clouds without penalty, though (superior sensors, knowledge of where the gas cloud has the lowest densities).
Next, an ork question that's not mentioned in the FAQ at all.
One of their engine refits ("A Bigger Red Button", Armada, page 139) lets a ship double the bonus distance travelled once per game (which would, for most ork ships, give the equivalent of a total extra movement of 4d6 extra for one All Ahead Full order). Would the decision to "double the result of the dice roll to see how far the ship goes" be taken before or after the dice roll?
I'm guessing that the decision would be made after the roll since a different engine refit ("Improved Engines") lets a ship add 2d6 to all All Ahead Full rolls (which would, for most ork ships, give a total extra movement of 4d6 extra for every All Ahead Full order rather than just once per game).
The third question would be about the order of these results. If a ship had both refits, would the doubling be before or after the extra 2d6 from the Improved? Would the ork ship roll the normal number of dice (2, or 4 if the ship had the "Soopa Enginez"/"Soopa Boostas"), double the results, and then add the 2d6 from the "Improved Engines"? I'm not sure if we use BIDMAS in BFG.
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The current wording means that Eldar and Dark Eldar can fire straight through asteriod fields/planets/warp rifts without penalty, as long as they pass a leadership roll (which escorts can re-roll).
I think you are taking this out of context and using it to allow Eldar an advantage they were never intended to have. The segment you clipped out is part of the FAQ segment relating to eldar movement not shooting. As such, it follows that the LD check allows the Eldar to ignore the effects of the various phenomena that would affect their movement. Shooting does not allow such benefit.
One of their engine refits ("A Bigger Red Button", Armada, page 139) lets a ship double the bonus distance travelled once per game (which would, for most ork ships, give the equivalent of a total extra movement of 4d6 extra for one All Ahead Full order). Would the decision to "double the result of the dice roll to see how far the ship goes" be taken before or after the dice roll?
If you read the entire entry for the bigger red button there should be no confusion:
"Once per game when you use the All Ahead Full special orders, you may double the result of the dice roll to see how far you
go. You must travel this FULL distance."
I checked with the PDF and the printed Armada book and both have this wording. It should also clear up any confusion with your third question. You have to roll before using the bigger red button so if you had a refit that increases the dice you roll for AAF then it would happen before you double the distance.
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The current wording means that Eldar and Dark Eldar can fire straight through asteriod fields/planets/warp rifts without penalty, as long as they pass a leadership roll (which escorts can re-roll).
I think you are taking this out of context and using it to allow Eldar an advantage they were never intended to have. The segment you clipped out is part of the FAQ segment relating to eldar movement not shooting. As such, it follows that the LD check allows the Eldar to ignore the effects of the various phenomena that would affect their movement. Shooting does not allow such benefit.
So, "make a leadership check to ignore all effects of celestial phenomena such as gas clouds, solar flares, etc" meant, in context, "make a leadership check to ignore all movement-related effects of celestial phenomena such as gas clouds, solar flares, etc". Thank goodness for that. I should have payed more attention to context, sorry.
Thanks for the answers for questions 2 and 3.
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Can Orks still manufacture Roks by spending repair points?
When the Ork Roks' and Space Hulks' rules were first published in White Dwarf (issue 238... I think that was in 1999) there was also a textbox/insert called "Using Roks and Space Hulks in campaigns (With thanks to Jonathan Daniel's for his suggestions)". The 1st and 3rd paragraphs of the box were about the Space Hulks, and years later both of these paragraphs were moved into the main text under the title "Ork Hulks in Campaigns" on page 61 of Battlefleet Gothic Armada. The second of the original three paragraphs was about using Roks in a campaign... and wasn't copied into Armada. In fact, this paragraph doesn't appear in any of the later Ork PDFs. Is this paragraph still considered official, or was it a case of "retcon by omission"? Later publications don't mention anything about it. I get the feeling that when the article was re-structured and copied over to Armada, somebody cut out the paragraph so they could merge the rest of the textbox into the space hulk rules, then forgot to re-insert it back into the Rok rules.
In a campaign, Orks can build Roks by expending repair points. Once a Rok has accumulated 8 repair points it becomes active and may be added to the Fleet Registry.
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Question: If an Imperial fleet list contains a Heavy Cruiser, are they subject to similar restrictions as Battlecruisers in Imperial lists and Heavy Cruisers in Chaos lists?
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Question: If an Imperial fleet list contains a Heavy Cruiser, are they subject to similar restrictions as Battlecruisers in Imperial lists and Heavy Cruisers in Chaos lists?
I'm not sure what you mean. The terms Battlecruiser and Heavy Cruiser can be used interchangeably.
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Well for example, number of Battlecruisers in IN fleet is limited by number of 'regular' cruisers. But rules say nothing about Heavy cruisers (though in Chaos lists they are similarly limited). Some Heavy cruisers are available to Imperial fleets, either from reserves or otherwise. It would indeed make sense that they are considered 'battlecruisers' if used in Imperial fleets, but I wondered if there is any consensus or prior ruling in the issue.
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You must have the prereqs for any ship you take as a reserve so yes you would need an open battlecruiser (heavycruiser) slot and three ships from your core fleet to take a heavycruiser in a bastion fleet.