Specialist Arms Forum
Battlefleet Gothic => [BFG] Experimental Rules Feedback => Topic started by: Browncoat(USA) on September 09, 2011, 06:31:51 AM
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What do you guys think about changing the way escorts fight attack craft? I've been wondering, lately, if its a little one-sided. What do you guys think? Specifically, I was wondering if an escort's weapons batteries should treat attack craft differently than a capital ship's weapons battery (of course, a downside to that would be its yet ANOTHER rule). Maybe the escort could it with weapons batteries on a 5 and 6 instead of a 6? Or maybe, the escort could get a column shift on the table? Let me know what you guys think.
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If you were going to do something, I'd do it in the turret interaction. I agree it is possible that one lone bomber squadron shouldn't have as good a chance as it does of taking down a comparatively massive ship, but its probably more for simplicity.
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Maybe an Escort's turrets hit on a 3+ (or in the case of Ordnance that requires a 6 it would hit on a 5+)?
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Assault boats are still a problem why is it so difficult to say 1 fails 2-5 causes a generic weapons damaged crit and 6 destroys?
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A-boats got a nerf in FAQ2010. eg they kill escorts on a 4+.
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yes they did, should be 6+ tho and 2-5 knocks out weapons ;D imo anyway
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I posted stuff on this topic a while ago, too... :).
My previous thoughts about escorts are that they are used to either: 1. protect larger ships; 2. perform specific roles; and/or 3. be capable on their own as a cruising/scouting battlegroup.
The first point can be realised as them being sacrificial vessels, protecting the flanks of larger formations and them being the 'nemesis' of attack craft. The second and third points are more about their armament and availability, not necessarily about their game rules. For example, Chaos escorts fit into 2 very well, with torpedo availability and lance support. 3 does have some bearing on the rules, however, in terms of durability.
The first point is the relevant one here, though. I feel that in the 41st Millenium, the role of escorts would include anti-attack craft abilities. Since escorts are smaller, they are probably better at targeting attack craft doing their attack runs on larger ships; they also have a higher turret-to-volume ratio (probably, but the rules suggest this). They are also faster and more manouevrable than their larger buddies, but sacrifice resilience for this. While I think escorts should be fragile, they aren't particularly good at fighting ordnance at the moment (although assault-boat changes have alleviated this). My idea was that escorts can mass turrets without limit to protect a larger ship (remembering that attack runs are only modified by the target's turrets); I had also thought of better shooting (but thought that this is too restricted to the escort's armament, not escorts in general).
The 'Privateer' rules make escorts more survivable (they're on this specialist games Fanatic resources bit), and I think it would be interesting to have the weapon damage (but perhaps a squadron rule is needed to make it simpler for book-keeping?).
What do you think of my ideas? I would also suggest a look at the post Horizon and I started about alternative attack craft interactions: http://sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=3238.0
Maybe this system (which I quite like) would be better suited to making escorts better?
Thinking Stone
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My group and I have been thinking about this lately. Using escorts to suicide vs ordnance is unfluffy and is very limited in terms of effectiveness.
Allow turrets to mass without a cap. Make it harder to target capital ships when escorts are near. Give some kind of flak field optional upgrade to escorts. Make it so turrets are still massed when ships move.
If you do these three things, ordnance can be countered strategically and escorts become valuable enough to include for all lists instead of just a few.
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I think regarding escorts vs ordonance the real issue is how they are viewed in the community. Are the WW2 dive bombers, WW1 torpedo boats or pre 1900 torpedo boats, sorry for the old naval concepts but handy. WW2 dive bombers deadly to battleships etc and escorts needed to fend them off/protect BB's from the dive bombers, WW1 TB not a hope in hell getting close enough to a battleship due to the wall of fire from them, 1900 TB's deadly against ships in the dark or without a wall of fire from small ordonance and vulnerable to TB destroyers(escorts).
I think escorts are not really for dealing with ordonance in BFG. If there was a view like that that it was their job then you could have a reroll for turret hits or something similar making it that a player wants to put their escorts into an ordonance wave.
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I must disagree with you, skippy01 (cool name, by the way).
a) I think that it is more likely that escorts are required in BFG for defence; for a start, they're called 'escorts'. If they can't stop ordnance or protect ships against firepower, how exactly are they 'escorting'? The only escorting role they have now is to be a cheap amount of firepower (at least in theory) that is annoying to destroy because it is not a more valuable target.
b) I also think that people usually draw too much on WWII tactics when thinking about BFG! Here, though, I think it supports my position. In this case, I think the combination of the more manoeuvrable and smaller escorts taking up a position around a larger ship would generate such a 'wall of fire', although it would be more of a tactical field of fire potential (since filling up the area with a real wall of fire would be senseless in space).
c) In response to Phthisis, another point is that an escort is around 500 m long (ish), or even longer. A bomber is much smaller, maybe 10 m. Why would a naval commander (even a dodgy Imperial one) take escorts when a ship 50 times shorter could easily squish it? I think it is more sensible that a naval commander would rather big guns on survivable cruisers and battleships (otherwise, why create large ships in the first place?) and have the escorts take on a protective role, as well as fulfilling a gunship-oriented role if necessary.
In conclusion, in almost every tactics/points-related posting, I see people struggling to appropriately value escorts. They just don't seem to be worth it in most situations! I think that making escorts have a more anti-ordnance protective role not only reduces the unlikely 'suicide' factor against ordnance but also gives them a proper role in the field of battle.
Perhaps escorts should be redone into actually being large groups of attack craft? Could be an interesting prospect (although not brilliant, I'll admit. If only Sigoroth would comment....).
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Escorts fill specific rolls in certain scenarios, its hard to play a convoy run for instance if no one has escorts.
The problem is that in a fleet action escorts are very weak altho there are benefits to having them in some of the fleet scenarios (escalating engagement for instance).
As they sit now they really have a very limited play ability in non campaign settings. Anything over 750pts really sees them suffering, which isn't really too far off they can not stand up to the guns of the capitol ships.
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A friend and I had house rules: escort turrets can shoot at ordonance at 2cm range. This prevents nyd/eldar/necron escorts from becoming op and all other escorts have to run a significant risk to kill ordonance as soon as battleships are also in range. Additionally they suck in case the bombers/assualt craft get the drop on them instead of the other way around.
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2cm? Its gotta be a pain to line them up without actually touching the ordnance.
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Brainstorming out loud here a bit.
Rules aside, it appears to me that escorts in BFG come in two flavors. One type are like the old torpedo boats. They use speed and manouverability to skirt around capital ships and threaten them with significant armament. They're intended primarily as a threat to enemy capital ships. The second seems to be more like the old torpedo boat destroyers that are meant to protect capital ships from torpedo boats (and, given the technology level, ordnance as well).
It seems the majority of escort ships in the game would be of the agressive torpedo boat variety, despite the confusion caused by ship names. They're slightly better weapon/point economy than capital ships, but their usefullness is hobbled by how quickly their firepower is scaled down when they take damage and the formidable defenses of capital ships.
A few escorts like the Sword and Iconoclast, would make excellent destroyers as their weaponry is useful against a wide variety of targets and multidirectional to confront targets coming from any direction. Fluff wise, I can see these types of ships staying in a tight formation with a capital ship. Rules and fluff in other GW games suggest that void shields will merge to provide extra protection if their envelopes are overlapped, so these escorts would likely space themselves to overlap their void shield with the ship they are escorting. At this range, they should be able to use their turrets to defendtheir charge from ordnance, help distort the outline of the capital ship with their presence and even screen against torpedo salvoes and incoming fire with their hulls. The idea being to protect the capital ship so it can concentrate on utilizing its firepower and to protect the significant investment that the capital ship represents. It's a symbiotic relationship where capital ship and escort contribute to each other's defense. Current rules don't represent anything like this.
Perhaps there should be a mechanism where escorts can be attached to a capital ship in order to bost its defense, much in the same way that fighters can be placed on CAP?
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FSA has dedicated escorts that can be taken in a squadron with capitol ships just for that purpose. The reason this wasn't done in BFG tho is the significant difference between how an escort and a capitol ship moves. As it sits right now tho you can take a capitol ship and a squadron of escorts and do most of these things already.
At this range, they should be able to use their turrets to defendtheir charge from ordnance, help distort the outline of the capital ship with their presence and even screen against torpedo salvoes and incoming fire with their hulls. The idea being to protect the capital ship so it can concentrate on utilizing its firepower and to protect the significant investment that the capital ship represents. It's a symbiotic relationship where capital ship and escort contribute to each other's defense. Current rules don't represent anything like this.
The rules currently allow escorts (and all ships) to add additional turrets to a ship they're in close proximity with. They also force an opponent to roll for leadership if they want to target the capitol ship instead of the escorts and so long as they're positioned properly they will block incoming ordnance and fire.
The problem is that they have little to no protection of their own and at an average of around 100pts for 3 those are awfully expensive "shields".
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You're right, they do mass turrets, unless the ships are moving. Ships move one at a time. Instead of throwing your AC into a clusterf**k of massed turrets, just park the wave right infront of your target. Immediately after your ordy phase they have to move right into your wave and will get no turret support as they will have to break contact to move.
Also, they do screen vs incoming fire and can do this whether near the cap ship or not. And you're correct that they're too expensive to deliberately use for this purpose. Also, they don't do a very good job of it as you'll be able to target the capital ship far better than half the time. Also, the capital ship doesn't contribute to the defense of the escorts against shooting.
The current rules make using escorts to escort anything sort of a joke.
If there were rules for a cap ship and escorts to move simultaneously so that you can't avoid turret massing by parking ordy infront of the cap ships and some sort of cumulative benefit to defense against shooting when escorts are in b2b with a cap ship, then escorting would be a reasonable tactic.
So, what if escorts could go into a Close Formation with a cap ship and mass turrets while moving andevery ship in b2b has +1 shield. On the downside, the cap ship loses 1 shield for every escort shield knocked down and the escorts lose 1 shield for every cap ship shield shot down. Maybe also give a -1 to target the cap ship.
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That sound pretty reasonable, so a Lunar with 3 Swords in base contact would gain 3 shields and each Sword would gain 1 shield each? Then if the Swords are attacked and receive say 5 hits 4 would be applied to shields and one Sword would be destroyed? This would apply 4 blast markers to the Lunar leaving it with one and leave one Sword without shields and one with 2 shields left? Or would the entire group have 5 shields total so if the Swords suffer 5 hits all hits would be applied to shields but the Lunar and the Swords would be left without any shields?
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So quirky it gets.
I am not sold on the +1 shield. Example Tyranid Hive ships with the needed 6 drones. Would that be +6 shields to the Hiveship?
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True there should be some maximum limit such as with massed turrets if your going to try this.
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You're right, they do mass turrets, unless the ships are moving. Ships move one at a time. Instead of throwing your AC into a clusterf**k of massed turrets, just park the wave right infront of your target. Immediately after your ordy phase they have to move right into your wave and will get no turret support as they will have to break contact to move.
This is exactly the rules "hole" that we've encountered in our local gaming group that has prompted to create house rules to allow any ship classes to squadron and when squadroned, to move "en mass" otherwise you can game the system IMHO. I should add that we also allow Andy Chamber's "break formation"/"Form Up" optional rules in our play.
I like the idea though of massed turrets (think WW2 Pacific Theater) and in return, and extra shield for the little guys (we've done the former and I'm going to try out the latter). Gives a reason to actually use squadrons above the leadership issue. In all reality it is VERY rare for large naval assets to operate alone in war zones and this helps to reinforce that feel.
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Would try out to give Escorts the Mass turret ability without cap. Or maybe max +6 cap.
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Hello everyone, sorry it's been a while... life has been busy, shall we say :).
I agree, Koshi, that this is good for escorts, especially since massed turrets don't affect bombing. Also, since escorts have the same size bases as cruisers, they are limited to +6 (plus you can generally only get 6 in one squadron). But there are always anomalies... :).
Phthisis' idea sounds really good for allowing escorts to actually escort too; although hard to implement, I guess perhaps +1 shield for the cruiser and escorts, and perhaps the group is treated as an ad hoc squadron (allowing escorts to take the fire first if cunningly placed). I'm not sure how this would affect capital ship squadrons though, but escorts are smaller and thus easier to 'mass shields' than cruisers so there might be some justification :). Horizon has an excellent point too: even though it would be nice to get a per-escort bonus it becomes difficult to balance the larger bonuses. Maybe +1 for the cruiser for every 3? Might justify the high overhead of escorts :).
Also, it's very convenient that the cruiser would have shields knocked down by blast markers for being in contact with destroyed escorts.... It seems the 'shieldwall' was meant to be. :)
I also had an idea that might be a simple way to realise BrowncoatUSA's original idea: what if the protective escorts (i.e. not gunships like the Sword) had weapons batteries that used a different firepower chart? It reminds me of games like Empire at War in which ships have fast-tracking but light guns for taking out small and fast opponents as well as the larger (but slower) anti-ship guns. Sice the fp chart already represents accuracy, by letting these 'light batteries' have a different Fp chart. My initial thoughts are essentially swapping Defences and Ordnance (ordnance still hit on a 6) and perhaps swapping Escorts with Capitals. This way you can see the more accurate light weapons being capable of hitting ordnance but their relatively puny firepower hardly scratches the larger and better armoured targets.
Food for thought anyway,
Thinking Stone
PS: If only there was a smiling rock emoticon; I had forgotten how much smiley faces stand out... The new forum look is really good, too!
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Intersting thought on the reversed gunnery chart. On the massed turrets idea I still think the best idea so far is the one in use by BFG-R where each ship in the squadron over two that is in formation receives +1 turret for each additional ship also in squadron. So five Swords would each effectivly have five turrets, two base plus one for each frigate over the second. The shield boost could get overpowered very quickly as in the example of the nid hive with six drones! Maybe limit any additional shields to a max of +1? That would still allow for additional protection but limit a bb from becoming unstopable. I woul say place a maximum limit of six shields period also, I dont think there are any official ships that go over six unless its a multiple section model such as the ramelies.
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I dunno, I am no AC fan but the anti-AC measures are pretty strong.
Another approach, one that reflects realism (as far as it goes regarding background stories) is that one must take x escorts per cruiser. This could be done per race.
Example: The IN must have 3 escorts per cruiser.
Because, personally, I do not think of escorts under current rules as weak. I think they are pretty good if applied well.
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That would certainly balance out the lack of escorts. The problem isnt that they are weak tho its that ordnance is stronger at the intended role of an escort.
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Horizon,
This is one approach (although I would say minimum 1 squadron per cruiser, recalling somewhere in the rulebook where it says few ships go into battle without a pair of Swords at their back... probably in the Sword entry...), but it would be ideal if the compulsory inclusion of escorts had a good, sensible reason.
After all, if escorts are best at independent roles like flanking enemy fleets and most people would rather take another cruiser instead of an escort squadron, why would the Imperial Navy even use escorts as escorts in the background? I definitely agree that some escort classes should (and do) perform these vanguard and gunship roles but I think the 'escort function' is lacking and that this could make escorts an attractive choice for fleets which should, thematically, have them (besides the fact that escorts are one of the key aspects of the game :))
Therefore, I have a rough idea of how the types of escort would work. (1) Gunship escorts. These are the current escorts and are good at killing big ships/doing the stuff that they do now. (2) Protective escorts. These are bad at killing big ships but are good at providing escort bonuses to capital ships; I think it would be a bit militarily pointless for an escort squadron to just provide shield reinforcing so I think that the Protective escorts would need to have anti-ordnance guns too (also reduces the number of semi-redundant ship classes). It strikes me that Protective escorts would be kind of like defensive monitors (they wouldn't need to be particularly fast, for example).
E.g. 'Escutcheon Class Frigate'.
Light Tracking Turrets: Uses reversed gunnery chart, 3 firepower weapons batteries (for example).
Massed Shielding: Any capital ship with two or more Escutcheon Class Frigates in base contact receives +1 shield value, to a maximum of 6 (and the escorts gain +1 shield?). Only one shield may be gained in this manner. If a frigate providing shielding is destroyed, the blast marker must be placed in contact with capital ship.
Blurb: The Escutcheon class offers additional resilience and ordnance defence to any escorted capital ships, but if they are destroyed the escorted capital ships can be weakened significantly.
Another idea: Massed shielding allows any ships in base contact to avoid placing a blast maker on a 4+ (i.e. old Necron shields + normal shields)? Avoids the problem of escorts getting very resilient with additional shields and stops them from being picked off without them.
I'm not sure if there is any reason why gunship escorts couldn't be protective too, from a background perspective; perhaps they have different shield systems?
AndrewChristlieb: I agree with your turret suggestion, but I think it should be stipulated that the escorts must be in squadron cohesion to benefit, a convenient way to reinforce the tactical importance of cohesion.
Thinking Stone
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Sorry, when i said they must stay in formation i was intending it to read as they must remain within cohesion.
One squadron of escorts/ capitol could work.
I would say a fixed value/ capitol ship tho, two for one capitol ship for instance and the escorts can be squadroned however (so if you take 3 cruisers and a battleship you would have to also take four escorts that you can squadron however you wish) .
You could do a squardon of 3-6 escorts per each capitol ship squadron also (so if you take three cruisers in a squad and a battleship you would have to also take two seperate squads of 3-6 escorts)
You could even do a mix (1 escort per cruiser / hc bc lc etc and 3 escorts per battleship). This feels closest to the right amount for me because this boosts the prerequisites for a battleship to 3 cruisers and 6 escorts min.
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Lots of awesome ideas being thrown around, but a few points to add to the mix
1)BFG:R allows ships to use the amount of ships in the squadron as their turret value instead of their actual one. Perhaps this could be implemented for squadrons of escort/squadrons with escorts/escorts escorting capitals?
2)Escorts could perhaps be allowed to use their flak turrets like fleet defense turrets, but with the limitation of base contact. Thus a sword could scrap its turrets to help its capital if it wants to, adding its 2 turret instead of the usual +1 for massing.
3)They could have flak fields, counting as blast markers vs. ordnance at a certain range (10 cm, hypothetically).
4)More complicated, but what if escorts had the ability to skip their firing during the shooting phase and instead do a sorta mini overwatch and take their shots if ordnance passes within 30cm? To make it less brutal, they would have to fire at the first enemy ordnance in reach rather than picking the strongest one.
5)Could increase their chance of hitting ordnance, perhaps on a 5+?
Does not help with shield problems, but one step at a time...
Even more food for thought, ThinkingStone...probably approaching a meal ;).
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Like the Idea for Escorts to be heavy escorts. The rules are in one warp rift, don't recall the number. But there were +2 WBs, 2 HP that for 8 point per escort more.
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In BFG:R the 'nid kraken has 2 wounds, think some of the other do too..
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Lots of awesome ideas being thrown around, but a few points to add to the mix
1)BFG:R allows ships to use the amount of ships in the squadron as their turret value instead of their actual one. Perhaps this could be implemented for squadrons of escort/squadrons with escorts/escorts escorting capitals?
I think this was each ship receives a +1 to their turret value for each ship in a squadron after the second: 2 has no bonus, 3 each gets +1 each, etc. I could be wrong tho i dont have the revision in front of me. I dont know about letting escorting ships adding to the value of a cruiser tho, unless mixed squadrons were allowed.
2)Escorts could perhaps be allowed to use their flak turrets like fleet defense turrets, but with the limitation of base contact. Thus a sword could scrap its turrets to help its capital if it wants to, adding its 2 turret instead of the usual +1 for massing.
So allow escorts to add their entire turret value without limit to the max? This could work but also requires more book keeping which sucks... Its ok for Admech because your really only likely to have one or two ships to keep track of but what about a nid or ork fleet where there could very well be lotz of escorts all shifting their turrets around...
3)They could have flak fields, counting as blast markers vs. ordnance at a certain range (10 cm, hypothetically).
Simple but effective, make it so that escorts get something like overwatch where each time an ordinance marker moves within 10cm of an escort said escort gets one 6+ shot at that marker.
4)More complicated, but what if escorts had the ability to skip their firing during the shooting phase and instead do a sorta mini overwatch and take their shots if ordnance passes within 30cm? To make it less brutal, they would have to fire at the first enemy ordnance in reach rather than picking the strongest one.
Not so hot on this one, although others have suggested swapping the gunnery chart for escorts (being designed to hunt ac and other escorts their weapons should be better able to hit them but would do less damage to more heavily armored capitols and hardened defenses).
5)Could increase their chance of hitting ordnance, perhaps on a 5+?
This could work although i think the swapped gunnery chart better represents the better at damaging smaller targets but worse at damaging armor.
Does not help with shield problems, but one step at a time...
Even more food for thought, ThinkingStone...probably approaching a meal ;).
As for a heavy escort i think it would be best to stay away from any 2 hit ships, just my opnion tho.
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If the flak field and gunnery chart are the best ideas, then lets work on those. I like the flak field; seems to represent superior turret coverage really well, although upon hindsight it probably works best thematically if the range is reduced to 5cm. The gunnery chart idea seems ok, but if we reverse all the numbers it makes escort pretty much worthless at a direct fire support role against capitals, which would drastically change the way certain escorts are fielded...basically, gunnery escorts (around a third of all escorts; other parts are lanceboats and torp destroyers) become defensive ships only, useful for destroying opposing escorts and ordnance. Lanceboats get slightly weaker against capitals and slightly better against escorts, and torp destroyers stay pretty much unchanged. Not sure how I feel about that...
On the bright side, this makes IN falchions an even better defensive escort, especially with BFG:R giving them 2 turrets! :D
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I think if the gunnery chart swap were an option it should be just that, an option. This would allow people to field dedicated aa or attack ships. Of course it were a perminate change instead of a choice it could help explaine the premiums lance escorts seem to carry.
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So basically at the start of a game/campaign you must announce/write down escorts that are to be used defensively/anti-ordnance wise? That could work, especially with flak-field on them.
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Hello everyone! Sorry for my lengthy hiatus, once again....
I think dedicating certain escorts to either AA or attack ships is a good idea, but I also like the idea that escorts with lances and/or torpedoes are the dedicated attack ships. This would mean that escorts have very definite roles and leaves the cruisers (and bigger ships) to the heavy fighting roles. Also, large squadrons of 'gun-escorts' would still be able to do some damage to larger ships, you would just need the dedicated cruiser support to do major damage. The elegance of simply swapping part of the Firepower chart also appeals to me 8).
Would the flak-field be necessary with the gunnery chart swap? It does make the ordnance phase a bit more interactive, giving the defending player the chance to do a bit more.
Also, if the extra shield ability was used as well (with a maximum of +1 shield, for example), AA escorts would be well suited to taking out the extra protection.
Anyway, food for though,
Thinking Stone.
PS: Thanks for the meal, Talos, it was needed! :)
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@Thinking Stone No problem, I know from experience students get awfully hungry. ;D ::)
Interesting ideas across the board, but i'm just not sure how much people are willing to change the way they play escorts. WE shall see I suppose... ;)
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It was an interesting discussion, this one.
While necrothreading, i could add that in the few game I had, escorts where always taken by my IN friend (Cobra) while I have skipped them entirely with my Chaos Fleet (I hate metal models...)
In game they where really useful just once, when they used their torpedoes point blank against my Cruisers. The rest of the time they where just shuffling around (trying to surround me and being blasted by casual potshots from my ships) or disturbing with saturating salvoes of torps. 6 Cobra costs as much as a Lunar cruiser, and they can be as much as effective. BUT, they require a great skill and some luck to be worth their points. Of all the ideas I've read in this thread, the only one fast enough to apply without wasting time, is to allow them to hit Ordnance on a 5+. To make escorts really palatable, I'd say even 4+. That would be really useful and add a lot to their use.
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For me, Neferhet, it still is an interesting discussion! Mostly due to my inability and/or impediment to manage to post here often... :).
I like the Cobras because of the array you can get by replacing the weapons battery (it was useful against the Official Necrons... and their phased travel...), and I call mine Eyeglass Squadron. The name helps justify them :).
I really do think there is a problem with escorts. Currently there are three main types of escort: torpedo boats, lance boats and gunboats. Combinations of those occur too but they generally get used as one of those in my games. From the fleets and discussions that I have seen, the most popular ones are the gunboats, followed by the torpedo boats; lance boats lose out. And gunboats are there generally because you can get some good firepower from Sword squadrons (etc.). Changing the weapons batteries around gives the lance and torpedo boats a stronger role, that of 'destroyer' ships, whilst weapons battery ships are more for escort/general duties. With this clearer division, and cheaper lance boats, lance-armed escorts could be real choices for cheap and dangerous anti-capital firepower.
To me, this seems to be the design problem: if you go through all the effort to make a fundamental distinction between two different types of vessels (escorts and capital ships), they should have fundamentally different roles in the game or else why include the differences? BFG is really good at doing cruiser-sized ship interactions (in my opinion anyway :) ) and I think that real firepower should come from the bigger ships (after all, they are big for a reason...) while escorts do more escort-y things.
But at least escorts still do the job of protecting the back of the big, slow Imperials :). Only problem with hitting ordnance on a 4+ is that the lance boats and gunboats are about as effective as each other, so why pay the premium for lances?
Maybe we'll hit upon a golden solution for escorts: whilst making BFG even better is good, we mustn't forget that BFG is pretty cool already 8)
Food for thought,
Thinking Stone
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Also, I shall do some more thinking on this, but I am still unsatisfied with attack craft interactions. Maybe with some more in-depth analysis of their role, escorts can be examined more thoroughly. It is tricky to make sure that it's all balanced, especially since attack craft can either be present in large amounts or not at all....
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How about combining the two simple changes from this thread:
* Let squadrons be moved at the same time (so no playing the system to avoid mass turrets).
and
* Make escorts +1 to hit ordinance (with both turrets and direct fire weapons).
* This way no one is going to actively position their ordinance a few centimeters away from a capital ship.
and
* A squad of 3 Swords would get 3 attacks when firing on an ordinance marker, killing it on a 5+ (so on average killing 1 marker per shooting phase without having to lock on), thus greatly increasing their usefulness at protecting against large ordinance waves. A large squad of 6 Swords could potentially split their fire to attack 2 waves with 3 attacks on each wave.
Turrets hitting on 3+ (in most cases, 5+ against Eldar) would see of any small ordinance wave launched in their direction (3 Swords in close formation killing 2-3 markers on average, 6 Swords killing 3-4. And if that's not enough: remove the +3 max for massed turrets on escorts).
They would still be very vulnerable when hit, but that's how it's supposed to be I guess. I can see myself taking and putting my escorts up infront of my cruisers just to deal with all the massed ordinance if this was the case (even if this puts them in danger of other weapons). I don't know if it's a perfect solution, but perhaps an easy and good enough change to encourage people to take more escorts?
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I think the anti ordinance role (+1 to hit ordinance) might be a nice way to give the escorts a game role that is actually an "escorting" role.
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Agreed.
This would actually make the earlier mentioned "lance boats" such as the Firestorm somewhat more effective against ordinance than say the Sword (3 Firestorms would get 4 attacks against ordinance, 3 lance attacks and 1 WB against the Swords 3 attacks). Thus justifying the premium you pay by making lance boats a little bit more attractive, to some extent at least :).
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* Make escorts +1 to hit ordinance (with both turrets and direct fire weapons).
THIS.
seriously, this is a really, really easy way to make the escorts more useful AND let them perform good at the role they are actually intended to (protection of larger ships), AND it would even make sense fluff-wise, the escorts being the one bult for and with crew trained for hunting smaller enemies and intercepting stuff.
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Agreed, the +1 to hit ordnance is the simplest and most effective way to add usefulness to escorts!
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Would this make Shadowhunters hit it on 3+?
Great idea anyway, escorts would do some actual escorting with it...
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If it applies to all escorts, yes they would hit on a 3+.
This rule you are propose is very beneficial to fleets which already use many escorts:
Tau, corsair eldar and ork clanz. Dark eldar as well.
This might backfire. ;)
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First of, I just want to underline that these are not my own ideas, I stole them from earlier posts in this thread :P! I just liked the sound of these two changes.
Hahaha yeah, it might very well backfire ;), I wouldn't consider myself even close to experienced enough to judge however this would be balanced or not (I've played BFG two times. And I lost both haha!). That's why I'm asking the more experienced community: all of you guys, what do you think :)? I've done some research over the last couple of weeks and it seams to me (and please correct me if I'm wrong here!) that the general feeling towards escorts are that they have good firepower but low survivability? That you don't want to use them as ablative armor because of this and that the main bane of these escorts are the things they are supposedly designed to protect the bigger ships from, namely ordinance. As I said earlier, I don't have any experience to base my judgement on, but from what I have read on the different SG forums, the general opinion seams to be that ordinance are just a tiny bit to strong while escorts are just a tiny bit to weak point for point. So considering their role in the fluff and their main weakness on the tabletop, perhaps a buff for escorts against ordinance is appropriate?
This is how well based my argument is: I have no idea what a Shadowhunter is xD.. I'm sorry, my Eldar opponent plays extremely escort heavy, but I've never heard of a Shadowhunter. Perhaps a +1 would be enough for the Shadowhunter if this rule was applied? Making it hit on a 4+ might be good enough, I have no idea hehe. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong here horizon :), but I thought some of those fleets had issues specifically with dealing with ordinance (namely orks)? I thought I read about it in the BFG:R Orks thread regarding the issue with random turrets, but I could be mistaken..
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Hey,
heh, cool read ;)
The Shadowhunter is the escort of the Craftworld Eldar fleet.
Corsair Eldar, official rules, they do not have many ordnance but lots of evil torpedos and elite bombers. Plus a good defence against ordnance. Now they field lots of escorts, is many targets, is many shots at ordnance. From 6+ to 5+ is pretty good. So, this fleet will increase defensively and remain the same in offence, as no fleet list change is needed.
Orks: aye, defensively they are not very good versus ordnance (especially bombers), however two notes:
* the main rulebook list: if one fields mainly Terror Kroozers the Ork fleet becomes an ordnance threat and a very difficult fleet do deal with.
* the 2010 list: with the Clanz taking many escorts is good for Leadership. Many escorts is many targets, many escorts is many shots @ enemy ordnance.
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Many Ravagers with good leadership and the ability to re-roll a poor torp salvo for next to no extra points and the ability to smoke enemy ordinance... Thats kind of scary, almost as bad as two lance Savages :D.
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Thanks for the clarification!
I see, so if I understand you correctly, making escorts +1 to hit enemy ordinance with both their direct fire weaponry and turrets would make them a little to effective for their points costs? Perhaps only one of the proposed changes would be enough and if that is the case, which one would you prefer?
I've actually heard about the Terror Kroozer fleet a multitude of times already and about the staggering amount of ordinance it can produce, so I bet that is a tough nut to crack :P! I would love to play against orks one day, they are simply hilarious in 40k and I bet they are just as enjoyable in BFG hehe!
Of course, making escorts +1 to hit ordinance would reduce that effectiveness somewhat, but the thing I liked about it in theory was that it would reduce the effectiveness of ordinance at long ranges. Say that your opponent plays a lot of escorts, that would probably encourage you not to send your bomber squadrons away until you've closed the gap somewhat between your fleets, thus robbing him of the chance to shoot the waves down. This way including escorts in your fleets would present a serious threat for any fleet that likes to just hang back in their deployment zone behind a planet or asteroid field and just launch massive amounts of bombers against their opponents.
I could be way off here (I'm not 100% on the fluff yet.. Perhaps more like 15% haha!), but in most of the fleet engagements I've read about, ordinance has been described to have been used as a low to medium range weapon, mostly due to their limited amount of fuel. Most people I've read about already uses torpedoes like this, preferring to "shotgun" an enemy ship rather than fire torpedoes from afar (unless your aim is to disrupt their movement). This however doesn't seam to apply for attack craft, which seams odd to me from a fluff point of view. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but to me it seams like attack crafts are something that you want to launch at once, preferably before your opponent has had a chance to do so and so that you can try and force him on the defense. Then you want to reload your ordinance every turn so that you can replenish any lost attack craft marker and in that way "stay ahead" in the ordinance game.
However if your ordinance has to get past some defending escorts that can now effectively shoot them down, perhaps your going to save your bomber waves until you're closer and can attack the escorts (or that juicy capital ship behind them!) directly. I mean: no "To Hit"-bonus in the world is going to help you if you never get to fire on the damn things, right ;)!?
Certainly, if you're playing a very ordinance oriented fleet you could still drown your opponent with more targets than he could possibly hope to destroy with his escorts. But for two fleets with a more equal amount of ordinance, perhaps this would encourage the usage of escorts (perhaps even in Chaos fleets :P!) and also help encourage the use of attack craft in a manner more consistent with the fluff.
Still, I have no idea how it would work out with the internal/external balance and stuff. Just some random ideas I had that I thought would be fun to discuss :).
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No really, for me escorts do not need a change at all. They are fine and good as they are.
What I would like to see, and this fits fluff wise, is to make escorts mandatory. With a race dependant factor. Eg two escorts per cruiser in an imperial fleet and four escorts per cruiser in a corsair fleet.
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I'm not sure escorts need a rewrite per se either, rather perhaps just the way they interact with ordnance. Is there any reason this idea would not work:
Let the player choose which rule for turret massing they want, either the BFG:R rules or the original base-to-base contact giving +1 turret per ship.
The old rules don't require squadrons so your swords could protect your lunar for example. Similarly, an embattled squadron of swords after taking damage comes down to 2 ships; the new rules would suggest that they still have 2 turrets effectively. For better protection they come into contact with one another and get the 2+1 turret situation.
Let the player decide which rule is strategically more valuable and which way to swing it <braces for Austin Powers puns>
Cheers,
LDTM
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Ahh ok, I see! I would also like to see escorts mandatory in some sense. They are described as being vital for the fleets in the fluff, so it feels like they should be the most numerous vessels around. Still it would be nice if people took them because they wanted to field them and not just loading up on the cheapest ones because they had to. One of my friends has more battleships than escorts in 2500pts haha!
I'll try and play around a little with some different escort-ordinance rules and see if I can get a little wiser on the subject and then I'll come back to you ;)!
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Hooray, new people in the discussion!
Sorry for not replying for a while… life is busy.
DP_Lorgar, I definitely agree about squadrons moving simultaneously. Along with ordnance rules, I feel the squadron rules just don't quite fit the spot. They work fine as they are but something still niggles at me. I agree that any rule changes need to be simple: I like to think ‘elegant’ if possible :).
While thou art testing potential rules, could thou please test out the Firepower chart swap idea I suggested (pg 2, I believe)? Essentially, escorts swap the Defence and ordnance rows and the Capital and Escort ship rows. I like this method because it clearly separates escorts into anti-escort/ordnance duties and lance/torpedo destroyer duties (and gives lance escorts more of a purpose, currently it is hard to give up a Sword for a Frestorm, from what I have observed).
Also, Horizon's idea is favourable but I would prefer if there was a good reason to have escorts actually escorting: for me, escorts usually act like destroyer packs outflanking the enemy. Or perhaps we should accept that escorts don't actually need to escort ships in the 41st Millenium: advanced naval tactics ;). The age of escorting is gone like the age of sail.
Anyway, food for thought:
Thinking Stone
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This is awesome! Kinda wondering, would there be specific escort types with the sole purpose of taking out ordnance? I've been kinda working on a design (http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag77/Stefmanovic/Fighters10-001b_zps3baf8fd8.jpg) for one. :)