Specialist Arms Forum
Specialist Games General Discussion => Modeling & painting => Topic started by: Markconz on May 15, 2013, 12:18:59 PM
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Ordinance, from Shapeways "Grimdark Bits" store, except the Assault Boats which are just straight Specialist Games.
Thread on assembly and planning here:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?372147-Shapeways-Ordinance&p=6768492#post6768492
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i agree with you on the torpedo thing (mentioned in the warseer thread), i also prefer "true" size for the torpedo salvoes, and i plan to use the grimdark bits torpedo markers too :D
really, that "representing torpedo salvos with a 3-strong salvo and a dice" was just introduced to avoid torpedo massing schenanigans like having salvoes spanning the entire board or such. if you play in a more relaxed gaming group, nobody will pull off such things, and using the old torpedo rules with the actual strength makes it easier to monitor the strength (like the guy said on warseer, hit the table once and you might get some trouble with dice)... plus, you can use the shapeways torpedos for the salvos, which just looks awesome ;D
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Those look great and I think I'll definitely put together an order for assorted ordnance and the torps. I think GZG probably do some alternative assault craft as well.
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Yes. I mass 36 torpedoes into one galaxy spanning salvo!!!! Muahahahahaha!!!! Oh. You have one fighter :( well that sucks.
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Yes. I mass 36 torpedoes into one galaxy spanning salvo!!!! Muahahahahaha!!!! Oh. You have one fighter :( well that sucks.
well, that gives 35 torps....?
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One fighter will take out an entire salvo of torpedoes, no matter the size.
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One fighter will take out an entire salvo of torpedoes, no matter the size.
where does it say that? never heard of that rule :o
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BBB pg 29. Fighters Vs ordinance markers: remove both the defending and attacking markers from play.
Torpedoes reguardless of size are always one marker (BBB pg 28. The higher the strength, the larger the salvo and the larger the marker placed to represent the salvo.)
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You have one fighter :( well that sucks.
Don't it just! Our house rule is each fighter removes D6 torps, Expert pilots re-roll ;)
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BBB pg 29. Fighters Vs ordinance markers: remove both the defending and attacking markers from play.
Torpedoes reguardless of size are always one marker (BBB pg 28. The higher the strength, the larger the salvo and the larger the marker placed to represent the salvo.)
so, in essence, torpedoes are completely worthless as soon as the enemy has a single carrier, since then he can kill 4 large salvoes each turn. sounds SLIGHTLY unbalanced to me... ???
and that means ships with a single fighter on CAP are invulnerable to torps? serously, wtf?
we have played it always as one fighter removes one torp strength, that might be a bit low, yeah, but one lonely fighter removing a str9 salvo (or even higher with combined salvoes)? i mean, how?? :o
Our house rule is each fighter removes D6 torps, Expert pilots re-roll ;)
-yeah, that sounds more balanced. i think i'm gonna go with that....
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BBB pg 29. Fighters Vs ordinance markers: remove both the defending and attacking markers from play.
Torpedoes reguardless of size are always one marker (BBB pg 28. The higher the strength, the larger the salvo and the larger the marker placed to represent the salvo.)
so, in essence, torpedoes are completely worthless as soon as the enemy has a single carrier, since then he can kill 4 large salvoes each turn. sounds SLIGHTLY unbalanced to me... ???
and that means ships with a single fighter on CAP are invulnerable to torps? serously, wtf?
we have played it always as one fighter removes one torp strength, that might be a bit low, yeah, but one lonely fighter removing a str9 salvo (or even higher with combined salvoes)? i mean, how?? :o
First of all, we're not talking about a single fighter. A marker represents a whole group of them.
Second of all - if enemy has single fighter on CAP, first you fire a small torpedo salvo at him [single torpedo from Falchion or Defender comes to mind], he has to waste his fighter, than the huge salvo moves in. Remember - you decide order in which your torpedos move. If you use it wisely, you'll be able to make enemy use all his fighters on worthless 1-2 strong salvos.
In his turn, however.. yep, if you left those 9 torpedos flying in the enemy turn in range of his carriers, the salvo is lost. Due to your mistake, though.
It's not unbalanced, really, it just requires some forward planning. The trick is to have ships firing both large and small amounts of torps, to bait fighters away from the proper targets.
Also, these are some nice torpedo markers... I'll have to think about something similar...
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Fighters on CAP iirc only take off one torpedo (think of it as the difference between strafing non-responsive missiles at your leisure and scrambling desperately to defend your ship at the last second).
Essentially, torpedoes are useful as direct-fire weapons, navigation obstacles, and a means of forcing your opponent to deploy fighters instead of bombers and assault boats. For that matter, it serves as a balance between the obvious advantages of massing a single enormous torpedo salvo and putting a number of smaller salvos down to overwhelm fighter support. If you play with the BFG2010FAQ cap on launch bay attack craft production, torpedoes become more useful as carriers can't simply spam waves and waves and waves of attack craft (though you can with torpedoes still), and there is a very real chance that you can overwhelm your opponent's fighter defenses or force him to sacrifice defense for bomber offense.
That said, I'm helping derail the topic a bit here, so I should add that I'm glad to see your commentary on the torpedoes Marconz, and that you needed to seal-cost them before painting. I've been seriously considering picking up a set or two of the markers myself!
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Or move your own fighters first to shoot his down before he gets to your torpedoes. At least that's what I've done with my orks. Then watch aa torpedoes miss the target and instead detonate an ork ship on the other side.
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That said, I'm helping derail the topic a bit here, so I should add that I'm glad to see your commentary on the torpedoes Marconz, and that you needed to seal-cost them before painting. I've been seriously considering picking up a set or two of the markers myself!
Cheers and yes I'd recommend getting a couple of sets. I love them!
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really, my problem with "one fighter destoys an entire torp salvo" is:
it makes torps seem even less attractive to our "I WILL NOVA CANNON SPAM YOU TO DEATH"-imperial navy player (and yes, he is an idiot and annoys everybody with the crap he does, but sadly you have not much choice with opponents when your gaming group is very small)
i've been trying to talk him out of his nova cannon madness by telling him about the advantages of torps, and THIS IS NOT HELPING lol ;D ;D
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To be honest, you should probably shotgun your torpedoes anyway. Unless you are massing them for area denial, which IMO is a waste of their potential. If you're one phase to hit firing then there is no worry for fighters to ever intercept them.
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Fighters on CAP iirc only take off one torpedo
Nope, they take the whole marker down.
Thus use a small wave of torps to eliminate the CAP, the big wave to damage.
Torpedo's at shotgun range are what your friend needs.
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point blank firing torps is the best way to use them
when its that close i just use them in the shooting phase
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Point blank is fun innit. It's probably already been mentioned but effective range for single turn strikes can really be extended to 40cm , given the right conditions.
If there aren't fighters running around and you can get a salvo within 10cm directly in front of a cruiser, they will have to take some serious action to avoid ploughing into them. Defensive fighters being launched later in the turn after all.
I think I shall go back to the old variable salvo sized market - looks so much cooler.
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If there aren't fighters running around and you can get a salvo within 10cm directly in front of a cruiser, they will have to take some serious action to avoid ploughing into them. Defensive fighters being launched later in the turn after all.
Good idea. This is probably made even more effective by the rules for massing turrets - the 2010 FAQ emphasizes that ships move one at a time, and so cannot mass turrets while moving.
I'd expect that it would be much riskier trying to do the same trick with assault boats / bombers. A single enemy escort could be steered into the cloud of aircraft and remove them all, dying in the process. Probably beardy.
EDIT: Critical hits scored by (for example) boarding torpedoes can be repaired in the end phase, so dealing damage in the movement phase robs them of the opportunity.
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A single enemy escort could be steered into the cloud of aircraft and remove them all, dying in the process. Probably beardy.
I did that once in a small convoy scenario recently - there was a salvo of something like four torpedoes headed for my heavy transport so I sent a little firestorm into it, shot down two torpedoes and managed to brace against the other two. Indeed, it would seem that the Emperor does[/i] protect.
Beardy at the time? I didn't really think so in this case - protecting the convoy after all, and I was clean shaven. I may have been enjoying a bit of wine and cheese at the time though 8). Nevertheless, you have a valid point; ad adsurdum one could use a single escort to engage a stonking great wing of attack craft but then we would probably look poorly on said player, or just split the 'cloud' into a few smaller waves.
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...ad adsurdum one could use a single escort to engage a stonking great wing of attack craft but then we would probably look poorly on said player, or just split the 'cloud' into a few smaller waves.
Offtopic: It would probably depend on the context, and on how many times the trick is done. An imperial escort sacrificing itself to protect a convoy transport could be a selfless and heroic event if it happened as a 1-off event, and the 15-20 pts tyranid drone ships are supposed to act as living cannon fodder for their hiveships, mindless extensions of the hiveship's will.
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I do the sacrifice move at times, big waves are for shotguns, anything over a turn away needs to be multiple smaller waves.
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i often try to fire torps in a evenish spread in my first turn, then hold back until later
although most of the torps miss the other player can end up crashing their ships into each other (or other torps), did this once playing against my girlfreind (the only other person within 20 miles that play gothic.....and we have to split my fleet between us) it was rather funny, one cruiser ended up flying into a salvo after dodging one, and an escort crashed into her other cruiser
basically torp are fun
i just realised this was a moddeling/painting thread
for torp markers i use the arrows from risk (1 cheveron=one torp strength) i think this works quite well cause the top launchers on imperial ships are stacked in 2 colums, so the torps wouldn't really be in a straight line, so i use two of the large arrows (which have 3 cheverons each)
i'll try and get a pic of this up at some point
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i often try to fire torps in a evenish spread in my first turn, then hold back until later
although most of the torps miss the other player can end up crashing their ships into each other (or other torps), did this once playing against my girlfreind (the only other person within 20 miles that play gothic.....and we have to split my fleet between us) it was rather funny, one cruiser ended up flying into a salvo after dodging one, and an escort crashed into her other cruiser
That is impossible.
Ships cannot crash into eachother.
The only time a ship can 'crush' is when someone uses the All Ahead Full special order is issued and ramming speed is announced.
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oh
i thought that if two of your own ships ended up moving into each other then it counted as a collision of sorts
i'll have to remeber that in future
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Page 6 of the rulebook. 3D or no 3D.
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I'm sorely tempted to buy some of that shapeways stuff for my own fleets. Would anyone be able to comment on what it's like as a material to work with? Is it akin at all to forgeworld's resin?
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I'm sorely tempted to buy some of that shapeways stuff for my own fleets. Would anyone be able to comment on what it's like as a material to work with? Is it akin at all to forgeworld's resin?
Frosted Detail (FD) and Frosted ultra detail (FUD) are comparable from what I hear. I don't have any though. Definitely recommend it for bigger pieces like the cruiser.
The White or Black Strong and Flexible is quite grainy so better suited to smaller pieces like the fighters etc. It needs a good base coat or two, or sealing with glue like PVA mixed with water, before painting.
All my ordinance in this thread was black strong and flexible, worked well enough for me, though in hind sight just going with white would have been ok given that I spray coated them black anyway in the end! All pieces I washed with PVA glue mixed with water first.
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Much obliged, Markconz, thank you. I saw the cruisers he has listed and definitely want to get my grubby mits on those. Thunderhawks and tyranid ordnance is a must too.
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once i've got all my cruisers and battleships painted i'm defiantly investing in some fighters and bombers from grimm dark, i think they actually look better than the GW ordinance
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After seeing the great results Markconz got, I ordered a range of ordnance from GrimDarkBits.
I'll get some photos up later but initial feedback is that a number of the options are just far, far too small.
In particular the Dawnblade, Dagger and Starfury fighters are tiny without any real details (or certainly not in white strong and flexible).
The Avenger isn't terrible, but I think the Narwhal in Markconz' photos looks better.
Voidhawk was okay, likewise the raptor boarding pod, though you probably want something better than white, strong and flexible as the graininess of the material drowns out the detail on the latter to some extent.
I also got the torpedoes in WSF and again something tougher would be my suggestion as one of my torpedoes broke just pouring it out of the bag (at a height of about 4 inches, stem snapped on dropping onto the table).
The Battlebarge and Strike cruiser looked good in frosted detail though.
In hindsight it was a mostly expensive learning exercise and I should have gone with either replicating Markconz and just getting the larger fighter-bombers, fighters and Narwhals or roughly-looks-like stand ins from Brigade or GroundZero.
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Interesting intel PST thanks for posting. Look forward to seeing any pics you post too. I meant to post and say I later got some of the little fighters (Starfury IIRC) and decided not to use them, due to the exact problem you mention about small size. Sorry to hear you discovered the same thing about some of the others.
Interestingly I had 1 broken torpedo stand when they arrived (which I just glued with superglue and it was fine), but all the rest were ok, and I've just stored them to and from games rattling around in a plastic container since then, no problems!
The fighters I have stored in foam, should probably do the same with the torpedoes I guess, but they seem pretty resilient thus far.