escorts vs attack craft

[Browncoat(USA)]

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.

[lastspartacus]

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.

[Browncoat(USA)]

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+)?

[AndrewChristlieb]

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?

[horizon]

A-boats got a nerf in FAQ2010. eg they kill escorts on a 4+.

[AndrewChristlieb]

yes they did, should be 6+ tho and 2-5 knocks out weapons imo anyway

[Thinking Stone]

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

[Phthisis]

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.

[skippy01]

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.

[Thinking Stone]

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....).

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[Greg]

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.

[AndrewChristlieb]

2cm? Its gotta be a pain to line them up without actually touching the ordnance.

[Phthisis]

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? 

[AndrewChristlieb]

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".