escorts vs attack craft

[Phthisis]

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.

[AndrewChristlieb]

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?

[horizon]

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?

[AndrewChristlieb]

True there should be some maximum limit such as with massed turrets if your going to try this.

[Jimmy Zimms]

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.

[Koshi]

Would try out to give Escorts the Mass turret ability without cap. Or maybe max +6 cap.

[Thinking Stone]

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!

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[horizon]

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.

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[Thinking Stone]

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

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[Talos]

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 .

[Koshi]

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.

[Talos]

In BFG:R the 'nid kraken has 2 wounds, think some of the other do too..