escorts vs attack craft

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[Talos]

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!

[AndrewChristlieb]

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.

[Talos]

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.

[Thinking Stone]

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  .

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!

[Talos]

@Thinking Stone No problem, I know from experience students get awfully hungry.

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...

[Neferhet]

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.

[Thinking Stone]

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 

Food for thought,
Thinking Stone

[Thinking Stone]

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....

[Daemon_Primarch_Lorgar]

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?

[Markconz]

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.

[Daemon_Primarch_Lorgar]

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 .

[FistusMaximus]

* 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.

[Neferhet]

Agreed, the +1 to hit ordnance is the simplest and most effective way to add usefulness to escorts!

[Khar]

Would this make Shadowhunters hit it on 3+?

Great idea anyway, escorts would do some actual escorting with it...