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Author Topic: escorts vs attack craft  (Read 20144 times)

Offline horizon

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #45 on: May 23, 2013, 06:22:11 PM »
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.  ;)

Offline Daemon_Primarch_Lorgar

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #46 on: May 23, 2013, 07:17:49 PM »
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..

Offline horizon

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #47 on: May 23, 2013, 08:08:04 PM »
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.


Offline AndrewChristlieb

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #48 on: May 24, 2013, 12:10:41 AM »
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.
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down.

Offline Daemon_Primarch_Lorgar

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #49 on: May 24, 2013, 05:44:09 PM »
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 :).

Offline horizon

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #50 on: May 24, 2013, 09:07:58 PM »
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.

Offline Lord Duggie The Mad

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #51 on: May 27, 2013, 03:49:05 AM »
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
« Last Edit: May 27, 2013, 05:31:03 AM by Lord Duggie The Mad »
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Offline Daemon_Primarch_Lorgar

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #52 on: June 03, 2013, 02:34:43 PM »
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 ;)!

Offline Thinking Stone

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #53 on: August 17, 2013, 02:15:44 AM »
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


Offline Malika

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Re: escorts vs attack craft
« Reply #54 on: July 10, 2014, 09:40:25 AM »
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 for one. :)
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