Adepticon 2012 (April 20-22) BFG Tournament

[Seahawk]

Will terrain be preset in all rounds? Please say this is so, as I'd much prefer an abitrator (you, the organizer!) set them all up equally than have some f-wits be stupid with the terrain. I've only had it once, and it worked to my advantage in the end, but I would still rather not waste time with the set up and go straight into gaming.

Questions - Scenarios

Scenario 1: None

Scenario 2:
- How does a Transport park in orbit? Does it actually need to Burn Retros? How close does it need to be?
- Will there be normal VP as well, or is it just for destroying Transports?

Scenario 3:
- Will there be normal VP as well, or is it just for destroying Transports?

Questions - Cards

Card 1:
- Can the Bridge Smashed critical be on any ship or is it just the flagship?
- What about fleets that don't suffer a Bridge Smashed?

Card 2: None

Card 3:
- Round up or down for Special Transports? Say I get 3 Armed Transports (1.5 Standard) and a Heavy Transport (2 Standard) for a total of 3.5 Standard Transports off the board edge. Does it round up to 4, or stay at 3.5?

Card 4:
- Same as for card 3.

Card 5: None

[lordgoober]

Yes.   I will reset the terrain for each game.  What I did 2 years ago after deciding after my first year in charge that the old terrain was pretty much for the most part unusable because you can't really put ships stably on cotton and embedded rocks is replaced all the (gas clouds/asteroid fields/warp rifts) with painted masonite that has gone over fairly well.  I'm looking to potentially replace the planets we have right now (which are perfectly functional except that their bases aren't completely clear and they're pretty much at table level) but that may happen later in the future.

Scenario 2:  Parking in orbit basically means that you finish your prior move in the gravity well of the planet.  Lets call it within 10 cm of the edge of the planet template for a test.

All scenarios use basic VP.  These games are basic VP battles with a little extra to spice the games up.

Cards: 

Card 1 specifically refers to the flagship as the objective is to off the enemy admiral.\

Card 3/4:  Round Down.  looking for full 2 point breakdowns.

[Mycen]

Just curious, since you're not doing the Bismark scenario anymore, are all-escort fleets still disallowed? I'd love to run a Tyranid Vanguard Fleet list if that's legal.

Also, for scenario 2 you mentioned they must "park in orbit and survive to the owner's next turn in order to land." Does this mean that after they have been in orbit for a turn they are removed from the board? Or will it be important to secure an escape route for them as well?

[lordgoober]

For scenario 2 they will be removed. 

I'm leery about swapping that out because of the one "chopping off the head" sub mission card.  If you're willing to let someone automatically get full success for that card then I'm willing to let you do that.

Crapola.  I forgot that I need to take Necrons and Tyranids into account for that card anyway.   Thanks for reminding me. 

For opponents of Necrons,  success with that card is going to have to do with doing x/2x/3x amounts of LD damage due to crits spread amongst the fleet.  Tyranids I have no clue.  Probably for the regular fleets,  doing the card effects to any single hive ship will count,  for the vanguard fleet I'll have to think,  maybe have x percent of the fleet destroyed.

[Mycen]

For tyranids, wouldn't it make the most sense to have it apply to the most expensive hive ship in the fleet? Even if it matters little the the 'nids themselves, the enemy will consider the biggest ship the biggest threat - the 'head of the snake,' so to speak.

For vanguard fleets, a fleet percentage would probably work fine. Going by number of escorts rather than points value would be interesting, I think.

Or you could just keep it the same, it doesn't really matter than much.

[lordgoober]

I have just officially removed the requirement for having at least one capital ship in your fleet since the Bismark is officially OUT for 2012.    I will take that into account when I finalize the sub mission cards.

[AndrewChristlieb]

ok ive played through these a few times

Scenario 1: basic and to the point, cards 1,2 and 3 were a breeze on this

Scenario 2: little different, the hardest game by far to complete the objective, I found it best to ignore the objective completly and focus on destryoing the enemy. All of the cards were easy on this one as my opponets were all focusing on keeping their transports alive and getting them to the planet I would say card 4 is a must here and its likely that no one will score any bonus points.

Scenario 3: way too easy, deployment should be 20cm from the short table edge and must cross the enemy table edge to win. with the setup from the long table edge both players setup far enough away that their convoy can just aaf off the other edge and never meet the enemy. All of the cards are pretty easy on this one also, I would say with the current setup card 3 is a must on this one, its just too easy to not take it.

overall I like the idea of having opposing convoy fleets, but in execution its a little flat as they are just too weak to survive long enough to complete the objectives without some sort of special rules (planetary assault has random setup for the defender and theyre spread out pretty thin, convoy has random forces that must be activated by comming within 30cm or one per turn) IN is espically spoiled with these as their novas can knock out the transports in droves.

Biggest things I would consider changing is the deployment setup on scenario 3 and the Vp scale for scenario 2 and 3

something like this would probably work better

No VP awarded for destroyed ships
both players have equal ammounts of transports land 0 vp
one player has 1 more (full transpost rounded down)  100 vp
one player has 2 more (full transpost rounded down)  200 vp
one player has 3 more (full transpost rounded down)  300 vp
one player has 4 more (full transpost rounded down)  400 vp
one player has 5 more (full transpost rounded down)  500 vp
one player has 6 more (full transpost rounded down)  600 vp
etc...

This will force people to attempt the objectives instead of just ignoring them and killing everything to gain vp as I was.

[lordgoober]

Thanks for the feedback.  It's stuff like this that I'm looking for feedback on.    Sadly due to the fact that these games are on tables that are connected to each other,  it's probably not feasable to do a short table edge = home edge.

I do like your vp based on differential. I'll try to give that a playtest or two myself soon.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Anywhere within the middle third of the long table edges could work as well so split the tables into thirds and have the transport convoys deployed in the middle section all other ships setup as normal. It will still be a bit short for the game but not so easy as if both setup on opposing corners.

[lordgoober]

Try this out.  Have the transports move onto the board from that middle 1/3 during the player's first turn or have them deploy on the board edge in that middle 1/3.  Maybe even have them move onto the board turn 2.

On the topic of the Attacker/Defender.  Sadly those sort of scenarios don't work well in a tournament setting otherwise I'd give it a shot.

[AndrewChristlieb]

having them come into play after the main fleets might be intersting... I had another Q pop up also Can you use part of your fleet points for special transports? so take say a heavy transport (40), 4 standard transport (0), and 4 q ships (240) this puts you 160 over the alloted amount but can you take the 160 from your 1500 limit? also have you ever considered a side board? maybe something like 2k worth of ships to select your 1500 from? This would give people a bit more options.

[lordgoober]

I thought I had put that in there.  If you want to take from your main fleet allotment go right ahead.  I've got to confirm with the guy in charge of making all the rules pdfs that these changes have been put into place.

I've not thought of a sideboard type situation.  That will not happen this year but that might not be a bad idea for 2013.  I'll need to give that a test drive or two.

[Seahawk]

As far as sideboards go, I'd say no more than 1/5 of the total points, making it 1500 with a 300 pt sideboard.

goob, it wasn't posted anywhere that you can use fleet points in addition to the 120 for transport upgrades, but if I can that may make it a little easier.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Ok they just keep coming. Will there be a maximum number of transports? If I can take from my fleet list can I take say 20 fast clippers (1000 vp)? Or is there a maximum amount of vp you can earn? What about rouge trader fleets? Can a rogue trader take a mostly transport fleet and "land" all of their transports then disengage with their cruisers? Do rouge trader fleets transports that make it off the table edge in scenario 3 gain bonus vp?

[lordgoober]

You are maxed out at the 6 transport equivalent.

I've not thought about Rogue Trader fleets because nobody around here plays them.