Re-rolls, chain of command, strategy ratings & Orks

[Sigoroth]

The thing is, both fleets have to be able to pass command checks. The way the rules work requires it, because ordnance (a big part of every 'basic' fleet's arsenal*) requires a Reload Ordnance! check essentially every turn. Brace for Impact! is a massive part of the way fleets work. The All Ahead Full! rule for orks is neither a benefit nor a curse because of the engine power limit, it just essentially takes that order out of contention.

This is the point I was addressing. Because a single failure in the special order sequence denies the subsequent ships the ability to use special orders for that turn you have to pass your first test just to get back a tiny bit of AC to defend yourself. If you manage to get all your ships reloaded then comes LO tests, etc.

However, what if you had a lot of potential AC (you are a horde after all) but could attempt to continue reloading even after a previous failure or two? This would mean that a fairly consistent proportion of your ships could reload each turn, and it wouldn't be so dependent on when in the chain of command you failed a test. Let's say that after modifiers you've got an average Ld of 7. This would give a 58.33% reload rate. Throw in some good squadron forming and you're up no doubt to 66.67% reload rate. Therefore, you'd get around 2/3 of your potential AC each turn without using a re-roll. To achieve balance we'd only need to make sure that 2/3 of your listed average AC is enough to do the job and point it appropriately (ie, that 1 Ork bay = 2/3 of an automatically reloaded bay).

In other words, currently it is far more important to pass earlier SO test than later SO tests. Remove a lot of the sting from this and fleets can operate under a more typical averaging system. So for balance Orks would have more guns, hits, AC, etc, but be unreliable. Quantity not quality.

Lock On!, Come To New Heading! and Reload Ordnance! get used as often as with any other fleet. It doesn't matter if you wish to mentally re-name it as Give It Sum Dakka! or whatever, re-rolls to hit is a massive deal and without totally re-writing the fleet from the ground up, you can't take it away and expect the fleet to remain balanced.

Wasn't suggesting they shouldn't get to use those orders. Just that they'd have no especial affinity for doing so. Thus their low leadership is valid. An individual Ork ship would be less likely to successfully utilise those orders than would an IN ship, on average.

But, whilst both fleets have to be able to pass command checks, the game designers decided that the feel of an orky fleet includes low leadership scores, hence the balance of more re-rolls. I agree. It feels more unpredictable, and it feels more orky. I don't have the one elite crewed 'flagship' squadron with Ld10 that I know can pass checks almost without picking up the dice (like Elsar or Marines), but I can still grind out enough orders to put up a fight.

It also helps match the 'attrition' feel of the ork fleet - good prows (both in guns and armour) but vulnerable sterns, lots of hit points but weak shields, and a dependance on depletable rerolls rather than permanent leadership means that an ork fleet starts scary but gets worse faster as the game goes on.

Well I have quite often found myself in the position of having that elite Ld 10 Eldar squadron and failed both the initial and re-rolled leadership test. Worse, I've been in the position of needing another re-roll but not having one because they're so damn expensive. So why don't I just buy more? Well, a lot of the time I'm left with surplus re-rolls and they are a huge points sink so they're the first thing I ditch when trying to fit ships into a certain points limit and when I do happen to be able to reach for those re-roll dice I roll another 11 or 12 anyway!

The point is that I am unsure if I will need them and unsure if they'll be useful if I do need them. For the price I pay for my re-roll and the premium I pay for my leadership it shouldn't be a re-roll it should just negate a failed roll! Orks on the other hand know that they're going to need them and can buy quite a lot of them quite cheaply and also get double boarding value per Warlord they take which is just another reason to buy more re-rolls!

So, let's take the situation where an Eldar player has decided to purchase only 1 re-roll because of cost and uncertain need/use. In this scenario it has already been used and is gone. Now my pirate prince's Ld 10 ship comes under fire and I need to brace. I have a 91.67% chance of doing so. Now consider an Ork version which has, for 5 pts less, purchased 2 Warlords and 2 extra re-rolls giving 2 ships double boarding value and 4 re-rolls. Let's say his leadership rolls weren't even that fantastic. He rolled a 2 or 3, giving base leadership 6. Enemy on orders, goes to 7, receives incoming fire and decides to brace. He has an 82.64% chance of successfully bracing with a re-roll in hand (which he'll have). So he only has a 9% worse chance of successfully bracing with his Ld 6 ship than I do in my fleet commanders Ld 10 BB? Ah, but he uses a re-roll you say. Well, he's actually got a 58% chance of not using the re-roll, meaning he'll still have it for later.

So, it costs an Ork ship with crappy leadership 42% of 20 pts (8.4 pts) to emulate a 100 pt pirate prince for a turn. Well, those Ork Warlords must be great commanders to be able to pull this out of their hats.

Oh, and by the by, let's have a look at the notion that a re-roll is more valuable to high Ld fleets because a higher Ld means it's more likely to work. Chance of passing Ld 10 = 91.67%. Chance of passing Ld 10 with re-roll = 99.31%. Value of re-roll = 99.31 - 91.67 = 7.64%. Now let's look at Ld 6. Chance of passing Ld 6 (+1 for enemy on orders) = 58.33%. Chance of passing Ld 6(+1) with re-roll = 82.64%. Value of re-roll = 82.64 - 58.33 = 24.31%. Over 3 times the benefit yet cheaper and more available.

[Sigoroth]

Well, look at other games. When a Ld test is needed to stay around, you only get a re-roll if a battle standard bearer (only one in the entire army) or if some rare magical item is at hand. Low leadership is punished there BUT hey, to compensate the troops are cheap and you have a lot of them.
So why on earth should low Ld fleets get several re-rolls for cheap, any fleet for that matter. And why should other ships automatically fail if one ship fails its command check?

^This. Having low leadership means that they're not so good at bracing. So they take more hits; therefore they need more ships/hits. They're not so good and manoeuvring, so they need more ships to cover the gaps. They're not so good at reloading, so they need more AC. They're not so good at aiming, so they need more guns.

ALL of the above could be quite simply fixed by lowering their costs. Of course, Orks are cheap. They're meant to be a horde after all. There are only 2 things that prevent this from working perfectly. The first is that the designer just didn't get the balance right. Orks are a weak fleet. More shooty methinks. The second is the consequences of early SO failures are so drastic. Give them a bit more autonomy from the typical chain of command and let the averages have a chance of working as intended.

[Zhukov]

Actually some people I play totally dislike the random leadership in BFG.
They rather pay some extra points to get fixed/higher leadership.

For example:
Imperial Navy
standard is Leadership 7
For 5pts I can give the ship Ld 8.
For 10pts I can give the ship Ld 9.
For 20pts I can give the ship Ld 10.
For a deduction of 5 points I can have Ld6.

As I understand (and agree with) the way the game does the random Ld, this idea here does present some interesting scenarios..... Obviously the points and Ld values change for each fleet. Like an Ork's 'free' Ld is a 5, for an Ork vessel/squadron to get Ld 8 would take something like 25(30?)pts?

-Zhukov

[horizon]

Yeah, sumtin like that.

Andy Chambers made a statement about random vs fixed leadership in the designer notes of the rulebook. He just liked random more with the reason small ships could have better crews then big ships.
Pretty odd, since with fixed Ld test like I propose you can still do this.
Makes me think: Ld should be cheaper for escorts. Smaller, less crew, easier command.

[Hymirl]

Andy Chambers made a statement about random vs fixed leadership in the designer notes of the rulebook. He just liked random more with the reason small ships could have better crews then big ships.
Pretty odd, since with fixed Ld test like I propose you can still do this.

Its quite interesting, but could be difficult to balance. People could skimp points on cruisers their planned to squadron and I suspect there would be a lot of high leadership carriers about. It could be an interesting bit of strategy to see how much players would spend on ships being good as opposed to simply buying more ships.

One thought I had was where you still got varied leadership but assigned it to ships by choice. The 'leaderships' available would run though the whole cycle as many times as needed for each type of ship.

So if you had six cruisers you'd have one LD9, two LD8s, two LD7s and one LD6 to assign to ships of your choice. If you had more than 6 ships you'd start the cycle again from the top, if fewer then you'd stop before the end of the first cycle. A similar but separate pool for escorts would still allow them to get a bite at the apple without automatically having all the good leadership values nicked by carriers.

Its a little less points based which reduces some manipulation by the player but doesn't leave them at the whims of random leadership, a few sets of poor rolls can cause a game to be somewhat skewed, more so in smaller games than larger ones.

[Sigoroth]

Or maybe run leadership as is but allow 1 swap per X amount of points?

[Zhukov]

Andy Chambers made a statement about random vs fixed leadership in the designer notes of the rulebook. He just liked random more with the reason small ships could have better crews then big ships.
Pretty odd, since with fixed Ld test like I propose you can still do this.
Makes me think: Ld should be cheaper for escorts. Smaller, less crew, easier command.

Maybe not. The newest members of the Navy might be stationed on the escorts. Likewise, the Navy could station the school grads/brightest members on the capital ships to make them more efficient and leave the drop-outs to the escorts. On top of THAT, think about it, having escorts survive is a miracle, so to get a Ld 9 veteran escort crew might be really hard to find, thus expensive! Or just make the high Ld's really expensive in general for everyone.

-Zhukov

[gribbly_horde]

In other words, currently it is far more important to pass earlier SO test than later SO tests. Remove a lot of the sting from this and fleets can operate under a more typical averaging system.

Maybe it's just me (between the two of us, it's clearly just me) but I don't mind the 'test until you fail' provision - there's no particular reason for it, but it just makes deciding what orders to give when a bit more of a challenge. You could argue that it's exactly the same for Warmaster or Blood Bowl - the fact that minion #1 has screwed up should make no difference to whether or not minion #2 on the other side of the board does what he's told - but, in the current rules, it does. And whilst I've fallen foul of it before, I find it makes the game more interesting. I genuinely don't see it as a problem that needs addressing.

If you're taking that element away, then by all means get rid of re-rolls entirely; it's the simplest way to settle such an argument. In the current system, however, you get the exact same situation as with Blood Bowl - you always have someone who can *probably* pass tests, but whether this is a competent guy or an incompetent guy with a fistfull of re-rolls depends on team/fleet selection.

[Sigoroth]

Maybe it's just me (between the two of us, it's clearly just me) but I don't mind the 'test until you fail' provision - there's no particular reason for it, but it just makes deciding what orders to give when a bit more of a challenge. You could argue that it's exactly the same for Warmaster or Blood Bowl - the fact that minion #1 has screwed up should make no difference to whether or not minion #2 on the other side of the board does what he's told - but, in the current rules, it does. And whilst I've fallen foul of it before, I find it makes the game more interesting. I genuinely don't see it as a problem that needs addressing.

I also don't mind the mechanic. To me it represents the more rigid command structures, like the US army where a recruit is broken down and built back up and taught to obey orders at all times. This system gives commanders more confidence that their orders are going to be followed, but is intolerant of mistakes and not terribly good at adapting (ie, thinking for themselves).

So in fleets that would rely heavily upon such a command structure, notably IN, and Tau and also Necrons and CWE as likely candidates, there should generally be low access to independent characters and high access to re-rolls (cost based inversely on leadership).

In fleets of a more individualistic nature such as Chaos, CE and Orks access to independent characters should be higher, access to re-rolls lower.

If you're taking that element away, then by all means get rid of re-rolls entirely; it's the simplest way to settle such an argument. In the current system, however, you get the exact same situation as with Blood Bowl - you always have someone who can *probably* pass tests, but whether this is a competent guy or an incompetent guy with a fistfull of re-rolls depends on team/fleet selection.

Yeah, and this system is what I disagree with. It gives the incompetent guy the same chance of passing as the competent one. I mean we may as well just do away with leadership altogether and give a fist full of special orders that you can go on each turn. When you run out of SOs for that turn, those that aren't on SOs miss out. As for removing the CoC and re-rolls, yeah, that would work to make each fleet pass the appropriate amount of orders. Of course that would leave you completely at the mercy of the dice. I don't think things should get that drastic, but a closer approximation of this average shouldn't be too much to ask.

[Easy e]

I'm not a BFG veteran or anything, but isn't the rule that you can only re-roll any single dice one time?  Perhaps that is just Blood Bowl or Epic Armageddon?  The rules all start piling on together after a while. 

With that kind of limitation in place, it really makes it harder to "burn" through re-rolls.   

 

[Eldanesh]

Maybe not. The newest members of the Navy might be stationed on the escorts. Likewise, the Navy could station the school grads/brightest members on the capital ships to make them more efficient and leave the drop-outs to the escorts.

From a historical point of view this is wrong: in almost any navy the crews of escorts are/were more expericend than those of dedicated warships. The reason is quite simple: while the large ships of the line only saw action during real wars (they are simply to expensive to operate them all the time) the fregattes/corvettes/destroyers had action all the time: patroling, privateering, catching pirates etc.
Crews of small ships usually harmonize/get used to one another better than those of capital ships. (Oh, and you can't simply transfer acrew from one ship to another, especially if there arre such large differences in (crew)size)

-> I really think that escort squadrons should throw 2D6 and pick the highest when the LD values are determined.

According to me they're worth more to the fleet more likely to need them, ie, low leadership fleets.

While I generally agree that some Fleet Commanders/rerolls are overpriced (e.g. pirate prince) you could argue that you pay more, because the total chance of passing the test is higher:

LD 10 with reroll: 99,3% chance
LD 9 with reroll: 97,2% chance
LD 8 with reroll: 92,3% chance
LD 7 with reroll: 82,6% chance 

This isn't that much (and IMO does not justify the large difference in pointcosts), but you could argue that a Ld10 reroll is a sure thing, while one with LD 7 is just a 4:5 chnace... 

The other, more important argument is already mentioned: Orcs have cheap rerolls, because they need it.
Sure, they have cheaper ships, but this is simply related to the inferior profile, the lower LD value isn't really reflected by this fact. You can see that by a simple example: the average imperial LD is 7,5, Eldar  8,5 and Orcs 6,5.
We asume that we have a (hypothical) pure carrier for, say, 200 Points and that carriers „live" from passed RO-checks.

An (average) LD of 6,5 means a ship passes 50% of it's Ld checks.
An average LD of 7,5 means a ship passes 65,3% of it's Ld checks
an average LD of 8,5 means a ship passes 77,8% of it's Ld checks
 
Simply spoken: if our ship costs 200 point in an ork fleet it should cost ~260 points in an imperial fleet and ~ 310 Points in an Eldar fleet, just because of the different LD. (with otherwise identical rules!)
Other way around this means if our ship costs 200 Points in an imperial/chaos fleet it should only cost 155 points in an orc fleet.

Of course this is a very academic example, as special orders aren't THAT important, but I think one can get the point with this example.
Can you imagine how people would react if orcs had the same ships as Chaos/Imperials but for ¾ of the price?
So the current solution isn't that bad: Orc ships are overpriced for the LD value, but for this they get discount on rerolls/ fleet commanders etc.
Not perfect, but practical, because if you would price orc ships according to their LD value they had to be insanly cheap.

[Sigoroth]

While I generally agree that some Fleet Commanders/rerolls are overpriced (e.g. pirate prince) you could argue that you pay more, because the total chance of passing the test is higher:

LD 10 with reroll: 99,3% chance
LD 9 with reroll: 97,2% chance
LD 8 with reroll: 92,3% chance
LD 7 with reroll: 82,6% chance 

LD 10 without RR = 91.67% chance to pass. With RR it's 99.31%. Therefore a RR gives +7.64% chance of success.

LD 9 without RR = 83.33% chance to pass. With RR it's 97.22%. Therefore a RR gives +13.89% chance of success.

LD 8 without RR = 72.22% chance to pass. With RR it's 92.28%. Therefore a RR gives +20.06% chance of success.

LD 7 without RR = 58.33% chance to pass. With RR it's 82.64%. Therefore a RR gives +24.31% chance of success.

LD 6 without RR = 41.67% chance to pass. With RR it's 65.97%. Therefore a RR gives +24.31% chance of success.

LD 5 without RR = 27.78% chance to pass. With RR it's 47.84%. Therefore a RR gives +20.06% chance of success.

Since Orks are in the 5-8 range of leadership they get a far greater boost out of re-rolls than the Eldar or SMs.

These are just the facts.

This isn't that much (and IMO does not justify the large difference in pointcosts), but you could argue that a Ld10 reroll is a sure thing, while one with LD 7 is just a 4:5 chnace... 

This might hold some water if it were an actual sure thing. I have failed my re-rolled Ld 10 command checks far more than the 1 in 100 that the numbers would suggest. Paying over the odds might not be such a bad thing if it actually gave certainty.

The other, more important argument is already mentioned: Orcs have cheap rerolls, because they need it.
Sure, they have cheaper ships, but this is simply related to the inferior profile, the lower LD value isn't really reflected by this fact. You can see that by a simple example: the average imperial LD is 7,5, Eldar  8,5 and Orcs 6,5.
We asume that we have a (hypothical) pure carrier for, say, 200 Points and that carriers „live" from passed RO-checks.

An (average) LD of 6,5 means a ship passes 50% of it's Ld checks.
An average LD of 7,5 means a ship passes 65,3% of it's Ld checks
an average LD of 8,5 means a ship passes 77,8% of it's Ld checks
 
Simply spoken: if our ship costs 200 point in an ork fleet it should cost ~260 points in an imperial fleet and ~ 310 Points in an Eldar fleet, just because of the different LD. (with otherwise identical rules!)
Other way around this means if our ship costs 200 Points in an imperial/chaos fleet it should only cost 155 points in an orc fleet.

Presuming that your argument is valid in its premise then there are 2 arguments that would suggest that Orks still shouldn't get access to cheap re-rolls. First, the theorised price difference for both the Eldar and IN is close to what we see. A 185 pt Ork carrier should cost 240 pts for IN and 280 pts for Eldar. So we're only 20-30 pts off in this rather simplistic formula. However, the formula is not true. It might be true if everything else were equal, which it's not, and if the only armament those ships had was ordnance. The remaining firepower is unaffected by the success or failure of the ship to reload. So pure carrier, might hold true. Mixed ship, the effect of the loss is mitigated to only the portion of the ship that pays for the launch bays. This should therefore act to decrease that simplistic ratio, meaning the 240 for an IN carrier is higher than true, as is the 280 for an Eldar carrier.

However, the second argument against cheap re-rolls is that even if after calculating the value of each races ordnance in terms of its average leadership we find a disparity whereby the Orks low leadership is not being reflected in their points then surely the solution would lie in simply reducing the cost of Ork ships. There's no point in saying "well, the Orks are just too weak for their cost - I know, let's give them cheap re-rolls to mitigate their low leadership" ... If Orks are too weak for their cost then either make them stronger or make them cheaper. I've always said more shooty for Orks. This can be done by making them cheaper meaning the Ork player can bring more ships, therefore more guns. Fixed.

Then their leadership would be properly low, rather than just look low but actually perform high. They'd look like an actual horde too. They'd gain effectiveness without losing inefficiency. Of course, the only remaining problem here is that the Chain of Command structure of the game prevents the Orks low leadership from properly averaging such that an early failure is much worse than a later one. Hence the character rule proposed.

The combination of 3 separate changes fixes just about every problem the Orks have. 1) Make them cheaper. 2) Allow them to circumvent the CoC. 3) Give proper turret suppression rules.

With these changes we don't need cheap re-rolls to make them perform better than they ought and we don't need special exceptions to gunnery fire to make them more efficient than they ought to be and we don't need special rules to make their FBs work differently to everyone elses bombers.

Of course this is a very academic example, as special orders aren't THAT important, but I think one can get the point with this example.
Can you imagine how people would react if orcs had the same ships as Chaos/Imperials but for ¾ of the price?
So the current solution isn't that bad: Orc ships are overpriced for the LD value, but for this they get discount on rerolls/ fleet commanders etc.
Not perfect, but practical, because if you would price orc ships according to their LD value they had to be insanly cheap.

Um, no they wouldn't. Following your extremely simplistic formula we see that an Ork cruiser should be valued at 160-170pts. Now, of course I don't buy the formula (because of the many things not accounted for by it), but I see nothing wrong with the value it comes up with.

[lastspartacus]

On the topic of strategy rating, I definately support a slight restructuring.  For one, I see Orks being more of a 1 than a 3.

[horizon]

On the topic of strategy rating, I definately support a slight restructuring.  For one, I see Orks being more of a 1 than a 3.

I disagree. 3 is perfect for Orks. Perhaps that when a Space Hulk is present it drops to 1.