BFG Ramming...Orc Fleet...

[ScrapIron]

2nd game played and working out the kinks. 

 Came across a situation where a squadron of Brute Ram (6 total) rammed into a Imperial Cruiser(IC).  Now the player made all the rolls, and stacked his Squadron in such a fashion that 3 ships (each touching the others base) could contact the base of the IC and held the other 3 back within 8cm.  The reasoning was that the 1st wave would ram and smash into the IC, followed by the 2nd wave.  We interpreted the rules that any surviving ramming ships would continue on to their full All Ahead Full movement.  Which in this case but the 1st and 2nd wave of the Squadron roughly 10cm beyond the IC.

 The 2nd inquiry came when the Orcs fired their random d6 FP weapon, again the ships in question were squadron ( 8 Onslaughts total and all touching each others base).  As it worked out the person rolled 8 dice for each ship (adding the +1) and came up with 28 strength Firepower weapon.  Rolling 1st for a 20 strength salvo followed by rolling for the remainder 8 strength salvo (I feel this was wrong).  Being in a Squadron, should they individually role for each ship (resulting in a random FP from 2 to 7...and work out the damage for each individual ship?  ...OR... since they were touching bases do as we did do: roll 8d6+8, add the amount and then apply it to the chart?


 These games are great for working out the mechanics of the game.  We learned we have to remember Brace for Impact is a tricky Mistress.  Also the Brute does 4 hits when ramming instead of ...1...d'oh!!

-Scrap

[RCgothic]

Ships must always move their full distance on AAF.

Firepower is worked out as a squadron unless there are complicating factors that make it easier to work things out in groups or individually (such as the target having different aspects to different squadron members). Either way, as all shooting from a squadron is resolved simultaneously, there should be no difference between 8d6 and 8x(d6).

You roll a d6 per ship to determine firepower, not once for every ship in the squadron.

[ScrapIron]

For squadron fire: In my example it would be 8d6+8 (since the stat line reads 1d6+1).  Now  When the Firepower of the Squadron goes over 20....does that mean the player breaks it up as I described?  OR is Firepower 20 the highest the game/rulebook allow?

As for ramming and AAF, I understand; our question dealt more with the remaining 3 ships in the squadron that were roughly 8cm behind the lead 3 ships.  So, keeping it simple: Any surviving ships from the 1st wave continue on "through" the rammed ship and stop at the end of the movement range and then the 2nd wave of ships that are still in the squadron continue forwarded ramming the ship again for a 2nd time...and any surviving ships from the 2nd wave continue on to the completion of the AAF movement range.  So in effect the ship being rammed gets hit 6 times (or in Orc Brute lingo::: 24x's  ).

(sorry about the italics, can't seem to undo them)

-Scrap

[fracas]

Firepower when greater than 20 is broken down into chunks of 20s and left overs

IMO the second row of ram ships attack as well

[Sigoroth]

When on AAF you move full distance. If your movement would pass through an enemy base you may attempt to ram. You may only ram one enemy per ship per turn, so if you would pass over 2 or more enemy bases with one ship you must choose which you wish to ram. Having decided to ram with a particular ship you need to pass a leadership test to see if you're successful. If successful either player may elect to BFI before any dice are rolled. Now resolve attacks against facing armour. If the rammed ship is destroyed, consult the catastrophic damage table (capital ships) or remove and replace with a blast marker (escorts). If the ramming ship survives, move it its maximum. If destroyed either consult the catastrophic damage table (capital ship) or remove and replace with a blast marker (escort).

After this process has been resolved you move onto the next ship in the squadron and repeat. If its movement would pass through an enemy base you may attempt to ram and if you do you have to pass a leadership test etc, etc.

When working out squadron firepower you total all firepower from the squadron going into the target before consulting the gunnery chart, regardless of whether bases are touching or not. If this comes to, say 32 (2 Carnages for example) then find the appropriate column and add the values returned by the rows 20 and 12.

Note: maximum escort squadron size is 6, not 8.

[RCgothic]

the maximum squadron size may be different for orks since FAQ2010, can't remember off the top of my head.

[Sigoroth]

Yeah, the thought occurred to me too, but I dismissed it for two good reasons. One,  I discount much of the 2010 faq as absurd or unbalanced, so don't find it a reliable document and as such any squadron size changes would be dubious at best and two, much more importantly, I couldn't be arsed to look.

[horizon]

Yeah, the thought occurred to me too, but I dismissed it for two good reasons. One,  I discount much of the 2010 faq as absurd or unbalanced, so don't find it a reliable document and as such any squadron size changes would be dubious at best and two, much more importantly, I couldn't be arsed to look.

No.
FAQ 2010 is pretty great and cool.

[Zelnik]

There really is no way to please sig, is there. If it is not his interpretation of the rules, it is unfair and unbalanced. If we disagree, we are ignorant and stupid. 

A hell of a lot of work went into the 2010 faq, and aside from a few vague points, its pretty damn good. Not exactly what I wanted, but hell, it is better then the alternative.

[Sigoroth]

I have a laundry list of faults with the 2010 FAQ. I'll list them, so you can see why I think it's crap.

Torpedoes

• should be 1 attack per contact, not per turn
• turning torps should turn from one side, not from the middle
• should not be able to shoot through your own ships unless combining a salvo
• boarding torps shouldn't prematurely detonate when hitting other torps
• they should be placed in base contact with the launching ship with the middle of the salvo touching any point within arc (so the edges may overlap other arcs) and then they should go live. So if they touch another ship in the shooting phase when they're launched then that's when the attack should be resolved. In the ordnance phase they should move 30cm from where they were placed, not from the stem of the shooting ship.

Resilient AC
Ridiculous rules. Always have been. Just give them one 4+ save per player turn. That should be it. No stupid restrictions on how many interactions it can make or stopping movement or complicated 'drawn combat' situations.

Blast Markers
Convoluted and rubbish. Go back to version 1.0.

Minefields
Stupidly wordy. Oh noes, enemy ships have to navigate a minefield as an asteroid field! dun dun dun! On the other hand friendly ships only have to treat minefields as an asteroid field. Phew! Wot?

Ship stacking
A travesty. This whole section should be removed and replaced with "Don't stack ships! No really, if you can possibly avoid it you must, if you can't then either stop short or move past, chosen by opponent."

Turret Suppression
Stupid stupid stupid revision. Nerfs bombers against high turret targets which was completely unnecessary.

Critical hits
Why is the fire crit cumulative when no other crit is? According to the basic rules if you had 3 fire crits then you would take one point of damage per end phase until all three crits are repaired. Now you take one point of damage per unrepaired fire. Why is this cumulative but you can't, say, pound the engines into submission? Why doesn't more damage to the engines drop speed further?

Catastrophic Damage
When shooting at a hulk to make it blow the number of hits beyond the first should modify the roll to increase probability of the ship blowing. Hitting a hulk with 7 hits should be more likely to produce an explosion than hitting it with 1. This should apply to excess hits on a healthy ship too. So a ship with 3 hits left takes 4 damage, the resulting catastrophic damage roll should be 2d6+1.

Escort VPs
Not a quibble with the rules, just that it says half (rounding down) destroyed counts as crippled. Half of 5 rounded down is 2, so you only need 2 kills to count a squadron of 5 as crippled according to the ruling. The example contradicts this. Obviously this should say "(rounding up)".

Celestial Phenomena and AoE weapons
The FAQ keeps referring to line of sight blocking terrain. The rulebook clearly says that asteroid fields and planets block line of fire. Therefore AoE weapons and ship explosions should be blocked by appropriate intervening terrain. There could be an exception for certain effects, such as the Mark of Slaanesh, or the Nightmare Field, but Star Pulse Generators and ship explosions should be blocked, as should the Armageddon gun and Nova cannon shots that scatter behind such terrain.

Simultaneity of Fire
BFG is not a simultaneous game. Each weapon system is fired sequentially and as such the order of fire matters. For races with 2 weapons that use the gunnery table, meaning at least one weapon will be affected by BMs, then this is just tough luck and should be accounted for in terms of balance. For the currently affected races (SMs and Orks) this interference is apropos.

Further, this sequential nature should mean that a target will get a brace opportunity against each discrete packet of incoming fire, not just one brace per ship/squadron. A Gothic can't shoot half its firepower at a target, see the results and then decide to put the other half into that same target. A Lunar can.



That's just the general rules. Now onto specific fleet/ship faults.

Imperial

• Apocalypse - range shouldn't be dependent upon LO, if firing over 30cm put a BM in base contact.
• Retribution - should have given it 18 WB broadside at 45cm range for 355 pts
• Oberon - prow/dorsal WB ranges should have been brought back up to 60cm, and cost up to same as Emperor.
• Voss triumvirate - the 6+ prow should've been for free, not at the cost of turn rate.

Note - changes to the Armageddon and Overlord were good and quite welcome. In fact the Overlord change was better than what we had come up with (well, I had long said it was worth no more than 220 pts, but I'd never thought of adding the Mars targeting matrix).

Chaos

• ABSF - Warp cannons should NOT ignore holofields and they SHOULD ignore Necron brace saves.

Eldar

• Void Stalker fleet list restriction is too literal and ridiculous. Should just be 1 per 1k value of game. So if you're playing a 2000 pt game you can have 2, even if your list only comes to 1990 pts.
• CWE Phantom Lance should be the same as the DE Phantom Lance.
• CWE rules for escorts vs ordnance just make no sense whatsoever. Needs to be rethought.

Necron

• SPG and NF should be able to fire on LO

Tyranids

• Upgrades should be a legitimate part of one-off games, not by opponent permission.

Orks

• Fighta bommas - what? How ridiculous are these rules? So they get 1d3 attacks. But wait, because they're fighters they actually get +1 down to a minimum of one, not zero. Oh wait, and now on top of that they can also suppress turrets. And they're faster than normal bombers. So against 0 or 1 turret targets the normal bomber gets +0.5 attacks on average. Against 2 turret targets a normal bomber gets +0.33 attacks on average. Against a 3 turret target they're equal (FB faster) and beyond that the FB is better than a normal bomber. Against a 4 turret target (most BBs) the FB gets +0.5 attacks on average. Against a 5 turret target it goes to +0.83 attacks, and +1 against 6 turret targets (BSF). This is just silly.

TL;DR
The 2010 FAQ brought in some nice changes and some decent clarifications, but it also failed to fix some problems that have been around for a long time and brought in a staggering number of bad changes. Some very bad. So you can see why I don't find it a great document. We're not talking just one or two slightly off calls here.

[horizon]

Your last paragraph is what it is about. And you know what, I completely forgot about the idiot stacking rule. Why? Because I would never use that rule. Unless official Eldar rules get changed I ignore Eldar rules in FAQ's anyway.
The torp thing is half/half on what you say. Turning in the middle ain't bad at all.
Simultanoues fire ain't bad. I like it.


laters more

[Sigoroth]

Your last paragraph is what it is about. And you know what, I completely forgot about the idiot stacking rule. Why? Because I would never use that rule. Unless official Eldar rules get changed I ignore Eldar rules in FAQ's anyway.
The torp thing is half/half on what you say. Turning in the middle ain't bad at all.
Simultanoues fire ain't bad. I like it.

Torps turning in the middle means that some torps move backwards. Apart from this being silly from a logic standpoint it means that they can actually hit a ship they've just passed in the previous ordnance phase or one that moved up behind them (and so should be safe) in the previous movement phase.

Of course, the simultaneity of fire issue I've been over on numerous occasions.