Bombers -House Rules-

[Caine-HoA]

@Commx

thx for the apologies, absolutly no problem, sometimes there have to be changed more than two sentences to understand what the other means or wants to explain.

So as i understand it Turret Surpression is more usefull vs battleships (4 or more turrets) and when useing a large wave of attack craft and Massing Turrets is more effective vs small waves of attack craft (as a higher percentage of the whole wave will be destroyed before even making dmg) and for low turret value ships who are supported.

If we look again what situations are common in avarage games maybe my first statement, that Surpessing Fire + Massing Turrets overall is for Bombers worse than not using both rules, is not that wrong in the end.

@Both
To make the "average situation" clear:
When talking about the avarage situation maybe the most common wave sent out from carriers is 4 (or 3bombers one fighter and so on) but what arrives the enemy often is less than those 4 AC launched for the attack because of intervening fighters, cap fightes and so on (as RayB mentioned it as well). Only in the optimal case that the launching ship is in a range of 20cm (for most bombers i think thats the distance that counts) and can directly attack another ship the perfect wave will reach the enemy ship. So i would say there are more situations where 3 or less AC arrive as a wave. Most often facing a turret value of 1-3 (escorts 1-2, cruisers 2, battlecruisers/Carriers 3). So that would support my statement above.

Even for Tau Explorers as already mentioned by RayB in most situations it doesnt make sense to launch a wave of 8AC as they can be fired on with normal weapons to destroy all of them.


And to come back to the specific topic. RayB's ER seems to solve exactly the problem with attacking higher turret value targets, while haveing almost the same effectiveness at lower value turrets.
So maybe it would be better simply taking this rule and maybe even take out the Surpressing Fire and Massing Turret rules again as they (in my opinion) didnt reach what they were meant to.

[RayB HA]

Massed Turrets: These should stay as it helps escorts survive those nasty A-boats. Also it does have consequences. Also with the limit of +3 it's not as bad as it was.

Turrets Suppression: With my HR's I think we can get by without suppressing.

Cheers,

RayB HA

[Caine-HoA]

By the way we almost never had the case of having even 3 helping Ships, as we thought only the ships that are DIRECTLY in base kontakt with the ship that is attacked can mass their turrets, what made sense to me.
As i understand it here you mean that ALL the ships that are in base to base contact can mass their turrets. So now you make the addition to the rule that a maximum of 3 can help in this way.

How about changing it to what i understood. That it wont ever be that many because around a base you cannot place more that 2 or 3 others without haveing one of them only 1 or two others around them. There is always one that it not saved by 3 because it takes the outer position. So most of the time its an addition of 2 Turrets (the escorts standing next to the one who is attacked) what already doubles the amount of turrets for escorts. I think that should be enough.

[Commx]

Actually, as far as I am aware that is how it is supposed to be: A vessel gains a bonus equal to the amount of other ships with at least one Turret in base contact with itself, up to a maximum of three. Because of that, the cases I used in my example (0 or 3 assisting vessels) are not really representative either. In a more realistic scenario, the most likely numbers are one or two for vessels with two Turrets (a pair or trio of Cruisers Squadroned together) and three for those with one Turret (Escort squadrons flying around with their members in hexagonal clusters of seven to optimally support each other). Against the Escorts the Bombers will indeed end up better off without both rules, but one or two bonus Turrets for the Cruiser will not actually hinder a wave of four at all. Four Attack Craft (2 Bombers + 2 Fighters) will create 5.33 Attack Runs against a two-Turret Cruiser with zero, one, or two Massed Turrets (but only 4.5 with three).

So my general conclusion for this would be that only Escorts got a significant defensive boost due to these rules being in place, which seems acceptable as nobody actually uses Bombers against them to begin with (only Assault Boats, against which they honestly deserved slightly more survivability to begin with).

The issue of incomplete waves arriving can be taken into account by comparing the amount of Launch Bays between yourself and the enemy, determining the ratio that can be taken down by enemy Fighters on the way and compensating for that with additional Attack Craft. I can't say anything solid about that though, as this is something between you and your opponent and I am not, in fact, a Psyker so I can't read your minds.


RayB,

Actually, your rules would still require the Turret Suppression rules, as removing them would make the dreaded Hive Ship and the Ork Hulk - as well as Nicassar Caravans and other Tau Orbitals with four Security Modules! - completely immune to Bombers as you would be incapable of causing any Attack Runs at all to a vessel with six Turrets of its own.

[Caine-HoA]

One quick response for now:

Quite a few Fleets dont have acess to Assault Boats so they have to use Bombers vs Escorts as well.

"Four Attack Craft (2 Bombers + 2 Fighters) will create 5.33 Attack Runs against a two-Turret Cruiser with zero, one, or two Massed Turrets (but only 4.5 with three)" Commx

So about half of the firepower of a Tau Explorer Battleship does about one damage (for armor 5 targets) to a average cruiser. I think thats a bit low to be honest. An in addition its not straight fire power, the attack has to reach the target.

[Don Gusto]

I thought about an alternative bomber rule some time ago and came up with the following, but haven't tested it:

Defending ship rolls d6 per point of turretstrength.
Attacking bombers roll d6 per bomber squadron.
If the total from turrets is higher than the total from bombers the attack fails.
Otherwise the difference is the number of attack runs the bombers make.

- turrets that have been used or are held back against torpedoes only roll d3
- ork fighta bommas only roll d3
- tau tracking systems allow reroll of any turret dice
- eldar bombers may reroll any bomber dice and turret 6's don't count against them

This could be used with Massing Turrets but wouldn't need Fighter Suppression.

[Vaaish]

Caine, I think your statement is a little misleading. That is firepower that is in resilient AC, with effectively unlimited range, combined with attacks that ignore shields. There is also a strong possibility that multiple waves will hit before the enemy can close within range to return fire. I mean, in terms of outright damage, a retribution BB not locked on and with an enemy capital ship closing at 60cm only has enough firepower to do about 1.5 points of hull damage to the average cruiser after you take into account knocking out the shields and it costs far more than the explorer. (while I know it isn't exactly an even comparison, it does mean tau has more points to use on other craft which allows them to bring a greater amount of ordnance to the table).

[RayB HA]

Commx,

Good point about 6 turret ships, however it’s tempting to say they hit on a 7 (so a 6+ then a 4+, just like in Epic). Hmm, they could just be straight out immune to bombers, that was the intent for Hulks in the first place. Hiveships on the other hand ‘should’ only get a max of 5.


Don Gusto,

I think your rule set would take too long, as you’d have to go case by case.

Cheers,

RayB

[Commx]

Don Gusto,

I think your rule set would take too long, as you’d have to go case by case.

Cheers,

RayB

Actually, it would take no more work than the current method (plus whatever re-rolls are available). It's just that under his method the Turrets roll as well and you compare the totals of all dice rather than each Bomber dice with a static value. Example: Three Bombers versus two Turrets. The Bombers roll 3d6 Attack Runs, and the Turrets subtract 2d6 of them.

The only thing I don't really like about this set is that you are practically required to send more Bombers than a Vessel has Turrets if you want any chance of actually doing anything, an effect which increases with the amount of Turrets as you are less likely to deviate from the average when more dice are thrown.


Caine-HoA: Well, I cannot decide if you think 5.33 Attack Runs is a lot or not, my sole point there was that Massed Turrets have no impact on the situation at all there. Of course, those 5.33 are less than half of the Explorer's Firepower, and the 1.78 points of Damage they will cause on average are still more than the broadside of a non-Locked On battleship which does not negate Shields in a comparable situation. Hardly a cause for complaint I would say (well, from the Tau side at least...)

[RayB HA]

Ah yes,

I assumed that it was case by case until you ran out of turrets... Sorry about speed reading.
I don't think Don Gusto's ruleset is viable as it does require you to have more bombers than turrets (or to be super lucky).

Cheers,

RayB HA