Blackstone Fortress Q's

[AndrewChristlieb]

A Blackstone Fortress' warp cannons roll 1 dice per point of Strength and require a 4+ to hit, like a lance. However, a warp cannon shot ignores shields: all hits will affect a ship directly.

Unfortunately this is all we have to go off of though. We should probably address these questions at some point (actually there have probably been more then enough questions in the past 4 years! to work up a whole new FAQ).

[Zenithfleet]

We used an Activated Blackstone Fortress for the first time in a recent game. Here's what we came up with:

We decided that the ABF uses the standard ship critical hit table (not the planetary defences table) - the 'Defence' category just makes it easier to hit, like an Ork Rok.

We decided that the critical hit chart should be modified as follows:

2-5 (any 'Armament Damaged' result): Reduce warp cannon Strength by 1 until repaired. (So if the ABF takes a 'prow damaged' and a 'starboard damaged', it will only have Str-6 warp cannons until repaired.)
6 (Engine Room): +1 dmg but no other effect
7 (Fire): as normal
8 (Thrusters Damaged): Cannot move until repaired; +1 dmg
9 (Bridge Smashed): No longer auto-passes Ld checks. Instead must use Ld 10. Cannot be repaired. Possible adjustment: Extra 'Bridge Smashed' results reduce Ld by 1 each. This prevents the damage from moving up the chart to Shields Collapse.
10 (Shields Collapse): as normal
11 (Hull Breach): as normal
12 (Bulkhead Collapse): as normal - during the game a nova cannon hit did nine points of damage thanks to this...

One other result we would have liked to add to the chart is a "disables super-mega-death-shot until repaired" result, but I'm not sure where to fit it in, and it might be too effective to include.

We also noticed that as the ABF automatically passes all Ld tests, it can a) snipe targets and b) disengage whenever it likes. This seemed like a fair trade for it being unable to brace for impact. You have to kill it on the same turn you cripple it, otherwise it's certain to get away (unless it suffers the 'Bridge Smashed' result above).

BTW, we treated the warp cannons as lances that ignore shields (so hitting ordnance on a 6). They're a bit less useful than they seem on paper, since the ABF can't lock on.

[Bessemer]

2-5 (any 'Armament Damaged' result): Reduce warp cannon Strength by 1 until repaired. (So if the ABF takes a 'prow damaged' and a 'starboard damaged', it will only have Str-6 warp cannons until repaired.)
That's actually a pretty good mechanic, and one that never even crossed my mind! Nice one

9 (Bridge Smashed): No longer auto-passes Ld checks. Instead must use Ld 10. Cannot be repaired. Possible adjustment: Extra 'Bridge Smashed' results reduce Ld by 1 each. This prevents the damage from moving up the chart to Shields Collapse.
Again a mechanic that never even crossed my mind! And a solid buffer against Shields collapse

One other result we would have liked to add to the chart is a "disables super-mega-death-shot until repaired" result, but I'm not sure where to fit it in, and it might be too effective to include.
An ABF can't use the SMDS if crippled, so that kind of looks after itself. You could say that an ABF using the SMDS only give it's current Warp Cannon strength to the shot (example: 2 ABFs using the SMDS, one at the full 8, one at 6 {suffering 2 weapons criticals}, giving a total of str 14 rather than the full 16 as would normaly be the case)

We also noticed that as the ABF automatically passes all Ld tests, it can a) snipe targets and b) disengage whenever it likes. This seemed like a fair trade for it being unable to brace for impact. You have to kill it on the same turn you cripple it, otherwise it's certain to get away (unless it suffers the 'Bridge Smashed' result above).
A fair point, well made

BTW, we treated the warp cannons as lances that ignore shields (so hitting ordnance on a 6). They're a bit less useful than they seem on paper, since the ABF can't lock on.
Most people do this I reckon

Some good stuff here, mate!

[Zenithfleet]

Thanks mate   

And oops - thanks for pointing out that the ABF can't use the super-shot if crippled. I never noticed that in the description before, since it's in the 'fluffy intro sentence' text. Good thing I haven't used the shot in a game yet!

I like your idea about only allowing the current strength of the warp cannons to contribute to the shot. Might try that.

...I guess I should've posted all this in the Experimental Rules section, but never mind