BFG FAQ 2010 General Rules Questions

[Sigoroth]

Came up from our SM post:

How to count turrets if the previous round of boarding combat was drawn?

1) Do you take turns in taking them into account depending who's turn it is?
2) Do you just ignore it since the ships are clamped together?

I personally think that 2 variant should be fairer.

Yes, scenario 2. Neither ship is the defender now, it's a continuing combat.

BM in contact - as per FAQ atm a blastmerker counts as being all around. If 2 ships are boarding each other and thuss are in base contact, do they count as both being in touch with bm or not - clarification is needed.

Of course not. Consider an unbroken line of 20 BBs all in base contact. Put a BM in contact with one end. So do you imagine that this one BM covers such a large area? Nonsense. Blast markers only count as being in contact with the ship(s) that they're physically in contact with. These ships then count as being in contact all-around as far as incoming/outgoing fire/ordnance is concerned.

[Mazila]

"Target behind intervening Blast markers – shift one column right"

If you allow attacker to place MB any way they like the aboverule will loose its affect. You guys need to seek balance between this and things like mass turret and boarding if you are suggesting a change. The ruling that most ppl use "bm in contact counts as all around for all purposes" is actually an easiest solution. And it prevents all exploits with placing Bm's. Also, it deffinately effecta attacking ordnance.

[horizon]

Hi Mazilla,
per current FAQ/rulebook the Blastmarker counts as all around thus when shooting at a vessel with a blastmarker it will always cause a shift even with a marker on the left and I shoot on the right.

I hate that.

I advocate change to original v1.0 rules:

Blastmarker is placed in line of shot. Thus if I shoot at port it is placed at portside.

This means that if I shoot at the starboard side there will be no intervening blastmarker.
Thus no column shift.

This makes for much better tactical choices & play.

[Mazila]

Hi Horizon,

This needs some very good wording because i WILL put 2 blast markers even in 1 ark in such way that i will be able to shoot in the same ark and dont get an interveing BM. This was the reason why they treated bm as all around. Also, how does your rules effect ordnance?

I think generalising is more important than trying to make minor fixes.

[Sigoroth]

"Target behind intervening Blast markers – shift one column right"

If you allow attacker to place MB any way they like the aboverule will loose its affect. You guys need to seek balance between this and things like mass turret and boarding if you are suggesting a change. The ruling that most ppl use "bm in contact counts as all around for all purposes" is actually an easiest solution. And it prevents all exploits with placing Bm's. Also, it deffinately effecta attacking ordnance.

OK, let me try to clarify some things for you. The original rule was intervening blast markerss shift gunnery to the right. Intervening. So, if you draw a line from the stem of the firing ship to the stem of the target ship and that line passes through a blast marker then you get a right column shift on the gunnery table. This is how it was originally. This rule was fine and perfect.

Now, as a fix to ordnance and as a general conceptual "buff", massed turret fire was introduced (ships in base contact share a turret each). This rule was fine, but the ruling powers at the time decreed that it had to be self-balancing and their solution was to allow blast markers from incoming fire to be moved off-true so as to touch other ships in base contact, thereby dropping the shields of multiple ships. Again fine.

However, this then lead to a slightly beardy situation whereby munchkins could actually use the rule to place blast markers out of the line of fire of subsequent ships. This meant that those ships would not be adversely effected by the blast marker like they would be if the massed turret rule and subsequent shield sharing rule didn't exist.

This situation lead to a MASSIVE over-reaction of the HA such that they decided to count a blast marker that is touching a ship as touching that ship in all directions. This meant that if you ended your movement touching a blast marker to the rear of your ship your port, starboard and prow weapon battery fire all suffered a right-column shift. It also meant that if a ship that you're shooting at had a blast marker in contact at all your fire would also get a right column shift, even if your line of fire did not directly pass through a blast marker.

Now, of course, this was a tremendously stupid decision that did more to nerf weapon batteries and remove tactics from the game than any other rule change in the game. There were three other possible solutions that the HA could have taken. They could have removed the shield sharing rule, allowing people to freely mass turrets. They could have allowed the firing player to place extra blast markers touching the ships that are massing turrets (representing their shields going down) but where all blast markers are placed on a direct stem-to-stem line. Or they could have just let the situation slide and said "hey, if you don't like them being so beardy don't bunch your ships up". Any of these three solutions would have been vastly preferable.

So, that is the why of it. That is why the blast marker counts as being in contact all-around as far as shooting is concerned. Now, as for what ships count as having a blast marker touching them, this is really simple. If you have a blast marker in contact, you count as having a blast marker in contact. If you don't, you don't. Being in base contact with a ship that has a blast marker in contact means nothing. If it did count then you could have a line of 20 large-base ships in contact with each other and put 1 blast marker in contact with a ship on an end. This one blast marker would then cover an area of 565cm² plus the original cardboard marker. Does this sound right to you?

[horizon]

Hi,
like Sig says...

Hi Horizon,

This needs some very good wording because i WILL put 2 blast markers even in 1 ark in such way that i will be able to shoot in the same ark and dont get an interveing BM. This was the reason why they treated bm as all around. Also, how does your rules effect ordnance?

I think generalising is more important than trying to make minor fixes.

If there is no intervening blastmarker there is no intervening blastmarker (line of fire).

I am against the rule of the attacker placing the BM so it drops the shield of a vessel in base-to-base contact. BM is placed in line of fire.

Ordnance: if bomber has enough speed to fly around BM then no test is needed.

[Mazila]

They could have removed the shield sharing rule, allowing people to freely mass turrets. (makes Mas turrets too good without a drawback)

They could have allowed the firing player to place extra blast markers touching the ships that are massing turrets (representing their shields going down) but where all blast markers are placed on a direct stem-to-stem line. (you will have 3 blast  markers all around 3 ships which starts to look like ur example)

Or they could have just let the situation slide and said "hey, if you don't like them being so beardy don't bunch your ships up". (yeah they could just not allow mass turret at all)

What they did is actually chose the simplest solution that affects many gaming areas systematically. Apparently they forgot to clarify it entirely for every situation (where to apply it, or where to take into account the physical touching of the BM)

Simpler gameplay = faster gameplay = less possible arguments = more fun = easy to  understand ,apply and use. I really hope HA just keeps the old BM thing (as per armada)

[horizon]

Hi,
what is simpler & faster then the old v1.0 rules? Nothing.
It is also more fun as it gives more tactical options.

[Mazila]

Because it has a room for an exploit like Sig mentioned:

However, this then lead to a slightly beardy situation whereby munchkins could actually use the rule to place blast markers out of the line of fire of subsequent ships

[horizon]

Wrong. Per original rules the attacker cannot place the BM like he wants too.

[Mazila]

Yes he can, BM has a shape, i can put it vertical or horisontal - i can put 1 directly on the line of fire but i can put the 2 one to the left or to the right of it and this is how it was cheated before

[Sigoroth]

They could have removed the shield sharing rule, allowing people to freely mass turrets. (makes Mas turrets too good without a drawback)

They could have allowed the firing player to place extra blast markers touching the ships that are massing turrets (representing their shields going down) but where all blast markers are placed on a direct stem-to-stem line. (you will have 3 blast  markers all around 3 ships which starts to look like ur example)

Or they could have just let the situation slide and said "hey, if you don't like them being so beardy don't bunch your ships up". (yeah they could just not allow mass turret at all)

What they did is actually chose the simplest solution that affects many gaming areas systematically. Apparently they forgot to clarify it entirely for every situation.

Simpler gameplay = faster gameplay = less possible arguments = more fun = easy to  understand ,apply and use. I really hope HA just keeps the old BM thing (as per armada)

You're kidding right? So, because those little girls were afraid that someone might be able to take advantage of a situation that their opponent can control they decided to nerf weapon batteries AND tactics into the ground? Every damn bloke and his dog seems to think that ordnance is too damn powerful as it stands, and god knows that escorts are a joke, so who cares if there was no downside to massed turrets? Removes complaints about AC and makes escorts useful. Problem sorted. Or, you could just suck it up and take the extra hits like a man. Hell, you put the damn ships in contact, if your opponent wants to be beardy and maximise his potential due to your decision then so damn what. Or you could even just give the massed turret rules the boot. In no way shape or form should they have fucked with how the game played because of their weak bladders over a tiny bit of munchkinism.

Oh, and it is far far FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR simpler to have the actual marker represent the actual marker, ffs! None of this "oh, a blast marker effects the area of the marker except when it touches a ships base then it effects that ships base too but doesn't effect ships that touch the ships base as well" fuckin bullshit!

And I can guarantee you dollars to dogs nuts that this rule change and all its knock-on effects have created more useless complexity and arguments than the old rule ever did, even with people being beardy about it.

[Sigoroth]

Yes he can, BM has a shape, i can put it vertical or horisontal - i can put 1 directly on the line of fire but i can put the 2 one to the left or to the right of it and this is how it was cheated before

No no and no. The exploit came from the shield sharing rules associated with the massed turret rules. This change to the original rules allowed people to manipulate where they put the BM. This was in fact the downside to massing turrets in the first place and was deliberate! It's just the HA didn't like the fact that people were using it more to clear the way for subsequent fire than as a useful aid to dropping adjacent shields. It was a bit beardy but it wasn't imbalanced. Hell, dropping shields on another cruiser usually meant nothing anyway, since you'd not likely have any excess hits with which to spill over onto that ship anyway. The problem was that this sort of manipulation didn't make sense.

However, as Horizon says, the 1.0 BM rules were manipulation free. You placed the BM in base contact with the target ship only, on a direct line from the firing ship, and subsequent BMs were placed fanned out around the first. No abuse possible.

[Sigoroth]

You know what, I've had another idea that could work. The first BM has to be placed as per original rules, subsequent BMs can be moved to bring down shields of ships in base contact. Bingo bango bongo and Bob's your aunty. Means escorts could freely mass turrets with each other, but otherwise it's still dangerous. Allow a-boats to keep their rofl-stomp rules against escorts; massed turrets should be all the defence they need. Also gives a reason to take large squad sizes. Sorted.

[horizon]

Naah, just scratch that idea posted in reply 373.

I have no issue with massing turrets without a downfall. Being so close can be a downfall in itself already.