BFG FAQ 2010 General Rules Questions

[Koshi]

Yes think of Hood, Queen Mary or other examples. In my thougths status quo is fine.

[Leer]

pg 21 FAQ2010

"Chaos fleet requirements: As Battleships, Grand Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers all have their own requirements you may use the same cruisers for these requirements. For example, a Chaos fleet can have afleet comprised only of two Cruisers, one Heavy Cruiser (requires 2 Cruisers), one Grand Cruiser (requires three Cruisers or Heavy Cruisers) and a Battleship (requires three Cruisers or HeavyCruisers)."

It's official rules, or fanmade?

May be if some cruisers support GC or BS they cant support any other ships?

And this fleet will be look like that:
Heavy Cruiser (requires 2 Cruisers)
2 Cruisers

Battleship (requires three Cruisers or HeavyCruisers)
One HC here need two more 2 Cruisers

total:
BH
HCru
4 Cru

Or may be:
BH
GCru
HCru
2 Cru

What's correct?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Clearly the second option, as is stated in your quote. What I don't understand is that imperials can take a bc or gc for 2 cruisers but not both... Seems contradictory. They can take 2 cruisers one bc or gc and a bb tho.

[Leer]

Clearly the second option, as is stated in your quote. What I don't understand is that imperials can take a bc or gc for 2 cruisers but not both... Seems contradictory. They can take 2 cruisers one bc or gc and a bb tho.

it's not imperial... it's about chaos vessels (=

but ok - analogy is clear

thanks

[AndrewChristlieb]

I'm sorry what I ment is that chaos can take 2 cruisers 1 hc 1 gc and 1 bb.

Imperial cannot tho their rules state one bc OR gc not both for two cruisers.

[horizon]

It is official made, eg by the High Admirality, BFG rule committee.

[Mallich]

I've got quite a few questions here. My excuse is the blatantly untrue "I'm not being ignorant, I'm just trying to, uh, clarify the rules!"
I checked through the last 20 pages of this thread to see if they've been asked before, and the first 25 pages of this thread was before the updated version of the FAQ anyway.

If a ship has an odd number of hits, how many hits need to be inflicted to cripple it - half rounded up, or half rounded down? It's probably been answered before, but I can't find it in the FAQ. I would normally say that it doesn't matter much since the player could simply look to see whether we round up or down for escort squadrons with an odd number of hits, but...

It counts as 25% destroyed if the squadron was crippled before disengaging, as in if at least half the escorts in the squadron were destroyed (rounding down) before the squadron disengaged. For example, if a squadron of five escorts disengages after two were destroyed, the enemy only gains 10% of its starting value, but will earn 25% of its starting value of three were destroyed before it disengaged. See the following page for more on disengaging escort squadrons.

... The example completely contradicts the sentence it is supposed to be clarifying.

Base size (page 12) and planetary defences (page 15): These sections don't mention what base size is used for ground-based defences. Would I be right in guessing that they would use the normal escort/cruiser base?

Ships in low orbit do not have to move and capital ships do not have to move a minimum distance before they can turn. To represent interference from the planet's gravity well and the outermost edges of its atmosphere, all firepower shooting in low orbit suffers one column shift to the right, lances and nova cannons require a 4+ roll to fire and torpedoes many not be fired by ships at all.

Does the "reduces effectiveness of lances" rule also apply to ground units, or only to ships?

Page 4 of the FAQ, blast markers and damage:
One paragraph starts with "When shooting at ships, the first blast marker is placed directly in the line of fire from the shooting vessel, with subsequent blast markers fanning out around it..."
The second paragraph (which starts with "When a ship has multiple bases in contact when taking fire") talks about what happens instead if there are multiple (i.e. more than 1) bases in contact. It doesn't mention what would happen if there is exactly 1 base in contact with the target ship - the paragraph could do with rewording. Maybe replace "multiple" with "one or more"?

Campaigns/scenerios: The FAQ doesn't mention very much about either of them.
     Scenario: Exterminatus: Andy Chambers said that the Exterminator isn't free (over here), but there's no ruling one way or the other in the 2010 FAQ. (EDIT: 27/04/13: That website seems to be dead. You can use this one and click "Miscellaneous" on the left to find it.)
     Campaign:
          Fleet selection: How does fleet selection rules work? Players construct a single large fleet which must obey the normal fleet selection rules (e.g. up to 1 battleship for every 3 cruisers for an imperial gothic sector list). When a part of this fleet is selected to play in a scenario, are those fleet selection rules ignored entirely, or only ignored when necessary? Playing Cruiser Clash with Dark Eldar would be impossible without some modifications since each of their cruisers must have at least 3 escorts.
          Refits:
               Each refit increases the cost of the ship by 10%, but 10% of what? The base cost of the ship, which includes the cost of any special refits (like the lunar class replacing torpedoes with the nova cannon) that were selected when the ship was first purchased? Or do we also include the cost of everything inside the ship (Chaos marine crew, the 10% increase from a previous refit, any warlord embarked, honour guards/terminators, gubbins taken by an ork warlord, etc) in the same way that we do with victory points. If so, would any subsequent increase in the cost of the ship increase the price of refit? For example, if a ship/crews/etc costs 200 points its refit costs 20 points, but would later increasing the cost of the ship (by transferring a warlord and his retinue/gubbins across from a destroyed flagship) increase the price of the refit? I'm guessing that the answer is yes.

[Vaaish]

If a ship has an odd number of hits, how many hits need to be inflicted to cripple it - half rounded up, or half rounded down? It's probably been answered before, but I can't find it in the FAQ. I would normally say that it doesn't matter much since the player could simply look to see whether we round up or down for escort squadrons with an odd number of hits, but...

I'm unsure of the question here. Are you talking about capital ships or escort squadrons? With escort squadrons you have to kill 50% of the escorts before it counts as being crippled. What your quote is explaining isn't how much of the squadron needs to be killed, but how many VP are given if it is crippled. The example given does have a typo though, it should read "but will earn 25% IF its starting value of three..." The "of" currently there is incorrect.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Half rounded UP a 9 hit cruiser needs to take 5 hits to be crippled a 5 hit escort squad needs to take 3 hits to be crippled.

We used old epic bases for ground defenses.

Planetary defenses are not subject to low orbit dickerings, lances fire at full effect and torpedoes (missile silos) fire as normal.

We play 10% of base cost on refits, all should be redone with set costs as the tyranid lists are tho.

[Mallich]

I'm unsure of the question here. Are you talking about capital ships or escort squadrons? With escort squadrons you have to kill 50% of the escorts before it counts as being crippled. What your quote is explaining isn't how much of the squadron needs to be killed, but how many VP are given if it is crippled. The example given does have a typo though, it should read "but will earn 25% IF its starting value of three..." The "of" currently there is incorrect.

Opps, I didn't notice that typo. Good catch.
I'm talking about both capital ships and escort squadrons.
Some capital ships have an odd number of hits, and I was wondering how many hits are required to cripple them (e.g. if a ship had 5 hits, would a player have to inflict 2 or 3 hits to cripple them?). Since I assumed that the decision to round up or down for capital ships with an odd number of hits would be the same as for escort squadrons with an odd number of ships (e.g. would a squadron of 5 escorts require 2 or 3 losses to be crippled?) I looked to see if we round up or down for said escort squadrons.
The section on victory points is, as far as I know, the only section there which actually explains whether we round up or down for escort squadrons.
Escort squadrons that disengage without being crippled count as 10% destroyed. Escort squadrons that disengage after being crippled count as 25% destroyed. The FAQ then explains how many hits/losses an escort squadron must take in order to be crippled.
I'll quote the text below.

It counts as 25% destroyed if the squadron was crippled before disengaging, as in if at least half the escorts in the squadron were destroyed (rounding down) before the squadron disengaged. For example, if a squadron of five escorts disengages after two were destroyed, the enemy only gains 10% of its starting value, but will earn 25% of its starting value of three were destroyed before it disengaged."

It counts as 25% destroyed if the squadron was crippled before disengaging, as in if at least half the escorts in the squadron were destroyed (rounding down) before the squadron disengaged.

So, this says that a squadron is crippled if "at least half the escorts in the squadron were destroyed (rounding down)". If we had 5 ships, then, at least half (2.5, rounded down to 2) must be destroyed in order for the squadron to count as crippled.

For example, if a squadron of five escorts disengages after two were destroyed, the enemy only gains 10% of its starting value (as the squadron wasn't crippled), but will earn 25% of its starting value of three were destroyed before it disengaged (as the squadron was crippled)."

Text in italics was added by me. The example given only counts the squadron as crippled if it had suffered 50% losses, rounding up (5/2 = 2.5, rounded up to 3).
First sentence: An escort squadron is crippled if it suffers 50% losses, rounding down.
Second sentence: For example, an escort squadron that suffers 50% losses, rounding down, isn't crippled.

Added after Andrew's post:

Half rounded UP a 9 hit cruiser needs to take 5 hits to be crippled a 5 hit escort squad needs to take 3 hits to be crippled.

So, the example it gives for escort squadrons is the line that's correct, and capital ships follow the same rules as them. Thanks.

Planetary defenses are not subject to low orbit dickerings, lances fire at full effect and torpedoes (missile silos) fire as normal.

The rules on low orbit says that only ships can't fire torpedoes (suggesting that planetary defences can fire them fine), but neither the rulebook nor the FAQ confirmed anything one way or the other with regards to ground-based lances so it's good to get a confirmation, thanks.
Thanks for the other answers, too.

[horizon]

Yep,
Andrew described it straightforward and corractly regarding victory points-crippled etc regarding escort squadrons.

[Mallich]

Is a torpedo launcher an "Armament" (for the purpose of "Prow Armament Damaged" critical hits, etc)?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Yes, prow armament damaged will disable your prow torpedo launchers if equiped.

[Mallich]

Thanks.

Yes, prow armament damaged will disable your prow torpedo launchers if equiped.

So if you roll a "prow armament damaged" on an imperial cruiser - whose only prow equipment is the torpedo tubes - the critical damage will be a "prow armament damaged" instead of moving up to "Engine Room Damaged"... right?

Do critical hits knock out launch bays and/or tau gravitic hooks as well?

[horizon]

Yes, to the prow question.

And yes, launch bays are affected as well.
Grav Hooks as well, but this doesn't have any in-game effect (eg the ships towed in won't dissapear if the ship with grav hooks is gone).