BFG FAQ 2010 General Rules Questions

[horizon]

Yeah, that is how we always played it. I am getting confused of all this re-wording and discussion.

[russ_c]

Russ: would this make the intent more clear; "...A ship which uses this special order may not use special orders at all in its next turn and the ship's Firepower, ordnance, and armament strength is halved for the owning player's next shooting phase..."?

Yes.  This works to satisfy my wording concern.

You may Brace For Impact whenever your ship may take damage. Brace for Impact lasts until the end phase following your next shooting phase. E.g. If you braced during your ordnance phase or during the enemy's turn you will be braced until the end of your next turn. If you braced in your movement phase you would be braced until the end your turn.

This is very close to the proposal that Vaaish and I are arriving at.  The only difference I can discern in the two different wordings is that Vaaish's statement has the effect of denying you SO your following turn even if you brace during your movement and gives you the added benefits during the opponents turn.  They both deny the player a single shooting phase at full power, which is getting closer to resolving the original issue.

The main problem with your version Ray is that you can BFI during your move to trade half weapons for a save moving through ordnance, BUT when it comes time for the enemies turn you no longer have BFI and could be forced to take it AGAIN, which would then deny you a second turn of shooting at half, which it's very similar to the initial problem.  The only difference is you have a tactical choice to go back into BFI duirng the enemy phase or not.  Either way you're put into a potential defensive cycle once you've taken BFI.

Vaaish proposal leaves you with BFI during the enemy phase so you're not stuck making the choice again, then you can come out of the defensive cycle in your next shooting phase to have a fighting chance.  The balance point is that although you come back with full power you can not SO.  The only problem with this mechanic is it still hurts ships dependent on Reload Ordnance.

Russ

[russ_c]

Yeah, that is how we always played it. I am getting confused of all this re-wording and discussion.

Hmm, me to.  Ray are saying this is how you want it to be or how the rule should already be played based on the current wording?

Russ

[Don]

Oh come on.. why so serious?
It is an attemt to make rules look smart or something?
We don't have much of an options here.
brace during movement phase - ends in the and of ship's current turn.
brace any other time - ends in the end of ship's next turn.

you BFI during your ordnance phase and then have been attacked in your next movement or ordnance phases? Well, lucky you - free BFI.

that's all folks

[RayB HA]

Currently as per the wording in the rulebook if you BFI in your movement phase you'll be braced for 2 of your shooting phases (which is really harsh).

The change is just for this circumstance, meaning you are only BFI'd for one of your shooting phases(unless you brace again).

Cheers,

RayB

[Vaaish]

Yeah, that is how we always played it. I am getting confused of all this re-wording and discussion.

Can I third that?

I think all of us are trying to adjust BFI so it only affects one shooting phase at half strength weapons. If that is the case, I put forward my adjusted version of the current rule. I think it accomplishes what we are discussing with minimal change and clarifies the intent we all seem to be dancing around.

[russ_c]

Oh come on.. why so serious?
It is an attemt to make rules look smart or something?

It's about writing a rule that is clear in it's language so it doesn't require an FAQ sentence or paragraph!  Good rules writing is tough since you have to drill down into intent and vocabulary sometimes to arrive at something that reads the way the designer intended, without a shadow of a doubt.

I don't think anyone is being too serious, where just enjoying a good mind-storming session! Maybe I'm coming across to serious?

[Don]

My personal opinion - the simpliest way to tell something is usualy the best.
In given conditions of limited variants it's seems to me that the simplest way to clarify when the BFI ends, is to tell when its ends depending on when it have been issued.
especially since we have only two  different conditions: ship's movement phase and anything else.

[Don Gusto]

Imho the real disadvantage of using BFI is that you miss your next chance for going on special orders. When a ship goes on BFI it is taking its next special order in advance.
With the propesed change using BFI in the own movement phase is less restricting than at other times.
What bothers me more though is when you get to the point where BFI is removed there's always two types of BFI orders. Those that are removed and those that last longer. And you can't tell which by looking at the situation, you just have to know (keep track) when they were issued.

I can't think of an elegant way to solve this but would like to propose this:

- All BFI orders are removed between the owning players shooting and ordnance phase.
- Ships on any special orders cannot BFI in the movement phase.

This would also prevent a ship from bracing while ramming which always felt odd to me.

[horizon]

...or the Nightshade-Hemlock suicide Lock On tactic (Volandum tm).

[trynerror]

Bracing when ramming is vital for Orks (especially for Brutes). They have a big red button für the boss to go faster, all the other Gitz can do what ever is needed to brace. Without BFI when ramming I can skip my hit-them-through-the-asteriod-field-ramming surprises   

[RayB HA]

Don,

The slight rules change I've suggested means BFI is always lost in your end phase unless it was declared in that ordnance phase. That's easy to keep track of, isn't it? (after all if you did BFI in the Ordy phase, you'd have to have a pretty poor memory to forget! Actually, you might brace against ships exploding in your own shooting phase, but that's the only other exception)

Cheers,

RayB

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Currently as per the wording in the rulebook if you BFI in your movement phase you'll be braced for 2 of your shooting phases (which is really harsh).

The change is just for this circumstance, meaning you are only BFI'd for one of your shooting phases(unless you brace again).

Cheers,

RayB

Harsh it may be but that's the trade-off for getting better survivability.

I don't get the problem at the moment especially with all the post on suggestions.

1. Current BFI rule is you can use it in any instance which you can take damage. Ordnance phase and opponent's phase defines this well already. Even if an opponent parked his ordnance in front of your ship in your movement phase, this is covered by the any instance you can take damage clause.
2. When you BFI you will be on BFI until the ship's next turn. It's very much clear.

The BFI rules are simple. The rules are not broken. The rules are fair.

So why propose any changes? Harsh is not a good enough reason. To avoid the situation where an opponent parked his ordnance in front of your ship so that you can't avoid it? Well, kudos to the player who did that because he used a good tactic. I would not deny him that. If I saw ordnance that close, then I would park my fighters on the ship's base that will plow through them in my movement to avoid BFI-ing. So again, I ask: why the need to change?

[Mazila]

As i see it - the main problem is that with current wording it is ALWAYS better to put ordnance in fron of enemy instead of point-blank shots since you are disabling the ship for 2 turns. And doing this is very easy with any fleet.

[russ_c]

I don't get the problem at the moment especially with all the post on suggestions...So why propose any changes? Harsh is not a good enough reason. To avoid the situation where an opponent parked his ordnance in front of your ship so that you can't avoid it? Well, kudos to the player who did that because he used a good tactic. I would not deny him that. If I saw ordnance that close, then I would park my fighters on the ship's base that will plow through them in my movement to avoid BFI-ing. So again, I ask: why the need to change?

I agree that the rules are currently clear, but "harsh", if deemed unbalanced, is absolutely a good reason to change a rule.  Clearly a number of people feel the rule is unbalanced when taking BFI during the movement phase since you suffer two turns of half weapon strength....and clearly this doesn't bother you!

Russ