Bombers -House Rules-

[RayB HA]

Hi Guys,

As I hate the way bombers work in BFG I've tried numerous HR's and ER's the following rules are a recent addition to this collection and have won me over somewhat.

Each surviving bomber marker in a wave makes D6 attack runs. Roll a D6 for each attack run. Roll each D6 that beat the turret value against the targets weakest armour value.

Turret Suppression: Each fighter in the wave allows you to reroll D3 attack runs to beat the turret value.

Note: Eldar Bomber rules may still reroll the number of attack runs.
Ork Fighta Bommas have D3 attack runs but no additional special rules.

Example: 1 Fighter squadron and 3 bomber squadrons attack a cruiser with 2 turrets. The Fighter gets destroyed by the turrets but still confers D3 rerolls. The Attacks runs from the bombers are rolled: 2, 3 and 5 for a total of 10. Of these 10D6 6 beat the turret value. Turret suppression is rolled for, 2 rerolls are gained 1 failed attack run
is successfull from the reroll. 7 attack runs are rolled against the cruisers weakest armour scoring 2 points of damage.

Cheers,

RayB    

[Vaaish]

Honestly, seeing that a ordnance heavy Tau fleet was the overall winner of adepticon two years running (until he met up with the unkillable hiveships) I don't feel that bombers need a boost in effectiveness as the fleets that make use of them already have ready access and are already strong contenders.

[Caine-HoA]

In my opinion bombers could need this boost as Massing Turrets is makes them worse than Surpressing Fire makes them better.

At least in several of my games (i play a lot of tau as well) my bombers did very unsatisfying jobs as soon as the enemy has 2 turrets. Big waves can easily be recuded to small ones in most situations and 50% of the few that reach the enemy die out of turret fire hitting at 4+.

So i think the rule suggested should be given a chance. I simply doubt that anyone wants to use it if its not official as with any rule...

[RayB HA]

Vaaish,

Tau are the exception (Nids not so much as Hiveships are expensive), where Explorers are exhaustively used. But you can almost safely mass turrets if your opponent goes all ordy. Also it can back fire with failed command checks or 'defensive' BM's.

Damn Hiveships and thier immunity to bombers!

Cheers,

RayB

[RayB HA]

These are comparative 'average' str6 bomber attacks:

OR (Official Rules) vs turrets: 0=21, 1=15, 2=10, 3=6, 4=3, 5=1, 6=0

HR (House Rules) vs turrets: 0=21, 1=17.5, 2=14, 3=10.5, 4=7, 5=3.5, 6=0


The HR's are more effective but also have a standard decrease rather than the OR's exponential decay.

Actually with the effectiveness of the HR bombers I think turret suppresion could be dumped all together.

Cheers,

RayB   

[Commx]

In my opinion bombers could need this boost as Massing Turrets is makes them worse than Surpressing Fire makes them better.

Caine-HoA, would you mind giving us any evidence of that statement or at least a reason for this belief? My Master Excel Sheet tells me the following about Turret Suppression and Massed Turrets, using a wave of eight Attack Craft as an example. (Less Attack Craft barely alter the ratios, merely causing lower absolute values.)

# of Turrets	Basic Case	Massed Turrets (3)	Fighter Support (Optimal)	FS & MT
1	18,75	15	18,75	16
2	11,69	9,185	12,69	11,85
3	6,5	5	8	8
4	3	2,25	6	6
5	0,935	0,68	5,51	5,51
6	0	0	6	6

The only time at which the positive impact of Fighter Support is lower than the negative one of Massed Turrets is against a vessel with a single Turret - so basic Escorts and a lot of Ork vessels. Against a vessel with two Turrets, they are approximately equal when combined - but note the advantage gained by the Fighter Support if less than the maximum amount of Massed Turrets are present as will often be the case - and against everything above that you always end up with a higher average amount of attacks.

These are comparative 'average' str6 bomber attacks:

OR (Official Rules) vs turrets: 0=21, 1=15, 2=10, 3=6, 4=3, 5=1, 6=0

HR (House Rules) vs turrets: 0=21, 1=17.5, 2=14, 3=10.5, 4=7, 5=3.5, 6=0

The HR's are more effective but also have a standard decrease rather than the OR's exponential decay.

Actually with the effectiveness of the HR bombers I think turret suppression could be dumped all together.

Cheers,

RayB

 

Hello again Ray,

Although the idea of a more even decrease appeals to me, there is still something which bothers me about your new version (well, apart from the fact that such a change would render my precious Excel-Sheet meaningless ). You are effectively adding even more rolls to what is already the most lengthy of processes in the game. Now you would have to Roll: Initial Attack Runs, Fighter Support, and Re-rolled Attack Runs; instead of only Attack Runs. I feel that this, combined with the other rolls you already have to make (Turrets, Damage, possibly Criticals), would make a single Bombing Run take up far too much time in comparison to other elements of the game.

Oh, and Nids are quite a big exception in the field of Bombers: They have none!

Cheers,
CommX

[RayB HA]

8 is a bad number to use for this as there are only 6 results of a D6 (who would have thought! ). Multiples are fine though.

As turrets attack waves rather than each maker you can't really use them to display averages effectively.

Actually I'd wager that this method is quicker than the current rules as you are rolling dice instead of performing basic arithmetic. I'm not joking, it's quicker to roll.

Cheers,

RayB  

[Commx]

8 is a bad number to use for this as there are only 6 results of a D6 (who would have thought! ). Multiples are fine though.

Why would this be an issue? As long as I do not intend to randomise between the Bombers or otherwise divide by their number - for which I see no need - the exact amount of Bombers seems highly irrelevant. I simply went with the Tau-sized wave of eight as it seemed appropriate, but if you want I could get out the numbers for a wave of six markers.

As turrets attack waves rather than each maker you can't really use them to display averages effectively.

The way I see it, each Turret - normally - inflicts 0.5 Hit, so on average every two Turrets will remove a single marker. If any Fighters are present, double their number of Turrets can thus be safely ignored in the average case - their loss will not influence the result as Turret Suppression happens anyway - and every Turret above that removes half a Bomber worth of Attack Runs. The last bit is the only thing that could be considered a bit dubious, as one does not normally have 'half-Bombers', they are either dead or alive.

Actually I'd wager that this method is quicker than the current rules as you are rolling dice instead of performing basic arithmetic. I'm not joking, it's quicker to roll.

I suppose that is going to remain a matter of preference then, as I feel that said 'basic arithmetic' passes a lot faster than waiting for two sets of dice to finish rolling, looking up what they say and comparing it to something, and then removing them again to make way for the next batch.

[RayB HA]

As the attack runs are determined by D6-turrets, multiple results from the D6 can equal 0 meaning you need the whole range of 6: 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.

So 2 turrets would be: 1=0, 2=0, 3=1, 4=2, 5=3, 6=4, T=10 rather than (3.5x6)-(2x6)=9.

As turrets have different percential effects on different size waves including turret kills in an example can only show the average for that specific sized wave.

Basic arithmetic aside it also depends on how quickly you can roll dice. 

Cheers,

RayB HA 

   

[Caine-HoA]

I dont think your numbers represent the game practice.

How often does a wave of 8 AC reach its targer unhindered? Furthermore how often do you manage to get exacty the perfect amount of fighters to your enemy.

Far more often is the case that small waves of AC reach a target, thinned out by opponents fighters. So if for example a wave of 3 bombers reaches a target that has normally 2 turrets (eg an escort) but is supportet by two others, double the bombers are destroyed. Its relativly easy to assure that your escorts stand in base contact and profit from massing turrets. On the others side like described above its relatily hard to get the perfect amount of fighters on every AC wave in the moment you attack to profit from surpressing fire.

And sry but i dont understand that the size of the AC wave doesnt have an effect. Like said above, most of the time rather small waves reach a target (i can give causes to that if you want an explanation). with small waves a higher percentage of the wave is destroyed from turrets (as most ships in bfg have about 2 turrets). So if a wave of 2 bombers attack a target with 2 turrets its likely that half of the bombers are destroyed. If you have more bombers in a wave a lower percentage will be destroyed. If you have more turrets, and via massing turrets that is possible. a even higher percentage of waves is destroyed.
So if you take a wave of 8 AC as example and i take 8 AC as well but splitted up as 4x2 AC far more of them are destroyed when attacking the same target. And even more the higher the turret value of the defender.

Thats what i meant with "In my opinion bombers could need this boost as Massing Turrets is makes them worse than Surpressing Fire makes them better."

Massing turrets was meant as an reaction to the rule of surpressing fire.

[RayB HA]

My examples are only trying to show the differences between the OR's and my HR's.

When showing average surviving waves I would say that there are so many variations that you can't factor it all in. After all you've got vary turrets, varying massed turrets, enemy fighters, different carrier strengths, blast markers, varying turret suppresion and even direct fire weapons.

All you can do is say on average what 1 bomber marker will do if it survives. Or in my case what 6 bombers will do.

These are comparative 'average' for 1 bomber's attacks:

OR (Official Rules) vs turrets: 0=3.5, 1=2.5, 2=1.6.., 3=1, 4=0.5, 5=0.16.., 6=0

HR (House Rules) vs turrets: 0=3.5, 1=2.916.., 2=2.3.., 3=1.75, 4=1.16.., 5=0.583.., 6=0

Cheers,

RayB HA

[Caine-HoA]

Sry if there was a misunderstanding my post was adressed to Commx.

@RayB
I understand, that only such an example brings the true numbers and in that way are comparable. Nevertheless what i explained in my former post is an additional problem with bombers when using massing turrets and surpressing fire.
Neither your nor Commx numbers take this problem in account. I know its hard and would be too much work to do stochastics with so many factors nevertheless they are a factor for the effectivness of bombers in the game.

I just wanted to make clear that tehre are more factors and what i meant with having both rules is worse for bombers than having none of them. Strangely when itroducing surpressing fire i guess the aim was to make them better vs high turret value targets. What came out of it is that there are more mid range turret values in the game at least for destroying bombers before they attack. And as mid sized attacks of AC are happening far more often in the game than attacking battleships with it efeectivly bombers were weakened.

[Commx]

As the attack runs are determined by D6-turrets, multiple results from the D6 can equal 0 meaning you need the whole range of 6: 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.

So 2 turrets would be: 1=0, 2=0, 3=1, 4=2, 5=3, 6=4, T=10 rather than (3.5x6)-(2x6)=9.

As turrets have different percentile effects on different size waves including turret kills in an example can only show the average for that specific sized wave.

Hence me specifically declaring it was an example using eight Attack Craft in the most optimal combination for each situation (or just eight Bombers for the 'Basic Case'). The Attack Run reduction for Turrets is most certainly taken into account in my maths, by applying yet another average - in this by taking the average of all six possible rolls. A single Bomber attacking a vessel with two Turrets will therefore cause an average of 1,67 Attack Runs ([0+0+1+2+3+4]/6), whereas two will cause double this number and so on. Massed Turrets are taken into account with the aforementioned reduction of Fighters/Bombers that remain and finally Turret Suppression is taken into account according to the normal rules.

[RayB HA]

Caine-HoA,

Ah, that makes more sense to me now  

As I've said before I'm not trying to find the average bomber attacks just displaying the differences between OR's and HR's.

However, if you did want to do this I'd say use the most common strengths of bomber waves. In my experience that's 4 (straight from a carrier), 3 and 1 fighter (straight from a carrier), 3 bombers, 2 Bombers. 1 Bomber never comes up we usually use them to clear CAP or attack Eldar. Waves of more than 4 are rare as they can get shot down, actually I ONLY ever see them from Explorers or from carrier squadrons within launch range, in which case it'll be a straight 8 AC.


Commx,

Your are an Excel expert. However 8 Bombers is a pretty strange standard (as apposed to Str6). 


Cheers,

RayB

[Commx]

RayB,

That's too much honour really, more a case of 'idle hands are the devil's workshop' and infernal persistence. The reason I went for 8 the first time was that someone mentioned Tau, so I went with the massive Explorer wave you just mentioned. As I said, it doesn't matter that much anyway.

The only really useful thing I did learn from this exercise is that you might as well prohibit Fighta-Bommerz from acting as a Fighter to use 'regular' Turret Suppression. Out of the 28 possible cases (0-6 Turrets on the target and 0-3 vessels assisting it) there are exactly zero where using a Fighta-Bommer that way would be desirale.


Caine-HoA,

First of all, my apologies if I seemed rude earlier on. I don't know why, but your initial post somehow struck a bit of a wrong chord with me...

Secondly, what I said in my last comment is not completely accurate. What I should have been saying is that whilst the Massed Turrets take away a larger portion of the Wave when it is smaller, the Turret Suppression itself will also play a larger role. For example, in the case of a target with two Turrets and zero or three assisting vessels, the Massed Turrets will reduce the final amount of Attack Runs by only 21% against a wave of eight Attack Craft, and by 50% against a wave of four Attack Craft. However, Turret Suppression gives only a 22% bonus with eight Attack Craft, and an impressive 80% with only four of them. The latter may seem counter-intuitive, but all I can say about it is that I fully agree with that.

Although these ratios are not completely equivalent, they mean that there is no change in my eventual conclusion: Turret Suppression is more 'powerful' with four or more Turrets on the target, Massed Turrets are more 'powerful' with one and slightly so with two, and the situation with three Turrets can go either way.