BFG FAQ 2010 Ordnance Questions

[Sigoroth]

I also like that rule much better than what is currently in the FAQ2010.
It will however make large waves a lot more effective against high-turret targets and turn Eldar bombing runs into a real hammer.

The primary gain is against low turret targets really; a wave of 8 AC could do 16.25 attacks against a 2 turret target, whereas 8 bombers now would do 13.33 attacks. Against 3 turret targets it goes from 8 to 11.58 attacks. Against 4 turret targets the number of attacks goes from 6.56 (2 waves of 1b/3f) to 7.53 attacks. Against 5 turret targets the number of attacks drops from 5.5 attacks to 4.25 attacks. Of course, things really change against high turret targets when we're talking about a squadron of carrier BBs. A couple of Explorers could put out 26.3 attacks against an Emperor, compared to just 12.9 that we'd see from such a squadron under current rules.

On the other hand I've never been a fan of the whole turret suppression idea.
I've always wondered why turrets are calculated twice against bombers whereas they only roll to hit against torpedoes. My best explanation is that in the original design it was just d6 per surviving bomber and since this was found to be overpowered the reduction was added.
I would have simply reduced the number of attacks from each surviving bomber to a fixed number: e.g. Each surviving bomber attacks with 2 dice against the targets lowest armor value. Much simpler.

That's not such a terrible idea. Then fighter-bomber rules could be simplified to just each surviving fighter-bomber makes 1 attack against the target's lowest armour. Of course, it would mean that no one would bother shooting at torps when they've the choice, since each successful hit against a bomber would negate twice the attacks as a hit against a torpedo would, potentially at weaker armour.

[horizon]

I really dislike all the ordnance loving.

The game is already dictated too much by ordnance.

Blech on you all.


Sig, you really defend the high ends it gives, the fact ordnance becomes stronger, makes Chaos, Tau and Nids better. Something they don't need.

I say FAQ2010 where only surviving fighters add an additional attack up to number of bombers in wave capped at number of turrets.

I say again, and I am daft why no one responded to the issues I brough forward, the idea by Sigoroth makes ordnance to strong.

[Vaaish]

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I really think the entire concept of turret suppression is rather silly in this game. Why the turrets are "confused" and can't figure out what are bombers and what are fighters allowing more runs makes no sense to me. All it does is provide a means of making ordnance useful against high turret targets which I don't think is necessary. There should be a reason some ships just aren't efficient to attack with AC and I think high turrets does this. Currently turret suppression just makes an excuse for silly ordnance waves like one bomber + six fighters and provides a reason for fighters to do something more than just take out torpedoes.

I'd be preferable to the entire rule going away or making fighters more useful against bomber waves rather than 1:1... I'll explain more later.

[horizon]

Yes, one should go back to the original rules to see how fighters developed.

Originally they did:
a) remove bomber marker on a 1:1 basis
b) remove fighters on a 1:1 basis
c) remove torpedoes on a 1:wave basis

Now, where and why is supression added? Well, to justify mixed fighter and bomber waves. In the original rules mixing waves had zero effect on all and anything in the game.

So, that is it.

Do fighters need to improve beyond what they do? Is that needed?

On a historical basis (refering to Vaaish here) WWI/WWII the fighter-bomber ratio was 1:1. When we apply the sci-fi approach from Wing Commander, Star Wars, Space: Above and Beyond fighters would be a lot stronger.

Perhaps all fighters are resilient then? (with something new for Eldar/THawk/Manta).

Or fighters roll D3 versus a wave they encounter and that is the number of removed markers. Where resilient makes it D3-1.
Just mind melting here.

[fracas]

Why should turrets decrease the effectiveness of a bomber run at all?

If turrets can suppress bombers why shouldn't fighters suppress turrets?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Ever see those WW2 clips with bombing runs where the pilots were getting shot at? Harrowing isn't it? Or heard about those stories from the pilots of how scary it was flying through flak while the bombers were making their attack runs?

Fighters can suppress turrets. It's just a matter of finding the right balance so ordnance would not become overpowered.

[RCgothic]

Allow massed turrets to contribute to bombing attack run modifiers.

Eg, Lunar with 2 swords in contact has turret strength 2+1+1, shoots 4 times vs incoming ordnance, and then bombers roll D6-4. This can then be counter balanced with fighter turret suppression.

The balance goes back in favour of the gunline and we're left with two simple, intuitive rules: massing turrets simply adds one to the turret strength, and eliminates "wtf, why are fighters doing more damage than the bombers?" moments.

[fracas]

turrets already had a chance to shoot down bombers. why does it has a second chance with bombers but not any other?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Shooting down is different from distracting bombers during their runs? Sudden flak in the right place can cause bombers to miss. Games-wise, it's more a balance thing unless one revises the bomber rules to a hard, low number.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

This maybe a bit complicated and I don't know how well it will translate to BFG's KISS principle but I'll just throw out this idea for fighters suppressing turrets.

What if each fighter accompanying bombers roll D6 against turrets. On a 4+ a fighter can suppress 1 turret. Then bombers can do the normal (D6-remaining no. of unsuppressed turrets). Will definitely make waves more powerful though.

So sequence would be:

1. AC wave hits base.
2. Turrets shoot at bombers.
3. Fighters shoot at turrets. Suppresses on 4+.
4. Remaining bombers roll for # of attacks.

That's assuming following the current bomber rules.

If we give each bomber marker a fixed number of attack (say 2) or a small variable like D3, then we can go:

1. AC wave hits base.
2. Fighters shoot at turrets. Suppresses on 4+.
3. Remaining Turrets shoot at bombers. Usual hit on 4+.
4. Remaining bombers do their fixed or D3 attacks.

Whatchaallthink?

[Vaaish]

Continuing from where I left off and with historical composition aside....

It's explained that fighters weapons can't make an impression on capital ship and that they avoid the turrets. It would seem to me that they shouldn't have any impact on a bomber wave attacking the ship either suppressing turrets or adding attacks. Second, I would think that the turrets would be capable of discerning between attacking ship types with the size difference between fighters and bombers or by their flight paths. IIRC the suppression rules are there to offset the turret massing additions.

I agree that fighters aren't worth much with out them, but I think the direction should be to make the more effective against ordnance rather than making the grant extra attacks against capital ships which seems somewhat counter intuitive to their purpose.

What I would like to see is fighters becoming more effective at escorting bombers/AB and eliminating enemy bombers/AB but give not benefit to attacking bombers. To do that I think we would need to get away from teh 1:1 marker concept and make a slight adjustment.

For starters, fighters would not grant any extra attacks to bombers attacking ships. Their role should be to escort the bombers to the target and protect them from enemy ordnance.

Second, (and this is just conjecture at this point) each fighter would remove two enemy markers unless enemy fighters are present. If enemy fighters are present, this would revert to the current system where one fighter would remove only one enemy marker.

I think that would keep the rules fairly simple and keep fighters emphasis on taking out enemy ordnance and remove their effect on capital ships. If turret massing is too much, I think it could be further limited to compensate.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Nope. I do not agree that fighters can remove twice the number of enemy bomber/AB markers. Never have, never will.

[fracas]

fighter already has 3 roles: as interceptors against torpedo waves, against other attack craft marker, and on CAP. they don't need another as turret suppressors.
simplify the turret rules to be 3+ against bombers but that each surviving bomber has a straight up D6 attacks (D3 for fighter-bombers)

i.e. eliminate fighter suppression of turrets and turret suppression of bombers (and god forbid we even contemplate bomber suppression of fighters)

simplify!

[Vaaish]

simplify the turret rules to be 3+ against bombers but that each surviving bomber has a straight up D6 attacks (D3 for fighter-bombers)

i.e. eliminate fighter suppression of turrets and turret suppression of bombers (and god forbid we even contemplate bomber suppression of fighters)

I disagree with the removal of turrets reducing the number of attacks by bombers. Doing this makes ordnance far more powerful since you are only increasing the odds of turrets taking out the bombers by 16% but ensuring that every surviving bomber will make at least one attack run. This makes even high turret value ships much more susceptible to ordnance thus refocusing the game onto who can put out the most AC rather than balancing the different options such as gunnery, torpedoes, and bombers to create situations where different tools are appropriate for the target.

Ships don't need to be WEAKER against AC!

Admiral: I was looking for a means of increasing the utility of fighters as escorts for friendly ordnance. Right now they serve no purpose except to increase attacks using the turret suppression rules. With the current rules, there is no reason to escort bombers with fighters because an enemy fighter marker will still just remove one of your chits be it fighter or bomber. You get the same result no matter what composition the bomber wave has. Fighters need to have some utility as escorts for bombers if you want to follow historical example. The currently have no role as escorts in BFG. If you have a method of making them better at defending friendly bombers that doesn't make them into pseudo-bombers by adding attacks, I'd love to hear it.

The simplest method I can think of doing this is to just make unescorted bomber waves take more casualties than escorted ones when intercepted by enemy fighters.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

The problem is that this is a game. One will be hardpressed to find a balance and utility for fighters going up against a bomber wave. Reality wise, unescorted bombers did suffer heavily but not to the point where it was a 2:1 disparity. Not even 1:1 in one of the hardest hit unescorted bomber raids of the war. What happened was when fighters started escorting the bombers, the casualty rates went down tremendously. That's something which would be hard pressed as well to show in the game.

Now if the game were such that there is only a limited number of fighters and bombers and assault boats on any given carrier, then the fighters will become more worth it since if the wave is unescorted by fighters, sooner or later one will run out of bombers. How we can model that on the table will be something worth doing. Chubbybob did something like it where one loses the ordnance if intercepted by fighters or turrets. I don't have the link anymore to his site. I'll do a search later at home. It's worth bookmarking the site as he has lots of wonderful conversions.

Personally, I still feel that fighters taking a more active role in turret suppression is the way to go with bombers getting a hard number of attacks, be it 2 or 3 per marker instead of using (D6-# of turrets).