Wow! Lots of feedback and great ideas here! THANKS! Here's my fedback to your feedback, in a nutshell. Many of the ideas here have been taken on so I will focus mainly on the ones we're not.
While I am replying to Horizon's post here, that's mainly to collate my responses in one place. I am answering questions from several sources here to everyone who had something to add. Please don’t take any of my responses personally, and if it seems like my comments aren’t directed at you, then they’re not!
Of course, responses based solely on vitriol with no actually useful feedback are being ignored.
Hi,
Bakka:
Lord Admiral Rath, what Ld?
LD-10. This has been fixed. Oops!
Victory Battleship: prow torpedoes please. As original Cold Passage iirc.
Already done. I don’t know about the Cold Passage article, but as far back as BFG mag#2 in 2001 this ship has had a Nova Cannon. Following the logic that a NC is +20 points over six torps, we extrapolated that for simplicity’s sake to mean it would be +10 points against 9 torps or free against 12 torps, thus, the 9-torp version of the Victory is -10 points. We also reduced the Victory by -5 points so that a torp-Victory ends up being only +5 points over a Retribution. That was done only for simplicity (I hate using math for gaming), but in reality the ship fares about on par with a Retribution.
Vanquisher: BB without a dorsal? With a broadside value at 30cm of 18 eqv wb. I'll never take this one. :/
It also contradicts the reason you gave me for not giving the Oberon a range upgrade.... 
Then don’t take it. It’s meant to be a cheap character vessel, and consideration has been made that it does not even necessarily have to be a “one-of.†Not all character ships NEED to be super-powerful, and not everyone plays BFG simply to smash their opponents with the shootiest fleet one can assemble for the points. Strategy should consist of far more than whipping out a calculator and trying to determine how much firepower one can squeeze into a given point limit. If that's how you play, stick with Battlefleet Solar and move on- there’s nothing for you here.
Mercury CB: special rule: like the IN wants 25cm odd cruisers... It is an essence a battlecruiser of the Tyrant. Tyrant with range upgrade + NC = 215pts.
Thus now we pay 45 points for 2 dorsal lances (=30pts), 15cm extra range on some batteries (=15pts) and a special rule with a pro and con. The con exceeding the pro.
But the Tyrant is overcosted in itself, the 25cm speed isn't needed thus the special rule a downfall. Thus the Mercury should be 250pts top. As a CB it is already restricted.
Bob loves this ship, and so do I, and it has proven to be somewhat more popular over the years than I anticipated, especially at some of the GamesDays I attended over the years.
Here’s why the Long Serpent is such a great ship- Nova Cannon have by default become a weapon players ONLY use to hang back and use as BFG artillery. You wonder how I was so lucky with my NC rolls? I’ll tell you how: the Imp fleet is shorter-ranged than Chaos and plays best in a knife fight. NC’s DON’T HAVE TO BE ARTILLERY! Push your ships forward and get into the knife fight. Sure you will get less NC shots in, but they will be far more accurate for the shots you do get in. This ship is designed to MAKE players take advantage of how NC’s are SUPPOSED to work best for Imperials, and that is the true genius of the Dominator- one of the things I agree with Sigoroth about.
Giving this ship torps (even as an option) would completely defeat what we are trying to do with it. We are dumbing down the guns a bit to make it a Tyrant-BC and reducing the cost to boot, but only a bit- it should be a bit overpriced because of how it fits in the Imp fleet. Once again, if you don’t like it, don’t take it.
Jovian = go away with this rubbish ship.
I prefer the term “character vessel.â€
It’s a one-of reserve ship that will at best make very rare appearances on the tabletop- as a reserve you need three BC’s to field it, and as a one-of you can’t ever have more than one. Why is everyone convinced character ships have to be 50-pound sledgehammers?
Siluria = much better then the Voss ones. The voss ones still need 6+ prows and 90*. The Siluria has not the kinda wasted 2torps. Can focus fp on a 25cm / 90* hull. Competition for the Dauntless.... to be honest it is better then the Dauntless. Dauntless must choose strong prow weaponry or weak abeam. Prow on it is vulnerable. The Siluria can str2 lance / str 6 = like str4 lance with an abeam presence.
Point increase needed to equal Dauntless.
Here you and I are in complete agreement. Andy C and co loved the Siluria so much, it was the actual true-to-life inspiration for the Endeavor and all its variants. By making it an “Endeavor-minus,†we are bringing back what has always been a cool ship. Though faster than an Endeavor, it has one less turret, no torps and no boarding bonus for otherwise the same guns fit so it can stay ten points cheaper.
Some have suggested that it should be even cheaper still, making it 90 points so that it can be a half-Dominator or something to that effect. Doing so ignores the fact that two 6HP hulls are ALWAYS more survivable than a single 8HP hull, not to mention that making this a neat “half-cruiser†pointswise encourages the kind of min-maxing we strive to avoid.
Havoc & Viper are cool.
Agreed!
The intent with the Havoc was to make this as parallel as possible with that in the Koronus Expanse, keeping in mind that it is IMPOSSIBLE to neatly collate these two game systems due to the vast differences in scope. However, it has been noted that the Havoc is a bit overpriced so to make it more congruent with a Sword and to better fit the Bakka theme, it has been given a second turret for no price change.
Fleet : problem with less carriers the Emperor will always be taken I reckon. Drop it. Add Oberon.
That's about it.
Agreed. As written, even an “0-1 Emperor†means in most battles an Emperor will be taken- it’s just that good. Instead we made it a reserve unless Admiral Rath is taken, in which case it can be taken as the flagship. This keeps true to the Bakka storyline and means if you want an Emperor up front, it’s going to cost you a LOT of points.
Rather than taking the Oberon (which doesn’t entirely solve the problem), we instead are using the Vanquisher as a “Bakka-Oberon†with more guns and no launch bays. Once again, the lack of dorsals are intentional
I really need to agree with Sig here.
There is no real redemption for this fleet. It's just "Lets mishmash every bit of the left over ships that never made it into Armada into a single document".
It just DOES NOT WORK! The special ships in the fleet are bad jokes, and just don't function in an imperial fleet.
Bakka is huge in BFG, being one of the earliest lists to grace the game. However, it also became a dumping ground for every crackpot ship that was ever made. The result? the ships that were actually creative made it into the Armada book, the rest were discarded.
As one of the people that helped write the 2002 Annual and assisted with designing the profiles, playtesting the ships and helping to decide which ones made it into Armada, I beg to differ.
The first constraint was space- we only had 160 pages to work with and a lot of material to cover. Some ships were NEVER going to see the light of day- the Nemesis fleet carrier was DOA, and the Demon Slayer with its Psychic Cannon was a non-starter. However, some of these ships are actually quite balanced and themeful, whether some players like them or not. Make no mistake: “I don’t like a ship†is not the same thing as “This ship is garbage.â€
There was always the intent to create more fleet lists, and the first one was going to be Battlefleet Bakka to document the other side of the Tyranic war introduced by the Tyranids in Armada. It was the shut-down of Fanatic that brought an end to this, not lack of interest for the ships in the BFG 2002 Annual. The first reflex from the game designers when Fanatic was unplugged was to simply declare that ALL the BFG Magazine ships were official and call it good, and it was the HA’s that argued against it.
The ONLY ship that I like is the Siluria, because its a "super light cruiser" concept. The viper is just something that should not exist, period. Why take a cobra if you could take this?
About the Viper: some people love it, some people hate it. The Cobra is cheaper and can trade its battery for +1Ld. The argument has been made against Vipers in this same thread. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but that doesn’t make it broken.
This fleet suffers from so many flaws, it's benefits are being overshadowed. Scrap this and try again.
How about giving the HA’s more input than “this is garbage, start over?†I’m not worried about the fans not liking this first draft- that’s what makes it a first draft. Flak I’m not worried about- constructive criticism and reasoned disagreement, no matter how passionate, is ALWAYS helpful. I don’t expect everyone to agree with the HA’s. Heck, I hope lots of people DON’T- groupthink always results in a crappy product.
I am concerned with how many arguments on this thread consist of, “this list sucks because I can take better ships for less points and smash a Bakka fleet to dust.†The HA’s are tired of fielding requests to “fix†ships by making them either cheaper or shootier. Strategy and tactics are about working with what you have, not designing patches for every hole in the fleet. Really- if that’s all people care about, they can just stick with Battlefleet Solar, min-max their fleet lists to their little hearts’ content and move on. These ships in the Bakka list are the last ships that originate from 2001. Contrary to one of the arguments, this absolutely was NOT a mash-up of all the rest of the ships not taken. The Nemesis battleship is an abortion better left dead, and don’t EVEN get me started on the Demon Slayer!!
The funniest part is how we were warned by the game designers not to get the fans involved with this process. We were told we would waste most of our time trying to justify what we were doing to people who only wanted what they wanted and nothing else, and in the end they would just be pissed at us anyway.
I still have faith the fans can help make this right. All constructive criticism is NEEDED and will be noted. However, we don’t have a lot of time left before we will be unplugged whether we are done or not, and I am no longer going to sit here and argue with people who argue for fun. I want people to disagree with me until we get this right. However, if your responses are noise and drivel, you will be ignored.
