Clarification of Nova Cannon

[lastspartacus]

So my friends and I have always played the new and best way to use the nova cannon, using a typical scatter dice.

It occured to me to ask, what does 'a hit or d6 hits' mean?  Does that mean it suffers that many hits?  Or you roll against armor?
As in, when a nova directly hits, could it do no damage?  We have always played as it does that many hit points of damage automatically, and I always thought that was very powerful for a 1/3 chance to hit.  I can't believe it just occured to me to ask, but it was how we learned the rules long ago.

[Vaaish]

the center hole of the NC template will cause d6 hits regardless of armor value if it is over the base of a ship. If it's only the edge of the template that touches the ships base, then it will do only a single hit.

Hits from the NC are blocked by shields so it is possible to only take down shields with the NC and do no damage especially if the center of the template doesn't touch the targets base.

[lastspartacus]

So you don't have to roll against armor.  Thanks for clarifying. 

Thats so powerful one has to wonder why you would ever not take an all nova cannon fleet. 

[horizon]

It scatters, says enough.
And shields still apply.

[lastspartacus]

Forgive all the newbish questions, just really getting back into it, and the old questions keep coming up.

Is there any limits on the amounts of nova cannons in the imperial fleet?  I seemed to remember some kind of limit, but can't find it now.

Also, might as well not create another thread to ask this:  Has the 'do torps fire straight ahead or angle as long as its still within the front arc' question ever been addressed?

[horizon]

No Nova Cannon limit, but if you go by 1 per 500 no one will ever be offended.

What should be adressed about torpedoes?
They can be fired anywhere in the front arc.
Always has, always been.

[russ_c]

Thats so powerful one has to wonder why you would ever not take an all nova cannon fleet.  

For a few reasons:
1.) They are no good within <30cm since they can't fire
2.) Every point you spend on Nova Cannons is points you can't spend on rounding out your fleet composition
3.) The odds of doing more then a single point of damage are not in your favor.  I did the percentile math at portmaw.com but that might have been lost forever, but it's definitely smaller then 40% (slightly higher at the shortest possible ranges).  Add to this, that shields are still in effect so to do actual hull damage you need to hit and do at least 3 points of damage on a standard cruiser.

The NC is mostly psychological.  Once your opponent gets past that and takes calculated risk he can probably stand a good chance against even 3 NCs per 1000 points.

Russ

[lastspartacus]

@Russ:  It hasn't been my experience that it is mostly psychological.  In a team game, 3 ships with NC destroyed a cruiser two turns in a row due to nice scatter rolls, odds are that out of 3, 1 will directly hit anyway.  The damage was compounded by the fact that you have to brace before you know if you will be hit directly or not.

No Nova Cannon limit, but if you go by 1 per 500 no one will ever be offended.

What should be adressed about torpedoes?
They can be fired anywhere in the front arc.
Always has, always been.

So you can angle torpedos up to 44 degrees from where your ship is facing?  We always played it as directly forward firing.

[horizon]

Yup, torps can angle, not only straight ahead.

Nova Cannon is psychological. Killing a cruiser (IN/Chaos) with one direct HIT is nigh on impossible.

[lastspartacus]

Well yes, one.  But in numbers have you never found a problem in facing the fire?

Ok, I will pass that useful torpedo knowledge to my Imperial Navy players in my group.  I guess the advantage of boarding torps is that they get to turn again after they have launched.

[horizon]

Never a problem.


Tell them that their torps (all strengths) are now shown on 2cm x 2cm base. Having a dice on top to represent strength.

per FAQ2010.

[lastspartacus]

Ah, havn't been over the errata much yet.  This is from the closest-thing-to-official yahoo group right?
Is there any threads of discussion over the final product?  I'd be very interest to read why the decision to apparently nerf torps took place, as I see them covering a smaller surface area being a nerf for Imperials that go for a torp wall.

[horizon]

If you get the mind set that 1cm = 1000km in BFG you can see the absurd reality of a 6 spread marker covering thousands of kilometres.

Nerfed? A bit, but not major. Very playable. And it won't change shotgun tactics (firing below 30cm).

FAQ2010 will be on the GW site soon = official.

[lastspartacus]

Wow, thats awesome.  I understand the feel of the change, I always just figured the torps were angled, spread, or the line of torps was the area in which the torps could sense and lock onto enemy ships.

[russ_c]

@Russ:  It hasn't been my experience that it is mostly psychological.  In a team game, 3 ships with NC destroyed a cruiser two turns in a row due to nice scatter rolls, odds are that out of 3, 1 will directly hit anyway.  The damage was compounded by the fact that you have to brace before you know if you will be hit directly or not.

Odds disagree with you my friend!  Of course there will be times when someone defies them and rolls 3 straight hits in a row ( ~4% chance of that happening by the way ).  And the more Nova cannons an enemy fires directly over a single ships stem the more likely damage will be dealt.  But your comment on nice scatter rolls sounds suspicious: remember that a ship only takes d6 hits IF the base is within the 1.5cm hole of the template.  If the template just touches the bases then the ship only takes a single hit.  This means that when rolling the scatter die with the template placed directly over a ships stem, at ranges from 45cm-60cm you have to either roll a hit OR only scatter 2cm (roll a 2 on 2d6, 1/36th chance) for the cruiser to actually take d6 damage.  Otherwise, the template will possibly only touch the base since it scattered from the middle.  At the longest ranges you roll 3d6 for scatter...it's impossible to scatter less then 3cm so you guarantee yourself it will scatter off the base without doing d6 hits if you don't roll a hit on the scatter die.

What fleet do you play?
Tactics for you:

1.) Don't crowd ships together such that a single NC template can touch or scatter onto another ship
2.) BRACE FOR IMPACT:  If the enemy just hit you with one NC and is placing another over your ship to attack, USE Brace for Impact if your shields are down!  With BFI it's VERY hard for an enemy to destroy a cruiser with 3 NCs.
3.) Close on his fleet fast to deny him the use of his NCs
4.) If possible, target and cripple the ships with NCs first.  You don't even have to destroy the ship if there are bigger concerns on the board.  Just get the ship to half hull and it can no longer fire that NC.  Then you can relax the distance if needed.

I frequently play an IN / Space marine opponent who loves NCs.  He will take 3 or even 4 in 1250- 1500 point games.  It's my AC that I worry about, not cruisers.  With AC he can clear out a large wave of bomber and fighter easily since they are a large targets and the NC template only has to touch the ordnance.

I've never found it problem or a need to make any limiting rule on NCs.  But the first few games I played against them I thought they were to powerful too.

Best of luck,

Russ