Space Marines - Redesign/Rules Development

[lastspartacus]

Ya know, I guess it would be best to discuss to death one aspect at a time.  Strike Cruisers!

Fine at 145.  I have never been terribly impressed with TH of any variety, but they are seemingly valued and costly, moreso than a standard bay, so I'd say that a TH bay is actually worth more than a shield.

Now, how many points should variants be?  The SC switches out weapons, but I figure there should be some kidn of price hike, to encourage the more bland and numerous SC brand.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Horizon posted the Assault SC I made for the Space Wolves before. Loses out on the WBs and retaind the BCs and adds TH bays. However, I think now that it should have only 1 TH in the prow instead of 2 and add 1 shield and be priced at 165 points.

Revised Assault Strike Cruiser 165 pts - Space Wolves
hits 6
speed 25cm
turns 90*
armour 6+
shields 2
Turrets 2

prow bombardment - 30cm - str.3 - LFR
prow launch bay - Thawk 25cm - 1 - NA (or THA)
port launch bay - Thawk 25cm - 1 - NA (or THA)
starboard launch bay - Thawk 25cm - 1 - NA (or THA)

options:
6 torps for bomberdment for free
3 assault points on planet assault.

[horizon]

Onq quibble with the design: when crippled or braced or braced & cripple the maximum launch capacity is still intact.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

True but that assumes you successfully reloaded and did not launch during the owning player's last turn. If the owning player launched everything and it BFIs during the opponent's turn, then pretty much the ship is screwed come the owning player's next turn as it cannot Reload Ordnance.

[lastspartacus]

Love it.  20 point increase seems pretty steep since the ship is balanced by losing its broadsides.  However, Horizon brings up a point I wouldn't have considered.  There could always be a special rule stating that the Assault variant treated its bays as one grouping, but it would probably just be better as it is, with a 20 point increase after all.

My only other thing is the option to trade out the bombardment cannons for torps.  I would instead give the option to trade out the prow bay for torps.  No other ship has only ordnance, as cool as that would be.  It needs some point weaponry to defend itself with.
Replacing the front TH with torps though would be cool.

Edit:  I hope you do not mean that you can only take it if you say you have a space wolf fleet.

[lastspartacus]

In return, I want thoughts on this fellow here.

Linebreaker Strike Cruiser - 155 points
hits 6
speed 25cm
turns 90*
armour 6+
shields 2
Turrets 2

prow bombardment str3 L/R/F
prow bombardment str4 F
port str4 weapons battery, 30cm
starboard str4 weapons battery, 30cm

options:
Lance options I guess, if that will still be allowed.

[horizon]

Admiral, true on that reasoning. Though if many complaints come up one could consider a special rules as LS states.

On the linebreaker:
Devestator it would be called (per Black Templars).

I would actually give it same point cost as Assault variant. Even though Marine leadership is high the assault version depends on that special order to do something. The devestator/line breaker does not need such an order to be operational. Thus easier, less restricted in tactical use.

And:
Never ever lances. Just don't.

[lastspartacus]

Name is semantics, I just thought linebreaker or siegebreaker sounded cool, and devestator sounds too chaosy, as they already have like 3 or 4 cruisers starting with D something.  But whatever really.

I saw the tradeout of TH and bombard cannon as a fair trade, only raising the points to encourage the generic brand.  20 more points for the assault variant gives you a solid ordnance support ship, that provides much needed numbers to the fleet ordnance ability.
The linebreaker doesn't fill as much of a hole.  Its fun for more bombard cannons, but I don't think I could justify spending 20 points to trade a thunderhawk bay with a small B battery.  But thats just me.  I may be wrong.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Here's an all BC variant I made before:

Revised Siege Strike Cruiser 160 pts (I don't remember the exact points but I think it was 160)
hits 6
speed 25cm
turns 90*
armour 6+
shields 2
Turrets 2

prow bombardment - 30cm - Str 3 - LFR
prow launch bay - Thawk 25cm - 1 - NA (or THA)
port  bombardment - 30cm - Str 2 - L
starboard bombardment - 30cm - Str 2 - R

Options:
6 torps for bomberdment for free

And yes, the variants I made can be useable with any SM. I put in a rule though that one must take a regular SC first before one can take any variant so that the SC would not be alienated.

[Vaaish]

I'm a bit curious what's happened to the HA. We are going on 8 pages of discussion turning into development and no word or comment that I remember outside of posting the original doc. Any news around here?

[Gron]

Both the Linebreaker and Revised Siege Cruiser would end up close to 200pts each with Smothermann's formula. I know it's far from accurate but at least it gives a reasonable guideline to what stuff might cost.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

The vanilla SC itself costs 185 points based on the Smotherman formula. So just goes to show there's a problem. Assuming that 145 points is correct for the Vanilla SC, the Siege SC should add 25 points on top of the base cost for 170 points.

[lastspartacus]

I simply think it fits the role of siege/linebreaker better with forward mounted bombardment cannons, it feels more SM to me, not having to turn to bring your weapons to bear.

Also, it would make fluff sense, since the BC's are designed to rape defenses, as broadsides are more ship to ship fighting.  And of course it would be cheaper.

Smotherman is just a guideline for a reason, and should only be very generously applied to marines, as it was built mainly for IN an Chaos.  If you are paying 25 points for a weapons swap, not even an obvious advantage, you won't see the variants ever played in competative games.  You are already getting into the points range of cruisers that the SC can't compete with.

Like I said, I really do agree with the Assault getting a 20 point increase, because it fills somewhat of a weakness in the fleet.  Lets give the Linebreaker, or whatever we want to call it, a 10 point increase.  It definitly won't be unbalanced if you compare the variants.

[Zelnik]

Boy am i glad these are not replacing the official rules, it has just gotten absurd. 

a strength 7 bombardment cannon? shit son. it's a light cruiser!

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Don't like the Linebreaker design (FP7 BCs would be OT. At best FP5) nor the Devastator (3 prow weapons? I don't think so). If one wanted a pure BC SC, then I think my design would be less of a problem. I made a mistake with the Siege. Should be only FP2 BCs. Stat revised.

BTW here was my designed Assault Barge from my SW article:

Space Marine Capital Ship Variants
Space Marine Assault Barge: 450 points
Type/Hits: Battleship/12
Speed: 20 cm
Turns: 45
Shields: 3
Armour: 6+
Turrets: 4

Armament | Range/Speed | Firepower/Str | Fire Arc
Port Launch Bays | Thunderhawk: 20cm | 2 squadrons | -
Starboard Launch Bays | Thunderhawk: 20cm | 2 squadrons | -
Prow Launch Bays | Thunderhawk: 20cm | 3 squadrons | -
Prow Bombardment Cannon | 30cm | 3 | Left/Front/Right
Dorsal Bombardment Cannon | 30cm | 8 | Left/Front/Right

Notes: The Assault Barge may replace its Prow Bombardment Cannons for Strength 6 torpedoes at no extra cost.

If the shieldf goes up to 4, then add another 15 points for 465 points total.