Space Marines - Redesign/Rules Development

[Caine-HoA]

As far is i remember there is a 1 per 1000 rule for Battlebarges, so why not lower the cost of the barge that is obviously rated bad to make it mor attractive vs a VBB option?

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Battle Barge isn't bad. It just needs that 4th shield and turret (as a carrier, it should be 5 but 4 turrets are good enough). Otherwise, it's solid even with its weapons and it's price is just about right.

[Atog]

"I know English is not your native tongue but you really have to understand"
I understood perfectly. I'm only bad at  sayn'  my thoughts, not at understanding others.
So I get your point,but still disagree with major part of it. 

But I have nothing to add to my previous statements.

[horizon]

On balance: BFG is more balanced then 40k will ever be.

Oh yeeees. So good balanced that you have to produce new FAQs and clarification since 2005 year?
I don't reccall exact date of "Unofficial FAQ 1.3" but  i guess it's near 2005.

So good balanced game, that local communities have to involve several homerules to make game playable?  I mean nova cannon limitation, maximum count of  x60 lances limitation ,max launch bays. Man, sometimes we have to ban whole roster, to make game more enjoyable.

You know, for over 10 years of play 0k, I remember only  one  roster, that deserves ban. Seer Counsil of 3rd edition.

But here we have hemlock\shade limit, dirge limit, nc limit, chaos-lance-fleet-of-doom and  many other rosters that make game  crappy.  

If  You say it's balanced. And way better than 40k, i'm just have nothing more  to say.

Haha! I can delve deep but consider this:

1999 BFG release.
2001 Armada
2003 FAQ 1.5
2006 Rulebook v1.5
2007 FAQ2007
2010 FAQ2010

(A year may be of).

That's nothing compared to FIVE editions of 40K, codex creep, multiple FAQ's and other wooziness.

3.1 Rogue Trader (1987)
3.2 Second Edition (1993)
3.3 Third Edition (1998)
3.4 Fourth Edition (2004)
3.5 Fifth Edition (2008)

Nova Cannon limit: NOT needed.
Lance limit: NOT needed.
Launch bay limit = in play.
There is no fleet banned in BFG to me.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is DO NOT TAILOR. That will make stupid games in every game.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

"I know English is not your native tongue but you really have to understand"
I understood perfectly. I'm only bad at  sayn'  my thoughts, not at understanding others.
So I get your point,but still disagree with major part of it. 

But I have nothing to add to my previous statements.

It's good you understand then. However, where did you get your ideas about limiting ships or weapon systems (other than the NC)? For all my time in BFG those have never been serious proposals. Likewise the idea that BFG is not a balanced game esp compared to 40k. 

[lastspartacus]

Battle Barge isn't bad. It just needs that 4th shield and turret (as a carrier, it should be 5 but 4 turrets are good enough). Otherwise, it's solid even with its weapons and it's price is just about right.

Thumbs up.

[Atog]

But BB HAVE NOT  fourth shield and turret.  And it is overpriced at least 10  pts.  So maybe your dreamland BB with 4-5 shield is good, but current, our real bb is not. Sad,  but true.

 

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

But BB HAVE NOT  fourth shield and turret.  And it is overpriced at least 10  pts.  So maybe your dreamland BB with 4-5 shield is good, but current, our real bb is not. Sad,  but true.

Really? Where do you get the idea that it's overpriced by 10? Accourding to the Smotherman formula which is not by any means official, mind you but good enough, the BB is underpriced by 30. So giving it a point of shield and turret should actually push up the price by 15 to 440.

Yes at the moment it doesn't have the 4th turret and shield but what I said was that it should. Are you really understanding what I am trying to say? Even then, it's still a formidable vessel to take down and can quite hold its own against other battleships in the 30 cm ranges. That's the fact of it.

[lastspartacus]

Id happily pay 20 extra points for an extra shield and turret on the thing.  At least give us the option.

[Atog]

Several playtests that we had run  last weekend revealed that even with only 50%  penalty for being crippled make all VBB idea is worthless. Especially with any vessel that have class  lighter that battleship.  

Maybe it's better to raise cost of VBB option , or use another kind of drawback?  Fleet composition restrictions, scenario penalties, something else?

 

[Vaaish]

I find that rather surprising. If you are using an imperial cruiser as a VBB, you might as well not waste the effort and just use the Armageddon list to get access to the same thing without the penalty. That makes it only worthwhile if you use the VBB to take a chaos cruiser or BB. If you take a chaos cruiser the most you are giving up is 155 VP for the ship being crippled if you take a Styx. In a typical 1500 point fleet, it's a costly loss but hardly debilitating.

How did 50% vp make the VBB worthless? Did your group just focus on the VBB and then disengage? Do you have any batreps?

I guess I'm looking for a bit more than we tried it and it was worthless. That doesn't give much data to tweak or see how stuff wend down.

[Atog]

Well, I'll try  to explain, so far my engrish will allow.
Firstly I'll say about our games format.
We played with  1000pts fleets   on a 120X180 cm board.    We found that fleet size and table size makes game more depending on good strategies and precise maneuvering and less depending on raw fleet firepower.  Also our idea was to test sm battle capabilities, so we played fleet engagement scenario  several times.   

Couple thoughts on VBB choices.   Armageddons rules are  not equal SM rules. Most important that IN ships that taken  as VBBs have superior sm leadership. So I disagree that it's better play Armageddon Fleet List rater than take IN vessel as VBB.  Also, as you can see , as VVB b-ship class we chose Retribution, tat not available for Arm. fleet list. Second run was to try some type of IN battlecruiser. There is no many choices so we picked up Mars as vessel that  can provide good fir4power support and able to defend itself with it's launch bays. And at last we tried chaos grand cruiser.  Because if i get right, the main idea of introducing VBB rules was to allow SM players  to deploy ol'n'good preheresy ships. So comes Executioner.  Rest of the SM fleets was different mixes of 3 to 4 strikecruisers and sm escorts squadrons.

And as adversary was taken IN list that shows very good results in  our local tournaments.
Here it is: 2 x Dictator ;2 x top. dauntless; 2  x 3Swors+1firestorm squadrons

We run  several test games changing fleets each other, to negate  difference in  gaming skill. 
In each game sm opponent had focused VBB and makes it cripled pretty easily. Except it was Retribution which solid amount of shields and hardpoints are not easy do  take off.   

But in case of IN batllecruiser that lack of shields and HP, or grandcruiser that lack of good armor, it pretty easy to focus it , take 150+ victory pts  for 4(6) "holes" and than happily disengage.

And I don't agree with "it's a costly loss but hardly debilitating". You know, victory points is always victory points.  And when opponents gets twice of it without applying  more efforts that usual, i found it pretty debilitating.


ps
Thanks for attention, and sorry for grammar mistakes.

[Vaaish]

Thanks, that gives a bit better context for what was happening. at 1k points I can see that cruisers used as VBB aren't worth much since one cripple is enough you can disengage and still win. At 1500 points this becomes a much riskier prospect and depending on what you pick for the VBB not possible to cripple the VBB and disengage.

I realize you get better SM LD taking the IN cruiser as a vbb, but my point was you are spending 35 points on a slightly better LD roll since the other aspects of a marine crew are fairly situational. This makes IN cruisers the least useful to take as VBB because you can bring them into your fleet without the VP rules by using the armageddon fleet.

At 1k points I can see the extra VP can be a problem but that might just serve to make the vbb only useful in larger games unless you can squadron the thing to prevent it from being a target. I'm a bit hesitant to add more points to the baseline cost of the vbb as that might just make it more problematic to balance. What would you say to keeping the 150% penalty and having normal VP for crippled? That still gives a drawback for losing such an ancient craft but it wouldn't allow smaller point games to concentrate on it and disengage.

[Plaxor]

I'd like to share my opinion as a non-marine player.

The battlebarge was made with 3 shields in the intention that it's 6+ armor would make their shields worth more against the weapons batteries in a fleet. GW felt as though this was about a 50/50 mixture of weapons batteries to lances, perhaps more in favor of the weapons batteries.

So if we think about it in these terms, compared to an emperor BB with 5+ armor on the front and 4 shields. We can note that if we have an equal number of weapons/lances firing (weapons batteries at 3 per lance) from a medium range and closing, then it would take firepower 27 weapons batteries to take down the shields on a Battlebarge, compared to 18 for the emperor. However since they are equally susceptible to lances, at 6 for the battlebarge, and 8 for the emperor.

Mathematically this means that the emperor is 33% better than the battle barge at taking lances to its shields, and the Battlebarge is 50% better at taking weapons batteries.

I don't think the problem with space marines is that they're low on shields or turrets. I think it's just a metagame thing, people love lances, especially newish players.

I think it's every ork player in the worlds nightmare to see a battlebarge with +1 shield and turret. It would mean that they are so much less likely to damage it through shooting (in order to get 27 firepower, they would need about 5 kill-kroozers in front arc)  And boarding is almost out of the question, as a battle barge with bv of 16 when defending and a built in +2 from space marines, it makes the orks +1 for natural and likely +1 for outnumbering almost wasteful. Getting an advantage here is improbable.

Space marines are a fine fleet, sure they have some trouble with taking damage, especially on their strike cruisers, but that's what you get for basing a fleet out of cls. I honestly don't know what I would do to make them more competitive. Like I said... people are generally lance-happy, because it makes them have to think less, and worry about space marines, necrons, and even IN/Orks less. (space marines being the most common fleet I see, as people want to play the same fleet as their 40k army). Unfortunately Eldar players are rare, so the metagame isn't balanced in this respect, and the other fleets where weapons batteries are good against, lances don't get any worse against so that point is kinda meh.

Hopefully with the DE codex, and all the people that I'm seeing who want to buy into a DE fleet there will be some metagame change.

[Sigoroth]

I'd like to share my opinion as a non-marine player.

The battlebarge was made with 3 shields in the intention that it's 6+ armor would make their shields worth more against the weapons batteries in a fleet. GW felt as though this was about a 50/50 mixture of weapons batteries to lances, perhaps more in favor of the weapons batteries.

So if we think about it in these terms, compared to an emperor BB with 5+ armor on the front and 4 shields. We can note that if we have an equal number of weapons/lances firing (weapons batteries at 3 per lance) from a medium range and closing, then it would take firepower 27 weapons batteries to take down the shields on a Battlebarge, compared to 18 for the emperor. However since they are equally susceptible to lances, at 6 for the battlebarge, and 8 for the emperor.

Mathematically this means that the emperor is 33% better than the battle barge at taking lances to its shields, and the Battlebarge is 50% better at taking weapons batteries.

Er, no. The Emperor will go abeam from the outset and refuse to close with the enemy. Therefore WBs will be shooting at an abeam cap ship at long range, compared to a closing cap ship when shooting at the Battlebarge. To beat down the 4 shields of the Emperor with WBs would then require 60(!) WBs. Compare this to the 35 required for the Battlebarge at long range (Emp can shoot back, BB can't) and the 25 WBs required at normal range (which will happen a lot sooner, since the BB is closing). Note, if you happen to close to normal range against the Emp it would still require 33 WBs to drop shields. You should be comparing the BB to the Ret.

I don't think the problem with space marines is that they're low on shields or turrets. I think it's just a metagame thing, people love lances, especially newish players.

No, not just meta-game, it's also how the fleet functions. Low range means they have to close. High cost means they need to use both broadsides, or if possible, board to maximise their fire/special abilities. Therefore they don't have the option of maximising their 6+ broadside armour by going abeam early and peppering away with long range guns, such as with the Emperor (or a proper Oberon). I don't disagree with any of these limitations (short range, costly), but since they've only got a little more protection than a Retribution and yet cost a lot more then they should get the extra shield and turret too.

I think it's every ork player in the worlds nightmare to see a battlebarge with +1 shield and turret. It would mean that they are so much less likely to damage it through shooting (in order to get 27 firepower, they would need about 5 kill-kroozers in front arc)  And boarding is almost out of the question, as a battle barge with bv of 16 when defending and a built in +2 from space marines, it makes the orks +1 for natural and likely +1 for outnumbering almost wasteful. Getting an advantage here is improbable.

Well I imagine that seeing just about any fleet come up against them is the Orks worst nightmare. And they'd need only 25 WBs to drop shields, not 27 (only 14 if on LO, 11 if at close range on LO). But apart from all that, Orks still have a good shot at boarding SM. An Ork BB with warlord (24 BV) and a supporting kroozer (10 BV) boarding the barge would get a net +1 over the SMs (+1 for Ork, +2 for double BV vs +2 for SM), +2 if some other ship could lay a BM in contact with it and +3 if it went on SO (such as Reload). That's not too bad. Not too many other fleets would have such a good shot at taking on a SM barge in boarding!

Space marines are a fine fleet, sure they have some trouble with taking damage, especially on their strike cruisers, but that's what you get for basing a fleet out of cls. I honestly don't know what I would do to make them more competitive. Like I said... people are generally lance-happy, because it makes them have to think less, and worry about space marines, necrons, and even IN/Orks less. (space marines being the most common fleet I see, as people want to play the same fleet as their 40k army). Unfortunately Eldar players are rare, so the metagame isn't balanced in this respect, and the other fleets where weapons batteries are good against, lances don't get any worse against so that point is kinda meh.

Hopefully with the DE codex, and all the people that I'm seeing who want to buy into a DE fleet there will be some metagame change.

Well another reason why people prefer lances is because the HA went and took away a lot of the potential of WBs, making lances more valuable by contrast. You used to be able to drop a targets shields from one direction and then allow the rest of your fleet to fire unimpeded on the target from another direction. Now BMs (stupidly) count as being 'all around' as far as incoming or outgoing fire is concerned. That change removed a lot of the tactics from the game.

If we changed it back to the original (not-broken/not-OP) rule then we might encourage more WBs in peoples fleets and therefore SMs, and to an extent Orks, would have a better time of it.