Space Marines - Redesign/Rules Development

[BaronIveagh]

Zel, have it however you want, but SCs are pitifully weak against escorts now.  The str 2 lance swap would be a viable solution.  SC cannot outmanuver escorts, so they cannot have them always closing.  This means that in most circumstances, they will only ever be firepower 2.  thawks are NOT the all powerful escort slayers they used to be, and the SC's firepower against escorts needs to be rebalanced to reflect this.  A lance is less useful against cap ships then a BC is, due to the gunnery table and BC crit rules, whereas a lance is equally effective against both.  

You really need to define what an Escort slayer is because every race was affected by the new rules of escorts being more survivable vs H&R attacks. Even then I don't see a lot of races with access to a lot of crit generating attacks from one ship. The SC has:

1. The BC shot supported by the WB shot;
2. TH attacking as ABs only instead of a normal crit it is a 3+ attack;
3. Crits from H&R attacks via teleporting; and
4. Crits from Boarding Actions if the SC wants to do it.

I don't see how getting a Str 2 lance swap, esp the one LS proposes where it is Front Arc only and most likely proposition given that it was the original proposal from the HA, would be a more viable outcome than the one above given that now, the broadsides would suck against escorts as there is no more mutual support from the weapons.  What's that going to do? At best kill ONE escort in one turn and that's assuming it fails it's BFI roll. And you can't do that with the stuff above esp with the WBs and BCs supporting each other and TH support to boot?

A Lunar would have a hard time against escorts.
A Gothic would fare better but SCs aren't getting 4 lances that's for sure.
A Dictator would have problems even with bombers.
A Tyrant would have problems.
A Dominator would have problems.
A Lance Dauntless would almost fare as well as a Gothic but still only 1 escort as a sure kill.
A Torp Dauntless would far less than a Lance Dauntless.
A Murder would have a hard time against escorts but will fair well on the approach because of the 60 cm lances. It will still have problems though.
A Carnage might be better but still would have a problem with column shifts unless within 30 cm at which point it will get good chances in one arc.
A Slaughter will perform better than the Murder and Carnage IMHO but it will still have problems.
A Devastation is probably the best bet here for Chos with long range lance AND bomber OR AB support.
Terror Ships might far better but still has problems.
Same with a Kill Krooza.
The Hero and the Merchant would have similar difficulties and maybe unique problems of their own.

Eldar (both flavors) and Necron probably are the best Escort hunters.

Pitifully weak? Comparing the SCs to the above ships, I don't see it as pitifully weak. Are you really sure you're doing the right stuff? However, if you really want to defend against escorts, then best advice is to bring your own escorts. Nothing stopping you there.

I don't even think the Escort argument is a serious argument because assuming you do get lances on the SC, are you seriously telling me you're going to waste the lance shots on escorts instead of using them to help kill capital ships and just let your escorts handle the enemy escorts?

Lastly, your battle report so far is you still attacking an SM fleet. Next time play the SM fleet.

1) A lunar, under most circumstances, is twice as good as an SC against escorts. 
2) A dictator is comparable.
3) A tyrant can engage out of escort range.
4) I have never seen a dominator have a problem getting at least 1, possibly 2 escort kills per turn as long as they were not abeam.
5) agreed, Lance daunt fairs pretty well.
6) torp daunt depends on if you invested in special torps.  Guided are great for clearing out escorts.
7) Actually, considering the Murder's 45cm range and 25 cm speed, it does quite a bit better then the sc, that has to close within thier range to engage them.  Or you could take the lance options.
8)Agreed on carnage.
9) I can say that it's a rare day I've seen a slaughter have problems with IN escorts.
10) Agreed, Devastation is pretty effective.  I've seen them wipe out whole squadrons in one turn.
11)Ork ships just have problems in general.  Hopefully this simultaneous fire buisness clears that up.
12) I haven't tried out the changes to Tau yet, so I'm unsure on this one. 
13) Agreed on necrons and eldar. 

I've never had a hard time with any of the above ships against their own value in escorts.  SCs can't win against their own point value.  That's what I'm driving at here.  None of the above ships have trouble with their own point values worth of IN escorts, with the noted exception of the Dictator.  All of these ships (except the aforementioned and torp daunts) can swing at least a str 3 shot per turn against escorts, (though, granted, the lance daunless has to be closing).  The fact is that SC are balanced to use thawks to kill escorts and their gunnery against other cap ships.  This balance has changed.  Due to the gunnery table, most of the time, it's just a str 1 bombardment cannon hit on shields.

[Sigoroth]

Again BI, you just don't get it.

OK, so people who wrote rules for other game systems or wrote fiction thought that it would be thematic to say 'lance'. Sure, it's more thematic than saying 'Weapon Battery'. However, when they wrote those rules or that fiction, did they know that a lance was an anti-ship gun in BFG? Were they directly saying that Marines have anti-ship capabilities? Or is it more likely that they just wanted something that represents 'accurate' for their bombardment? If it's the latter, and all they're really saying is 'accurate bombardment' then Weapon Batteries can do that just as well. From the description of the Sword class frigate we can see that lasers are used as weapon batteries. This is far more representative of the "lance" rules used in orbital bombardments. After all, there is still a chance of survival in those game systems even when a 'hit' is scored. A bit unlikely if it were a real lance when a lance can vaporise 24 Mantas in a single shot!

What you are doing is using orbital bombardment rules from other game systems to justify anti-ship weaponry in BFG due to a fluke of nomenclature! Hypothetically speaking (you know, pretend), if lances in BFG were renamed something else, such as Space Squirrels, then there would be no case to put forward. "Well SMs are described as having lances in Epic so should get Space Squirrels in BFG". See, it doesn't work. What this tells us is that you have no argument beyond the name of the weapon for SMs to get anti-ship weaponry. Nor is there one.

The "SMs have lances as shown by these orbital strike rules" argument goes directly contrary to the "IN don't want SMs to have lances" argument. You have fluff supporting your stance, we have fluff supporting ours. Ours trumps yours. I'll list why:

1. - General background of the game prohibits SMs from having warships, lances are purely anti-ship weapons, therefore any ship with them is a warship, therefore SMs can't have them.

2. - Specific fluff mentioning that the IN really don't like the SM having the Nova (because of lance)

3. - Specific fluff mentioning that the IN don't mind SM escort sized warships (combined with their acceptance of the Gladius means Nova controversial due to lance armament).

Your fluff does not mention anti-ship capability, nor is it BFG specific. Therefore when reconciling these two incongruencies you have to come down in favour of the BFG specific fluff.

I put it to you that the authors of the orbital strike rules are either unaware of the role of lances in BFG or are unaware of what the consequences would be to SMs having anti-ship weaponry.

If in BFG a lance represented a weapon capable of incinerating whole battlefleets then your argument would suggest that SMs should get them despite them clearly not having this capability. This is because your fluff only talks about lances as an orbital bombardment, and not what they represent in BFG. If you want to have SMs with lances then you'd have to redefine what a lance does in BFG. You're arguing nomenclature. Not role. Not demonstrable fleet engagement capability. Nomenclature. This is a piss poor argument.

If you think that there is a balance problem between SM ships and escorts then you should argue for fluffy fixes, not fanboy "I want everything" changes. As for my opinion, I think the reduction to 4+ for H&R attacks against escorts is a bad idea. Just make escorts cheaper, not assault boats useless.

[BaronIveagh]

Again BI, you just don't get it.

OK, so people who wrote rules for other game systems or wrote fiction thought that it would be thematic to say 'lance'. Sure, it's more thematic than saying 'Weapon Battery'. However, when they wrote those rules or that fiction, did they know that a lance was an anti-ship gun in BFG? Were they directly saying that Marines have anti-ship capabilities? Or is it more likely that they just wanted something that represents 'accurate' for their bombardment? If it's the latter, and all they're really saying is 'accurate bombardment' then Weapon Batteries can do that just as well. From the description of the Sword class frigate we can see that lasers are used as weapon batteries. This is far more representative of the "lance" rules used in orbital bombardments. After all, there is still a chance of survival in those game systems even when a 'hit' is scored. A bit unlikely if it were a real lance when a lance can vaporise 24 Mantas in a single shot!

What you are doing is using orbital bombardment rules from other game systems to justify anti-ship weaponry in BFG due to a fluke of nomenclature! Hypothetically speaking (you know, pretend), if lances in BFG were renamed something else, such as Space Squirrels, then there would be no case to put forward. "Well SMs are described as having lances in Epic so should get Space Squirrels in BFG". See, it doesn't work. What this tells us is that you have no argument beyond the name of the weapon for SMs to get anti-ship weaponry. Nor is there one.

The "SMs have lances as shown by these orbital strike rules" argument goes directly contrary to the "IN don't want SMs to have lances" argument. You have fluff supporting your stance, we have fluff supporting ours. Ours trumps yours. I'll list why:

1. - General background of the game prohibits SMs from having warships, lances are purely anti-ship weapons, therefore any ship with them is a warship, therefore SMs can't have them.

2. - Specific fluff mentioning that the IN really don't like the SM having the Nova (because of lance)

3. - Specific fluff mentioning that the IN don't mind SM escort sized warships (combined with their acceptance of the Gladius means Nova controversial due to lance armament).

Your fluff does not mention anti-ship capability, nor is it BFG specific. Therefore when reconciling these two incongruencies you have to come down in favour of the BFG specific fluff.

I put it to you that the authors of the orbital strike rules are either unaware of the role of lances in BFG or are unaware of what the consequences would be to SMs having anti-ship weaponry.

If in BFG a lance represented a weapon capable of incinerating whole battlefleets then your argument would suggest that SMs should get them despite them clearly not having this capability. This is because your fluff only talks about lances as an orbital bombardment, and not what they represent in BFG. If you want to have SMs with lances then you'd have to redefine what a lance does in BFG. You're arguing nomenclature. Not role. Not demonstrable fleet engagement capability. Nomenclature. This is a piss poor argument.

If you think that there is a balance problem between SM ships and escorts then you should argue for fluffy fixes, not fanboy "I want everything" changes. As for my opinion, I think the reduction to 4+ for H&R attacks against escorts is a bad idea. Just make escorts cheaper, not assault boats useless.

The differences between a laser macrobattery (such as the common Sunsear Laser Battery on a Sword) and a lance are covered quite in depth in Rogue Trader sourcebooks. And since these cover the exact same ships we use in BFG, and, while rules for supporting fire from a starship are not yet in game, examples of it have been used already, such as in Lure of the Expanse, where a dominator and a Firestorm both begin bombarding the planet the players are on.  While the Dominator is flattening entire islands, the Firestorm is more selectively vaporizing structures.  I would suggest that a Firestorm firing it's lance is most likely just what it says on the tin, since RT is also a Space Ships game rather then a ground based game.

And the fact that a lance hit can kill a wave of mantas is a fluke of BFG's rules attempting to balance AC with weapons, since the designers wanted Jutland, not Midway.  It's sort of like Necrons phasing out when they've been curb stomping you the entire time only to have the last stand by a single squad of guardsmen kill that last necron needed to make their entire victorious army vanish and the IG win.  In reality, the lance hit would probably kill one manta. 

And, I'll point out something interesting for you: a lance fired from orbit in 40k has a chance for survival.  A lance fired on the ground DOES NOT.  This is due to the fact that dust particles in an atmosphere attenuate the power of lasers.  The defense laser, which has stats for both 40k and BFG, (str 3, 60cm Lance) is a Str D weapon in 40k, and requires the power of an entire city to fire. 

If you insist on fluff pointing out out anti-ship capability:

"Ranparre had several centuries of space battle experience behind him. Under his command, the ships of the Crimson Fists had saved over a dozen worlds without the need to drop any troops on the surface. Rebels, traitors, heretics, xenos, even warp-filth… Ranparre had beaten all kinds of enemy craft in high-orbital and deep-space combat. But he had never, in all his unnaturally long life, faced the kind of numbers that the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon was throwing at the planet now.

Even in the gaping black vastness of space, there seemed no quarter that was not under assault, filled with ork craft scything inwards on angry trails of glowing plasma.

“Order the Aurora and the Verde to close formation with us. I want the Aurora on our left flank, the Verde on our right. All forward batteries to target the command bridge of their flagship. If the beast Snagrod is aboard that vessel, we may still have a chance to end all this.”

From a row of stations sunk into the metal floor on the bridge’s right, one of the weapons co-ordinators called out, “I have your forward firing solution, my lord. Permission to fire forward lances?”

“Hold,” said Ranparre. “We fire together with the strike cruisers. If that monstrosity has shields, we must hope to overload them at the very least.”

Seconds later, a comms-station operator on the left reported that the Aurora and the Verde had plotted their firing solutions, and were awaiting Ranparre’s order to engage.

“Give the signal,” barked Ranparre. “All forward batteries… open fire!”

The central display screens in front of him crackled with blinding white energy as the massive weapons loosed their fury. Thick spears of light burned across ten thousand kilometres. A dozen small ork fighters and support craft caught between the two closing flagships were obliterated, simply wiped from existence. Then the lances stuck the ork flagship full in its gargantuan beast-like face." - Rynns World, Chapter 12.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

1) A lunar, under most circumstances, is twice as good as an SC against escorts.  

Really? How so? You get what? 1 extra dice for the WBs and 1 dice for the lance. Which still isn't that far off from the number of attacks an AC can bring to bear on Escorts (WB+BC+TH).

3) A tyrant can engage out of escort range.

And so? An escort on an abeam profile out of 30 cm range can only get you so many dice. You want to know how many? 2 dice.

4) I have never seen a dominator have a problem getting at least 1, possibly 2 escort kills per turn as long as they were not abeam.

So why would you have no problems getting the Escorts on a profile other than Abeam with a Dominator when you can do this much more easily with an SC? Hey, you're the one who is focusing on the difficulty of an SC killing an Escort because its Abeam. So now suddenly a Dominator can easily get an Escort into the Closing or Moving Away profile?

And it's still only 2 dice in the Abeam column.

6) torp daunt depends on if you invested in special torps.  Guided are great for clearing out escorts.

So now you have to spend more just to kill those Escorts using torps?

7) Actually, considering the Murder's 45cm range and 25 cm speed, it does quite a bit better then the sc, that has to close within thier range to engage them.  Or you could take the lance options.

I did say on the approach it would fare well (fair was a mistype). However, even with the lance option, still kinda hard to kill Escorts. Almost same efficiency as an SC.

I've never had a hard time with any of the above ships against their own value in escorts.  SCs can't win against their own point value.  That's what I'm driving at here.  

Again, you haven't played SM yet. So your point here is still questionable.

None of the above ships have trouble with their own point values worth of IN escorts, with the noted exception of the Dictator.  All of these ships (except the aforementioned and torp daunts) can swing at least a str 3 shot per turn against escorts, (though, granted, the lance daunless has to be closing).  The fact is that SC are balanced to use thawks to kill escorts and their gunnery against other cap ships.  This balance has changed.  Due to the gunnery table, most of the time, it's just a str 1 bombardment cannon hit on shields.

I as a player can make things difficult for those ships. This is where player skill will come in of course. You might even be a better player than I am but I am pretty sure I can make things interesting with the maneuverability of Escorts going up against an equal number of points of any of those ships with the exception of Eldar or Necron.

Again, if you can find a way for a Dominator to get Escorts in arcs other than Abeam, you should be able to do so with the SC. Don't focus overly on the gunnery table. Rather focus more on the gaming table and your tactical maneuvering.

[Sigoroth]

The differences between a laser macrobattery (such as the common Sunsear Laser Battery on a Sword) and a lance are covered quite in depth in Rogue Trader sourcebooks. And since these cover the exact same ships we use in BFG, and, while rules for supporting fire from a starship are not yet in game, examples of it have been used already, such as in Lure of the Expanse, where a dominator and a Firestorm both begin bombarding the planet the players are on.  While the Dominator is flattening entire islands, the Firestorm is more selectively vaporizing structures.  I would suggest that a Firestorm firing it's lance is most likely just what it says on the tin, since RT is also a Space Ships game rather then a ground based game.

If a laser can be a weapon battery then a weapon battery can be used for a pinpoint orbital strike. Therefore there is no need to use lances for pinpoint strikes. The inconsistencies remain, regardless of the above fluff. So either the entirety of the backstory for the 40K universe is wrong as well as the specific BFG references, or, the fluff that doesn't name SMs as having anti-ship weaponry is wrong. Since the former is specific and consistent and the latter is a matter of nomenclature and inconsistent then I wonder which argument should be turfed.

And the fact that a lance hit can kill a wave of mantas is a fluke of BFG's rules attempting to balance AC with weapons, since the designers wanted Jutland, not Midway.  It's sort of like Necrons phasing out when they've been curb stomping you the entire time only to have the last stand by a single squad of guardsmen kill that last necron needed to make their entire victorious army vanish and the IG win.  In reality, the lance hit would probably kill one manta.  

Quite possibly, however if this is a fluke of game mechanics then so too is the fact that lances happen to be purely anti-ship weaponry. As I said before, if the name "lance" were given to mean "weapon batteries" and what we consider lances were renamed to something else then SMs would definitely have lances. Since in this case the fluff you've presented would not be inconsistent with known facts.

You just can't argue from orbital bombardment crap that SMs should have specifically anti-ship weaponry.

And, I'll point out something interesting for you: a lance fired from orbit in 40k has a chance for survival.  A lance fired on the ground DOES NOT.  This is due to the fact that dust particles in an atmosphere attenuate the power of lasers.  The defense laser, which has stats for both 40k and BFG, (str 3, 60cm Lance) is a Str D weapon in 40k, and requires the power of an entire city to fire.  

I don't imagine that lances would be purely laser weapons, but if what you describe here is true, and atmosphere does interfere with lance fire then what you have described is not the same as the BFG weapon. Lances in BFG do not lose effectiveness for firing through debris, gas or dust. Not the same weapon. A BFG lance would not be attenuated and is 3 times more powerful than a WB. WBs are far more likely to be used as an orbital barrage.

If you insist on fluff pointing out out anti-ship capability:

"Ranparre had several centuries of space battle experience behind him. Under his command, the ships of the Crimson Fists had saved over a dozen worlds without the need to drop any troops on the surface. Rebels, traitors, heretics, xenos, even warp-filth… Ranparre had beaten all kinds of enemy craft in high-orbital and deep-space combat. But he had never, in all his unnaturally long life, faced the kind of numbers that the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon was throwing at the planet now.

Even in the gaping black vastness of space, there seemed no quarter that was not under assault, filled with ork craft scything inwards on angry trails of glowing plasma.

“Order the Aurora and the Verde to close formation with us. I want the Aurora on our left flank, the Verde on our right. All forward batteries to target the command bridge of their flagship. If the beast Snagrod is aboard that vessel, we may still have a chance to end all this.”

From a row of stations sunk into the metal floor on the bridge’s right, one of the weapons co-ordinators called out, “I have your forward firing solution, my lord. Permission to fire forward lances?”

“Hold,” said Ranparre. “We fire together with the strike cruisers. If that monstrosity has shields, we must hope to overload them at the very least.”

Seconds later, a comms-station operator on the left reported that the Aurora and the Verde had plotted their firing solutions, and were awaiting Ranparre’s order to engage.

“Give the signal,” barked Ranparre. “All forward batteries… open fire!”

The central display screens in front of him crackled with blinding white energy as the massive weapons loosed their fury. Thick spears of light burned across ten thousand kilometres. A dozen small ork fighters and support craft caught between the two closing flagships were obliterated, simply wiped from existence. Then the lances stuck the ork flagship full in its gargantuan beast-like face." - Rynns World, Chapter 12.

Again, rubbish source. Apart from that, it doesn't show that SMs have purely anti-ship weapons. This is just yet another mistake in a long list of mistakes made by ignorant authors. There is no canonical fluff that describes SMs as having anti-ship weaponry. If there was then this would still have to be reconciled with the Imperial stance on the matter and specific BFG fluff. Ie, it would have to be explained just how they've managed to get away with having anti-ship weaponry without being exterminated/censured/brought to heel, etc.

[BaronIveagh]

I don't imagine that lances would be purely laser weapons, but if what you describe here is true, and atmosphere does interfere with lance fire then what you have described is not the same as the BFG weapon. Lances in BFG do not lose effectiveness for firing through debris, gas or dust. Not the same weapon. A BFG lance would not be attenuated and is 3 times more powerful than a WB. WBs are far more likely to be used as an orbital barrage.

Gas and dust clouds in outer space tend to have a density generally from 100 to 10,000 particles per cm3. Using Earth's atmosphere for a comparison, the atmosphere of a planet contains 2.5×10^19 particles per cm3.  Even debris from a ship explosion is extremely rarefied by comparison, since the debris is traveling away from each other in an expanding cloud.

So, don't even try to compare firing a laser through a gas clouds such as a nebula in space to firing through a planets atmosphere.  It's a testament to how absurdly powerful a lance is that it can do it at all, as it's more then 10^15 times as dense.  It'd be like saying that firing a bullet through air is the same as firing a bullet through liquid magma.

Again, rubbish source. Apart from that, it doesn't show that SMs have purely anti-ship weapons. This is just yet another mistake in a long list of mistakes made by ignorant authors. There is no canonical fluff that describes SMs as having anti-ship weaponry. If there was then this would still have to be reconciled with the Imperial stance on the matter and specific BFG fluff. Ie, it would have to be explained just how they've managed to get away with having anti-ship weaponry without being exterminated/censured/brought to heel, etc.

*sigh* Rynns World has been canon so long it originally appeared in First Ed.  It's been updated and fleshed out over time, and is hot on the heels of the 13th Black Crusade and the war for Armageddon as the best known battle of 'modern' 40k.  When BL made a book of it, it was, quite possibly, one of the MOST scrutinized books BL has ever produced, and underwent three revisions (according to one source) before GW approved it. 

[Sigoroth]

Gas and dust clouds in outer space tend to have a density generally from 100 to 10,000 particles per cm3. Using Earth's atmosphere for a comparison, the atmosphere of a planet contains 2.5×10^19 particles per cm3.  Even debris from a ship explosion is extremely rarefied by comparison, since the debris is traveling away from each other in an expanding cloud.

So, don't even try to compare firing a laser through a gas clouds such as a nebula in space to firing through a planets atmosphere.  It's a testament to how absurdly powerful a lance is that it can do it at all, as it's more then 10^15 times as dense.  It'd be like saying that firing a bullet through air is the same as firing a bullet through liquid magma.

Piffle.

*sigh* Rynns World has been canon so long it originally appeared in First Ed.  It's been updated and fleshed out over time, and is hot on the heels of the 13th Black Crusade and the war for Armageddon as the best known battle of 'modern' 40k.  When BL made a book of it, it was, quite possibly, one of the MOST scrutinized books BL has ever produced, and underwent three revisions (according to one source) before GW approved it. 

Absolutely none of which stops it from being a rubbish source. This is a matter of nomenclature. If we renamed the weapon system in BFG from "lance" to something else and made "lances" a type of weapon battery then the SMs could have them. Hell, from the fluff that you're quoting combined with the history of 40K and the BFG fluff the best we can say is that this is probably what the designers of the game should have done in the first place. That then would make all those pieces of fluff align with each other.

Nothing of what you have said suggests that Space Marines should be armed with a specifically anti-ship weapon. All other weapons in the game that the SMs have access to either allow them to deliver their payload of marines or get better against defences. This latter part is important. Because it means that lances get better against non-defences, i.e., ships! The lance is an anti-ship gun. Space Marines should not get it. The designers of the game knew this, and instead of lances they gave Space Marines a gun that they use for "orbital bombardment" which also happens to hit on a 4+ but, unlike lances, does not get comparatively better against ships! There is your orbital bombardment, there is your lance alternative. You can do precision bombardments as well as area saturation bombardments. Job sorted.

All your continual productions of non-relevant fluff do is suggest that the game designers should have given "lances" different rules and renamed the current lance rules to something else. It is not an argument for SMs to get access to these weapons.

[horizon]

Did someone just wrote that Marines need lances to defeat escorts? 2 lances on a cruiser as well?

ahahhahahaah best opening of 2011. hahhahaha.


Give Orks lances too. Kill Kroozers & Savage escorts. They need lances to.

lollolol

[Plaxor]

Did someone just wrote that Marines need lances to defeat escorts? 2 lances on a cruiser as well?

ahahhahahaah best opening of 2011. hahhahaha.


Give Orks lances too. Kill Kroozers & Savage escorts. They need lances to.

lollolol

I dont see why anyone would need help beating escorts, especially not a fleet with abounding assault boats with a 16% better chance of causing murder. Once we see escorts taken in large numbers (outside of CE) and those lists having better than average win ratios, then it would be a problem.

Oh and about the Orks, have you seen Nate's latest pdf? Ugh... damages a critical part of Ork fluff, I.E. they have no idea how/why they should power lances, and only have them on the largest vessels with the most power left over. now you can take them on savages...

[Dark Depths]

Space marines should not have lances.  Why?  Well, apart from the massive amount of evidence already provided that has not been effectvely debated by anyone, there is another point to be made.

Just because Space Marine ships can, without lances, still sink ships, it doesn't mean that they are designed too, as already shown extensively.  Ergo, there is no reason to provide them with ship killing weaponary.  One could say that this makes little sense because occasionally SM do need to kill ships.  However, the same can be said for other fleets who lack certain kinds of weapons, Chaos and nova cannons, etc.  Giving a frigate a lance is one thing (even though it is still undesirable) as one frigate is generally not a threat to a cruiser.  Giving lances to a SC would change its role into being a cruiser killer, which it is not.  

SC's are not "pitifully weak" against escorts.  Giving them two lances will, at most, kill one escort a turn.  One escort is not a threat.  And if the escorts are still staying put in your next shooting phase to allow you to use your lances twice, then you can probably have outmanouevred them by this point.  Plus, it is not really a question of game balance, rather, of fluff.  No matter how much SM in BFG need a lance (they don't but anyway) they can't have one on normal SC's in any quantity.  If they could have one on one SC, why not on them all?  The Imperium is hardly likely to give an inch on this issue, based on the fear that the Horus heresy created.  Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Yes, this puts them at an disadvantage in BFG, but not all fleets are created equal.  If they were they'd be no need for fluff.  Some fleets are harder to use for perfectly good fluff reasons, and I think thats great.  If you want a game system where every fleet works equally well, then BFG ain't for you.

[BaronIveagh]

Piffle.

Sorry, Sig, not nonsense, Science.

Firing a beam through a medium such as air or water causes it to diffuse and lose power.  Through a vacuum, this is not an issue.

I dont see why anyone would need help beating escorts, especially not a fleet with abounding assault boats with a 16% better chance of causing murder. Once we see escorts taken in large numbers (outside of CE) and those lists having better than average win ratios, then it would be a problem.

Actually, the odds of a 4 aboat wing getting a kill on a 3 ship squadron (assuming the escort has 2 turrets) now is 16%.  The odds of one wb and a str 2 lance is about 25%.

[skatingtortoise]

would it be possible for people to summarise their reasons for/against lances on strike cruisers? and a summary = one sentence per point. and we dont need more justification, we need simple base reasons why they need to have them as an option. the reason i think we need this is that things seem to generally be spiralling into monkey dung flinging contests.

[Dark Depths]

@BI.  You are assuming with your AB scenario vs. escorts that the 3 escorts are able to combine turret fire.  What you've outlined is the worst case scenario, which is true.  But if the escorts are attacked individually and therefore unable to mass turrets then the lances are no better, and the AB fair MUCH better. 

[lastspartacus]

Just for lolz, list that massive evidence you were talking about, dark depths.  all of it you can find.

[Dark Depths]

See the previous 65 pages, and yes, I accept there is a counter-argument, but my 'gut' says no to lances, mostly.  Thinking about this more seriously I accept that in rare circumstances an SC could have a lance.  I'm just reluctant to make it anything other than a house rule, as I don't see how we can make it a fair option in the fleet list and please everyone.