See, now this here is a useful post!! I'm going to need some time to digest this. Keep in mind that while Stompa is a cool name for a ship class, Orks don't really do capital ship classes per se. Kill Kroozers represent a range of capital ships that are all geared to be mainly shooty, whereas terror ships are capital ships geared as a springboard for the speed freekz to fly their shiny fighta-bommas. The 'Ammer represents a kill kroozer up-gunned to be even more shooty and carry some –bommas, with them simply being battle kroozers as a class named after and inspired by the most infamous one, the ‘Ammer. The named battleships are nothing more than larger, older and even more customized versions of battle kroozers, which is why they are all lumped together when deciding the ratio between how many kroozers you must have per battle kroozer. Essentially, you can have as many battle kroozers as you want restricted only by having one battle kroozer for every two kroozers in your fleet, but only one battle kroozer can be the Slamblasta, Dethdeala, etc.
This kind of variation was the intent with the Ork Klanz refits- to allow players to subtly alter the profiles between individual kill kroozers for set point costs. It was even recommended in the fanatic article that in campaigns, Ork players change the refits incorporated between battles!
Of course, how all this appears in the final product will be a bit different, but this is the direction I was looking for when I asked for input. Thanks!
Anyone else? Thoughts?
- Nate
Thanks Nate, my thoughts are that Orks don't have so many issues at 'raid' points values, in that their escorts are actually quite good and can compete with other fleets just fine.
Orks have 4 issues:
They have limited/no access to lance/lance equivalents: this makes it very tough to win games against high armored foes. This wasn't so much of an issue during the days of the 4 original bfg fleets, as none of them had 6+ armor, save for the imperials, and even then they still wanted to use their side weapons. Now with space marines and necrons, this is even more than the mild issue it used to be. Orks are forced to solve this problem through boarding actions, which is a whole different section.
They are slow/unmaneuverable: this makes it difficult for them to perform the function that they are supposed to be the best at, ramming and boarding. They can't get in range to do these things, particularly against the two fleets that they need it against the most, necrons and sms. Not only are they on the low spectrum of speeds, they lose out on AAF as well.
They are vulnerable to ordinance: orks have low rear armor, and low turrets, this makes ordinance nearly 3 times as effective at killing them. Forcing ork players to max out on terror ships to stand any relative chance. Fleets like most tau builds make orks into jell-o.
Orks have low range, and low weapons strengths: compared to imperial or chaos standards, ork ships are about half as well armed considering weapons of reasonable range.
Now, as you've stated, we cannot change the stats of any Ork capital ship. I understand, as for other fleets you're only changing semi-official things. I was wondering what you were willing to consider changing? The cost of ships? presumably not the loadout of them.
What about the way that fleets are built? Costs in warlords/their upgrades? Do you want new upgrades for every ship? Such as bombard cannons on savage gunships?
Can we revise the wording or special rules of orks? such as the way heavy guns work? One idea would be to let heavy guns work out to 30cm, but only give them the 'double hits' rule within 15. Or even eliminating the double hits and giving them +1 to their rolls, effectively reducing the opponents armor.
I understand that 'orks don't do capital ships' this is true, but like I said orks have the most trouble at fleet engagements, which are fought amongst capital ships. Kill-kroozers do represent a wide variety of capital ships (as no two orks would ever build their ships the same) which yes, makes it difficult to make a new capital ship class. I have a few ideas, of course I mentioned the torpedo-boat before, and would think of that as interesting and orky feeling. Unique enough from a kill-kroozer. Perhaps that could just be an upgrade.
Then there's the whole area of CLs, and you still said Orks don't do cap ships, but CLs are supposed to be somewhere between escort and cruiser, unfortunately BFG rules don't allow something to be a true hybrid. However, it is reasonable to assess that orks would have light cruisers, and they would be different enough from kill-kroozers and their larger brethren because of it. This class of ship gives us an opportunity to help the Orks with a few of their problems, without overshadowing Kill-Kroozers and the concept behind them.
As far as escorts go, there is a problem with them in BFG that makes them hard to develop, and that is the fact that they're just to small. This makes it near-impossible to make unique ones with new weapon loadouts or combat styles, as it's already been made, or it would just be too far from the point.
In this case with orks, we only have the three weapon options, which each has it's own respective escort. So there really isn't anything to make new ones, without outshining the old or being unfluffy.
Other than giving the savages soopa-engines or reducing their points cost, and increasing the onslaught fp by 1 or reducing it's points cost to 35. I really don't have any new ideas for orks.
I would like to see a reduction in points costs across the board, save for the brute, ravager, and perhaps 1-2 of the battleships. I think this would be a substantial benefit to orks, and keep them in-line with their fluff, not modifying any ship and considering how valuable ork ships are with their shoddy and poorly jury-rigged tech, I wouldn't be surprised to see ork ships at a much cheaper value.
Consider this, if each ship cost more appropriately it would look more like this;
Kill-Kroozer 135/155
Terror Ship 170/185
Brutes 25/25
Ravager 40/40
Onslaught 35/40
Savage 30/40
Gorbag's Revenge 310/310
Slamblasta 285/295
Deathdeala 275/275
Kroolboy 255/270 (this is mainly due to the fact that it doesn't have lances/bombard)
Hammer 245/245
Warboss upgrades:
Maniac Gunners 10pts
Mad Meks 5pts
Extra power field 20pts
Mega-armored boarders 15pts
Looted Torpedos 10pts
Overall only an 60 point deduction in cost (not counting warboss upgrades). But it's most needed around the kroozers/escorts. With that a fifteen-hundred point list would look like this:
Kill-Kroozer 135 (185)
Warboss 1rr 50
Maniac gunners
Terror shipx2 340
Hammer 240 (340)
warboss +2 rr 80
Extra power fields 20
Savage x5 180
Ravager x2 80
Onslaughtx4 140
Ramship x6 150
A lot more outnumbering feeling. You even could see people taking another kill kroozer and another hammer. With cheaper kroozers especially this way, it makes it more accessible to the hammer class battlecruiser, which helps with ordinance and reduces the fears of getting bombed. Making the Kill-Kroozer a larger staple in the fleet, and it does one of the most orky things around, allows for the orks to provide an outnumbering situation, which is very orky.
Anyway, that's a bit of annendum to my 'fixing the orks' thoughts.