Alternative Proposal to Turret Suppression

[Plaxor]

^^ and without marginalizing fighterbommaz

i'd help but another exam tomorrow...

Exactly, but ideally they would do about 2/3-3/4 as much damage to ships as regular bombers.

[Phthisis]

Brainstorminh here...What if turrets only suppressed a number of attacks equal to their strength?

So the equation would be  (Nd6)-t   instead of N(d6-t).  That would allow large waves of bombers to overwhelm high turret targets.  Would it make bombers too powerful against lower turret values?

[Plaxor]

Tried it, didn't fit well, it neuters low lb carriers.

[Vectorz]

This has probably been discussed already but I couldn't find it:

- Bombers do d3 attacks, Fighters do 1
- Turrets don't reduce the number of attacks, only shooting down incoming squads. In waves, fighters are shot down first.
- 1 Fighter attacking bombers kill d3 (or d6) markers or one fighter. In waves fighters are killed first.

That gives a reason to give the bombers some fighter escort, but keeps the damage in check. Probably still more powerful against high turret ships than before, I think. 

[Plaxor]

Makes bombers actually more powerful against everything but T1. That one's a loss.

[lastspartacus]

I still say a straight 2 or 3 as long as a fighter survives is the way to go.  So wonderfully simple.  And it lets you slap more turrets on things.

[Plaxor]

Too powerful LS.

Ideally bombers would have the equivalent of 1.5 attack runs. The only way to do this is either...


Hmmmmm.... you actually gave me an idea......

[lastspartacus]

So 2 per even with the caveat of 'must have a remaining fighter' is too powerful?

That gives the typical 4 slot carrier...not that many attacks.  And it provides some strategic thought as to how to compose your attack wave, as the risk/gain would be different.

[Thinking Stone]

I have been often thinking about the attack craft situation (which you can see in the other treads, BFG Advanced and More Detailed Attack Craft Interactions), and I was thinking that perhaps a slightly more in-depth system would be of benefit?

It definitely seems that there are two main balancing issues: balance of attack craft (AC) against ships and balance of attack craft against attack craft. The AC against ships seems to mainly be a fleet composition issue (I agree that AC should be a viable alternative to gunfleets/torpedo fleets etc. without overpowering any of the choices). I think that the AC interactions with ships should be the first thing fixed (which, of course, is what has been happening here), and that AC versus AC interactions (which are quite seperate) should be considered afterwards. I also prefer (as most people do) a more 'elegant' solution to the problem (so hopefully avoiding tricky things like D3 -1 + .5 for every fighter with a 6+ save for every turret etc.). I think that it is beneficial to consider attack craft as a weapons system for this purpose, and compare it with lances and weapons batteries (it would also be nice to test the better suggestions in order to discern the best of them ).
As a bit of a summary, AC versus ships should be:
1. Balanced against ships of all types, such that attack craft are roughly equally effective against all targets. This would mean that attack craft would kill smaller ships more quickly than larger ships simply due to the sturdiness of larger ships.
2. This could be modified, however, to give AC its own 'tactical flavour'. That is, lances are good against armoured targets but suffer because of their lesser strengths (e.g. against shielding, a Gothic = heavy lance ship does not, on average, damage a standard cruiser); weapons batteries suffer against armoured targets and are range-dependent but carry the real firepower of the fleet. Lances are particularly good at taking out escorts whilst weapons batteries are not; both require lots of firepower to take out a big ship. Thus, what are AC good against and what do they suffer against?
3. Able to fulfill a role that other ship types (e.g. gunships, torpedo ships, fast ships) cannot. However, fleets should not be penalised for not having AC; the are not meant to be a 'be-all-and-end-all' weapon, but rather one type of weapon that can fill a tactical 'gap' that certain gunship fleets cannot fill.
4. Fleets without ordnance should be able to defend themselves (after a fashion) against ordnance. This is so that all-gunship fleets, although not ideally protected against ordnance, can survive long enough to win in their own way. Likewise, all-AC fleets should survive against gunship fleets long enough to unleash their primary weapons, the AC. But players should also be rewarded for constructing a 'combined arms' fleet: not maxing out on AC or gunships but taking a balanced fleet with one or two carriers (say) and three or so gunships with about two or so escorts per ship. The combined arms fleet would be hard to use because you cannot go out 'all guns blazing' (or whatever guns do in the far future) or simply overwhelm the enemy through AC or even torpedo the enemy to death, but they would be very effective because a (suitably skilled) player can counter all threats and always has the right tool for a job (e.g. need to kill those escorts so that I can bomb their battleship into dust, so I'll just use my lances here.... Whereas a gunship fleet would have to tackle the tough battleship on its own, whilst being able to easily destroy the escorts, and a carrier fleet would have trouble destroying the escorts before mincing the battleship).

My suggestions in response to these tactical dilemas is to make AC good against larger capital ships and weak against escorts and smaller ships. This is in keeping with one of the roles of escorts and will make them especially useful against carrier fleets (which seem to be popular) whilst also giving the fleet some extra firepower/torpedoes. I'm not sure if ordnance should be the best defence against ordnance, from a gameplay point of view. This would make the AC fleets quite offensive in nature but would mean that defending fleets don't have to be carrier fleets themselves to survive. This is an area where good (defensive, not torpedo/gunboat escorts, which have their own uses) escorts are important! Or, perhaps, limiting the number of ships that can launch bomber-type ordnance and allowing more ships to launch just fighters (which are kind of ubiquitous, anyway, and I'm sure the image of a massive battleship flying along with little fighters in CAP formation, drawn in classic Warhammer-style pencil is appealing to most ). (I know that htis is AC versus AC, unlike the summary above, but) perhaps the fighters would only be on CAP? That way escorts could launch the fighters and not be overwhelmingly powerful, whilst giving them incentive to remain in base contact with capital ships that they are escorting.

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully my ideas will spark some useful thinking. For the record, I like resilient AC because the rolling of their save makes the ordnance phase much more interesting and not just a matter of removing markers. Even if ordnance battles had multiple rounds in the ordnance phase, it would not disrupt other parts of the game and would make ordnance more interesting and higher-tactical-stakes (since you might not win by virtue of having 60 AC (or 8, that's more reasonable... ). Maybe this way, ordnance could have a chance at being good at destroying other AC but it is not particularly likely that this will occur; one should rely upon escorts and turrets for reliable defences. Although some people really dislike the addition of 'random' bits (such as a 4+ save), I think that this is the whole point of Warhammer-esque games, sincethe removal of chance just makes the game like chess (and a poorly balanced one, at that, it seems). While this is okay, truly great generals (and admirals, in this case) can win, even if the chance goes against them. Of course, the sign of a well-made game is that a player can still win if they are unlucky, but it requires a great show of their skill.
.

[lastspartacus]

What, is a stated purpose of escorts to ward against AC?  Just a minor quibble.

[Plaxor]

Had an idea about escorts being able to do 'Overwatch' where they could choose to wait to fire their weapons until the Ordnance phase (of either players turn).

[RCgothic]

I've never been very keen on any sort of overwatch mechanic in any game. They're too much out of the ordinary.

[Plaxor]

I know, neither is Sig.

[horizon]

Overwatch in BFG? Eeeeeek no!

[Trasvi]

How about... ships can only suppress attacks from a number of fighters = to number of their turrets.

So a T6 ship would subtract 6 from 6 dice in an attacking wave. Meaning that any AC over 6 you have in a wave get to do some damage. I know that needs a lot of refining, but the idea is that a ship has a maximum number of attacks its turrets can suppress before being overwhelmed by numbers.

The issue as I see it is that T6 ships are invincible vs a wave of 1000000 bombers. But as the majority of ships are T2/3, we need to find some way to bump up the high end, but keep T2 pretty much where it is. Is that what other people are feeling?