Nova Cannon limitations

[flybywire-E2C]

I do not get this at all. This whole battlereport.

1) Scattering Nova's on ordnace waves: why does this never happen with or against me. I mean.... your scatters are good. Do you have a legit dice.
Your other scatters were also spot on.

Actually, with 7 NC shots over three turns of effective NC shooting, only ONE NC round drifted into an entire ordnance wave. Another drifted into the edge of a Styx wave, removing 2 of 6 markers so it wasn’t a lot of impact. On the other hand, his reload rolls were terrible, and his one really effective bomber run ended up doing nothing thanks to CAP sniping, effective massed turrets and really bad bomb runs.

2) cruiser clash = ships pointing at eachother.  Why did Chaos not move forward with Hades/Murder/Murder/Murder in turn 1 to get into 60cm (should be easy enough), have lock on and fire 10 lances into the IN fleet?

There’s no way he could have done this, as the table is 140cm wide. Even with a 90cm-wide deployment area with no more than 60cm separation between deployment areas, which we carefully measured out, that gave me 40cm of depth and 45cm of slant range to play with, which I used to maximum effect.

He deployed his fleet brilliantly. He set up less than 10cm from his minimum depth (about 35cm away from his edge), and that was only so he could set up behind a small moon to use it as a free pivot to slingshot his entire fleet directly at me. I on the other hand set up my fleet line-abreast in the very far left corner of my deployment area. We didn't measure the starting distances, but from the way we set up and looking at the distances involved, there’s no way he could have been any closer than 100cm from me, and slant range probably made this a bit longer.

Note: when in a squadron you can only target at the closest ship. So I believe you cannot aim the Nova Cannon at a ship in a squadron not being closest. So was the Soul Thief closest target in squadron or not?

You are absolutely right- even Nova Cannon cannot pick targets out of a squadron unless they drift into them. As listed in the battle report, the Soul Thief was not in a squadron. The two Devastations were in a squadron, and he didn't want to squad all three of his carriers together in case he had to brace them.  Unfortunately, that made it easier for me to pick it out.

Conclusion from what I get: Chaos did not apply correct tactics. Your scatters where many times spot on. Chaos keeps it ships to close together.

My scatter rolls aren’t bad Chaos tactics. Incidentally, I did’t find my scatter rools to be all that unusual- the BatRep indicates a number of shots that missed entirely, even as the range closed. He did try to keep his ships far apart. On that note, the one time his ships got too clustered together was when his carrier AAF roll was ridiculously large and neatly interlaced his carriers right into the gaps of his gun line. He tried to fix this in his next turn, but that was the turn I did the most damage to his fleet.

To add:
table 120cm width. Minimum distance 60cm between fleets.

Chaos should deploy on edge: Furthest away IN could do is table edge.
Distance will be 90cm.

It was actually more than 100cm, as my table is 140cm wide (square).

Chaos on normal movement would end up at 65cm. Asume no all ahead full which would bring Chaos certainly within 60cm and makes lances of Murders-Hades-Styx in effect.
IN moves forward 10cm, shoots Nova Cannons. & Mars lances. With or without turning.
distance 55cm.

Minimum move accounting for slant range gave me an effective approach speed of roughly 7cm after the first turn. After my first move, I turned the whole fleet line-abreast 45 degrees and kept it there, tweaking direction just enough to keep his gun line in the edge of my prow arc. Being a math nerd is great stuff!  Don’t feel bad for my son- he’s a math nerd too!   

Chaos moves normal speed, locked on or not. Depends,
25cm speed: Range = 30cm. All guns.

Under 30cm : IN cannot fire NC.

Right on all counts, but keep in mind once he started taking NC rounds, his actual speed was 20cm thanks to blast markers.

So against me you would have had a maximum of 2 rounds of NC fire. At max!

It actually turned into three rounds of fire taking all this into account. By turn 4, about half his fleet was too close to me to use NC’s on, which is why I was hitting him with my gun line. Granted, by turn 3 more than half his fleet was crippled while my fleet was virtually untouched except for one dead ship. Imperials trade range for weight of massed firepower, and Dominators in particular are perfect for this. Once the gun lines joined, it was all over. Sig’s right- the Dominator is an awesome boat.

-   Nate

[flybywire-E2C]

Tactics for that kind of Chaos fleet:

1. Chaos gunships first turn goes AAF to close with IN fleet.
2. Chaos carriers launch bombers. Lots of them.
3. Chaos shouldn't brace. If a hit is rolled, a hit is rolled.
4. Turn 2, Chaos LOs and starts shooting the lights out of the NCs.
5. Bombers should now be attacking the IN ships. Chaos carriers RO and shoot their lances at damaged IN ships.
6. Chaos ships should not brace again.
7. Turn 3. Chaos ships LO, move minimal speed and start using their broadsides against the IN fleet. Most likely crippling or destroying a lot of the IN ships.

That's what you should be doing Nate.

Next time my son and I will re-play the entire battle, with an unchanged fleet and set-up. I'll have him use this guidance and see how it goes. He and I are always looking for excuses to play anyway! We will be travelling for Thanksgiving so this may take two weeks before we can get to it.

- Nate

[horizon]

No Nate, you had more & better scatters in one game then in all my games with or against NC together.

140cm?
That is 40-60-40
Chaos on edge
IN at back

Difference = 100cm.
Without AAF (which he should've done with all ships!).
75cm left.
IN moves 10cm minimum.
65cm left.

Turn 2:
Chaos moves (lockon) 25cm
distance left 40cm. (Move less desirable to avoid 30cm guns of IN if 45cm guns cannot get into play).

All without AAF.


Which should be done in turn one.

[Sigoroth]

My scatter rolls aren’t bad Chaos tactics. Incidentally, I did’t find my scatter rools to be all that unusual- the BatRep indicates a number of shots that missed entirely, even as the range closed. He did try to keep his ships far apart. On that note, the one time his ships got too clustered together was when his carrier AAF roll was ridiculously large and neatly interlaced his carriers right into the gaps of his gun line. He tried to fix this in his next turn, but that was the turn I did the most damage to his fleet.

In all my time playing I have never seen a scatter score a direct hit on another vessel. I've seen a few edge hit scatters in crowded fleets. The amount of scatter hits you got was insane. The amount of brace saves he had was incredible. The fact that you destroyed 6 AC from scatters, the fact he failed to reload so many times and the ineffectual nature of his AC is likewise incredible. He may as well not have had any AC in that fleet.

Also, the only point of forming his fleet into squadrons as he did would be AAF. In which case it becomes imperative that you not brace. He formed squadrons and yet braced. This is a no-no. Squadron, AAF, run the gauntlet. Otherwise, go individual and brace as and when the need arises. Either way, you should not group up.

[Mazila]

I never brace against 1 NC but always brace against 2 NC.

[Eudaimon]

Too less AAf by the chaos player and NC still firing in turn four, this battle is umbelievable IMHO
Chaos going against a NC fleet with a formation so close? That is madness, no matter who did it (too much scatter have hit the ships, IF we want to believe the batrep...)
A scatter that makes a direct hit? The most polite thing that I have to say is that it is umbelievable

NC on a side, torpedoes on the other, let's say "bye bye" to the IN fleet

Nate, you saw a noob brutalized by Nova Cannons and you started your crusade, no matter what we think or what we say.

Read more carefully what people wrote, the totally of us is concordant:
about luck

Reading through the report, seriously, that is an insane amount of scattering onto targets. I've never had it scatter onto anything when it misses except one of my own ships once.

In addition, Chaos seemed to have luck that significantly deviated from expected, with Nova Cannons having good results even on scatter, ordnance waves being hit by NCs, Carriers failing to reload, and AC doing no damage against their target.

Nate, you had more & better scatters in one game then in all my games with or against NC together.

In all my time playing I have never seen a scatter score a direct hit on another vessel. I've seen a few edge hit scatters in crowded fleets. The amount of scatter hits you got was insane. The amount of brace saves he had was incredible. The fact that you destroyed 6 AC from scatters, the fact he failed to reload so many times and the ineffectual nature of his AC is likewise incredible. He may as well not have had any AC in that fleet.

about tactics

Tactics for that kind of Chaos fleet:

1. Chaos gunships first turn goes AAF to close with IN fleet.
2. Chaos carriers launch bombers. Lots of them.
3. Chaos shouldn't brace. If a hit is rolled, a hit is rolled.
4. Turn 2, Chaos LOs and starts shooting the lights out of the NCs.
5. Bombers should now be attacking the IN ships. Chaos carriers RO and shoot their lances at damaged IN ships.
6. Chaos ships should not brace again.
7. Turn 3. Chaos ships LO, move minimal speed and start using their broadsides against the IN fleet. Most likely crippling or destroying a lot of the IN ships.

That's what you should be doing Nate.

Also, the only point of forming his fleet into squadrons as he did would be AAF. In which case it becomes imperative that you not brace. He formed squadrons and yet braced. This is a no-no. Squadron, AAF, run the gauntlet. Otherwise, go individual and brace as and when the need arises. Either way, you should not group up.

140cm?
That is 40-60-40
Chaos on edge
IN at back

Difference = 100cm.
Without AAF (which he should've done with all ships!).
75cm left.
IN moves 10cm minimum.
65cm left.

Turn 2:
Chaos moves (lockon) 25cm
distance left 40cm. (Move less desirable to avoid 30cm guns of IN if 45cm guns cannot get into play).

All without AAF.
Smiley

Which should be done in turn one.

and about the question in general




turn 1: 1 dead on in 7 shots
          damage done by dead on: 2 shields
          damage done by miss: two AC, another entire AC wave, 1 damage and 2 shields
turn 2: 1 dead on in 7 shots, 3 hits "missed" and fall dead on another ship (umbelievable)
          damage done by dead on: 2 shields and 2 damages,
          damage done by miss: 2 shield and 3 damage, 2 shields and 3 damages (again), 2 shields
turn 3: 3 dead on in 7 shots, 2 hits "missed and fall dead on another ship (umbelievable)
          damage done by dead on: 1 shield and 1 damage, 5 damages, 3 damages
          damage done by miss: 1 shield, 1 damage PLUS 2 shields and 4 damage (the same hit), 2 shield and 1 damage
turn 4: 4 dead on in 6 shots
          damage done by dead on: 1 shield, 1 shield and 3 damages, 6 damages, 6 damages
          damage done by miss: 1 shield, 4 damages

SO:
9 dead on in 27 shots, BUT the miss did a MASSACRE! 11 miss has damaged something and 5 hits made dead on another target! It's impossible!
Dead on made : 7 shields and 26 hits:  TOTAL=33
Miss made : 14 shields, 17 hits and two AC waves: TOTAL=31 + 2 WAVES of AC
 

This weapon is not the Nova Cannon, it's the "flybywire's magic dice Cannon"

NC fleets don't win tournaments, don't forget it

[horizon]

Lol, perhaps Nate should take a picture of his scatter dice?

The way Eudaimon writes it comes across as pretty harsh but he is right, the scattering was unbelievable accurate and deadly. Everyone agrees on that.

[silashand]

but he is right, the scattering was unbelievable accurate and deadly. Everyone agrees on that.

All I know is I don't think I have *ever* had that good a luck scattering in any game, let alone BFG. I *wish* my dice were that good . That's not to say it can't happen, but that was pretty unbelievable.

Cheers, Gary

[horizon]

In +10 years of playing I never seen a scatter hit another target spot on.
Never received it, never experienced it. I never had a glancing hit on scatter as well...

And he had that in ONE battle. I mean... that is a truly wtf moment for many of us. haha.

[RCgothic]

Clearly we need more data, as this small sample of playtests seems to be defying expectations. Perhaps those of us who are capable should take Nate's playtest fleet lists and fight some of out own battles and post the results.

[Caine-HoA]

Maybe we could add points the more NCs you add to your fleet. (If it is seen as a necessarity to get a restriction) Make it +10 for the third, +20 for the forth +40 for the fifth. So if you have a few ships with NC its no problem but as soon as you mass them it gets more expensive.

My opinion is not to restrict them at all, players should figure it out as they do with many things in theri playing group and most competitions have their own restrictions anyway so they can add their own.

[russ_c]

Nate,

I'm as perplexed as the majority of responders with how things played out.  I'd really go balls-to-wall with Chaos and just push them in as ferociously as possible in the next game.  This particular battle seems to have brought good fortune to your scatters and very unlucky rolls to your son's ordnance reloads.  I think you've got it right that you should stick with the same fleet composition(for now) and I certainly agree with RCgothic that others should report on the same fleet compositions.  Still, at some point I would like to see you max out the Chaos fleet with all slaughters and see what happens as well!

Keep it coming, and have a happy holiday!

Russ

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Even assuming that the IN player had the good fortune of getting such wonderful scatters, the problem for me isn't in the number of NCs. It's a problem with the rules. In my NC rules, scatters with center hole landing on another base does only D3 damage not D6.

[BaronIveagh]

Wow, I found this board at long last.  Was tired of waiting for PM to come back up and horizon mentioned that there was this 'other' board...

Anyway, I hate to say it, but my first post I'm swimming up stream and will say that I've seen a lot of NC spam myself, and agree with the op.  It's like facing all basilisk AC lists.  It either falls on it's face, or absolutely maims you. 

The simplest strategy for NC spam is to pick something that looks important, and fire five or six NCs (or seven or eight) at it.  Even factoring in scatter, you are likely to score at least a few hits.  Table dimensions are pretty much the deciding factor on if you're dead (or at least smoking) before you get there. Small tables are bad for NC.  Large tables are good for it.   

I know some people have dismissed NC as more having a psychological impact, but last week I lost 9 iconoclasts to massed NC fire trying to cross the 120cm to the safe zone going AAF, so he's not entirely blowing smoke.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

You're concerned because you lost 9 Iconoclasts? Given their cost, I'd be happy the NCs were shooting at them instead of my cruisers and would have been driving my cruisers forward so that I can destroy the enemy ships.