I'm not a NC fun (and I'm an IN player) but limiting the NC means that Mars, Dominator and the Apocalypse are restricted too, so in my personal opinion that wouldn't be a good thing, as seen that the IN fleet is the fleet of the choice. Maybe it would be well if you make a torpedo variant of those ships, but I don't understand this need of limiting the NC.
I always thought that its limit was the scatter and the short range blackout, I mean that after a certain point of the battle it become almost useless.
I have never seen a scattering shot that has hit a ship that wasn't the primary target, even against all NC fleets (only the 1 hit of the area a couple of time, pretty useless).
I recognize that used against fleet that are usually less outnumber (Necron, AdMech) it is more effective.
Okay, now lets review. Say NC's are limited to 2 per 750 points. Because a Mars is already 270 points AND you need 2 cruisers just to have a Mars (say 2 Dauntless for maximum munchkin), you need at an absolute minimum 490 points per Mars. Thus, the Mars is just fine, since you need 980 points to have two of them even if you min-max your fleet, keeping in mind that if you are a min-max munchkin, you deserve what you get. The only limitation imposed here is if you wanted to go full-bore munchkin and get your Mars with two Dominators, which you would no longer be allowed to do: Mars + Dominator = 460 points. In order to get another NC ship, you need at least one more cruiser, say a Lunar, which I might add is supposed to be the most plentiful cruiser in the Imperial Navy. Now for 750 points you have three cruisers, two of which have NC's. Or, we can even min-max again and buy two Dauntless to go with our Mars/Dominator pair, giving us four capital ships with two NC's for less than 750 points. Not too shabby! The Apocalypse is a battleship so this gets even easier- it soaks up nearly half the 750-point limit all by itself.
The ONLY ship that would actually be restricted by this rule would be the Dominator, which you could now no longer take more than two of per 750 points. Don't get me wrong, I like the thing and have a few, which I make distinct from my Tyrants by using different prows and bridges (they're supposed to be from Kar Durniash anyway). If Dominators are so vitally important to your fleet that you absolutely MUST have more than two of these per 750 points, you need to develop better tactics, not to mention you have some very forgiving (or naive) opponents.
The only problem a 2 for 750-point limit brings up will be for those who want to go all-NC, which is essentially what you would be doing if you try and cram 3 NC's into a 750 point fleet. That is pure munchkinism and totally against fluff- this weapon system is supposed to be rare. I don't care how much you play BFG; if your strategy as an IN player is to field as many NC's as you can cram into a fleet, you need to develop better tactics.
Don't get me wrong, there are tactics that seasoned players can use to defeat an all-NC munchkin, and I have done it on a number of occassions because I like the challenge and find skewered fleets useful for play-testing. However, BFG is intended for everyone, and the game I saw in Atlanta was ridiculous. One player was being introduced to the game for only the second time, and he was REALLY put of to see his fleet mashed to pulp before he even closed to shoot back. New players should not need to have explained to them, "Don't worry about losing your entire fleet for no damage on my side, you just need to develop better tactics against this kind of weapon."
One more reason they should be limited to 2 per 750 points is a more subtle one. The Adeptus Mechanicus don't have battlecruisers per se, and they can use NC's on every cruiser type in their inventory except CL's. However, as a rule their ships are considerably more expensive than equivalent IN types. This means that in a min-max matchup with the IN pushing all Dominators, the IN would actually end up with more NC's than the AM fleet for a given point value, a preposterous assertion. Now the IN will still have more ships because they are cheaper, but at least NC's will be at parity.
- Nate
