List of flawed ships

[RCgothic]

I've actually spent the afternoon revising the formula to account for fire arc. Also revamped are speed, turrets, and WB vs Lance price balance, so it might actually have a chance at that ship! Will work it out when I get home. Edit: 455pts not accounting for 90'. Call it 480pts.

I've put in 21 IN ships so far, and it's worked out surprisingly well! Apart from the Mars and Dominator being under by 11-15pts (and that is purely down to the rulebook premium on NCs compared to torps - removing the premium would put them back within spec), the only 2 ships so far have come out as being more than 5pts wrong by my revised formula are the Emperor (only 7.5pts out) and the Vanquisher - and actually, I find I have to agree with it. 300pts is too few for what you get. With 20cm speed it should be around 320-325pts. With 15cm speed, 310.

If anyone would like to have a look at my revised formula, I'll be happy to share it. At the moment it's just a spreadsheet, and I've only tested on IN ships so far.

[Plaxor]

Smotherman undervalues 30cm wbs. Overvalues 6+ armour, 60cm guns, and heavy guns. It doesn't give any relative value to speed or arc.

It is only useful as a 'guess'. I like Horizon's philosophy, use it to change from something that already exists.

I remember doing something to figure good relative value to how valuable weapons are.

Simply relative to 30cm batteries, we could say that 15cm are worth half. as 30cm batteries would receive the same left shift within 15cm.

Then 45cm batteries would be worth 1/2 extra right? No. The right shift makes this closer to 1/3 more.

60cm batteries of course would then be about 1.5x.

[horizon]

Hey Sig,
as said, the math I did to a full convert into wb is off. No probs there.

Offside weaponry: truth. On long range mostly not used. But lets do the usual broadside. Because our opponent won't always do what we want and not circle around the Retribution. Thus make sure it would never get to fire both sides. Agreed?

Torps on Desolator. Yes, a supplement weapon. A supplement weapon I have used on various occassions with great succes. Sometimes your opponent just will not stay in the 45-60cm band.
Heck, I've played a battle with Tau, totally lost the ordnance phase against an Ork fleet (not all Terrorz) because of crap Ld, then I won the gunnery phase as we closed due good use of escorts and prow weapons. I mean, a battle which was won using vica versa of what it should have been.

As for smotherman: in my calc I only used RcG basis. And yes smotherman loses a lot (arcs on dorsals for example). As said: it is basic guideline to get a start somewhere.

[Valhallan]

yeah, in my own WBe guessing... I've found that accounting for the range, but also the shift resulted in a pretty accurate ratio. x4/3 for 45cm guns, and x5/3 for 60cm guns.

using this, we can number crunch and see that the old ret dropping range would come out with 15WB at 45, so the 18 at 45 fix with +10 points is appropriate.

on a side note though the proposed invincible's 15WB at 60 by my numbers comes out to equal 19WB at 45... making it stronger than the ret, but just barley. (thus the 12WB with target matrix rules).

[Plaxor]

I remember the story of how they developed the Apollo spacecraft. That the engineers kept changing the spacecraft over and over again so much that eventually the supervisor put a halt on all changes for something like 2 months. Simply so that they could think about their changes before going through with them.


Hmmmmm... anyways, I'm working on the 'rules' pdf. I think I'm really getting the hang of it now. Still tedious as all hell, but I'm on page 13 out of (expected) 40. Then I will hopefully be able to move on to stapling on the IN (as I update it).

So I need to know about an Invincible profile, bakka details. Your demands on the Siluria. As well as veteran captains.

Personally on the subject of veteran captains, I think that they should only be 40 points..... because they are forced to take a re-roll, unlike Chaos lords, and the secondary commanders re-rolls are less valuable.

Anyways can't think of anything else on the side of IN. Let me know!

[Eldanesh]

the problem with smotherman and other formulas is, that they are based on a wrong idea: there is no kind of formula behind the pricing of units in any GW system. It's just a matter of good or bad guesses: start with a pointvalue and than give or take some points.
Point costs are only based on the impression of game designer And nothing else. And for some reason Andy C. (or whoever was doing the fleet lists) overrated the IN and Orks and underrated Chaos.
I can't really imagine why this was the case. Perhaps during playtesting the IN player was way better than the chaosplayer and won every game, and they decided to blame the list for this.
Or they decided the pointcosts before all rules were done. For example if they played a lot of games before AC were introduced (their rules came in very late in the develpoment...) torpedos would have been an awesome weapon. This is the only explanation I have that anybody would price an lunar 15P higher than a Slaughter: a overrating of torpedos 

[RCgothic]

Bakka:

Vanquisher should be 320-330pts at 20cm speed. Reasoning compared to Retribution:
2/3 Broadsides swapped for Lances: 25pts.
1/3 Broadside upped to 60cm: 5pts
5th turret: 5pts
Loss of 3 60cm dorsal lances L/F/R: -50pts
Loss of 3 torps: -10pts
Nett difference: -25pts.

It seems this profile may be popular:
Invincible 315pts
Battleship12 Shields2 Speed25 Turns45 Armour 6+/5+
Prow Torps S6 30cm F
Dorsal Lances S3 60cm L/F/R
Broadside Weapons Batteries FP12 60cm L/R
Special: May not come to New Heading. Invincible has a Targetting Matrix which gives it a left shift on the gunnery chart. The additional space required by Invincible's enlarged engine rooms has left it with inadequate internal compartments: Invincible suffers critical hits on a D6 roll of 5+, and any rolls on the Critical Hit table have a +1 modifier.

Mercury: Delete. Instead, option for Overlord to take Experimental Engines (+5cm speed, 3D6 pick highest on Catastrophic Damage Chart)

Siluria: 6 hits, 45cm WBs, 100pts. Has synergy with Invincible and Enhanced Overlord.

Firedagger: Sword with -2WBs. 30pts. Enemy Ordnance that passes within 5cm count as moving through blast markers.

Need to think about Victory as well.

[Plaxor]

It was hard to follow your Vanquisher logic there RC. I think that you made a typo or something, but 320-330 is reasonable.

Vicky is doing your profile, 4lances and 6wbs@60. Like I said, it either needed to be cheap or expensive. Seems easier to make it expensive.

The Siluria doesn't really feel as though it should have long range batteries, it is an outdated ship. In the fluff it's described as having more weapons than your average vessel, but not longer ranged.

I think that Invincible will be the one that will play out, any complaints?

On the note of the siluria, I could see it going to fp 8 per side, and 110pts.

[RCgothic]

3 versions of the Victory under consideration:

2L&FP12@60cm Broadsides, with 3L on top. This is nearly an Apocalypse (5L&FP12 vs 6L&FP9), and Visually distinct from the Vanquisher, which is in the same list.

4L&FP6@60cm Broadsides, with FP9 on top. This is nearly a Retribution (4L&FP15 vs 3L&FP18), but visually quite similar to the Vanquisher - only difference is presence of Dorsals.

4L&FP6@60cm Broadsides with 3L on top. This is more powerful than an Apoc (7L&FP6 vs 6L&FP9). This is also quite similar to a Victory, and would be the most expensive option. It would also need power fluctuations similar to the Apocalypse thanks to the heavy lance armament.

[horizon]

the problem with smotherman and other formulas is, that they are based on a wrong idea: there is no kind of formula behind the pricing of units in any GW system. It's just a matter of good or bad guesses: start with a pointvalue and than give or take some points.
Point costs are only based on the impression of game designer And nothing else. And for some reason Andy C. (or whoever was doing the fleet lists) overrated the IN and Orks and underrated Chaos.
I can't really imagine why this was the case. Perhaps during playtesting the IN player was way better than the chaosplayer and won every game, and they decided to blame the list for this.
Or they decided the pointcosts before all rules were done. For example if they played a lot of games before AC were introduced (their rules came in very late in the develpoment...) torpedos would have been an awesome weapon. This is the only explanation I have that anybody would price an lunar 15P higher than a Slaughter: a overrating of torpedos 

Overrated prow armour on the Imperial Armour. By the same token Ork prow armour has the same issue.

[Eldanesh]

I can't imagine that they missjudged prow armor so much, at all it is only "worth" an additional rightshift in the frontarc...

[RCgothic]

It's worth 2 right shifts in the front arc at standard engagement distances, as it halves the amount of damage getting through vs wbs.

[RCgothic]

But anyway, back to discussing bakka. My proposed list is:

Victory (7L&FP6@60cm with PF for 375 OR 5L&FP12@60cm for 370 OR 4L@FP15@60cm for 365 OR 2L&FP21@60cm for 360pts)
Retribution 345/355pts as fixed
Vanquisher 320pts As HA but with prow LB option + 20cm speed
Invincible 315pts Hits12 Shields 2 Speed25 Turns45 Armour 6+/5+ Turrets3 S5 Torps FP12&3L@60cm with Targetting Matrix

Mercury: Delete.
Dominion 260pts
Armageddon 235pts
Overlord 220pts with Targetting Matrix Option + Experimental Engine Options
Gothic BC 215pts Broadsides@30cm.

Dominator 190pts
Tyrant 180pts as fixed
Lunar 180pts
Gothic 180pts

Endeavour/Endurance/Defiant - all 120pts with 6+ prow and 90' turns
Dauntless 110pts
Siluria - 6hits 100pts FP6@45cm for synergy with Invincible/Overlord OR 4hits 75pts FP6@30cm for cheap crap.

Falchion 35pts
Viper 35pts
Havoc 35pts
Firedagger (RC: Sword with -2WB for 30pts OR Plaxor: Sword with 2WBs reduced to 15cm for 35pts, hitting ordnance on 4+. Both have ordnance passing within 5cm count as moving through blast markers,.)

Fleet:
No Ad Mech/SM Allies.
All ships have twin-linked turrets.

[Phthisis]

I disagree that prow armor is overrated.  Facing a wall of 6+ armor coming straight towards you is a tough nut to crack.  Remember that you have to roll 6s to take down shields as well.  It takes an average of 18 dice to bust through shields and cause a point of damage.  That many dice can be difficult to muster.  It can be leveraged quite effectively.  Also don't forget what 6+ prow armor does for ramming.

[commander]

Point cost. Don't get me started.

First of all, I would like a point system set up for BFG; no longer guessing at the point value of a given ship. If a design is succesful, good for you.

Take also in account that for the IN, less advanced technology (easier to maintain and produce) was used to allow the Navy to replenish their fleets at an advanced rate. So point cost, in general,  should be lower than Chaos who still uses the advanced technology of old.

There, some ranting done.

As for the Invincible: don't make it too powerful; remember that the Arc of the Mechanicus is supposed to be the superior design.