List of flawed ships

[Sigoroth]

Well we had a variable save against lances for the HF and this is the same concept but applied straight to the hit roll. The biggest problem with adjusting the hit roll is that people probably won't like this exception to a core rule. Lances always hit on a 4+. One exception is no problem of course, but typically leads to more. So there is the problem of creep as well as player resistance.

The other problem is expected damage. Within 15cm (no effect of HF) a lance will yield 0.5 to 0.75 (LO) expected average damage. Comparing systems:

4+ hit, 6+ save = 0.42/0.63 (LO) ead. 5+ hit = 0.33/0.56 (LO) ead.
4+ hit, 5+ save = 0.33/0.50 (LO) ead. 6+ hit = 0.17/0.31 (LO) ead.

So this change would, in effect, nerf lances.

As a system I like it, it's simpler and more elegant than the save, but it has some problems.

[Plaxor]

Hmmmm... didn't think of it in terms of LO.

I do like the idea of lances being quite crappy against Eldar, I mean... not as useless as in MSM, but still quite a bit worse. Purpose being to help with metagame, as I find a lot of players don't see much reason not to spam lances.

I don't know much about MMS, but it seems to me that just giving Eldar shields and 5+ crits doesn't seem like that much to keep them 'comparatively' safe. With MMS they are now subject to teleport attacks, ramming, and boarding as normal. Not big things when thinking about chaos or IN, but from an Ork standpoint....

Eldar already have fewer hits than normal, and are better armed than normal. Must they be so glass-cannony?

The lance weakness protects them quite well against lets say.... 1/3 of all weapons, quite a good thing for keeping them alive, and yet with this system it makes lances not useless.


About the 4+ lances hitting is a core mechanic thing. Who cares, the fluff is that they are easier to penetrate armour, where our hitting in this game is a combination of actually hitting and damaging the vessel. Sure that lance will always hit on a certain value regardless of armour, except due to tracking issues it is less likely to.

Besides, it is more elegant, and it does deviate from the rules less (IMO). However does it make it more tough?


Oh btw, I was wondering if DE ships were too strong, I mean I just changed the Shadowfields to copy MMS holofields, and gave them the same number of shields as similar class vessels. However they are about the same points cost as their counterparts, but they aren't subject to 'Fragile'.

[RCgothic]

Sorry I've not been too involved recently. Losing all the work I did on that main rules edit really took the wind out of my sails, and I've been really busy at work. The company's not doing great either, so as of next week everyone's having their hours reduced by 1 per day, which means I should have a little more time coming up.

[Phthisis]

Sorry to hear about that RC.  I don't know where you live, but here in WA we are starting to see a big turn around.  Companies are hiring and expanding and there are lots of new houses being built.  Things might not be bad for much longer.

I like the lance rules vs.  holofields/shadowfields were you change the hit score.  Ive always disliked the save mechanic and how Eldar were virtually immune to anything but WBs.  It made your ability to take on Eldar almost entirely dependent on your fleet list instead of your strategy.  Now lances are still viable against them, although with greatly reduced effectiveness. 

As for MMS,  I know a lot of people like it.  I see Tagerrung's point about Eldar getting stuck in range of enemy weapons.  Even with shields, they will be closing and within 30cm.   Closing, inside 30cm with holo/shadow is still more vulnerable than abeam under 30cm.  Im sure you have all discussed this before, so what was the verdict on this issue?

[Plaxor]

Pthisis,

You're right, which is why I wonder how they came to the conclusion of this, they have comparable survivability to a slaughter, and those things explode like no ones business.

I don't think that they would necessarily be closing for return fire, remember that they are very fast and maneuverable, so they could very well plan out their attack so they would not be so vulnerable to such fire. I trust that they didn't make them too weak.

With the tiered lances system, lances are still at least 2x more viable than in MSM, where firing lances was a laugh. 4x at 15-30cm, and normal at close range.

Sure its still weaker than RS weapons batteries, but not that much.


@RS

I know how much it sucks to lose a big chunk of work that you've done, I'd be rather pissed if I lost one of these .pdfs Sorry to hear about your work, one of the big communications companies in Denver (Qwest) just got bought out by some small-time company, who is currently in the process of laying off/forcing retirement on half their employees.

I hope that you can get back to editing, I do appreciate the help, and you do have a talent with wording.

[Phthisis]

I don't know if everyone is sold on positioning so you won't necessarily be closing for return fire.  I made that exact same argument before and it was soundly rejected.

The question here is if we are happy with Eldar ships being this vulnerable to firepower in MMS, especially then they are so expensive. Is this a problem or just the downside of Eldar?  Will players just build ordnance based fleets to circumvent their weakness?  Is all ordy Eldar fleets something we don't want to encourage?

What if holo/shadowfields just made all WBs use the Abeam column regardless of facing?

[horizon]

Jeez, if Eldar fly like loonies into easy return fire they should see harassment. And die!

Eldar, like ust enter the 30cm range. Closing, yes. Holofield helps them (in addition) to equal the closing downside and the critical hit.
But that is secondary. The truth is that you should make use of speed & turns to gain a good attack angle on the enemy. Flank them, speed by them, etc. Attack in a way return fire is minimized.

Making them even more protected is the dumbest thing to do. THRUST ME and MANY GAMES of EXPERIENCE with MMS.

That is the verdict. Play em like you should.

Nice to see the lance change to hit roll sees fans.



@ RcG, keep it up & easy.

- warning-
Downside. Not problem. Can't give it all to them.

Ordnance fleets can be put they'll never be a carrier fleet like Tau. Certainly Corsairs not.
Regardless of facing is uncool. Positioning should be rewarded for everyone (DAMN the ALLROUND blastmarker rule   ).

[Sigoroth]

The speed of Eldar sees them able to pull off some manoeuvres that others could not. I myself am not sold on a fragile Eldar from a fluff point of view. The whole trade-off of resilience for speed seems fine for a race of equal tech levels, but Eldar are supposed to surpass the younger races in technology, so it really shouldn't be a trade-off, but rather an extra in one field.

However, play testing a more resilient Eldar saw them able to run circles around the enemy, take what they had on the chin, and still put out considerable firepower. They were too strong. Note however, that even though the Eldar were too strong (practically unbeatable), my opponents still came away happy with the games. This is because they could actually shoot at my ships and had a feeling of actually accomplishing something. So it was a step in the right direction.

I think that the Eldar have been cut back a little far myself, I think that the Dying Race rule should be used as standard. This gives them a better up front resilience, but they fall away quickly in battles of attrition, and the losses matter more to them.

As for strategy, well, even flying into point blank range and unloading all guns to cripple some of the enemy ships can work for Eldar. Because they would simply brace against everything coming back at them. Then, next turn, shoot past the enemy, preferably into cover, where they can wait for the BFI to drop off and line up another attack run.

If the Eldar are able to get close enough when doing this then the minimum movement of the enemy will usually put them beside the Eldar ships, therefore shooting at an abeam (braced) target. It's still risky of course, and Eldar are better served by flanking, putting themselves just in range to shoot  and positioning so that at least their target will move into their side arc with their minimum movement. Following turns they can move around to the rear of the enemy. Some of the enemy may get bow shots off, but not terribly likely to be on LO while doing so.

Basically with the movement of the Eldar they get first strike. So return fire is mitigated by the enemy being either braced, crippled, or on a movement order (such as BR or CTNH) to allow them to get a better position and firing solution. Coupled with the more or less free use of BFI on the Eldar part when in close and holofields to reduce long range pot shots the Eldar are fairly resilient. If you get a bow shot within 15cm on LO, they will melt. Most of the time you don't get all three of these things given Eldar movement.

Having said all that, I prefer the 6+ prow, 4+ side and 5+ rear profile, particularly for CWE. This would change their tactics to be less oblique and more head on.

[Plaxor]

It is one of those funny things in the 40k universe of how they always mention the resilience of Wraithbone, but it doesn't show it so much in 40k. Well I suppose Wraithlords are T8.

I think the Eldar don't need to be so tough, and doing so would give them a problem comparable to Necrons in missions, where there are 'unstoppable' if they want to get somewhere.

That said the general Eldar weakness is that they have fewer hits than average compared to IN/Chaos. Kind of a mirror for the Orks, (although I guess Xisor's Demiurg do that well too) which could be assumed that they simply have lighter vessels perform the same roles or they just don't require anywhere near the amount of crew that an Imperial vessel would.

The 6/4/5 thought is a bit wonky but it makes sense. I'm all-right with armouring them that way.

[Taggerung]

Eldar are already a great fleet in the hands of a decent player...making them super armored as well as fast and nimble seems like a bad idea.

[horizon]

Eldar are already a great fleet in the hands of a decent player...making them super armored as well as fast and nimble seems like a bad idea.

But the official rules are CRAP. In the hands of a decent, an expert or a noob. Nothing to do with skills. Just plain bad rule writing.

The official rules have msM. That second M is the origin of all holy crappiness official Eldar have.

MMS ain't superarmoured. Fast yes. Very manouevrable but no 180* turns.

Have you really read MMS?

[Taggerung]

I have read it yes, but I was referring to them making the Eldar 6+ prows, which quite frankly would just make them an in your face army, which isn't how the eldar should be portrayed. Right now if they want to be closing on you and hit you hard (with lock on) then they must sacrifice their mobility, and give you more shots at them.

As far as I have seen with the Eldar, they are heavy dependent of the player who is using them. The official rules may be crap, but with Plaxors fleet that we have been using in our group, even with one cruiser they do an absurd amount of damage, and receive a pretty minimal amount damage in return.

They play on the table top exactly how I would imagine to be in fluff, a hit and run fleet...hitting you hard, crippling a ship or two, and jetting away before you can retaliate with any serious firepower. If you are having such a hard time with them, maybe it's you and not the fleet...

[horizon]

I have read it yes, but I was referring to them making the Eldar 6+ prows, which quite frankly would just make them an in your face army, which isn't how the eldar should be portrayed. Right now if they want to be closing on you and hit you hard (with lock on) then they must sacrifice their mobility, and give you more shots at them.

Perhaps. My v2.0 idea was to make them 5+ prow / 4+ rest.

As far as I have seen with the Eldar, they are heavy dependent of the player who is using them. The official rules may be crap, but with Plaxors fleet that we have been using in our group, even with one cruiser they do an absurd amount of damage, and receive a pretty minimal amount damage in return.

Which rules?!?

They play on the table top exactly how I would imagine to be in fluff, a hit and run fleet...hitting you hard, crippling a ship or two, and jetting away before you can retaliate with any serious firepower. If you are having such a hard time with them, maybe it's you and not the fleet...

In MSM?
Play raiders.

Turn 1:
movement phase: Eldar come on tabel
shooting phase: Eldar destroy enemy ship (750pts Eldar do that with ease)
ordnance phase pt1: Eldar torpedoes and AC destroy or cripple another enemy ship
ordnance phase pt2: Eldar turn and fly off table edge.

Game ends.

With one enemy ship or squad destroyed vs 10% of a disengaged fleet.

WHAT FUN THAT GAME WAS!
Official rules is broken.

And it is not fluffy to have:

"captain, Eldar ship moving in fast!"
captain is silent
"captain, Eldar ship is in range!"
captain is silent
"captain, Eldar ships shoots!"
captain is silent or perhaps a brace?
***ship roars and is damaged***
"captain, Eldar ship turns around and moves away!"
captain is silent
"captain, Eldar ship is out of reach!"
captains calls: "Fire!"
bridge crew feels dumb...

That is MSM in a nutshell. If you think that is fluffy. With ships being more then 1000metres long...

[Phthisis]

I think a pretty good argument can be made for Eldar ships to be more fragile than their class counterparts.  First off, Eldar vehicles are made of wraithbone are AV12 max and rely on holofields and speed for defense. Maybe wraithbone isn't as tough as you think, or there is a reason Eldar limit the mass of their wraithbone vehicles.  Eldar ships are likely of lesser mass to their counterparts to avoid the extra inertia that heavy armor would require.  That way yhey remain nimble and quick.  Also, they obviously don't have nearly the same numbers of crew other races use.  Also, the wraithbone hull is more than the structure of the vessel, it also serves as the power supply to equipment and communications systems and many times the crew as well.  Damaging the structure directly attacks all of the ships systems as well.  I think 6+ armor is inappropriate.
I think giving Eldar 6+ armor violates fluff and is risky for game balance.  Seems wierd to me. 

So, we are acknowledging that ships can be positioned such that they can avoid or greatly reduce the amount of return fire they get?   If thats the way it is, then Eldar are fine. I thought that to be true.  But I was told that ships that have to close will always recieve return fire from WBs that uses the Closing column and that there was no way around it.  If this is the belief, then Eldar need more protection.

[horizon]

Wraithbone is as hard as adamantium = space marine armour.

But, from a balance point of view, I am on the side that 6+ could be to much. So far it is has always been 5+ and 4+ (destroyers) and last battles I had 5+/4+ on all. It was balanced and good that way.
6+ needs playtesting for sure. I would not implement it from theory as it is new to MMS and never has been. Even Sigoroth will agree on this.


Why do you think they need more protection? Holofield is what denies the great closing column.