List of flawed ships

[Valhallan]

i'm fine with 5+/4+... but i think the 'big ships' of eldar should be 5+ all round (cuz they're slower)... so the void dragon and the void stalker should be 5+ all round.

6+ is too much.

I like the scaled lances-to-hit idea. I suggested it somewhere (the port?) last summer (i think) and was blown off.

the msm vs mms debate is way old now... the dead horse is so beaten that its not even a carcass anymore. mms in revised? yep, cuz playing against msm ISNT FUN. argument over.

[Phthisis]

Im not sure that anyone is arguing against MMS.

Has GW co-opted adamantium from Marvel?  I thought power armor was armorplas with a ceramite ablative shell.  Either way, power armored troops die to bolter rounds and even lasgun fire so it can't be that tough.  As wraithbone is described as a psycho-plastic I imagined it would behave like a plastic, as in it would ablate rather than transfer energy.  Either way, its beside the point.  Eldar don't have high armor values in other 40k games or fluff and 6+ armor could break the fleet. 5+/4+ sounds fine to me.

My original thought was that Eldar players should learn to use their fleet and position ships well or expect to lose.  But, in previous discussions, other people on the forums said that kind of positioning was impossible and you would always have to get closing return fire if you attack with front arc weaponry.  There are two opposing viewpoints here.  Either good positioning is possible and Eldar are fineas they are, or its not and Eldar will get battered severely after yheir first attack and die.  You guys decide which is true.  Im not rearguing that issue again.

[Sigoroth]

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. 

It doesn't violate fluff to give Eldar 6+ armour, it violates precedent. As I've often said, the way Eldar are represented in game systems like 40k and BFG is inconsistent with how they're described in fluff. According to fluff Wraithbone is tougher and lighter than what the Imperium can make. Therefore an Eldar ship constructed in an identical manner to an IN ship should simply be faster and more agile due to lowered mass, but still have the same hits. Add to this superior Eldar technology in other areas (propulsion for one) and it should be better again.

As for lowered crew, well that means a lower crew density and therefore less crew lost per point of damage. Presumably they don't have a lower crew at a cost of performance, ie, they're not chronically undercrewed, so this should not be an issue. Automated systems should compensate for less crew.

As for the multi-purpose nature of Wraithbone, this is actually a benefit, not a detriment. Where Wraithbone acts as a power conduit this means that for power to be interrupted you'd need to pretty much destroy the entire vessel. This means that they're less likely to take crits.

In essence an Eldar ship should be able to take down a ship of greater displacement without too many troubles, according to the fluff. Balance is the most restricting factor on piling on Eldar advancements, not how they're described in fluff. As for the feel that has been assigned to the Eldar I personally dislike it very much. The glass cannon idea would be fine for a prolific race. For a race so concerned with losses to attrition it makes no sense. I can understand them wanting speed and manoeuvrability, and I can understand sacrificing resilience to get this if we're talking a roughly equivalent technological level. So this would be fine for some new race of roughly IN levels of tech. For the Eldar however I would expect equivalent resilience and superior speed.

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.

Yes and no. If you have the speed and manoeuvrability of Eldar it's certainly plausible to position yourself to best effect. However, even with careful positioning due to vastly superior mobility you will not always ensure no bow shots. The best you can do is try to minimise return fire.

If you have near equal manoeuvrability it is pretty much guaranteed that closing ships will take bow shots, typically in 30cm range and also in 15cm range.

[Phthisis]

Perhaps some are jumping to conclusions...

The assumption seems to be that Eldar ships are made mostly or entirely of wraithbone.  This seems to not be the case. Wraithbone is only one of the psychoplastics Eldar use and fluff states its the most unusual (Eldar codex).  Fluff also states that Eldar ships are fragile and not capable of withstanding bombardment and rely on holofields to protect themselves (BFG rulebook). They must just be using wraithbone for specific parts of the ship and other psychoplastics for the vast majority of the ship.  Can anybody site fluff that Eldar ships are made of wraithbone?  Can anybody site fluff regarding Eldar ships being well armored or otherwise extremely resilient?

The fluff does state that wraithbone is tougher to damage than adamantium, but we are talking about plasma torpedos, macro cannons and lances.  Thats a lot of power there that may be able to damage adamantium fairly easily.

Besides, a ship that is out of damage points means it can no longer fight for whatever reason, not that it is completely destroyed.

Smaller crew could mean lower crew density.  It could also mean crew losses have a much greater effect on ship operation. 

Damaging wraithbone might have a huge disruptive effect on ships systems.  A ship made entirely of wraithbone would be able to rerout power and comms easily, but if its only a thin frame inside the vessel, damage could potentially shut down whole sections of the ship.

What do we make of Dark Eldar ships which have no access to wraithbone?

Decades of precadent in rules and quite a bit of existing fluff describes Eldar technology as sophisticated yet fragile, and shows that Eldar prefer speed and obfuscation to heavy armor.  I can't see a viable argument for Eldar ships having 6+ armor.  I don't think fluff or precedent supports it.  And I don't think the game can bear it.

Ah, I see now.  Ships can position themselves to avoid closing fire.  So, why can Eldar do it, when they turn 90 at the beginning of a move but chaos escorts can't when they can turn 90 at any point in their move?

[horizon]

Fluff also states that Eldar ships are fragile and not capable of withstanding bombardment and rely on holofields to protect themselves (BFG rulebook). They must just be using wraithbone for specific parts of the ship and other psychoplastics for the vast majority of the ship.  Can anybody site fluff that Eldar ships are made of wraithbone? 

The BFG ruleblook fluff is written to accomedate their own crappy rules.
The Doom of the Eldar pdf: Wraithship Entry for construction.

Ah, I see now.  Ships can position themselves to avoid closing fire.  So, why can Eldar do it, when they turn 90 at the beginning of a move but chaos escorts can't when they can turn 90 at any point in their move?

since Eldar MMS ships:
capitals can do two times a 45* turn at any point per movement phase. That's better then 1 time 90*.
escorts can do two times a 90* turn at any point per movement phase.

[Phthisis]

To some degree, isnt all fluff written to accommidate the rules?

The Doom of the Eldar document doesn't seem to support 6+ armor due to wraithbone either.  Page 2, right column 2nd paragraph refers to the wraithbone as 'fragile'.
Also the section on the wraithship says only the skeleton of this particular class is made of wraithbone and the rest is other material.  It also insinuates that a wraithbone is unique to the wraithships and that others are constructed differently.  Despite the toughness of wraithbone, they don't appear to be armoring their ships with it.

I thought MMS only allowed Eldar vessels to move at the beginning of each of their turns.  Anyway, that just means chaos escorts and Eldar escorts can place themselves in the same position to avoid closing return fire, provided that the chaos ship is in the proper starting position.

[horizon]

?
Eldar ships MMS:
movement phase:
turn
move
turn
move
(speed at sun's edge)

[Plaxor]

For my document at least holofields should be 4/5/6+ lances (at multiples of 15cm), and RS for weapons batteries.

The re-roll hits thing is actually quite powerful defensively.

Destroyer-class vessels, have armour 5+/4+

[Plaxor]

So updated orks to 1.2, no real rules changes, just a shit-ton of visual edits. Changed it from being a frankenstien to something more manageable and good looking.

Will work on Necrons tommorrow, but it should be quick for them.

[Taggerung]

Is there a reason Terror ships only have 1 turret now?

[horizon]

The Eldar pdf seems non-updated. Still has the holo re-roller.

[Plaxor]

@Tag

Must be a typo that has just been carried over. This should be 2.

@Horizon,

I'm going to wait on fixing the Core rules, IN, Chaos, Eldar, and well.. now Orks, as I've gotten them all pretty close, so I'm hoping to cycle through each race, and do a pass updating them to fit into the rulebook (like i've been doing) then I'll go back around for a final to be combined.

The hope is that people will catch all the errors/I will notice them by waiting a while.

@Everyone

Tyranids is after Necrons, I know that bio upgrades are to be always allowed, and I was thinking tiered upgrade values for those upgrades that can be done multiple times. Otherwise I know there are some upgrades that should be changed according to cost.

[Plaxor]

Updated Necrons to 1.3, pretty easy. On to stapling in Nids!

[Plaxor]

So almost done with nids. Not much changes here, other than upgrades being included.

A few minor price changes, primarily to upgrades. Fixed the document to include the faq.


Update as far as the whole project goes, I'm happy to say that I'm almost done as far as rules go, just need to catch all my minor mistakes, and the final revisions of everything.

Here is my guess on hour timeframe for completion for each section:

Tyranids: 1-2hrs
Tau: 3-5 hrs
Demiurg/RTs: 8-10hrs
Previous documents for final rendition: 10-20 hours.
Defenses: 8-15 hrs (I think... this is a big guess)
Missions: 4-6 hrs
Campaigns: 6-8 hrs
Fluff: 4-16 hrs (depending on what I want to do with it.
Book ending stuff: 2 hours

Total: 45-92 hrs.

Total so far (Ugh): ~200 hours. Although most of this is due to my previously crappy work with photoshop, and this counts forumtime/writing and reading on printouts.

Anyways, I'm hoping to be finished by the end of May, and the book will likely be around 270 pages.

Jeez.

[Taggerung]

Keep up the good work!