List of flawed ships

[Plaxor]

Planet Killer

[RCgothic]

Almost every list has a 0-12 limit on cruisers. Why does this limit exist? Bin it is my vote.

[horizon]

Keep it.

[RCgothic]

Why? All it does is limit the capacity for large games. In practice it's never a limit in games under 2000 pts, and for larger games why is it needed?

[Plaxor]

RC, we discussed this at some point. The only fleet the 'cruiser limit' has ever mattered in was orks, as players run out of choices at around 1200 points when they've purchased 6 terror ships. Preventing cruiser spam.

The limit is somewhat for flavour, but it really doesn't do much as if one were to take all dauntlesses, they would still reach 1320pts, then you would naturally include a commander, and some escorts to fill it out, or maybe a dictator.

At 3000 points (with orks this sucks, as once you get 6 kroozers and 3 BCs/BBs... then you're a little stuck), people actually start feeling it. I played this against IN, and it essentially ensures a variety of things to be taken in the fleet, rather than just cruiser spam.

I think I remember 5-6 years ago someone on the old SG site wrote about how Chaos cruiser lists were the greatest thing around, and there might as well not be any heavy cruisers or battleships, and that the same thought could be applied to IN. Strange thought, but then again, the best Chaos lists of official rules are often all cruisers, and perhaps a hades/acheron. For IN the best ones avoid battlecruisers and simply take an Emperor and cruisers (or oberon). Sure some like the armageddon. Still...

Naturally for orks the best one was TS spam, another cruiser spam type. Necrons, spamming the scythe

[Eldanesh]

Only true for big games (4k+) but

1. it prevents people from only playing 1 particular class (e.g. Dominator, Slaughter or Devastor)
2. It forces some Escorts in
3. you can't replace Escorts with light cruisers (OK, you can but if you do you lose ships of the Line)
4. is also limits the numbers of BCs/BBs.

The current limit doesn't hurt anybody in regular sized battles and helps that real large games look better, so I don'T see a reason to abandon it.

[horizon]

Why? All it does is limit the capacity for large games. In practice it's never a limit in games under 2000 pts, and for larger games why is it needed?

Since the 0-12 cruiser limit fits perfectly with the 75 warships per sector philosophy and the general BFG background.

[RCgothic]

Three reasons why it should be binned:

#1. For a start, it's no limit at all. IN can take nothing but cruisers until 3750pts and still not be limited. Ad Mech can get to nearly 6000pts and 25 cruisers before reaching the limit (15 of their own cruisers and 10 less expensive reserve vessels). This frankly makes the proposition that it's there to enforce any kind of balanced list ridiculous.
#2. Why shouldn't people be allowed to take all cruisers?
#3. It puts an arbitrary hard-cap on game size, because you get to a point where you're only allowed to take more escorts - a large one, I'll admit, but it's still arbitrary, and I hate arbitrariness. You say 12 cruisers per sector fleet, fair enough. But what if people want to play as a crusade fleet or even a segmentum fleet?

If what you want to do is enforce balanced fleet lists, there are better ways to do it than a hard cap.

[RCgothic]

On a different subject, blast marker removal.

Currently only D6 are removed, plus extras from defences. This leads to Blast Markers being created at a far faster rate than they dissappear, leading to running out of counters and battlefield clutter.

Proposed so far is D6, with an additional +1 per 500pts. This is better, but initial/late skirmishes will have blast markers dissappear very quickly.

Why don't we have D6 + 1 per X blast markers on the table? This scales the removal rate dependent on how many blast markers are on teh table, which makes physical sense and should never lead to a BM draught/glut because removal will always increase to match generation.

[horizon]

Look:

within limits

12 cruisers (2 Tyrants, 3 Lunars, 2 Dictators, 3 Dauntless)
6 battlecruisers (3 Mars, 3 Overlord)
6 battleships (3 Retribution, 3 Emperor)

24 capital ships

2 escorts per capital ship = 48
16 swords, 16 firestorms, 16 cobra's.


Is 72 warships
clocking around 7350 points (give or take upgrades)

I like escorts. Escorts should be more.






//

blastmarker removal should not be changed.

[RCgothic]

not changed from current, or from proposed?

And you don't find it weird that the more blast markers you have, the longer they stick around for?

[Eldanesh]

IN can take nothing but cruisers until 3750pts and still not be limited. Ad Mech can get to nearly 6000pts and 25 cruisers before reaching the limit (15 of their own cruisers and 10 less expensive reserve vessels)

I always had the impression that the limits include reserve ships. So from 12 cruisers 3 can be from another fleetlist. (but thats another topic: IMO the whole reserve-concept isn't very good fleetlists are usually designed with a theme in my. You should not be able to ignore this via reserve rules)

Why shouldn't people be allowed to take all cruisers?

Background as well as balance issues. If I would rewirte the rules from the core I'd even include compulsory escorts.

But what if people want to play as a crusade fleet or even a segmentum fleet?

Two Fleet lists. Or just ignore the rules.
Even in such Fleets escorts would be by far the most numerous vessels. It's a shame that in some fleets escorts aren't used, but there is no reason to encourage this style even further.
Its like you can't play a 1st, 8th, 9th or 10th company with regular Space Marines in 40: rules represent the average setup, not the special case.

If you remove cruiser limit, you have to remove any restriction at all: pure Battleshipfleets or only BB's are more logical than pure cruiser fleets. (at least we had them in history...)

[RCgothic]

Well as we're re-writing the rules, compulsory escorts are an option - indeed I believe that's the case for Battlefleet Tartanus. It was the case for my Battlefleet Urdesh idea as well. There are better ways to enforce balanced fleet lists than a hard cap on cruiser numbers.

Under the proposed rules, a reserve fleet is just 1/3 of the total points spent in another list, using that list's restrictions. A Reserve fleet is therefore less likely to reach its own cruiser limit purely due to having fewer points, but using reserves does get around the cap.

Also, I can't remember if multiple reserve fleets are allowed, so long as they all meet their own list requirements?

[Eldanesh]

Sorry that idea is crap. 2/3 CE Escorts and 1/3 CWE capital ships - no thanks. It kills the complete idea behind fleet lists.

[RCgothic]

That is a pretty good argument against.

Personally I'm not sure Reserves should be allowed at all, except in the case of the Bastion fleets for the specific ships mentioned. It makes it very difficult to construct a list to a theme without it being polluted by other lists.