Orks... Flawed Ships

[Plaxor]

It's possible, although doubtful, as this would too much like a line cruiser for other fleets.

[lastspartacus]

Well, just 1 shield.  Figure if normal kroozers are 10, a 'lite' kroozer would be 8.  Ork kroozers get their hits i assume from redundant systems and tons of crew, anyway.  So you could have a Dauntless sized 8 hit vessel, in theory.  Just something to think about.

[Plaxor]

Yeah I know, I've been toying with a lite kroozer idea that I had a while back that was essentially a giant savage gunship. This would have 8 hits, and not be comparable to line cruisers due to it's low range.

Orks have so many hits due to having crammed more orks in the same space as a IN or Chaos cruiser. Also much of the ship is well... useless armor and junk that leads nowhere, so this can reasonably be blown off no problem.

[Sigoroth]

Fluff justification of extra hits on "normal" size Ork ships:

Crew rationale - There are a shit tonne of Orks on board. Casualties don't mean as much and so they get +2 hits worth of men.

Repair rationale - Orks have an easier time of repairing their tech than other races. So effectively +2 hits worth of repair.

One shot shield rationale - Orks have a lot of shields, it's just that they are crap and don't all work properly. They have +2 shields that get burnt out after absorbing a hit, so they don't regenerate.

All these combined make for a simple +2 hits for their weight.

[Plaxor]

Sigoroth knows the argument, tell me sig, how do you feel about 8 hit light cruisers?

[Sigoroth]

Well if you're going to give Orks a CL then it should be 8 hits. I don't see the need for it myself. I don't see anything against it, nor for it. So if you really want it you can. I would not like to see this as an argument against a price decrease though.

[Plaxor]

Fine... no more price decrease arguments...

CLs aren't something that is useful in Orks, and the only idea we have is the gouga, which has 6 (although it is made out of 2 savages right?).

The HAs plan on reintroducing the Gouga, so why not add in CLs? It could add more to the rather limited core ships available. As well it would make for more swarm mentality ork lists, like if you introduced a 115 point 'savage' cl like I proposed before then at 1500 point you could have something like this from my list:

4x Big savage
2x Terror ships (soopa engines torpedoes)
Kroolboy
2 warlords 1xpowerfield 1 extra re-roll.
7 savage gunships, soopa engines.

[Plaxor]

@Sig,

I've made a poll with a few options for revision of the KK. A full points drop would simply put the vessel at 140 points. Note that this poll assumes that the strength of the prow heavy guns are 4 NOT 6!

[Sigoroth]

I don't think your poll covers it. I don't know why you've reduced the prow heavy gunz (maybe it's in the thread somewhere and I just missed it) and I don't think that the maximum price drop you've listed is enough. Gaining 1 WB in all 3 arcs probably is slightly better than losing the 2 heavy gunz, if only for utility's sake, but I don't think that only a 10 pt drop is warranted. If that's all it's going to drop by then a further boost in firepower is warranted methinks.

[Plaxor]

The drop in heavy guns was after Admiral D Artagnan suggested that a kk with D6+6 firepower would do way too much damage at close range. This proved true in playtest (which I'm still busy publishing) So the heavy guns were dropped to 4, basically it's a trade off for longer range wbs. This resembles larger vessels, who all have identical heavy gun strength in every arc. Also it justifies the torp upgrade more.

The costs are determined by a modified smotherman, where the cost of heavy guns is only 1.5 rather than 3. This is true as 1.5 points is the cost of 1wb at 30cm. Presumably 1 wb at 15cm would cost less (about half). Heavy guns are not equal to 2 wbs, and are actually worth about 1.85 guns. Therefore the assumption is that 1.5 is a reasonable price for heavy guns, and makes a backbone for the KK to be built on.

The str 4 heavy guns mod was maintained for all options for consistencies sake. To keep the factors to a minimum.

The KK is overcosted by about 12 points according to this formula, therefore a drop by only 10 points is warranted, as well as an increase in weapons strength by 3 points (+1 prow wb), if the heavy guns are dropped to 4, then the side guns can be increased slightly as well. The stats could stay the same and go to 15 potentially, but the community wants increased firepower more than they want reductions.

There is also a desire to have more consistent weaponry, and this is done through adding non-variable stat. So the larger the non-variable stat is, the more reliable the ship is.

[Plaxor]

Also your 15% reduction is a bit much to ask. 135 points for a KK? 155 for a terror ship? Too far IMO. The least I could see pushing the KK down to is 145 and at that point it starts to feel too radically different from cruisers.

All the research and math is in the document I have in my google docs link. The file isn't finished completely, but it does put the math behind all the values that I chose. https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1Nr32u9sF3EYWQxMjcxMmItMGU1MS00NzdlLTk1YTktZWQ2MmIwYjU2ZGUz&hl=en

[Plaxor]

Dammit sig! I did my addition wrong for the KK!

50 points for hits
10 points for shields
5 points for turret
4 points for speed
20 points for armor
15 points prow guns
9 points p/s guns
21 points heavy guns

133 points. Somehow I was at 143... Will correct.

However at 133 points you could add 4 wbs to the prow, as well as 2 to each side and still have it cost 150 points. I would have it cost 150 and cut off 2 heavy guns, as that is about the same total firepower for less points as a IN ship. However having firepower divided over three arcs is much worse than in two, as it will be very rare that you would be able to fire with all three. Also as I said before, 6+ armor closing < 5+ armor abeam.

The TS would cost 176, 9 points less than reality (apparently I got that one correct)

[Plaxor]

just did an analysis comparing my KK stats (with torps) to a tyrant (at 180)

Long range firepower: 118% of tyrant
Short range firepower: 91.6% of tyrant
Torps firepower: 91%
Firepower needed to take down in 1 turn: 99% of tyrant (note this is the average of all sides, gw does math?)
Firepower needed to cause 1 internal hit: 43.7%
Ordinance survivability: 57% (this is the average of how each ship's survivability against both 6 bombers and 6 torps from all angles)

Total average: 83.4. Meaning the cost would be 159, not too far off from the 165 I proposed. however this math doesn't account for heavy guns, and those would have value. As well as the multiple arc effect (enemies will extremely rarely be in more than 2 arcs at a time, so the value of 1 arc is significantly less than the other two) Presumably they are about equal in value. So therefore my design deserves a 5 point decrease. to 150 points, or 17% less than IN ships.

[RCgothic]

OK, here's my idea for the KK and Terror Ship. If you accept that Heavy Guns should cost 1.5pts per point of 15cm strength, then the TS comes out at 176pts and the KK at 134pts.

The TS is overcosted by just 9pts, whilst the KK is overcosted by 21.

Firstly, give them both D3 Turrets instead of 1. If you accept that D3 is slightly worse than 2, then call that a 4pt upgrade, 5->9pts total on turrets.

That leaves the TS with 5pts left to spend. If you boost the broadside guns to D6+2, that's 186pts by Smotherman, which is near enough to 185.

The KK after those upgrades is on 11pts overcosted. How can the KK make up the difference without changing its profile from the TS? By making its broadside heavy gunz FP6. This still leaves it 5pts overcosted, so a price drop to 150pts.

The amended Profiles:

Terror Ship 185pts
Krooza/10
Shields 1
Speed 20
Turns 45
Armour 6+/5+/4+
Turrets D3

Port/SB Gunz 30cm D6+2 R or L
Port/SB LBs S4 Total
Prow Gunz 45cm D6+2
Prow Heavy Gunz 15cm FP6


Terror Ship 150pts
Krooza/10
Shields 1
Speed 20
Turns 45
Armour 6+/5+/4+
Turrets D3

Port/SB Gunz 30cm D6+2 R or L
Port/SB Heavy Gunz 15cm S6 R or L
Prow Gunz 45cm D6+2
Prow Heavy Gunz 15cm FP6

This fixes vulnerability to AC (to an extent - they'll still be weaker than Chaos/IN, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They won't get raped like they do at present.). It also fixes the KK's overcosting, and allows better engagement to the broadsides, which makes the Orks less dependent on the moment of contact and more able to slug it out at close range.

[Sigoroth]

First, a general note about the Smotherman formula. It's rubbish. It doesn't even note a difference for different fire arcs. Consider that all the prow weaponry on the Ork ships could be LFR and the formula would spit out the same cost. This is ridiculous. It also does not note the weakness to ordnance with a 4+ rear armour combined with only a single turret. That's the smotherman formula out of the way, onwards.

just did an analysis comparing my KK stats (with torps) to a tyrant (at 180)

Long range firepower: 118% of tyrant
Short range firepower: 91.6% of tyrant
Torps firepower: 91%
Firepower needed to take down in 1 turn: 99% of tyrant (note this is the average of all sides, gw does math?)
Firepower needed to cause 1 internal hit: 43.7%
Ordinance survivability: 57% (this is the average of how each ship's survivability against both 6 bombers and 6 torps from all angles)

Total average: 88.2. Meaning the cost would be 159, not too far off from the 165 I proposed. however this math doesn't account for heavy guns, and those would have value. As well as the multiple arc effect (enemies will extremely rarely be in more than 2 arcs at a time, so the value of 1 arc is significantly less than the other two) Presumably they are about equal in value. So therefore my design deserves a 5 point decrease. to 150 points, or 17% less than IN ships.

Well, given the above numbers I calculate an average of 83.4%, not 88.2%, giving a base value of 150 pts before such considerations are taken into account. I am not sure how you're arriving at your long and short range values however. Still, we'll presume that they're right and work from there. You have given each of these categories an equal weight in determining your overall comparative value. I feel the last 2 categories are the most telling and should be weighted slightly higher. What about Ork leadership? This will surely reduce the price further?

The Orks would be in greater need to brace given their weakness to ordnance and incidental fire, and yet have less capability to do so. Given they are so weak to ordnance they have greater need to reload, and again, less ability to do so. A reduced cost combined with a modification to the chain of command problem would work for the RO tests (more AC though a smaller proportion reloaded without such devastation arising from early failures). Cheaper ships means more ships, more hits, more guns, so reduced BFI does not matter so much. Cheaper = more ships = horde = more guns = more dakka.

Also, a note about heavy gunz. They do double damage, get no range shift and interfere with other battery type weapons. OK, so 4 heavy gunz at a closing cap ship will give 3 dice which is equivalent of 6 normal WB dice right? To get 6 dice from WBs in the same circumstances you would require 7 WBs (closing cap ship close range). However, due to BM interference you're going to get a column shift on further fire, losing 1 normal WB dice (from a KKs firepower). So these 4 heavy gunz are only worth 5 normal WB dice, which can be achieved by 5 WBs. Now consider on top of this the actual utility of the weapon having such short range and we come down to an equivalent of, what, 3WB@30cm? (I rounded up because interference will not always occur since fire from previous ships will sometimes have placed a blast marker.) Therefore Heavy Gunz are worth less than their alternative, not more.

Now the above example was calculated from a single KK. Let's look at a squadron of 2. Two KK will have an average total of 13 WBs + 8 heavy gunz. If within 15cm of a closing cap ship this equates to 12 WB dice and 6 heavy gun dice (equivalent of 12 WB dice). However, BMs from one of these will interfere with the fire from the other. If the WBs fire first the HG drop from 6 dice to 4, a loss of 4WBe dice. If HG fire first then the WBs drop from 12 to 9, a loss of 3. So we fire HG first, giving a grand total of 21 WB dice equivalence. If this were pure WBs then this could be achieved with 23WBs. 23-13 (average WBs of 2 KK) leaves 10WBs. So the 8 HG = 10WB. Again this means 4 HG is worth 5WB when you're actually able to fire with them.

Notice I only compared to closing cap ships. The further right you go on the table the worse the HG perform. So I would rate them as roughly 0.75 the value of the same firepower at 30cm in WBs, not 1.5 times.