Eldar MMS v2.0

[lastspartacus]

It just occurred to me, for justification as to Eldar having shields.  The shield losses could be near misses for the holofields, the close proximity creating the blast marker, helping pinpoint the vessels location.  The first hit to the ship past shields would be the opposing ship finally zeroing in on a closer area where the ship might be.

[Sigoroth]

Another justification could be that shields are great protection and Eldar have very good shield tech. Holofields are useless against an asteroid field.

[lastspartacus]

For that I was thinking the justification would be specialized environmental shielding for flares and roids.

Also, was there any interest in pursuing that idea...i can't even remember the specifics, something about eldar shield tech being more limited but advanced, and having a save to remove blast markers after a salvo.

[horizon]

Eh, fading memory, when did the Dragonship with 8 hits got introduced?
Found it.

Version 1.6
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98720

[Sigoroth]

For that I was thinking the justification would be specialized environmental shielding for flares and roids.

Also, was there any interest in pursuing that idea...i can't even remember the specifics, something about eldar shield tech being more limited but advanced, and having a save to remove blast markers after a salvo.

Asteroids cause damage, environmental shields won't work against them like they would blast markers. As for shield saves and whatnot, it just ends up too complicated. The original shield save idea I came up with someone else also came up (apparently independently) later and also, unbeknownst to either of us, happened to be a refit in the campaign rules. It's just convoluted.

To simplify it a little, instead of getting a save for as long as your shields remain up, you could simply combine normal (ie, Imperial) shields with a normal (ie, Necron) save. So, for example, say a cruiser has 2 shields and a 6+ save and takes 4 hits. Roll 4 dice, discounting 1 hit for each 6 rolled. Then treat the remaining hits as you would any other ship. Let's say you roll 1 six. So you take 3 hits, the first 2 of which drop shields and the last one goes through to the hull (take brace saves if applicable). You keep your save even though shields are down. You could combine this save with holofields too, where appropriate.

But I think that the most elegant system is simply shields as we have them now.


Anyway, ignoring all that shield business, I think that the Dragonship from MMS 1.9 should come back down to 6 hits standard. Even at 6 hits the DS is better choice than the corsair cruisers and getting those 2 hits for free seems a bit odd to me. Particularly as 8 hits would put it at CG size. When using the Dying Race rule (which I heartily recommend) it puts it at 10 hits. Of course, this is no great advantage over the non-DR rule but I don't think it should be possible. The point behind the Dying Race rule is that I think Eldar ships should be just as sturdy as their Imperial analogue, but they simply play as more fragile because the Eldar are far more wary of losses and less able to absorb casualties. So what would normally be an 8 hit cruiser plays as a 6 hit cruiser, etc. With this view then playing a Dragonship as 8 hits without the DR rule would make it a 10 hit ship with it, meaning that its closest IN analogue would be a CG. I don't think it's worthy of this moniker.


As for pros and cons of the DR rule, the only real con is that it adds a little complexity. However I think that it fits Eldar perfectly, and that this complexity is actually good for the game. I'll give you an example of the differences. Let's look at an Aurora both with and without DR.

Without:

1st hit - no effect
2nd hit - crippled (25%)
3rd hit - no effect
4th hit - destroyed (100%)

This is just a weak ship, nothing more or less, it's like any other race's 4 hit ship, such as an un-upgraded Merchant.

With DR:

1st hit - no effect
2nd hit - no effect
3rd hit - crippled (25%)
4th hit - disabled (100% - must disengage)
5th hit - no effect
6th hit - destroyed (150%)

In this scenario the crippled threshold is lowered, meaning that this ship is stronger at the start. However, the very next shot is enough to disable it; the equivalent of being destroyed for all intents and purposes except that it does not explode or get left behind for the enemy to capture/study. This in itself means that the Eldar ship goes from fully functioning to "destroyed" very very quickly, rather than being able to limp through a fight for a long while. This gives a feeling of being unable to withstand attrition, a characteristic often ascribed to Eldar. It also means less Eldar hulks lying around for mon keigh races to plunder (which is again quite Eldarish) and more Eldar lives and, more importantly, souls saved. All of this fits the Eldar MO. In essence, they run when things get too tough, like mercenaries do (Demiurg for example).

So why the 100% VPs for reducing Eldar to 2 hits? Well apart from being balanced around having 2 hits less than other races this fits with the cost to the Eldar of having their ships so heavily damaged. A lot of crew will have died from that much damage, and lives lost cost Eldar more than other races. So heavily damaging an Eldar ship is a greater victory than heavily damaging, say, an Ork ship. If the Eldar were as plentiful as the Orks then I would simply recommend that all Eldar ships have +2 hits with no downsides. Meaning they could fight battles of attrition.

Of course, the DR rules so far only benefit the Eldar. Better crippled threshold, less Eldar ships exploding in own lines, less hulks on table to worry about for disengagement, etc. That's where the 150% VPs comes in if you do destroy an Eldar ship. If it's simply left a drifting hulk then disengaging your fleet and leaving the field to the opponent really hurts (200% ship's value to the opponent). It's something for the opponent to shoot for. Or, if he's low on firepower he can just let it disengage and focus his efforts elsewhere. If it's in the middle of his lines he doesn't need to worry about it exploding and can safely disable it. The logic behind it is of course that the Eldar have lost a great many souls to Slaanesh. So on the whole I think it represents the Eldar as a raiding fleet much better and as well it also represents the Eldar character much better.

[horizon]

The cripple tresshold + the fact they see Eldar cruisers like the Eclipse with eight hits is something that scares a lot of people ... who don't read on. And that happens.

The Dragonship back to six is good with me. I was never able to fully convince everyone the difference with the Eclipse.


Also: More then 52% of the posts on the sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum are in the BFG subforums.

[lastspartacus]

What, people post in other ones? :p

[horizon]

Other ones? As in other forums? Other people?

Do know that the Ghosts of past MMS development still haunt me in my dreams.

<boo>

[Sigoroth]

Other ones? As in other forums? Other people?

Other forums. He was trying to be clever. I would say that it's the effort that counts ... but the evidence seems to contradict that notion.

Do know that the Ghosts of past MMS development still haunt me in my dreams.

<boo>

Oh really? I thought we got the Ghostships down pat fairly early. 

^ Yet more contradictory evidence. 

[horizon]

Ghostships in MMS are pretty rad.

[lastspartacus]

I was only half joking.  I was surprised people post in the other subforums at all.  I was under the impression this was the only one that wasn't mostly dead was BFG.

[horizon]

ah.. 'kay.
Warmaster is second place. Modelling & Painting is filled with it.

[horizon]

Version v1.9b:

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/archive/rules/gothic/geldarmms01.html

Dragonship 6 hits
Ghostship (WS) corrected.
Corsair fleet list light cruisers daftness removed

[lastspartacus]

Whats WS?

Out of curiosity, why was the dragon ship reduced?  I assume the logic of it is it is simply the 'heavy cruiser' version of the wraith ship,
and leaving the void dragon in the role of 'grand cruiser'. 

Maybe the next commission can be a supernova

[horizon]

Wraithship (WS).
Because Sigoroth said so, and I forgot why it had 8 hits in the first place (Dragonship).
Sure.