Squadron Rules BFG:R

[RCgothic]

In the rules currently under proposal:

Upsides:
Ships may combine firepower.
Ships may take one command check for the entire squadron to go on the same SO, using highest character's leadership value, else highest capital ship, else escorts own.
Ships may still go on special orders individually using their own leadership.
Ships cannot be targeted individually - this to prevent a formation being picked apart by strategic shots.

Downsides:
Formation must be maintained. No ship in the squadron may take any orders whatsoever, not even BFI, if the ship is not currently in formation, and any Lock-On orders are cancelled if the ships lose formation during the movement phase. (significant new penalties)
If any ship goes on SO unilaterally, the squadron may not take SO as a whole, negating all the squadron's leadership/Command Check benefits to other ships.
Hits spill over. Necessary mechanic for firing at escorts, and arguable for any formation of ships moving coherently together.
Larger formations are more unwieldy than individual units.

I'd say there are still significant drawbacks to squadroning your vessels. But these can be modified slightly.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Why should individual ships not be targetable individually? Especially if I can pick apart the ships with strategic shot? If it's a problem with formation then just put in a rule requiring them to get into coherency as much as they can. Real life wise, it would means forward ships would maintain speed while the ships behind try to catch up.

And why should hits just spill over? If a ship not in B2B with another ship is being targeted, I would think that ship should be the one receiving all the fire. Now if both ships are in B2B then the spill over would happen as the shots are too close. Primary ship would still receive the shots and the shots missing the primary target would now be re-rolled on the ship in B2B.

[Taggerung]

Not being able to target and the spill over rules are stupid (ONLY in regards to capital ships. Escorts need to have the spill over rule). I understand that these are the actual rules, and that my point of view is biased since I have never played with those, but just thinking of playing that way seems lame.

 
While we are at it...I think failing a SO should only affect that squadron, and not the entire fleet, it kind of makes sense but in reality in a game of this sort of scale, if one ship is too retarded to reload it's ordnance, why does that affect a ship on the other end of the solar system?


Edit...Realized why I never thought of it that way with Capital ships is because in all the examples they only reference escorts lol

[horizon]

Spill over ain't cool. Admiral said it well.
Target individually = should be allowed.
BFI individual allowed (come on, that's common sense).

[Taggerung]

It makes perfect and obvious sense, but not from a game balance stand point.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Even with escorts, they shouldn't be hit with spillover.

[RCgothic]

The reason this section has been rewritten was primarily to tidy things up and make compatible with the concept of mixed squadrons, as well as to allow BFI individually. When the ramifications of a ship going on a SO individually were thought through, it was found to be at significant detriment to the squadron as a whole, hence the allowance of any SO. If one capital ship in the squadron needs to CTNH to avoid losing formation, then the rest of the squadron will be unable to do what it needs to do, such as reload or lock on. These changes were to make the rules more flexible, not to fundamentalyl change how they work.

Changing the way targeting and hits spilling over work does fundamentally change the core rules. The official rules operate this way already. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't do this, but these are changes of a different magnitude to just allowing any squadron composition or ships to go on SO unilaterally.

@Admiral: That would be a significant buff to escorts.

[horizon]

Pretty cool for the escorts. But I have to consider impact.

[Bryantroy2003]

I would love that escort bit ^_^ My all escort fleets wouldnt be so fail then. Ever seen 24 cobra's launching torps at a cruiser? Its not pretty at all....

[Taggerung]

No spill over on Escorts is probably the worst idea EVER.

I hope you are joking Admiral because if not, you really have no concept of any sort of game balance then.

[afterimagedan]

And having to split fire and designate amounts of WB fire firing at which specific escort would make for a whole bunch more rolling, confusion, and longer games. I think the idea of being able to target specific cruisers would be a good change but I don't think it would be a good idea to have to specifically target each escort.

[horizon]

Taggerung, do you use escorts?

Afterimagedan, you?

[Taggerung]

I do yes...half my ork fleet is escorts. With my Imperial fleet, not so much, a squad or 2 of escorts thats it.

If these were the rules there would be no reason to not just spam Ork Ravagers since they could never all be stopped...or even an entire fleet of Ram ships.

Do you use escorts Horizon?

[horizon]

1500pts
9 in my renegade Chaos fleet.
9 in my IN fleet (never played them, its new & fresh)
6 in AdMech
8-10 in Tau fleet (depends on the re-roll wish or not)
15 Corsair Eldar
2-4 Craftworld Eldar (option depending)
My RT fleet will feature a lot as well.


So do I use them? YES! They are tricksy to use but can be game winners.

Never leave without them imo.


Keep in mind that spill overs are not done. But individual targetting is and splittig fire power has always been an option.

But yes, it could lead to more rolling and keeping better in check what is fired.

That's why I said consideration.

[Taggerung]

Yea I think they are great, and even with spill over can be great.