Squadron Rules BFG:R

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

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.

No, I am not joking. Yes, I do bring escorts. My IN brings at least 2 3-ship escort depending on the game size. Bigger games, those 2 squadrons go max. No concept of game balance? Why would no spill over on escorts affect game balance?

Because of this line of yours: "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." Solution, bring escorts of your own. Then maybe we'll actually see more of them on the table.

As for 24 escorts shooting torps at a cruiser, that is what would happen if you decide to not bring escorts or anything to deal with them in the first place.

I do not see a reason why one would have one rule for cap ships and another for escorts. I already included a way for spillover to happen. When ships are in B2B because they're in a small tight area. Anything more than that and spillover shouldn''t be happening.

Spillover on escorts are a big disadvantage for escorts, would make people think "why should I bring them when a couple of WB shots can kill them with spillover so might as well bring mostly cruisers?" which makes a player take less of them and perpetuate the bringing of cap ships (unless a race is escort dependent like Eldar, Orks and Nids). Makes a player "lazy" in the sense they do not bring escorts and rely on the resilience of cap ships and spillover to handle the escorts.

So spam away your Ravagers if you want. Hell, that IS what Orks are supposed to be. An escort heavy fleet.  Doesn't mean you can't lose. Heck from your statement, spillover is the one keeping you from taking these kinds of lists which means you're being limited. Wouldn't it be better that you can bring these kinds of lists?

I do quite know about the concept of game balance, thank you. I understand the concept of 1 target, 1 kill and not 1 target, kill X more targets, not unless one is using AoE weapons and the WBs even with their description, aren't really true AoE weapons. They still fire at a specific area defined as the base of a target. Why would something a couple of cm away be affected unless it is an AoE weapon like an NC or AG? I play Warmachine-Hordes, a more cutthroat game rules-wise yet more tactically challenging than BFG. Whether one plays jack/beast heavy or infantry heavy, everything is viable. The same should be the case here. All the factions should have viable reasons to bring cap ship heavy, balanced or escort heavy and be reasonably expected to have a chance to win.

You want to kill more than 1 target with 1 cap ship, split fire. Other methods are use AC, use torps and especially, use more escorts.

So before you accuse someone of not having an inkling about game balance, look at yourself in the mirror first and see if you understand the same concept.

[Taggerung]

Oh I do understand the concept. An all escort fleet would be impossible to stop with your rules.

No ifs, ands or buts...An escort fleet would completely destroy ANY other fleet besides another escort fleet. There would be no way to stop it. It doesn't matter if you split up fire power because at most you are getting 1-2 dice per escort, and then you have to hit with both dice.

Why would no spill over on escorts affect game balance?

Wow...just wow. Do you play this game?

Because of this line of yours: "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." Solution, bring escorts of your own. Then maybe we'll actually see more of them on the table.

Escorts are already very good, and I always have great success with them, and they really do not need a buff to the point where they are unstoppable. Nor would I want to be forced into taking nothing but escorts. They are there to assist the main part of your fleet (IE the cruisers)


/facepalm at your entire post.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Oh I do understand the concept. An all escort fleet would be impossible to stop with your rules.

No ifs, ands or buts...An escort fleet would completely destroy ANY other fleet besides another escort fleet. There would be no way to stop it. It doesn't matter if you split up fire power because at most you are getting 1-2 dice per escort, and then you have to hit with both dice.

So again, bring a couple of escorts yourselves. Maybe it will destroy any other fleet, maybe it won't. You won't know until you've tried it. If it really turns out to be that bad then things can be adjusted further but without actual hard evidence other than "theorygothic", it would be hard to make positive changes. You have a good gaming group there. So try it out and see first. Look at ways to add some built in safeguards. At least, it now comes with actual results.

Worst case scenario, put a cap on the number of escorts though I don't like caps and I'd like the all escort fleet to be as viable as the all cap fleet. Another would be command checks penalties, both SO and leadership, once the escorts in one squadron have been brought down to 50% or less or some other disadvantage which is logical. Penalties which can also be applied to the cap ship squadron.

Why would no spill over on escorts affect game balance?

Wow...just wow. Do you play this game?

Yeah I do, thank you. Other than throwing out comments which create hostility however, why not debate about it? Then maybe a proper ruleset satisfying both parties can be achieved.

Escorts are already very good, and I always have great success with them, and they really do not need a buff to the point where they are unstoppable. Nor would I want to be forced into taking nothing but escorts. They are there to assist the main part of your fleet (IE the cruisers)


/facepalm at your entire post.

Facepalm away. Sorry but I don't like the "lazy" way to deal with them.  Still doesn't change the fact that spillovers have rarely, if ever, happened in real life combat or fluff. "I fire at the ship to the left and I kill it and actually also killed the ship to the right! Well, hot diggity damn! Am I good or not?!" Yes, this is a game where one can make rules but really to have one ruleset for Cap ships and another for Escorts, that's the facepalm.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

To further add, Horizon knows about this, but Volandum (sp?) has a nasty all Nightshade list already. So nasty that even with spillovers, I don't think it would be enough to take them out easily. Now these are Eldar which are pretty hard to take down but I don't think an all Ravager or Brute Ram list with their 6+ prow would be easily taken down as well as long as the player positions them correctly. But even then 1,500 points of Brutes translates to 60 Brutes. Again spillovers will not be able to finish them off before the second wave crashes into the 10 or so cap ships of the enemy fleet.

Another example would be 50 Cobras firing Str 2 torp salvos. Something not to be discounted or 30 or so Firestorms firing 30 lances. Not as bad but will still hurt and again spillovers will not take them down easily. Or imagine the deadliest lance escort, the Hemlocks which can do much, much better than the Firestorm.

So the problem of an all Escort list exists already, just that no one does it regularly (except maybe Eldar, though I have heard about Ork escort lists as well as the Cobra) and while it is true my suggestion giving them a boost as well, this is where discussion would come in as to how to help address the problem of a massed all escort list. It might require another thread or we can still discuss the solution in this thread on a squadron level since I would prefer to only have 1 rule for both cap and escort ship squadrons.

[Phthisis]

So if there is already a problem, its okay to make it worse because its already a problem?  

Im not a fan of your 'logic'.

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

There is a problem, find a solution. At the same time streamline the rules. I really do not see why there should be one squadron ruleset for Cap Ships and one for Escort.

[Plaxor]

I do like the non-spillover idea, unless they are in btb

Ordnance boats want to be in btb. Being in BTB is more dangerous. Therefore a balance. As well as being in BTB makes you more resistant to ordnance but not direct-fire weapons... interesting...



As well there is another side of this. Iirc... (depending on how it's worded) squadrons must combine fire, and may only split to one other target. Therefore a squadron of cruisers would have a major disadvantage against squadrons of escorts. As they could only annihilate 2 escorts, a measly 60-100 pts. Whereas the escorts could potentially kill a cruiser without wasting firepower.


food for thought!

[Phthisis]

If a round of shooting was one shot, spillover would be a bad idea.  But since a turn is a couple hours or so, its reasonable that they would stop shooting a dead ship and move onto the next one.

[Sigoroth]

@RCG

I think that the method you've described is at once too harsh (you get one straggler and the rest of the squadron is paralysed?) and convoluted (wait, what ships can go on what orders again?) and doesn't address the two biggest issues with capital ship squadrons: targeting and spill-over.

@Admiral

Escort squadrons should simply be treated as a single capital ship. You don't role leadership for each escort do you? When they fail a Ld test for traversing an asteroid field you don't apply d6 hits to each escort do you?

The fact is that escorts are treated fundamentally differently to capital ships. This is fine. Problems arise however when the squadron rules which work perfectly well for escorts are applied to capital ships. The solution then is to treat them differently, which isn't any great stretch, since the rules already do.

@Tag

I agree that the inability to target individual cap ships in a squadron and spill-over hits are absurd. However, I do not agree that the tactics of the game will be dumbed down.

If you want to reap the benefits of being in a squadron (IE Orders, Leadership, and Combining firepower) you better be prepared to accept the fact that you may need to brace the squadron to save a ship.

Why? I understand the concept of a trade-off, but this seems to be a trade-off for the sake of making a trade-off. If forming squadrons were the norm then you wouldn't lose a tactical element, it would simply be shifted. Since everyone has squadrons then the tactical element would be their size, composition and use. Ie, when do you take a Lone Wolf? Should I break my 4 Lunars down into 2 squadrons to gain versatility? Etc.

As for if that makes sense...I can see it making sense. If your a captain and you know a salvo is coming in your vicinity and there are 2 other ships in your squadron...you won't know exactly who's about to get hit, so all ships may brace just in case that salvo is coming at your ship and not Captain Retard next to you. (IE...1000km away)

Well, 1000 km away would put the ships on top of one another, as that's 1cm on the board. 100,000 kms away is 10cm. Also, I don't see why being in squadron would have any effect on a captain's decision to brace. For example, let's say that the Admiral forms up his fleet all in a line, each ship 100,000 kms apart from the next, on the same plane, facing the same direction, in a perfect line. All ships operating as "lone wolf" squadrons. Incoming fire against 1 ship, 1 ship braces. Now consider the exact same formation but ships operate in squadrons of 3. Incoming fire against 1 ship, 3 ships brace. What?

@All

Also, I don't quite know why a Ld 6 ship should get a +3 Ld bump simply by being in squadron with a Ld 9 ship. With this proposal the biggest advantage to forming up squadrons comes not from giving one or two ships a tremendous Ld boost, but rather by mitigating the problems such poor Ld cause the FC. Maybe I'm alone in thinking that ships shouldn't get Ld boosts like this. But to counter the CoC bonus there is the penalty of only being able to issue one blanket order (RO, LO, AAF, etc), so there are balances.

I also thought of a possible use for special characters using this system. You could for, say, 30 pts, buy a captain (Chaos Lord, what have you) that would act as a mini-FC for a squadron. That is, it would allow each ship in a squadron to use different orders (at own Ld of course) and after the first time you fail an order with a ship in that squadron you cannot issue further orders to other ships in that squadron for that turn.

For example, say you have a squadron of 4 Lunars. One is positioned well and you'd like to LO (Ld 7), but 2 will need to turn so you decide to RO (Ld 9 & 6) and the last is pointed in the wrong direction so will need to CTNH (Ld to maintain formation for next turn. You choose to RO first, rolling a 7 (1 passes, 1 fails, CoC satisfied) then you decided to LO the one ship, rolling an 8 and failing (CoC broken). Now you can't CTNH the final ship and it will inevitably fall out of formation next turn. You douche, you should've rolled the CTNH first!

Anyway, that's just an ancillary thought though.

P.S. - this idea would reduce the effectiveness of ordnance, since this is very Ld dependent and the current method of dealing with this is simply to boost their Ld by squadroning with a high Ld ship.

[Sigoroth]

If a round of shooting was one shot, spillover would be a bad idea.  But since a turn is a couple hours or so, its reasonable that they would stop shooting a dead ship and move onto the next one.

Then why isn't this equally reasonable when the targets aren't in a squadron?

[Taggerung]

@Sigoroth

If they don't all brace, then the bare minimum I will agree with is that the other ships in the squadron cannot go on any other special order. Though they themselves are not braced. Seem reasonable?

And yes I do agree that one ship forcing the others to brace isn't logical from a fluff point of view lol, I was never arguing that. This is purely from a game balance stand point.

[Plaxor]

I imagine that it would be hard to detect when exactly a ship is dead, as the vessels would be firing a lot of hot plasma/lasers/debris in the enemies direction, and likely receiving such as well.

They would probably require a third party to function as a spotter to determine the destruction of a vessel. Although logic isn't so much a part of any tabletop wargame. If it were we would have far more difficulties on our hands.

[Sigoroth]

@Sigoroth

If they don't all brace, then the bare minimum I will agree with is that the other ships in the squadron cannot go on any other special order. Though they themselves are not braced. Seem reasonable?

And yes I do agree that one ship forcing the others to brace isn't logical from a fluff point of view lol, I was never arguing that. This is purely from a game balance stand point.

Well, to be honest, no it doesn't seem reasonable. I'm not trying to be a dick, and I know you're looking for a compromise, but it just doesn't seem a "reasonable" stance, by definition. It seems arbitrary and forced. I don't think that the game demands balance between squadroning and not squadroning. If forming squadrons were a special rule available only to certain fleets then yes, I could see some game balance issues. At the moment I think that "balance" merely means a contrived way to make the player feel angst about what to do. To force a decision.

I don't think that there will be any fewer decisions to be made with this change, though maybe the player will feel better about them or rather feel that his decisions were more tactical in nature as opposed to being forced by some outside element. For example, players often feel forced to form squadrons of carriers, and relatively free to not do so with gunships. Carriers get considerably greater benefit from forming squadrons and these benefits finally outweigh the tremendous disadvantages inherent to doing so and as such people feel inclined to do so. Likewise in larger points games the penalty for Chain of Command breakdowns and the value of conserving re-rolls (combined with increasing cost of subsequent re-rolls) becomes such that forming squadrons of gunships finally outweighs the downsides.

The extreme differential valuation of squadrons for carriers compared to gunships is silly I think, and their increased value at larger points values is also a little bit off. That is to say, I think that they should, of course, be more valuable in larger games, but it's silly that the downsides to squadrons become forced rather than a trade-off.

[Taggerung]

Well as it sits, I won't play with the rules proposed so far. They change the game mechanic too much and dumb it down far too much.

[Sigoroth]

Well as it sits, I won't play with the rules proposed so far. They change the game mechanic too much and dumb it down far too much.

I agree that it changes the game mechanic considerably. I disagree that it dumbs the game down too much, or even at all.