Fighter Rules - BFG:R

[RCgothic]

Reducing the save makes it not really worth it to take fighter escort and sacrifice offensive power, vs just risking interception and taking more bombers

But having the save only apply to escorted waves means escorted waves can defeat pure fighters. The official rulebook states this about fighters contacting bombers: "the fighters quickly eliminate the lumbering bombers" . Thus it makes no sense from a fluff perspective or a game mechanics perspective.

[RCgothic]

How about trying these rules instead:

Fighters may remain in play on a 4+ after every interaction. Resilient fighters have a 3+.
When the markers first contact, one round of interaction is fought.
Any marker that has an interaction has its speed for that turn halved. If it has already moved up to half speed, then it stops where it is.
If survivors are in contact at the beginning of the ordnance phase, a round of combat is fought.
The surviving markers may interact twice in one ordnance phase if, after moving off, they are caught again by the enemy.

I think this is a better iteration of the rules that I first proposed, as multiple rounds are not fought all at once and AC may still move off (though at half speed to represent the necessary combat manoeuvres).

[Admiral_d_Artagnan]

Sigoroth's resilience rule seems clearer. I think you're trying to introduce something similar but I am not sure. Are you?

[RCgothic]

I don't know what Sigoroth's rules are, so I can't say.

Basically, fighters become tougher, with a similar mechanic to resiliency, but which resiliency can modify.
Apart from that, the difference is that AC may move away after interactions at up to half speed.

Everything else is just a logical following through of these two points.

[horizon]

Here:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/sg/forum/index.php?action=search2

Remove all the limitations on resilient ordnance except one: can only attempt to save once per turn. So if I send out 4 fighters and after interceptions 2 of them survive. Then I've got the choice of intercepting 2 more AC, losing my remaining fighters, or waiting till next turn for my 4+ save to regenerate.

[RCgothic]

If that's the way people would like to play it, I'm happy to integrate that into the rules I've just proposed. They seem like complementary mechanics.

[AsleepByDay]

How about fighters on cap gain a 6+ resilient save (ideally combined with the above much simpler  resilient save rules so they can intercept twice from a single wave some of the time) this would nerf an advantage in ac somewhat by allowing the player with the smaller number of bays to defend somewhat more effectively.

[horizon]

If people want the normal resilience for fighters I would like to see 6+. Not 4+.

Resilient fighters: 3+

[RCgothic]

6+ or 5+ isn't enough of a boost to make escorting worthwhile. For the fraction more of an AC you'd save by escorting your bombers, it would be more worthwhile to just send more bombers and risk interception.

For example: 3 bombers 1 fighter are intercepted by 2 fighters.

With 4+: 50% chance bombers are untouched, 50% chance 1 is killed. Average 2.5 survive.
With 5+: 33% chance bombers are untouched, 66% chance 1 is killed. Average 2.33 survive.
With 6+: 16.7% chance bombers are untouched, 83.3% chance 1 is killed. Average 2.16 survive.
4 Bombers unescorted, 2 survive.

Compare to an unescorted wave not being intercepted (4 bombers survive):
Escorted not intercepted is at 75% effectiveness.
4+ escorted reduced to 62.5% effectiveness.
5+ escorted reduced to 58.3% effectiveness.
6+ escorted reduced to 54.2% effectiveness.
Unescorted reduced to 50% effectiveness.

So in exchange for 25% absolute power, 6+ and 5+ provide too marginal a benefit compared to just sending all bombers and hoping not to get intercepted. Even with a 4+ you would only escort if you were pretty certain you were going to get intercepted.

[horizon]

Yeah well, I think 4+ is too strong.
It makes normal fighters too strong and devaluates the strength of resilient AC.

You can throw arguments and % at me but in this game where AC abuse is already around every corner I cannot go ahead with such edits.

6+ is fine if you go by it since fighters should add in bombing runs.

[RCgothic]

Stronger fighters means weaker AC.

Every wave that includes a fighter escort is fewer bombers that gets to make an attack. Additional casualties due to fighters also means a reduction in AC offensive effectiveness per bay.

You say that will mean people take more bays? People can already spam LBs, but they generally don't because a mixed approach is better, and there's a hard cap to the number of bays that can be taken in the form of a points limit. If people take more bays to make up for a reduction in offensive power, that's only getting them back to where they were at the expense of their gunships.

On the other hand, if Fighters are worth more defensively then people can get away with taking fewer defensive AC, in which case the number of AC in play would reduce. I have no idea how you think this will make ordnance more dominating.

[horizon]

Stronger fighters means weaker AC.

Or more AC.
As you say.

[RCgothic]

Or less AC, as defensively you don't need as much.

Offensively, to get the same power you would need more AC, but this is a nerf as you lose firepower in this trade off. Additionally, people who had already taken max carriers find themselves with a straight up nerf to ordnance power.

Either way, ordnance dominates less. More AC != More Ordnance Domination.

[Phthisis]

Just giving fighters a resilient save doesn't change much.

We have been playing AC heavy here (16 bays usually in 1500pts) and at that level I can't say that I've seen AC do anything spectacular.    Even when one side dominates in terms of ordnance, fighters can nerf waves to the point they aren't much of a threat.

The real damage is from shotgunning, and I don't see how fighters gaining a save will change ordnance strength.

[RCgothic]

They won't increase it, certainly.