BFG:R Book I The Core Rules: Updates, Feedback & Comments Thread

[AndrewChristlieb]

I'm kinda disappointed to see you cave on movement. I don't see why eldar ships should be able to circumvent a basic rule mechanic... and you know physics . If its going to remain that they can remain stationary they should have the ability to burn retros automatically. The turns should be one per movement at any point in the move with ctnh adding one extra turn at any point in either movement.

[Taggerung]

I can't find the rules for holofields? They should be in the main rule book right?

[commander]

And necrons are supposed to possess the most advanced technology of all. The Necron fleet must be revised to cope with that 

[TheDaR]

Going through the DE document:

Overall issues:  It looks like DE also lost their minimum movement immunity.  This is a tiny bit disappointing to me personally, but not nearly as horrible as for Corsair or Craftworld Eldar, due to being able to actually take advantage of the Nimble quality, unlike their Light cousins.  They also did not have minimum movement immunity in the original Armada fleet list, though they did automatically pass CtNH at the expense of no Burn Retros.  So now they can BR, but don't autopass CTNH, and Nimble gives them the same ability to turn after any distance, even on their Cruisers and Grand Cruiser.  Mostly a fair trade.  I would be happy to go back to the original movement rules, too.  The one place were this a potential issue is the Subjugation, whose minimum speed is now actually higher than than the  maximum speed of many of its prey vessels.  At 22.5cm minimum move without orders, there's no way at all for it to wolf pack most cruisers or larger vessels, as it will be forced to fly past after a turn or two, unless it uses an SO to either slow down or dogleg to stay behind.

Slavetaking seems okay to me as is.  Every time you take that option over doing the crit, you're giving up killing an escort or stopping a major weapon system from dropping one of your ships in return.  An Impaler run that connects with an escort is 30-50 points worth of VPs you gave up for killing the ship, plus reducing the opponent's firepower by that ship, in exchange for 10-60 points worth of VP from slaves and no reduction in firepower.  It's a little harder to calculate against Capital ships, but there you have the issue of a potentially repairable crit that may not actually give any benefit or may destroy a ship versus guaranteed VP that does nothing to the enemy at all.  Generally as a DE admiral, I am only going to bother with slavetaking if I'm already winning (and thus the VP don't really matter much) or if I'm deathly behind and about to disengage, in which case I'm going to just grab some guaranteed VP and escape with as much as I can.


Ordnance Statistics table has the same issue as the Eldar Corsair one; plasma torpedoes should only reroll failed hits, or reroll misses, not 'must re-roll all to hit rolls'.

Leech Torpedoes: Do all races critical tables have the same thing on an 8?  Probably, but it might be better to specify by name and effect, rather than number (also easier for the newer player to understand the effect, rather than having to go look  up the critical hit table).  Also, they now roll to hit? Now I can't ever see using them.  Before the automatic reduction in speed made them very occasionally useful to help separate a ship out of the scrum to swarm.  Now, especially against SM or other races with 6+ armor, I'm not even guaranteed a slow down?  Feh.  Totally not worth it.  I might as well shoot normal torpedoes and at least get the reroll to hit for some hull damage if I have to roll.  Either back to not needing to roll to hit, or allow the same rerolls as Plasma Torpedoes, so you at least have a reasonable chance of getting some effect against races/facings with higher armor.

Impalers: Still need to clear up the escort interaction.  Again, you can read between the lines to see that rolling on the critical hit table will cause the automatic destruction on the escort, and that as they're not "actual" hit and runs, the escorts do not get their 4+ save.  However, especially with the addition of 2 hit escorts, it'd probably be better to clarify this.  I'll suggest wording to the effect of "Escorts do not gain any special save against Impaler attacks, and are still subject to the automatic destruction caused by any critical hit".

Haemonculi Coven is an interesting addition.  Not sure I would personally use it, but it's definitely something I could see being useful.  Only comment is that it seems a bit off that it costs 25 points no matter the base ship class.  I suppose the smaller vessels get a proportionally larger boost out of it so taking up proportionally more points is okay.


Mortalis:  Like it.  This is much cleaner than the old 'One upgraded Archon Torture'.  Pricing seems reasonable.  I take it the extra weapon strength is to make up for not being able to take the secondary weapon system?  If so, why not comparable increases on Launch bays when the other three patterns got boosts?  Is an extra lance, 4 torpedo strength, or impaler really worth only 10 points?  Those patterns go up 70 points over the Torture equivalents and gain a 50-100% increase in weapon strength, while the launch bay version goes up only 60, but gains no increase in AC strength.

Torture: No real change, still fine.

Succubus:  The Dark Mirror Pattern has the wrong weapon profile, copied from the Obsidian Rose pattern Mortalis.  16 Batteries and 3 Lances is clearly too much for a 150 point cruiser.  I presume this is supposed to be 6 Batteries and 2 Lances, same as it used to be.   If so, all fine here.

Corsair: Extra hit for 10 points seems just about perfect, since you're still subject to instant death from crits.

Subjugation: Not sure how I feel about these.  Basic concept seems fine.  I might consider trading torpedoes on the Broken Sigil for 1 Lance to create a mirror for the Hemlock rather than Nightshade.  That would help reduce the stress caused by a lack of minimum movement and high speed, as neither pattern would need to reload ordnance, making a stream of CTNH and Burn Retro orders more viable.  Also helps restrict the sheer amount of ordnance you can put on the table with a 20 point per point of ord strength platform (even cheaper than Nightshades, which you've considered to be something of a problem at 25 point per plasma torpedo strength, and better than Ravagers, Infidels and Cobras, who are the same cost or slightly cheaper per point of strength, but do not get rerolls to hit or the 6+ vs turret benefit).  It also helps gives the DE fleet a slightly different feel than Imperials, Chaos, and Orks, who all love their dirt cheap torpedo escorts.  If you do this, both patterns can stay at 40 points.  If you keep the torpedoes, the Broken Sigil almost definitely needs to go up to 45 points, though the Immortality pattern can stay at 40.

Defenses: All seem fine.  I especially like the Grotesque. 

Transports: These feel perfect.  I like Suppression and Slavecage Stolen Conscience patterns especially.  The Blackbird feels a little bit redundant to me.  Maybe drop it to 25 points, so that taking a squadron of 2 Suppressions isn't a clear advantage over the Blackbird?

Fleet list:  Dread Archons are now required at all points?   That's a bit of a tough nugget to swallow in smaller point games.  We've been mostly playing 750 recently, due to time constraints and to reacquaint ourselves with the rules and the BFG:R changes.  75 points is a pretty huge chunk to be required at that level, especially in a fleet that can quite safely run nothing but escorts (especially now that the Corsair is 2 hits) and thus has no good place to put a character.   Maybe adding a cheaper secondary Fleet Commander the way the Corsair fleet has the Shadow Prince?

Is there a compelling reason for separating the Cruiser and Light Cruiser limits and making the limit on escorts apply to all?  I rather liked the idea of running a list that was mostly Succubi with no Tortures and very few or no escorts, which would no longer be possible.  I thought that was both fairly flavorful and interesting, and a nice way to make the DE fleet feel different than many other fleets without being at all overpowered.

Overall: Good job.  I like how the overall fleet feels, and modulo some typoes and a few quibbles about exact costing and options, I would happily play this.  In fact, I'll probably get in a game tonight, so I should be able to test out at least a few of the changes.


As pointed out by Taggerung, we probably need an upgraded version of the core rules soon.  There's now a fairly large number of traits that are not actually specified in any downloadable document right now, such as Holofields and all the Lance rules, which makes playtesting with the Corsair or DE documents a bit challenging.

As far as other things go, I'm glad the minimum movement for CE is gone.  Even with burn retros for free, it hurts to many of the CE and CWE ships too much.

Hemlocks should probably go up 5 to 80.  85 is pushing real hard into the territory of light cruisers with 4/6 hits, without offering any of the other advantages that capital ships have, like being independent of squadrons and not dying instantly to critical hits.

I like the Philosophy system idea, but it did feel a little odd mechanically (no other race has any qualities which are not represented as part of their fleet registry), so heroes which offer similar bonuses is great.  The resulting Hero changes seem good to me.  Slavetaking seems just fine, for much the same reasons I don't consider it too overpowered in the DE list by itself.  CE, that I've seen, don't field a ton of boarding torpedoes and almost never board, and only allied ships are going to have impalers, and Vampires already cost points, so the overall impact is going to be fairly small.

I'm still mulling over the idea of the craftworld paths for CWE.  I think that like CE, moving it to be a quality of your fleet commander would be ideal.  Ulthwe fleets take a Grand Seer as an admiral, who grants them <x>.   Biel Tan takes an Autarch, Iyanden a High Bonesinger, Saim Hann a Cheiftan Admiral, and so forth.  I'm still trying to think up ideal bonuses to assign to each craftworld type.

[horizon]

Ulthwé = seer thing related.
Iyanden = pre-nid attack = yriel led // after-nid attack = ghostships related (more / bonesingers)
Biel-Tan = aspect warriors (cheap)
Saim-hann = pack hunters = squadron bonus? = ce escorts bit more available?
Kaelor (Koronus Expanse) = something shadow-y. +1 attack rating?
Altioc = pathfinders = pre-movement = setting up ships 'outside of the box'

[Plaxor]

@Andrew, there is only really an issue if the rule somehow breaks the game, unfortunately there is little evidence supporting that it would. I know of two situations where the 'no-movement' rule has been abused;

The first a player using an all Nightshade fleet he sets up on the far end of the table and torps his opponent to death. This of course was before FAQ 2010, and I am unsure how this would work as per current rules, so this one is 'floppy'.

The second involves a Dark Eldar fleet reportedly to never lose, If I'm not mistaken the fleet was Xisor's and he would often reference it when posters would complain of how underpowered the Dark Eldar were. This argument is a bit more solid, but it does not involve CE/CWE, and I am unsure of the specifics surrounding it.

Simply in this case, when a change is brought up and there is a 50/50 split amongst the 'core contributors', and no clear definition amongst anyone else.

[Plaxor]

@Horizon

Ulthwé = seer thing related.

Perhaps an ability to decide to BFI after damage is rolled from a single attack  each turn on vessels carrying Seers?

Iyanden = pre-nid attack = yriel led // after-nid attack = ghostships related (more / bonesingers)

Some bonus to Ghostships would be the simplest.

Biel-Tan = aspect warriors (cheap)

Sure.

Saim-hann = pack hunters = squadron bonus? = ce escorts bit more available?

Hrmmmmm.....

Kaelor (Koronus Expanse) = something shadow-y. +1 attack rating?

I was thinking that they would always be considered as 'behind BMs', but I don't know how that would play out. Perhaps Enemy vessels are considered Innacurate when firing at them, meaning they do not benefit from left shifts for range.

Altioc = pathfinders = pre-movement = setting up ships 'outside of the box'

Unfortunately pre-movement seems to have potential hazards. However it is possible to allow escort sized vessels to deploy within or near celestial phenomena after both fleets have been completely deployed, I've been working on a similar concept with Leviathans. A redeployment concept could also work, perhaps they could redeploy half their ships/squadrons after both fleets have completed deployment but before the game begins.

@TheDaR

I'm glad you're so enthused with this. I made a mistake with the DE, they should have no minimum movement speed, these 'Alpha' versions are more or less a complete rebuild of my earlier documents, as earlier in the project I knew little about how to use the software. Essentially I have made a number of templates and I fill in the blanks for the fleet, and I know that I generally miss at least a few things (look at the IN Dictator, with Str 2 Weapons Batteries). However the benefit of doing this has provided a far greater uniformity to the documents, and eliminated a number of 'random chance' errors. Ultimately my plan is to form an 'Alpha' for each fleet, and then correct these mistakes after public review for the 'Beta' versions in the next month.

Slavetaking is a funny thing, at 5 points the ability was almost never used, so I increased it to ten. The only issue here is that a suitably built DE fleet of Impaler Corsairs at 1500 points could make off with an average of 500 points in a single turn against an IN fleet, without being subject to retaliation. I know this sounds a  bit astounding, but since the attacks would not destroy the enemy vessel, a single Cobra Class Destroyer that straggled a little outside of the CAP could be the sole target of all these attacks while the DE sit hidden behind an asteroid field and promptly disengaging the next turn. Now thinking about it there should be some limit to this rule, either a cap on the number of points gained in a single battle, or more likely a rule that limits the number of slavetaking raids one can perform on a vessel in a single turn (Likely 4 AB or 1 Impaler), unless the value is reduced.

Plasma torpedo ruling noted, I'll try to find a way to clarify it.

Leech torpedoes are a bit experimental here, however you must remember that most '8' results grant a point of damage. As I stated earlier Critical hit tables will need to be modified so that 8 has something to do with engines and 9 has something to do with leadership. Since there are 5 critical hit tables for ships and another 5 for defences, specifying the result is far too complicated. It is easier to simply specify a number on the opponent's crit chart. This ruling is far simpler than the previous version which 'created' its own critical effect.

Leech torpedoes may need some thought. Comparing them to Plasma Torpedoes against most (11/16) fleets crit charts....
They Gain:
Automatic critical effect, which can be used strategically to reduce an enemies speed.
They Lose:
Re-rolling hits against armour, potential to cause more damage with critical effect.

Unfortunately balancing torpedoes seems to be a difficult task, as they are quite simple. If the Leech Torpedoes are allowed to Re-roll they are substantially better than Plasma Torps. Let us do some mathematics turrets being ignored, and considering an Armour of 5+ with a 'standard' critical hit chart one Plasma Torpedo should statistically cause;

.55 hits not considering critical damage. As these 'hits' have a 1/6 chance of causing a critical, we can assume that .092 critical hits would be scored. Considering the probability of critical effects that cause hits and the number of hits caused this means a Plasma Torpedo will cause an additional .042 hits from critical hits, resulting in a total of ~.6 hits on average caused by a Plasma Torpedo. Additionally the probability of one of these hits causing an additional non-hit critical effect (regardless of the relative value of the result) is considered resulting in an ultimate theoretical result of;

~.6 hits and ~.085 critical effects caused by each Plasma Torpedo.

In comparison the Leech Torpedo would cause .33 hits and .55 critical effects. However there is something to be said about re-rolling. As the Leech Torpedo could not cause an additional hit from its effect, if it could re-roll hits it would statistically cause   .55 hits and .55 critical effects.

Mathematically this means that a Leech Torpedo would be about 9% worse at causing damage and multitudes better at causing critical effects. The 9% disadvantage unfortunately does not compensate for the significant boon in critical effect, not considering the tactical advantage of knowing which effect will result.

Regarding this, there could be some manipulation to the torpedo, only regarding its speed of course. One could permit these re-rolls but reduce the speed of Leech Torpedoes to 25cm, or instead not re-roll and increase the speed to maybe 35cm or 40. Unfortunately this seems to be an annoying trade off, but reason could be applied to the former in that the Leech Torpedoes are slower as they do not simply have to hit the vessel, they have to hit it in a very specific way.

On Impalers the wording is technically correct regarding Escorts, however I agree that it needs more clarification. The rules state that an Impaler attack is not considered a Hit and Run for any bonuses or negatives that would affect such, the Impaler causes a critical hit on a 2+ Killing any Escort outright. The Escort rule specifically regards Hit and Run attacks, but yes, this is confusing and needs clarification.

The Haemonculi coven is essentially a Mark of Nurgle. For Chaos it was ultimately determined that an additional hit was worth around 10 pts, as the true benefit is a much wider gap to cripple the vessel. 5 points were tacked on for the Hostile Environment quality, which is quite circumstancial but still a useful ability. Dark Eldar vessels are much higher in comparative cost, and with fewer hits an additional 1 to cripple means adding 1/3 the requisite damage (for the Torture) as opposed to 1/4 (for Chaos Cruisers). Given this concept one could assume that this upgrade is around 1/12 more valuable, perhaps a small benefit, but more importantly is the fact that DE cruisers are slightly more expensive. However I will likely reduce the cost to 20 points, thinking this though again.

The Mortalis was made regarding CE and CWE vessels of similar size. For some reason Eldar vessels do not go above 4 launch bays on any given class. I'm not sure why, but increasing the strength seem to be a bit.... risky. I could see 6 launch bays and an increase of +20ish points.

You're right on the Succubus, just a copy and paste error.

The Subjugation should have torpedoes, as the concept is more of a 'run in and deploy leech torpedoes' kind of idea rather than cause damage. 45 points makes sense.

The Blackbird is a bit of an oddity, and I am getting used to the concept of 2 hits. I was on the border with 25/30 points when I designed it, but went with 30 as the cost of 1 transport unit for the Eldar seems to be about 15 points. I may go to 25, or give it some other benefit to compete with the smaller vessel.

The mandatory Fleet Commander was actually a typo, however I was considering changing the commanders to Drachon (Ld+1)@50 and Archon (Ld+2)@75. With the adjusted escort costs and new vessels I need to do some theory building with the fleet. Seccondary Commanders would be renamed 'Heirophants', which is more true to fluff.

Regarding the Core Rules
I suppose that I could move them to the top of my to-do list, in all sense of reality they should be completed before the fleet lists, however the concepts of 'varied escort classes' and more defined weapons systems came about with the CE build.

At this time I would like to move all weapon types to the Core Rules, as well as the Critical Hit tables (forming a quick-reference page for the Critical Tables of all fleets) and a few more general rules such as Holofields. I do have a write up of how Holofields function as follows;

Holofields
Holofields are a very unique creation of the Eldar, that confuses enemy sensors as to the exact location of the Eldar vessel. Due to this fact any Gunnery weapons suffer a right shift when targeting a vessel with Holofields. Lance weapons suffer a -1 to their hit roll if firing over 15cm, and a -2 if they are firing over 30cm. Such weapons will always hit on a roll of 6 regardless of  distance. If your opponent has any Scatter weapons. Then if his opponent places the template in contact with a ships base with an active Holofield, then the defending player may force his opponent to Re-roll a ‘Hit’ result on the scatter die. Note that this cancels with Lock On orders. Holofields have no effect against Area Effect weapons.  Any other Direct Fire weapons simply fail on a D6 roll of 6 (by the attacking player). Any ship attempting to ram a ship with an active Holofield must roll an additional D6 with its leadership test to ram. Vessels attempting to board a ship with an active Holofield must pass a leadership test to do so.

The philosophy system is a bit wonky in retrospect, seemed like a good idea at the time. Craftworlders will simply pay for the upgrade through a relatively increased Fleet Commander cost, like the Space Marines.

I agree that the Hellebore should probably be 80 pts, as it is still subject to the Fragile quality, and being that Frigates are still Escorts, 1/3 of the time the first hit will simply destroy the Hellebore. So it really is only gaining 2/3 of a hit.

[horizon]

quick:

Holofields
Holofields are a very unique creation of the Eldar, that confuses enemy sensors as to the exact location of the Eldar vessel. Due to this fact any Gunnery weapons suffer a right shift when targeting a vessel with Holofields. Lance weapons suffer a -1 to their hit roll if firing over 15cm, and a -2 if they are firing over 30cm. Such weapons will always hit on a roll of 6 regardless of  distance. If your opponent has any Scatter weapons. Then if his opponent places the template in contact with a ships base with an active Holofield, then the defending player may force his opponent to Re-roll a ‘Hit’ result on the scatter die. Note that this cancels with Lock On orders. Holofields have no effect against Area Effect weapons.  Any other Direct Fire weapons simply fail on a D6 roll of 6 (by the attacking player). Any ship attempting to ram a ship with an active Holofield must roll an additional D6 with its leadership test to ram. Vessels attempting to board a ship with an active Holofield must pass a leadership test to do so. Any other effect not mentioned that would ignore shields also ignores Holofields.

weapon batteries = area effect = should be right shift by holofield above 15cm. Otherwise wb's vs Eldar will be much better then Lances vs Eldar. MMS tried to level boht weapon systems vs Eldar.

Ignore shields does not equal ignore holofields. This as Eldar have shields.

[Plaxor]

Prospects and Outlook

[/b]

Fortunately with the winter break I have time to work on these documents much more quickly, and my current plan is to (hopefully) complete an 'Alpha' version of each remaining fleet within the next two weeks. Ideally I would like to complete/make a pass for each by the following dates, but it is a substantial amount of work.... so this is tentative, I have given myself some breathing room, but these are +/-7 Days. Red represents the first Alpha pass. Orange the updated Alpha pass, to include transports defences and new concepts. Green represents Beta versions.

21st-Necrons
23rd-Demiurg/Kroot
25th-Tau
27th-Tyranids
28th Rogue Traders
29th-Craftworld Eldar
31st-Orks
1st-Space Marines
3rd-Imperial Navy
4th-Adeptus Mechanicus
6th-Chaos/Daemons
9th-Core Rules
11th-Corsairs and Dark Eldar

I apologize that I am going to make you wait a few weeks before you have a complete core ruleset. However for now use the Phantom lances and Pulsar lances from Eldar MMS (1.4), the Holofields listed above as well as the rules for escorts listed previous. I hope that this will not cause too many problems in gameplay. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Necrons
As you can see above I've decided to work on the Necron fleet next, as I think it will be an easy pass. Although I very much like the rules Sigoroth and I developed, I do have one question for everyone regarding shields. The Necrons have a particular problem with their Escorts as they are so easily plinked to death, the increased save hopefully would correct this however this is not a certainty, Sheilds would invariably do so. However the compromise is that the psychology of BFI for the Necrons would be compromised, still a reduction in the Necron inherent living metal save could allow for them to carry shields, likely to a uniform 6+.

On the other side of things, the new Necron dex allows for some flexibility with the fleet, no I will not drop FTLs, but I will add a certain number of flavor upgrades, and Characters will become much more uniform. Defences will include a minefield of scarabs, which will function like assault boats.

The Necron transport will be known as an 'Ark Teleporter' which for background will carry a large portal for the Necron warriors to travel instantly there. The Ark Teleporter will be unable to use AAF orders, with the argument that to activate the FTL would drain too much power from the Portal and deactivate it for some time.

Additionally Necrons in certain scenarios (most notably planetary assault) Capital Ships will be unable to deploy troops and will suffer a negative to exterminatus weapons if they used AAF previously in the game, for the aforementioned reason.

[Plaxor]

I'm confused Horizon, do you mean that Holofields only cause a right shift after 15cm? or an additional right shift after 15cm? I imagine the previous is more likely, but your wording is confusing. The text states 1 automatic right shift regardless of distance?

[horizon]

Hi,
here is the mms1.9b wording:

Holofields: The Eldar are protected not only by shielding but also by sophisticated ECM that actually produce multiple local engine signatures whilst actively masking the parent ship’s engine signature. The effect of this is a general interference that makes accurate targeting extremely difficult.
Against attacks which make use of the gunnery chart the Holofields force one extra right shift on the gunnery table, this in addition to any other shift on the gunnery table. The holofield does not work under 15cm.
Against attacks which make no use of the gunnery table and target the ship directly (like Lances but not Nova Cannons or Armageddon Guns), the holofield offers a save to represent the difficulty of targeting the Eldar vessel. Whenever an Eldar vessel is hit by such an attack roll a D6 per hit and compare it to the holofield save. If the roll equals or exceeds the holofield save then do not place the blast marker, the holofield has thwarted the enemy sensors . If not then place the blast marker as normal, a shield has overloaded. The holofield keeps on working even if all shields have been overloaded.
The Holofield is more effective the further away the Eldar vessel is. See the following table for which save applies to the holofield:
• Above 30cm - save on 5+
• Between 15-30cm - save on 6+
• Under 15cm - no save
Note: Against attacks which normally ignore Holofields like the Star Pulse Generator or from an Activated Blackstone Fortress the Holofield offers no protection.
Holofields do not save against ordnance.

The bold part.

The change to the way lances interacts is approved of as an alternative. And when people like it applied to mms v1.9b as well.

[Plaxor]

I see, I remember this came up before at some point. Will do, seems a little awkward with the 'shift' jump from 15cm to 30, eh you know this better than I do. I noticed the change in 1.9b, and I thought you said you had opposition to it.

I am going to use the first post of this thread as a FAQ of sorts for things not yet updated but official.

[horizon]

Hey,

on the lance: well Sig and I kinda liked the concept at one point you are doing now in revised. Yet, at that point a fair share of players disliked the rule because a lance hitting on a 4+ is a core mechanic.

[TheDaR]

I'm glad you're so enthused with this. I made a mistake with the DE, they should have no minimum movement speed, these 'Alpha' versions are more or less a complete rebuild of my earlier documents, as earlier in the project I knew little about how to use the software. Essentially I have made a number of templates and I fill in the blanks for the fleet, and I know that I generally miss at least a few things (look at the IN Dictator, with Str 2 Weapons Batteries). However the benefit of doing this has provided a far greater uniformity to the documents, and eliminated a number of 'random chance' errors. Ultimately my plan is to form an 'Alpha' for each fleet, and then correct these mistakes after public review for the 'Beta' versions in the next month.

Honestly, I'm pretty indifferent to DE having no minimum move.  I like having it, as it makes certain tactics more viable (wolfpacking with escorts especially), but since DE don't have CE/CWE's restrictions on when they can turn, they don't need the ability to stay still nearly as badly.  The real problem for me with the Eldar movement is that minimum movement applied on both legs of the move, not just one, or overall.   DE, with Nimble that can actually be used, don't have the problem.

Slavetaking is a funny thing, at 5 points the ability was almost never used, so I increased it to ten. The only issue here is that a suitably built DE fleet of Impaler Corsairs at 1500 points could make off with an average of 500 points in a single turn against an IN fleet, without being subject to retaliation. I know this sounds a  bit astounding, but since the attacks would not destroy the enemy vessel, a single Cobra Class Destroyer that straggled a little outside of the CAP could be the sole target of all these attacks while the DE sit hidden behind an asteroid field and promptly disengaging the next turn. Now thinking about it there should be some limit to this rule, either a cap on the number of points gained in a single battle, or more likely a rule that limits the number of slavetaking raids one can perform on a vessel in a single turn (Likely 4 AB or 1 Impaler), unless the value is reduced.

Hrm.  I see your problem here.  I agree that it does seem kinda silly to hit a single Cobra 20 times in one turn to net a huge haul.  A limit on points per turn or attacks per ship per turn would both solve this.   I'd be inclined to say no more than one wave of ordnance may take slaves on a ship per turn as a first try.  You can still slightly abuse this by having huge squadrons firing boarding torpedoes or impalers in waves, but then you at least have the drawback of having huge squadrons.  The other option I can think of is that a single ship cannot give up more than half of its VP to slave taking in a single turn no matter how many times it's attacked.   A little harder to keep track of, but now a lone Cobra is never worth more than 15 VP per turn, while a cruiser could be worth between 50 and 100 points each turn.

Leech torpedoes are a bit experimental here, however you must remember that most '8' results grant a point of damage. As I stated earlier Critical hit tables will need to be modified so that 8 has something to do with engines and 9 has something to do with leadership. Since there are 5 critical hit tables for ships and another 5 for defences, specifying the result is far too complicated. It is easier to simply specify a number on the opponent's crit chart. This ruling is far simpler than the previous version which 'created' its own critical effect.

Hrm, I hadn't really conflated the idea that result 8 did damage on many charts.  Being my two primary fleets recently have been CWE and DE, and neither takes extra hits on an 8 result, it didn't really register.

Thinking that over, I don't really like that concept.   I liked the fact that leech torpedoes did not do actual  damage, but instead only affected movement.  That, combined with slavetaking, made for a very DE way to fight.  Pick one member of a squadron, hit with leech torpedoes to slow it down out of the pack, and the pounce on it, hitting with a few boarding parties and then finish it off.  Then repeat until your opponent is fleeing in terror.

Now, leech torpedoes can't be used on escorts and many transports.  That single point of crit damage is going to automatically wreck them.   That seems almost counter-intuitive.   Those are exactly the sort of targets that DE would want to be dragging out of the pack with leech torpedoes.

I think the original rules for Leech Torpedoes was honestly fine.  A single automatic hit per torpedo that slows movement by 10cm (non-cumulative), and can be repaired as if it were critical hit damage during the End Phase.  This is one case where a slightly special rule means you don't have to twist around a bunch of other rules to make things work.  Now you don't need to worry if engine criticals are in the same slot for every fleet, about how critical damage interacts with different classes of vessels, how doing auto-crits and damage at the same time makes other torpedoes more or less desirable, etc.   

The decision on which to fire is plenty tactical: do I go for a nearly guaranteed slow down (leech torpedo), a slightly less guaranteed small critical hit and/or VP (boarding torpedo), or just try to strip hull points and hope for big crits (plasma torpedo).

The Haemonculi coven is essentially a Mark of Nurgle. For Chaos it was ultimately determined that an additional hit was worth around 10 pts, as the true benefit is a much wider gap to cripple the vessel. 5 points were tacked on for the Hostile Environment quality, which is quite circumstancial but still a useful ability. Dark Eldar vessels are much higher in comparative cost, and with fewer hits an additional 1 to cripple means adding 1/3 the requisite damage (for the Torture) as opposed to 1/4 (for Chaos Cruisers). Given this concept one could assume that this upgrade is around 1/12 more valuable, perhaps a small benefit, but more importantly is the fact that DE cruisers are slightly more expensive. However I will likely reduce the cost to 20 points, thinking this though again.

The cost didn't seem terribly unreasonable.  At 20 points I might be more inclined to pick it up, especially for Light cruisers, where the extra box before crippling is a much bigger deal, proportionally.   I was more musing on the fact that it's 25 points no matter which class it's on.  Any which way it's always 1 more box before crippling in an absolute sense, so coming at it from that angle, having it be constant makes sense.  Hostile Environment is a nice bonus, but really it's all about the extra hull box.

The Mortalis was made regarding CE and CWE vessels of similar size. For some reason Eldar vessels do not go above 4 launch bays on any given class. I'm not sure why, but increasing the strength seem to be a bit.... risky. I could see 6 launch bays and an increase of +20ish points.

The other option would be to give it another 10 point discount and make all patterns 300 points.  I can squint and see the logic behind maxing out the launch bays at 4, given the superiority of Eldar ordnance.  Needing to squadron to get above strength 4 waves keeps Eldar attack craft from being quite so overwhelming.

The Subjugation should have torpedoes, as the concept is more of a 'run in and deploy leech torpedoes' kind of idea rather than cause damage. 45 points makes sense.

See above for my comments on Leech torpedoes.   That said, if no minimum movement sticks, I have slightly less problem with torpedo armed Subjugations, as you longer need to reserve SOs for maneuvering and can afford to spare them for Reloads.

That said, what about the idea of only having Leech and Boarding torpedoes, with no access to Plasmas?  That fits with the purpose of DE Raiders, focusing on separating out desirable prey, boarding them for slaves and loot, and then crippling them to terrorize the enemy, and basically lets them act like completely scaled down versions of the larger ships, with the Boarding torpedoes acting like impalers for larger vessels and leeches to let them get the localized advantages they need.

The mandatory Fleet Commander was actually a typo, however I was considering changing the commanders to Drachon (Ld+1)@50 and Archon (Ld+2)@75. With the adjusted escort costs and new vessels I need to do some theory building with the fleet. Seccondary Commanders would be renamed 'Heirophants', which is more true to fluff.

Either would be acceptable.  I don't mind a mandatory commander, and it actually sort of makes sense for DE fluff (needing a strong personality to keep the fleet as a fleet and not just a squabbling pack of unassociated ships).  75 points was just too much for smaller games, especially since DE ships tend to be on the more expensive side.

Holofields
Holofields are a very unique creation of the Eldar, that confuses enemy sensors as to the exact location of the Eldar vessel. Due to this fact any Gunnery weapons suffer a right shift when targeting a vessel with Holofields. Lance weapons suffer a -1 to their hit roll if firing over 15cm, and a -2 if they are firing over 30cm. Such weapons will always hit on a roll of 6 regardless of  distance. If your opponent has any Scatter weapons. Then if his opponent places the template in contact with a ships base with an active Holofield, then the defending player may force his opponent to Re-roll a ‘Hit’ result on the scatter die. Note that this cancels with Lock On orders. Holofields have no effect against Area Effect weapons.  Any other Direct Fire weapons simply fail on a D6 roll of 6 (by the attacking player). Any ship attempting to ram a ship with an active Holofield must roll an additional D6 with its leadership test to ram. Vessels attempting to board a ship with an active Holofield must pass a leadership test to do so.

Hrm.  Penalties to the roll instead of rerolls of successes?  I kinda like that.   Makes knife fighting Eldar attractive, but with their speed and maneuverability, they're generally going to try and force being just barely at 30cm and in a bad arc.  That actually fits the fluff well, too, constantly darting in to just out of reach and chipping away.

[horizon]

Dar is right on the Leech, your (plaxor) idea is not funny on escorts. The movement drain was kinda funky in retrospect.