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

[Plaxor]

I am agreed regarding leeches with your argument.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I agree that the leach was fine originally, I also like how fluffy the boarding/ leach only options sound as they are primarily going to be crippling ships so they can take slaves.

For slave taking rules there should be an over all limit to this, maybe something as simple as taking an automatic hit off of the enemy ship to represent crew losses or making it so that a ship cannot have more slavetaking attacks than hit points and if it reaches the point that is has had enough slavetaking attacks to reach 1/2 its hull point limit it is counted as crippled if it reaches full hull point limit it is automatically turned into a drifting hulk. For example a cobra would be destroyed after one slavetaking attack as escorts do not have enough crew to survive this and cannot leave a hulk, a lunar would be crippled after taking 4 hits worth of slavetaking attacks or made into a drifting hulk (pretty sweet really if the DE takes the field, 180 for destroying the lunar plus 80 extra vp for slavetaking  plus 90 for being hulked the cobra would net a guaranteed 10 and a possible 40; if the squadron is destroyed; unless the rules for escorts vp when destroyed has been changed).

[Plaxor]

@Andrew

Yes, after the arguments presented previously it does seem logical that leeches would do no damage.

I already gave a ruling for slavetaking, as logical as it would be to place a slave limit per vessel, I think this would be far too difficult to keep track of, so a turn by turn basis  per vessel is probably best. Given the rule could be altered to say; no more slave raids than the vessel has remaining hits per turn (which I kind of like). hulks should not produce slaves though they may have survivors, as this has potential attrition problems.


Regarding Necrons:

Still no thoughts on shields?

[Taggerung]

Necrons with shields and crazy saves? That can't end well.

[commander]

I've not playtested yet.
- living metal: armour 4. Quantum shielding (which can be damaged by crit) ups this to 6. Acts as navigational shields.
- shields: multi-purpose. Are 'hard' shields, as normal shields but they also stop AC and torps. Their own AC use dimensional shifts to circumvent the shields, so they can be launched or touch down without having them crashing into the shields.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Umm I think you said that backwards. Did you mean to say 4+ shield save and 6+ hull save?

You could try taking away bfi and adding shields that have whatever level of save bfi offered with the hulls having they're same base save as now. Escorts have 6+ hull save and 1 shield with a 4+ save, cruisers have 5+ hull save and 2 shields with a 3+ save, and the tomb has a 4+ hull save and 4 shields with a 2+ save. Shield hits saved do not create a blast marker.

[commander]

Umm I think you said that backwards. Did you mean to say 4+ shield save and 6+ hull save?

You could try taking away bfi and adding shields that have whatever level of save bfi offered with the hulls having they're same base save as now. Escorts have 6+ hull save and 1 shield with a 4+ save, cruisers have 5+ hull save and 2 shields with a 3+ save, and the tomb has a 4+ hull save and 4 shields with a 2+ save. Shield hits saved do not create a blast marker.

No  I meant that living metal is armour 4, upgradable bij the quantum shielding to armour 6. The living metal hull acts as navigational shields upgrade (no saving throws anymore). The quantum shielding can be damaged by a crit and comes back online after a successfull repair roll.

The shields themselves are 'hard' shields as per my post above.

[commander]

But I like the idea of taking bfi away.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I'm still kinda on the edge about slave taking also, the idea that no more slave taking attacks than hits remaining is good, but it still doesn't feel right that you can gain unlimited vp from any target. The simplest way to limit this is still to have the slave taking attack cause one hit. this shows loss of crew, damage during the attack, etc and limits the amount of extra vp gained to 10 x hits, of course with saves you might get more but I'd be ok with that. If that's too powerful, which it sounds like it might be, maybe making it so you can't choose to take slaves and instead replace the hit and run roll of 6 with this and make it so only the impailer has the choice to make an attack or take slaves.

[Plaxor]

Update/Report;

TheDaR convinced me to go off my previous plans, and I've been hacking away at the core rulebook. I was going in circles about the format for a while, but I eventually came to this;

Sections:

Introduction
The Turn
The Movement Phase
The Shooting Phase
The Ordnance Phase
The End Phase
Squadrons
Characters
Defences
The Battlefield
Scenarios
Appendicies
-Critical Hit Charts
-Catastrophic Damage Charts
-Leadership Charts/Racial Rules Charts
-Armaments
-Ordnance Types
-Qualities
-Solar Sails
-Index

Just was working out how each would layer up, I was initially placing charts within the other sections, but ultimately decided this method worked better. How I have it set up, the only things that should be listed within each fleets section within Book II should be the upgrades that they have available. I'm hoping to be able to form the final charts from the  Indecies into a Quick Reference Sheet.

Notes on Scenarios;

I've been having a bit of fun developing the Scenarios Section, but here is what I have so far. Scenarios are divided into three levels; Raids, Hybrid and Battles. When players plan to play a game they first decide a raid points level (1000 points or less), then they build a raiding fleet at that level, and a battle fleet at 2x that value. Additionally they build a defence fleet for each point level that is 25% that fleet's point value as well as a transport fleet equal to 25% the total.

So if the players were to decide upon a 500 point game, they would build;

Raid: 500 pt fleet, 125 pt defence list, 125 pt transport list
Battle: 1000 pt fleet. 250 pt defence list, 250 pt transport list

The scenarios are:

Raid Level
Head of the Snake; loosely based on 'Chance Encounter' from Armada, mission is to destroy the defender's flagship (which is unable to fire or use any armament) before it can exit the opposite board edge.
Convoy; as normal... pretty much
The Bait; modified to allow equal points values.
Explorers Prize; from the Rogue Trader document.
Space Hulk; Loosely based on the Rogue Trader document.
Wolf Pack; New mission which uses 'blip counters', secret deployment and a few other things.
The Palace; Based on 'The Governor's Palace' from the Book of Nemesis, where the attacker must do hit and run raids on a planet.
Navigate the Storm; loosely based on the mission of the same name from Armada.

Raid or Battle Level
Surprise Attack; pretty much the same as in the blue book.

Hybrid Level (1 player has raid points value and the other has battle points value)
Rearguard; based on the mission from armada.
The Raiders; the mission from the blue book.
Tactical Strike; loosely based on 'Above Belis Corona' from Armada.
Vanguard; A little based on 'Macharia's End', essentially it is an exterminatus where the exterminator is known.
Blockade Run; as normal.
The Hunter and the Prey; based on the mission from Rogue Trader fleets.

Battle Level
Exterminatus! as normal
Planetary Assault as normal
Escalating Engagement as normal
Fleet Engagement as normal
Emergency Resupply loosely based on the 'craftworld assault' scenario, both players are rushing to get APs on the planet, but the Defender starts in reserves, and only has planetary Defences until the vessels show. The game lasts 8 turns and whoever drops the most Aps wins.

[Plaxor]

When selecting a mission each player secretly selects 3 missions from each level, then the two players reveal their selections to each other. If both players select the same mission, that one will be played. If the players select more than one of the same mission, randomly determine which is played. If none of the selections match then randomly determine which mission is played from all the missions selected. Here are examples; (each letter represents a different mission for brevity)

Example 1
Player 1 selects:         Player 2 Selects:
Raid: A,B,C                  D,E,F
Hybrid: G,H,I               J,K,L
Battle: M,N,O              M,P,Q

In this case both players have selected mission 'M' and that mission will be played.

Example 2
Player 1 selects:         Player 2 Selects:
Raid: A,B,C                  D,E,C
Hybrid: G,H,I               J,K,L
Battle: M,N,O              M,P,Q

In this case both players have selected the missions M and C. To determine which mission will be played they roll a D6, on a 1-3 M will be played and on 4-6 C will be played.

Example 3
Player 1 selects:         Player 2 Selects:
Raid: A,B,C                  D,E,f
Hybrid: G,H,I               J,K,L
Battle: M,N,O              P,Q,R

In this case none of the missions selected match. To determine which mission will be played first roll a D3 to determine the level. On a result of a 1=raid, 2=hybrid, 3=battle. Once the level is determined roll a D6 randomly determining the mission of that level from those selected. So from the example above, the players roll the D3 and have a result of 1 so they are playing a raid level game. They then assign a D6 result to each scenario of the raid level ones selected, 1=a 2=b etc. They roll a D6 and come up with a 5, lucky for player 2 they play mission 'E'.


Alternate Method;

Players may simply randomly determine the scenario played. To do so they roll a D3; 1=raid 2=hybrid 3=battle, then roll on the appropriate table.

Raid Chart (roll 2D6 adding the total)
2 or 3=Head of the Snake
4=Explorer's prize
5=Wolf Pack
6=The Palace
7=Convoy
8=Surprise Attack
9=The Bait
10=Navigate the Storm
11 or 12=Space Hulk

Hybrid: (roll a D6)
1=Rearguard
2=the Raiders
3=Tactical Strike
4=Vanguard
5=Blockade Run
6=The Hunter and the Prey

Battle: (roll a D6)
1=Exterminatus!
2=Planetary Assault
3=Escalating Engagement
4=Fleet Engagement
5=Planetary Assault
6=Surprise Attack


Note: Cruiser Clash will be placed as a novelty/introductory mission.

[AndrewChristlieb]

The scenarios sound good, can't wait to read them

[TheDaR]

Hope everyone is having a good holiday.

Looking over the proposal for the changes to the layout of the main book, I approve.  I like the idea of collecting the majority of charts and similar in one place.  Makes it much easier to reference them all at once during play. 

One other thing I've seen in a few different rulesets (and some non-game reference books) that might be worth the time to do is to have a 'take away'/summary section.  A smallish (no more than 10, probably no more than 6 or bullet-point version of the text that reduces the text of the rules to an easy to remember set of items.  For example, the shooting phase might have bullet points for "Weapons Batteries use the gunnery chart, based on ship size, heading, and distances" and "Lances hit on 4+ no matter the range or relative directions" and "Most hits critical on a 6+ and result in a roll on the critical hit chart".

The scenarios sound pretty decent, and I especially like the method of chosing them.  The concept of choosing several and comparing to see which ones overlap is pretty unique and at least biases the mission towards something one of the two players will definitely enjoy.  As food for thought, what if instead of picking three, you pick two 'yes' and one 'definitely not'?  That way you could avoid being forced into playing that one particular scenario you really hate, just because there was no overlap and the random result came up bad for you.

[Plaxor]

@theDaR

I'm glad you like the concept, what I'm planning on for the weapons chart will suit what you are asking. As I mentioned, I hope to do a 'revised' Quick Reference Sheet, which will contain such information.

The reason for select 3 missions is because it works so well with randomizing, when two players do not agree a D6 allows for any mission to be played. However a 'definitely not' is an interesting concept, as 6 missions for each category does seem like a lot. Hrmmmmm......

[Plaxor]

Uploading a preview of what I have so far for the core rulebook, Book I. I have made modifications up through Celestial Phenomena as a first pass, but I only really made a second pass through Characters, so anything after that point could still see some changes. I was hoping to get through Celestial Phenomena (I have to add 4-6 pages after Characters in the Fleets section) before putting out a preview, but I was unable to today.

The pages after Celestial Phenomena are things that I was working on in my first pass, which have since become Appendices. I put them in to show where I was going, but they are a little unorganized. The Table of Contents is mostly approximations of sections, and there is a good chance I will add to the Ordnance Phase simply so that it looks less like a solid block of text. The second Special Qualities page is more up to date. I put up this preview to allow some time to digest the rules whilst I finish the remainder of the document in the next 3-5 days, a I imagine there will be some complaint, most likely with something to do with Ordnance.

I will post a full changelog later, but the ones most important are:

Leadership Table removed and placed in an Appendix along with the racial special rules charts, critical hits table etc.
Vessel Types more defined.
Weapons much more descriptive.
Blazing/Drifting Hulks now have more depth to their rules including crashing into Celestial Phenomena.
Lances described as having hit ratings.
Ground weapons have more definition, including being able to fire into space in certain circumstance.
Fleet Launch Limits much more defined, fewer loopholes.
Squadrons gained a number of changes, primarily the element of Lead vessels of which they are based, as well as a few other minor gains. They also gained descriptions for how each vessel type squadrons.
The End Phase now describes removing Blast Markers from Defences, and the ability for Defences to board.
New ordnance types included; Fighter-Boats and Torpedo Fighters.
Mines changed to do D6 damage if they survive, but no damage if hit by turrets.
Large types of ordnance defined.
Ordnance waves much more defined and have clearer rules, particularly regarding Fighters escorting other AC (as this was quite confusing, but still may need another look).
The CL 'Support Role' was changed to an LD modifier (that I likely need to look at again after doing squadron rules) for nearby Escorts, so long as the CL has higher leadership. Less beneficial in certain circumstance but overall about the same, much less confusing.
Clarified LD upgrades, Min/Max Leadership. Clarified character death.
Frigates have min move of 5cm before turning but gained bonus to LO orders.
Clarified Gunnery modifiers.
Celestial Phenomena revised slightly, now moons can be up to 10cm (5cm was very small) and Area Phenomena like Asteroid Fields and Dust Clouds do not have such variable sizes, they simply are either small medium or large, which each has a minimum and maximum size much like planets.
Firing toward the sun slightly clarified.

Lastly and most importantly, the thing which you all will uproar about; Bombers and such were changed to follow the rules of 'Ordnance; another option' that I discussed in Horizon's thread.