BFG:R Adeptus Mechanicus

[horizon]

The downfall of the Ark is the veneratus, as you must buy the expensive leader.

But wait, becoming AdMech for a battleship is +25pts. Then gifts should not cost any money.

When gifts are things to be purchased the +25pts should be lowered.

More on this later.


Hi Duke,
most bfg:r pricing is based on proposing stats and voting on them.

[afterimagedan]

When gifts are things to be purchased the +25pts should be lowered.

What point amount are you thinking would be appropriate?

[Bessemer]

Why +25 for Battleships? What would they be getting that a cruiser wouldn't?

[afterimagedan]

I think +20 is appropriate. Battleships get the same thing as light cruisers for being Admech yet their additional turret is more effective (because of how bombers work).

[horizon]

Bu what brings +20pts?
Extra a.o.-turret
(Dorsal lance for cruisers)
Extra repair dice
worse at boarding.

1 turrets is 5pts.

What are the upgrade costs once again?

[afterimagedan]

Everyone is just saying "why should it me #??!  " but hardly any numbers have been proposed. Will someone please just lay out a point recommendation and why! Andrew has:

All ships receive a leadership boost and a negative to hit and runs and boarding actions.

All capitol ships receive +1 turret and +1D6 to repair. They also force the Admech player to take an additional sub plot.

Cruisers get an additional dorsal lance.

Escorts receive no additional bonuses.

In standard games these are the only free modifiers over IN ships I see.

Clearly Cruisers receive the largest benifit, light cruisers and battleships very little and escorts basically none.

The leadership boost I dont know if I could really put a point value on, it makes the ships better but how much is really hit and miss. The boarding modifier, hit and run modifier, and Sub plot rules both suffer from the same problem.

I would call these a wash.

So the bonuses are:
Escort: none
Light Cruiser: +1 Turret +1D6 to repair
Cruiser: +1 Turret +1D6 to repair +1 Lance
Battleship: +1 Turret +1D6 to repair

And the proposed changes in cost are:
Escort: -
Light cruiser: +15 pts (Im ok with this)
Cruiser: +20 points  I would think this should be +25pts.
Battleship: +20 points (Im not sure where the +35 came from?) this is fairly reasonable as it can be assumed that that extra turret will go a lot further on these ships but thats still kinda of subjective :/.

Going through it again, here is my reasoning:
10pts for light cruisers because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret
- subplot
+ repair D6
+ option to take lance instead of torps (marginal bonus)


25pts to cruisers because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret
- subplot
+ repair D6
+ lance (main bonus)


15pts for Battleships because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret (which is more beneficial than the one on the light cruiser because it makes it near invulnerable to AC)
- subplot
+ option to take NC instead of torps (marginal bonus)
+ repair D6

[horizon]

I can live with those (NC on the BB, not lance for torps ).

So, Lunar goes to 180+25 = 205pts.
So upgrades will be average on 10pts.
Otherwise the fleet will get to expensive.

[afterimagedan]

I can live with those (NC on the BB, not lance for torps ).

Oops. Changed that.

So, Lunar goes to 180+25 = 205pts.
So upgrades will be average on 10pts.
Otherwise the fleet will get to expensive.

Average of 10pts for the Gifts of the Omnissiah?

[Duke]

Thinking about it a few hours later, I think purchasing of the gifts is off. Included previously, the premium totaled thirty five points on every capital ship. Afterimagedan has put some nice price grades above that feel right  , but on average the gifts are fifteen points or higher, and so the cruiser price is generally higher (+40 if your going for good gifts). I'll mention my disclaimer again: I'm not aware of the reasoning for some of this so excuse me, but I did a search for 'Gifts of the Omnissiah' and very little discussion showed up.

Personally I liked the random table for this reason. It makes sure some of the upgrades will be taken and not routinely leave others behind. But choosing does make it more meaningful. 
Also: the pdf is showing "fast tracking turrets" rather than "fleet defense turrets." Interested if intentional.

Cheers!
Duke

Edit: Horizon's got me! ah!
Edit: Funny how it worked out: cruisers remain exactly the same, but battleships are cheaper across the board. The Ark remains, counting only it stats, the cheapest BB.

[Bessemer]

Was under the impression BB's got the extra lance, too. Dropped that ball...

Dan's proposed costs do seem reasonable for what your getting, and makes fielding an Admech fleet more feasible. Let's go with it!

[afterimagedan]

Great, should we talk about Gifts?

Here's what they are currently:

Mechanicus Gift Table
15pts Emergency Energy Reserves: When crippled,the ship only reduces turrets, shielding and weapons by 25% rather than 50%. The vessel still counts as crippled in every other respect.

15 pts Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed, as well as +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.

15 pts Repulsor Shielding: Ignore all negative effects of having a blast marker or gas clouds in contact with the ship's base as it applies to leadership, movement and repairing critical damage. This effect goes away if the ship suffers “Shields Collapsed” critical damage.

10 pts Fleet Defense Turrets: Up to two turrets on the ship are exchanged for fleet defense turrets capable of protecting itself or any one other vessel within 15cm each ordnance phase, adding+2 to the turret strength of the ship it is defending (this does not alter bomber attack rolls when used to defend another vessel). These otherwise work exactly as normal turrets do in all other respects.

10 pts Gyro-stabilized Targeting Matrix: Ship weapons are reduced to 75% instead of 50%when on All Ahead Full, Come To New Heading or Burn Retros special orders. Nova Cannons still may not fire.

30 pts Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries shift left on the gunnery table before all other modifiers are applied. Lance hits count as double on rolls of a 6.

15 pts Extra Magazine: The ship rolls 3D6 and removes 1 die before comparing the result to their leadership when using Reload Ordnance.


Augmented Weapon Relay is great, but 30pts great? Take a Retribution for example. 18wb and 3 lances. The Ret, through this, is basically, according to the weapon charts, and when the Ret gets to shoot 1 side and its lances, it would have around 20pt-25pts bonus in firepower. And, thats a Retribution, a battleship focused entirely on guns (well, torps too...) and so anything smaller, like a Lunar, will get less effect from it.  The Ret can get a higher bonus but only if it can fire all its weapons.

The Lunar will get about a 15pt boost firing one side if it has this upgrade, double that if it gets to fire both. I think we should price of AWR it at closer to 20pts.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Going through it again, here is my reasoning:
10pts for light cruisers because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret 5pts
- subplot
+ repair D6
+ option to take lance instead of torps (marginal bonus) For a point increase so no real bonus


25pts to cruisers because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret 5pts
- subplot
+ repair D6
+ lance (main bonus) 15-20pts


15pts for Battleships because of
+ leadership bonus
- boarding
+ turret (which is more beneficial than the one on the light cruiser because it makes it near invulnerable to AC)5-10pts
- subplot
+ option to take NC instead of torps (marginal bonus) For a point increase so no real bonus
+ repair D6

If we went off the physical upgrades alone you would be looking at +5pts for light cruisers, +20-25pts for cruisers, and +5-10pts for battleships. What we need to see is if a slight boost to leadership and an extra die to repair are worth more than the negatives for having an extra subplot and poor boarding and hit and run abilities. Having had a bit of time to stew on this I dont really see that extra repair die being worth 5pts, maybe half that. I could see these going +5/+20/+10 the more I look at them, theres just not enough there to make them more worthwile.

Great, should we talk about Gifts?

Here's what they are currently:

Mechanicus Gift Table
15pts Emergency Energy Reserves: When crippled,the ship only reduces turrets, shielding and weapons by 25% rather than 50%. The vessel still counts as crippled in every other respect.

15 pts Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed, as well as +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.

15 pts Repulsor Shielding: Ignore all negative effects of having a blast marker or gas clouds in contact with the ship's base as it applies to leadership, movement and repairing critical damage. This effect goes away if the ship suffers “Shields Collapsed” critical damage.

10 pts Fleet Defense Turrets: Up to two turrets on the ship are exchanged for fleet defense turrets capable of protecting itself or any one other vessel within 15cm each ordnance phase, adding+2 to the turret strength of the ship it is defending (this does not alter bomber attack rolls when used to defend another vessel). These otherwise work exactly as normal turrets do in all other respects.

10 pts Gyro-stabilized Targeting Matrix: Ship weapons are reduced to 75% instead of 50%when on All Ahead Full, Come To New Heading or Burn Retros special orders. Nova Cannons still may not fire.

30 pts Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries shift left on the gunnery table before all other modifiers are applied. Lance hits count as double on rolls of a 6.

15 pts Extra Magazine: The ship rolls 3D6 and removes 1 die before comparing the result to their leadership when using Reload Ordnance.

Augmented Weapon Relay is great, but 30pts great? Take a Retribution for example. 18wb and 3 lances. The Ret, through this, is basically, according to the weapon charts, and when the Ret gets to shoot 1 side and its lances, it would have around 20pt-25pts bonus in firepower. And, thats a Retribution, a battleship focused entirely on guns (well, torps too...) and so anything smaller, like a Lunar, will get less effect from it.  The Ret can get a higher bonus but only if it can fire all its weapons.

The Lunar will get about a 15pt boost firing one side if it has this upgrade, double that if it gets to fire both. I think we should price of AWR it at closer to 20pts.

I dont care for this at all, its way to easy to tailor your ships. Make all of them 15pts and random, some will be priced correctly some will be a bit over priced and some will be a deal but thats why it should be random. Drop the fleet defense turret as an option and build it right into the ships cost for an additional +5pts.

[afterimagedan]

You don't put a value on the +D6 to repair?

Also, putting a point value on the gifts is there so you CAN tailor your ships.  I find that this fleet is not worth playing when it's random. Putting a value on the gifts so that you can buy them allows this fleet to be competitive and not random.  Even with the randomness, you will end up paying for gifts that will be overpriced or underpriced anyways so changing to a purchase system won't change that at minimum, and actually will improve that balance problem at best.  Imagine playing this fleet in a tournament.  You may just have a game where you roll total crap for upgrades and other games where you get great stuff.  It's too unpredictable. With Orks, you at  least have those random rolls a a bunch of times every turn and it can even out during the game. With random gifts in admech, you get one roll per ship before the game, no change for the randomness to even out. If you are worried about some being overpriced or underpriced based on the ships class, I am not against putting different prices per class on the gifts.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Of course the extra repair die has value, just not much .

Im not worried about them being priced incorrectly, I just really dont like the idea of them being able to take what they want, The reload option feels really over the top.

[horizon]

The repair dice is not worth a lot, I agree.

A lot of people hated the random gifts. As in you pay for upgrades you do not want.

But, the ad mech cost has to come down with these upgrade costs.