BFG:R Chaos

[Armiger84]

Yeah... I can really understand that.  Styx is amazing for its attack craft generation... But I always sorely felt its trade off - much reduced direct fire capacity - when playing it against ordnance-heavy opponents.  It was always a huge juicy target for my foes.

With the changes to the Exorcist and Retaliator, it's really hard to justify taking a Styx now, especially when a Retaliator's giving you the same attack craft, better supporting fire, and more durability for +5 points.

I understand people's desire to give the hard points their "full value" on the CGs (I saw those conversations, but that was before I finally registered here), but the problem with that is that the CGs each mount 4 pairs of hard points that way, compared to a BB's 3 pairs, dorsal hard point, and prow hard point.  The further option to upgrade CG Vengeance prows with torpedoes then gives you a lighter-displacement ship that actually carries more full-strength weapons sockets than a BB...problem?  Without belaboring the point, I can definitely see why you voted the way you did.

Don't know if the BFG:R decisions were right or wrong on that score, but the beauty of a community-made update is we can at least test it and see if we got it right, and then modify as needs be.

[horizon]

Agreed on that.

[afterimagedan]

I don't think those are overpowered. Thunderhawks being resilient is nice but they are still just a marker against turrets. Try playing Eldar a bunch and see why thunderhawks aren't as awesome as some think.

One of the best parts of the Styx is the FLR lances. This allows for more versatility. I recently had a game against dark Eldar and I was using a vengeance. It was pretty hard to get locked on shots, despite the range, because I was stuck with only side guns. They danced around me. The Styx being able to shoot on the prow is a serious bonus. Also, in BFGR the Styx is 15pts less.

[Sigoroth]

The Grand cruisers have twice the hardpoints as the cruisers, they should not have the same firepower. We don't have to give them BB levels of efficiency per hardpoint, but we shouldn't ignore those hardpoints either. The Retaliator should have 6 AC. If it were a BB with 2 launch bay hardpoints per side it'd have 8 AC. The Retaliator was also a really rubbish ship so 6 is the minimum.

Compared to the Styx the Retaliator does have 2 more hits and an extra shield, which is a very good bump in survivability. It also has offside firepower, meaning it is more capable up close as a line ship and it also has a slightly tighter turning circle. So the advantages are obvious. On the other hand, the Styx is faster, has a smaller profile against enemy ordnance, has longer range, can fire forward, costs 15 pts less and has lighter composition restrictions. Since a shield would cost about 15 pts anyway it's pretty much 2 hits, offside firepower & turning circle vs speed, range, arcs, profile and composition.

Let's hand waive away the smaller profile and turning circle issues as being minor and also let's assume a parity of value for the arc/range vs offside firepower. This leaves 2 hits vs speed and composition. The hits are worth more than the speed, but the composition restriction goes some way to accounting for this.

Lastly, we already know that even at 260 pts the Styx is overpriced.

Essentially the Retaliator is a light BB flagship, best used where you can take one but can't or don't want to take a BB. The Styx fulfills the role of flagship in smaller games where you can't afford a CG (and this is perhaps the best reason to leave it overpriced). It isn't completely outshined by the Retaliator in larger games though, since they play differently.

The Exorcist on the other hand was already a very good ship. The IN didn't have a 6 AC ship at all. Making this one 6 AC has a bigger impact. The argument from the value of the hardpoints still stands though. It's ludicrous to give a ship with twice the launchbays the same bay strength as a normal cruiser. So the most obvious solution is to increase it to 6 AC like the Retaliator and readjust its value. This is what we did.

Another possible solution, and one I think we should perhaps adopt, is to simply reduce it to 1 launchbay hardpoint per side and replace the other one with some other weaponry and adjust price accordingly. This would entail editing the picture and it would also mean that those people that had one would have to remodel it. I personally think that this is a better option than giving the IN a 6AC carrier which takes up a CB slot. I would also make the extra weaponry quite weak so that the price can come back down somewhat. I'd suggest a single lance deck a la the Vengeance (so 1L@45cmL+R). The price can then come back down to ~240-245 pts.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Im less opposed to the Exo having 6 launch bays then say the Jovian especially because even tho it only takes a CB slot it also doesnt count towards your requirements for a battleship. That to me is a pretty fair trade off for allowing the IN to have a 6 launch carrier.

[Armiger84]

Argh!  I didn't mean to open up this debate again, sorry!  I'm happy with things as they stand at the moment since both the Exorcist and the Retaliator provide carriers that are a step up from heavy/battle cruisers but a step down from battleships at a cost that makes them useful if you can't splurge on the BB but expensive enough that you won't see tons of them (plus, they don't count toward BBs either unlike the Styx or Jovian).  In my chaos fleet, I'm willing to get over my dislike of the Vengeance hull's layout relative to hard point itemization because I like having the option for a durable 6-squadron carrier if only because 275 points is a lot easier to sequester for a command carrier than 390.  If I'd been posting when the debate was being made, I'd have personally argued for treating the Vengeance hull hard points as less than full value hard points, but that debate's over without my input, and it's time to playtest things and see how they perform.  I'd say leave things as they are in the BFG:R lists now and see if we find we need to revisit the discussion later.

As for making Chaos Space Marine thunderhawk upgrades round up like Loyalist Marine thunderhawk upgrades for VBBs, the original 13th Black Crusade list in Armada did in fact round down, but the later marine list changes for Venerable Battle Barges are nice in that they don't horribly penalize a player for swapping over their attack craft.  And yeah, AfterImageDan, as you'd noted I've never had that much trouble taking out resilient attack craft in the past.  It would be nice if the 6 hangar ships could just generate 3 thunderhawks to weaken them a little, but there's no way to cleanly do that.

[Sigoroth]

If I'd been posting when the debate was being made, I'd have personally argued for treating the Vengeance hull hard points as less than full value hard points, but that debate's over without my input, and it's time to playtest things and see how they perform.

In what way? Count them as having only 3 hardpoints or make their firepower substandard for the hardpoints they have? If the former, well, no. If the latter, I'd argue they already are. Battleships get more firepower per hardpoint than CGs do. For example, the Vengeance CG can only get 2L@45cm from its lance decks. That's pretty pathetic. Even the undergunned Acheron can do better. Hell, the original Devastation did better with half the hardpoints. It's really only tolerable given that it's a wysiwyg representation of the actual ship (the metal Vengeance lance decks only have the 1 large turret, no smaller batteries of lances like the normal Chaos lance deck.

[horizon]

Three hard points is good for them, just not 3lb per side. 

[blekinge]

The desolator and it's amount of lances.

I have always tried to play WYSIWYG with lances. Almost every ship in BFG follows this rule from the onset. The Desolator is one of the few exceptions.

However, for some purposes, the desolator, as it stands, is an excellent battleship for the points. So, I do not feel that the default design should be changed.

I have usually added the 4->6 lance options, retaining the 60cm range for 50 points (The smotherman formula prices this increase at 52 pts).

However, reading through the Imperial document, I noticed the Victory Battleship. It can go from 4->6 lances, but reduce range to 45cm for 10 points. From the Smotherman formula, the cost should really be 25 pts.

Anyway, I would like to propose one of these options be added to the Desolator.

[blekinge]

Quick Note

On page 33, the CSM section. The subsection "Capitol ship Squadrons" is located under the headen "CHAOS SPACE MARINE CREW". I presume that this is a mistake, and that the rule applies to ships without CSM crew also?

[blekinge]

On page 35, the deamon ships, the end of the last column is covered by the black fluff box.

[Sigoroth]

The desolator and it's amount of lances.

I have always tried to play WYSIWYG with lances. Almost every ship in BFG follows this rule from the onset. The Desolator is one of the few exceptions.

Yes, I felt the same way originally. However, there's nothing to say that all those lances fire at once. I assume that it cycles them so that each lance "rests" every 3rd shot.

I have usually added the 4->6 lance options, retaining the 60cm range for 50 points (The smotherman formula prices this increase at 52 pts).

However, reading through the Imperial document, I noticed the Victory Battleship. It can go from 4->6 lances, but reduce range to 45cm for 10 points. From the Smotherman formula, the cost should really be 25 pts.

Anyway, I would like to propose one of these options be added to the Desolator.

Don't use the Smotherman formula. Ever.

[Sigoroth]

Three hard points is good for them, just not 3lb per side. 

Can't disagree more. Either give it a minimum of 6AC from its clearly two launchbay hardpoints per side or remove 1 bay per side and replace with other weaponry. The original stats were fine and balanced, they just did not suit the model. Having twice the weaponry of a Dictator and only gaining 2WBs and a bit of range is silly.

[Armiger84]

Yeah, I'm Necro-ing the thread, but I figure what I want to discuss belongs here rather than in a new thread.

By way of explanation:  Yesterday AndrewChristlieb posted his dissatisfaction with the reserve rules in the ASC 2.0 Imperial Navy thread, which had me thinking for a while about fleet composition, reserve rules, and fleet lists.  I'll save the parts of that for other discussions where they belong, but while spending a few hours mulling over this last night, I began to feel like we could have done some things better in the Chaos Renegades and god-specific fleet lists in the BFG:R Chaos document.  I wasn't even thinking about this at the time we finalized the lists, which I'm kicking myself for.

To give you something to think about, compare the Armageddon Sector and Bastion Fleets lists (I'm ignoring the space marine vessels for the sake of this comparison).  Neither one is a copy of the "core" Gothic Sector list, and they do share some similarities (the core of the list is made up of the same four cruisers, overlap in escorts), the moment you go beyond the fleet's core, things change greatly.

The Armageddon list fills out its cruiser section with a variety of locally-produced light cruiser hulls, and replaces the Overlord with the Armageddon.  Players can take one battle cruiser for every cruiser in their fleet, there are no grand cruisers present, and the battleship options offer a heavy carrier, hybrid carrier, and dedicated lance boat.  The options (assuming the player is not taking Marine vessels) encourage the player to build a fleet of light cruisers and up-gunned Lunars (Armageddons), and provide a number of battleship options in larger games to provide attack craft or load up on lances.

In comparison, the Bastion Fleet list brings the four core cruisers, brings back the Dauntless, and adds the Armageddon's light cruisers at the core level.  At the battlecruiser level, the player is absolutely spoiled for choice with all of the existing CBs present, plus a trio of grand cruiser hulls fighting for the same slots.  By contrast the battleship options are primarily gun boats, which with their availability would encourage a player to select their carriers at the cruiser and battle/grand cruiser level.

The fleets lists, by withholding some ships and offering others, as well as by playing with the numbers required to unlock certain types of ships, encourage certain types of game play without requiring it.  The Armageddon list makes it easy to build a fleet from the height of the Third War for Armageddon, a combination of mass-produced light cruisers and up-gunned Lunars (now Armageddons) as the Imperial Navy struggles to match numbers parity with the rampaging Ork fleet and tries to out-range and out-gun the heavier Hammer-class cruisers and Ork battleships.  The Bastion Fleets list represents the Imperial build-up for the 13th Black Crusade, desperately attempting to bring as much firepower to bare in an attempt to intercept Abaddon's forces and hold the Cadian Gate.  Ships from across the Imperium are present, including lots of rarer and older hulls taken out of mothball fleets, and while the player has a lot more choice, this will probably tend toward the player designing a fleet built more heavily around line cruisers, with light, battle, and grand cruisers supplementing that core.  These two lists from the Armada supplement have a very different feel to them.

By contrast, in the BFG:R Chaos lists we have Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade list, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade list plus token Imperial cruisers and Space Marine strike cruisers, and Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade list with fleet-wide single Chaos god marks.  I feel like we might have dropped the ball when it came to designing themed, characterful fleets.

So, since I'm already at the point where this has become a huge post, I'm going to include a couple of suggestions on how we could tweak some of the fleet lists to make them less...clones of each other.  These are just suggestions and hopefully talking points, and I'd just like to see how people respond.  I'm not looking to change things immediately, what we have is fine and choice means people could build themed lists if they want, but I feel like we could nudge that decision process along a little (hopefully without being overly restrictive) like the Imperial lists manage to do.

- - - - - - - - - -
Chaos Renegade Fleet List

- keep the commanders and marks the same as the current list
- my assumption is this is meant to be more of a rag-tag mixed fleet, a combination warfleet and piracy fleet, something similar to what the Red Corsairs might be using.  As a consequence, I'd like to see it push players more toward using cruisers.

Battleships
- 1 BB for every 3 cruisers or heavy cruisers
Despoiler
Desecrator
Relictor
Desolator
 
The original lore suggested there were only three Despoilers built.  We seem to have loosened that up a bit since then, but I like the idea of a handful of Desecrators sitting around as "venerable battle barges" in various Marine fleets, and that a few of them might have found their way into renegade Marine hands.  The Relictor also seems like it would be less common.

Grand Cruisers
- 1 grand cruiser for every 3 cruisers or heavy cruisers
Retaliator
Repulsive
Nephilim
Executor

I would exclude the Nephilim, but its lore shows it as operating out of the Maelstrom, so it fits pretty well with my assumptions about fleet theme.  As for the Executor, this is a personal choice related to Imperial ship selection options, more on that later.

Heavy Cruisers
- 1 heavy cruiser for every 2 cruisers
Styx
Hecate
Hades
Acheron

I considered taking out the Styx, but these were once the Imperial go-to carrier support vessel until the development of the Mars, so in terms of relative availability, I'm keeping it in for now.  As for axing the Acheron,  it's out for the same reason as the Executor, more on that later.

Cruisers
- 0-infinite (? - it might be worth it to cap it again at 12, or maybe 16 or so)
Devastation
Murder
Carnage
Slaughter
Inferno
Heretic
Unbeliever
Schismatic

I took the Inferno back out, mostly because their lore suggests they are relatively rare, and because of how it would impact the Imperial cruiser selections.  I left the Schismatic in, although I'm still debating that one.

Escorts
Idolator
Infidel
Havoc
Iconoclast

Space Marines
- keep it the same

Imperial Renegades
- keep it the same (1 ship per 750 points, up to 185 points in cost, Armageddon or Bastion lists, which really just means the Bastion list, and -1 Ld after rolling.)

So, some explanation.  A lot of my removals from the Chaos list options were meant to encourage taking Imperial ships.  Why take a Gothic when you can take an Acheron or an Executor?  Why take a Lunar when you can take an Inferno?  Now, if you want heavy lance broadsides, your choices are to either reach for a Desolator or Desecrator, or pull in a Gothic or a Lunar.  By stripping out the big beautiful carrier battleship (Despoiler), the player is now encouraged to take a Styx, Retaliator, Nephilim, more Devastations, or even a Defiant or Strike Cruiser to cover their attack craft requirements.  As a consequence, a Chaos Renegade fleet would build more towards cruisers and away from battleships, and hopefully the Imperial and Space Marine list options actually look more useful and attractive than they did before.  They're still not mandatory by any means, but they're also hopefully less forgettable.

- - - - - - - - - -

Berserker Fleet of Khorne

- keep the commanders and marks the same as the current list.
- my goal in adjusting ship selections is to encourage players to build a fleet that will close and engage the opponent's fleet in close-quarters barrages, hit & run attacks, and boarding.

Battleships
- 1 battleship for every 3 cruisers or heavy cruisers
0-1 Conqueror
Despoiler
Desecrator
Relictor
Desolator

I'm still debating striking the Despoiler, but I figure it might be more characterful to replace it here again with the ship meant to be a Great Crusade fleet command vessel (Desecrator), and I cut out the Desolator to remove a long-range stand-off ship in favor of the close-quarters Relictor.

Grand Cruisers
- 1 grand cruiser for every 3 cruisers or heavy cruisers
- Retaliators, Executors, and Nephilim must take the Improved Thrusters upgrade
Repulsive
Retaliator
Executor
Nephilim

I'm debating on the Nephilim, but I'd strike the Repulsive for being (a) slow, and (b) a decently ranged gunboat in favor of pushing for broadside-heavy fast grand cruisers.  This is definitely me goofing around with ideas.

Heavy Cruisers
Styx
Hecate
Hades
Acheron

You're probably seeing a pattern here, but again, the Acheron is a comparatively long-ranged lance boat, and I'd rather see an Improved Thrusters-equipped Executor in the list.

Cruisers
Devastation
Murder
Carnage
Slaughter
Inferno
Heretic
Unbeliever
Schismatic

I'm prepared for wailing and gnashing of teeth here.  This is probably the part where I most strongly push thematic and playstyle changes.  Cutting the Carnage and Inferno strips away core long-ranged line cruisers, and in my mind leaving the player with a bunch of ships that generally have fixed forward arc & side battery weapons systems now encourages the player to maneuver to engage the enemy fleet instead of staying at arms' length.  Now, a combined fleet of Hades, Murders, and Unbelievers would offer a heavy amount of massed forward arc lance fire while closing, and Slaughters, Schismatics, and Devastations could provide the side battery lances once engaged.

Escorts
Idolator
Infidel
Havoc
Iconoclast

Berserker Tide
- keep it as-is

CSM Crews
- keep it as-is

Demon Ships
- keep it as-is

Possible Addition to the fleet:  Chaos Space Hulk

So... on the one hand a massive, slow monstrosity goes entirely against my desire for the Berserker Fleet to play as a close & engage fleet, but on the other hand Angron used the space hulk Devourer of Stars in the First War for Armageddon, and more recently in the "Legion of the Damned" novel, a Khorne fleet (the Cholercaust Crusade) follows a massive space hulk to Certus Minor, so there's plenty of lore reasons to justify a space hulk and its attendant fleet.

- - - - - - - - - -

So those are my first couple of suggestions.  As an example of what else I'm thinking of, I'd definitely include the Inferno class cruiser in the Sorcerous fleet of Tzeentch, where long-ranged batteries and lots of lances would play more to the Chaos god & fleet's strengths.

[Sigoroth]

While I agree in principle to tailoring the lists somewhat to produce differently themed fleets, and indeed agree with some of the choices you have indicated, I can't help but feel that any attempt at building a proper Chaos list is somewhat hampered by the inclusion of Chaos light cruisers. Seriously, these things make the entire BFG:R project seem like a joke, let alone the Chaos lists.