BFG:R Vote 44: Adeptus Mechanicus Gifts 2

[Talos]

Re-rolls are nice, but the lack of concrete turret increase hurts if you get multiples of the fleet defense turret. Imagine if you ended up with 3+ of them, and how worthless that would be. I have not checked it, but I presume BFG is like 40k in that you can't re-roll a re-roll?

I was more in favour of it just adding turrets, although the re-rolls are more elegant and don't completely neuter bombers.

[afterimagedan]

I am going to review this to poke as many holes in it as possible...

Emergency Energy Reserves: The ship must lose more than 50% of its hit points to be crippled, the ship reduces its turrets, shielding, and weapons strength to 75% instead of 50%. The vessel still counts as crippled in every other respect.

Can't find a problem with this.

Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed, reduces the minimum distance to turn by 5cm, and add +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders. The ship adds +1 to its leadership when  attempting All Ahead Full, Come To New Heading or Burn Retros special orders.

No problems.

Advanced Shielding: (Advanced ECM?) Enemy weapon batteries firing on the vessel suffer a right shift on the weapon battery chart. All lances firing on this vessel hit on a 5+ instead of 4+.

I have already mentioned the phantom lance weirdness (hitting on 5 or 6 is always two hits so they either hit with 2 or 0, but whatever) but Sig mentioned that the -1 to hit with lances would penalize the Necron particle whip to heavily so I agree, this is good how it is.

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value and any friendly vessels within 15cm may reroll misses with turrets.

It's good. Would the vessel with FDT be able to reroll their own turrets? A Tyrant has this upgrade. It is now at 5 turrets and on average will kill 2.5 markers instead of 1.5. That's a +1 kill upgrade. It helps a Retribution reroll turrets against bombers also which has 5 turrets now. It will kill 2.5 normally and with a reroll, kill 3.75. That's a +1.25 increase, better than the actual ship with the FDTS. This difference only increases when aiding Emperor. With that, I think the most appropriate thing would be to say yes, the ship with FDT can reroll their turrets too. It may be better to have the ship able to reroll their own turrets and pick 1 more ship during the turn to reroll theirs

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. The ship may reroll 1s while firing its weaponry if it is not on lock-on special orders.

This is awesome. Combine this on a Retribution with Advanced Engines and you have a mega alpha striking machine. Can't wait to try that out!

Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries shift left on the gunnery table. Lance hits count as double on rolls of a 6.

Good, just like it was.

Well then... this sound about right folks?
Yep! I'm ready to vote one some Admech stuff. 

[afterimagedan]

Re-rolls are nice, but the lack of concrete turret increase hurts if you get multiples of the fleet defense turret. Imagine if you ended up with 3+ of them, and how worthless that would be. I have not checked it, but I presume BFG is like 40k in that you can't re-roll a re-roll?

I was more in favour of it just adding turrets, although the re-rolls are more elegant and don't completely neuter bombers.

Sorry about that, Talos. I was writing while you posted.  Yeah, I think FDT shouldn't just allow EVERY ship within 15cm to reroll, but each FDT adds two turrets to the vessel that has it (a really nice upgrade) and allow 1 ship/squadron to reroll their turrets that turn.

[Vaaish]

Ok How about this for final:

Emergency Energy Reserves:A ship with EER becomes crippled when it loses more than 50% of its starting hit points. When crippled, the ship reduces its turrets, shielding, and weapons strength to 75% instead of 50%. The vessel still counts as crippled in every other respect.

Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed, reduces the minimum distance to turn by 5cm, and add +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.

Advanced Shielding: Weapons using the gunnery table suffer a right column shift when firing on a vessel equipped with Advanced Shielding. Lance weaponry firing on this vessel must roll a 5+ to score a hit.

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value. This vessel and one additional vessel within 15cm chosen by the player each turn may reroll dice for any turrets that miss until the end of the turn.

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. The ship may reroll 1s while firing its weaponry if it is not on lock-on special orders.

Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries shift left on the gunnery table. Lance hits count as double
on rolls of a 6.

[afterimagedan]

I like it. I think the Advanced Engines was a little too packed with goodness and the +1 ld drop was a good idea. Also, I like how the FDTs look now. I think that gives it the balance it needs. I'm sold. Shall we vote? We have this, the admiral setup, and the point costs.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Ok How about this for final:

Emergency Energy Reserves:A ship with EER becomes crippled when it loses more than 50% of its starting hit pointsinstead of when it reaches 50%. When crippled, the ship reduces its turrets, shielding, and weapons strength to 75% instead of 50%. The vessel still counts as crippled in every other respect.

Advanced Engines: The ship gains +5cm speed, reduces the minimum distance to turn by 5cm, and add +1D6 when on All Ahead Full special orders.

Advanced Shielding: Weapons using the gunnery table suffer a right column shift when firing on a vessel equipped with Advanced Shielding. Lance weaponry firing on this vessel must roll a 5+ to score a hit.

I still think the name on this is off now. Its not really a shield effect any more so something like "Advanced Countermeasures" seems more appropriate.

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value, to a maximum of 6. This vessel and one additional vessel within 15cm chosen by the player each turn may reroll dice for any turrets that miss until the end of the turn.

End of what turn? How does this work if were in the movement phase and a ship moves into ordinance? Can the re-rolls apply? If they can does the ship receiving the benefit retain that until the end of its turn or the end of the game turn? What about if the ship receiving the benefit is attacked in the other players turn? Does it remain under the effect until the end of that players turn, its next turn, or the end of the game turn?

I think the 15cm range with all ships in that range being able to re-roll turrets is the best bet, its already such a small benefit limiting it more seems like were shooting it in the foot although I could see dropping the  extra turret to +1 if we could accommodate this.

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. The ship may reroll 1s while firing its weaponry if it is not on lock-on special orders.

Augmented Weapon Relays: Weapon batteries shift left on the gunnery table. Lance hits count as double
on rolls of a 6.

[afterimagedan]

Advances Countermeasures sounds alright but I think there may be better.

On the FDTs, it should say "Each friendly ship within 15cm may reroll all turrets that miss one time during each player turn."

All ships within 15cm combined with the vessel getting +1 turret falls back into that weird zone where the ship can help other ships better than it can help itself. I think let's just make it all ships within 15cm and keep it at +2 turrets and restrict it to one reroll of turrets per each ship per player turn.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Admech Lunar (average ship) 3 turrets, +1 for FDT= 3 average hits counting re-rolls. The average Admech ship (3 turrets)= 2.5 on average, the best (Emperor)= 4.5 average. It would help itself more unless theres a Battleship, so there might be one ship in the fleet that would receive a better benefit.

Your version there sounds fine tho, if I had say three ships w/FDT within 15cm of a ship being attacked could that ship then re-roll against 3 seperate attacks?

[Vaaish]

...starting hit points instead of when it reaches 50%.

I wouldn't add this. It creates a greater potential for confusion since it references something that is over ridden by the first part of the sentence. I realize that a lot of the existing rules add the original and the modified but it's unnecessary and makes it easier for people to overlook what the rule actually does.

I still think the name on this is off now. Its not really a shield effect any more so something like "Advanced Countermeasures" seems more appropriate.

I would still keep advanced shielding as the name. It helps people correlate it more easily to the standard table.

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value, to a maximum of 6. This vessel and one additional vessel within 15cm chosen by the player each turn may reroll dice for any turrets that miss until the end of the turn.

ok, how about this:

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value, to a maximum of 6. This vessel and one additional vessel within 15cm chosen by the player at the start of his movement phase may reroll dice for any turrets that miss until the player's next movement phase.

[afterimagedan]

Could they be used, alternately, to enable a roll for turrets/bombers if they had been used on the other kind first? Hmm, I like your idea of each FDT vessel within range just allows another reroll. Can the rerolls all be used against the same volley/wave?

[afterimagedan]

I agree with you Vaaish on the advanced shielding statement. Also on the rules wording. For FDT, I think they shouldn't have to be picked in the movement phase because then the ship will just be avoided and something else will get bombed. I like the reactive choice. I think the way andrew has it is the way to go.

[Vaaish]

easy fix:

Fleet Defense Turrets: A vessel with Fleet Defense Turrets adds 2 to their turret value, to a maximum of 6. This vessel and one additional vessel within 15cm chosen by the player at the start of each ordnance phase may reroll dice for any turrets.


I'm a little confused what else is changing though..

[AndrewChristlieb]

No double re-rolls! Just you can re-roll against any one attack using the FDT benefit, so ships x,y,and z have FDT and are with in 15cm of ship a. Ship a gets attacked by a wave of attack craft and uses the benefit from ship x to re-roll turrets. Ship a is then attacked by a 2nd wave of attack craft and uses the benefit from ship y to re-roll turrets. Finally it is attacked by a salvo of torpedoes but may not use its turrets since they were used against attack craft this turn. If ship a is attacked by attack craft again it may use the benefit provided by ship z, but ship a would then be unable to take re-rolls against any additional attacks by attack craft.

"A ship with EER becomes crippled when it loses more than 50% of its starting hit points."

The BBB states: "A ship which loses half its damage points is crippled.", we have just barely tweeked this and casually reading as most people do this can easily be misunderstood to be a repeating of the rules for crippling instead of a change to them. By pointing the change out to people it should eliminate that issue.

The FDT change is that each friendly ship within 15cm may re-roll misses with turrets once. I would be ok with "until the end of the turn" also tho.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Emergency Energy Reserves: 25pt value

Advanced Engines: 25pt value

Advanced Shielding: 30pt value

Fleet Defense Turrets: 15pt value, 25pts with this if all ships within 15cm can re-roll turrets once per turn, 30 pts if all ships within 15cm can re-roll turrets period.

Gyro-stabilized Targeting Matrix: 20pt value

Augmented Weapon Relays: 30pt value

Ok based off of current prices for similar rules (or as close as I could find ;P) this is where I feel the prices would be.

[Talos]

I don't think people understand what the problem is with fleet defense turrets: they are weaker the more you have. None of the other upgrades have this problem. Having AWR on all your ships does not make it redundant, but having FDT does. Not entirely, as you still get the turret boost, but not worth it's full value. You can't re-roll a re-roll and your fleet has very little ships (especially with the price hikes putting us straight back to 2010 pricing), so having this upgrade twice or more means you are suddenly getting less bang for your buck. Does no one else agree with me on this?