BFG:R Orks

[AndrewChristlieb]

Pff. I would never let any Xeno fleet be neglected

Entire fleet list is, at this point, too long to post. So instead of dividing it between few uberlong posts I'll just list the changes made from my previous version:

MEK: re-roll repairing criticals. If you rolled more 6's than needed to repair all current criticals, repair 1 lost hit (only 1, regardless of how many extra 6's were rolled). Reason: extra shield together with other upgrades got kinda crazy on Battleships. This version seems, well more meky.

Change it to something like: Attempts to repair critical damage on the MEK's ship receive an additional D6. If the ship has no critical hits against it you may attempt to repair 1 point of damage in the same way as critical hits. You may never repair more than one damage per turn and the ship may never exceed its maximum hit points.

If you do the re-roll repair dice that would be fine but with the damage repair rule you have that makes it way too easy to repair damage, especially on the battleships.

AAF: 3d6 base. Not sure about it, though.

Orks should be encouraged to go AAF, I find its rarely worth going AAF tho +2D6 just isn't enough on average to function well.

Boarding: +1 boarding roll base. Not value. It was a mistake.

KLAN UPGRADES:
Any capital ship may take one of those:

Goffs: +1 to boarding, +1Ld to ramming attempts. +20 pts
Evil Sunz: +5 cm speed +20

That's not a lot for 20 points.

Bad Moonz: May re-roll firepower of one weapon per turn. Cumulative with More Dakka [can't re-roll same weapon twice] +15pts As per suggestion

This sounds ok.

Deathskulls: may buy one more character upgrade than usual. That means ships with no character on board can still buy 1. +15

So Im paying to be able to pay for an upgrade, feels like tax time :/.

Blood Axes: Random Imperial refit. +20
Snakebites: Only Roks, Hulks and Escorts. +1 Ld when bracing for impact. [free]

Any escort squadron may take one of those:

Goffs: +1 to boarding, +1Ld to ramming attempts. +20 pts
Evil Sunz: +5 cm speed +20
Bad Moonz:  May re-roll firepower of one weapon per turn. Escorts with no random weapon increase their firepower by 1. +15pts As per suggestion
Deathskulls: Nothing works, damnit! +1 turret? Random ork refit from Armada? 5+ side armour? Hey, i kinda like the last one.

How about Increase all armor facings +1 to a maximum of 6+? Its just a slight boost but it would also work for capitol ships and then I don't feel like Im getting my yearly fleecing.

Blood Axes: Up to half of squadron may be imperial escorts. They still have Ork Ld. [free]
Snakebites: Only Roks, Hulks and Escorts. +1 Ld when bracing for impact. [free]

Deathskull escorts are bit problematic.

Klaws are back to their Klanz-Nid-Copy version.
New Klaws are now called Traktor Fields.
Everything that could take Klaws before now can take both, 10 pts each.

Id call them something like Heavy Traktor beams or something, keeping standard traktor fields the same as that's a free upgrade fix for people that got shipped large bases instead of small.

More to come.

[afterimagedan]

Pff. I would never let any Xeno fleet be neglected

Entire fleet list is, at this point, too long to post. So instead of dividing it between few uberlong posts I'll just list the changes made from my previous version:

MEK: re-roll repairing criticals. If you rolled more 6's than needed to repair all current criticals, repair 1 lost hit (only 1, regardless of how many extra 6's were rolled). Reason: extra shield together with other upgrades got kinda crazy on Battleships. This version seems, well more meky.

Change it to something like: Attempts to repair critical damage on the MEK's ship receive an additional D6. If the ship has no critical hits against it you may attempt to repair 1 point of damage in the same way as critical hits. You may never repair more than one damage per turn and the ship may never exceed its maximum hit points.

If you do the re-roll repair dice that would be fine but with the damage repair rule you have that makes it way too easy to repair damage, especially on the battleships.

Agreed.
AAF: 3d6 base. Not sure about it, though.

Orks should be encouraged to go AAF, I find its rarely worth going AAF tho +2D6 just isn't enough on average to function well.

I agree. 2D6 with no Ld test is still not all that great considering the 1/2 firepower. I am still in favor of making it 4D6 like everyone else and +2Ld for AAF tests.

Boarding: +1 boarding roll base. Not value. It was a mistake.

KLAN UPGRADES:
Any capital ship may take one of those:

Goffs: +1 to boarding, +1Ld to ramming attempts. +20 pts
Evil Sunz: +5 cm speed +20

That's not a lot for 20 points.
I believe it is +10pts for Tyranids. Why not just make it that?

Bad Moonz: May re-roll firepower of one weapon per turn. Cumulative with More Dakka [can't re-roll same weapon twice] +15pts As per suggestion

This sounds ok.

Deathskulls: may buy one more character upgrade than usual. That means ships with no character on board can still buy 1. +15

So Im paying to be able to pay for an upgrade, feels like tax time :/.

Blood Axes: Random Imperial refit. +20
Snakebites: Only Roks, Hulks and Escorts. +1 Ld when bracing for impact. [free]

Any escort squadron may take one of those:

Goffs: +1 to boarding, +1Ld to ramming attempts. +20 pts
Evil Sunz: +5 cm speed +20
Bad Moonz:  May re-roll firepower of one weapon per turn. Escorts with no random weapon increase their firepower by 1. +15pts As per suggestion
Deathskulls: Nothing works, damnit! +1 turret? Random ork refit from Armada? 5+ side armour? Hey, i kinda like the last one.

How about Increase all armor facings +1 to a maximum of 6+? Its just a slight boost but it would also work for capitol ships and then I don't feel like Im getting my yearly fleecing.
I think that would work well actually. I would make for a more tanky Ork fleet. I love it.

Blood Axes: Up to half of squadron may be imperial escorts. They still have Ork Ld. [free]
Snakebites: Only Roks, Hulks and Escorts. +1 Ld when bracing for impact. [free]

Deathskull escorts are bit problematic.

Klaws are back to their Klanz-Nid-Copy version.
New Klaws are now called Traktor Fields.
Everything that could take Klaws before now can take both, 10 pts each.

Id call them something like Heavy Traktor beams or something, keeping standard traktor fields the same as that's a free upgrade fix for people that got shipped large bases instead of small.
True.
More to come.

[afterimagedan]

Khar, what do you think about the comments mad eby me and Andrew? It seems like there is some great consensus going on at this point.

[jaggedtoothgrin]

Hey guys
I'm new here, and don't know what i'm talking about mechanics-wise but:

In Epic, Orks come with a semi-random number of power fields, but they dont reappear. could that be incorporated into the Orkfleet rules? It's never clarified one way or the other, but I much prefer to roll the random power fields the first time they come under fire, so none of us know how effective the orks would be until they start getting hit. maybe allow meks to repair shields like criticals?

would that sort of thing be overpowered in BFG, giving them a fairly high number of shields early on, but being unable to rely on them at all late-game?

[Armiger84]

The problem with the way BFG works is that one shield comes down every time you take a hit or pass through a blast marker, dust cloud, asteroid field...

Any time you aren't in contact with a blast marker (these occur from shields soaking incoming damage) or celestial phenomena that would strip a shield from your ship, your ship is instead at full shield strength.  Time in BFG is also even more abstracted than in Epic.

Ideally, at the start of every opposing player's firing phase, your ship starts with full shields, and the first round of incoming fire overloads that before you start taking hits.  Every time a shield goes down, you place a blast marker in base contact with the fired-upon ship.  Firing through a blast marker reduces the firing ship's weapons battery effectiveness, moving through a blast marker slows down your ship by 5cm of its max movement, and only a limited number of blast markers are removed from the board each turn.

The challenge would be balancing too many vs. too few one-shot shields.  At maximum weapons range, it takes serious firepower to roll more than a few dice and have a chance at scoring hits/removing shields.  Overloading an Ork ship on shields might actually encourage more Orky behavior in their opponents than the Ork player as people's best chance at getting a dozen shields down quickly (for example) would be to close to minimum range and take & deliver a pounding.

Too many shields, and you spend all game trying to kill one cruiser.  Too few shields and the Ork ships spend the whole game naked, or everyone only takes Meks and none of the other commanders.

It's not a bad idea but it would be hard to balance.  Depending upon how many ablative shields you'd give a ship, they'd either only matter for a turn or two (after which it would be a sitting duck), or they'd effectively render each cruiser invulnerable for the entire game (subject to being the one ship the opposing player decides to focus-fire and destroy).  I don't know where that sweet spot range of shields would lie though.

Perhaps a handful of ablative shields on top of basic void shields might work.  It would, again, only matter for a turn, but it would be a turn in which you could close more quickly to get in range.  When you'd really need them, though (close-ranged broadsides), they'd probably be gone already.

[Gothmog Lord of Balrogs]

It also seems just too big a mechanic for this few of people to properly play test and introduce, and too big a shift away from the original rules.

[Khar]

Some great suggestions here guys. I'll update deathskulls, capitals too. What pricetag would you suggest? 20 per squadron/ capital?

Also, as this takes away option for character upgrade without actual character, I think we should add Nob as a secondary comander option. Costing 20 pts, granting one re-roll and no further special rules. 0-4 would be fine, i think.

This gives a bit more Ld reliability to non-character ships and unlocks a single character upgrade.

Anyways, I'm updating full list right now, I'll post it here soon.

We should also think about fleet list itself, as it's not really touched yet.

As for ablative shields - Kustom Fields upgrade is meant to represent Orky forcefield tech. Ablative shields in BFG wouldn't differ from hits in any meaningful way, and Orks already have lots of those.

As for Gorbag's revenge boarding torpedos - curretly it has option to exhange d6+4 torpedos for d6+2 boarding torpedos. I was under impression that it's usually a 1:1 exchange...

I'll also drop speed of battleships with soopa engines back to 20.  You're right, 4d6 AAF is enough for them.

[afterimagedan]

Sounds good. I'm excited to see what you come up with.

[Khar]

Arright, back to orkses.

I'm attaching current list, changes since the last version in green. There's an off chance I forgot to hightlight some, so just in case read it carefully

List doesn't containg hulk, because it's nearly the same as in current BFG:R document. Heavy gunz are range 30, no further changes.

We still need actual fleet list, though

But we're almost done here, people. Let's finish this thing.

[jaggedtoothgrin]

Hey
I like what I'm seeing I have a few, possibly stupid questions:

Firstly, where do I find the Core rules for BFG:R ? I've found several different versions of lists and such, and can take it that this is the most recent one, but knowing what has changed from the printed copy of the rules would be a big help too. Perhaps there needs to be a "Welcome to BFG, here's where to find things" thread stickied to help relative newcomers like myself

Now, in regards to the Ork List as posted:

Didn't there used to be an option to trade guns on the bruteship for better engines? I've been modelling mine without guns based on the expectation that I would be trading them in for some Go-Faster-Juice. would a "Trade Guns for Ram and Soopa Engines" be a viable trade off for the Brute and maybe the Grunt?

Secondly, can we please add one other 'special' escort to the fleet. It seems to me, that the two most orky of all ships in the game, are the Brute, and the Fireship. I think that orks would happily fill up wrecks or whatever else they could land their greasy mitts on with explosives, and hurl them at the enemy.
I realise that the fireship rules may need some tweaking to function in an ork list (specifically in regards to access to the All Ahead Full order) but I think thats the sort of thing an Ork should have.

Clarifications:

Soopa Boostas. they should really be listed up the top under the "universal rules" (also note that under the All Ahead Full section, they are referred to as Soopa Engines) to make it clear what they do.

Would the Deathdeala and Kroolboy really only be speed 15 without the boostas?

What are the rules for Torpedo Bommas?

What will happen to the "must all take the same upgrade" rule for mixed escort formations? for example if i take 2 Onslaughts and a Savage in a squadron, do i have to upgrade the Onslaughts to all have Soopa Boostas? If i buy a Brutes+Grunts squadron, does that mean i cannot buy Rams for the Brutes, or Claws/Tractor beams for the Grunts? or is it a "all Onslaughts in the formation must have the same upgrade" thing?

If I squadron a set of cruisers together, and give them the Blood Axe clan upgrade, do they all get the same random result, or is it rolled seperately (conflicting precedents regarding "all upgrades the same" and also "all random results are rolled seperately, as seen in things like guns and torpedos")

Is the Kustom Field rolled each turn, or once? (also, is it rolled at the beginning of the turn, or my preference, when it first comes under attack or has its shields effected by some other influence)

if I have a squadron of 6 escorts (+1ld) and I roll a 6 for my ld, do I get the free escort before it rolls up to 7, or not?
If I have a squadron of 10 escorts, and I roll a 5 or 6 for my ld, do I still get the free escort (taking me above the max of 10)

[horizon]

Firstly, where do I find the Core rules for BFG:R ? I've found several different versions of lists and such, and can take it that this is the most recent one, but knowing what has changed from the printed copy of the rules would be a big help too. Perhaps there needs to be a "Welcome to BFG, here's where to find things" thread stickied to help relative newcomers like myself

Hey,
Well, this thread might help somewhat:
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=5203.0

On BFG:Revised core rules:
In the initial run by Plaxor there has been an altered ruleset, now with this run with AfterImageDan running the show it is only fleets & Ships. The rules being used are the official ones including FAQ2010 so to say.

[blekinge]

Some quick questions:

The ork LD table is not mentioned.

All Ahead Full:

Note that vessels equipped with Soopa Engines
ignore this rule and will travel the full 4d6 on All Ahead Full special orders as normal.

So, what is "this rule"? The 3D6 move rule, the auto pass ld rule, or both?

How does grot riggers (+1 LD to reload) interact with squadrons? Does all the ships in the squadron need to have it for it to work? Can you get multiple +1 LD, if several ships have the upgrade in the squadron?

There is nothing in the rules about multiple characters in a squadron, unlike the chaos fleet?

Big Meks and Mad meks? So, you can now repair damage on 4+? It will not be broken, one hit a turn is not much, but the interaction needs to be made clear.

Zzap Gunz: Lances. After shooting, place blast marker touching back of your base

Do you mean "a blastmarker"?
Do you mean "the back of your base"
If a ship have multiple Zzap gun batteries, can it get multiple blast markers?

Launch Bays: Equipped with Fighta bommas and Assault boats, If random, count attack craft limit for
highest value.

I think this should be
Launch Bays: Equipped with Fighta bommas and Assault boats, If random, count highest value  for attack craft limit.

More Dakka: ship may re-roll strength one weapon per turn. +10 pts

So the ship may reroll weapons with strength 1 each turn? Or the ship may reroll the strength of one weapon each turn.
Can it be used to reroll random torpedoes or launchas? If not, make this clear.



Is the Slamblasta meant to have lances, not zzap guns?

Kustom force fields. They are rolled every turn. Is this player turn or game turn?

[Islacrusez]

So I was just passing through, reading bits and pieces, and had some thoughts... Not necessarily good ones, but I thought I'd share them anyway. At the very least they might make you all chuckle!


Weapons batteries: Orks are pretty good at chucking lead downrange... Not necessarily at the target, but downrange - Fast-firing weapons hit all ships in their firing arc (different rules for the heavier stuff). The drop-off due to range is extreme, but at short range (<12) it can prove devastating. While this could be combined with a random weapon strength, it would just be far too much rolling.

Non-torp ordnance: At the end of, or part-way through, an ordnance move a 6 on a roll of d6 (per point of ordnance) will turn that ordnance into a torpedo marker which moves either 15 on the same turn and is destroyed regardless of whether it hits anything, or 30 on the following and is removed. Because sometimes Ork ships just fall out of the sky. Trying to shoot down something that's already a blazing wreck is more difficult than usual...

Boarding actions, outbound: Ork boarding parties just make a mess of things, but rarely irreparable damage - a successful boarding action results in critical damage only. (ignore and reroll 11 and 12)

Boarding actions, inbound: On successful boarding action, aggressor rolls d6; on 6 it repairs critical damage, if none available it repairs 1 point of damage. If ship has no damage whatsoever, action fails. Because hitting things is how ork components are fixed, not destroyed.

[Khar]

Ook, got time to respond now:

Some really good points here, people. Now, the detailed look:

1. Brutes and Grunts replacing guns with boostas - Well, I did basically this a few versions ago and was told to change it to just buying boostas while leaving the gunz. Can't satisfy everyone, it seems.

2. Fireship. Well, this is a good idea. I'll try to orkify it and we'll see what people say. I certainly wouldn't mind orky Fireship in the fleet list.

3 Soopa Boostas: Yeah, I need to correct the name in few places and describe it in universal rules. It will be way clearer that way.

4. Deathdeala speed: Technically, yes. There's no option to use it without them, though. It was just to make a single soopa boosta upgrade, while in earlier versions on some ships it gave +5 cm speed + AAF, while on the others just AAF. It might be a little redundant on ships that are required to take it, but I thought it's a bit clearer now. There's no differance between 15+Boostas and 20.

5. Torpedo bommas are perfectly standard torpedo bombers in every respect. I think this doeas need clarification, though.

6. Mixed escort squadrons.. hm. That's a good point, haven't thought about this before. I'd say it should work like this - every ship that can buy said upgrade, must do it. No problem for ships that are unable to take it.

7: Blood axe squadron... I think that blood axe upgrade itself counts as 'same upgrade', so they roll separately. Sape upgrade, different results.

8: kustom field: when it first comes under attack or has its shields effected by some other influence seems like a great option. Makes it impossible for an enemy to specifically choose weakest shielded vessel as a target.

9: escorts are maxed at 10, i think, but you will get your free escort before adjusting ld to 7.

10: 'this rule' well, forgive badly written rules, it's still a rough draft . I meant - roll 4d6, still passes Ld automatically.

11: grot riggers: Does not stack in squadrons but affects whole squadron IF you roll for ld of the ship that has an upgrade. If it for instance suffers from bridge smashed or blastmarker, making it no longer highest ld in squadron, when you roll for other ships ld, upgrade doesn't work.

12: multiple characters in squadron: In playtests we allowed them. They seemd all right. I'm open on oppinions though.

13: Yep, you repair damage on 4+. Still just one HP per turn.

14: yep, blastmarkers, yep, the back of your base. Rough draft, remember? If you have multiple, still generates only one marker, after all the shooting by this ship is done.

15: Launch bays: You're right of course. Should be ammended.

16:More dakka:  yeah, was mend to be strength OF one random weapon. Single weapon, single d6. In case of lacking random weapons, it's useless. Can be used for launchas and launch bays.

17: Slamblasta. Zzap guns, of course. My bad.

18: Kustom field:  I like the 'when it first comes under attack or has its shields effected by some other influence' version. Opinions, though?


19: More drastic changes: I'd stay clear from them right now. Maybe tes them later, when the rest is done.


So, guys, any more feedback on this?

[blekinge]

Tried to run the orks through the Smotherman formula, to see if it still works.

I had to change something to get better results. Here are the changes I used.

Heavy guns (30cm)   2
Armour 6/5/4           10
Armour 6/5           20
Zapp guns (30cm)   8
Zapp guns (45cm)   10
Bombartment Cannon   6

D6 'something' costs as 3.
D3 'something' costs as 2.


The Kill cruiser then became
Ork Kill Kroozer =  162 (priced 165 in the doc)
      
Hits   10   50
Shields   1   10
Speed   20cm   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5/4   10
Turrets   3   15

Prow Guns   D6+6   27
Prow heavy guns   6   12
Side guns   12   18
Side heavy guns   8   16

Quite a good fit.



Then the Terror Ship. I always use this with Torpedoes, so I used the +10pts option to change Prow heavy guns to torpedoes.

Ork Terror ship      196.5 (Priced 195 in the doc)
      
Hits   10   50
Shields   1   10
Speed   20cm   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5/4   10
Turrets   3   15

Prow Guns   D6+4   21
Prow torpedoes   D6+2   17.5
Side guns   10   15
launch bays   4   54



Then I tested to two cheepest battleships to further fit the calculations


Kroolboy      261.5 (Priced 265 in the doc)
      
Hits   12   60
Shields   2   20
Speed   20cm   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5   20
Turrets   4   20
Weapons      
Prow Guns   D6+6   27
launch bays   D3+1   40.5
Prow heavy guns   6   12
Side guns   16   24
Side heavy guns   12   24
Soopa boosta      10

Here the soopa boosta was priced as 10, as the formula says '+1D6 on AAF = 10 points'


Dethdeala      285.5 (Priced 285)
      
Hits   12   60
Shields   2   20
Speed   20   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5   20
Turrets   4   20
Weapons      
Prow Guns          D6+6   27
launch bays           D3+1   40.5
Bombartment cannon   6   36
Side guns           16   24
Side heavy guns           12   24
Soopa boosta              10

I changed the bombartment cannon price from 7 to 6 for the Dethdeala to get a better fit.


Then the two other battleships

Slamblasta      295.5 (Priced 295)
      
Hits   12   60
Shields   2   20
Speed   20cm   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5   20
Turrets   4   20

Prow Guns          D6+6   27
launch bays           D3+1   40.5
Prow zzap guns           D3+3   50
Side guns           20   30
Side heavy guns           12   24

In the Smotherman formula, Zzap guns are priced exactly as lances. I gave them a 1 pts discount (11 to 10 pts per strenth at 45cm) to get a better fit at to pay for the blast marker annoyance. Perhaps a -5 discount for taking zzap guns, no matter how may would be better?



Gorbads revenge      312 (Priced 315)
      
Hits   12   60
Shields   2   20
Speed   20   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5   20
Turrets   4   20
Prow Guns          D6+6   27
launch bays           D3+1   40.5
Prow torpedoes           D6+4   24.5
Side guns           12   18
Side heavy guns           12   24
Side launch bays   4   54


So, for all these ships we have some quite good fits. This leads me to believe that the ships are somewhat balanced, in that you get about the same bang for the point, no matter what ship you buy. But then we come to the odd men out. The grand and light cruisers


Hammer battlecruiser      236 (Priced 250)
      
Hits   10   50
Shields   2   20
Speed   20   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5   20
Turrets   3   15

Prow Guns          D6+6   27
launch bays           D3+1   40.5
Prow torpedoes           D6+2   17.5
Side guns           12   18
Side heavy guns           12   24

According to the formula, this should should cost 14 points less than it does. I then tried to give it 12 hits and 4 turrets, like the battleships above. This would increase the price by 15 pts.
As it stands, I find that the difference of 15 points between the Hammer and the Kroolboy are hard to justify. For these 15 points, you get:
Soopa boosta
+2 hits
+1 turret
+2 Guns per side
6 Prow heavy guns instead of D6+2 Torpedoes





Basha lite Kroozer      114 (Priced 115)
      
Hits   8   40
Shields   1   10
Speed   20c   4
Turning   45   0
Armour   6/5/4   10
Turrets   3   15

Prow Guns   D6+2   15
Prow heavy guns   4   8
Side guns   8   12

This one is also a good fit.


So, the only oddly priced cruiser is the Hammer cruiser. Do we have playtests to indicate that the price of 250 is valid?