Adepticon Fleet Compositions

[Thinking Stone]

—What do they tell us?

Hello everyone!
I've recently been thinking a lot about attack craft interations and how popular carriers are, and also about how unpopular escorts are. I noticed the Adepticon Aftermath topic (thank you for the reports!) and was wondering if we could get some insight into BFG game mechanics by examining the lists and experiences of the Adpeticon players (it seems to work for WH40K... ).

In particular, I'm unhappy with the way escorts are often passed over in favour of other ships: it seems that fleets should include them because they're great to have (at least in limited numbers) rather than being a tax or an auxiliary element, especially since real-life and background material both point to their crucial roles in naval combat. Whilst making them compulsory would make them appear in more fleets, it would be nice to have good reasons for taking, for example, 2 Swords to back every cruiser up.

Well, that's my bit! Feel free to talk about other Adepti-BFG stuff though .

Food for thought,
Thinking Stone

[horizon]

Background wise there should be more escorts, yes. Except in a Craftworld Eldar fleet ofcourse. So! I also think there should be compulsory rules per race.

Aside of that I do think escorts are great and heavily underrated.

[Thinking Stone]

Well, I like escorts too but I have this nagging feeling about how their combat rules work.... But I think it would be an interesting idea to play some games with a compulsory escort compliment (e.g. 2 per cruiser, or whatever we discussed in the other topic) and see what happens: maybe people will find them really useful when not min-maxed?

It's interesting that Seahawk's (I think...) lists for next year don't have any escorts!

O, and don't forget Dan's Niddies! Kraken are pretty cool!

I like the e-mail notification thingy too. It's really handy .

[Mallich]

.... But I think it would be an interesting idea to play some games with a compulsory escort compliment (e.g. 2 per cruiser, or whatever we discussed in the other topic) and see what happens: maybe people will find them really useful when not min-maxed?

The Tau lists have an interesting approach to this. They don't have a hard "must have x escorts per ship" rule, but many of their capital ships have grav-hooks that increase the price of the capital ship but allow you to take a small number of cheap escorts. You're effectively paying some of the price for the escort when you buy the capital ship, but you're not forced to buy the entire escort ship.
A similar approach would encourage a fleet to use a few escorts, but would prevent an all-escort fleet from being too cheap. Maybe increase the price of some capital ships by 10 points, but for every one of those you take you reduce the total cost of one escort squadron by 10 points. Maybe. It encourages you to take a balanced fleet, but it doesn't force you to do so.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I like how Spartan Games did it, you have a set number of points to choose from and you have a certain % of that that you can spend on escorts, cruisers, battleships and such.

[Seahawk]

Another one of my wacky ideas for Imperial Navy involves two battleships and six light cruisers in 1500 points. 

Just think of them as big escorts!


Don't get me wrong. I love escorts. My previous two outings at Adepticon saw me with 6 Gladius and 3 Sword, because FIREPOWAAAAAA!!! I didn't do as well, however, finishing in the middle of the pack. Of course, this was pre-FAQ 2010, so who knows how much impact that has with it. I do have 4 Cobras and 6 Firestorm with my IN, and 6 Idolator, 6 Infidel, and 2 Iconoclasts with my Chaos. It's just that, whatever they can do, I've found my cruiser selections to do better.

Minus the chaos torpedo boats of course, but I don't really ever use torpedoes, so...

[Jimmy Zimms]

Part of the problem IMO is that escorts don't actually escort with the current squadron rules which is really their purpose in the WW1/2 Naval analog. The other, as is pointed out, is that gunships are actually a separate beast that should work in hunter packs, especially vessels like Firestorms, and should be priced as such to encourage larger packs in fleet list construction. But I'm with Horizon, they can pack a huge punch and are always present when I game.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Someone, I cant recall who, posted that they had played escorts with the gunnery chart backwards. Basically the smaller and faster weapons of an escort would be more devistating to attack craft and other escorts, about the same against cruisers, and much weaker against hardened installations.

This seems like a great idea to differentiate them and would help cast a better light on the gunships.

[RaptorEvolved]

I played with 3 wardens and 3 custodian escort in a squadron of 6 worked very well, and they only lost half there number in all three games. For the Tau fleet it's import because the escort are very maneuverable and can protect your rear from faster fleets. Also for points cost and relative firepower your getting a good deal. I think a lot of value is misplaced in escort vessels because there not deployed to do what they are meant to do.

Alot of the time Player rush them ahead of the pack only to get shot up and destroyed piecemeal. Escort can Harass a weak side of the enemy fleet in close conjunction with a cap ship.Their meant to do exactly that "escort", providing a nice column of added firepower to screen cap ships or added maneuverability to anchor flanking profiles and movements even as far as masking a feint. But they should never be sent out ahead of the pack by themselves unless there are secondaries objectives based on a scenario.

[Thinking Stone]

@AndrewChristlieb: That was me! That was me! I haven't had time to actually play games with it, but I would refine it and say: 'Escorts swap the Defences and Ordnance columns on the Firepower chart, as well as the Escort and Capital Ship columns'. The rulebook already says stuff about big guns being slow (I think it's in the 'Attacking Ordnance' bit on the Firepower chart page). It seems an elegant option to me, so I like it.

I agree with RaptorEvolved's suggestions for how escorts should be played. To me, though, it seems like they aren't quite all-the-way-there yet: it's like they're missing something in terms of game mechanics. Although Necron escorts have done pretty well against me when rushing up as a pack... probably because of the Tombship killin' my dudes at the same time... .
Seahawk's experiences kind of highlight this missing bit: why waste points on a squishier escort squadron when you can get a cruiser with more firepower? Their niche is almost artificially compressed because of the lack of rules to give them more advantage when escorting. (Chaos is also a bit special because their escorts fill up the holes in the rest of their fleet). What was thy escort to capital ratio, RaptorEvolved?

But I was thinking on what Mallich and AndrewChristlieb (the first time) said about gently encouraging escorts and in between postings Jimmy Zimms said what I had concluded too:

Part of the problem IMO is that escorts don't actually escort with the current squadron rules which is really their purpose in the WW1/2 Naval analog. The other, as is pointed out, is that gunships are actually a separate beast that should work in hunter packs, especially vessels like Firestorms, and should be priced as such to encourage larger packs in fleet list construction. But I'm with Horizon, they can pack a huge punch and are always present when I game.

Although I wasn't in favour of this before (for various reasons at the time) I think that combining escort and capital squadrons is the best way to go to get escorts 'escorting' properly. They are a cheap way to add firepower to a capital, they are partially protected from larger enemies, they help with massing turrets and anti-attack craft duties and you want to take a pair of Swords for your cruisers (as the rulebook says ) which I suppose you wouldn't do so often with separate escorts because of survivability. It's really important to keep the separate squadrons for hunter-packs, that is, the current setup, but the WW analogue of escorts squadronning with capital ships is the neatest solution I can think of at the moment.

So, does anyone else (besides Jimmy Zimms ) think this is a good idea? Or is there a better, nicer solution? I guess someone should play-test a bit too  .

Anyway, food for thought:
Thinking Stone

PS: Good thing I copied that before previewing... I had timed out  .

[Jimmy Zimms]

I guess someone should play-test a bit too  .

Well we've been playing that way for years now and works for our group

So, does anyone else (besides Jimmy Zimms ) think this is a good idea? Or is there a better, nicer solution?

Doh! I don't count after all

[AndrewChristlieb]

I can agree with allowing escorts to squadron with a capitol, actually that would make more sense to me than allowing capitols to squadron in most cases. This is something that they did when playtesting the game originally but they decided to separate them because escorts and capitols move diffently (not that they actually move all that differently).

[Thinking Stone]

Well, I sort of assumed that you would be in favour .

I remember thee (or someone else perhaps...) talking about how thy group used combined squadrons... a while ago . How does it work? Does it seem to replicate 'escort' behaviour? Are there any problems? I guess the biggest question is how do you deal with capital ship squadrons?

Just curious as, unfortunately, my group of friends don't have time for much else besides WH40K so I shall have to try to use it when playing against myself....

@AndrewChristlieb:
Upon thinking about it a bit more, maybe we need to invent a kind of 'super-grouping' for capital ships with escorts.... Since, as always, we have problems like, "Why can't my carrier reload ordnance while the other ships lock on?" or, "Bobby the Mauler braced for impact, it's lamer than a starving duck that I can't lock on with my other ships! If only they could use orders separately for some situations...." (No ducks were hurt in the making of this post)

I think that the BFG squadron rules (and their freedom) actually really suit combined squadrons because one has the freedom of protecting the capital's rear and being able to re-manoeuvre as needed with the escort's mobility. Also, changing the way capital squadrons work could make it easier to modify the Special Orders rules (if we so desired), e.g. to make add more fleet-like ones (rather than the very 'personal' ones we currently have).

Thinking Stone

[Seahawk]

I got it, though this delves into experimental/house rules.

Forming Up the Fleet
- Each escort is assigned to a capital ship, max 2 per capital ship.
- Treat the whole group as a sub-squadron; the capital ship may then be part of a cruiser squadron as normal.
- With up to four cruisers and two escorts per cruiser, this may make for a total squadron size of 12 models.
- Each escort must stay within 10cm of the capital ship it is assigned to.

Shooting With Sub-Squadrons
- Follow the normal rules for shooting with squadrons, adding on the firepower of the escorts to the total as normal.

Shooting At Sub-Squadrons
- Enemy shots may be directed at the capital ship or its escorts without needing to take a Ld test.
- If part of a cruiser squadron, the normal squadron rules still apply, though you can ignore the escorts in favor of the capital ships as above.
- Roll a D6 every time the capital ship suffers hits from a shooting attack: on a 3+, the hits are resolved first against its escorts.

[Thinking Stone]

Thanks, Seahawk!
1. I think it would be nice if escorts could stay within 15 cm if the Capital ship isn't part of a larger squadron. Gives more freedom to escort positioning, to let them protect the back of ships &c..
2. It would be interesting if you could do the sacrificial protection the other way around too... allow escorts to hide behind the cruiser . It would let them be more protectable (and thus relatively more attractive in smaller numbers anyway). Although I do like the idea of the player positioning their escorts so that enemies have to manoeuvre to shoot their chosen target (like in 6th Edition WH40K unit positioning).
3. How does one determine the firepower column when shooting at the sub-squadron? Maybe it gets targeted like a Capital (large blob of sensor readings, after all) and the escorts get to save like you suggest, but on the roll of a 6 the hit/some of the hits is/are discounted entirely (i.e. not applied to the escort either). This could represent the chance that the attacking ship's sensors are fooled by the combined signal and miss entirely (and is kind of like a bad column shift). Or you do the save before damage is rolled, i.e. when targeting, and the new target determines the shooting column?

Although the original method might work well after all that thinking anyway


Another thought based on some ideas we had in another discussion of the roles of escorts: maybe they could 'mass shields' with their protectee capital ship? This could help them out when massing turrets by counteracting the weakness of the sub-squadron (very close proximity = more shared blast markers) compared with cruiser-only squadrons. With only 2 escorts per capital, it could easily be 'Close Protection. If both escorts and the capital ship in a sub-squadron are in base contact with all other ships in the sub-squadron, the whole group counts as 1 entity when receiving fire, but with +1 shield. Damage is assigned to the escorts as normal but only when all shields are disabled. An Emperor protected by 2 Swords would thus be an entity with a base the size of a large base with 2 small bases in contact and with 6 shields'.

Thinking Stone