Heavy Escorts :)

[radu lykan]

i know heavy escorts have been a contentious issue in the past for some people but i am going to be including some in my fleets. what i am after is estimations of these 3 vessels points costs

a 25cm speed, 2 hit, 1 shield, 1 turret, 5+ escort with wb 6 in its front arc
a 25cm speed, 2 hit, 1 shield, 1 turret, 5+ escort with 2 lances in its front arc
a 25cm speed, 2 hit, 1 shield, 1 turret, 5+ escort with 1 launch bay and wb2 in its front arc

i dont think these ships will be overly powerful due to their limited fire arc but if anybody thinks otherwise please let me know. a variant with 4 torpedoes might also make an appearance if i work out a way to model it. they are not designed to be amazing ruleswise, they are just something i came up with while sorting out some fluff/background in which they are considered outdated. any help is appreciated
pics of wip build
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=5858.0

[bladeofdeath3]

Seeing as mark of Nurgle is 35 points for an extra HP and the ability to not be boarded, I would argue that a HP is worth about 20/25 points.  Lets go with a nice number of 20 points.  Your escorts seem to be very similar to the Havoc Class Frigate, the main difference is your ship has 1 more WB and 3 of the Havoc's WB are L/F/R arcs.  I would say they should be in the area of 60-70 points to keep them somewhat balanced.  I guess what also factors into the point costs is if they're going to be 1 hit death from crits and how many turrets they have.  If they do have the critical rule and 1 turret, I think it should be closer to 60, but maybe closer to 70 if they got 2 turrets.  I'm getting the turret costs from the upgrade to the Mars/Overlord.  I would up the 2 Lance variant to 3 lances and give it the option to replace up to 1 lance with a 2-salvo torpedo, similar to the Dauntless (It seems the going rate point wise is 2 WB = 1 Lance.  I get this from the Sword/Firestorm/Falchion escorts).  If it could replace all it's lances with torpedoes, it might be over powered...  Finally, I would have all 3 variants be the same point costs.