The BFG: Expanded Revised Rules Thread (New Years 2022 Update!)

[Xca|iber]

Ok, it should be working now. Let me know if you find any other broken links.

[ErikModi]

So, don't take this as a criticism, but rather a question.

The Desolator was my favorite of the two Chaos battleships in the bluebook.  I like the speed (which I feel is Chaos' main advantage over IN, and I think I've gotten pretty good at using it) and the lances.  The torpedoes were always kinda "meh" to me, but with boarding torpedoes, they really come into their own.  My problem is the anemic dorsal weapons.  They just don't seem to be worth firing 90% of the time, as you'll probably only be rolling one or two dice.  Now, looking at the other Chaos battleships in XR, I see two basically Desolator variants with 9 firepower dorsal batteries with the same 60cm range.  So I'm curious what the design and balance considerations are that keeps the Desolator with its 6 FP weapons.

[Xca|iber]

So, don't take this as a criticism, but rather a question.

The Desolator was my favorite of the two Chaos battleships in the bluebook.  I like the speed (which I feel is Chaos' main advantage over IN, and I think I've gotten pretty good at using it) and the lances.  The torpedoes were always kinda "meh" to me, but with boarding torpedoes, they really come into their own.  My problem is the anemic dorsal weapons.  They just don't seem to be worth firing 90% of the time, as you'll probably only be rolling one or two dice.  Now, looking at the other Chaos battleships in XR, I see two basically Desolator variants with 9 firepower dorsal batteries with the same 60cm range.  So I'm curious what the design and balance considerations are that keeps the Desolator with its 6 FP weapons.

You would need to ask horizon or one of the other 'old guard'  about this, since that particular addition was not originally from BFG:XR, but rather Plaxor's first run of BFG:Revised. I wasn't around in the community back then and the forum archives don't seem to go back that far. Hopefully somebody from the old days can pop in and give an answer though; I would be interested in hearing as well! 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Small update time: Tau Empire is coming along nicely. Unfortunately I'm busy at work for the next few days, and I'll be off backpacking over the weekend, but I expect I should be able to finish it sometime this month. After that, it'll be Rogue Traders, followed by Scenario rules.

Campaign rules will be the last part, and will likely be a community effort, drawn from the rulesets that have been developed over the years (such as Warp Rift and rules developed on the forums here).

That's all for now!

[horizon]

So, don't take this as a criticism, but rather a question.

The Desolator was my favorite of the two Chaos battleships in the bluebook.  I like the speed (which I feel is Chaos' main advantage over IN, and I think I've gotten pretty good at using it) and the lances.  The torpedoes were always kinda "meh" to me, but with boarding torpedoes, they really come into their own.  My problem is the anemic dorsal weapons.  They just don't seem to be worth firing 90% of the time, as you'll probably only be rolling one or two dice.  Now, looking at the other Chaos battleships in XR, I see two basically Desolator variants with 9 firepower dorsal batteries with the same 60cm range.  So I'm curious what the design and balance considerations are that keeps the Desolator with its 6 FP weapons.

Heya to you and Xca|iber as well,

The Desolator has always been and still is my preferred Chaos battleship. Both visual and ingame.

Now I am going to read the BFGXR pdf...

wait...

Okay Relictor... same points but loses range on broadsides.
Conquerer more expensive lower range.
That's it, right for variants?

So, yeah those two have a bit more dorsal batteries but are significant different in their roles. The Desolator remains the fast moving excellent support vessel. Those batteries can still wither down a shield or catch bomber squadrons.
And on the torpedoes: I never fired boarding torpedoes. Just get those 9 at point blank range for a good surprise.
The Desolator has always been a good, well balanced vessel in the game so there has never been a reason to change it.

Lets keep it that way.


___

I will try to be more active on the Tau. I'll admit I haven't been investing a lot of time in Xca|iber's fabulous work, mainly because it a re-hash job of everything done before. A good re-hash at that!

[Blacksails]

This is all quite awesome!  I was fond of most of all the changes the BFG:R team made, but having a nicely formatted lay out like this really helps with finding lists and specific rules.

I plan on getting small club to use these rules as I introduce the game to them.

Thanks for all the work.  Looking forward to the campaign and scenario rules.

[Xca|iber]

Hey all,

In light of some discussions w/ horizon and others (as well as my own misgivings early in the project), I have decided to make a slight change to the core rules regarding resilient attack craft - in particular, resilient fighters.

On page 9 of the FAQ 2010, there is a strange example of resilient vs. resilient ordnance involving Darkstar fighters and Manta bombers. In this example, it is implied that the fighters are only able to make one attack each against the bombers (assuming saves are passed) before the Tau player is allowed to move his or her ordnance. It then goes on to describe the Mantas as having the option to move away from the Darkstars without being intercepted. This example adds a lot of counter-intuitive logic to the resolution of resilient fighters vs. non-fighters (resilient or otherwise). At best, it adds a set of unique rules and exceptions for the specific situation described, which is not something I like to have if I can help it.

So, as of today, the BFG:XR main rulebook now states across the board that if a resilient fighter is still in contact with enemy ordnance after using its save, it will automatically attack again (and be removed), since it is obligated to always engage and intercept enemy ordnance that it encounters. The examples in the rulebook have been updated accordingly. It should be much clearer now.

That's it - just a small thing. But I figured it deserved a formal announcement since I am doing my best to keep core rule revisions (beyond Armada + FAQ 2010) to an absolute minimum.

Thanks for reading! Working more on Tau tomorrow - look forward to an update Soon^TM 

[Yodhrin]

Hey,
First of All strike cruisers are post heresy so there are no pre heresy strike cruisers.

BFG: Armada has not contacted me during development so all of their designs are bollocks anyway. Lol j/k

Grand cruisers look cool and the schismatic certainly should not have 6 lances per side!

That's no longer the case as-of HH3:Extermination - PG15 lays out the broad makeup of the Imperialis Armada and it includes Strike Cruisers(describing them as Light Cruisers heavily-modified by the Astartes for boarding and planetary assault, in the same way that pre-Heresy Battle Barges are modified Battleships).

In retrospect it seems FW were anticipating the possible reintroduction of SGs even then(or at least acknowledging that some of us crusty old folk still play them) and structured the IA so as to allow as broad a selection of Chaos, IN, and SM ships as possible.

[Xca|iber]

Update Time!

Coming in as the penultimate faction codex, I present to you: BFG:XR Tau Empire!

This one was a little bit tricky, given the history of Tau in the BFG rules-verse. I feel pretty good about getting through it without too many rules changes (which are listed at the back of the book, as usual). The fleet list got a bit of a face-lift though - I felt it made more sense to show the Kor'or'vesh and Kor'vattra separately. But worry not, they still function together as a single fleet! 

In other update news, I made a couple of fixes to the main Rulebook and several of the other faction books (just correcting some typos and things that I happened to see). I've also made a small change to the Inquisition book in light of Yohdrin's thread on AdMech upgrades - Radical Xenos Inquisitor ship upgrades (on page 6) are now +15 points if you want to choose one rather than rolling. I felt it was far too cheap otherwise. Now there's a bit more incentive to roll the dice if you aren't designing a particular flagship for your Inquisitor.

Speaking of AdMech upgrades, I am beginning the process of evaluating whether the distribution of Mechanicus Gifts should change. Currently, the system offers a little more control than it did under the FAQ 2010 rules, at the cost of having a few extra steps and being a bit unintuitive. Likewise, it is also still random before each game. I will keep you all posted as I work through possible solutions.

And that's it for now! We're in the home stretch everybody. Rogue Traders will be the final faction book in the set, and will be followed up by a combined Scenarios document (with some updated / clarified rules for victory points and scenario generation) and the Campaign document, which I've already discussed in previous posts.

As always, tell me if you find errors/problems!

And again, thanks for everyone's support!

[horizon]

Hey,
First of All strike cruisers are post heresy so there are no pre heresy strike cruisers.

BFG: Armada has not contacted me during development so all of their designs are bollocks anyway. Lol j/k

Grand cruisers look cool and the schismatic certainly should not have 6 lances per side!

That's no longer the case as-of HH3:Extermination - PG15 lays out the broad makeup of the Imperialis Armada and it includes Strike Cruisers(describing them as Light Cruisers heavily-modified by the Astartes for boarding and planetary assault, in the same way that pre-Heresy Battle Barges are modified Battleships).

In retrospect it seems FW were anticipating the possible reintroduction of SGs even then(or at least acknowledging that some of us crusty old folk still play them) and structured the IA so as to allow as broad a selection of Chaos, IN, and SM ships as possible.

As I mentioned in the other thread the HH series buggered up the already skewed history of ships in Battlefleet Gothic.
Fluffwise it makes more sense to me that Strike Cruisers are from after the heresy. Ya know, marines may no longer be the strongest fleet in space. Trias politica yadiyadi etcetera.

Plus I never read a single HH or FW book. Only thing I read from FW is the Taros Campaign because of the Tau fleet introduction and that was because of that was a FW fleet.


@Xca|iber: not a single mention from Project Distant Darkness? 
 

[Yodhrin]

Hey,
First of All strike cruisers are post heresy so there are no pre heresy strike cruisers.

BFG: Armada has not contacted me during development so all of their designs are bollocks anyway. Lol j/k

Grand cruisers look cool and the schismatic certainly should not have 6 lances per side!

That's no longer the case as-of HH3:Extermination - PG15 lays out the broad makeup of the Imperialis Armada and it includes Strike Cruisers(describing them as Light Cruisers heavily-modified by the Astartes for boarding and planetary assault, in the same way that pre-Heresy Battle Barges are modified Battleships).

In retrospect it seems FW were anticipating the possible reintroduction of SGs even then(or at least acknowledging that some of us crusty old folk still play them) and structured the IA so as to allow as broad a selection of Chaos, IN, and SM ships as possible.

As I mentioned in the other thread the HH series buggered up the already skewed history of ships in Battlefleet Gothic.
Fluffwise it makes more sense to me that Strike Cruisers are from after the heresy. Ya know, marines may no longer be the strongest fleet in space. Trias politica yadiyadi etcetera.

Plus I never read a single HH or FW book. Only thing I read from FW is the Taros Campaign because of the Tau fleet introduction and that was because of that was a FW fleet.

Hmm, fair enough, for my money it's some of the best material they've ever put out and most of the changes they're making seem more about accounting for and rationalising pre-existing fluff conflicts. Indeed, the FW studio these days are putting out better stuff than GW, who just murdered a 30+ year old IP for the sake of AoS and look set to ruin the 40K fluff as well(the story hooks in Fenris, for eg, seem to indicate they're going to turn the Space Wolves into renegade super-werewolves led by a returned mutated super-Russ  ).

I disliked the idea of moving most of the ships "back" at first as well but it seems they're going mostly trying to give us ways to use the rules in Heresy-era games rather than those specific ships - most of the named classes are new, and all the more "specialist" ships like SM are explicitly laid out as being radical refits with no standard appearance, so really "Strike Cruisers" and Battle Barges" as-was in terms of BFG don't exist until after the Heresy.

Xcaliber; this is great stuff chief, and you taking a look at the AdMech Gifts system is much appreciated.

[Xca|iber]

@Xca|iber: not a single mention from Project Distant Darkness? 
 

Haha my apologies!  It seems in my rush to get version 1.0 out the door it totally slipped my mind... I'll give it another pass with the PDD content next chance I get. 

[Xca|iber]

Hey all! Hope everybody had a happy Friday 

A few things to get through for project status today:

@horizon: Now having looked through a lot more of the PDD Tau content, I'm feeling like any excerpts will fit better in the upcoming Campaigns book. I'd like to give PDD a page (or more) there describing the campaign and referring people to the wonderful PDD documents themselves. In addition, I am hoping to maybe lift a couple of the special upgrades in PDD as potential refits in the Tau campaign rules (such as Integrated Tracking Systems, Adv. Missiles, etc.). Will that save me from the banhammer?

@Yodhrin/everybody: So I've taken a look through the AdMech rules and I'm in agreement that the current system for acquiring Mechanicus Gifts isn't really as robust as it could be. Here's the way I see it:

It's important for AdMech ships to have access to these Gifts, as they are part of the faction's core identity. However, there needs to be some kind of limiting factor to prevent "stacking" of specific upgrades, lest extremes of fleet power/survivability/speed/utility cause problems on the table (of concern are Adv Engines, Adv Shields, and AWR specifically - the others are less universally powerful). Currently, randomization functions as the primary limiting factor, making it highly unlikely that you'll have more than a couple of each upgrade. The ability (added in BFG:R) to allocate these upgrades softens the impact of getting "wrong" results, but you're still stuck with what you've actually generated. Finally, there is also the limit of 1 upgrade per ship, preventing stacking on a specific vessel.

If we remove randomization, it's important to keep some limitations in place whilst still allowing for most current list-building choices. Arbitrary numerical limits always feel a bit "bad" in these situations unless a suitable fluff justification can be given (which I can't really find in this case). Points costs are also dangerous - if the price is too cheap, it fails to limit "stacking," but if the price is too expensive, taking a single upgrade is overly penalized. Finding the middle ground there can be quite difficult, and setting up a scaling point system gets complicated very fast. That got me thinking about more... creative alternatives.

So here's what I propose:

• Mechanicus Gifts are divided into two categories: Passive System Upgrades and Active System Upgrades. A capital ship may choose one upgrade from either list (not both) for free.
  
• Passive System Upgrades: Choose EER, Fleet Def. Turrets, or GS Targeting Matrix. These function exactly as they do now, as "always-on" passive bonuses.
• Active System Upgrades: Choose Omnidirectional Thrusters, Refractive Shield Modulation, or Augmented Weapon Relays, which function as follows:

• Omni Thrusters: Provides the +5cm speed/-5cm min turn distance bonus when on Come to New Heading orders and +D6cm on AAF. A battleship with this upgrade can use Come to New Heading (provided it actually has enough speed).
• Refractive Shields: Provides the Adv. Shields bonus when on Brace for Impact orders.
• AWR: Provides the AWR bonus when on Lock On special orders.

The result is a choice-based system which still limits the use of the "big 3" Gifts by making them more situational in applicability. Keep in mind though that this is a rough plan, nothing set in stone yet. Some possible options I'm considering are: points costs (if necessary), allowing 1 from each list (1 passive/1 active), and maybe nerfing FDT to only +1 turret since it's easier to get a lot of ships with it.

So that's the idea for now. Anybody who's interested, please let me know what you think! Am I just crazy? 

Thanks!

EDIT: Clarified the thrusters upgrade.

[Bozeman]

A Battleship would need to be able to move 30cm to take advantage of Come to a New Heading (15cm minimum move, turn, 15cm second minimum move, 2nd turn).  Why not make the upgrade reduce the minimum movement before turning to 10cm?  It could still only turn once but that 5cm makes a big difference when trying to get that perfect shot lined up.

[Xca|iber]

A Battleship would need to be able to move 30cm to take advantage of Come to a New Heading (15cm minimum move, turn, 15cm second minimum move, 2nd turn).  Why not make the upgrade reduce the minimum movement before turning to 10cm?  It could still only turn once but that 5cm makes a big difference when trying to get that perfect shot lined up.

It already does this. The BFG:R/XR "Adv. Engines" Gift provides +5cm speed, -5cm min turn distance, and +D6cm on AAF (I forgot about that last one). The turn distance reduction is why I added the clause about allowing battleships to use CtNH with the upgrade (since they would actually be able to do so).

[horizon]

Heya,

on PDD: thou shall be watched closely.

On gifts:
back to the core: I think you explained them in the past but you did change the functions of the gifts compared to the official versions.

GTM: got the added re-roll '1's effect.

FTD: got changed, like: not 2 turrets are used for fleet defense (allied vessels get +2) but the ships gets +2 turrets and allied vessels may re-roll misses. I really would advice to toss out the +2 turrets the vessel gets. Cruisers with 5 turrets are bazzinngg.

Repulsor shields turned into advanced shields -> Eldar. A little less unique but stronger.

Advanced engines got a -5cm to turn added. Bozeman's point is invalid. Battleships may not use Come to New Heading as a special order. Thus that effect would not add to battleships.
I do not see the clause you are mentioning. And I would keep it out nonetheless. The less special rules the better.

EER stayed the same, same as AWR. But you want AWR to go Lock-On only.

Keep in mind that all the AdMech vessels are currently paying for the upgrades within their point costs. So a point cost system would automatically mean that all values should be lowered.

I did like the pool system you currently created. Because with the idea now I still will pick AWR on my battleship, I will pick FDT on a vessel, etc and leave out other choices. Then again with the Magos his free choice I still will pick AWR with him as an option. Just because.
Like advanced engines is only fun on the slower battleships because otherwise you would have a cruiser that is faster then the other cruisers. Or one goes meta and gives all vessels advanced engines. Turning it into a fast turning Imperial Navy/Chaos hybrid. lol.
GTM would still be a less favoured option. Same as EER.

A 'fix' would be to make those better but that is the powercreep pitfall one would should avoid at all times. Making the others less usefull (as AWR only on lock on) would be better in that way but then it has to be seen if the effects do warrant themselves in action.
And it is not only cruiser clash that should be considered. Other scenarios have different need of tactics. As most often is forgotten when people ask for tactics.

So, in effect, aside of metagamers, the things that will be picked are AWR, FTD and AS. That is what I would do. Even with point costst added I would start doing that. And giving specific values to those upgrades is iffy because AWR on a Retribution is not like AWR on an Endurance.

Ah well. Just some ramblings.