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

[horizon]

Just leave the Desolator as it is. It has always been a good balanced ship. No need to change.

[Lord Borak]

One thing that's been bugging me. In the Bakka sector fleet. Bakka can take reserves on a 4:1 ratio but it then states that it is a high priority for the Admech. From what I'm reading though the Bakka fleet still follows the 4:1 ratio even when taking AdMech ships. The only bonus seems to be the fleet defence turrets.

Is this right?

[Xca|iber]

One thing that's been bugging me. In the Bakka sector fleet. Bakka can take reserves on a 4:1 ratio but it then states that it is a high priority for the Admech. From what I'm reading though the Bakka fleet still follows the 4:1 ratio even when taking AdMech ships. The only bonus seems to be the fleet defence turrets.

Is this right?

Yes, it is correct, but I can see how the wording might make that confusing. I will fix it shortly.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

I've gotten a few games in now with the most recent update of the Ork Fleet rules and here's what I've found.

Zzap Gunz change: Having them hit on a 5+ IS a great change, but it has had the unintended consequence of making the costs for fielding Zzap Gunz WAY too high for their reduced effectiveness.  My recommendation is that the number of shots be increased across the board in order to make them a viable option, as currently they REALLY aren't worth the cost.  My recommendation now is for their strengths to be:

Kill Kroozer Prow: D3+3
Kill Kroozer Sides: D3+2
Basha Prow: D3+2

With the increased number of shots that would give you still have roughly the same level of damage output potential, but its less reliable than standard Lances for sure.  This makes Zzap Gunz a decent option but shouldn't make them overpowered at all, all I've done is to increase the number of shots by 1 for each ship option.

I'd also recommend that the "Power Fluctuations" rule be rolled into the random str value for Zzap Gunz, so instead of requiring an additional roll after you determine your number of shots just have it drop your shields if you roll a 1 when determining your number of shots.  This saves time and reduces dice rolls, and it adds the fluffy aspect to the roll by linking the shield loss to the weapon malfunctioning.

As far as the Zzap Gun upgrade option for the Slaughter Class Gunship its entirely useless.  Paying 5 points to have a single shot that can drop your shields is REALLY rediculous.  My recommendation is that we drop the option and create a new escort which is armed with a Zzap Gun.  Here's my recommendation:

Berserker Class Gunship   Points 30
Escort/1 Speed 25cm Turns 45 Armor  6+/4+ Shields 1 Turret 2
Prow Zzap Gunz  Range 15cm Str D3 Front Arc
Prow Gunz Range 30cm Str 2 Front/Left/Right

Special Rules: Unshielded Reactors
To provide the massive power needs of their Zzap Gunz Berserkers have oversized and overtaxed reactors which fill space around them with massive amounts of radiation.  Aside from decreasing the lifespan of its crew this also makes them far easier to target.  Berserkers count as Cruisers when being fired at using the Gunnery Table.

This ship should be pretty balanced overall, with a potentially very potent lance type attack but at a very short range with a built in disadvantage.  Overall it encourages a hyper aggressive style of play which fits in perfectly with Orks.

Heavy Gunz change: So I love the change to make Heavy Gunz suffer the rightward shift on the gunnery table, making them an almost exclusively short ranged weapon instead of the "mid ranged" option which the previous version of the rules made.  The old rules where they didn't receive a shift for short range actually encouraged a LESS aggressive playstyle with them which wasn't really the intent.

The only issue is that this change RADICALLY reduces the effectiveness of Heavy Gunz.  Overall the best recommendation that I can make is that with this change the points cost of all ships armed with Heavy Gunz should be reduced.  I'd recommend a 10 point reduction for cruisers and a 5 point reduction for Slaughter Class Gunships.  Slaughters in particular SUCK with this change, at least at their current points cost.

Larger Points cost issues:  The current build of the Ork Fleet rules suffer from a problem of cascading costs.  Ships have access to a wide array of upgrades, all of which are very reasonably priced, but the basic ships RAPIDLY start to exceed the cost of their Imperial counterparts.  This is ESPECIALLY true if you are using the Clanz rules.  I played a 1000 point game vs a Space Marine fleet in which I was spending through the nose for the very modest benefits conferred for being Goff clan.  In that match he had a Battlebarge, 2 Strike Cruisers, and 8 escorts.  I had a Battlecruiser, 2 Cruisers, and 10 escorts one of which was free.  That was rediculous, my ships in NO WAY are on par with his yet I had nearly the same number he did AND he had a Battleship!

There are a few things which can be done to address this.  First off the "Mob Rule" needs to be changed to eliminate the free ship for low leadership squadrons.  The reason is that this rule ACTUALLY HURTS YOU.  In another match I had 3 extra escorts in a 500 point match putting my actual points cost at 600 points.  The 3 extra escorts were "free" for me but my opponent still scored VPs for killing them.  As a result I effectively couldn't win the match as he could kill more of my fleet.  I know that seems counter intuitive, but look at it this way.  The purpose of the free ship is to provide the Ork player a discount, but its effect is that it actually INCREASES the size of his escort squadrons usually by 20-25%.  Sure you don't pay for those extra points, but when calculating victory points the "discount" isn't reflected making it harder for you to win.

A much simpler approach would be to simply decrease the points cost of escorts pretty much across the board by 5 points.  This actually allows you to realistically take upgrades on your escorts without breaking the bank.  Right now if I have a a squadron of 4 Slaughter Class Cruisers and I take an engine upgrade My ships cost 40 points each.  If I receive a free ship that means that the squadron is now worth 200 points if destroyed.  So the advantage goes to my OPPONENT, not to me.

So again I'd recommend that we drop the points cost of all escorts by 5 points so that they're cost actually reflects their in game usefulness and allows for them to realistically afford to purchase upgrades.  It achieves the intention of the current "Mob Rule" but works better from a technical point of view.  The average value of a "free" escort usually is between 5-8 free points if you divide the cost of the ship by the number of ships in the squadron, so a 5 point point reduction actually means that you are receiving LESS of a "discount".

Another issue is the Clanz rules.

Clanz Upgrades cost WAY too much and are clunky as hell:  The concept is very cool, but the problem is that again the points cost RAPIDLY runs away to an absurd degree.  In the match vs the Space Marine player I was paying 120 points to have my fleet by made up of Goff Clan Orks.  That obviously is pretty rediculous as the actual benefit to me was effectively non-existent, all it did was cause me to effectively have fewer points than my opponent while providing him more VPs for killing my ships.

My proposed change for Ork Clanz is to make it something that you purchase for your Characters instead of your ships.  Here's how I would make it work.

When you purchase your Boss you pay the points cost for his clan.  This makes ALL ships of the fleet have that clan.  If you have multiple Boss's then you can have multiple clan affiliations, but specify that there MUST be more ships of the same Clan as your "Admiral" than there are of the clans of any other Bosses.

Additionally I would actually reduce the points cost of the Clan affiliations to 0 and rework each one's abilities a little bit.  Overall the upgrades REALLY aren't worth much in most cases, again the issue is that Orks are supposed to be a pretty numerous faction and right now the current rules REALLY don't reflect that if you use clan fleets.  For the clanz I'd recommend the following changes:

Goffs: Keep the +1 to ramming but change the +1 to boarding actions to "Roll 2d6 and choose the highest when boarding".  This makes it so that Mega Armored boarding parties aren't redundant/are unique and thus useful.  , Goffs are the most Ubiquitous of Orks so you really shouldn't have to pay extra for this ability, overall its unreliable but fluffy.

Evil Suns: Keep the +5 bonus to speed but add "The leadership test to use the Burn Retros special order is rolled on 3d6."  That downside helps to balance out the bonus and is fluffy.

Bad Moons: As is but make it a one time use ability for the game.  This makes it worse than the "More Dakka" upgrade and puts it in line with the other clan affiliations power level wise, allowing for the cost to be 0.

Deathskulls: This one REALLY never made any sense to me, and its VERY powerful.  I'd recommend changing it to represent the "lucky" element of using Blue paint, a way to make this work is: "When rolling on the Critical Hit or Catastrophic Damage tables Deathskull ships may add or subtract 1 from the result."  Again this is a decent "free" ability.

Blood Axes: An unintended consequence of the current version of the rules is that it means that an Blood Axe Ship with the Targeting Matrix refit gains TWO left column shifts on the gunnery table, 3 if at short range.  That is pretty rediculous, a way to rebalance it would be to make the ability give ships the OPTION to purchase the Targeting Matrix upgrade using the usual process.  That allows the actual clan affiliation to be free as the upgrade would be paid for by the individual ship/squadron.  The looted vessel ability from this clan affiliation really doesn't need to cost anything extra as you are paying for the price of the ships.

Snakebites: Rather than a leadership upgrade for going on brace for impact orders another benefit would be to allow Snakebites to reroll Brace For Impact rolls of 1.  Why does this upgrade only effect Roks and Escorts?  I'd make it a universal fleet upgrade.

The other benefit of making this sort of "Fleetwide Special Rule" idea for Clanz is that its a lot easier for players to remember while playing.

So those are my current recommendations for how to help bring the Ork fleet rules in line with the other factions power wise.

[AJCHVY]

I like some of your ideas for changes to Orks, but hear me out with some of my thoughts.

I like the idea of paying for a clan upgrade on a Boss and giving it to the whole fleet or a selection of ships, this feels better as it does get quite expensive for each ship to pay for a clan. I would say make the clan upgrade have a cost at give it a strong ability rather than a diluted one. I'm fine with paying lets say 20 points or so to give a bunch of ships +1 to boarding and ramming for Goffs for example as long as a cost is still set. You could even set it so that only a number of ships will get a clan bonus per warlord, sorta like how you can take one per 500 points.

As for lances, I like your changes as it feels not only more fluffy, but more importantly more competitive. I would never take the lances when they cause 1 shield damage no matter what as it was not only very expensive, but you did so at a detriment to yourself. Orks are already lower on shields and losing one due to your own shots was bad.

I like the idea of the lance escort but the "unshielded reactors" in an unnecessary rule, all it will do is get them killed much more quickly than normal.

As for heavy gunz I find them to be good as is. I can't tell you how many times I've crippled or killed a ship in one salvo just with a squadron of kill kroozers using heavy gunz. We can try a point change but I don't think it is needed.Also getting within 15cm and facing sunward edge will still get you one left column shift.

And without radically overhauling the ork fleet it would be difficult to change the point costs of upgrades. I have the same issue where I end up with near 300 point kroozers as I want to take a boss and several upgrades, but it usually isnt worth it.

Mob rule does need to be re-worked as I often don't take enough escorts to even benefit from the rule. Escorts in general are not worth their points as it is easier and usually better to just take another cruiser rather than 6 or so escorts.

Also, is the Grunt supposed to have 2 hp and be on a large base as per the rules from the 2010 compendium? How do 2hp escorts work, do they get crippled like a capital ship, do they auto die to hit and runs? My group has had this discussion regarding grunts as well as the Dark Eldar 2 hp escort.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Ships cant be crippled unless they have more than 3 hit points. I get what youre saying about Heavy Gunz, but they have been changed it work differently than how you just made it sound. They are now considerably weaker.

I'd argue that its hard to make an powerful clan upgrade which isn't unbalanced, having the upgrades effectively built into the cost of the commander for modestly powerful upgrades is better in my view. Which clan ability from the ones I listed do you have an issue with?

The Unstable reactors is a thought for a potential balance point as its an escort which can have 3 Zzap Gun shots, which is quite strong. That said the short range is enough of a downside I think, so it can be dropped.

As for the points costs I REALLY feel that the sort of change I recommended would help make Ork ships viable, especially for escorts. As is their escorts costs are equivalent-greater than those of their imperial cou terparts despite their being objectively worse. The 45 degree turn is the thing which cripples them and makes their cost too high more than anything else.

Their rules are fine, they were just overpriced. Interestingly the original rules had most of the escorts as being cheaper.  Overall we've made a number of significant changes recently to how some of their weapons work, nerfing them accross the board with the changes so a points cost adjustment is necessary.

[AJCHVY]

The big thing with the clan upgrades is I feel the Bad Moons ability should stay as is. A once per game ability is not that great, I'd rather pay some points to be able to do it each turn. And I play mostly Goffs so I'm partial to the additional ramming bonus and boarding bonus. I do like the changes to Blood axes and Deathskulls, but I also feel they should get a looted torpedo for free. I don't think I've ever used burn retros so the Evil Suns change seems fine.

As for the escort, you could roll a 3 and get 3 lance shots that still hit on a 5+. That will average you only 1 hit "if" you roll the 3 shots and also rolling a 1 will also kill your shield. I feel it will be fine as on average you will get 2 shots per ship per squadron, which will balance the ability to get 3 or the downside of losing your shield.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

The big thing with the clan upgrades is I feel the Bad Moons ability should stay as is. A once per game ability is not that great, I'd rather pay some points to be able to do it each turn. And I play mostly Goffs so I'm partial to the additional ramming bonus and boarding bonus. I do like the changes to Blood axes and Deathskulls, but I also feel they should get a looted torpedo for free. I don't think I've ever used burn retros so the Evil Suns change seems fine.

As for the escort, you could roll a 3 and get 3 lance shots that still hit on a 5+. That will average you only 1 hit "if" you roll the 3 shots and also rolling a 1 will also kill your shield. I feel it will be fine as on average you will get 2 shots per ship per squadron, which will balance the ability to get 3 or the downside of losing your shield.

I agree that the Berserker Gunship would be fine without the Unstable Reactor rule.  An idea for the Bad Moons would be to make it so that they roll 2D6 when determining how many shots they fire and choose the highest.  Another, and probably the best overall idea, would be to make it work similarly to the Blood Axes change. 

How does this sound:

The Bad Moons are the wealthiest of all the Ork Clanz, for their ‘teef’ (Ork kulture’s chief currency) grow faster
than those of any other Orks. They often flaunt their vast riches by buying up all the best Ork weapons and armor
for their ships and soldiers. Any Bad Moons ship may purchase the More Dakka! Kustom Upgrade for +5 points per ship, so long as it has at least one random firepower/str weapon.

So this change makes it literally cost less for you to have the same sort of boosted firepower (ie: snazzier gunz) than it does for the other Clanz, but that is the extent of the benefit.

Overall this would help make the points cost WAY more reasonable for Bad Moons, as you'd save 10 points for cruisers and at least break even/save points for escort squadrons of 6 or less.

As for limiting the number of ships which can be clan affiliated based on how many commanders you have is hard to do practically, I considered it but tossed out the idea.  The only simple way I could come up with was:

You must nominate one Fleet Commander as the overall Warlord of your fleet.  The majority of each class of ship in your fleet must be affiliated with the same Clan as your Warlord. (IE: If you had 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, and 12 escorts then 1 Battleship, 2 Cruisers, and 7 escorts must share the same clan affiliation.)

That's the idea I came up with at least.  Trying to make it work based off of % of your total fleet points gets REALLY complicated.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

I found that apparently there was a series of Ork (and Eldar) specific Refit and Crew Skill tables back in BFG Annual 2002, so I dusted the originals off and modernized them.  The majority of the changes I made were just to prevent having refits with the same effect as Kustom Upgrades/Ship Upgrades available in the fleet list.  Here's what it looks like.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Here's the Crew Skill Table.

[Xca|iber]

Wow! A lot of stuff to process here. I'll do my best to reply to everything as much as possible.

Zzapp Gunz
I really like the idea of baking the power fluctuations into the random strength roll. Firstly, because it eliminates extra rolling, but also because it solves the problem of the Savage without needing to bring in a whole new escort class. To be specific, we can say:

If a score of '1' is rolled (on the actual D6, not the D3 result) when determining the strength of a ship's zzapp gunz, place a blast marker in contact with that ship's rear arc. This may only occur once per turn, and does not apply to zzapp gunz with fixed strength values.

Then, providing a small boost to zzapp strengths from D3+1 to D3+2 across the board (I'm not yet comfortable with D3+3 zzapps on kill kroozers), and eliminating the exchange cost for the Savage should mostly fix the issues with the new zzapps. Combined with other changes (below), I think this is a good starting point to look at zzapps again, before any more drastic changes are considered.

Escorts
So before we go re-designing the entire Mob Rule, I think it would be prudent to simply consider fixing this by making the bonus escorts not count for victory points at all. Note that you would not need to keep track of which individual ships were 'free', since escort squadrons give up victory points based on overall squadron cost.

With a 5pt reduction in escort cost across the board, it will also be easier to fill out squadrons to utilize the Mob Rule or give escorts upgrades, as desired by the player. Additionally, I am amenable to nudging down the threshold for the Ld bonus by 1, so you'd gain the Ld for having at least five ships remaining rather than the current six. That way, a "half-size" squadron will still benefit until it loses its first casualty.

Clanz
I agree that these seem to get ludicrously expensive on top of any other upgrades. Here's the way I can see this changing:

Any Ork commander may purchase support from an Ork Clan at the cost shown in the fleet list. A commander's clan affiliation (or lack thereof) applies to every ship under his authority, determined as follows:

• A commander always has authority over his own ship and those of his squadron.
• The Boss with the biggest ship (Space Hulk > Battleship > Cruiser > Rok > Escort) has authority over all other ships in the fleet, except those under the authority of a different commander.

A ship can only ever have one clan affiliation, and a squadron may never have multiple commanders with different clan affiliations. Note that a ship's clan does not change during the course of a game, regardless of any commander's status. Finally, a commander's re-rolls may not be used for ships or squadrons with a different clan affiliation (commanders and vessels without a clan are exempt from this restriction).

I expect that the cost of purchasing clan support would also go down, although potentially with a small "tax" on the first Clan affiliation purchased (since a single one would apply to everything - a tremendous cost reduction). On the whole then, you'd still be paying much less for 1 or 2 Clan bonuses, but if you want to mix more Clanz together, you'll start having to pay for Nobz, which will jack the price up.

For the specifics of each clan:

• Goffs: AFAIK the MANZ was supposed to stack with this. Allowing it to simply stack seems like a simpler solution in light of changing the cost and expanding the applicability.
• Evil Suns: Since you're still paying for this one, no need to change it I think.
• Bad Moons: Same as above.
• Deathskulls: Agreed that the current bonus is a little nonsensical. I'm fine with something along the lines of what was suggested, for example "When rolling on the Critical Damage table, a Deathskulls vessel may add or subtract 1 from the result. In addition, a Deathskulls commander may purchase looted torpedoes for his ship for +10 points instead of the usual +20 points."
  
• Blood Axes: For this, I think it's best to just remove the stacking with Targeting Matrix. So it would read like "this bonus cannot be combined with that of any other ship upgrade, such as a Targeting Matrix."
  
• Snakebites: So, the reason this was Roks and Escorts only was because the Snakebites don't really have their own vessels or maintain a space fleet. In this case, I'd keep the bonus the same, and change the fleet list entry to "Any Rok or escort squadron may be designated as a Snakebite vessel for free, ignoring any other clan bonus that would normally apply." So the Snakebites would work a little bit "outside" how the other clanz are setup, which kinda fits their fluff I think.
  

For the Space Hulk, it would also get a change to "An Ork space hulk never benefits from clan bonuses, but for the purposes of other rules and abilities, it is considered to have a clan affiliation (or none) as determined by your fleet's commanders."

That's about it for now on the points already brought up. Let me know what you think!

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In other news  thank you Green_Squad_Leader for posting those Refits/Crew Skills tables. I'll probably end up using some or all of them in the Campaign Rules.

Also, regarding Lord_Borak's question on the previous page:

Anyway, the point of my reply. How are the rules going for the Rogue Traders?

Also, will you be including any of the ASC ships in the BFG:XR fleet lists? With potential for new ships types/classes?

Rules are... coming along. It's slow going and the end of this long marathon is starting to wear on me. It'll get done though.

The ASC is a separate active project with a different kind of scope compared to BFG:XR, so there are currently no plans on bringing ASC content directly into BFG:XR. They are mostly compatible AFAIK, however, and I am happy to endorse it 

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

As always, thanks to everyone for their interest and contributions!

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Xcaliber thanks for the feedback, I really like your wording for how clan affiliations could work across a fleet. Overall that method is great as it makes it so that additional clan ships are effectively mercenaries for hire for your larger list.  Very simple and very fluffy.

As for the Zzap gun strengths I REALLY suggest that Savages with the "Berserker" variant weapons have at least str 2 zzap guns. As it is a savage with a zzap gun is worth maybe 15 points but we are paying 40!  Firepower 2 Zzap Guns are pretty mich equivalent with firepower 1 lances, so that puts them in line power wise with nova class escorts and the like. Lacking the fluctuations rule for Savages is easier to keep track of, less rolling and in squadrons it doesn't work as well to figure out which ship individually needs to have a a blast marker if you rolled a one.

The only downside there is that every other lance escort also has a low firepower gun, which the Berserker Savage wouldn't have unless we gave it a firepower 1/2 Gunz battery.

For the Mob Rule specifying that they arent worth victory points would help, it just starts getting really wordy. The 5 point reduction accross the board is the most important thing for escorts really, it solves a lot. Using both the reduction and the Mob Rule would be great.

As for Clanz I strongly disagree with keeping the current clan rules as is for a few reasons. First off the rules are REALLY wordy for some of the rules. Also the benefit for some clanz is extremely inconsistent depending on what ships you want to take.  We also have redundancy between a bunch of upgrades/refits/skills with the current version of goffs, evil sunz, bad moons, and blood axes.

These things have been rewritten a TON since the original concept, so we habe a fair bit of freedom with them. As is we are looking to add a big paragraph explaining how they are purchased and apply to the fleet, so revising the rules in ways that cut down on word count would be wise.

Another thought for Goffs would be for the target of their boarding action to not add its turret value while defending. That helps more than the +1 currently (being anything from a +2 to a +4 on average) and rewards agression (no defensive bonus at all).  In essence this would amount to a "charge bonus" for Goffs, which is pretty fluffy.

The Blood Axes ability as is is insane.  The entire fleet gets free left collumn shifts!?!  Even the Imperial Navy doesnt get that, so I'm confused as to why we have it.  I think that we can come up with something a bit more balanced. Blood Axes are supposed to be Sneaky Gits after all and use stealth and ambush tactics. Perhaps a good alternative would be to make it so that enemies firing at Blood Axe ships that aren't on special orders (ie: silent running) suffer a rightward shift on the gunnery table.

I get the arguement on the snakebite ability, but its essentially worthless as is and probably will never be taken by anyone.

As for Evil Suns if you're only paying once and its cheap then this ability is pretty broken. If ALL your ships are 5cm faster for a 20 odd point upgrade on your commander with no downside that seems rather rediculous.  Potential ways to make it slighly less awesome would be to make it so that ships no in contact with blast markers go 5cm faster or the burn retros penalty idea. It just seems like that wpuld be tought to balance without any restrictions/downsides.

Lastly what are ASC, AFIAK, and MANZ?

Also Here's the art I made for a Zzap Gun Escort if we did add one.

[Xca|iber]

Xcaliber thanks for the feedback, I really like your wording for how clan affiliations could work across a fleet. Overall that method is great as it makes it so that additional clan ships are effectively mercenaries for hire for your larger list.  Very simple and very fluffy.

As for the Zzap gun strengths I REALLY suggest that Savages with the "Berserker" variant weapons have at least str 2 zzap guns. As it is a savage with a zzap gun is worth maybe 15 points but we are paying 40!  Firepower 2 Zzap Guns are pretty mich equivalent with firepower 1 lances, so that puts them in line power wise with nova class escorts and the like. Lacking the fluctuations rule for Savages is easier to keep track of, less rolling and in squadrons it doesn't work as well to figure out which ship individually needs to have a a blast marker if you rolled a one.

The only downside there is that every other lance escort also has a low firepower gun, which the Berserker Savage wouldn't have unless we gave it a firepower 1/2 Gunz battery.

I suppose it's workable to give Savages the +1 zzapp strength that's being applied to everything else. In that case it's at least consistent across all the ships in the book. With the boosted zzapp power, I think it's okay for them to not have a Gunz battery; not every faction has to have carbon copies of the IN/Chaos escorts in any case.

Also, that bolded part above is something I hadn't even thought of when I first changed the zzapps from when they auto-placed blasts on every shot. Definitely better this way.

For the Mob Rule specifying that they arent worth victory points would help, it just starts getting really wordy. The 5 point reduction accross the board is the most important thing for escorts really, it solves a lot. Using both the reduction and the Mob Rule would be great.

I can make the wording work - it shouldn't be too much trouble. I think these two changes together should solve a lot of problems.

As for Clanz I strongly disagree with keeping the current clan rules as is for a few reasons. First off the rules are REALLY wordy for some of the rules. Also the benefit for some clanz is extremely inconsistent depending on what ships you want to take.  We also have redundancy between a bunch of upgrades/refits/skills with the current version of goffs, evil sunz, bad moons, and blood axes.

These things have been rewritten a TON since the original concept, so we habe a fair bit of freedom with them. As is we are looking to add a big paragraph explaining how they are purchased and apply to the fleet, so revising the rules in ways that cut down on word count would be wise.

Another thought for Goffs would be for the target of their boarding action to not add its turret value while defending. That helps more than the +1 currently (being anything from a +2 to a +4 on average) and rewards agression (no defensive bonus at all).  In essence this would amount to a "charge bonus" for Goffs, which is pretty fluffy.

The Blood Axes ability as is is insane.  The entire fleet gets free left collumn shifts!?!  Even the Imperial Navy doesnt get that, so I'm confused as to why we have it.  I think that we can come up with something a bit more balanced. Blood Axes are supposed to be Sneaky Gits after all and use stealth and ambush tactics. Perhaps a good alternative would be to make it so that enemies firing at Blood Axe ships that aren't on special orders (ie: silent running) suffer a rightward shift on the gunnery table.

I get the arguement on the snakebite ability, but its essentially worthless as is and probably will never be taken by anyone.

As for Evil Suns if you're only paying once and its cheap then this ability is pretty broken. If ALL your ships are 5cm faster for a 20 odd point upgrade on your commander with no downside that seems rather rediculous.  Potential ways to make it slighly less awesome would be to make it so that ships no in contact with blast markers go 5cm faster or the burn retros penalty idea. It just seems like that wpuld be tought to balance without any restrictions/downsides.

Yeah, you're right about the balance being a bit off for "entire fleet bonus" even when you're paying for it. One thing to fix this is the "tax" like I mentioned before, in addition to rebalancing the bonuses. So we'd have something like:

Your fleet may draw support from the Ork Clanz for +XX points, enabling your commanders to purchase a clan affiliation at the cost shown...

Thus, your first clan upgrade would have a bigger price tag, to reflect its effects on your whole fleet. As for the individual bonuses:

Goffs: I like this version better than the last suggestion. Unique, interesting, and fluffy.

Blood Axes: You're right about this one - dunno what I was thinking. "Orkdar" (Orks with Eldar abilities) is not what we want here. That said, giving enemies right-shifts is also very... Orkdar. I'll give this one more thought and report back.

Evil Suns: One possibility is the following: "...add +5cm to their speed and minimum turn distance when not in contact with any blast markers." Combined with a "first-clan" tax (as above), this seems like it might be a bit more balanced.

Snakebites: To be honest, I almost removed them the first time I transcribed Orks from BFG:R. Maybe to reflect their ability as mostly ground fighters, change the bonus to "Snakebite vessels score +1 Assault points when scoring during Planetary Assault scenarios," and give the ability to just put it on any ships/squadrons (except transports) for free regardless of commanders/clans/clan-tax?

Lastly what are ASC, AFIAK, and MANZ?

Also Here's the art I made for a Zzap Gun Escort if we did add one.

ASC is the Additional Ships Compendium, made by Gothmog here on the forums. It's a compilation of alternative and fan-made ships from throughout the BFG setting.

AFAIK means "As Far As I Know"

MANZ is the abbreviation for Mega-Armoured NobZ.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Gotcha, thanks for the definitions. Two more ideas I had:

1. Make the Mob Rule a check that you take when you want to go on special orders. When you declare that you are going to use a special order roll 2D3, if you roll equal to or under the number of ships you have add 1 to yoir leadership.  Just a thought, not very practicle.

2. Another idea for Blood Axes which would be extremely fluffy.

Renowned for their sneaky and underhanded (some might say un-Orky)tactics the Blood Axes clan are well versed in.the use of stealth and ambush tactics.  During Deployment instead of deploying your vessels you may deploy a number of contact markers equal to the number of ships/squadrons in your fleet.  These markers may not use special orders or attack/be attacked, but otherwise move exactly as the ships they represent would. Markers are revealed when an enemy ship/attack craft squadron comes within 30cm or at the start of one of the Ork Player's turns if he chooses. Replace revealed contact markets eith the appropriate ships facing the same heading the marker was.

This gives Blood Axes a rather unique ability to stage ambushes and get innyour opponent's head. A bit Wordy but we csn bring that down

[AJCHVY]

Liking all the discussion on orks so far.

I think we are in a good spot with Zzap Gunz.

I had an idea for Blood Axes if we don't go with the "invisible" ships rule. We could give them the ability to roll on the normal Ld chart when rolling instead of lowering by 1 as well as getting a +1 ld bonus for orders. This could represent their having better commanders and "Taktiks"

The change to Goffs will really only make a difference when boarding ships with more than 2 turrets as ork ships tend to have 2 or more hp than their imperial/chaos counterpart. Also the +1 ld bonus to ramming is nice.