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

[Xca|iber]

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

These might be a bit too complex for what we're trying to do. This gave me an idea I had about the Mob Rule, however. Instead of a +1 Ld bonus, how about:

While an Ork escort squadron has at least five remaining vessels, it may attempt a command check even if one has already been failed this turn.

This would represent the improved coordination and fearlessness of Orks in large numbers, by allowing them to continue functioning even in chaos.

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.

Ah, you're right about Goffs. I was confused earlier. Since the turrets only affect the boarding value of the ships involved, and not the action result, it's most likely only to provide a +1 or maybe +2 bonus at the most. Perhaps an interesting option would be this (in addition to the +1Ld for ram attempts):

When a Goff vessel wins a boarding action, treat the difference in scores as one higher for the purpose of determining critical hits.

This still promotes aggressive play, but doesn't break the bank (of balance) when applied to an entire fleet.


...


Now, as for Blood Axes... Stealth ships seems a bit too convoluted and more Ld bonuses seems like overkill in the Ld department (already have Da Boss' Orderz and Mob Rule). That said, I like the concept of focusing more on the Blood Axes "un-Orky tactiks" rather than just giving them Navy upgrades. I'll need to sleep on it though - nothing else is coming to me at the moment.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Ork escorts are at a disadvantage boarding imperial ones. I just played a comvoy mission and I was losing boardimg actions to freighters....

You're right on it, but its STILL a betyer bonus vs 90% of the ships in the game that habe 2 or more turrets.

And I think you have the best Blood Axe ability sir.  I think making it a +1 for orders is the simplest mechanic.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

I like that idea Xcaliber for the mob rule, honestly I'd say that we cpuld go as low as 4 escorts with that rule.  Very fluffy, and it also helps make ravagers a lot less useless.

As for the turrets not effecting the outcome, boarding value DOES effect the outcome. Right now if I had a slaughter board a sword class frigate the slaughter has a boarding value of 2 and the Sword has a boarding value of 3 (2 turrets) base. Same for Ork cruisers boarding Imperial cruisers (11 vs 10).  That means that the Sword class frigate has a +1 bonus over the slaughter. If Goff clan affiliation just gives another +1 that means that the slaughter and sword will both have a boarding value of 3, so it really just levels the playing field.

If the goff clan affiliation removes the turret defense bonus then the numbers are 2 vs 1 for the escorts and 11 vs 8 for the cruisers.  These already are the numbers if the fight lasts more than one turn.  So instead of giving a persistent bonus all we are doing is making all boarding actions work the same for Goffs. Honestly I was really surprised to learn just how much boarding actions advantage the defender.

Oh and for campaign use I've also got the Eldar Refits and Skills tables from BFG Annual 2002, I'll retype those as well for you.

One more thing which I've done some thinking on is the Traktor Cannon and Shokk Attack Mega-Gun ideas.  My current version is for both to be a Kapital ship only Kustom Upgrade.  The Traktor Kannon is a prow weapon with a 45cm range that hits exactly the same way as a ramming attack would. If it hits the target is moved 2D6cm towards the firing ship, if the target has fewer starting hit points then it is dragged 3D6 instead.

The Shokk Attack Mega-Gun is a prow weapon with a minimum range of 30cm and a max of 90. It is a hit and run attack which has no bonuses (No mega armor for snotlings) and which can penetrate shields. The attack suffers a -1 penalty for every shield the defender has active. If it fails place a blast marker on the enemy ship to represent the cloud of frozen snotlings.

The original concept for the Shokk Attack Gun ing BFG was that it would primarily cause a leadership pemalty on a target ship. The blast marker does that, and vs most ships in the game the hit and run attack only hits on a 4+.  Essentially both of these upgrades provide Orks some long range "herding" tools to discourage enemies from staying very far away.

[Xca|iber]

I like that idea Xcaliber for the mob rule, honestly I'd say that we cpuld go as low as 4 escorts with that rule.  Very fluffy, and it also helps make ravagers a lot less useless.

For the moment let's start with 5, since it's already an upgrade. The numbers can be fiddled with later if it's still a big enough problem.

As for the turrets not effecting the outcome, boarding value DOES effect the outcome. Right now if I had a slaughter board a sword class frigate the slaughter has a boarding value of 2 and the Sword has a boarding value of 3 (2 turrets) base. Same for Ork cruisers boarding Imperial cruisers (11 vs 10).  That means that the Sword class frigate has a +1 bonus over the slaughter. If Goff clan affiliation just gives another +1 that means that the slaughter and sword will both have a boarding value of 3, so it really just levels the playing field.

If the goff clan affiliation removes the turret defense bonus then the numbers are 2 vs 1 for the escorts and 11 vs 8 for the cruisers.  These already are the numbers if the fight lasts more than one turn.  So instead of giving a persistent bonus all we are doing is making all boarding actions work the same for Goffs. Honestly I was really surprised to learn just how much boarding actions advantage the defender.

So I've gone back and looked at the numbers and the ignoring turrets is superior, but only for Escorts (it's the same for cruisers). However, there seems to be a small misunderstanding on your end. The Ork race bonus and Goff bonuses are "result" bonuses (on the D6 itself), not boosts to boarding value. So in your example we'd have:

Goff Escort (BV1) vs Sword (BV1+2 Turrets = BV3). Assuming no other bonuses, the Goff would roll D6 + 1 (Orks) + 1 (Goffs) for a total of D6+2. The sword would roll D6 + 3 (BV Advantage). In this case, ignoring turrets would be superior, as you'd instead have the Goff Escort rolling D6+1 vs the Sword's D6 alone.

For cruisers though, you'd have: Goff Cruiser (BV10) vs IN Cruiser (BV8+2 Turrets = BV10). So with the old bonuses, the Goff Cruiser would roll D6+2 against the IN Cruiser's D6. Under the new bonuses, it's actually the same, since you'd have: Goff Cruiser (BV10) vs IN Cruiser (BV8), so the Goffs are still rolling D6+2 (1 for Orks, 1 for BV Advantage), and the IN is still rolling D6.

Oh and for campaign use I've also got the Eldar Refits and Skills tables from BFG Annual 2002, I'll retype those as well for you.

One more thing which I've done some thinking on is the Traktor Cannon and Shokk Attack Mega-Gun ideas.  My current version is for both to be a Kapital ship only Kustom Upgrade.  The Traktor Kannon is a prow weapon with a 45cm range that hits exactly the same way as a ramming attack would. If it hits the target is moved 2D6cm towards the firing ship, if the target has fewer starting hit points then it is dragged 3D6 instead.

The Shokk Attack Mega-Gun is a prow weapon with a minimum range of 30cm and a max of 90. It is a hit and run attack which has no bonuses (No mega armor for snotlings) and which can penetrate shields. The attack suffers a -1 penalty for every shield the defender has active. If it fails place a blast marker on the enemy ship to represent the cloud of frozen snotlings.

The original concept for the Shokk Attack Gun ing BFG was that it would primarily cause a leadership pemalty on a target ship. The blast marker does that, and vs most ships in the game the hit and run attack only hits on a 4+.  Essentially both of these upgrades provide Orks some long range "herding" tools to discourage enemies from staying very far away.

Thanks for the Refits tables. Saves me the trouble of tracking them down 

I'd hold off on the new guns for now. The Traktor Kannon is already a little redundant with Klaws (in terms of function) and proved very difficult to balance in BFG:A (which is where it originated, I think). I do like the simplified Shokk-Attack Gun, but I'd like to minimize the number of "multi-paragraph" weapons in the book. (This is part of why only the Klaws made it over from the 2010 to BFG:R editions). So if these end up getting moved in, it'll probably come at the cost of losing the Klaws.

[horizon]

Agreed on that one bit: keep it clean. Don't make variants because you can.

[AJCHVY]

I like that idea Xcaliber for the mob rule, honestly I'd say that we cpuld go as low as 4 escorts with that rule.  Very fluffy, and it also helps make ravagers a lot less useless.

For the moment let's start with 5, since it's already an upgrade. The numbers can be fiddled with later if it's still a big enough problem.

As for the turrets not effecting the outcome, boarding value DOES effect the outcome. Right now if I had a slaughter board a sword class frigate the slaughter has a boarding value of 2 and the Sword has a boarding value of 3 (2 turrets) base. Same for Ork cruisers boarding Imperial cruisers (11 vs 10).  That means that the Sword class frigate has a +1 bonus over the slaughter. If Goff clan affiliation just gives another +1 that means that the slaughter and sword will both have a boarding value of 3, so it really just levels the playing field.

If the goff clan affiliation removes the turret defense bonus then the numbers are 2 vs 1 for the escorts and 11 vs 8 for the cruisers.  These already are the numbers if the fight lasts more than one turn.  So instead of giving a persistent bonus all we are doing is making all boarding actions work the same for Goffs. Honestly I was really surprised to learn just how much boarding actions advantage the defender.

So I've gone back and looked at the numbers and the ignoring turrets is superior, but only for Escorts (it's the same for cruisers). However, there seems to be a small misunderstanding on your end. The Ork race bonus and Goff bonuses are "result" bonuses (on the D6 itself), not boosts to boarding value. So in your example we'd have:

Goff Escort (BV1) vs Sword (BV1+2 Turrets = BV3). Assuming no other bonuses, the Goff would roll D6 + 1 (Orks) + 1 (Goffs) for a total of D6+2. The sword would roll D6 + 3 (BV Advantage). In this case, ignoring turrets would be superior, as you'd instead have the Goff Escort rolling D6+1 vs the Sword's D6 alone.

For cruisers though, you'd have: Goff Cruiser (BV10) vs IN Cruiser (BV8+2 Turrets = BV10). So with the old bonuses, the Goff Cruiser would roll D6+2 against the IN Cruiser's D6. Under the new bonuses, it's actually the same, since you'd have: Goff Cruiser (BV10) vs IN Cruiser (BV8), so the Goffs are still rolling D6+2 (1 for Orks, 1 for BV Advantage), and the IN is still rolling D6.

I understand what you are trying to say and basically getting a +1 vs ignoring turrets will only matter for escorts boarding other escorts that also have more turrets. Even before this proposed change I would never have boarded a ship with a non Grunt escort, its just not cost effective. I would rather lock on and shoot or even ram.

I think we are arguing the same thing here, I just don't want it to be the 2d6 pick highest.

Also I want to use the Shokk Attack Gun but if I remember correctly is was 30 points or so which is waaay to much for a thing that doesn't really ever do any damage and is not accurate or reliable.

I like the idea of the traktor cannon to act as a long range option vs klaws but it might be too wordy.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Id honestly vote to do away with Klaws entirely. They are an EXACT copy of a unique tyranid weapon AND they are pretty much redundant with Kustom Traktor Fields and Power Rams.  Why do we need two upgrades which stop the movement of tbe ship in order to facilitate boarding?

Let nids keep their unique option and give orks their own unique things. That said you could simplify it to be a single sideswip attack without the grappling effect. Again it just seems that we are ripping off a unique tyranid thing.

As for the shock attack gun and traktor cannon I'd cost each at 10 points as a Kustom Upgrade.  If we dropped the 1,000 word explanation for Klaws to a "Once per turn when your base moves over an enemy ship's base during the movement phase you may make a single klaw attack. On a 4+ it suffers one point of damage ignoring shields." Then its yoo easy to fit the other two options in.

[Whiro]

Noooo don´t remove Klaws for the Orks.

I love this rule and play it on Nids and Orks Four Grunts with Klaws and a Battle Ship, may make it a Little more expensive for Capitalships, but please leave the Grunt as they are. I spend too much Time last year to collect Bitz for Some lovely Grunts Modell Scratchbuilds.

And hey the Rule is soooo Orcish.

I´futhermore Love the Idea for Tractor Field far shots. I was thinking about something like the Grav rules of Planets. Like when being Around 5cm or maybe better only in Basecontact other Ships get a free Turn.

Actually I play my Grunts In Skwadrones with Brutes.

Thanks for the good Work you do!

[Chios]

AJCHVY's idea that the blood axes simply get the regular Leadership values really apeals to me. I was always fascinated that whenever a factions special rules would have taken three pages in 40k, BFG made do with a single "these guys get +1 to this" and it usually would suffice, together with the ships profiles, to make them really stand apart.

On a side note, it seems that the proposed buffs to Orks seem to stack all too well at this point. Take a Blood Axe torpedo escort and apply every bonus that is being discussed up to now: 5 Points cheaper, regular leadership table, +1 on special orders, able to do special orders even whenever another ship has already botched their attempt... I fear the Orks are losing their unreliability here.

[Xca|iber]

While I agree that Klaws may have some issues, I think that's a discussion for another time. For the moment I'd like to focus on just fixing the actual functionality issues with Ork fleets before we start debating any full replacements of existing upgrades.

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

So as of now I've got the following changes to Orks lined up:

Zzapps:
> Strength increased by +1 for all ships.
> Savages may replace their heavy gunz with zzapp gunz for no extra cost.
> Change power fluctuation rules to: 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.

Escorts:
> Cost of escorts reduced by 5pts.

Mob Rule:
> Free escorts do not count for victory points.
> Change squadron size bonus to: While an Ork escort squadron has at least five remaining vessels, it may attempt a command check even if one has already been failed this turn.

Clanz:
> Clan upgrades are purchased on a per-commander basis. To buy any clan affiliations for your fleet, you must first pay +30pts for clan support, which unlocks the options for individual commanders. (Thus, the first clan upgrade you buy has an additional cost, to offset its wider applicability).
> 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).
> The bonuses are as follows (and cost +20pts each, except Snakebites):
Goffs: +1Ld to ramming attempts. When initiating boarding, the enemy ship does not add its turret strength to its boarding value.
Evil Suns: +5cm to speed and minimum turn distance when not touching blast markers.
Bad Moons: Unchanged (May re-roll one random firepower/str weapon; combines with More Dakka).
Deathskulls: May add +1 or -1 to Critical Damage rolls received. A Deathskulls commander may buy looted torps for his ship for +10pts instead of +20pts.
Blood Axes: +1Ld (Ork vessels only, not looted ships) until it fails its first Ld test.
Snakebites: +1 Assault point when scoring during Planetary Assault. This clan affiliation may be given to any ship or squadron without a commander, for no extra cost. This overrides any other clan affiliation the ship would have.

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

Look good to everyone?

(As an aside, it's likely that there will be some more clarification-changes to the wording of boarding actions, as it still seems too easy to misunderstand, especially regarding bonuses and the like). But this is a separate thing that will have no mechanical changes to the rules - just how it's worded.

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

On a side note, it seems that the proposed buffs to Orks seem to stack all too well at this point. Take a Blood Axe torpedo escort and apply every bonus that is being discussed up to now: 5 Points cheaper, regular leadership table, +1 on special orders, able to do special orders even whenever another ship has already botched their attempt... I fear the Orks are losing their unreliability here.

Regarding this, the "forced special orders" bonus would replace the +1 Ld bonus from Mob Rule, so they wouldn't get the +1. In considering the cost of this scenario though and comparing to the Imperial Navy variant, I think it's relatively okay.

The minimum necessary to get Mob Rule'd Blood Axe Ravagers is 225pts + 175pts for each subsequent squadron under the new costing (35 x 5 to get the squadron up to size, plus 30 for the clan tax, plus 20 to give a commander the Blood Axe affiliation). A cobra squdaron gets much the same abilities for only 150pts per squadron. The difference being that the Cobras are faster and more maneuverable (and may combine salvos), while the Ravagers are tougher, better at orders, and can shoot more torpedoes.

So if you want that level of reliability, you're still paying for it. It's just less cost overall compared to trying to build a full clan fleet of a given kind.

[AJCHVY]

As much as I enjoy the silliness and ramshackle aspect of orks, sometimes less is more. When you lose a game simply because of bad random dice rolls that has nothing to do with your tactics or strategy it gets annoying. I'm fine with keeping them random and fun but only to a limited amount.

Edit: I was in the middle of this post as the big update was put up. I like all of the changes so far.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Yep it looks good. I just had an idea on how we could make the Blood Axes ability a bit weaker if it proves too reliable.

The idea is to add the phrase "...until it fails its first leadership test.  Once this occurs yhe ship/squadron reverts to its base leadership."

Minor tweak but it helps keep them Orky. Blood Axes may be disciplined for orks, but they're still Orks!

Otherwise all this looks good for an update. If you need help typing anything let me know.

Oh I just noticed, weren't we going to Zzap Gun upgrade for Savages free?

[Xca|iber]

Thanks for the responses. I've updated the previous post. 

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Noticed an odd points cost issue when going through my fleet list for the local campaign to revamp it to work with the new changes.

Thr Brute Ram can take a Hull Krusha for 10 points, the ship costing 20 points now (25 before).  Hull Krushas add 1 to the amount of damage done by ramming. The issue is that if i took a squadron of 4 rams and thus get an extra 4 points of damage I am spening enough points to buy another 2 Brute Rams, which not only spread damage out and help me with orders, but they also can do more damage than the Hull Krusha Upgrades.

4x5 is 20 total damage output potential. 4x6 is 24 total damage output potential.

If we carry this forwards to a squadron of 8 the numbers are 8x5=40 vs 12x4=48.

I know the Hull Krusha adds a damage guarantee, but should it really cost 50% of the price of the base ship?  I'd argue it isn't wirth taking only 2/3 the number of ships.

[blekinge]

Hi

I think we are going about the orks the wrong way.

I knew the orks had some problems, but I could not put my finger on what was wrong until the Green Squat Leader showed it to me. The immense amount of upgrades means that ork ships are very expensive and not properly balanced.

So, I propose a different strategy

There should NOT just be two ork cruisers with options coming out of the kazoo. Rather, lets make as many different cruisers as we need, each with a few options

Autoinclude options are not a good design choice. They weight down the text and rules with options that are not options. Examples, to me, include
* Extra Shields om Marine Strike Cruisers (Always taken)
* Targeting upgrade on Mars Class
* Shield and range upgrade on Repulsive Class
* And, of course, Kustom Force Field on Ork Cruisers.
These should have been baked into the ship classes and not be options.

So, the real price of the kill kroozer is 180 (165+15)

So, to that end

The kill kroozer is split into these ships

Da Boarder
Kill Kroozer 165
Kustom Force Field 15
Soopa Boosta 25 (To get there)
Kustom Tractor field 10 (So we can do ram-boarding)
This one costs 200 points
Then add one or more of (Klan Goff, MANz, Warboss)

Da Shoota
Kill Kroozer 165
Kustom Force Field 15
Prow Zapp guns 5
Port/Starboard Zapp Guns 20
205 points in total

Da Rokketboat
Kill Kroozer 165
Kustom Force Field 15
Prow torpedo launcher 10
Port/Starboard Torpedo Launcher 0
Looted Torpedoes 20
210 points

Old Skool
Kill Kroozer 165
Kustom Force Field 15
180


The Terror Ship is likewise split into a few new classes

Da Rokketboat 2
Terror Ship 185
Kustom Force Field 15
Prow Torpedo Launcha 10
Torpedo Bombas 40
Looted Torpedoes 20
270 points.

Da Long Range Killa
Terror Ship 185
Prow Torpedo Launcha 10
195

Da Attack Karrier
Terror Ship 185
Kustom Force Field 15
Kustom Traktor Field 10
Assault Karrier (+1 Launch bay, only launch assault boats)
210



About the Klanz, our rules are getting wordy and cumbersome. Here are my suggestions

Goff: +1 LD when Ramming
Evil Sunz: +1D6 when AAF
Bad Moons: +1 Turret (representing more ammo to use)
Deathskulls: +1 LD to Reload Ordnance (They can build torpedoes out of anything)
Blood Axes: +1 LD to Lock On (They actually listen to orders)
Snake Bites: +1 to Boarding RESULT

I think these bonuses are about equal in value and would work well as fleet wide rules.