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Post by dragonlord on May 2, 2009 18:35:36 GMT -5
So I got around to uploading the Zirconian rules, you can find them here. At the moment I've only put the main rules up there as I'm still in the process of tidying up and re-writing the background. When I've got that done I'll upload that too. As a quick overview of their background they were an ally of the Eldar during the War in Heaven, their planets were royally smushed by the C'tan and reduced to near lifeless husks. As a result they sealed themselves away and most of them went into stasis waiting for their worlds to recover, though small groups of Zirconians were left awake on the worlds to guide their recovery. Now several million years later the worlds have recovered enough for the Zirconians in stasis to wake up. However over the millions of years the guardian populations of the worlds have evolved to cope with their new environments and as such the Zirconians are now longer a single species (they're actually ~7). Also the component species of the new Zirconian Coalition don't always get along. You will note that most of the planetary defences are just Zirconian-ified versions of the standard Imperial versions, I tend to feel that most of the races should have their own planetary defences so I did this with the Zirconians and haven't had much thoughts to unique planetary defences (the plasma mines being an exception). You will also note that I have mentioned standard and super-heavy size transports and warp-tugs under the notes for convoy and planetary assault scenarios but that these do not appear in the rules, this is because they were a fairly late addition and I have not yet quite decided how to make them work, if you have any ideas though do let me know. Anyway, do let me know what you think. Edit: [url=http://www.mediafire.com/?umkyzzinjgd[/url] now available.
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Post by dragonlord on May 3, 2009 17:12:23 GMT -5
Got some playtesting done this evening, 2000pts Zirconians vs. 2000pts Chaos.
Fleet lists were:
Zirconian 1 Thedra 1 Repressor 1 Guardian 1 Sentinel 1 Warlord 1 Conqueror Admiral with 2 re-rolls
Chaos 2 slaughters 2 carnages 1 styx 1 acheron 1 despoiler
The Zirconians (me) headed straight towards the chaos fleet unleashing massive firepower and causing almost the entire chaos fleet to brace, with all the bracing however not all that much damage got through. Then the whole chaos fleet moved to board destroying the Thedra and the Sentinel outright and doing 4 hits to the Conqueror. The Conqueror, being unable to get out of range of further chaos boarding attempts next turn locked on and fired in all directions trying to do as much damage as possible. It crippled the acheron and badly damaged the despoiler but then took some heavy shooting in return and was as expected destroyed via boarding in the next chaos turn. The repressor was crippled through chaos shooting and the warlord accumulated a few hits too. All told at the end of the battle I had lost the battleship (with admiral) and two cruisers with another crippled while the chaos force had one crippled cruiser with the despoiler almost crippled and most of the rest almost undamaged. So a rather heavy defeat for the Zirconians. I think this is as much down to tactics as anything else, I did comment myself when I began moving directly towards the chaos fleet that I shouldn't really have been doing so as it didn't quite fit with the Zirconian ethos. The Zirconians are supposed to use their manoeuverability to outflank the enemy and then come in from a side or the rear to deliver the killing blow and the rules appropriately punished me for not doing so. That said I think I may remove the +1 to the enemy for boarding actions and just have the halve boarding value. Another rule point is the blast marker mechanic of the pulse weapons, it just got in the way and was rather annoying (we ended up forgetting about it) so that will definitely be out. I think it needs another playtest game with me using some slightly better tactics to decide if any other changes are needed.
An alternative rule mechanic for the pulse weapons that has occured to me is that the energy tendrils could cause overloads in the target ships power systems. This would be represented by having the batteries inflict critical hits on a 5+, but rolls of 5 would only roll one dice with a roll of 6 probably being you pick which weapon system is affected rather than engine room damaged. I would probably also say that any criticals inflicted in this manner would automatically be repaired at the end of the target ships next turn. If this seems a bit too powerful then it could be changed to rolling for a weapon system damaged as above when another critical hit is caused, i.e. if you get a critical you get a normal crit plus an extra weapon system crit rolled as described above. Another alternative would be to make pulse weapons incapable of inflicting normal criticals (the explaination being that it is due to the distributed nature of the attack) and just have criticals caused on a 5+ rolled on 1D6 (but probably leave a 6 as engine room damaged in this case). What do you think, workable, or just a silly idea?
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Post by Adam on May 6, 2009 7:25:31 GMT -5
An alternative rule mechanic for the pulse weapons that has occured to me is that the energy tendrils could cause overloads in the target ships power systems. This would be represented by having the batteries inflict critical hits on a 5+, but rolls of 5 would only roll one dice with a roll of 6 probably being you pick which weapon system is affected rather than engine room damaged. I would probably also say that any criticals inflicted in this manner would automatically be repaired at the end of the target ships next turn. If this seems a bit too powerful then it could be changed to rolling for a weapon system damaged as above when another critical hit is caused, i.e. if you get a critical you get a normal crit plus an extra weapon system crit rolled as described above. Another alternative would be to make pulse weapons incapable of inflicting normal criticals (the explaination being that it is due to the distributed nature of the attack) and just have criticals caused on a 5+ rolled on 1D6 (but probably leave a 6 as engine room damaged in this case). What do you think, workable, or just a silly idea? It's not a bad idea, although it could turn out to be something we end up forgetting about, or purely annoying. Let's test it sometime.
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Post by dragonlord on May 6, 2009 14:09:19 GMT -5
Another little idea that I had, more because the name sounds cool than anything else, is a change to the Zirconian torpedoes.
They would be called disruptor torpedoes and rather than carrying an explosive charge would instead carry a smallish matter converter that bores into the hull of your ship and literally starts evaporating it into space!
They would work similarly to now but rather than causing damage would cause fire criticals (possibly more than one per 'hit' I'd need to work out the probabilities to balance it).
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Post by Adam on May 7, 2009 19:55:16 GMT -5
Could get annoying, bookkeeping-wise? Neat idea though.
I just went to see the new Star Trek movie today on impulse. Not having experienced Star Trek before, the immediate thing that struck me was the level of WTF. Physics and characterisation both weep. Was a fun film, though (...although, a ship sticking out of either side of a black hole? Who the hell came up with that?!).
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Post by dragonlord on May 9, 2009 8:51:34 GMT -5
Yes I suppose the book-keeping might become an issue, though hopefully not much more than with normal criticals. I am aware also that if this was combined with my proposed critical hit rules for the pulse weapons the Zirconians might become a little overly heavy on the critical-hit-altering-special rules. Still it is something that can be playtested to see how it turns out.
As to the new Star Trek film, while I haven't seen the film itself I have watched Star Trek for years so (particularly as a physicist) I do have to agree about the violations of the laws of physics. I must admit that having a ship sticking out either side of a black hole seems a bit much even for them though, though having said that I believe the Voyager may once have managed the impossible feat of escaping a black hole. Myself I've spent a fair part of the last couple of days glued to Firstborn by Arthur C. Clarke. If you want science fiction that stays largely within the known laws of physics but is still a very good read Clarke is always an excellent choice.
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Post by dragonlord on May 17, 2009 18:11:10 GMT -5
I was having a few thoughts about adding light cruiser class vessels to the Zirconian fleet and I was thinking that it might be interesting to try and make them very much support elements that are most valuable in their synergistic effects on other ships.
I was thinking of having a reconnaissance/scout light cruiser that has limited weapons of its own but makes the shooting of other vessels more accurate, probably gives a left shift either to friendly vessels near it, or to friendly vessels firing at an enemy near it. It might well also give +2 leadership for enemy on special orders like the cobra upgrade. Whether or not I would do anything to make it stealthy I'm not sure, possibly a right column shift to ships firing at it.
I was also thinking of having an anti-ordnance light cruiser, this would probably either have fighter-only launch bays, perhaps that auto-reload, or some sort of area of effect anti-ordnance weapon, like the Necron star-pulse. Again this would have limited anti-ship weapons.
Another possibility I was considering was some sort of capital ship sniper, it would have a big main gun along the same lines as a Nova cannon, but very little other weaponry and possibly no turrets. One way I was thinking of working it was rather than a Nova cannon like gun give it something that can short out all of a ship's shields with one shot, wouldn't be that bad to a cruiser but enemy battleships and grand cruisers would definitely fear it. Probably that version would have slightly more other weapons than a more nova cannon like version.
Not sure about any others, maybe an escort-hunter version, not sure how to make that work though. I might also make a more standard all-rounder one too.
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Post by Adam on May 18, 2009 6:49:43 GMT -5
Those all sound pretty interesting, they'd complement the supposed playstyle of the fleet quite nicely. Take a look at Pete's Endless Void ideas thread, his Scouts are a bit like your light cruiser ideas. Love the idea of a sniper ship (I like snipers), although having a ship that's meant to hang back and shoot but has a big forward-firing cannon is a slightly impractical idea. What about a ship that can moves to either side instead of forwards, but otherwise follows the normal movement rules? (Circle strafe!) Ninja edit: Okay, maybe not, that'd be a bit silly (it'd end up all on its own isolated from the fleet and would be useless in any tactical context). How about letting it fire front/left/right instead?
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Post by dragonlord on May 18, 2009 12:00:58 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking. I was also thinking that given the way I'm going with the critical hit effects the way I seem to be taking the Zirconians is that they aim to disable the enemy fleet (that is systematically shut down all of their systems) and then take them apart at their leisure, which I think fits fairly well, and is a bit different to the way any other fleet works. I just have to get the balance right and not make them overly tedious on the book-keeping.
Yes I did use his scout concept as part of the inspiration for my light cruiser ideas.
The point about the sniper ship being difficult to maneouver into position with a forward arc only weapon is a good point. Perhaps a solution would be to say that it can split its 90* turn for being a light cruiser into 2 45* turns, so it could maneouver around and then turn more towards the enemy to get the gun into arc. Though giving it left/front/right would be another solution and could in fact be described as being a result not of the gun rotating but the ship doing so.
I am also thinking about making the dorsal and ventral weapons on the Zirconian ships left/front/right, or at least some of them, since the fixed forward arcs don't really suite their battle style, they result in the fleet attempting to do what I did in our last game and then dying horribly.
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Post by Adam on May 18, 2009 20:07:01 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking. I was also thinking that given the way I'm going with the critical hit effects the way I seem to be taking the Zirconians is that they aim to disable the enemy fleet (that is systematically shut down all of their systems) and then take them apart at their leisure, which I think fits fairly well, and is a bit different to the way any other fleet works. I just have to get the balance right and not make them overly tedious on the book-keeping. Yes, good point. In that case, why not give them boarding torpedoes (crappish ones) instead of normal torpedoes? Boarding torps get the 45 degree steer normally, and you could always say they had EMP warheads, nanomachines, saboteur drones or something instead of actual crew. The point about the sniper ship being difficult to maneouver into position with a forward arc only weapon is a good point. Perhaps a solution would be to say that it can split its 90* turn for being a light cruiser into 2 45* turns, so it could maneouver around and then turn more towards the enemy to get the gun into arc. Though giving it left/front/right would be another solution and could in fact be described as being a result not of the gun rotating but the ship doing so. I am also thinking about making the dorsal and ventral weapons on the Zirconian ships left/front/right, or at least some of them, since the fixed forward arcs don't really suite their battle style, they result in the fleet attempting to do what I did in our last game and then dying horribly. Yeah, I imagined the left/front/right thing just being a way to represent the ship itself being able to move sideways, or having a bunch of rotating engines around the gun housing. Then again, it could be some really weird weapon system that doesn't require much of an actual gun because most of the charging system is in the ship's body. Some kind of big cyclic particle-accelerator-esque device (stick some circular Tau bits in the middle of the body), extra charging devices running up the wings, and a projector on a turret, perhaps? And yes, more LFR weapons are a good idea. Go for it. All's well if it diminishes the sheer number of guns on some of those things...
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Post by dragonlord on May 21, 2009 15:43:19 GMT -5
I suppose if I went with the shield shorting weapon that would probably not have much directionality in terms of gun barrels, etc. anyway it's something to consider. I'm probably not going to get much more done on the Zirconians now until after exams.
How much adding L/F/R to some of the dorsal/ventral weapons would reduce the number of weapon systems I'm not sure, though I will probably try and rationalise the weaponry a bit at some point.
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Post by Adam on May 22, 2009 7:47:20 GMT -5
I'm probably not going to get much more done on the Zirconians now until after exams. Can't blame you, my game designing is getting sidelined a bit now due to work. Never mind, there's three months of mind-numbingly inactive summer holidays afterwards.
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Post by dragonlord on Jun 29, 2009 18:36:38 GMT -5
I've made some changes to the Zirconian rules (new version linked in first post). I've changed the torpedoes, they're now effectively just boarding torpedoes. I've also altered the way I distribute the weaponry over the vessels, they now all just have forward, broadside and aft as their basic blocks. For the most part I've just redistributed the old weaponry and left the points the same, in a few cases I've made some minor tweaks and adjusted the points.
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Post by Adam on Jul 9, 2009 15:44:07 GMT -5
Alright, I'll give my thoughts as I read through. - Plasmatic pulse weapons: How do you define a group of blast markers? Especially without it becoming really annoying? I think it's best to remove the rule adding markers on a roll of 1, just leave it at a left column shift and two right column shifts through blast markers. - All ahead full: Try changing "while on all ahead full a Zirconian ship may not use its aft pulse weapons battery" to "while on All Ahead Full special orders, a Zirconian ship may not fire any weapons in its aft fire arc" or similar. Just as a catch-all, so the wording's more consistent if you do one without an aft weapon, and it doesn't need clarification if you make one with rear-firing lasers or something. - Ramming: May roll an extra D6/2D6? Why would you want to do that? It's a Leadership test. Unless it's supposed to be 'must roll'? - Critical table: Add something about repairing to the broadside weapons damaged result (whether it can or can't be repaired). - Ships themselves: Ahh, that's better! Much clearer. The single broadside lance of the Persecutor and Varan does seem a bit pointless, though. Oh, and the Persecutor still has separate left and right weapon batteries. Can't see anything that's obviously horribly broken or rubbish though, not at first glance at least. - Overall impression: The Zirconians are rather similar to Chaos ships with Eldar guns bolted on. While they're certainly playable this way, they're not really that unique. I think it'd be nice to see an entirely new set of rules for the way they work - thinking about how they like to work, it seems that they'd be best off sniping at the enemy fleet before speeding through them, spinning around and attacking them from behind. The rules here don't really emphasise this much. Problem is, BFG doesn't really go for synergy rules between units, or even extra rules on the models themselves, with each army's playstyle being defined in its army-wide special rules. I quite like this, as some kind of army support 'spell' mechanic in a 40K space game would be really out of place; the scale's way too large. However, in the Zirconians' case, a once-per-game 90 or 180 degree turn for everyone would be really useful... hmm, maybe you can put that in anyway as a movement rule (call it... inertial nullifiers?). Another thing you could do is make the Zirconians fairly ineffective at short range. What they're then best suited to doing is harass the enemy long-range, and as the two fleets close, the Zirconians AAF, blaze past/through the enemy fleet (using their aft guns for some desultory shooting, if you want to change their AAF to allow them to shoot backwards after moving), whip around and do it again, only this time they'll have time and space to evade the enemy more effectively. They'd have to have fairly low firepower (or low numbers) for this to work well, as it'll be pretty hard for the enemy to draw a bead on them. How about making them less resilient? 6 hits for a cruiser, say? Making them less effective at close range isn't that hard, either. Give them low-damage guns, but with awesome range (45, 60, even 75 on some). In a close-up engagement, they might not necessarily utterly suck, but they'll probably be completely outclassed by the enemy fleet, and nuked-then-boarded in short order. The best way to restrain their damage output while simultaneously not making them horrendously ineffective is to give them low-strength weapons that are nevertheless highly effective, like the Eldar. For example, allow their weapons batteries to reroll to hit (reroll twice if locked on), and make their lances hit on a 3+, with a 6 penetrating shields. Then give them low Strength or Firepower values. Then, that Fpr 4 weapons battery won't wipe out a cruiser, but nor will it do nothing.
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Post by dragonlord on Jul 9, 2009 18:09:45 GMT -5
Yes I believe we concluded during playtesting that this rule was more of a nuisance than it was worth, I thought I had removed it, evidently not. Thanks for pointing that out though, it shall now be removed.
I see your point, consider it changed.
Poor wording on my part again, it means roll an extra D6/2D6 to damage, i.e. a normal cruiser ramming a Zirconian cruiser would roll 9D6 to damage rather than 8.
Added.
Fixed the Persecutor, also fixed the fact it was refered to as the Prosecutor in the fleet list, it is now the Prosecutor everywhere. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the single lances on the Prosecutor and Varan they were left over from redistributing the weapons, I'll probably alter them at some point, either removing the lance entirely or making it stronger depending on what seems appropriate from playtesting.
Chaos playstyle with Eldarish/necron-like weaponry was my initial starting point so this is probably part of the reason they seem like that. I am gradually trying to make them a little more unique though. Hopefully once I work out how to make the fancy synergistic light cruisers work this should help. The ability to do an All Ahead Full then flip over and be pointing directly at the back of the enemy fleet would indeed be very handy. Maybe make it a an extra Special Order only the Zirconians have access to, one that is probably limited to being used only once every other turn by any individual ship. Possibly also say that a ship can't make any other movement Special Orders the turn after it has done this. You will also note that I've increased the speed of the battleships to 25cm, very fast for a battleship I know but I felt that at 20cm they just really didn't fit in with the fleet (they are also, and have been all along, though I don't know whether you noticed, allowed to use Come To New Heading). Having said that though I'm beginning to think that battleship class vessels may not be very fitting in a Zirconian fleet anyway. I'm contemplating increasing the speed of a few of the cruiser classes to 35cm. Any light cruisers will definitely be 35cm and quite probably 40cm.
Regarding making them less effective at short range while keeping the effectiveness at long range one potential thing I could do is decouple the pulse weapons from the gunnery table, or possibly say that long range for a Zirconian vessel is over 45cm not over 30cm. 75cm range weapons in some cases is also possible, e.g. on the battleships if I keep them.
Another thought that just occured to me as an alternative to the All Ahead Full And Flip SO is a kind of double AAF or delayed AAF, the Zirconians fly into the midst of the enemy fleet (with no turns allowed as on AAF), fire all round at half strength then AAF out of the enemy fleet in the Ordnance phase. This would represent them strafing the enemy fleet while on their attack run through it. Not quite like the Eldar who they can dive in and then run back, the Zirconians would have to spear all the way through.
I can also of course alter the weapons battery/lance balance towards lances, which are generally long ranged weapons (and would also be bad for Necrons, which would fit thematically). Actually on that point I have altered the way that Laser Cannons work, rolls to hit of a 6 now negate Necron reactive armour. If this seems unbalanced I'll change it back.
I'll also try and get some rules for the light cruisers worked up, I also need to do the transports/warp tugs at some point, though those are less of a priority.
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Post by Adam on Jul 11, 2009 13:06:12 GMT -5
Poor wording on my part again, it means roll an extra D6/2D6 to damage, i.e. a normal cruiser ramming a Zirconian cruiser would roll 9D6 to damage rather than 8. Oh, right. ;D I wasn't quite sure what to do with the single lances on the Prosecutor and Varan they were left over from redistributing the weapons, I'll probably alter them at some point, either removing the lance entirely or making it stronger depending on what seems appropriate from playtesting. Fair enough. I'll help you with that Chaos playstyle with Eldarish/necron-like weaponry was my initial starting point so this is probably part of the reason they seem like that. I am gradually trying to make them a little more unique though. Hopefully once I work out how to make the fancy synergistic light cruisers work this should help. The ability to do an All Ahead Full then flip over and be pointing directly at the back of the enemy fleet would indeed be very handy. Maybe make it a an extra Special Order only the Zirconians have access to, one that is probably limited to being used only once every other turn by any individual ship. Possibly also say that a ship can't make any other movement Special Orders the turn after it has done this. You will also note that I've increased the speed of the battleships to 25cm, very fast for a battleship I know but I felt that at 20cm they just really didn't fit in with the fleet (they are also, and have been all along, though I don't know whether you noticed, allowed to use Come To New Heading). Having said that though I'm beginning to think that battleship class vessels may not be very fitting in a Zirconian fleet anyway. I'm contemplating increasing the speed of a few of the cruiser classes to 35cm. Any light cruisers will definitely be 35cm and quite probably 40cm. Fast, good. That suits 'em. How about allowing the entire fleet to Come to New Heading without a leadership test once per game? They all have to do it and may not perform any other special orders (encouraging cohesion). To avoid ships getting stuck amid the enemy lines because of a bad AAF roll, how about adding something like 4D6+10cm to the ships' speed instead when they AAF? Although if they're 25cm minimum, that's probably not necessary, on reflection (especially as the enemy's going to fly away from them a bit next turn). I didn't notice your battleships were capable of CTNH. Subtle. Regarding making them less effective at short range while keeping the effectiveness at long range one potential thing I could do is decouple the pulse weapons from the gunnery table, or possibly say that long range for a Zirconian vessel is over 45cm not over 30cm. 75cm range weapons in some cases is also possible, e.g. on the battleships if I keep them. The long range thing is a good idea. Another thought that just occured to me as an alternative to the All Ahead Full And Flip SO is a kind of double AAF or delayed AAF, the Zirconians fly into the midst of the enemy fleet (with no turns allowed as on AAF), fire all round at half strength then AAF out of the enemy fleet in the Ordnance phase. This would represent them strafing the enemy fleet while on their attack run through it. Not quite like the Eldar who they can dive in and then run back, the Zirconians would have to spear all the way through. This is an excellent idea. This and the Super CTNH could be abilities of the admiral - each admiral comes with one such ability, and a high admiral comes with both. It works once per game, and applies to everyone in the fleet, no exceptions, bypassing the Leadership test. I can also of course alter the weapons battery/lance balance towards lances, which are generally long ranged weapons (and would also be bad for Necrons, which would fit thematically). Actually on that point I have altered the way that Laser Cannons work, rolls to hit of a 6 now negate Necron reactive armour. If this seems unbalanced I'll change it back. Leave the weapons batteries in, they're a staple of BFG firepower. Necrons and Eldar ignore far too many of the core rules for there to be a fleet that ignores the Gunnery table of all things... I'll also try and get some rules for the light cruisers worked up, I also need to do the transports/warp tugs at some point, though those are less of a priority. Light cruisers gooood. We need a Chaos one, for that matter. I downloaded rules for a 'Heretic' light cruiser off the BFG website, but it's not that interesting, and it's about 130 points for mediocre abilities, stuff that when I can get a Slaughter for 165.
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Post by dragonlord on Jul 11, 2009 17:51:00 GMT -5
4D6 plus a base amount is a possible alternative to 6D6, it would also be perhaps more representative of the fact that the engines are capable of much higher outputs, since the engines are easily capable of this extra boost it should be less random, perhaps.
Linking the super special orders to the admiral is a very good idea, I will almost certainly do that.
There are various Chaos light cruisers floating around out there, but then also with cruisers like the slaughter Chaos doesn't need light cruisers so much.
I was having a think about a potential capital ship hunter/sniper light cruiser for the Zirconians. What I was thinking was perhaps a weapon that gets a number of lance shots equal to twice the number of shields on the target vessel. So against a typical cruiser it would get 4 lance shots, but against a battleship it would get 8 and against a typical escort it would get 2 lance shots. It would have quite a long range but would probably be the ships only ranged weapon, I was also thinking that to get around the problem of it being difficult to get into arc if it was fixed forward I would make it able to fire in the forward 180 degrees rather then 90 degrees, but not the full 270 of left/front/right orientable weapons. Overall it would probably have an effectiveness similar to a Nova Cannon. The fluff would be something along the lines of an energy beam that causes a massive feedback surge through the target's shield generators. Against Eldar I would probably say a holofield=1 shield and against necrons say no. of shields =7-reactive armour save (so 1 for a raider and 3 for a tombship). What do you think?
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Post by Adam on Jul 13, 2009 13:39:48 GMT -5
I was having a think about a potential capital ship hunter/sniper light cruiser for the Zirconians. What I was thinking was perhaps a weapon that gets a number of lance shots equal to twice the number of shields on the target vessel. So against a typical cruiser it would get 4 lance shots, but against a battleship it would get 8 and against a typical escort it would get 2 lance shots. It would have quite a long range but would probably be the ships only ranged weapon, I was also thinking that to get around the problem of it being difficult to get into arc if it was fixed forward I would make it able to fire in the forward 180 degrees rather then 90 degrees, but not the full 270 of left/front/right orientable weapons. Overall it would probably have an effectiveness similar to a Nova Cannon. The fluff would be something along the lines of an energy beam that causes a massive feedback surge through the target's shield generators. Against Eldar I would probably say a holofield=1 shield and against necrons say no. of shields =7-reactive armour save (so 1 for a raider and 3 for a tombship). What do you think? This is an excellent idea. It's not as effective against Necrons as Zirconian fluff would suggest (maybe we should allow it to ignore reactive hull saves - although that might be too powerful, I'm not sure) but it's pretty powerful against normal ships. Having said that, averaging four hits against a battleship with one light cruiser might be a bit too much... especially if you can take lots of them. Hmm. How about not doubling the number of shields? Then it's not so bad. Limiting their numbers is also a good idea. (Bear in mind that the only thing in the game with 8 lance shots is the Chaos Blackstone Fortress, which only moves 10cm a turn and yet still costs 750 points.)
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Post by dragonlord on Jul 13, 2009 16:13:19 GMT -5
I would almost certainly make them limited in number, the light cruisers are supposed to be support vessels not make up the bulk of the fleet. The not being so effective against Necrons and how powerful it can be when faced with ordinary vessels are both things I thought about, and are reasons why this is probably just an initial idea. Though the activated blackstone fortress is 750 with its only weapon being the warp cannons bear in mind that the warp cannons are not just 8 lances they are 8 lances that penetrate shields and have a range of 90cm, and the blackstone itself has 16 hits and 6 shields making it almost impenetrable to anything other than ordnance (as it has no turrets). Though having said that against a blackstone my suggested light cruiser would currently get 12 lance shots! That is rather too extreme I think.
Similarly to the blackstone the cap ship hunter/sniper light cruiser would have its main gun as its own weapon and probably have limited defences in the way of shields and turrets, maybe 1 shield and 1 turret.
A variation on the shield based weapon would be one that just automatically shorts out all of the shields. Statistically against a fully shielded vessel it would be the same, but would have less chance for very high damage lucky rolls. I did also think of basing the number of shots on the starting number of hits of the starting vessel, so that would be 4 still for a cruiser but only 6 now for a battleship.
While I'm at it I was thinking of a stealth/recon light cruiser which has an ability that gives it the chance to take over one weapon system on a nearby enemy ship. This would probably be quite a short ranged ability (no more than 30cm), other than that I was thinking of having it provide an extra +1 to leadership for enemy on special orders and possible have it make all nearby enemy ships (probably ~30cm range again, maybe less) count as closing for the purposes of the rest of the fleet. Its own weapons would be fairly minimal, a few weapons batteries and maybe some torpedoes.
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Post by Adam on Jul 14, 2009 5:23:17 GMT -5
I would almost certainly make them limited in number, the light cruisers are supposed to be support vessels not make up the bulk of the fleet. The not being so effective against Necrons and how powerful it can be when faced with ordinary vessels are both things I thought about, and are reasons why this is probably just an initial idea. Though the activated blackstone fortress is 750 with its only weapon being the warp cannons bear in mind that the warp cannons are not just 8 lances they are 8 lances that penetrate shields and have a range of 90cm, and the blackstone itself has 16 hits and 6 shields making it almost impenetrable to anything other than ordnance (as it has no turrets). Though having said that against a blackstone my suggested light cruiser would currently get 12 lance shots! That is rather too extreme I think. It's still 8 lance shots - 8 lances against a ship with no shields is the same whether it's coming from the Blackstone Fortress or your light cruiser. And the light cruiser can move around a bit more, whereas the Fortress is one big target. (Blackstone Fortresses are actually a lot easier to kill than you'd think. You just bomb the living snot out of them, especially after concentrated fire from the rest of your army. Despoiler moves towards Blackstone Fortress, deploys wave of eight bombers, bombers fly into Fortress and make 8D6 attacks, Fortress weeps.) Also, a thought: fluffwise, how does this work against Tyranids? I can see it not doing a whole lot... Similarly to the blackstone the cap ship hunter/sniper light cruiser would have its main gun as its own weapon and probably have limited defences in the way of shields and turrets, maybe 1 shield and 1 turret. A variation on the shield based weapon would be one that just automatically shorts out all of the shields. Statistically against a fully shielded vessel it would be the same, but would have less chance for very high damage lucky rolls. I did also think of basing the number of shots on the starting number of hits of the starting vessel, so that would be 4 still for a cruiser but only 6 now for a battleship. These could certainly work, and the weapon based on starting hits wouldn't need special cases for Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tyranids or Necrons. Still very powerful, but if it's on an easily destroyed light cruiser then it could work. We'll have to playtest it. While I'm at it I was thinking of a stealth/recon light cruiser which has an ability that gives it the chance to take over one weapon system on a nearby enemy ship. This would probably be quite a short ranged ability (no more than 30cm), other than that I was thinking of having it provide an extra +1 to leadership for enemy on special orders and possible have it make all nearby enemy ships (probably ~30cm range again, maybe less) count as closing for the purposes of the rest of the fleet. Its own weapons would be fairly minimal, a few weapons batteries and maybe some torpedoes. Oo, now I like this. Do it.
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