Post by kashre on Nov 20, 2011 3:30:29 GMT -5
I finally got a chance to try out some house rules regarding fighter combat and crits that I've been thinking on.
Scenario:
Intel indicates an enemy carrier force is in transit to the front lines. A Rapid Deployment Force built around a BCR has been sent to intercept it and prevent it from joining the fight. To help deal with the fighters an RDF Escort Carrier has been attached.
Carrier Force:
1x Pilum BCC 624 tons
2x Stalwart CAB 314 tons
4x Arbalest CLR 144 tons
RDF Force:
1x Spatha BCR 624 tons
2x Assaulter CAR 314 tons
4x Saber CLR 152 tons (note that one was the Saber V escort carrier variant)
Early game:
My G/F, playing the RDF force, made the somewhat strange decision to split her fleet early on. Her light ships hung back while she went about launching fighters from the CVE (which took a couple turns, being that it was not a carrier role ship). It having been a while since we played CBF we mis-remembered the rules and allowed her to launch fighter equal to her ships size class (2) per turn, rather than the 1/2 the size class stated in the rules. Still, that worked out well enough for me, and we might keep it in place since it's in line with the goal of buffing fighters up a bit for an upcoming campaign we're going to do.
With her CAs and the BC accelerating to get into torp range of my fleet, my CLRs dumped some long range missiles which she easily flew around with her sprightly little RDF ships. On the other hand, with her heavies charging down on us and her Interceptors still deploying in her backfield, it was easy for my strike fighters to get in and mass on her BCR. This is where the new rule for fighters got its first real test. It's pretty simple: Strike fighters are allowed a range of 2 for anti-shipping strikes. If they're on a line between two shield facings, their attack goes to the rear-most shield.
the result was that we had 9 squadrons of fighters all able to fire on her BCR at the same time: four on the aft shield, 3 on the aft-port and 2 on the aft-starboard. It was not a Hail Mary strike by any means, but it did smash down all 3 of her shields and do 15-20 hull worth of damage to her. This brought into play the second (and very major) house rule we were testing out: critical hits scattered throughout the hull boxes on the ships.
Against something with so many hull boxes and so much space between the crits, it actually wasn't that big of a deal. It DID increase the number of systems that were damaged and certainly made decisions about damage control at the end of the turn more difficult.
Mid Game:
At this point she realized that having her CLRs way back with her now advancing fighters was not going to help her when my missiles started flying, but she formed her BCR up behind her CARs and went about trying to thin my missiles out by taking out the Arbalests before they could fire with her BCR. One of my poor light cruisers got vaporized by a cascade of excess damage from empty hardpoint crits, but she managed to roll 3 ones with her other hardpoint and my second CLR got off with just a scratch.
finally, it was my turn. This is where we made our second, and most major mistake of the game: I was using an older printout of the sequence of play and my fighters were attacking AFTER ship fire. Doh! Still, my was able to dump 12 missiles at close range which would vaporize one of her CAs the next turn, while her CA's crippled one of my CAs and my fighters continued to pound on her BCR, knocking out both of her torp hardpoints, for a mercy, if a temporary one since she got them repaired quickly. I thought my CAs were going to be the stars of the show, but they were total failures. Three heavy lasers is basically nothing in terms of firepower, and not a single mag cannon would hit an enemy hull for the entire game. Even their missiles failed to hit much, being shot down by PD every time they made an attack.
On the other side of the map our interceptors had merged and wild dogfights broke out, pretty much all of which I lost
But that's ok, since really my interceptors were just buying time for my strike fighters to keep the heat on.
End game:
At this point I only had two CLRs left, both damaged and without any ammo. but they DID have two marines and her Saber CLRs only had 2 security each, so I swung out to try and capture some ships. One of my CLRs got waxed by long range torp fire from her remaining CA, but the other one actually got some troops on board and managed to take out one of her ships.
Finally, everything was a giant furball in the middle of the board. My Strike fighters started to die to her interceptors which had decimated my own interceptor squadrons, and she had all of her ships parked against the rear of her BCR which still had an un-repaired shield crit on it. As my last CA started to die to torpedo volleys I was getting a little worried, until the first volley of 16 missile I had fired at long range circled back about 7 turns after they were launched. My G/F didn't notice them buzzing around off to the side and was busy concentrating on a formation that would deny my fighters good attack positions. I took out one of her CLs with what was left of my strike fighters, and then she started cussing when the missiles she had forgotten about slashed in from her flank and took our her CLR and her CA with a reactor crit. The reactor explosion did 25 damage through the down shield on the back of her BCR, which was all it took to end things.
Bottom line: I liked the changes we made, although obviously the need more testing. I think she would have had a much better chance of winning if she had kept her fleet intact with light ships screening larger ships and fighters screening lighter ships... but even the way it worked out, it was a pretty close game. I am becoming more and more of the opinion that RDF torp fleets are a tad overpowered, as even when we use them poorly they seem to do exceedingly well.
Further thoughts on the house rules we used are in this thread:
www.steeldreadnought.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cbhr&action=display&thread=795
Edit: Terrible cell phone pic of the game. You can't even tell what half the ships are We were using Noble Armada minis for the warships and Silent Death minis for the fighter squadrons because we didn't have enough of the Noble Armada fighters to cover all the squadrons in play.
i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb184/Kashre/IMG_20111119_185749.jpg
Scenario:
Intel indicates an enemy carrier force is in transit to the front lines. A Rapid Deployment Force built around a BCR has been sent to intercept it and prevent it from joining the fight. To help deal with the fighters an RDF Escort Carrier has been attached.
Carrier Force:
1x Pilum BCC 624 tons
2x Stalwart CAB 314 tons
4x Arbalest CLR 144 tons
RDF Force:
1x Spatha BCR 624 tons
2x Assaulter CAR 314 tons
4x Saber CLR 152 tons (note that one was the Saber V escort carrier variant)
Early game:
My G/F, playing the RDF force, made the somewhat strange decision to split her fleet early on. Her light ships hung back while she went about launching fighters from the CVE (which took a couple turns, being that it was not a carrier role ship). It having been a while since we played CBF we mis-remembered the rules and allowed her to launch fighter equal to her ships size class (2) per turn, rather than the 1/2 the size class stated in the rules. Still, that worked out well enough for me, and we might keep it in place since it's in line with the goal of buffing fighters up a bit for an upcoming campaign we're going to do.
With her CAs and the BC accelerating to get into torp range of my fleet, my CLRs dumped some long range missiles which she easily flew around with her sprightly little RDF ships. On the other hand, with her heavies charging down on us and her Interceptors still deploying in her backfield, it was easy for my strike fighters to get in and mass on her BCR. This is where the new rule for fighters got its first real test. It's pretty simple: Strike fighters are allowed a range of 2 for anti-shipping strikes. If they're on a line between two shield facings, their attack goes to the rear-most shield.
the result was that we had 9 squadrons of fighters all able to fire on her BCR at the same time: four on the aft shield, 3 on the aft-port and 2 on the aft-starboard. It was not a Hail Mary strike by any means, but it did smash down all 3 of her shields and do 15-20 hull worth of damage to her. This brought into play the second (and very major) house rule we were testing out: critical hits scattered throughout the hull boxes on the ships.
Against something with so many hull boxes and so much space between the crits, it actually wasn't that big of a deal. It DID increase the number of systems that were damaged and certainly made decisions about damage control at the end of the turn more difficult.
Mid Game:
At this point she realized that having her CLRs way back with her now advancing fighters was not going to help her when my missiles started flying, but she formed her BCR up behind her CARs and went about trying to thin my missiles out by taking out the Arbalests before they could fire with her BCR. One of my poor light cruisers got vaporized by a cascade of excess damage from empty hardpoint crits, but she managed to roll 3 ones with her other hardpoint and my second CLR got off with just a scratch.
finally, it was my turn. This is where we made our second, and most major mistake of the game: I was using an older printout of the sequence of play and my fighters were attacking AFTER ship fire. Doh! Still, my was able to dump 12 missiles at close range which would vaporize one of her CAs the next turn, while her CA's crippled one of my CAs and my fighters continued to pound on her BCR, knocking out both of her torp hardpoints, for a mercy, if a temporary one since she got them repaired quickly. I thought my CAs were going to be the stars of the show, but they were total failures. Three heavy lasers is basically nothing in terms of firepower, and not a single mag cannon would hit an enemy hull for the entire game. Even their missiles failed to hit much, being shot down by PD every time they made an attack.
On the other side of the map our interceptors had merged and wild dogfights broke out, pretty much all of which I lost
But that's ok, since really my interceptors were just buying time for my strike fighters to keep the heat on. End game:
At this point I only had two CLRs left, both damaged and without any ammo. but they DID have two marines and her Saber CLRs only had 2 security each, so I swung out to try and capture some ships. One of my CLRs got waxed by long range torp fire from her remaining CA, but the other one actually got some troops on board and managed to take out one of her ships.
Finally, everything was a giant furball in the middle of the board. My Strike fighters started to die to her interceptors which had decimated my own interceptor squadrons, and she had all of her ships parked against the rear of her BCR which still had an un-repaired shield crit on it. As my last CA started to die to torpedo volleys I was getting a little worried, until the first volley of 16 missile I had fired at long range circled back about 7 turns after they were launched. My G/F didn't notice them buzzing around off to the side and was busy concentrating on a formation that would deny my fighters good attack positions. I took out one of her CLs with what was left of my strike fighters, and then she started cussing when the missiles she had forgotten about slashed in from her flank and took our her CLR and her CA with a reactor crit. The reactor explosion did 25 damage through the down shield on the back of her BCR, which was all it took to end things.
Bottom line: I liked the changes we made, although obviously the need more testing. I think she would have had a much better chance of winning if she had kept her fleet intact with light ships screening larger ships and fighters screening lighter ships... but even the way it worked out, it was a pretty close game. I am becoming more and more of the opinion that RDF torp fleets are a tad overpowered, as even when we use them poorly they seem to do exceedingly well.
Further thoughts on the house rules we used are in this thread:
www.steeldreadnought.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cbhr&action=display&thread=795
Edit: Terrible cell phone pic of the game. You can't even tell what half the ships are
We were using Noble Armada minis for the warships and Silent Death minis for the fighter squadrons because we didn't have enough of the Noble Armada fighters to cover all the squadrons in play. i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb184/Kashre/IMG_20111119_185749.jpg
