CB questions and thoughts

[deeman]

Hello,

Played 3 games with a friend of mine and we are enjoying CB a lot. Some things that have come up though are:

Can you make a turn at the end of your move? As in move to your last hex and then turn. The between requirement in the rules left us a bit confused.

If a cluster missile enters a hex with multiple asgms or bombardment missiles, does it attack them all?

One of the things my opponent and I both grimace at is the way PD works. Seems just too random with a slight advantage going to the ship since it wins ties. We were thinking why not use a similar mechanic to FC. The number of PDs possessed by a ship is added to each die roll against the missile defense of 9. So a ship with 1 PD would get one die needing an eight, while a ship with 4 PD would get 4 dice needing 5s. The PD crit would need to be identical to the FC one as well.

The great thing about CB is we rarely have to pick up the rulebook during play. I don't know if it is intuitiveness of the rules or the simplicity, but without seeming dumbed down. Please keep that in mind MR. Rules Designer as you entertain some of the changes proposed here in the forums. Keep up the good work.

[TheDreadnought]

Thanks for your purchase! Glad you are enjoying the game!

Yes, the move forward between turns just means that you can't turn twice in the same hex.

When a cluster missile enters a hex, roll six attack dice. You can kill as many targets in that hex as you hit with your attack die roll.

The way you suggest re-writing PD makes it a bit too powerful. I'll tell you why I wrote PD the way I did, then offer a suggestion if you still want to change it.

When writing games, I do a lot of research into what people like and don't like about the games they play. Back in the previous Colonial Battlefleet game I wrote, I hadn't done that research (since I basically wrote the game as a whim over a weekend). A ship just got a certain number of PD dice and rolled against a fixed missile target number. However, during my research a lot of people made the comment that they didn't like making a die roll that canceled out the effects of a previous die roll (so that will appear nowhere in any of my games). Basically, people didn't like the concept of the 40k armor save mechanic, is what they were getting at, but I felt it went deeper. I extended that logic to people having achieved something, didn't want a subsequent die roll by their opponent to negate the value of their achievement.

Successfully hitting with missiles is not easy and requires skill. If the next step is that the attacker sits passively by and waits for the defender to roll to see how many he kills, the attacker feels kinda helpless to control his own fate. Similarly, if the defender merely sits by and waits while the attacker rolls attack dice against a fixed point defense number, the defender doesn't really feel like he's having an opportunity to proactively stop the attacker's attacks and shoot down missiles. . . PD just becomes variation on the range to target mechanic. By giving both sides the opportunity to roll dice in an opposed roll, it really convey's the flavor of the ship's defenses trying to penetrate the missile's defenses and vice versa. It doesn't turn either side into a passive observer, and doesn't negate the feeling of accomplishment by the attacker.

If you still want to change it, I'd probably just say a PD die has to roll a 8+ to kill an ASGM or a 9+ to kill a bombardment missile.

[warchariot]

Take a look at the missile tactics threat elsewhere. When you first start wirh missile you try to close and shoot, so P Def can be overwhelmed, once you play some missile ranges move out to very long ranges. The P Def can and will still be overwhelmed by missiles, but you have many other ways to take them down or make them miss.

[deeman]

Thanks for the rules clarification Thedreadnought and thanks for your input as well Warchariot. We like how missiles work, but just feel the dice-off mechanic for PD to be a weak spot in an otherwise exciting and engaging game. Can't say I understand the helpless feeling the attacker would get as its not a concern with the defender when shot by direct fire weapons, but that's fine.

I appreciate the suggestion Thedreadnought on an alternative to the current PD mechanic, but the one you suggested makes missiles too hard to kill. Unless you meant to add the #PD to each die rolls as in my original suggestion. I like the idea of being able to make your ship more missile resistant by paying for more PD during construction without it being so random in its effectiveness. That's basically what we are shooting for.

[unclejoe]

Well if you have more PD than incoming missiles, you can 'gang up' on the missiles. Also note that EACH Screen-role ship within 2 of the target adds +1 PD die in it's defense.

So if you have a ship with 3 PD and it has 2 nearby Screen ships, it had 5 PD dice to defend with. That should be enough to take a chunk out of any incoming barrage!

[kashre]

Also, unless the missiles are fired right in your teeth, any ship which ends it's turn adjacent to a missile volley can auto-kill one missile per PD rating with ECM... which is actually pretty powerful anti-missile juju there.

[warchariot]

There are a lot of ways to defaet missiles, but if you have 6-8 coming in at once, you're 3 P Def doesn't seem like much, especially when you miss on all three!