Some MvM Questions

[daniel]

Does a Point Defense critical take down Flak Batteries as well as PD? I don't see any other way to harm them.

It seems Early Cyborgs/Cylons are unable to board or computer infiltrate, and their Mk 1 Reaper/Raiders (PEN:d6 DAM:1) are unable to harm an early Acropolis (AV:8). If that's the case the rules are unable to re-create events in the re-imagined First Cylon War. Am I misunderstanding? Suggestions?

Thanks!

[fastgit]

Dec 28, 2010 12:00:46 GMT -5 daniel said:

Does a Point Defense critical take down Flak Batteries as well as PD?

I don't believe so. Flak Batteries (as I understand them) are spread out across a considerable expanse of the hull of any vessel so equipped... so much so that they take up 5% of the tonnage. A single critical would not be able to knock that system off-line. Or so it seems, as I can't find any specific mention of how Flak Batteries are destroyed (in either CB or MvM).

Dread?

Dec 28, 2010 12:00:46 GMT -5 daniel said:

It seems Early Cyborgs/Cylons are unable to board or computer infiltrate, and their Mk 1 Reaper/Raiders (PEN:d6 DAM:1) are unable to harm an early Acropolis (AV:8).

Any fighters with the Boarding trait automatically board the target vessel if they are not shot down by PD or Flak Batteries. Marine squads (or Centurions) deploy in numbers equal to the Boarding (x) trait.

MvM, p12:

"After resolving point defense and flak battery fire, if the squadron still comprises 4 fighters or more, it may make a cyber-infiltration attack.

"Roll 1d6 for the fighter squadron. If the result is greater than the target ship’s hull size, the fighter squadron inflicts 1 fire control critical on the target. If the target ship has no fire control points remaining, it inflicts a bridge critical on the target instead. These attacks inflict no hull damage."

[daniel]

Dec 28, 2010 13:40:38 GMT -5 fastgit said:

Dec 28, 2010 12:00:46 GMT -5 daniel said:

Does a Point Defense critical take down Flak Batteries as well as PD?

I don't believe so. Flak Batteries (as I understand them) are spread out across a considerable expanse of the hull of any vessel so equipped... so much so that they take up 5% of the tonnage. A single critical would not be able to knock that system off-line. Or so it seems, as I can't find any specific mention of how Flak Batteries are destroyed (in either CB or MvM).

Dread?

Dec 28, 2010 12:00:46 GMT -5 daniel said:

It seems Early Cyborgs/Cylons are unable to board or computer infiltrate, and their Mk 1 Reaper/Raiders (PEN:d6 DAM:1) are unable to harm an early Acropolis (AV:8).

Any fighters with the Boarding trait automatically board the target vessel if they are not shot down by PD or Flak Batteries. Marine squads (or Centurions) deploy in numbers equal to the Boarding (x) trait.

MvM, p12:

"After resolving point defense and flak battery fire, if the squadron still comprises 4 fighters or more, it may make a cyber-infiltration attack.

"Roll 1d6 for the fighter squadron. If the result is greater than the target ship’s hull size, the fighter squadron inflicts 1 fire control critical on the target. If the target ship has no fire control points remaining, it inflicts a bridge critical on the target instead. These attacks inflict no hull damage."

Thanks. The problem I see is that early Cyborg fighters don't have any of those traits, and fighter damage that doesn't penetrate armor is halved and rounded down. Since a D6 PEN can't touch AV8 the Reaper 1's damage of 1 is negated to zero, making them ineffective against the early Acropolis.

My jury is still out re Flak...

[TheDreadnought]

Flak is not disabled by a point defense critical. Fastgit is correct that flak systems are huge, dispersed systems that cover much of the hull, and are pretty much impossible to knock out. There is no centralized fire control, just dozens or hundreds of individual flak cannons the loss of any one or even several has a negligible effect, and for the purposes of the game has been ignored, since anything that would have a dramatic enough impact to disable significant numbers of the flak cannons, would in all likelyhood destroy the ship. So on a "reward vs. rules" basis, tracking flak degredation is not worthwhile.

You are correct, early cyborgs could not computer infiltrate.

The Raider damage value might be an errata item. I'll get back to you.

[daniel]

Dec 28, 2010 15:29:35 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Flak is not disabled by a point defense critical. Fastgit is correct that flak systems are huge, dispersed systems that cover much of the hull, and are pretty much impossible to knock out. There is no centralized fire control, just dozens or hundreds of individual flak cannons the loss of any one or even several has a negligible effect, and for the purposes of the game has been ignored, since anything that would have a dramatic enough impact to disable significant numbers of the flak cannons, would in all likelyhood destroy the ship. So on a "reward vs. rules" basis, tracking flak degredation is not worthwhile.

You are correct, early cyborgs could not computer infiltrate.

The Raider damage value might be an errata item. I'll get back to you.

Gotcha. I'll wait to see what you do but would like to see this changed to better fit the reimagined series. Adama's recount of Galactica getting boarded during the first Cylon War and his insistence against networked computers because of Cylon effectiveness with them during the same conflict speaks volumes to me. Columbia's flak/pd defenses being down during his flashback to Operation Raptor Talon lead me to want to make all go down on a PD critical. Sure the result sucks - that's what makes it a critical hit. That's just me. Still love the system.

[warchariot]

You could add boarding to the early reapers to simulate this battle. Remember, Adama's flashbacks, as I remember were at the end of the first war.

Dread, I think the Early reapers were/or should be 2 damage for the reasons above. I'm sure this was my mistake.

[daniel]

I'm thinking early Centurions could be d8 for boarding instead of d10, while the Colonials keep d6. That'd capture how they're slower and have a bit less firepower than the new ones, and thus a bit easier to pound into scrap with a wrench.

[TheDreadnought]

Re: Centurions - Well I'm not really looking to officially introduce a new die type in this release. Especially not for only one purpose. . . but it does sound like a great idea for a house rule. Wouldn't really have any downside that I can see - aside from requiring an additional type of die at the table.

[fastgit]

I agree with both. Early reapers/raiders should be able to board... and I like the d8 for early Centurions.

[warchariot]

I have to admit that most of our efforts were on the 2nd war, not the early one. Maybe after Blood and Chrome comes out we can house rule what we see from that vision of the early war.

[daniel]

What will Blood & Chrome cover?

[craftyshafty]

Blood and Chrome is the pilot for a new BSG TV series set during the First Cylon War.

[daniel]

Dec 28, 2010 18:34:59 GMT -5 craftyshafty said:

Blood and Chrome is the pilot for a new BSG TV series set during the First Cylon War.

Ooohhhhh.....

I had not heard of this.

[coldsteel]

I too noticed the early raiders could not penetrate the Acropolis armor, nor the Viper a base star. But, being a fan of the original series (hey, it brings back fond memories of my girlfriend who looked like Laurette Sprang's little sister), I also thought the early raiders had too high a dogfight rating and the base ships had too much armor. Early raiders attacked in swarms and heavily outnumbered the Vipers. The Cylons always kept their base ships out of the fight whenever possible. So I have been playing around with the ratings.

First, I tried raiders with a d8 dogfight, but the kill ratios were still too close. Then I dropped the dogfight to a d6 and thought the results matched the show much better. Of course that left the issue of how many raiders the base ship carried. I reworked the base ship to Mass 423, with AV 6, 2 ASGM launchers, 2 cluster missile launchers, 9 raiders in 3 hard points, and 3 early heavy raiders in the last hard point. Over Christmas, I ran 2 base ships vs. 1 Hermes (original Galactica) 4 times. That was 18 raiders and 6 heavy raiders vs 6 Vipers. Each side won twice, although the results were all pretty close. Raiders were slaughtered in great numbers, but they kept attritting the Vipers. In only 1 game did any Vipers survive. Once the fighters are gone, all those raiders may not cause a critical, but the hull points will add up fast. Of course, this all created a new issue with the number of squadrons with only 1 or 2 raiders left clogging up the table. I may try letting the Cylons regroup raider squadrons in flight if they aren't involved in combat.

I was satisfied with the lower base ship armor ratings. The Cylons have an incentive to stand off and launch waves of fighters and missiles. Once the battlestar closed to mag cannon range, the life expectancy of a base ship was about 2 turns.

Another feature from the original series were Cylon suicide fighters loaded with explosives that crashed into landing bays. I may try treating heavy raiders as ASGMs that automatically penetrate armor and destroy a landing bay, just to give the Colonials something to worry about.

So far, all my games have been solo. I am running at least 1 game this weekend at the local gaming establishment. Anyone in the Atlanta area is welcome to drop by.

Joe

[craftyshafty]

Dec 28, 2010 19:23:51 GMT -5 coldsteel said:

Anyone in the Atlanta area is welcome to drop by.

Anyone in the Atlantia is also welcome to participate.

[daniel]

Dec 28, 2010 19:23:51 GMT -5 coldsteel said:

I too noticed the early raiders could not penetrate the Acropolis armor, nor the Viper a base star. But, being a fan of the original series (hey, it brings back fond memories of my girlfriend who looked like Laurette Sprang's little sister), I also thought the early raiders had too high a dogfight rating and the base ships had too much armor. Early raiders attacked in swarms and heavily outnumbered the Vipers. The Cylons always kept their base ships out of the fight whenever possible. So I have been playing around with the ratings.

First, I tried raiders with a d8 dogfight, but the kill ratios were still too close. Then I dropped the dogfight to a d6 and thought the results matched the show much better. Of course that left the issue of how many raiders the base ship carried. I reworked the base ship to Mass 423, with AV 6, 2 ASGM launchers, 2 cluster missile launchers, 9 raiders in 3 hard points, and 3 early heavy raiders in the last hard point. Over Christmas, I ran 2 base ships vs. 1 Hermes (original Galactica) 4 times. That was 18 raiders and 6 heavy raiders vs 6 Vipers. Each side won twice, although the results were all pretty close. Raiders were slaughtered in great numbers, but they kept attritting the Vipers. In only 1 game did any Vipers survive. Once the fighters are gone, all those raiders may not cause a critical, but the hull points will add up fast. Of course, this all created a new issue with the number of squadrons with only 1 or 2 raiders left clogging up the table. I may try letting the Cylons regroup raider squadrons in flight if they aren't involved in combat.

I was satisfied with the lower base ship armor ratings. The Cylons have an incentive to stand off and launch waves of fighters and missiles. Once the battlestar closed to mag cannon range, the life expectancy of a base ship was about 2 turns.

Another feature from the original series were Cylon suicide fighters loaded with explosives that crashed into landing bays. I may try treating heavy raiders as ASGMs that automatically penetrate armor and destroy a landing bay, just to give the Colonials something to worry about.

So far, all my games have been solo. I am running at least 1 game this weekend at the local gaming establishment. Anyone in the Atlanta area is welcome to drop by.

Joe

That new Basestar design sounds interesting. Can you share the rest of her stats like hull, etc?

[fastgit]

Dec 28, 2010 16:31:33 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Re: Centurions - Well I'm not really looking to officially introduce a new die type in this release.

What about a d6+1?

[fastgit]

Dec 28, 2010 20:14:34 GMT -5 daniel said:

That new Basestar design sounds interesting. Can you share the rest of her stats like hull, etc?

Agreed. Would love to see the stat blocks for the Basestars and Raiders... and how about a detailed AAR?

[warchariot]

Dec 28, 2010 22:54:47 GMT -5 fastgit said:

Dec 28, 2010 16:31:33 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Re: Centurions - Well I'm not really looking to officially introduce a new die type in this release.

What about a d6+1?

The reason Centurions are d10 is because they are armored and the humans aren't. We played with both being d6s, d10s, +1s ect. Dread wanted the game to stay with two dice sizes and not use a third because of the feedback he has gotten about dice in general. I think there is a thread about this somewhere on the forum. We also varied the number of boarding parties during testing and felt the number in the supplement were the best. I can see adding boarding to the early Cyborgs and maybe even making the reapers a 2 damage. If so, I would raise the tonnage on these and limit the number. Maybe half are Damage 2 and the other half having boarding. You might also want to reduce the number of boarding parties from 3 to 2 for the machines. We played it both ways reducing the number and then at the last minute upping back to 3 for the machines.

Also, Harry wanted to keep the game focused on space battles, boarding is just a side line and a way for the machines to have another change to win. The feel of BSG comes from the missiles and fighters the machines can pour into you. The fighters in the early war are not very good against ships introduced by the colonials at the end of the first war, like the Acropolisclass. The missiles are the danger for the humans, really in both wars. Stand off and fire at range, then send in the fighters! If the humans close to range, you're dead.

[TheDreadnought]

It is true, the Acropolis class are supposed to be the "super-weapons" that won the first war. But do think some tweaks are in order.