daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Dec 29, 2010 14:10:05 GMT -5
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. I like the sound of that and thanks for the detailed explanation. Making the Reaper 1's Damage 2 is appealing. Add a couple of early Heavy Reapers [Speed 6, Defense 7, Dogfight d6, Pen d6, Damage 1 or 2, Boarding(2)]. These stats give them the worst of both worlds while still giving some boarding capability. I'm also thinking d10-1 for the early Centurions. Maybe allow them a Cyber-infiltration attack each turn they're aboard as well...
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Post by warchariot on Dec 29, 2010 14:58:05 GMT -5
What I would like to see is a boarding action game (are you listening/reading Dread) that could be used to simulate these and other actions-Trek, B5, whatever. There are lots of Sci-fi halls, rooms, ect-some in paper that could be used. Then you could replay the high point of boarding and use all kinds of special rules.
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Post by coldsteel on Dec 29, 2010 15:59:49 GMT -5
That new Basestar design sounds interesting. Can you share the rest of her stats like hull, etc? Here are the stats for the original base ship. Note I dropped the boarders in favor of flak batteries. The absence of flak batteries doesn't make sense in a fighter-heavy environment. I also tweaked the Acropolis class a little, primarily changing Mag Cannon for Rail Guns. Didn't do an AAR. Will try to take notes and photos of Saturday's game. Attachments:
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Post by coldsteel on Dec 29, 2010 16:00:55 GMT -5
Here's my take on the early Acropolis. Attachments:
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Dec 29, 2010 16:02:40 GMT -5
Thanks!
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Post by fastgit on Dec 29, 2010 17:11:39 GMT -5
Thanks for the stats coldsteel... and thanks for the rationale behind the numbers warchariot.
I'll play around with them next time I get some time.
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Jan 12, 2011 21:09:40 GMT -5
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 FWIW, I'm not liking the D6 version of the early Raiders and think they should remain d10 or d10-1 at the very least. Your Baseship is within a few points of the Hermes but two are needed to have half a chance at beating it. That tells me the Machine hitting power is too low. Just my 2 cents...
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Post by warchariot on Jan 12, 2011 23:03:00 GMT -5
The early Cyborgs are weak overall and easier to beat. The early Reaper IIs could/should be a larger die as you and others have said so as to help off set this. We looked at nukes for the early reapers, but decided those should come later. As a house rule you could up their die to a D10 or add nukes.
Also, the human Hermes a powerful platform
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jan 13, 2011 9:54:22 GMT -5
Good discussion guys. I look at all this stuff before I make changes and its the conversation on these forums that are the main driver of the changes that get made. So its always good to share your ideas here.
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Jan 13, 2011 12:12:57 GMT -5
I wasn't clear. I was refering to coldsteel's new d6 dogfight Raiders. The existing rules aren't bad - just increase the early Raider's damage from 1 to 2 and make an early heavy with 2 boarders. I also like coldsteel's suicide attack idea and will keep that. Pull 2 plain raiders and add the 2 heavies so the total stays the same and I think we're good to go. The Assault Carrier Type 1 can really smack a battlestar up close with those bombardment missiles and torps. Any human that gets within 6 hexes will know it. It's all good!
While I wait for my new hulls from Ravenstar I'm planning on gaming some reimagined first war scenarios. I'll take notes and photos for sharing.
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Post by coldsteel on Jan 13, 2011 15:13:13 GMT -5
Daniel, you are right, the early raiders with a d6 are weak. That was deliberate in my modeling of the original series. In the pilot episode, Apollo made a comment about the cylons needing at least 3:1 odds to stand a chance, followed shortly thereafter with something like "But 10 to 1 isn't fair" when several hundred raiders showed up on his scanner. In the series, 2 base ships vs the Galactica resulted in the cylons losing or the colonials running away. And I agree with your observation abut the points imbalance. I roughly figured the d6 raiders were worth half a d10 raider. In the 2 times I ran a game at the FLGS, the cylon players tended to ignore dogfighting and barreled straight in against the battlestars, exactly like the original series, but then get frustrated when their shot up squadrons inflicted minimal damage. I may try upping their damage to 2 like you suggest. The cylon in-flight regroup rule works pretty well. 1 game saw the cylons' 1st wave shot up, then fall back to regroup while the 2d wave went in and fall back. The effect was 4 separate waves of fighters, albeit each was smaller than the preceding one.
I have noticed the heavy raiders, both early and new, actually have minimal impact on the game when used as gunships. I have avoided using the boarding rules because the local players prefer blowing things up. The gunships seem to die very quickly against flak and dogfights. I have not seen a single gunship live to make a strafing attack. Has anyone tried increasing their number of hits or some type of escort mechanism? I am also considering making them a squadron of 6, each needing just 1 hit to kill.
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Jan 13, 2011 19:18:07 GMT -5
Daniel, you are right, the early raiders with a d6 are weak. That was deliberate in my modeling of the original series. In the pilot episode, Apollo made a comment about the cylons needing at least 3:1 odds to stand a chance, followed shortly thereafter with something like "But 10 to 1 isn't fair" when several hundred raiders showed up on his scanner. In the series, 2 base ships vs the Galactica resulted in the cylons losing or the colonials running away. And I agree with your observation abut the points imbalance. I roughly figured the d6 raiders were worth half a d10 raider. In the 2 times I ran a game at the FLGS, the cylon players tended to ignore dogfighting and barreled straight in against the battlestars, exactly like the original series, but then get frustrated when their shot up squadrons inflicted minimal damage. I may try upping their damage to 2 like you suggest. The cylon in-flight regroup rule works pretty well. 1 game saw the cylons' 1st wave shot up, then fall back to regroup while the 2d wave went in and fall back. The effect was 4 separate waves of fighters, albeit each was smaller than the preceding one. I have noticed the heavy raiders, both early and new, actually have minimal impact on the game when used as gunships. I have avoided using the boarding rules because the local players prefer blowing things up. The gunships seem to die very quickly against flak and dogfights. I have not seen a single gunship live to make a strafing attack. Has anyone tried increasing their number of hits or some type of escort mechanism? I am also considering making them a squadron of 6, each needing just 1 hit to kill. I follow your reasoning and can't fault your logic, it's just the getting there that seems a little sticky. One thing that crossed my mind would be to stop mentally treating each fighter point as one fighter. The Cylons especially fielded far more Raiders than we put on the table. What if each flight of 6 actually represents 18 or even 24 actual craft? An effective unit would be more than the single fighter. That way you've got the ratios you're looking for, each kill is actually 3-4 Raiders smoked, and it all washes out. Agree the heavies as is are useless except for any special abilities such as boarding, but that alone makes them worth keeping.
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Post by craftyshafty on Jan 13, 2011 22:59:34 GMT -5
What's all this talk of "Cylons" and "original shows." Colonial Battlefleet: Man vs. Machine is a stand-alone product not tied to any licensed property. Any semblance between it and any existing science fiction franchise is purely coincidental. Now, please resume discussing how to blast those frakking toasters. And yes, I tend to think that abstracting the number of Cylon...er...CyBORG fighters is a good way to handle things and keep the numbers manageable. We're already doing that on the Colonial side, after all. Galactica and Pegasus each had far more than the number of fighters reflected on comparable ships in CB:MvM.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 13, 2011 22:59:54 GMT -5
"Agree the heavies as is are useless except for any special abilities such as boarding, but that alone makes them worth keeping. "
You need to look at each fighters role and use them in that way. The Heavy Reapers are for boarding. Leave them on board until you destroy or draw off the Leopards and then mico jump them next to the ship. Not all will stick, but if you have 10-12 of them you will get six around. We place them one at a time, roll then place the next. The Reapers are good fighters, but excel with the cyber-attack. If you are using the older marks against the old Colonials it is a wash. Also think about what Apollo said about numbers, the machine needs to take 3-1 or better. Three Battlestars against three basestars is not a fair fight. Finally, and I sound like a broken recorded, missiles are for range shooting. if you close to 6-10 hexes from Mag or Railguns you are already dead.
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Post by warchariot on Jan 14, 2011 0:54:25 GMT -5
Oh, one other thought, the three blades are great workhorse ships in the later era, but an Six Blade is the Cyborg's best friend! How do you argue with 15 Reapers and 5 heavies?
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jan 14, 2011 9:34:30 GMT -5
Yes. . . the Heavy Reapers are definitely boarding shuttles and should be treated that way and protected from enemy fighters. The heavies have anti-fighter and anti-ship capability, but are not very effective in either role. Hypothetically that weaponry would be more useful in providing fire support to troops on the ground in a planetary invasion scenario. . . but this is the space game.
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Jan 14, 2011 19:34:08 GMT -5
" Agree the heavies as is are useless except for any special abilities such as boarding, but that alone makes them worth keeping. "You need to look at each fighters role and use them in that way. The Heavy Reapers are for boarding. Leave them on board until you destroy or draw off the Leopards and then mico jump them next to the ship. Not all will stick, but if you have 10-12 of them you will get six around. We place them one at a time, roll then place the next. Now that's interesting. I assumed all microjumpers were placed before rolling. One after another makes it easier for sure...
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Post by warchariot on Jan 14, 2011 22:15:23 GMT -5
" Agree the heavies as is are useless except for any special abilities such as boarding, but that alone makes them worth keeping. "You need to look at each fighters role and use them in that way. The Heavy Reapers are for boarding. Leave them on board until you destroy or draw off the Leopards and then mico jump them next to the ship. Not all will stick, but if you have 10-12 of them you will get six around. We place them one at a time, roll then place the next. Now that's interesting. I assumed all microjumpers were placed before rolling. One after another makes it easier for sure... I look at it like the jump points, you can only place one at a time there, so why won't apply with mirco-jumps? Yes, they are not all coming through a point, but in BSG ships jumped in and away in flashes, not all at the same time even though there was a countdown! We figure the scatter takes into account the problems with jumping, so why not one at a time?
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daniel
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 110
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Post by daniel on Jan 14, 2011 22:35:39 GMT -5
Thanks. That makes sense - it just never entered my mind. I figured place all the models in their desired locations, grab the dice and hope for the best. Your way makes it much more devastating...
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