Post by patyrn on Nov 29, 2011 4:51:49 GMT -5
This game has been incredibly robust and fun for use in our campaign. I looked at a ton of different systems before settling on this one. It truly is the best ruleset out there. That said there were a few tweaks that made it even better for our group.
We're playing a campaign using VBAM, with CB as the battle engine and these are the changes we've been using.
Fleet Composition
Because it's a campaign one of our first house rules was to do away with the fleet composition rules entirely. They just aren't practical when you can have a fleet no longer be a legal composition after combat losses.
So far we've seen fleets like:
- 3 BBs escorted by 15 DDs
- 30 stealth DDs with 2 ASGMs each (scary)
- 5 small battlecruisers with a mixed escort of light cruisers, destroyers, and a heavy battlecruiser command ship.
So far not one composition has remotely broken the game. I'm very impressed with how robust the system has been in this respect. The stealth DDs with ASGMs is pretty insane, but once you know to expect it a few screen ships and a sacrificial wall of DDs handle it nicely.
Advanced Stealth Generators
We've had to convert advanced stealth generators to -1 chance to hit and +1 point defense, as the ability to restealth in a campaign setting leads to fleets you can't ever kill.
Grape Shot
We were concerned the meta for our campaign would make small ships feel too weak with the default grape shot. We converted it to only one crit per grape shot stack. So far they are still a very robust weapon (I have many in my own fleet). I've had one 140 ton screen ship wipe out 200 tons of destroyers in one shot, even with grapeshot weakened. Very happy with this change.
Aggressive/Tactical system
There were some situations we wanted to make feel a little more fair without going to a full simultaneous firing phase. We liked the decision between aggressive and tactical, and we liked the incentive for having a flag ship.
Firstly we swapped the ship execution order to DD and CLs going first. This makes both types of ships handy for hammering shields for your big hitters, and makes them seem more useful overall. They also tend to be more fun to have in your fleet when they're not being smashed by battleships before being able to fire.
Agressive player gets to fire one ship before anything else in the shooting phase, and then gets to fire first in the alternating fire phase.
We changed the firing into a system where you alternate ships firing. If the aggressive player has 15 DDs and the tactical player has 5 DDs then:
1. Aggressive fires 3DDs
2. Tactical fires 1DD
3. Aggressive fires 3DDs
4. And so forth
This has worked out really well so far. Nobody likes feeling like they already lost the battle after getting alpha struck super hard without being able to respond.
We're playing a campaign using VBAM, with CB as the battle engine and these are the changes we've been using.
Fleet Composition
Because it's a campaign one of our first house rules was to do away with the fleet composition rules entirely. They just aren't practical when you can have a fleet no longer be a legal composition after combat losses.
So far we've seen fleets like:
- 3 BBs escorted by 15 DDs
- 30 stealth DDs with 2 ASGMs each (scary)
- 5 small battlecruisers with a mixed escort of light cruisers, destroyers, and a heavy battlecruiser command ship.
So far not one composition has remotely broken the game. I'm very impressed with how robust the system has been in this respect. The stealth DDs with ASGMs is pretty insane, but once you know to expect it a few screen ships and a sacrificial wall of DDs handle it nicely.
Advanced Stealth Generators
We've had to convert advanced stealth generators to -1 chance to hit and +1 point defense, as the ability to restealth in a campaign setting leads to fleets you can't ever kill.
Grape Shot
We were concerned the meta for our campaign would make small ships feel too weak with the default grape shot. We converted it to only one crit per grape shot stack. So far they are still a very robust weapon (I have many in my own fleet). I've had one 140 ton screen ship wipe out 200 tons of destroyers in one shot, even with grapeshot weakened. Very happy with this change.
Aggressive/Tactical system
There were some situations we wanted to make feel a little more fair without going to a full simultaneous firing phase. We liked the decision between aggressive and tactical, and we liked the incentive for having a flag ship.
Firstly we swapped the ship execution order to DD and CLs going first. This makes both types of ships handy for hammering shields for your big hitters, and makes them seem more useful overall. They also tend to be more fun to have in your fleet when they're not being smashed by battleships before being able to fire.
Agressive player gets to fire one ship before anything else in the shooting phase, and then gets to fire first in the alternating fire phase.
We changed the firing into a system where you alternate ships firing. If the aggressive player has 15 DDs and the tactical player has 5 DDs then:
1. Aggressive fires 3DDs
2. Tactical fires 1DD
3. Aggressive fires 3DDs
4. And so forth
This has worked out really well so far. Nobody likes feeling like they already lost the battle after getting alpha struck super hard without being able to respond.
