Questions after first few games

[Cheeslord]

So I finally managed to organise a couple of test games (Chaos versus Space Marine). We were hoping to play some BFG as part of our pseudo-Badab campaign (where the Tryant fell more quickly to Chaos, so his forces are CSM and Daemons mainly).

Anyway, the test games threw up a few questions, not particularly about rules but about game balance:

- In the games we played, the side with bigger ships won convincingly (2 chaos cruisers + 3 escorts vs. 1 strike cruiser + 8-10 escorts: easy Chaos victory. Same chaos fleet versus 1 battle barge: easy marine victory). Cruisers seem to easily beat escorts, battleships easily beat cruisers and escorts.

Is this just because we werent using proper tactics to counter larger ships? Or because we were playing on an open battlefield (presumably Escorts would do better at dodging around hazards)? Or is that just how the game works?

If the latter, it seems Marines can take a battlebarge in a 425 point game, but other armies can't have Battleships till about 1000 points or so (as they need 3 cruisers for every battleship typically). Does this mean for a "balanced" game we need 1000 points? Or an agreement not to take Battleships/barges? Or is it simply that Chaos used the wrong tactics/weapons and dealing with a battleship in a 500 point game can realistically be done?

I'd like to hear what other players think.

Mark.

[horizon]

Hi,

So I finally managed to organise a couple of test games (Chaos versus Space Marine). We were hoping to play some BFG as part of our pseudo-Badab campaign (where the Tryant fell more quickly to Chaos, so his forces are CSM and Daemons mainly).

Cool.

Anyway, the test games threw up a few questions, not particularly about rules but about game balance:

- In the games we played, the side with bigger ships won convincingly (2 chaos cruisers + 3 escorts vs. 1 strike cruiser + 8-10 escorts: easy Chaos victory. Same chaos fleet versus 1 battle barge: easy marine victory). Cruisers seem to easily beat escorts, battleships easily beat cruisers and escorts.

Allround seen cruisers are somewhat better (depending on race) then escorts. Escorts are a lot trickier to use. But battle two: that Chaos fleet should be able to bring down the barge.

Is this just because we werent using proper tactics to counter larger ships? Or because we were playing on an open battlefield (presumably Escorts would do better at dodging around hazards)? Or is that just how the game works?

You have to describe the tactics. Celestial phenomena is more fun allround.

If the latter, it seems Marines can take a battlebarge in a 425 point game, but other armies can't have Battleships till about 1000 points or so (as they need 3 cruisers for every battleship typically). Does this mean for a "balanced" game we need 1000 points? Or an agreement not to take Battleships/barges? Or is it simply that Chaos used the wrong tactics/weapons and dealing with a battleship in a 500 point game can realistically be done?

1000pts is for good games.

But 1 Barge = 1 target = no thinking on what to attack = quite straightforward easy.

So fill us in on tactics and we can say if they are good or bad.

[fracas]

BFG is about both firepower and maneuver but yes in general cruisers beat out escorts but for same points cruisers should be able to take out a battleship
But not all races have cruisers as their mainstay/workhorse ship
For corsair eldar the fleet relies on escorts for instance

Chaos is a cruiser fleet
Space marines core should be either a barge or 3 strike cruisers

Game size best at 750 to 1500 pts

[TheMaster42]

Yeah escorts are generally bad; some races have good escorts.

For the second one, really small gunnery fights are skewed heavily towards shields; might have had something to do with battle barge's 3 shield strength.

[horizon]

A Barge has 3 shields.

Escorts are not bad. Tactics.

[Cheeslord]

So fill us in on tactics and we can say if they are good or bad.

Tcatics were fairly basic as we were new to the game and there were no features on the battlefield. Game 1, Marines (James) spread out in a line with the cruser near the middle. I (chaos) send both cruisers on one flank and the (cheapest) escorts on the other as a throwaway distraction. I had a slaughter and carnage class cruiser (I think. One had lots of long range batteries, the other 30cm batteries and 2 lances on each side and 5cm extra speed).

james had a mix of the 3 specialist marine escorts (Nova, Hunter and something else. Nova had a lance, hunter had missiles, I think the other just had guns)

I notice that due to the extra column shift for range >30cm, long range guns are less good than they look on paper (still bag 1 escort however - possibly cos we forgot the column shift rule on turn 1).

As we close, I concentrate on blasting the escorts and ignore the cruiser. The rule that extra hits get carried over to the next escort in the squad after destroying one really helps. I wipe out most of his escorts. James spilts his fire between the cruisers and escorts. All my escorts die and one cruiser takes a couple points damage (including a critical from a hit and run by the cruisers thunderhawks which it repairs straight away).

With the escorts mostly gone I throw both cruisers against the Marine strike cruiser (which had moved over towards my cruisers) and at short range with lucky rolls I cripple it. Game over.


Second game (I have the same forces;- thats all the ships I own), with only a single target I just bunch up in the middle and head forward, trying to ensure all my ships arrive in range at the same time and get first shot. I achieve this, but only cause 1or 2 damage points to the Battle Barge (aside from the Lances, which I did save till last, everything only takes down a shield on a 6+, making good armour stack with shields so the BB shields are as good (against normal guns) as 6 shields on a 5+ chaos ship).

In return the Battle Barge kills 2/3 of the escorts with hit-and-run and cripples one cruiser (plus gets multiple criticals on it due to its bombardment cannon).

I fire everything at the Barge again. This time as 1 of my ships is already crippled I only can do 1 more point of damage.

The Barge destroys my last escort and Slaughter cruiser. I think it criticals the remaining cruiser a bit with hit-and-run.

With only one cruiser left against a fully functional battle barge I concede.

Mark.

[horizon]

Game 1: ok with that. You could redirect lances from Slaughter to Strike Cruiser sooner but what the f... you won. Though splitting forces is usually a less good idea.

Game 2: hit&run from the barge: talking thawks or teleport?

Chaos was faster. Go an abeam route. Try to get round his back. Splitting in this case is a good idea. Barge has to choose a direction.
The fast Iconoclasts can zip even faster. 3 of them is 9 batteries. Bound to have some sixes.

Remember a blast marker reduces speed by 5cm.

[Demoulius]

He brings a barge to your small fleet? Ouch thats harsh

[dvang]

It sounds like a lot is just a matter of tactics and getting used to the fleets. Play to your strengths and your opponent's weaknesses.

For example, most Chaos ships are faster than their Imperial counterparts. They also tend to have longer range weapons.

Maneuver such that you minimize the arcs of fire your opponent can shoot. This will minimize the weapons they can bring to bear.

Also, I'm not sure if you are doing hit & runs correctly. Escorts are only destroyed on a 4+ from a hit & run (3+ against some enemies that get a bonus to hit & run attacks). In addition to that, the squadron/ship can attempt to Brace, which gives a straight up 4+ save. So, while Hit & run attacks can be dangerous to escorts, they sound more deadly when you played.

As asked, were the hit & run attacks from thunderhawks? If so, playing vs a carrier without having any ordnance (fighters at least) of your own will usually cause problems.

[fracas]

the strike cruiser can be upgraded to two shields for +15pts per proposed rules update (which most of us regulars have adopted as accepted rule)

[Eternus]

Escorts can bring down Cruisers, but it's tricky because they really need to make it round behind the Cruisers and then stay tight on their tail, using the Escorts better manoueverability to prevent the Cruiser bringing much in the way of return fire to bear. This is where a fleet benefits from having it's own Escorts, to prevent the enemy from achieving this.

One of the most dangerous combinations of ships I use is a Dauntless Class Light Criuser with 3 Prow Lances plus a Squadron of 3 Sword Class Frigates. From the front, they struggle against a 'proper' cruiser, but get them round behind and they make mincemeat out of most things pretty quick while avoiding major retaliation from their target.

[RCgothic]

There are several factors at play here:

#1. In general escorts bring more firepower to a particular arc per point than any other vessel. Even in BFG:R where we've buffed its firepower, the Retribution battleship beings just .076 points of firepower in any arc per point. The sword class frigate brings a focused firepower of .11 points of firepower per point in one arc. If you can focus firepower on one target without exposing yourself to return fire from more than one fire arc, the odds are in the escorts favour.

#2. Escorts also take more hits to destroy than an equivalent points of capital ship. 10 swords cost 350pts and which take 20 hits to destroy in 1 turn. A Retribution (BFG:R) costs 355pts and takes 16 hits to destroy in one turn. The problem is that escorts erode a lot faster. An escort squadron that has suffered 8 hits in one turn has 40% of its number and a proportionate amount of firepower. A battleship that suffers 8 hits in 1 turn for the most part still operates as though it has just left the shipyard it was built in. Escorts must be preserved until the time to strike is right.

Escorts can usefully be used to screen capital ships in some situations; driving a single escort into certain destruction at the hands of a wave of 8AC is better than taking that on a cap ship, and forcing leadership checks to not fire at closer escorts when an enemy is trying to fire at your cap ships with Nova Cannon is certainly useful, however in the vast majority of cases you should protect your escorts behind a screen of capital ships so that they can be at full strength for their strike.

#3. At low points, shields matter a lot more because it's difficult to get the requisite number of hits. If you can only reliably score 4 hits per turn, 3 shields is going to be a problem, and if you’re up against 4 shields you might as well pack up now. If you double the firepower by playing higher points, then suddenly you could be scoring 8 hits, so it's understandable that bigger ships can dominate in small games.

Bigger ships also have a number of disadvantages however: They are slower, and tend to have a lot of firepower split between different fire arcs. Wherever possible, manoeuvre so that the larger ship only ever gets to fire in an absolute minimum of fire arcs. You should never EVER allow escorts from the same squadron to be on both sides of a battlebarge.
Against a single large target it’s imperative you don’t split your fleet. Your 2 cruisers and 3 escorts have an enormous firepower advantage if they disallow the barge its additional weapons easily outgun it 2-1, more than enough to make up for its additional shields and armour.

It’s also worth mentioning in his section that escorts actually have more shields than capital ships! This doesn’t help too much against single targets, but if you anticipate that you’ll unavoidably be taking fire from multiple targets (remembering from earlier that you should try and prevent escorts taking fire at all!) then as only the closest escort to each can take fire, try and make sure a different escort takes fire from each. 4 escorts with shields down is better than 2 completely obliterated because the enemy concentrated fire on one and the hits carried over.

[Cheeslord]

It was thunderhawks. We forgot about teleport attacks so it could have won even faster I guess...

As for getting abeam, I don't see how that helps much;- the barge has armour 6 all round, and on its turn it can turn 45 degrees to bring your ships into arc of its broadsides.

Shields do cover the rear arc don't they? If they don't that would make a bit of a difference...

Mark.
(edit)-sorry, replying to a much older post - I must have left the browser on overnight without refreshing it!

[fracas]

Staying abeam makes your ship more survivable against batteries

Btw, RCGothic post on escorts is excellent

[horizon]

As Fracas says. Bombardment cannons are subject to range & target aspect shifts on the gunnery table.

The barge only has 3 THawks. If your Slaughter is straight behind Barge at 30cm range. So Slaughter hits.

Barge has blastmarker in contact = -5cm movement.
Barge moves 15cm forward / turns. Can hit you, but at long range vs abeam ship. That's not a lot of dice.
A Chaos vessel (a lot of them) have ranges above 30cm. The Carnage can stay behind Barge 31+cm and never be hit.

[fallen pony1]

i was thinking the same

[avien]

I generally agree with most replies above, ie that battleships beat cruisers which in turn beat escorts. It's a bit simplistic but that is the basic idea. Others have answered that fairly well but everyone seems to have glossed over the terrain element.

You were playing on an open battlefield, no celestial phenomenon (asteroids, gas clouds, warp rift, planets). an open battlefield with no terrain is very boring, much like in 40k or fantasy, you just have two forces running(or in this case flying) towards each other and shooting. There are no tactics involved here and that, in my very humble opinion, is what is really wrong with your experience.

Having to plan your movements so as not to collide with a warp rift or attempting to traverse an asteroid field to strike the enemy on the opposite side a turn or two earlier than they may have expected... Terrain and tactics of using that terrain is what makes BFG the crown in the specialist games range.

Try replaying the games with some asteroids and planets and maybe a few gas clouds and see if that changes the experience. My bet is that it will.

=A=