A Couple of Rules questions

[Dangerousbeans]

Got my first game in the other night - tons of fun! But a couple of questions came up regarding grappling/boarding:

1) Can other ships fire at grappled ships? ie: My Galliot grappled his Galliot, can my destroyer then shoot his Galliot?

2) Boarding actions with 3 or more ships: ie: Two of his galliots grappled my destroyer in the same turn. How do we work out boarding procedure? Do we do one attacking ship at a time? (ie: I roll all my crew dice vs however many troops he wants to send aboard for each attacking ship) or do we do them simultaneously? (ie: I roll all my crew dice to defend and he can 'pool' troops from both ships). We played the latter as it made more logical sense, but it did mean it was a cakewalk for him to overthrow me.

cheers

 

[starbreaker]

1) Yes, see p.14. Ships don't block line of sight normally, so grappled ships can be shot at by vessels outside the scrum normally. Ship sthat have just been grappled to one another can fire normally (either at their opponent or another target in arc) until moved into base contact during the Boarding Phase. In later turns, the grappled ship can't fire weapons in the arc they're grappling/grappled through, not even at their opponent - you've got one Firing Phase to smash your enemy before the grapples pull you both so close you can't fire anymore.

2) Full rules for multiple boarding actions are on p.16. You did it correctly - two on one grapples are usually bad for the outnumbered side. It gets slightly more complicated when there are several ships on both sides of a big scrum, but it's all spelled out pretty clearly in the rulebook.

 

[Dangerousbeans]

cheers man, perhaps should have checked the rules more closely :S

 

[lastbesthope]

Re 1) Firing into two ships grappled has basically the same rules as firing into two fighters dogfighting, you can't fire on your own ship and the only thing the two grappled ships can do to each other is boarding.

Also remember you cannot fire out of the arc that you are grappled in. I also clarified with MAtt, Turret weapons cannot fire into the arc that you are grappled in either.

LBH

 

[starbreaker]

Re 1) Firing into two ships grappled has basically the same rules as firing into two fighters dogfighting, you can't fire on your own ship

Where are you getting that rule from? It's not under the grappling rules, it's not under eligible targets - can you cite a page reference? Grappled ships aren't dodging around light fighters in a dogfight - much of the time they're immobile, or moving at a crawl - easy targets for everyone who hasn't got their hull winched up right alongside. I don't see any reason they can't be fired out from outside the grapple - there's certainly no restriction on firing on an enemy ship just because it currently has your own troops on it, although I doubt they appreciate it much.

 

[Greg Smith]

cheers man, perhaps should have checked the rules more closely :S

Don't worry about asking rules questions. That is part of what the forum is for.

 

[lastbesthope]

Re 1) Firing into two ships grappled has basically the same rules as firing into two fighters dogfighting, you can't fire on your own ship

Where are you getting that rule from? It's not under the grappling rules, it's not under eligible targets - can you cite a page reference? Grappled ships aren't dodging around light fighters in a dogfight - much of the time they're immobile, or moving at a crawl - easy targets for everyone who hasn't got their hull winched up right alongside. I don't see any reason they can't be fired out from outside the grapple - there's certainly no restriction on firing on an enemy ship just because it currently has your own troops on it, although I doubt they appreciate it much.

It was a bad comparison on my part (and a worse simile, my English teacher would kill me) and a worse simile, the points I was trying to get ascross were that you can fire on ships in a grapple that aren't yours, and that you can NOT fire into the arc in which you are grappling/grappled.

My apologies for any confusion I caused.

LBH

 

[starbreaker]

Oh right, I see what you were trying to say now. Had me worried for a minute - using the rest of my fleet to shoot the heck out of an enemy who's boarding one of my ships from the blind arc produced by the grapple is a preferred tactic for me.