Ancient critical repair

[mollari_uk]

I observed my first game of 2nd ed last night and I have a question on the rules.

Ancients repair criticals at the end of the turn after they were suffered. I read this as being at the end of turn 2 if they were suffered in turn 1.

The problem with this is that 1) it's a lot of book keeping knowing which critials are repaired and 2) they could have those criticals for 2 turns since damage is no longer simultanious (like in 1st ed) so it's not that good once they start being unable to fire etc.

Have I misread this?

 

[Burger]

No, you haven't misread it. That is how it works.

1) Not really, just write a line under each turn's crits. Everything above the previous line, is repaired.

2) Yes true...

 

[mollari_uk]

Ok, I realise the game I saw was a one off but it was Vorlons vs Minbari and they didn't like the rule so allowed the Vorlons to repair at the end of the current turn. The game seemed to be pretty balanced. If the vorlons couldn't repair their damaged firing arcs unitl next turn, I could see it being a different story.

Have experienced Vorlon players had a problem?

EDIT: Burger, I wasn't suggesting you aren't an experienced Vorlon player, just inviting others to comment

 

[dennisharlien]

As a Vorlon player playing a few games both in person and on Vassal with my Vorlons in 2e I feel the waiting 1 turn to repair criticals is VITAL. I think it balances it out nicely. Is all I ever heard from first Ed is how broken the vorlons were now I hear they are much more manageable (though still a tough nut). I think with there keeping crits for one turn people found the best tactic for beating them is crit bombing them (causing as many crits as possible by throwing ALOT of dice instead of damage, loose firing arc and it hurts ALOT).

 

[mollari_uk]

Cheers dennisharlien. I guess it was lucky in the game I saw that the Minbari got the initiative and attacked the Vorlon ship and knocked out it's arc before it got a chance to fire.

I'm interested in buying shadows which I know are similar. After your reply I'm still going to buy them

 

[Burger]

Is all I ever heard from first Ed is how broken the vorlons were.

They definitely were not broken in 1st edition - unless you were playing the Light Cruiser with hull 6

I haven't played them in 2e so can't really comment.

 

[Locutus9956]

Well the tourney edition and Armageddon Vorlons WERE a bit tough at times though I certainly wouldnt say broken!

I like the fact that they CAN take crits now but I'm still not convinced about them having to wait a turn to fix them... we shall have to see I guess

 

[Burger]

The fact that they couldn't take crits in 1e meant that taking big ships was a valid tactic... for example a Light Cruiser and 3 wings of fighters was a good fleet in a 5pt Raid tourney - any other race taking a War level ship in a 5pt Raid fleet was suicide. Now, if you took this fleet you would be inundated with crits every turn, in the same way that the Ancients were in Armageddon. So IMO it means the new Vorlons have to stick with traditional fleet compositions, that is don't put all your eggs in one basket, swarm 4tw, etc.

 

[dennisharlien]

I agree. Where as Vorlons can weather the crit storm better (being able to repair them) it will shut them down and if the opponent plays it right they will never have another turn without said crits.

 

[Sulfurdown]

A potential change that has been bantered around locally was to restore the Advanced Armour to the A/V/S in the form that a 7+ is a critical rather then a 6+. It restores a substantial amount of critical resistance to Ancients without completely removing the critical threat like the 1e V/S damage charts did.
*No one locally has tested this kind of change yet so I don't know how extreme the impact would be.

 

[H]

A potential change that has been bantered around locally was to restore the Advanced Armour to the A/V/S in the form that a 7+ is a critical rather then a 6+. It restores a substantial amount of critical resistance to Ancients without completely removing the critical threat like the 1e V/S damage charts did.
*No one locally has tested this kind of change yet so I don't know how extreme the impact would be.

can't say I'd be a fan of this, It means against minbari or drakh, the vorlons would be getting critted half as much as they can be now, but against narn and EA light on missiles, the vorlons would never take a crit. would make them very hard to deal with for races without much precise.

 

[Right Hand of God]

The Vorlons, certainly, came off worse in 2nd ed. Having low damage totals is supposed to be countered by having adaptive armour, but the fact that AA can be lost in a crit leaves a Vorlon ship a low damage sitting duck.

They are no more likely to lose their weapons than any other race that has all, or a majority of, their weapons in one arc, Vree, Drazi, Shadows etc.

What hurts the Vorlons isn't losing weapons for a turn it's losing the AA because a turn or what could be 2 turns without AA, their is unlikely to be a ship left to fire.

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

The Vorlons, certainly, came off worse in 2nd ed. Having low damage totals is supposed to be countered by having adaptive armour, but the fact that AA can be lost in a crit leaves a Vorlon ship a low damage sitting duck.

They are no more likely to lose their weapons than any other race that has all, or a majority of, their weapons in one arc, Vree, Drazi, Shadows etc.

What hurts the Vorlons isn't losing weapons for a turn it's losing the AA because a turn or what could be 2 turns without AA, their is unlikely to be a ship left to fire.

I would tend to agree here. I'd say that the drop in damage totals to vorlon ships needs to be re-worked, especially the destroyer, considering its the ship of the line, and consequently the light and heavy cruisers would need to go up a bit, but I'm not talking making them broken.

My main suffering point is criticals, and how many of them can mass-up, but to be fair my opponents have been exceptionally jammy with crit rolls, and my dice have now taken a trip out of the window due to misbehaviour.

But the losing AA is a killer for vorlons, I suffered that hit to a light cruiser in my last game on friday, and to be honest I nearly crapped my pants I was that worried. As you might guess it subsequently died as every enemy ship in the local vicinity went "we'll shoot at that then!"

A little of bit of re-balancing would be nice please.

 

[Delthos]

The easiest fix would be to make Adaptive Armor a trait that cannot be lost.

 

[Burger]

The easiest fix would be to make Adaptive Armor a trait that cannot be lost.

Makes sense, it is a coating on the ship's hull, not any kind of active computer system.

 

[victor romeo]

The easiest fix would be to make Adaptive Armor a trait that cannot be lost.

Makes sense, it is a coating on the ship's hull, not any kind of active computer system.

Of course the background says the ship sheds layers of damaged armour whilst waiting for new 'skin' to heal. It could be seen as a case of 'aim for the big, bleeding hole men.'

I have to say using Shadows I have never suffered too harshly from crits yet; of course the one I really fear is 'move as if adrift!'

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Well, like I said, by and large I like the new changes to the ancients, and it certainly makes people playing them feel like they have a chance of victory.
I just think that one or two tweeks should be made thats all; if that doesn't happen I'm still going to be pretty happy in general with the way the fleet plays.

 

[Sulfurdown]

The easiest fix would be to make Adaptive Armor a trait that cannot be lost.

Makes sense, it is a coating on the ship's hull, not any kind of active computer system.

Of course the background says the ship sheds layers of damaged armour whilst waiting for new 'skin' to heal. It could be seen as a case of 'aim for the big, bleeding hole men.'

Also the closest comparison to the VLC in my view is the Sharlin. VLC has an extra special it can lose in the random roll (i.e. AA loss is 20% rather then Stealth loss at 25%) but 5 fewer damage overall. If the Sharlin's Stealth goes down it becomes just as much fire bait as the VLC but has little or no chance to recover (i.e. self-repair and the next turn's auto-fix) and it also has only 40 points before it goes crippled. Making AA permanent would open doors for the rest of the fleets needing tweaking. Maybe adding 5-10 damage would be better served.

 

[Ripple]

To be fair though in the above comparison, the sharlin also carries a large number of fighters and has weapons in all directions. Much less vulnerable to crits making it ineffective otherwise.

We won't get into the advantages of stealth over AA at avoiding critical pile up (avoiding damage rolls vs withstanding them).

Ripple

 

[Da Boss]

The easiest fix would be to make Adaptive Armor a trait that cannot be lost.

Makes sense, it is a coating on the ship's hull, not any kind of active computer system.

Of course the background says the ship sheds layers of damaged armour whilst waiting for new 'skin' to heal. It could be seen as a case of 'aim for the big, bleeding hole men.'

I have to say using Shadows I have never suffered too harshly from crits yet; of course the one I really fear is 'move as if adrift!'

the Shadows being superior have an advantage with their quick recharging shields - most useful