Bore sight and hits

[cthol24601]

Hi we've had a bit of a controversy pop up in our club. I think this derives from different variations in the rules etc. One view holds that bore sight weapons have 4 inches of play in picking targets (from one of the rule books) the other that its exactly straight down the line (from a printed faq sheet). One view is that the target is the stem of the base aka battlefleet gothic, the second that it is the round base the model sits on and the third that it is the model of the spaceship. So could I get some clarification on the current state of play her with regards to the current latest interpretation of the rules.

A: How much play does a boresight weapon has.
B: What specifically is the target of the boresighted weapon ie stem, base or model.

 

[Da Boss]

IIRC you declare it during your move phase and have to line up with the stem of the target ship (like BFG)..........there some house rules re this I believe.

 

[Greg Smith]

A boresight has no play at all. It can only hit things that are directly in line with the model/counter.

The 4" comes from beam weapons, which can only split AD between targets within 4". However for a boresight beam to be able to split its AD, both targets must be dirctly in line in front of the model.

What Da Boss is refering to, is the way boresights are generally played. So when you move a ship and turn it to line up a boresight, you tell your opponent, 'This ship is boresighting that one.' In this way there can be no confusion, no arguement about microscopic parallax error, or problems should the table get knocked.

 

[cordas]

Agreed, Boresight has no play what so ever, we have a gentlemans agreement that during movement you can announce anything and if your opponent agrees then that is set.

This includes ships locking on boresight. Moving ships just within range, or keeping them just out of range of weapons systems. Moving ships so that they line within certain fire arcs of other ships, or moving them so that certain ships end up with fire arcs.

As the game allows premeasurement, and its assumed that every ship captain is compotent to make these desticitions we don't have any problems with this, and it saves a lot of arguements when it comes to the firing stage. Of course people do make mistakes, and forget to get agreement on things....

One other thing that you might want to consider if you decide to do this is keeping notes when you are fighting large battles. Its easy for counters, models or even the table to get knocked and moved, when you have 15 ships each on the table its also easy to forget what you agreed, or that you declared concentrate all fire power or some such special action.

 

[Iain McGhee]

It's worth having some counters handy for noting special actions, ship status and marking targets, for larger games at least.

 

[Locutus9956]

Its also worth noting that due to the way boresighting works if a boresighted target moves AT ALL it is no longer boresighted (if youre using declared boresights as most people do).

 

[Burger]

Its also worth noting that due to the way boresighting works if a boresighted target moves AT ALL it is no longer boresighted (if youre using declared boresights as most people do).

Except in occasional circumstances... for example it had YOU boresighted last turn also.

 

[LaranosTZ]

That is correct, if you had boresite the turn before, and your target does not move you can safely assume you have boresite the following turn as well. Similarly if two ships are both boresiting each other, and both move forward with no turns, they would stay boresited, even with niggling little 'not quite straight' moves. This actually comes up reasonably often in Vassal, since it's nearly impossible to get a ship truly lined up point to point in that game. This is pretty much the only way a boresite ship is going to get CAF, for example.

 

[Ripple]

Counters...we use gale force nines lettered counters....they come in pairs one source one target, both marked with a letter of the alphabet.

The gentleman's agreement generally works fairly well. Just try to make sure you actually do line up, I've been in a lot of situations where folks want to declare but aren't even close. It can be a big deal the following turn, or even that turn if any other arc gets close, and its just not worth the discussions.

As to the boresight and moving target thing...gravity wells can get you a target with caf, the mutual boresight thing (even if technically he doesn't have one), and maybe a chase position thing (ie you front bore on his aft bore he only goes forward).

Ripple