Combined league initiative

[Banichi]

It says in the rules that if you field a combined league fleet that the initiative for that fleet will 0 or the initiative of the lowest race present, (we're looking at you pak'ma'ra). This kind of makes sence, as you could expect there to be problems with langauge, and getting alien coms systems to match up.

But we played I quick 2pt raid today and an interesting question came up. I'd taken 2 warbirds and 1 xill, and he took narn, so I started the game with initiative 0. On the first shot of the game a ka'toc had a run away laser roll, and scored a 6,6 crit on the xill, and pop, the universe became just that little bit safer for cattle. But this meant that on turn 2 I was no longer playing a mixed league fleet. We hadn't decided at the begining of the game who was defending, so decided to continue the game with the drazi having initiative 1.(It didn't help, I still got beanbagged).

Does this sound like a fair call. We couldn't find anything in the rules, and it kind of makes sence. Has anyone else had a situation like this.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Your base initiative should remain the same as it started throught the game (or campaign), not counting command bonuses from ships or Admirals. If I had a mixed campaign fleet with Drazi and Abbai, for example, even if the scenario fleet was all Drazi I'd have to use the lower Abbai initiative score. Don't have the rules to hand, but that's how 1e worked and I'm pretty sure 2e is the same.

 

[Ripple]

First ed did not refer to campaign initiative I thought, at least not as a standard between campaign and scenario. Scenario initiative would be based on the races present, not included in your alliance but not participating.

That said I'd would tend to want to run a scenario as static, for simplicities sake, but I would not necessarily be able to back that up with the rules.

Ripple

 

[Iain McGhee]

The rule for 2e is that a combined fleet uses the lowest initiative score of the races in the fleet or +0, whichever is lower. There isn't anything about it changing depending on what parts of the fleet are in use although I'd presume that if you added a lower initiative race into the mix later on in a campaign your initiative value would have to drop.

 

[Harry Lonsdale]

How would you treat initiative for a race (League or not) that gained a new ship from an Other Duty roll during a campaign? We've been playing it that this doesn't affect initiative at all.

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

I'd classify that as the ally ship joining the fleet and being assigned to on of the fleet's sub groups, with the crew learning the procedures of the parent fleet. The initiative rules for combined league fleets are there to represent the politicking and conflicts when you have multiple admirals all pulling rank to further their own race's goals int he campaign.

 

[Ripple]

The rules for Combined League Fleets don't specify any difference between campaign and scenario initiative. So I guess by the rules you'd have to play it as a combined league fleet even if you are fielding a scenario fleet entirely of a single race. Doesn't make any fluff sense o me, but eh...

Ripple