Defensive fire

[Modious]

Is there an order for defensive fire? We played our first game yesterday and had a situation where Kzinti drones were attacking Klingon ships from outside of range 18. In this situation, we wanted to use phasers rather than anti-drones, but were unsure of we could do this.

Do here are the questions:
1. Do ADDs fire first, simultaneously, or player option?
a. As an example, 6 drones are coming in on a D5. Ideally, you want to use 2 drones as a counter to reduce it to 4, then use 4 phasers (3 hits) to reduce it to 1, then the ADD to take out the final one. Is this legal?
b. In the rules section Matthew said to roll all dice at once. So in the example above if you had 6 drones coming in and had 1 add, and rolled 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, would you take out all 6 drones (with the runout affection the next phase) or would 5 drones be shot down with 1 remaining?

 

[Nomad]

Good question...

1) I don't know, it does not seem to be defined anywhere, I wish it was.

a) I think so, but see 1) above.

b) If so, that means 1 ADD will 'always' stop a drone strike from one enemy ship, regardless of how many drones are incoming. I've been rolling ADD dice one at a time. In your example, if the dice had been rolled in that order, I'd say the first '1' had shot down one drone and then the ammo ran out. The remaining five get through.

Nice, non-intuitive question numbering, BTW

 

[billclo]

I do wish things were better defined as well, to avoid confusion and controversy.

Personally, I'd do it this way, based upon the range of the weapons being utilized:

Allocate all drones to auto-kill enemy drones.

Then if you have an ADD system, roll a die one at a time for each incoming drone. A roll of a 1 kills the drone and reduces your ammo immediately (rationale being you can run out of ammo before you have engaged all targets). Keep rolling one die against each incoming drone as long as you still have ADD above 0.

THEN allocate phasers to surviving enemy drones. Roll all phasers and note how many incoming drones left.

As a last resort, allocate tractor beams to enemy drones and roll for kill (4-6 usually).

Any surviving drones then hit (unless the target make a successful Evasive Action Special action roll).

 

[MongooseMatt]

1. Defenders choice - do what is most efficient!

2. Yes.

3. If you have ADD 1 and 6 drones coming in, you don't roll one dice. To quote the rulebook;
'Roll a die for _every_ Attack Die of drones...'

Not sure where this roll dice on their own came from - I think it may be a hold out people have from playing Babylon 5, but we designed this game to be quick. Roll all dice together!

And to anticipate the next question, you are rolling against each drone _attack_. So, yes, an ADD 1 will roll 6 dice against 6 AD of drones. However, if you roll a 1 during that attack, you will have nothing to defend against the 1 AD of drones you might face when the next enemy ship attacks.

 

[Nomad]

However, if you roll a 1 during that attack, you will have nothing to defend against the 1 AD of drones you might face when the next enemy ship attacks.

Or indeed the next 6AD from that D6D over there.

So then

1 ADD will 'always' stop a drone strike from one enemy ship, regardless of how many drones are incoming

That's...interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[billclo]

Thanks Matt.

This suggests to me the value of using drone attacks from ships with a low drone AD to try and run out the target's ADD before a high-drone AD ship attacks.

Ie, 2-3 F5's fire their drones at a Fed CA to try and run the ADD out of ammo before that C7 gives it a go with his 4 drone AD.

Depends on the situation though, as sometimes those small attacks are worthwhile to make on a crippled target with no buddies nearby to defend it.

 

[Nomad]

The nice thing about that is that it allows the defender to keep firing - from multiple ships, if they're using IDF! - until the drone/plasma wave is eliminated. Missed with those phasers? Fire some more!

Use IDF! lots, and stay in close formation where your phaser-3s are in range to cover your consorts.

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

That's...interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

Indeed, interesting, but the bigger the attack, the more likely it is to be depleted.

Do you fire your Kzinti Dreadnought's massive salvo first to go for the (almost) sure ADD depletion, or use the frigate's smaller drone wave and hope you get lucky and it depletes so you can pound him with the DN?

 

[MongooseMatt]

This suggests to me the value of using drone attacks from ships with a low drone AD to try and run out the target's ADD before a high-drone AD ship attacks.

There's... arguments for and against

 

[MongooseMatt]

Use IDF! lots, and stay in close formation where your phaser-3s are in range to cover your consorts.

Ah, but that's the problem - you will never be able to complete all the Special Actions you want. Having lots of IDF's is fine, but they will stop you replenishing shields, overloading weapons, and all the other cool things you want to do every turn

 

[Modious]

If you have 2 attack dice of ADD, and you roll 2 ones in a single volley, do you lose 2 AD of ADD, or just 1? I'm asking becouse 1 AD of ADD can stop all drones in a single volley regardless of any 1s rolled.

 

[MongooseMatt]

'If _any_ dice roll a 1, you run out of ammunition, and the ADD score is reduced by _1_.'

My emphasis

So, in that example, your ADD drops just by 1.

 

[Modious]

Thanks for clarification! It makes a lot of sense.

 

[Captain Jonah]

All this trouble with ADDs, join the Gorn fleet, we don't need no stinkin ADDs :twisted:

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

When you use phasers defensively do you have to fire all the AD in the system or can you just fire what you want and save the rest for later (eg The Kzinti dn has ph3 systems with 5 ad each. If one drone comes in do you have t really use all 5 dice?)

-Tim

 

[archon96]

so if youre AAD goes to 0 is that just for this turn or can you reload it on the next turn.

 

[Captain Jonah]

When you use phasers defensively do you have to fire all the AD in the system or can you just fire what you want and save the rest for later (eg The Kzinti dn has ph3 systems with 5 ad each. If one drone comes in do you have t really use all 5 dice?)

-Tim

Nope. You can use phasers ofensively OR defensively. If someone goes sailing past your port side at 1" your Kzinti DN can let him have it with everything including the kitchin wear.

If you are using your phasers defensively then you can use them once only against an incoming attack.

For example you are target of the turn and have 4 drones incoming plus another 4 and then three blocks of 2 as the enemy ships fire. You can use your ADDs against the two groups of 4 but for example say they run out of ammo after taking out the second group.

Enemy ship C fires two drones, you can fire one P3 at each rolling once against each. if you miss one you can still use another P3 or a tractor. each P3 can be used once only though so if you take out the first 4 with 4 shots you have one P3 left for the last incoming pair of drones, use a P1 or break out the tractors. Remeber that Drones and plasmas don't impact till the end of shooting so you can fire anything in arc till them to take them out. nearby ships with IDF can add a phaser or two if you miss with any.

 

[Captain Jonah]

so if youre AAD goes to 0 is that just for this turn or can you reload it on the next turn.

Once you hit zero its ammo expended and the ADD crew get out a deck of cards. You cannot reload ADDs.

As has been mentioned earlier though you only run out of ammo once on a single salvo (all drones from a single ship make one salvo) So no matter how many ones you may roll your ADD goes down by only one for each salvo. Makes using an ADD against single drones a gamble as you can run out after a single shot

Though your ADD1 can also automaticly stop a 6 drone salvo in one go as well and may not run out of ammo.

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

When you use phasers defensively do you have to fire all the AD in the system or can you just fire what you want and save the rest for later (eg The Kzinti dn has ph3 systems with 5 ad each. If one drone comes in do you have t really use all 5 dice?)

-Tim

Remeber that Drones and plasmas don't impact till the end of shooting so you can fire anything in arc till them to take them out.

I don't think this is correct at all. You must be getting this from some other similar game.

Back to my original question - the rulebook references "phasers" being fired individually. Coming from SFB I think I am interpreting that has each die, but I think in this case it may be a phaser is one weapon system that may or may not have multiple dice. Matt?

-Tim

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

I'm pretty sure you can split AD from a single group of phasers between defensive and offensive fire just like you can split them between two targets.