Early EA Bonehead manouver

[No. 1 Bear]

Personally i dont feel that its too bad now that it has to be an enemy jump point. It will require some testing. All this means is that you have to be nuts to jump in on an EA Early years fleet and that if you try to jump out your dead. However it would be an interesting tactic for the opponent to jump right in the middle of the EA fleet as using the manouvre then would be counter productive.

I feel that it needs some more testing and may need some tweaking. I will test it tommorow. I think the results would be Interesting. 5pt Raid. I will report back tommorow.

So Fleets (Mine)

2 Hyperion Rail Cruisers
1 Explorer
1 Avenger
1 Olympus corvette, 2 Hermes
1 Olympus Corvette, 2 Hermes

This is quite a balanced fleet lets see how it fairs against.

My mates fleet centauri (note he will NOT be using the hunting pack rule)

2 Vorchan
1 Vorchan, 1 Corvan
2 Demos
2 Demos
1 Balvarian.

Well i tested it out and we played it as though we were playing 2nd ed.

The EA kept the 2 rail hyps in hyperspace.
The Centauri kept the 3 Vorchans in space.

First couple of turns: The ea fighter swarm dispatched the centauri one quickly so this wasn't an issue for the EA.
The demos stayed allong side the balvarian on CBD and used their missile to blow up a corvette and damage another the EAs shoting was abismal this made up for the good dogfighting.

The next few turns saw possibly the most action. The vorchans decided to jump in one on either edge and one in the middle of the field. However unluckily this scattered and ended up easily within range of bonehead for the demos pack and very unfortunately managed to just clip the corvan. So one hermes shot forward tryed and failed. So another tryed succeeded and blew up all ships quite spectacularly. The vorchans jumped in on the far right where they were followed by the rail hyperions who had opened jump points on either edge too. The rail hyps blew up one of the vorchans, the vorchans finished of the other corvette. Meanwhile the auroras where slowly critting the balvarian to death.

The final turns saw the balvarian die, from a very lucky missile shot of a hermes this left 2 vorchans to contend with 2 rail hyps 1 criplled, 2 hermes undamaged, an explorer Undamaged and an avenger undamaged. so we called it.

Me and matty drew this conclusion:

The centauri should have had a good chance having very manouverable ships. They were swinging round the battlefield with the demos when the vorchan JP scattered, up to that point they were undamaged.

The bonehead manouvre is wrong and broken. I managed to kill 4 Demos and a Corvan for an exchange of 2 hermes. It is far too powerfull. Tone it down maybe but i think it would be easier to remove it. Matt suggested that a rule allong the line of you shot me i ram you back. Such as you see from the evidance in the mimbari earth war, allot of ramming went on, but then i feel thats exchanging stinking bishop for cheddar.

I feel to strike it would be simpler come up with something not so broken. And there is no reason why EA fighters need a boost they are fine.

 

[Scipio]

The Bonehead manuever just dont feel quite right.

Only in an situation of utter desperation would push someone (even human) would attempt it. Like if the fleet were outnumbered and in an hopeless situation.
Allowing Early EA running around doing this even when they are under the control of the situation and possibly even after they have trapped an enemy in an perfect ambush for exampel is not right.

Something else is needed.

 

[Foxmeister]

Perhaps if the EA player was losing by a significant number of VPs, the Bonehead Manoeuvre could be an option.

Regards,

Dave

 

[The_Mhor]

Doesn't the point that Sheridan's Whitestar was the first vessel to actually perform the Bonehead not mean that no EA vessel before him actually did? In which case shouldn't the Bonehead be a Crusade Era (or late Third Age) option only?

Also, not that it matters, but JMS already stated that the Bonehead is only possible with a Jumpgate...

 

[lastbesthope]

Also, not that it matters, but JMS already stated that the Bonehead is only possible with a Jumpgate...

Nothing in that JMS quote you link to definitively states that it needs a jumpgate to perform the manoeuvre, only that one ship can't produce both jump points needed to perform the manoeuvre, it does not discount the possibilityof two ships working in conert, or one ship utilising a JP opened by an enemy vessel to acheive a similar effect.

He may hacve stated elsewhere that a Jump Gate is necessary, but that quote doesn't state it conclusively.

LBH

 

[The_Mhor]

That's true, it never explicitly states it, but all the evidence that we ever see points at it. As I said, it doesn't really matter; many things here are outside what is official canon, and very good.


Closer to the topic, why are Early EA the only people crazy/suicidal enough to use this? Why can't the aggressive warlike races (like the Drazi, or possibly the Dilgar) do it? Once it's been done once with devastating results why don't other races just copy it?

Also, the Shadow's Jumppoint Disruptors seem feeble compared to the blast of the Bonehead. Why are the Masters of Hyperspace not able to create a weapon that unleashes all this energy in all the millennia they fought over before they entered the long, cold war with the Vorlons?

 

[l33tpenguin]

Even worse than the shadows having access to this would be for the ISA to have access... blue stars would be the ultimate weapons of mass destruction

 

[Burger]

Hang on, yes it does state it...

no one has been able to open a jump point in a jump point because of the hideous amount of energy needed by the ship in question. They used the White Star to open a jump point within a standing jump gate that was already there, and had a secondary source of power

From that we can learn:

1) Opening a jump point inside another jump point requires hideous amounts of energy (meaning more energy than is required to open a jump point in normal empty space; the existing jump point must make it harder to open a 2nd one)
2) The secondary source of power from the jump gate is why the WS needed to use jump gate, as well as requiring a jump point. The massive power source of the jump gate is mentioned explicitly by JMS, so I believe that makes it important to pulling off the manouver. Using a ship, with its much smaller power source, wouldn't work.
3) Even the White Star doesn't have the previously mentioned hideous amounts of power, and that has AJE. So how are 2 Hermes meant to do it?

Even if we ignore this canon, why isn't the scatter mentioned in the bonehead rules? Surely using non-advanced jump engines you should still have to make a scatter rule, and the manouver only works if the 2nd jump point is actually opened on top of the first?

 

[CZuschlag]

All valid. Time to end this line of research as a dead end.

I think we need to wait for the designer's next EA idea and start fresh from that.

 

[skavendan]

3) Even the White Star doesn't have the previously mentioned hideous amounts of power, and that has AJE. So how are 2 Hermes meant to do it?

Even if we ignore this canon, why isn't the scatter mentioned in the bonehead rules? Surely using non-advanced jump engines you should still have to make a scatter rule, and the manouver only works if the 2nd jump point is actually opened on top of the first?

I agree it seems broken.

 

[Greg Smith]

Only incoming jump points scatter, not outgoing ones. The ship doing the bonehead manuever is opening an outgoing one.

 

[Burger]

Mmm good point, accepted. Although it seems to be against the intention of standard jump engines, that they are not very precise.

Still, other points hold.

 

[Hindsight]

It was called the Bonehead maneuver because no ship in the ESA fleet was fast enough to escape without being destroyed in the process. Unless you're required to have a certain speed... this should not be possible to pull off as ESA.

That is direct from the episode, even Lennier is not 100% the White Star is fast enough to pull it off, and it barely was. They took heavy damage even attempting the maneuver.

Just because something is named in the show, it doesn't mean it was named because it is possible.

 

[Foxmeister]

It was called the Bonehead maneuver because no ship in the ESA fleet was fast enough to escape without being destroyed in the process.

It was called the Bonehead Manoeuvre because its use as a weapon was considered during the Earth-Minbari War, and Bonehead was a derogatory term directed towards the Minbari.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Da Boss]

Yeah its a bit ironic that the only ship that ever did it can't do it now - and NO I don't want the ISA to be able to attempt it..............

 

[Hindsight]

It was called the Bonehead maneuver because no ship in the ESA fleet was fast enough to escape without being destroyed in the process.

It was called the Bonehead Manoeuvre because its use as a weapon was considered during the Earth-Minbari War, and Bonehead was a derogatory term directed towards the Minbari.

Regards,

Dave

I disagree. While the reference does have some duel meaning, it doesn't change the fact that the maneuver was tested, and failed. No Earth ship was fast enough to get out before the explosion destroyed their craft.

Thus when Sheridan told Lennier to order the action, he told Sheridan he was unsure if the White Star had the speed necessary to pull it off. It is both a stupid thing to try (boneheaded) and something attempting during the fight with the minbari (which were called boneheads as derogatory slang).

Whether the name represents stupidity, or Minbari, they still could not pull it off when they tried it, and only Sheridan was able to do it with the added speed of the White Star. ESA should not have this as an option, as they tried to do it, and failed.

Maybe make it a legal option, if the attempting ship is destroyed in the process =) I imagine ESA ships with their own jump engines wouldn't be worth sacrificing trying to pull something like this off...

I move that it be stricken as unrepresentative of in-show references to its failure as a tactic. Can we have it? =D

 

[Da Boss]

I move that it be stricken as unrepresentative of in-show references to its failure as a tactic. Can we have it? =D

I second that motion

 

[Greg Smith]

Maybe make it a legal option, if the attempting ship is destroyed in the process =) I imagine ESA ships with their own jump engines wouldn't be worth sacrificing trying to pull something like this off...

Well a ship stands a pretty good chance of being destroyed in the process, 4d6 x4 damage (42 on average).

The problem is is that it is worth sacrificing a Hermes to do it.

My impression is, if the Early EA can do this, and it only works with enemy jump points, the enemy won't be silly enough to open jump points near an early EA fleet.

 

[Da Boss]

you mean like they do in the show?

I would think the whole idea has been looked at by various races - Narn, Centauri etc and found unworkable - IMHO you need a plot driven ship with a named main character on it to make it work (and a Jump gate).

 

[No. 1 Bear]

you mean like they do in the show?

I would think the whole idea has been looked at by various races - Narn, Centauri etc and found unworkable - IMHO you need a plot driven ship with a named main character on it to make it work (and a Jump gate).

And the fact that a JP is a JP. An enemy JP makes no difference to the fact that its a JP so surely if it worked on enemy JP it would work on friendly JP's. Therefore the whole idea of it working on enemy only JP is ridiculas.