Fighters as Interceptors?

[redfox1524]

A few questions on fighter as interceptors

-If I have fighters supporting a single ship, is it optional to use them as interceptors on an incoming volley?

-if that choice is possible happens if i were to use them later?

-Lastly do i roll my normal interceptors separate from fighter interceptors, to determine how many fighters roll a 1 result. or is it all together and any 1 result is a destroyed fighter?

 

[Greg Smith]

-If I have fighters supporting a single ship, is it optional to use them as interceptors on an incoming volley?

It is optional. But it must be used on the first eligable volley in that turn.

-if that choice is possible happens if i were to use them later?

If they are used, they must be used for the first and every volley.

-Lastly do i roll my normal interceptors separate from fighter interceptors, to determine how many fighters roll a 1 result. or is it all together and any 1 result is a destroyed fighter?

Roll 'em all together. Any 1 destoys a fighter/.

 

[katadder]

we tend to use separate colour dice for fighter interceptors as its only them that roll ones kills fighters IIRC

 

[Iain McGhee]

Is that a house rule ? The rules don't say anything about only dice added by fighters killing flights on each and every roll of 1. I took that to represent that using fighters to intercept incoming fire was particularly risky.

 

[katadder]

possibly been a while since i played though so go by gregs ruling

 

[Greg Smith]

This was discussed during playtesting - do not differentiate between dice. The idea is to keep it straight forward and simple, to not worry about which interceptors are depleted, to not need to have different colour dice.

Group all dice together. Any 1s, at any stage, fighters die.

 

[locarno24]

If you want a justification, assume that any 1's from the ship's dice means an interceptor has locked onto and shot down one of the fighters by mistake - holding station between a ship and its attackers means pretty much sitting inside any existing interceptor's firing solutions......

 

[Democratus]

The rules, as written, leave a lot of room for interpretation on how fighters die. There was a long thread about this a while back. The three methods I've seen most used are:

1) Any "1" rolled at all at any time kills a fighter. This causes massive attrition.

2) Each hit can kill a maximum of one fighter flight. For each throw of the dice, one or more 1's rolled will kill a single fighter flight.

3) Only one fighter flight can be killed in any volley - so long as a "1" is rolled at some point using interceptors.

Our group finally settled on #2, as #1 doesn't really reflect what is seen in the television show and it makes fighter interceptors so fragile as to be nearly useless. However, I know many people use #1 and are happy with it.

 

[Burger]

I believe your (2) properly follows the rules as written.

"if any dice roll a 1, then a flight is automatically destroyed"
"Dice" plural. "a flight" singular.

 

[Greg Smith]

Our group finally settled on #2, as #1 doesn't really reflect what is seen in the television show .

I have not been able to see fighters acting as interceptors on the show, and Idid quite a bit of looking at it during playtesting. Do you know which episodes it was seen in?

 

[Da Boss]

Our group finally settled on #2, as #1 doesn't really reflect what is seen in the television show .

I have not been able to see fighters acting as interceptors on the show, and Idid quite a bit of looking at it during playtesting. Do you know which episodes it was seen in?

Didn't they do it the ep when Earth sends the ships to take B5? I watched it fairly recently and I thought they did?

 

[Burger]

They do it a lot in In The Pirkinning

 

[AdrianH]

I believe your (2) properly follows the rules as written.

"if any dice roll a 1, then a flight is automatically destroyed"
"Dice" plural. "a flight" singular.

There is plenty of evidence that the rulebook is not that grammatically precise. Plenty of people say "dice" when they actually mean one die; whoever wrote that rule may be one of them.

There's a thread about this in Rulesmasters:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40754

The consensus there is that option 1 is correct, every 1 kills a fighter.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Our group finally settled on #2, as #1 doesn't really reflect what is seen in the television show .

I have not been able to see fighters acting as interceptors on the show, and Idid quite a bit of looking at it during playtesting. Do you know which episodes it was seen in?

Didn't they do it the ep when Earth sends the ships to take B5? I watched it fairly recently and I thought they did?

I would imagine that it comes a lot in part from 'Severed Dreams' when furies are used to protect the fleeing Alexander from the Clarkstown. I always assumed that it was from enemy fighters, I always thought it would be rather difficult for a human pilot to intercept incoming fire. Its like shooting down a bullet with a bullet.

Fighters are used to shoot down the incoming missiles in 'Endgame' as they are inbound from the defense platforms.

 

[lastbesthope]

Our group finally settled on #2, as #1 doesn't really reflect what is seen in the television show .

I have not been able to see fighters acting as interceptors on the show, and Idid quite a bit of looking at it during playtesting. Do you know which episodes it was seen in?

Closest I can think of is when they try to knock down the missiles from Epsilon 3 targeting that shuttle in Voice In THe Wilderness.

LBH

 

[Democratus]

Closest I can think of is when they try to knock down the missiles from Epsilon 3 targeting that shuttle in Voice In THe Wilderness.

That's the one that I was thinking of. The starfuries acted as interceptors for the shuttle. And not a one of them really seemed in any danger at any time.

Making an argument that you can ignore the grammar of a rule because sometimes it is incorrect is a hugely slippery slope. One could as easily pick out any sentence in the rulebook and just say "that's what they wrote, but it was a mistake." Down that path lies madness. :shock:

#2, I believe, is a good compromise - and it is gramatically correct as per the rulebook. I don't think more than one flight of fighters should be killed by a single weapon hit. It would take a seriously magic bullet to fly all around a ship and smack 18 fighters from the sky.

 

[Burger]

Yep agreed, sure sometimes the grammar in the book is vague or contradictory or just plain wrong. But if we start changing it in one place, just because it's wrong in other places, it is open to huge abuse. We should only change the wording of the rules where it contradicts itself, doesn't make sense, has been officially ruled as incorrect or clarified. Any other modifications from the RAW are surely classed as house rules.

 

[AdrianH]

Making an argument that you can ignore the grammar of a rule because sometimes it is incorrect is a hugely slippery slope. One could as easily pick out any sentence in the rulebook and just say "that's what they wrote, but it was a mistake." Down that path lies madness. :shock:

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that the author is confused about "die" versus "dice". For example, page 3, on re-rolls: "Some special situations may call for you re-rolling a dice". Better yet, page 84, on using XP to increase crew quality: "You may spend one XP Die in an attempt to improve the Crew Quality of your ship. Roll the XP Dice". :lol:

#2, I believe, is a good compromise - and it is gramatically correct as per the rulebook. I don't think more than one flight of fighters should be killed by a single weapon hit. It would take a seriously magic bullet to fly all around a ship and smack 18 fighters from the sky.

Especially since you can't have more than 4 fighters supporting a ship. Besides, if several fighters all go after the same incoming shot, they might roll a 1 and collide...

 

[Burger]

Armaageddon listed the Vorlon Heavy Cruiser's hull as 6 instead of 5.

So we can't rely on the author to correctly write down hull scores.

Next time my opponent brings on a G'Quan, I'm going to tell him it should be hull 5.

 

[Da Boss]

Next time my opponent brings on a G'Quan, I'm going to tell him it should be hull 5.

now there is an idea You must have Centauri blood