Interest in a SF ACTA tournament at Warlords of Walsall?

[Centauri_Admiral]

Could those of you who wish to attend, please send me £5 per person as a deposit (and to shut the church up), to paypal address r.godfrey547@btinternet.com

I personally, am really looking forward to seeing you all, and getting the Centauri out for another spin . . . its been way way too long

 

[Greg Smith]

How are you planning to do initiative?

My suggestion would be to use the lowest - since that is how it works with the League.

Alternatively we could average it.

 

[AdrianH]

I would have thought that each player rolls his initiative and plays his fleet. The game would then effectively be four player, but two players are co-operating on each side.

Will scouts from one fleet be able to provide stealth modifiers or weapons re-rolls to ships from the other fleet in a team? And can an escort provide anti-fighter cover to a ship from the team-mate's fleet which is within 8"?

 

[Da Boss]

hmm We had assumed the opposite - that its two fleets combined and you can use all traits etc onto all your partners ships?

 

[AdrianH]

That could work, although it would effectively be a combo fleet illegal in any other format and commanded by a two-player committee.

A four player game with two players on each side co-operating has shades of the diplomatic side of Babylon 5. You can ask the other player to do something, offer to do something for him, co-operate on strategy and tactics, but ultimately you play your own fleet using your own initiative bonus.

The League rule is that initiative is +0 unless the fleet includes ships from a race with a lower modifier, in which case use the lowest. The Army of Light is simpler, its initiative modifier is +0 regardless. If you do want to play a combo fleet, that would be the easiest way to handle initiative modifiers - drop them entirely.

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Howdy gents, I'm just running off to a meeting at uni now, but I'll reply to this properly a bit later on today.

 

[H]

when we have played 4 player games, we generally use Adrians approach, seems to make more sense. In a combined fleet, I'm sure the mimbari wouldn't sit twiddling their thumbs until the pakmara stop snacking on that tribble (whoops, wrong universe) and decide to fight.
makes for some interesting tactical situations

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

My inclination on initiative, was for each player to roll for initiative as normal for their fleet including bonuses, and then add the two scores together. I hadnt intended for the sharing of any traits, as to me it was more like two fleets working together that wouldnt ordinarily do so, rather than one big fleet with two players behind it. So it is more like a 4 player game, but with only two sides, so no betrayals or back stabbings etc etc

I have a second issue, which I want you all to feed back on, and that is that I am now the only member of the Warlords that is going to be in attendance. Darren, Dale, Shane and Dean are all either unable to get time off work, or no longer interested. Having taken over as the President of the Warlords club (no salutes or tributes are necessary ) I find this disappointing, especially as Andy has not replied to my texts, answer phone messages, or calls . . . I can only surmise that for whatever reason, he's not interested.

This means there are 7 players, im sure you've by now done the maths, this means a doubles event wont work, unless I take one single centauri fleet and agree to a handicap perhaps? That way we can keep peoples fleets and plans as they are, the other option is to revert the format back to single games, in which case I wont play unless I can find another opponent who can attend. I'm open to either suggestion; I just wanted to let you guys know before the saturday . . . I had kind of hoped that Andy might have shown through, but I'm not prepared to wait any longer.

Can someone get in contact with Ken and Alex, to get their opinion, and then let me know what you all think. Cheers, Rich

 

[Da Boss]

I have emailed Ken and Alex with this post.

We are playing a test game on Wednesday night.

I am quite happy myself for the Initiatve to work as you suggest....
I also think that as you ahev made the effort to sort it out you should if at all possible play!!!

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Yeah thanks Charles; let me know how it goes and any feedback . . . theres still plenty of time to iron out issues. I would like to play, its been ages, and I'd love to give my centauri a spin again . . . what I propose is that I play as single, with the points allocation for two players. However, given that means I can select a single centauri fleet worth the same amount of points as my opponents two smaller fleets, I'm willing to take a handicap on each game . . . so i'm actually fielding less, and any possible advantages are minimised (trust me, I'm so rusty with this game, that alone should help my opponents).

I'm thinking either a points cap OR a cap on the certain ship types which we all know centauri are sods for; suggestions are welcome.

 

[AdrianH]

I don't think a handicap will be necessary. For one thing, how do we know there won't be teams in which both players have ships from the same fleet? For another, I believe a mixed team will have an advantage, with the weaknesses that were designed to balance the original fleet covered by the other fleet of the team. Your only advantage is that you don't need to argue with another player about battle tactics.

If you want the joy of playing a mixed fleet, in game 1 you can borrow whichever of my two fleets I'm not using and mix that in with your Centauri.

Another thought: instead of keeping fixed teams, you could move people around, keep individual rather than team scores, and see if anyone else wants to volunteer to take a double-strength fleet alone in one game - I might have a go myself. That way you get to play a team game as well.

 

[Greg Smith]

For another, I believe a mixed team will have an advantage, with the weaknesses that were designed to balance the original fleet covered by the other fleet of the team.

Only if you know what fleet your partner is taking and he designs a fleet to accommodate.

Since it is random partners, that doesn't apply.

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

I'm fine with playing as the single, to be honest it would give me chance to get used to what the centauri fleet can do again, its been so long since I used them. The first pairings for teams will be random, but after that you'll play the other two games with the same player, so i'd prefer to avoid shaking that up too much.

Beams - I cant remember if I said we'd be using triggies beam system - how do you guys want to play it?

 

[Da Boss]

Def use T's beam system

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Remind me how that works again? I've forgot lol

 

[Da Boss]

for each Beam AD

rol 1D6

1-2 Miss
3-4 1 hit
5-6 1 hit and roll again on this table.

 

[AdrianH]

I'm fine with playing as the single, to be honest it would give me chance to get used to what the centauri fleet can do again, its been so long since I used them.

One thing which has occurred to me about a double-strength fleet versus two standard strength fleets is that it will be activating ships half as often - if both the standard fleets have 6 Skirmish level ships and the double-strength fleet has 12, for example, then by the time the standard fleets have finished moving, the double-strength fleet will only have moved half its ships.

You could play two standard strength fleets by yourself. You'd need to keep track of which ships are in which fleet and activate one (or one squadron) from each fleet in turn. Alternatively, you must move (and fire) two ships when it's your turn.

The nice things about Triggy's beam system are that it makes beams less likely to score flat misses or runaway expansions; it keeps the average number of hits the same, so it doesn't mess with balance; and having been published in both S&P and P&P, it's official.

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Yeah I remember that i liked that beam system; I just couldnt remember exactly how it works. With regards to fleet activations of ships, I'll just activate two ships or squadrons, which in effect should work out the same as two players with separate fleets.

 

[Da Boss]

Ok so played today - 5 pt battle but now you two have confused me again.

We just played it that you played as normal and moved alternative ships otherwise its going to get very confusing / you might as well play seperate games?

the beam rule work well - except of course I missed with 9AD of beams (out of 9) from two Shadow ships in the first turn - I was not happy.................

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

Does the following help to clarify?
Work out initiative as per normal, taking the doubles considerations into account, and activate a ship or squadron. Each team should have two separately generated lists, which will work together as one whole for these games, not as two entities.


For example:
Player A may decide that it would be better for him to activate all his ships first, then let player B do what he needs to do, or it could be reversed, or a mixture of the two players taking actions as they see fit. I need to stress, that this is not a 4 player game, where each takes a separate activation. For all intents and purposes it is a 2 player game, where each player is represented by 2 people, with fleets that will try as best as they can to work in concert with each other.