NA Gatling laser questions

[starbreaker]

Want to make sure we're doing this correctly. Gatling lasers fire automatically each time a "triggering event" occurs. An attack with rockets, missiles, or torps is one such event, but do all the shots from a single ship count as a single trigger, or does each weapon system? We've been playing the second way, but I'm starting to wonder if that's incorrect.

For ex, an Al Malik cruiser fires both turret torpedo launchers and its portside rocket batteries at the broadside arc of Decados cruiser with 3 gatlings. Is each weapon system a seperate trigger, resulting in the gatlings rolling 9 dice against the first torpedo cluster (looking for sixes), 9 dice against the second torpedo cluster, and then 9 dice against the rockets (looking for fives)?

Or do you total all the weapons up then roll 9 dice of gatlings once, with fives knocking down successful rockets and sixes stopping either torps or rockets as the Decados player prefers (obviously he'll choose torps until he's killed them all in that case)?

The Decados cruiser is as nasty as it gets with gatlings, but even single mounts on Lumbering hulls are proving extremely difficult for Al Malik ships smaller than cruisers to deal with, and even the "all shots from a single ship are one trigger" interpretation isn't going to help much. The amount of damage stopped by even a single gatling over the course of a turn is on equal or greater than of what would have been stopped by other weapons interacting with shields, which doesn't seem reasonable. Maybe not too much of an issue yet since gatlings are currently found only on larger hulls, which can be outmaneuvered by sheer numbers to get some "clean" shots off, but as game size increases it becomes more and more noticeable.

Al Malik simply does not perform as well in large games as it does in small ones, which is a Bad Idea for promoting figure sales. We can't even realistically fall back on boarding as an alternate route to victory - we're the only fleet with no (official) troop upgrades, which is crippling for boarding tactics as well as maddening when it comes to trying to build a fleet to any given value. If the new escorts (we already know Li Halan is getting one, probably others will too) have gatlings, especially turret gatlings, Al Malik's problems are going appear at lower point values as well.

Most of what I've said appies to Hawkwood to a lesser degree, but at least they aren't entirely based on gatling-vulnerable weapons, and their heavy ships avoid them altogether.

One other question, gatlings aren't weapons as such (per the right hand inset box on p.12) and therefore aren't vulnerable to crits, crippling effects, firing limitations from special orders, etc, right? Same for grappling guns? Gats in particular would be a darn sight more reasonable if they were weapons, making them worry about getting Inaccurate from the weapon-1 crit result or pretty much shutting them down when crippled (who would choose a single gat as their only weapon system to fire?).

 

[Greg Smith]

I would say each weapon is a separate trigger. The rules aren't clear, that is purely based on the way weapons aren't fired simultaneously.

 

[starbreaker]

That is the way we've been playing it. It essentially renders Al Malik frigates completely ineffective against any ship with two or more gats in the bearing arc, and we lack the speed to make maneuvering into prow or stern extremely unlikely at any kind of range. Even a single gat roughly halves their firepower (not stellar to begin with) and degrades destroyers badly as well. Coupled with the poor performance of rockets (even Scout guided rockets) against Hull 5 targets this fleet becomes steadily weaker at shooting as point values climb - and as I said, relatively cheap escorts with turreted gatlings will enfeeble them in any size game.

Not like they have a lot of alternatives, either. Massed carriers might work until the gatling escorts start appearing, but beyond that they've got the unpalatable option of showing up for a 1500 point game with a dozen or so galliots and trying to board the enemy into submission without access to troop upgrades. As an Al Malik player, I'd rather not even see us get troop options (the playtest S&P ones were not well balanced) - give us something more in keeping with the nature of the fleet instead. Ammunition upgrades of various types, one-shot or reuseable - lots of room for ideas there. Maybe some other weapons - burnout stuff would just repeat the "no synergy" problem of the useless laser on the explorer, but a raider hull with a gremlin gun or two would be nice, or some lighter hulls with torpedo launchers or just more missiles in place of the rockets so we can handle Hull 5 stuff better.

 

[lastbesthope]

I would say each weapon is a separate trigger. The rules aren't clear, that is purely based on the way weapons aren't fired simultaneously.

Likewise

LBH

 

[MongooseMatt]

Each weapon is not a seperate trigger - _all_ weapons are, so it is quite possible to overwhelm gatling lasers, especially by an al Malik fleet.

 

[Stormrider]

So just to confirm here, by _all_ weapons do you mean all of the weapons on a single ship, or all the weapons on the enemy fleet?

i.e. if you use your gatling lasers on incoming attacks from the first ship then a second ship attacks, can you use all of your gatling lasers again? Or are the gatling lasers single use for that attack phase and reset at the end of the attack phase?

Put simply - is it gatling lasers for ALL ships or for EACH ship?

 

[MongooseMatt]

So just to confirm here, by _all_ weapons do you mean all of the weapons on a single ship, or all the weapons on the enemy fleet?

i.e. if you use your gatling lasers on incoming attacks from the first ship then a second ship attacks, can you use all of your gatling lasers again? Or are the gatling lasers single use for that attack phase and reset at the end of the attack phase?

Put simply - is it gatling lasers for ALL ships or for EACH ship?

All weapons used against a single ship in one Attack Phase.

 

[starbreaker]

That - is not an interpretation I would ever have derived from the rulebook as written. Extremely counter-intuitive wording there. It sounds like you're trying to say each gatling may choose to fire once per turn against shooting attacks, rather than once per opposing ship or single weapon volley? Weapons are still fired system-by-sytem, so what happens when your gat scores more hits than the shot it was trying to stop? Do the excess gat hits "carry over" to stop shots from the next weapon system, or are they just wasted? Can you reserve sixes for use against torpedo attacks you expect to take much later in the turn?

Regardless, I'd still like to see some kind of ammunition upgrades (two or three choices) for Al Malik, and perhaps a more restricted menu of them for Hawkwood and any other future rocket/missile/torp users that show up. Al Malik loses out on troop upgrades and could desperately use something as cost-effective as Marauders and elites to spend those last few points on. The playtest S&P stuff may someday become official, hopefully with some tweaking, but any kind of boarding upgrades are far off from the general Al Malik theme.

 

[Rick]

I'd draw your attention to the end of the rules on Gatling lasers: "Note that a gatling laser can defend against all 3 threats in a turn, though a player is never required to use a gatling laser." So, if a ship has several opponents in a single fire arc, covered by, say, 3 gatling lasers - he can choose not to fire at the first ships missiles, rockets or torpedoes, saving them against a bigger threat that has yet to fire, or fire 1 in response to each threat. I would imagine, however - that if an opponent fires at you, you would then announce how many gats were responding, you couldn't split the 3 dice between missile attacks - of course, you'd only need to decide this AFTER he'd worked out how many AD were successful!

 

[starbreaker]

Well aware of the option not to fire, but that doesn't really answer my questions about overkill gat hits or the possibility of reserving dice for later hits. You imagine not, but you don't sound any more sure than I am - and to judge from the earlier answers, everyone else who's answered on this thread has been playing gats wrong from word one just like I have.

Even if the answer to both is "no" the timing is still unclear. Do you declare the use of gatling fire when a given attack is announced, or after the AD are rolled and number of hits determined? I don't see anything in the rules that weights it one way or the other.

Much, much simpler when they rolled versus everything. Overpowered, but simpler. :roll:

 

[lastbesthope]

Each weapon is not a seperate trigger - _all_ weapons are, so it is quite possible to overwhelm gatling lasers, especially by an al Malik fleet.

So just to clarify you get to use each Gatling laser listed only once each per Attack phase against Weapons, once against fighters and oncer against Troops? Is that right?

LBH

 

[MongooseMatt]

So just to clarify you get to use each Gatling laser listed only once each per Attack phase against Weapons, once against fighters and oncer against Troops? Is that right?

LBH

That is correct.

 

[lastbesthope]

So just to clarify you get to use each Gatling laser listed only once each per Attack phase against Weapons, once against fighters and oncer against Troops? Is that right?

LBH

That is correct.

So when do you have to pick which weapons volley, boarding action or fighter attack you want to react against?

LBH

 

[Rick]

So when do you have to pick which weapons volley, boarding action or fighter attack you want to react against?

As far as attacks go - the rules state that a grappling laser nullifies a successful AD - so my opinion would be that after the AD had been rolled for the first attack and the number of successful hits had been tallied, but before your opponent had rolled for damage, is when you would state how many gats were responding - then you'd roll to see how many attacks you'd nullified. Against fighters it is fairly easy, as you'd roll all available dice and split them between all fighters within range.

As far as boarding actions are concerned, my opinion is that before you rolled to cut grapple lines, you'd tell your opponent how many gat's you were holding back to shoot his boarding troops with - that's the only way I can see of doing it.

You imagine not, but you don't sound any more sure than I am

Actually, Starbreaker - that was my way of saying that it was my opinion, not an official rules clarification that I was passing on. I have striven to be more clear in the post above.

:lol:

 

[starbreaker]

It specifically says in the rulebook that if gats don't cut all the grapples, they fire on boarding troops with the full 3 AD as well.

OTOH, I agree with you about the weapons fire sequencing - seems like the only practical way to do it, you can't back up after damage is rolled very well ("uh, I'll stop the die that scored the crit") and you don't know which incoming AD are successful before they're rolled.

Sorry if I came off snippy, but this whole subject is giving me a headache. It amounts to a major rules change for my group, and I'm not sure I didn't prefer the simplicity of the old "shoot all the time, every time" way we were doing it even if it did neuter my poor Al Maliks. The correct way is better balanced and removes my concerns about cheap escorts, but cripes, it's hard to word so the loopholes and questions are all plugged and answered.

 

[Rick]

It specifically says in the rulebook that if gats don't cut all the grapples, they fire on boarding troops with the full 3 AD as well.

You're right - I misread that section and I do apologise. But this does make things a bit simpler - it's really only in the shooting phase that you have to try to predict your opponents tactics!

Sorry if I came off snippy, but this whole subject is giving me a headache. It amounts to a major rules change for my group, and I'm not sure I didn't prefer the simplicity of the old "shoot all the time, every time" way we were doing it even if it did neuter my poor Al Maliks. The correct way is better balanced and removes my concerns about cheap escorts, but cripes, it's hard to word so the loopholes and questions are all plugged and answered.

You didn't actually, lol! I realised after I'd posted it that it did sound a bit uncertain, so I really was trying to explain which bits were merely my opinions. The problem is that the rules are written in a fairly straightforward way to cover simple eventualities - which as wargamers we, quite naturally, try to exploit to our own advantage! :twisted: Which then requires an explanation of why we can't get away with it!