New Initiative idea for movement

[katadder]

seeing as everybody seems to do these 10 skirmish ships fleets for tourneys i think it takes away from the big ships which i love to use and think should be around more often so thought maybe a new initiative method could be used in the movement phase. if you play classic battletech you will know this way already but basically the person who wins init should always have at least one model to move after his opponents last ship as tahts the point of initiative, in fact big wieldy fleets are usually harder to coordinate than a few ships so it works like this:

if you have double the number of opponents ships when its your turn to move you move 2 ships, if you have triple move 3 etc etc

a game between say centauri and EA, the centauri has a primus, a dargan, centurian and 3 corvans for 6 ships, the EA has the 10 sagi fleet.

centauri win init, EA moves one ship (10 ships to cenaturi 6), centauri moves 1 ship, EA moves 1 (9 - 5), centauri moves 1, EA moves 2 (8-4), C moves 1, EA moves 2 (6-3), C moves 1, EA moves 2 (4-2), C moves 1, EA moves last 2 ships, centauri get to use init and move their last ship.

this is only for the movement phase, shooting would be carried out as usual. besides giving init to the actual winner of init (and hopefully lowering the use of swarm fleets) it may also see more use of squadrons as they wont be the init loser they are currently as on your turn you could move a squadron instead as one squadron would be the equivalent of 1 ship for movement init purposes.


so come on people, what ya think? lets get the big ships out and actually start to use them

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Silent death rules works in the same way.

It is a reasonable way to avoid people squeezing the initiative rules.

Kremmen

 

[H]

I don't think changing the initiative is needed as only a small minority of people field the cheesy 10 ship , and why are they cheesy? would fielding 20 patrol ships be cheesy? There shouldn't be a problem with the fleets like that, reaverman and co have shown how a warship can win through against such odds in certain circumstances. People choose the fleet they want to field, changing the rules everytims someone does something "cheesy" whats the point? how do you counter the hunter fleet? usually only 3 ships, or even 2 ships and fighters, yet it wins games, it's probably anticheese in terms of ship numbers.

 

[Reaverman]

If a big Naval ship, goes toe-to-toe with smaller ships in todays theatre of war, its going to have similar problems. Thats why even battle ships, have smaller vessels in escort.

 

[katadder]

naval ships may have that problem cos they cant go as fast or turn so quick etc, thats the downsides even when winning init fighting the swarm, but i dont think you should be able to just outswarm someones init bonus. i mean you can get 24 ships for a shadow ship whose init is +6 but that shadow ship is gonna watch the swarm then make his move when he needs to, probably burst right through and spin killing a few ships.

battleships even on this init can be out fought by swarms as battleships dont have the speed or turning circle of smaller ships. this is then compounded on by that even if they win init they will be probably boresighted by about 4-5 enemy ships. init should be usable, not just ignored by buying swarms of ships.

 

[Tank]

@katadder

When you mention battleships are you talking Naval battleships with all round fire power and rotating turrets?

Or ACTA Battle PL ships?

 

[katadder]

i'm talking ACTA ones.

 

[Reaverman]

@katadder

When you mention battleships are you talking Naval battleships with all round fire power and rotating turrets?

Or ACTA Battle PL ships?

It does not matter Tank, a Helicopter with a Torp can seriously hamper a Battle ship. I mean the Belgrano was taken out by a WWII Torp!

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Dont think the change is necessary, myself.

Games come in three varieties; friendly, campaign and tourney

In friendly games any player with an excess of ships will generally be a gentleman and squadron them up to keep things running quickly.

In campaign games the battles are not necessarily going to be equal anyway, and one side may have a dozen patrol and skirmish ships against half a dozen battle and war ships, and they will need the initiative movement edge.

In a tourney, the whole point is to squeeze out as much advantage as possible from your fleets. if your taking a lot of small ships in order to squeeze init, then that's your choice.

Just my tupence worth!

 

[Tank]

Um Reaver I think you'll find that the Belgrano was taken out by a modern submarine with modern armaments outside the exclusion zone coz it was a clear and present danger to the task force :lol:

Armaments like milk does have a certain shelf life

 

[Reaverman]

Um Reaver I think you'll find that the Belgrano was taken out by a modern submarine with modern armaments outside the exclusion zone coz it was a clear and present danger to the task force :lol:

Armaments like milk does have a certain shelf life

It was a 21" unguided torpedo, using similar tech to the one used in WWII. No fancy gizmos, no tiger sharks, just a torp!

 

[Tank]

@Katadder, right gotcha, sorry several Naval comments got my wires crossed.

@Reaver, hah see, gotcha, similar but not WWII!!! :lol:

Im so dying on the 16th :lol:

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

There's a reason for that, the torp in question had the advantage of a lot of field testing. Modern armaments are so expensive that they rarely get the same degree of testing.

 

[katadder]

so am I 1st tourney, and picked a fleet i like rather than one that may be uber powerful

 

[Tank]

So going on the 16th eh? I will primarily be not using a cheese fleet but one with ships that I like that are available in that era.

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Good for you, guys! Always better to see fleets winning through good tactics rather than cheese.

However it is a tourney, the idea is to win, and if people use cheese to do it, better there than in other games. Tournies are the appropriate forum for cheese-fleets, keeps them away from friendly and campaign games.

Besides, who decides what is cheese. One persons cheese is anothers brilliant strategy. I'm sure whoever first came up with the 10 sag fleet thought they were just being creative and inspirational, rather than cheesy.

 

[Reaverman]

So going on the 16th eh? I will primarily be not using a cheese fleet but one with ships that I like that are available in that era.

I've just purchased some EA ships, cost me £42 for 7 more ships

 

[katadder]

hmm, wonders what reaverman is taking. amusing thing is halfway through actually painting my fleet when get PDF, says i can use counters ah well at least its getting painted now.

 

[Tank]

NAM I think you should reconsider the whole Winning thing, I did its not gonna happen for me, dice hate me and Im playing a dice game regardless of my stunningly brilliant tactics

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

Ah well, the whole thing I've found with dice is that they have a mind of their own, not to mention a sense of humour.

For example in battle tech I could never roll criticals, eight up on 2d6, you would think they would occur quite often, but no, nothing. ask mylordkorn, he used to play me at battletech regularly, about my lack of criticals.

In ACTA, however, criticals are coming out rather more often than they should, and often spectacular ones. However the sense of humour also comes out here too. In a single battle I killed Scotty four times (Vitals, engineering), gods know why?

I also find that dice reflect mood. When you get dispirited with your dice rolls, they only get worse, you find this?