Noble Armada: Sequence

[steelbrok]

This came out of a recent battle.

During the moement phase a badly damaged Vuldrok light frigate makes a sucesful grapple on a Hawkwood Sawfly command frigate.

In the subsequent fire phase the light frigate is reduced to 0 damage and after rolling is Running Adrift.

Can the boarding action still take place?

Either A

The light frigate cannot run adrift because it is grappled to the Sawfly. Although the ship is trashed it has not exploded nor has it had Crew criticals to reduce it's troops and so can board as normal.

Or B

The troops are assumed killed when the ship was reduced to nil damage.

 

[LimeyDragon]

Or B

The troops are assumed killed when the ship was reduced to nil damage.

Once a ship runs out of damage points it is considered dead along with all her crew.

 

[steelbrok]

Thank you.

 

[AdrianH]

There is still the question of what happens to the Sawfly. It's still tied to a big lump of dead metal, and as it has no gatling lasers it can't cut the grappling lines. The light frigate can't cut them because there's nobody left alive to do it. How does it get free?

I don't have "Fleets of the Fading Suns" so I don't know which of these has the higher damage; maybe the Sawfly is bigger and just drags the frigate around. In any case, what happens if a larger ship grapples a smaller ship and is then knocked out while grappled?

 

[steelbrok]

There is still the question of what happens to the Sawfly. It's still tied to a big lump of dead metal, and as it has no gatling lasers it can't cut the grappling lines. The light frigate can't cut them because there's nobody left alive to do it. How does it get free?

I don't have "Fleets of the Fading Suns" so I don't know which of these has the higher damage; maybe the Sawfly is bigger and just drags the frigate around. In any case, what happens if a larger ship grapples a smaller ship and is then knocked out while grappled?

That's a very good point. The Sawfly is bigger so it can simply haul the wreckage around by RAW.
I took it though that the light frigate was smashed up and the grapples rendered inoperative. May have been wrong to do so but it was more convenient to play just the Sawfly rather than sawfly with light frigate permanently attached. (and wreckage filled with boarders at that?)

 

[steelbrok]

duplicate post

 

[AdrianH]

There is still the question of what happens to the Sawfly. It's still tied to a big lump of dead metal, and as it has no gatling lasers it can't cut the grappling lines. The light frigate can't cut them because there's nobody left alive to do it. How does it get free?

I don't have "Fleets of the Fading Suns" so I don't know which of these has the higher damage; maybe the Sawfly is bigger and just drags the frigate around. In any case, what happens if a larger ship grapples a smaller ship and is then knocked out while grappled?

That's a very good point. The Sawfly is bigger so it can simply haul the wreckage around by RAW.
I took it though that the light frigate was smashed up and the grapples rendered inoperative. May have been wrong to do so but it was more convenient to play just the Sawfly rather than sawfly with light frigate permanently attached. (and wreckage filled with boarders at that?)

Boarders aren't a problem, that has already been established that a few posts up.

The issue didn't occur during our game. One of my galliots succeeded in grappling, survived, and dumped its troops. Another succeeded in grappling, didn't survive, but what it had grappled was bigger than it so we just ignored it. Actually we'd probably have ignored it even if it had only grappled something tiny because it was getting late and we were all too tired to think of details like that. We called it a night before my last galliot got into position to grapple something. And apparently the effect hasn't entirely worn off because I've only just thought of another problem which does affect the Sawfly. If there's a lump of dead metal still attached to it, it can't fire weapons out of that arc...

 

[Greg Smith]

I thought there was a rule whereby a destroyed ship drops all grapples. But I can't find it in the rules.