P&P playtest reports

[Greg Smith]

Please post your playtest reports here.

Please try and keep this thread uncluttered with debate on any issues raised, there are several other threads for that. Thanks.

 

[Greg Smith]

A playtest for the WS with shortened range.

ISA
2 WS
2 WSII
3 BS

Centauri
Primus
3 Demos
Balvarin
Kutai
2 haven

As three White Stars flanked the Centauri fleet, it was apparrent that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place - if I didn't advance I would be in the Primus' beam range, if I advanced the Primus could all stop and I would be in his weapon range and he would be out of mine. However a brave Blue Star tempted him forward, so that I could rush into range.

Firing from the Primus left one WS crippled and another damaged. Return fire scored a 6,6 crit and crippled the Primus in return. The Demos squadron finished off both WS. The damaged one suffered 5 hits from an ion cannon which I completey failed to dodge and so was destroyed.

The following turn I destroyed the Primus with ease, leaving one WS with no target because of its lack of range. (To be fair, I probably concentrating on destroying the damaged Primus a little too much, but the lack of range meant I had no targets to switch to).

I was constantly under attack from swarms of Raziks and Sentris, and because I needed to stay close, I couldn't escape them. I cleaned a few up with Blue Stars, but one Razik got and Adrift crit - with meant no more dodges and quick destruction for another WS.

Although I started out with similar numbers, the early loss of 2 WS meant I was struggling to chase the ships I needed to kill and with no range, there was nowhere I could position WS to hit the most destructive ships - the Demoses. Instead I could only chase Havens, the Kutai and the Balvarin.

Result - ISA lost everything.
Centauri lost Primus, Haven, Kutai.

Conclusions:
The stated aim of the range change was to stop WS sitting back on CBD. Well that worked. I didn't use CBD after turn 1.

Unfortunately, the WS now struggles. It is reliant on luck - dodges. If they fail, it dies. It is also reliant on traits - and my ships once crippled invariably lost one or two of the essential traits that keep them alive.

The WS is vulnerable to fighters - by reducing the range, you restrict the distance the WS can move in and be effective, therefore leaving it more vulnerable to fighters.

Against the Centauri the old WS can sit back and pick at a Primus with ease - it can't do that now. Against faster ships like the Havens, things haven't really changed. It is the Demoses I stuggled with - once I was outnumbered and out sinked, I didn't have the range to find a point where I could get the Demoses in arc before they moved and keep them there - I could only chase the enemy ships that had already moved.

-------------
My fleet build wasn't quite optimal - I might have taken an Avenger to bring fighters. Or I could have brought skirmish level allies. Truthfully, I was testing WS, so I brought as many WS as possible.

That said, I would have struggled worse against a Liati.

 

[Greg Smith]

We tried out the G'Quan, and new Narn CBD.

3rd Age EA
Omega
Avenger
Explorer
Olympus
2 Hermes

That was a lot of fighters. Plus Da Boss isn't all that used to playing EA, so he picked a somewhat odd fleet. I did point out that he lacked combat ships. Once he got going with Avenger, he was disappointed that it wasn't a ship he could steam into battle with, like his Balvarins!

Narn
G'Quan
2 G'kariths
2 Thentuses

I only selected the G'kariths beacuse I wanted to try out the Narn CBD. As it turned out they proved to be fortuitous.

The first couple of turns the Narn ships advanced under CBD. The Narn special rule didn't actually stop any of the crits that were inflicted - but they weren't devastating crits.

The G'Quan did destroy the Olympus in the first turn with a lucky crit.

The EA fleet crept forward, except the Hermes which rushed forward, braving the G'Quan's side guns, but the big Narn ship was more intent on its CBD and firing its beams. But the Thentuses killedthe annoying EA ships.

The G'Karriths used their emines to kill a few fighters.

The G'Quan used a Frazi as an interceptor early on, but that died quite quickly, then the EA fighter swarm prevented that happening again.

For two or three turns the Omega and G'Quan advanced on each other. The Omega got two turns of firing with its forward pulse cannon while the G'Quan's pulse cannons only fired at the Omega once. And while the Omega's interceptors stopped most of the hits, everything the Omega hit with was damaging.

The the Omega and G'Quan passed one another. The G'quan could only boresight the Explorer. The Omega however could fire its rear beam, doing quite significant damage.

The Avenger wound up so far out of position it opened a jump point and left.

This left the Omega facing two Thentuses and the G'Quan. The Thentuses managed to cripple the Omega. The G'quan took forever to come around since it had a no SA crit, and fired its emine (which I had previously forgotten about), and killed the Omega.

-------------
Track That Target was tried three times during the game - the Omega actually succeeded and used it to hit the G'Quan with its beam.

The narn CDB failed to stop any of the crits inflicted in the first few turns - about 5 of them.

The G'Quan's inferiority compared to the Omega was quite clear - especially because of interceptors and rear beam. Once they had passed each other, the Omega had a significant advantage.

The G'kariths could hit fighters on the first few turns, but after that the Narn really struggled against the fighters, with AF2 on the G'Kariths looking quite good! The Narn's all round guns did eventually wear them down. (But that is nothing new)

Again this wasn't an optimal fleet - but then neither was the EA one.

Da Boss was happy the Narn were fairly balanced against the EA, but was convinced they would stand no chance against the Centauri.

------------------
The G'Quan is better, but still not quite there.

The Narn CBD - it didn't stop crits. I didn't take bad crits while I had it on (lost AF and no SA on the G'Quan, -AD and speed on a G'karith). Maybe it could be changed to stop the first crit each turn?

 

[Na-Po]

Playtest of Narn vs Drazi, 5 Battle points

I played Narn and used 3 G'Quan 2 Dag'Kar and 4 Ka'Toc.
My opponent tried the fireraptor with a mix of other Drazi ships
(1 battle 2 raid and 4 skirmish)(some solar cannon on drazi ship but I have to ask him which ships he used)

for a total of 9 Narn ships and 8 drazi ships.

The aim was to test the new G'Quan stats and TTT for the Narns
(I rarely used CTBD due to a massive use of secondary weapons)
and to use the fireraptor new stats plus the new drazi SA.

I took place in deep space (call to arms)

Both fleets were mainly Beamy and Boresight.
2 drazi torpedo launcher in squadron at the beggining and
my 2 dag'kar at the other edge of the table.

The Ka'Toc were in front of my fleet ready to attract ennemy fire and if possible retaliate.
The G'Quan were in the middle of my deploiement zone and moved as slow as possible.

In the first turn the Drazi squadron of torps launchers hit hard one Dag'kar.
ALL mines were launched in the first Turn for a good result
and the Beams did average damage as expected (standard beam rule).
(one small drazi ship destroyed)

The second Turn was deadly, all ship moved forward and the drazi succesfully performed his special action which is interesting as he could both heavily damaged a Ka'Toc and prepare an evasive move to catch my flanks.
Nearly all Ka'Toc died under drazi fire, the beam disparity was not a problem as we both had good and less good rolls.
(Have to note a 14 hits from a solar beam TD with 4AD ...)
In return the G'Quan Beams and secondaries did their job well by destroying the Drazi init sinks and some middle class ships.
The Dag'Kars used their precise weapons agaisnt the fireraptor to crit it
(successfully). He had some good shots in the first turn but the second one without the slow loading weapons was quite poor.

Have to say that even if one G'Quan was critted (No SA no DC ...) the two others were always able to align their beams and to use secondary weapons. The TTT order finally was used for the Ka'Toc at the very beggining to gain angle in case of flanking (which happily worked)

After 2 turns we had already destroyed nearly half the ennemy fleet ...

The third and last turn has seen the 3 G'Quan firing against the fireraptor to finish him while one Dag'Kar was exploding under the eyes of the second one heavily damaged.

The Drazi then surrendered as he had fewer ships, lost his war ship and only halved one G'Quan.

From a Narn point of view only the G'Quans did survive, even with one of them critted the secondaries were there and often used which prevented the use of CTBD (but this order saved time to at least 2 Ka'Tocs but unfortunatly they do not have enough damage point to get the "against crit" part of the SA)


The TTT was useful but I used it in situations were I could boresight
(just wanting to keep some angle for strategical use)
Tha Narn damage and crew new stats are good.
The Beam +1AD give 2 more hits on average (on this test)
(which is good due to DD)
The secondary weapons are maybe lacking a little something more, let's say AP or DD. (But have to say I faced hull 6 and 5 ships)
CTBD only on small ship so just as good as usual.


Good new SA for the Drazi, my opponent liked it and found it has a good
"strategical potential".
Poor Fireraptor, even if it's a big damage dealer the non-slow loading weapons are not good enough. My opponent ended whishing he took two battle instead.
IMO he didn't used the TTT enough, it might have helped him to manouver around my ships.

All Narn fighters were used as interceptors and in the end dogfight to finish
the enemy fighters who escaped the e-mines.

We might do it again switching sides so I would test the Drazi order plus TTT with them.

 

[Ripple]

We did a Narn vs Brakiri today...

7 Raid

G'Quan, T'Loth, T'Rakk, Ka'Toc, Thentus x2, Varnic, G'Karith

Avioki, Ikorta x3, Haltona, Brokadoes, Shakara

I know, a carrier vs the Narn, but I figured that would be a good tourney fleet normally.

Net result was game was fairly even first two turns. Third turn the Avioki took two 4-4 crits and that was basically the game. E-mine shot removed the majority of my fighters (missed his last one though). I only recovered two in the end.

End result (end of turn 4 I think, had to go) had the Avioki mostly dead, Ikorta, Brokadoes healthy, half a shakara. Two bombers left and one superiority fighter. T'Rakk was boarded and had 8 marines on board.

T'Loth was basically un scathed, minor damage to the G'Quan, G'Karith was hurt but alive and under 4-4 crit, both Thentus hurt, one crippled. T'Rakk boarded as above, likely decrewed the next turn. T'Rakk and T'loth under com disruptor effects with T'Rakk drifting.

We figured the Narn had it pretty handily at that point due to Avioki issues and not enough left in the guns to take a G'Quan and a T'loth.

New CBD for narn didn't come into effect.
No new special orders ever came up.
Extra AD on the G'Quan beam was big.
We used the TBS and got very good medium rolls. Worst was a half AD for beams rolled that turn. Best was maybe two over beam.
Looked for ramming opportunities, but lots of just short stuff.

Ripple

 

[Ike]

Narn Vs Crusade
5 War- annihilation

Primary Purpose.. test CBD for Narn

Narn
Admiral-Inspired Command, Legendary Tactician, Operational Control
GTal+Admiral
3 GQuans
4 Varnics
2 DagKars
2 ShoKars
4 KaTan

1 Warlock
2 Omegas
4 Apollo Bombardment
2 Delphi
4 Chronos

of all the crap on the board it was probably the admiral that won the game and the fact that we were a bit rushed and wanted the shooting to start

with Narn +6 Ini vs +4 earth, Narn won setup, 1st and 2nd turn(die rolls before mods N/E 7/7 6/7 7/8) at which point the Warlock was dead and narn was up +6 to +2

we each had 6 low lvl ini sinks but narn was up 3 squads to earth 2, really earth should of all stopped and broke some of his squads the first turn but he was hoping to take out some KaTans so almost all the big guns was shootng in turn one as we were only 36" apart

so first turn funness
Admiral GKrak managed to pull off a combined all Ahead with a TTT on one of the Omegas, as the warlock and omegas were trying to scramble so the major shooting on the narn side consisted of 2 Gquans on the warlock and the Gquan Gtal on an omega plus all Oshot Emines capturing those 2 vessels and 2 chronos

the one omega was crippled adrift and down 2AD, the warlock weathered the storm hurt but still functioning, later losing its port side weaponry to Varnic ITorps, by the end of the turn those 4 ships had 23 AD of AP TD Emine dropped on them, the chronos didnt fair well one was destroyed the other cripped and skeletoned even with their CBD

the answering shots from the Earth Beam squadron... the omega got a runaway on a Katan, it was adrift and waiting to explode, the warlock did average on another, which weathered it under CBD and the poor cripped omega missed completely

Varnics went next wanting some juiy crits on the warlock but only managed to take its port side weapons

Apollos opened up 3 on one GQuan and the trailing on a KaTan, it would of been a perfect time for the CBD unfortunately the GQuan was launching its last gorith and wanted to fire 2 weapons so after all was said and done the Gquan was a healthy 2/3 undamaged and pretty much useless, it was at -2 spd, -3AD, No bore arc, noSA, and No DC, the Katan again weathered the storm losing 1AD to a crit

the Chronos werent in range, the dagkars were one turn out so the 3 Katans opened up with their OS emines

Turn 2
Earth having lost again decides to break squads, the useless Gquan also breaks off

shooting wise the Warlock goes down to the Gquans, the omega gets hurt but shoots a Dagkar with a runaway beam causing it to explode which happens to crit the other dagkar 6.4 horray, the 4 Varnics open up on the omega it ceases to exist 4 apollos shot one Gquan... CBD helps but when your targeted by 32 dice of redirected SAP precise missiles your going to take crits and it did.. the Gorith riding shot gun manages to catch 2 missiles and then crashes into a third after all was said and done though the Gquan could still turn, still shoot its beam and still do SA.. living to shoot at an apollo next turn

next turn was a massacre 2 chronos manage to run for it the delphis get out but the apollos are mauled and the varnics and 2 katans drop their breaching pods in their flight path... the 10 Tbolots that were launched at the beginning of the game and turn one were annoying but pretty much ignored, the goriths that were launched ended up riding shot gun on the Varnics, Gtal and GQuans

we didnt see a point of going to turn 4... although my dagkar was almost there to ram

thoughts on the game...
we are probably swtching to Triggys beam system from now on when doing play testing atleast.

Earth decided that 2 apollos in a squad were probably enough and to never again put ships that close together when there are that many GQuans on the board

when playtesting a particular feature its probably a good idea not to overwhelm it, although it did manage to stop 2 crits on turn 2 and another 3 on turn 3.. would it have mattered much.. probably not it all depends on what crit is rolled

oh and the extra damage and 1AD die is nice, just have to stop thinking of GQuans battle ships and more slightly mobile beam platforms

 

[Da Boss]

Centauri vs Pak (5 Pt Battle)

I managed to convince Ken to try out a Space Station rather than his first choice of two Hurr Gunships.

I had Primus, Primus, Elutarian, (Squadroned), Maximus (x2), Balvarin, Demos, Kutai, Haven x2, and of course a Liaiti

Ken had war level station (2 banks of torps, bombers, command x2 - we allowed 2 scout rolls a turn), Halik, 3 Ikorta (squadroned) 4 Sunhawks (Squadroned) and 2 Supermerchants (squadroned)

We used TBS and had stated that we would re-roll 6,5 and 6,6 crits - although bizarely for the first game I can remember neither of us rolled one! There was no terrain and the station was in the centre of the Pak deployment zone.

Turn 1 - Centauri All Powered forward and the Elutarin scratches the Halik. Liati and Demos move to flank, Haven and Kutai on opposite as Balvarin launches fighters. The space station is strangely silent..........and the pak all stop save for their nasty little fighters

Turn 2 - Centauri cruise forward and not alot happens IIRC

Turn 3 - All helll breaks loose, the Centauri fire beams at the station and ion cannons at the fighters to little effect (12AD beam gets 6 hits :lol: ) The left Primus - The commander having been assured by his brother that the pak have no weapons of note - is scouted by the Station and a massive hail of plasma topedoes means it is vapourised, one Haven is damaged. The Halik soliders on at the front of the fleet CBD and pakness meaning that it is hardly hurt.

Turn 4 - the Maximus guarding the last Primus is surrounded by pak fighters (whose AF deals with the Centauri fighters) and is destroyed with ease, the Elutarin is damaged as the Halik absorbs yet more fire from the liati whose accurate guns fail to kill sunhawks........

Turns 5-8 - the game turns as the Centauri get amongst the pak and begin to lash out with ion cannons and beams - the last 6 pak fighters are jumped by centaruri fighters and fail to claim them with AF loosing them all. The Halik falls as the resistance begins to crumble. The Elutarian, Demos and havens die but so do the two supermerchants and all but 1 sunhawk and 1 Ikorta. The station is battered by the Primus all stoped in front of it - but remains well over a 100 points of damage when we called it as it was getting late.

Centauri remaining - Primus - lt damage, Liati - lt damage, Balavrin - scratched, damaged Maximus and 6 fighters - for once the Rutarian did Nothing before they died!

pak - space station, 2 damaged ikorta, damaged sunhawk

Conlcusions - the station was useful (especially the Scout) but nothing special - even the massed interceptors could not stop the ion cannons and once the Centauri had got amongst the pak Ken felt the game was lost. It was perhaps a little underused and maybe could have been firing on turn 1.......

The dice rolls for us both were average ( Ken could not get crits on his triple damage torps at all once the first Primus was down),

TBS was Ok - its a bit clunky to use but all but two of my shots were excatly equal to AD - the anomalies were 12 AD getting 6 hits and a 4AD getting 3 hits. There were no big beam rolls.

 

[katadder]

guys if you are going to test 2e playtest stuff can you use full 2e rules please, no house rules. obviously TBS lowers the chance of runaway beams but as that is a core rule of 2e its pointless testing stuff without it as beam fleets obviously can lose out a bit.

 

[Burger]

guys if you are going to test 2e playtest stuff can you use full 2e rules please, no house rules. obviously TBS lowers the chance of runaway beams but as that is a core rule of 2e its pointless testing stuff without it as beam fleets obviously can lose out a bit.

Wrong, back to mathematics 101 for you

 

[katadder]

it does have a lower chance of runaway beams though, otherwise what would be the point in using it and championing it like so many do as this is what people want rid of it normal beams for.
however in testing you really should stick to the core rules.

 

[B_Steele]

however in testing you really should stick to the core rules.

This is very true. To test how the supplement is going to work, you have to use the ruleset they are being intended to amend. Now, if things like TBS and Redundancy were going to be optional rules in P&P (which they are not if going by the current playtest documents Matthew has released), sure.

To be a good playtester, you can't add in your own house rules and such for "fairness" or what not...that is not what is being tested. Only the new additions and alterations are. Using house rules throw off the honest results of the process (because runaway beams and unfortunate crits are part of the system those ships/rules will be used in).

And now, back to your regularly scheduled playtest reports...


Bry

 

[Burger]

So... if I tested one White Star against one Sharlin and on the first turn the White Star got lucky, beat stealth, got 15 hits with a 6-6 crit, and killed the Sharlin... then the White Star is overpowered and the Sharlin sucks?

I wouldn't regard that as a valid playtest result. The game should be disregarded as a freak occurance, and the game replayed.

So why not just reroll 6-5 and 6-6 crits to start with and same time?

 

[B_Steele]

So... if I tested one White Star against one Sharlin and on the first turn the White Star got lucky, beat stealth, got 15 hits with a 6-6 crit, and killed the Sharlin... then the White Star is overpowered and the Sharlin sucks?

No, you'd do what any good playtester should do and play the game match three times to see what happens. Not once. Single-stroke playtesting is what killed other games in this industry and not taking into account the potential for flukes is also bad.

When playtesting someone else's rules, don't alter the control environment. Unless of course, the alteration itself is what is being tested. Which, in the case of P&P, it is not.

Does that make a bit more sense? I'm not arguing for or against the use of TBS in friendly games; merely that it is an alteration to ACTA that should not really be part of the playtesting process.

Cheers,
Bry

 

[Burger]

It does make sense what you are saying. Yes in an ideal world it would be best to do 1,000,000 playtests and compile all the results, the White Star's lucky shot will disappear into the "average vat".

But what I am saying is that a person has only a limited time to do playtesting, surely it is better to get 3 quality games in and get some meaningful information out, than a couple of games that are decided by overwhelming luck (and thus disregarded statistically) and maybe 1 good game. Surely that is regarded as single-stroke playtesting!

With most house rules I totally agree with you, they should not be used. But TBS is different, it does not alter the averages at all.. it was designed that way

 

[Dr Stubbsberg]

surely doesn't testing with the House Rules have some value if that is the standard way that a particular group plays?

 

[Burger]

surely doesn't testing with the House Rules have some value if that is the standard way that a particular group plays?

No playtesting is meant to be testing the rules as written. If for example you were to add redundancy as a house rule, then the redundancy would affect your outcome. If the game were perfectly balanced, then your version with redundancy might find that big ships have an advantage over swarms, so you'd send that feedback... swarm fleets are too weak... if that was taken on board and swarms boosted, then you'd have broken the perfect balance.

TBS is different though, since its averages are identical to the standard beam rules... it just reduces the occurances of massive hits and total misses.

 

[B_Steele]

TBS is different though, since its averages are identical to the standard beam rules... it just reduces the occurances of massive hits and total misses.

Therein lies the issue, though. Unless you are also getting rid of massive hits and total misses from non-beam weapons (using complete averages at all times and never rolling a die, ever) it skews the core system. It is a bad idea to implement anything other than rules-as-written (or rules-as-errata'd in our case ) when playtesting.

Cheers,
-Bry

 

[Burger]

Unless you are also getting rid of massive hits and total misses from non-beam weapons

I've never seen 18 hits from 4AD of non-beam, though

I do agree with you in the general case, house rules should not be used. But I regard TBS as identical to using 2e rules but disregarding entire games where runaway beams ruined the game. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this 8)

 

[Triggy]

Like Burger I agree that in theory it would be ideal to not use TBS but in reality we're simply not getting enough play tests done so that we have enough repeats to analyse the data. In my experience of playtesting, with the current beam rules, many (if not most) of the games have some sort of luck in them (normally critical rolls or beam rolls) that changes the outcome of the game and any feedback is of the "if this didn't happen then..." variety. Sure, you still get some information but not as much as if you didn't have the luck or if you played the game three times.

 

[Greg Smith]

If we were playtesting the core rules, I'd agree with Mongoose Steele. But we're not, we're testing a few changes to a few fleets. And I sure don't have time to play each game three times, or replay games where a 12 hit beam is rolled from a WS. If I, and the guys I playtest with, didn't have work, lives, wifes, girlfriends and kids, then it might be possible. Otherwise I'm just doing the best I can.