Planetary Assault

[Rorschach]

So, has anyone played this scenario effectively? Looking at the rules in depth, I don't see how any landing can succeed. There are so few effective dedicated Assault ships, and even those can only land a handful of troops at a time. Then that handful has to fight all 30+ Ground troops at once. While *maybe* you've gotten enough other ships through to the planet to successfully bombard their Ground Emplacements (also, very few ships with weapons good at this!).
So even if you get enough ships with Troops into orbit, the trickle down nature of the landing rules means you'll barely winnow away at the defenders. Like so:
An optimistic landing amount might be 10 Troops. At Battle Level, the Defenders will have 32. The attacker might kill 2-3, but since its unlikely enough Emplacements have been destroyed yet (WHy or WHY can't ships landing troops also fire on the planet?!?), the return fire will kill 10-15 Troops..i.e. everyone.
Even if I land 10 troops a turn, the attacker will never get far enough by Turn 10.

Am I analyzing this wrong, and if so, specifically how? And I'm even optimizing for excellent Assault option fleets like EA or Narn. Minbari, Vree, Abbai - they seem to have no chance at all.

And the biggest headscratcher of all - Why does the Centauri's specific assault design, the Secundus, have NO SHUTTLES!

ARg!

 

[Galaga]

well, isn't one of the precursers to the acutal landing involve destroying the enemy defense fleet (or at least tying it up) and bombarding the planet from orbit to soften defenses?

 

[Ren'Sur]

This was exactly the same problem with AOG's B5W and FA. However, not all races would be either able or interested in mounting planetary assaults, just like some nations on Earth now are not interested in engaging in wars and similar.
In a campaign you have some other options i.e. converting cargo ships and civilian liners to troop carriers and landing those or launching assault shuttles from them.
I'm incorporating rules in my campaign guide to convert civilian ships into troop ships, mine sweepers, mine layers, spy ships etc etc...

 

[Rorschach]

well, isn't one of the precursers to the acutal landing involve destroying the enemy defense fleet (or at least tying it up) and bombarding the planet from orbit to soften defenses?

You've got 10 Turns in the Scenario to:

-- Get 7 Points past 5 Points to the Planet
-- Keep Orbit while finishing off those 5 points of enemy
-- Shoot Emplacements with a very limited list of Weaponry
-- Land Drop Troops piecemeal, to get cut up piecemeal.

You only WIN if all the enemy Troops are dead. And aside from the Shadow Cloud, only Troops or Attack Craft are really good for killing troops.

And yes, some fleets have almost nothing suited to accomplishing this. Without the Moutshin, I'm astonished the Minbari could take even a single Earth colony in the M-EA War.
Sure, we can tweak our campaign rules and all to compensate...but call me old-fashioned, I like $50 games with $35 Essential Supplements (plus minis) to work correctly straight out of the box. ;-)

 

[Nomad]

Patrol and Skirmish Planetary assaults (with only 4 or 8 defending ground units) are more winnable for the attacker than Battle or War level.
Which leads to the unsatisfactory conclusion that the outcome of the scenario is largely decided by the result of the Priority Level dice, unless I've missed something.

Also, can Emines be used for planetary bombardment? I can't see anything in the rules that prevents this, and it would be a splendid way of clearing the skies of defending fighters...seems wrong, though.

Surely, whether the planet under attack has an atmosphere or not should make a difference? If you're attacking Earth's moon, defending fighters would be vulnerable to Emine attacks (and non-atmospheric fighters such as Starfuries could defend the troops).

Possibly (along with atmospheric capable ships landing on planets) something to be added in Edition 2.

Oh, and can Laser/Pulse arrays bombard planets in Laser-only mode? it would seem a bit pointless sending a Nova on a planetary assault as EA did in the 'GROPOS' TV episode if not.

 

[Rorschach]

Which leads to the unsatisfactory conclusion that the outcome of the scenario is largely decided by the result of the Priority Level dice, unless I've missed something.

This is a weakness of the Campaign rules overall. The so-called "Campaign Fleet Lists" (ie current SFoS) have glaring weaknesses at certaion Pri Levels and for certain scenarios. So that over half the campaign scenarios are effectively determined when you roll Pri and Scenario. Woo.

Also, can Emines be used for planetary bombardment? I can't see anything in the rules that prevents this, and it would be a splendid way of clearing the skies of defending fighters...seems wrong, though.

Legal as far as I can tell too...though its questionable whether targetting Emplacements would also "catch" defending fighters. I'd make a house rule not.

Oh, and can Laser/Pulse arrays bombard planets in Laser-only mode? it would seem a bit pointless sending a Nova on a planetary assault as EA did in the 'GROPOS' TV episode if not.

Presumably, yes, you can use a variable mode weapon in the allowed mode for planetary bombardment. I still wonder though if the Centauri "Heavy Array" counts as a Laser/Pulse array?

 

[Chernobyl]

I don't think it intended laser pulse arrays should be allowed - they're specifically listed! Granted it may not be the fluff, but it doesn't say "in pulse mode" or "only in beam mode".

 

[Nomad]

I still wonder though if the Centauri "Heavy Array" counts as a Laser/Pulse array?

It's a particle weapon, and all particle weapons except cutters and cannon are disallowed....

Note to Mongoose - next time, please define a list of which weapons can specifically be used for bombardment - it'll make life easier.

Chern - seems odd that a medium laser on it's own can, but the self-same weapon on an LPA mount can't...did anyone at Mongoose bear this in mind? Although I suppose it fits with the generally arbitrary handling of LPAs.

 

[Rorschach]

I still wonder though if the Centauri "Heavy Array" counts as a Laser/Pulse array?

It's a particle weapon, and all particle weapons except cutters and cannon are disallowed....

The actual Ship stat for the Secundus just lists it as a "Heavy Array" - no where is it being a Particle Weapon mentioned.

Note to Mongoose - next time, please define a list of which weapons can specifically be used for bombardment - it'll make life easier.

Heck yeah! Or just add a frickin Weapon Attribute that indicates what can bombard or not. It's weird enough that so many "assault" ships can't even fire on a planet! Sorting out who can and who cannot shouldn't be a page-flipping exercise.

 

[Tal Hawkins]

Planetary assault really should be close to impossible. The attacker is going to be so outnumbered that the odds of success is pretty slim.

In the show we only see two planetary assaults.

One was by the gropos and it was not a full assault but instead was an assault on a specific target on a planet. The planet itself was not controlled by the rebels.

The second was the assault on Narn and the Centauri bombarded from orbit and never even attempted a planetary assault with troops. Remember how Molari felt about landing troops. He was terrified of the idea.

 

[Rorschach]

Planetary assault really should be close to impossible. The attacker is going to be so outnumbered that the odds of success is pretty slim.

Why is it even a Campaign Scenario then, albeit rare? Just to be "Oh, you rolled a 12 and you're attacking - you lose!"

;-)

 

[Uganda_hornplayer]

In terms of campaign balance, it's not all that unfair that the larger fleet (the attacker) has a smaller chance of winning - they should, after all, get more XP and destroy more enemy ships than they lose even if they fail to take the planet, raising the option of a Pyrrhic victory for the defender...

 

[Uganda_hornplayer]

...of course, there's still the question of how much harder it should be for the attacker in order for the scenario to balance out overall, but really, the same can be seen in a lot of the scenarios with imbalanced fleets. Blockade run, for instance, is simplicity itself to win for many fleets as the defender (blockade runner), but the attacker still gets more XP and doesn't stand to lose any ships.

 

[Ren'Sur]

The B5 movie 'A Call to Arms' features quite a few planetary assaults, or references to them by the Minbari. Planetary assaults should be made even more difficult by having rules on 'Planetary Defence Grids' which are mentioned in several episodes.

 

[Kadorak]

The whole 'planetary assault' scenario IMO should just be to take out defending orbitals, ships, ground emplacements (not ones that just fire on troops, ones that shoot at attacking space vessels), a number of 'strategic ground targets' via bombardment depending on PL (these are things like power generators, government headquarters, communications stations - things you'd want to blow up before invading). The actual ground assault on the planet would take days if not weeks or months, and is pointless to simulate on an ACTA scale.

I think a much better use for assault ships, landing & assault rules, etc. would be seizing orbitals and space stations. This would be a very valid and important function for assault ships if you envision many worlds having orbital habitats, weather control systems, trading posts, battle forts, etc. Otherwise, landing and troop combat on planets should be commando raids on specific locations for specific goals (like the planetary attack in GROPOS, not coincidentally) as opposed to taking over the entire planet.

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

The B5 movie 'A Call to Arms' features quite a few planetary assaults, or references to them by the Minbari. Planetary assaults should be made even more difficult by having rules on 'Planetary Defence Grids' which are mentioned in several episodes.

the Planetary defence grids are represented by the Orbital Defence Satellites and ground Emplacements. SFOS mentions that the massive Surface to Orbit batteries of some sci-fi series are not present in B5.

 

[Ren'Sur]

'the Planetary defence grids are represented by the Orbital Defence Satellites and ground Emplacements. SFOS mentions that the massive Surface to Orbit batteries of some sci-fi series are not present in B5.'

Well, that could be wrong, especially taking into account the episode where a combined Drazi/Narn battle fleet bombarded Centauri Prime, which could only go ahead as the temporary Centauri Emperor had switched off the Planetary Defence Grid, which included ground based weapon systems!

 

[tactician]

I have a couple point to make here... The 1st point is for the Shadow Cloud... It moves 4" per turn so in a 10 turn scenario it will never reach the planet to destroy it.. (Bad news for the Shadows).... Is this correct?? We play on a 4 foot by 6 foot board.... The Scenario set-up shows the attacker setting up on 1 short edge and the planet on the other.... It doesnt have a jump point or an advanced jump point...

2nd thing is Fighters with the Atmospheric Trait can attack the troops on the ground... So a huge "Fleet" style force can send in waves of fighters to kill troops... The rules say that the fighters attack as normal and every 5 or better rolled on their attack dice kill a troop... So you attack the defending fleet while your fighters and troops storm the planet... This is how I read the rules... Am I completely off base here???

 

[emoadam]

are there any weapons that can only be used in planetary assault like mass drivers? im assuming the dilgar will have virus bombs too

im worried that the dilgar will have too many planetary assault weapons

 

[Ren'Sur]

The Dilgar should have 'Normal' bombs, Nukes, mass drivers and biological weapons. Unlike most other races they excelled at Planetary Invasions, as they should do considering they were planning to move their entire civilisation to a new home world.