Playtest New Rules Centauri

[Da Boss]

Hunting packs - I like the concept, however:

Can this be used with a decrewed but not destroyed ship ( I hope not)

I am not sure that either a list of ships that can make up a pack should be generated or there should be exclusions - ie a Balvarin has often served me as a great damage sink - eps once its fighters are launched and its on CBD.

if you re-target - can the new target dodge?

Six ships seems a very large and nasty number - esp since you can break the squadron for later In sinks?

 

[CZuschlag]

I'm fairly certain this rule is outright broken. I need to test it over the board, but you can force a fleet to spool through all the interceptors in stack of Demos before you cause any real direct damage by sending each successive ship through a different hunting pack member. Same for Maximus.

This one went to the head of my scrap-and-rebuild pile.

Disclosure:
Primary Fleet: Dilgar
Secondary Fleet: Drakh
Tertiary Fleet: Early EA

 

[silashand]

I would add in the restiction that crippled ships automatically drop from the pack, the Centauri mindset being what it is and all... ;-)

Reading through it I don't see it being all that abusive. Re-directed targets still have to be within 6" of the original.

One note on semantics though, I think it needs to say range, line *and arc* of sight as well. Obviously you can't fire port weaponry at a ship that's in your front arc. Maybe that's classed as LoS, but I usually differentiate the two myself. This alone would mitigate the targeting abuses Czuschlag envisions I think.

Cheers, Gary

 

[katadder]

I would add in the restiction that crippled ships automatically drop from the pack, the Centauri mindset being what it is and all... ;-)

Reading through it I don't see it being all that abusive. Re-directed targets still have to be within 6" of the original.

exactly - so start at one end and work your way down the line not going to be too many ships within 6" of a target. or if there is its a field day for narns, pak, and gaim.

 

[silashand]

or if there is its a field day for narns, pak, and gaim.

My thought's exactly.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Ripple]

What about folks without area affect weapons? How do they deal with it? And you haven't address DaBoss's concerns about putting a massive sponge in the middle. You can take a ship that normally would not be targeted at all and force people to destroy it first?!

And you haven't dealt with Chris's issue either... interceptors. Is it your position that digging through two to three batches of fresh interceptors is not a huge bonus vs say the Vree or any race that relies on lots of smaller hits from interceptable weapons?

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

As I read the rule, you can't put a raid level unit in the pack - am I wrong? :?

 

[Da Boss]

Can't see it at present but it was upto and including raid level was it not? :?:

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Could be, I might be misremembering.

 

[Greg Smith]

It says 'no ships higher than raid level'.

 

[CZuschlag]

I've tried rolling it out. Against Abbai, Dilgar, and Vree, it's a game-breaker due to the availability of interceptors. With a sponge like a Balavarin on CBD getting escorted by a Maximus, it's almost as bad. It's effectively like only having one ship on CBD but giving the effect to the entire squadron. If the only way to tactically deal with this is cheesy arc tricks, I don't know how to solve the problem.

Vote to Ban. This rule is an absolute monstrosity. If you have to give the Centauri something, make it something else. More flowery words. Or, in more simple English, " Oh, hell no!".

 

[katadder]

well target the ship thats not near the damage sponge - as has been said you can only transfer damage to ships within 6". if the whole squadron is cluster either e-mines work, or beam a ship to death so it explodes and hits everyone.
if the centauri want to put a balvarin into a squadron then its effecting 2 massive points. one the centauri are losing init sinks and 2 the squadron is slowed down to balvarin speed.
these are the sorts of things that balance it out.
against interceptors with someone like vree - consider the amount of dice you have. against one interceptor. should burn through that fairly quickly and damage that demos. then you can do it again against a diffrant demos and damage that. but if you start at a flank you should only ever have 2 ships to deal with unless the entire squadron is very close, in which case they are asking for a ship explosion.
also lets not forget the fact that 6 centauri ships moving as a squadron leaves the vree 5-6 ships to move using their SM or even standard moves outside of the limited front arc only weapons of many centauri ships

 

[CZuschlag]

You don't need 6 ships. You can do it at 4. Almost as bad is escorting one Raid ship with Havens, taking small volleys or fighter shots on the big ship, and big volleys on the Havens, forcing players to use big volleys on tiny ships that don't even explode worth a darn?

Indefensible.

Busted.

Ban it.

 

[katadder]

still forcing your init sinks into squadrons.
also you can basically do something similar with maneuvre to shield although its harder but can use big ships for it.

 

[Burger]

No, Manouver to shield only protects your target from one specific attacker, specified in the movement phase. Hunting packs lets you redistribute fire as much as you like.

Plus Centauri's stealth and dodge still apply. Is this intentional?

 

[katadder]

as much as you like within 6"

 

[CZuschlag]

Oh, God, Burger, you're right. You can force someone to roll through the Stealth of a Interceptor-protected Corvan on Close Blast doors while two Vorchans are CAFing, yet are untargettable ....

This is disgusting.

 

[Burger]

I dare to say it, but... throw in a maximus too for the guardian arrays...

 

[CZuschlag]

That's what I meant by Interceptor-protected.

Barf.

Ban!

 

[Locutus9956]

Holy Hannah, I hadn't thought of that I'd been leaning towards this being a bit scaremongery and folks overeacting but that's ludicrously broken.

<<OUT OF CHEESE ERROR>>
<<REDO FROM START>>

Heres an alternate idea.

1) 6 ships is hideous and over the top. Change it so that they can only use the wolfpack rule with squadrons of 3 ships. (they can still use bigger squadrons should they wish but not use the wolfpack rule).

2) Just make it so that they can make a free maneuver to shield each time the group is shot at. They still have to make a CQ check and the ship 'taking the hit' does not get to use stealth or dodge (it can use interceptors if it has them) and it's not guarenteed to work every time.

3) Lastly make it apply only to ships BELOW Raid level. It's still pretty bloody nasty with Demos and Maximus but if you can start doing this with higher level ships with more hit points to take the hits for your 'glass cannons' then you might as well just buy a large beard made of cheese and a T-Shirt that says 'Muchkins do it when the GM's not looking'

This is frankly still very very nasty in my oppinion but it's certianly less horrific than the proposed rule as it stands.