Questions from the new armageddon tournament pdf

[MongooseMatt]

1) ISA allies, characters, EA missile variants, Narn E-mine variants are allowed yes?

2) I assume if the JP deviation die roll - the CQ is less than 0 then the JP doesn't deviate at all, rather than deviating in the -ve direction? (God I love CQ 5 on a WS)

3) The WSC-2 and Victory are unchanged from the ir SFOS listins?

4) Point split: The way I read it, 1 Raid point can buy 2 Skirmish ships, 3 Patrol ships OR 1 Skirmish and 2 Patrol ships, yes?

5) If the ISA use EA allies, which eras can they be drawn from?

6) Is the Hermes supposed to get better stats as the eras progress?

1. Yes - if it is in SFoS, it is legal.

2. What do you think?

3. Yes. Consider it a fair balance for the WSC-2 and a last hurrah for the Victory.

4. Correct.

5. For tournaments with no other restrictions, you have a free choice. For games with In Service Dates, those wil take precedence.

6. Yes. Comments on this will be welcomed (after play, of course ).

 

[MongooseMatt]

WHY is no-one from mongoose saying exactly why the Sag is a skirmish ship, it's nut hard for that level

Well, to answer your stated question, it is usually because we cannot keep up with the huge amounts of posts on our forums on an hourly basis.

However, what I think you want answered. . .

The PL of a ship is always going to be based upon the context of the fleet it is within. What works for one fleet might not necessarily work for another - think of it this way. You likely have a favourite fleet, but is there a ship from another fleet you would _really_ like in your own (background be damned)? This is because the balance of ships can change if they are moved between fleets.

The reason the Sagittarius is Skirmish is because the overall balance level of the Early Years fleet is a step behind Third Age and Crusade (the latter actually has issues - intentional ones - going in the opposite direction, but I digress). Thus, fleet balance (as opposed to individual ship balance) places the Sagittarius at Skirmish.

Can it be abused? Yes. It is not unbeatable, and there are several very powerful combinations in CTA but it is possible to magnify such effects. Are there balancing factors? Of course. Tournaments usually have a sportsmanship score that will penalise such fleets. On a tactical level, the Sagittarius is _ripe_ for boarding actions, just to throw an example up.

Will it stay like this? For now, yes. But we have a very organic community around CTA which, for my gaming habits, is one of the best things about it. There will be new fleet lists at some point in time and, when they come about, eberyone on these forums will have a chance to weigh in with their opinions. If the Sagittarius is still an issue then (and, please, at least play against the vessel before voting ), we'll take another look at it.

Ultimately, this is your game as much as ours, and we value all comments (the bad as well as the good!).

Overall, I am very, very pleased with Armageddon and what it does for the game. I have a little place in my head where I see CTA heading, and what sort of game it can be. Armageddon gets us at least 95% of the way there.

 

[MongooseMatt]

What about if the ship is destroyed before the fighters are launched? Do we get the VP's for killing the unlaunched fighters? And does the same apply for unlaunched Drakh Raiders if the carrier is destroyed?

If a flight of fighters makes a tactical withdrawl do we get 20% of 1 VP, rounded up (equals 1 VP)?

Is a flight of fighters remaining unkilled, enough to prevent a 20-0 "fleet annihilated" result?

Answered in Rulesmasters

 

[MongooseMatt]

Great, thanks for the clarifications at this ridiculous hour in the morning No-one can ever claim you're not dedicated to us fans

We are here to serve

Oh and (3)... I was thinking of one of my ships in hyperspace, starting with a flight deployed... jump the ship in, but leave the fighters behind in hyperspace. Ensure my opponent can never get a 20-0, and I don't give away a VP for making a withdrawl :lol:

Now, can you see the problems with this?

First off, you are _planning_ for defeat. And that is never a good idea in these games.

Second, not only will you have earned a tiny number of points in the game, you will also likely get smacked silly for sportsmanship in a tournament, losing you more points.

Nice idea, but I don't think it will work

 

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Wow Matt, how much coffee have you had to drink today? You are on a posting frenzy.

Thanks for that. I don't know of any other game that I play that the actual designers frequent the forums and chat with the players. Hats off to you. You have made me into a Mongoose fanatic.

 

[Celisasu]

The reason the Sagittarius is Skirmish is because the overall balance level of the Early Years fleet is a step behind Third Age and Crusade (the latter actually has issues - intentional ones - going in the opposite direction, but I digress). Thus, fleet balance (as opposed to individual ship balance) places the Sagittarius at Skirmish.

I disagree with this logic personally. Ships should be balanced with other ships of their priority level. All this does is encourage people to use and abuse a single ship because it's so much better than everything else. Why should I take a Hyperion for example when two Sags are always going to be a vastly superior choice? This falls under "Fleets should not always win at certain priorities and always lose at other priorities". I had the same complaint about the Minbari before(but in reverse, they pretty much dominated high priority and always lost low priority). Assuming an equal number of priority points, the game should always be decided on skill and probably good and bad dice rolls. It shouldn't be decided because one fleet has super ships that the other fleet can't hope to match.

 

[IronChefZod]

I think the Armageddon rules changes are great. I love the stealth, e-mines, and fighter changes.

The Sagittarius change, however, has me dumbfounded. It's now possible load flash missles to CAF with and it has two extra AD in front arc? The Sagittarius was ludicrous before, now it has officially gone to plaid.

 

[JayRaider]

I laughed out loud when i heard u upgunned the Sag.!
In one terrible moment u made a joke of the entire A release.
Apolgoies for the harsh words, but it just beggars belief :shock:

 

[Burger]

Oh and (3)... I was thinking of one of my ships in hyperspace, starting with a flight deployed... jump the ship in, but leave the fighters behind in hyperspace. Ensure my opponent can never get a 20-0, and I don't give away a VP for making a withdrawl :lol:

Now, can you see the problems with this?

First off, you are _planning_ for defeat. And that is never a good idea in these games.

Second, not only will you have earned a tiny number of points in the game, you will also likely get smacked silly for sportsmanship in a tournament, losing you more points.

Nice idea, but I don't think it will work

Lets wait and see how it turns out before passing judgement Its only costing me 1 flight of aux craft, which would likely just be killed and give 1 VP to my opponent after getting off 1 attack, anyway.

As for the sportsmanship points, well I'm not a big fan of them. The points are now based on enjoyment of the game; someone who only enjoys winning could justifiably rate a game as "poor" when they lose, because they did not enjoy it, even if the opponent was really entertaining, friendly and sporting.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Lets wait and see how it turns out before passing judgement Its only costing me 1 flight of aux craft, which would likely just be killed and give 1 VP to my opponent after getting off 1 attack, anyway.

As for the sportsmanship points, well I'm not a big fan of them. The points are now based on enjoyment of the game; someone who only enjoys winning could justifiably rate a game as "poor" when they lose, because they did not enjoy it, even if the opponent was really entertaining, friendly and sporting.

We have all heard the horror stories, but we have yet to see the system abused at a Mongoose tournament.

 

[Hash]

The Vorlon Light Cruiser should indeed be Hull 5.

* Dances the dance of joy *

 

[Burger]

I've seen a "sporting" player give standard (full) points to a very bad player, just because he didn't want to make a fuss. That player really should have been penalized for some of the things he pulled off, yet he received full sportsmanship marks in all of his games.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Matt can re-write the rules however he likes them. It is his game. But as a purchaser of the game I would like to have a decent chance of understanding them without a ten page FAQ that STILL will not be up to date as the number of surprised responses to his statement made clear.

As per his statement/aux craft not being ships I can now stack my aux craft as high as I want as there is no rule against it. Inconvenient with mini's but that is what counters are for. Is that the intention? Am I supposed to divine the interntion is some way?

Woah there!

Where did stacking auxiliary craft come from? No, no, no!

The no stacking rule still applies, with no exception. At all.

I was just a little taken aback that people thought this also meant fighters could not be put on bases of the ships they attack - one of those things that just seemed obvious to me at the time After all, ships with larger bases are not going to get many fighters attacking them otherwise. . .

Certainly something to keep in mind in future rules writing. . .

I really can't see a problem with Matt's statement. All he ever said was that you were allowed to move fighter right up to an enemy ship. To have claimed that you could not get a fighter into 1 inch range just because the enemy ship was on a large base would be silly. It's only a base to hold the model up, it isn't a fighter proof force field!!!

If you were using card counters there would be no problem with having your fighters touch the counter which would be well within one inch of the centre.

Whilst I do think the sag and the VLC have typos in their stats (should be raid and hull 5) the bulk of everything else in Armageddon looks really interesting.

I think we should chill out a little and just give it a go.

I'm looking forward to getting hammered by the pros out here on ther 16th.

Kremmen

 

[Triggy]

Thank you very much Matt on all your hard work and myriad of answers. It is hugely appreciated.

On the Sagittarius, suffice to say I disagree but it's an honest point of view with no offense meant and now I've said my piece, I'll stay relatively quiet about it

Whilst I do think the sag and the VLC have typos in their stats (should be raid and hull 5) the bulk of everything else in Armageddon looks really interesting.

Matt has already clarified in this thread the VLC is a typo - should be hull 5 and the Sagittarius is not a typo - should stay at Skirmish PL.

 

[CZuschlag]

<speech>

Wow. I couldn't truly believe that the Sag got UPgunned and stayed at skirmish when I heard it at my local gaming shop.

Indefensible.

When 100 people say one thing, and you say the other, the odds are very strongly in favor of the 100 being right. There was a major book by James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, that shows just how powerful the intuition of an uninformed multitude can be. The other one to read is Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. These only backs the hypothesis that the cry from the board is right.

We're locally talking about just banning the Armageddon supplement. It seems to contribute little positive and several great negatives over the previous tournament lists. Massed squadron firepower outdates any and all War level hulls manifestly. Heck, local players have convince me to ban the Pentacon not for it initiative sinks -- that's not the dangerous bit -- but for the total firepower output! Now, everyone gets this mess.

We wanted an improvement in fighters, but we're having a hard time making this workable and worry about a few of them, specifically the Rutarian and the Thunderbolt, survivable range 4 fighters with punch.

The Sag nightmare just got much worse (how many stateside tourneys do you want to see demolished before you actually take them into account? GenCon wasn't enough??). Next up, expect the Prefect nightmare, Nah-Sulusts-need-to-be-busted, here comes the Dawning of the Age of the Tertius, how many Ka'Tans would you like today, sir?, the Kavila that dwarfs the simiarly priced Avioki, and welcome to Targrath Hell. A sad waste of a release. It's things like this that take a good system and munchkin it out so much that it dies. Why in god's name would you ever take a Centurion nowadays? And when you had such a good thing with the Tourney lists! Just fix the Sag and the Hunter and we were pretty set... Then, go after the variants with the same tourney-blancing jujitsu, and we'd all be set ..... so close!

Hell, even most of the new minis look like drek. Tragic.

The only thing out it that I want is the FAQ and the revised Stealth mechanic. One I've already heard, and this forum answers most of the other.

We'll just have to vote with our pocketbooks.

</speech>

 

[Burger]

I think you're exaggerating greatly CZ. After considering the changes properly, after the initial "TeH sKy Iz FaLlInG!!1!!" reaction, and after the clarifications made in this thread and the rulesmasters, I'm quite happy about most of the changes. The Shadows and Minbari got a pretty rough deal though.

Except the Sag of course. No amount of sweet-talk or justifications will convince me that it's not stupidly overpowered, even more so than it was before. Am I the only one that has thought of putting flash missiles on the F and P arcs, and heavy on the S and A?... alternate between 6AD and 4AD while the opponent is at long range... when they get close just turn round and blast them half way to Thirdspace with your heavies.

 

[Nidalap]

I think we should chill out a little and just give it a go.

I'm looking forward to getting hammered by the pros out here on ther 16th.

Kremmen[/quote]



Totally agree mate. Lets be honest , it`s only a game, my tea wont taste any diffrent regardless of what happens on the 16th. Tryed my Raider fleet out last night.........not pretty vs Minbari. Ah well !
One plus was the fighters, actually did something with Double V`s for a change. I DO like the changes to them :lol:

And Yes I too am look forward to getting handed my ass on a plate off some of the Vets. Please dont let me play Reaverman.... I`ve seen him in action,
You part Dilgar mate?

Cheers
Barry

 

[Captain Kremmen]

I think you're exaggerating greatly CZ. After considering the changes properly, after the initial "TeH sKy Iz FaLlInG!!1!!" reaction, and after the clarifications made in this thread and the rulesmasters, I'm quite happy about most of the changes. The Shadows and Minbari got a pretty rough deal though.

Except the Sag of course. No amount of sweet-talk or justifications will convince me that it's not stupidly overpowered, even more so than it was before. Am I the only one that has thought of putting flash missiles on the F and P arcs, and heavy on the S and A?... alternate between 6AD and 4AD while the opponent is at long range... when they get close just turn round and blast them half way to Thirdspace with your heavies.

i think I NOW understand why the Minbari surrendered at the battle of the line. They saw the reserve Sag fleet coming and knew they were F****d so just surrendered so save faith.

Can't blame them really, against a 10 ship sag fleet armed as Burger recommends I think everyone is toast. Glad I don't use EA. Hope I don't come up against 10 sags on the 16th.

Kremmen

 

[TenaciousB]

Except the Sag of course. No amount of sweet-talk or justifications will convince me that it's not stupidly overpowered, even more so than it was before. Am I the only one that has thought of putting flash missiles on the F and P arcs, and heavy on the S and A?... alternate between 6AD and 4AD while the opponent is at long range... when they get close just turn round and blast them half way to Thirdspace with your heavies.

Good point, Burger. Didn't see that before - reckon u mythbuster boys should field test this and let us know just how broken it is at tourney level.

Still praying for the PL of the Sag to be a misprint.....

 

[Silvereye]

But just what do you put up against it now?