S+P Playtest rules.

[H]

ok then, just read this, I assume this is only a small sample, because if it's everything, then P+P will be very small.

firstly, may I also say, "the five good men" Matt, this is highly disrespectful to the other playtesters, and we have already been told that only 3 playtesters are active, come on man!!

whitestar command variant, sigh. . .


ok, Abbai mines, check, I like, Abbai shield regen, check, I like, however, it's too much on the big ships. A Brivoki could with a decent roll completely recharge it's shield each round! ouch! and where is all this power coming from? divert power, then loose movement, turns or weapons stuff?

Dilgar Alphastrike. . um, check.. ish. . . could be gross. . but nice idea

Drazi Attack run... free attack and ram. . . no. . . just no, it's a good idea, but seems a bit too much given the large number of excelent low level ships in this fleet... maybe a minor tweak or two is needed because the actual idea is nice

EA Bonehead, hey ho, interesting, can't see it being widely used, I'd need to check how many cheap ships have jump engines. .

Shadows, love em both, Merging is cool.

 

[noobdelux]

got to agree with hiffano there, just hope that everything is cheese tested realy good and so on.. maybe more of them playtesters?

 

[H]

oh and may I add, I know the drazi one isn't an automatic ram, but eventually, after a number of attempts it will happen!

 

[Burger]

Abbai triple shield boost does seem perfect for smaller ships, but yeah for Brivoki and Juyaca it is too much. And the lack of side-effects mean this SA will be a no-brainer every turn on every Abbai ship. It should cause all weapons to use half AD, or only 1 weapon may be fired, or something like that. No brainer SA's are bad for interesting games, see CBD on Demos. Boring.

Dilgar aplha strike, nice idea like a CAF on steroids! But it penalizes big ships vs swarms even more... I thought we were meant to be going in the opposite direction?

Drazi one again I like the idea, but maybe a bit too good. Can't it be used as a cheap ramming technique? Even better than triyng to fail skindancing, you get to fire your weapons as well, and if you pass the roll you don't lose anything. A 5 Strikehawk/10 Sleekbird fleet would be really, really nasty.

I thought the Bonehead only worked when opening a JP inside an activated jump gate? Maybe wrong here but I thought thats how it worked, and why the EA decided not to use it in the E-M war (jump gates are too valuable resource). 8" is far too small radius, it is canon that no Early EA ship could have escaped the blast that is why they couldn't do it before the WS did it. And the WS only just survived. So that would suggest a 13" or 14" blast radius.

Shadows AF is nice but the mind scream seems a bit silly... its basically just giving Shadows a bonus when fighting Psi Corps.

 

[Clanger]

What about giving the Army of Light a chance to use Psychic Crew when fighting the Shadows? The Minbari did give the others Telepaths to help when fighting Shadows. Maybe make this a Other Duties in a campaign.

The Drazi Attack Run is very very gross. It gives the Drazi Player 1) firing 2) good chance to ram and the chances are that it will explode giving 3) Explosion damage.

This gives a Drazi ship 3 chances to destroy a ship even before it has moved.

 

[Triggy]

Two points here:

Drazi Attack Run is under extreme playtesting and seems to be modified every week as it's very hard to find a balance point for it that is fair (and fun!) for both sides. The "cheesy" fleet to test it with is ten Solarhawks as they only tend to fire once or so per game anyway.

Abbai Shields: The whole point of this rule was to give a smaller boost to the smaller ships and a big boost to the big ships! People complained that the Bimith, Lakara and Juyaca were slow, unmanoeuvrable and either needed extra range or extra survivability. Well now they have a ton more survivability. That said, It's still in my top three things to playtest fully at the moment

BTW, love the picture with the Early Years EA article - an Apollo fits nicely with them

 

[H]

i'm just glad it's not automatic, that is at least one small mercy!

Me, yay, I've taken down the brivoki shields,

My Abbai playing companion, who cares i can regen 6D6 shields. . so average 18 i guess.. .. ..

I think the issue with the bimith, lakara and others is well adressed, the juyaca and Brivoki were already pretty darn tough ships. I intend playing a rematch against my abbai companion. . I will see how this shield malarky goes. .

Just thinking on mind scream. Have we any evidence that it kills telepaths?
I was thinking, and I know it's late and you are already partially agreed on stuff. . . what about.

Mind Scream. CQ opposed
As Shadow vessels move between the stars, they leave in
their wake a terrifying psychic scream. To any sentient
being, this scream, more sensation than sound, is nerve
shattering. Once per turn a shadow vessel may target one enemy target, on a sucessful role, the mind scream negates a special action as the target vessels crew is too terrified to enact it. . .or somesuch?

 

[Burger]

Drazi Attack Run is under extreme playtesting and seems to be modified every week as it's very hard to find a balance point for it that is fair (and fun!) for both sides. The "cheesy" fleet to test it with is ten Solarhawks as they only tend to fire once or so per game anyway.

I'd say 5 Strikehawks/Warbirds and 10 Sleekbirds is cheesier. Sure you have less beam firepower, but much more ramming power.

 

[mollari_uk]

I love the Shadow AF. I hope this stays as is. Scream could be better but I think it would overpower the fleet if it was. I like the no SA suggestion too. Now as long as Fighters and the Stalker get some love I'll be very happy.

The dilgar attack seems overpowered as it allows an attack in the movement phase but also a free ram if you fail. I would like to see this and skin dancing to have a much worse effect on the failing ship than the target ship. These aren't purposeful ram attempts, the ships would be actively trying to avoid the target and therefore wouldn't have the full effect of a ram. I'd suggest large damage to the attacking ship as it hits the hull, but small damage to the target ship as it only hits the outer sections (unless you get lucky on a crit of course).

 

[Burger]

Now as long as Fighters and the Stalker get some love I'll be very happy.

As long as it's not just +1 AD for the stalker! That leaves it still just as useless! It needs to go back to hull 5, regain stealth 5, and get some more damage points for protection from pinning.

 

[silashand]

FYI, I like them all. I haven't seen too much of the Abbai in action, but they definitely seem to need the shield boost IYAM. They are survivable now, just not enough so to keep them alive long enough for their limited weapons to do enough damage to the enemy.

Cheers, Gary

 

[katadder]

with the abbai shields - i agree, it can be too much on the big guys. an increase to their actual standard regen probably would have been enough.

drazi attack run, yes it is changing but I am totally against this in any form that allows firing in the movement phase. it breaks the flow of the game and if drazi can do it then why cant WSs in their more manouvrable ships, or vorchans. as a skindance type thing it would be better, as it stands its not good.

 

[Locutus9956]

Whitestar Command variant..... I'm not even going to START on this as most of the longstanding folks here are well aware what I think of the 'lets make another whiestar varient' plan of ISA ship desing.....

 

[Burger]

Whitestar Command variant..... I'm not even going to START on this as most of the longstanding folks here are well aware what I think of the 'lets make another whiestar varient' plan of ISA ship desing.....

Hey at least "Enforcer" isn't a RL-navy designation! You should be happy!!

 

[silashand]

Yeah, the should've called it the White Star III - Hood Class vessel... :twisted:

Cheers, Gary

 

[tschuma]

FYI, I like them all. I haven't seen too much of the Abbai in action, but they definitely seem to need the shield boost IYAM. They are survivable now, just not enough so to keep them alive long enough for their limited weapons to do enough damage to the enemy.

Cheers, Gary

Then you never saw them in our campagin! The guy playing Abbai dropped them and started play Minbari to give the rest of us a chance!

 

[Greg Smith]

Abbai triple shield boost does seem perfect for smaller ships, but yeah for Brivoki and Juyaca it is too much. And the lack of side-effects mean this SA will be a no-brainer every turn on every Abbai ship.

The idea is to bring the Abbai fllet up to scratch through the two special action. If it had a too much of a downside, it wouldn't do that.

Shadows AF is nice but the mind scream seems a bit silly... its basically just giving Shadows a bonus when fighting Psi Corps.

But they have a big disadvantage when fighting Psi Corps - as only the Corps' ships come equipped with psychic crew that can pin shadows. It is a little bit of a rebalance.

i'm just glad it's not automatic, that is at least one small mercy!

Triggy, are you reaing...

 

[Silvereye]

I like the idea/sound of some of them, but I'm not too convinced about the mechanics behind them.

I like the idea of the Drazi Attack run, but don't like the fact that they get to shoot out of sequence. There is also the potential for a cheap Skin Dancing type Ramming afterwards.

Shadows Turreted, Accurate, Mini-beams sounds good. For when you have an infestation of fighters.

Not too sure the Abbai Mines will get used that frequently, they'll all be Shielding like mad instead. Though the mine laying does sound like good fun. Perhaps when defending, they should just lay a mine field or 2 - much like B5 did in Apocalypse.

I thought the Bonehead only worked when opening a JP inside an activated jump gate? Maybe wrong here but I thought thats how it worked, and why the EA decided not to use it in the E-M war (jump gates are too valuable resource). 8" is far too small radius, it is canon that no Early EA ship could have escaped the blast that is why they couldn't do it before the WS did it. And the WS only just survived. So that would suggest a 13" or 14" blast radius.

But John J was probably All Power to Engining his way the hell out of there, so its more like it should be 20+" However, this will probably involve half the board. So not really an option.

Shadows AF is nice but the mind scream seems a bit silly... its basically just giving Shadows a bonus when fighting Psi Corps.

And maybe Vree. Is a crew of Vree telepaths psychic?

Mind Scream. CQ opposed
As Shadow vessels move between the stars, they leave in
their wake a terrifying psychic scream. To any sentient
being, this scream, more sensation than sound, is nerve
shattering. Once per turn a shadow vessel may target one enemy target, on a sucessful role, the mind scream negates a special action as the target vessels crew is too terrified to enact it. . .or somesuch?

Sounds a better option to me.

 

[H]

ok, um, now greg worries me, does triggy want it Automatic? if a Brivoki can automatically do 6D6 shield regen, i mean, oh my, holy feck. . .

as said, I think it IS a good action on battle level down.
as for no downside, I KNOW it's a game, but if it doesn't drain off the power from anywhere, why isn't it just the standard recharge? ? ?

 

[Da Boss]

I found the Shadow Scream quite soothing - or is that just me :wink:

I prefer yours Hiff (or in fact mine)

I dislike ships firing in move phase as well, and also am concerned about anything similiar to the "free ram" that is skin dancing - please tell me that is properly fixed before a new version is launched!?

the mines are nice

Shadows having accurate min-beam - er no that means it slices whitestars - which just seems wrong - turn dice into L/R Antifighter dice better...............

If you are going to make a WS Cmmand Varient (and not sure its needed) - more interesting to use the new ship from Lost Tales but if it has to be a present ship then prefer a version of the gunship?

re Psi corps I did think of a new rule for them maybe:

allow a ship with psychic crew to make a mundane ship within 8" re-roll a failed CQ check for a Special Action