Scout Ability to reroll one weapon system

Epaminondas

Mongoose
I was looking at the scout special ability, and trying to decide if it was really cool, or somewhat ok.

A. Does it allow ALL ships targeting the victum to reroll ONE weapons system?
B. Does it allow ONE ship targeting the victum to reroll ONE weapons system?
C. Does it allow ONE ship targeting the victum to reroll ONE AD?

Maybe I'm overreading the rule, but is the operative word "any" or "one"
 
ahh.... you are right, page 89!

I read over Armageddon a few days ago, and was rereading the core rules... the wording bugged me as I could see multiple ways of reading it.

Thanks!
 
I spotted that in Armageddon, and it surprised me. I had thought that it was option B, that's certainly the way that we've been playing it till now. Scouts just suddenly got a whole lot more effective!
 
Sorry to whine, but can people not accept that just because something (like scout rerolls) is useful, every fleet in the game does not need it to be able to compete!

Vorlons dont need scouts as quite frankly they have the sort of firepower and survivability that all the other races (Including the Shadows) can only dream of!

As the old saying goes "you cant have it all!"

ps. as stated now in numerous rules queries and in Arm itself as noted, option A is correct. And yes its nasty but its by no means overpowered. Solution: SHOOT THE SCOUT!!!!
 
Yup Corvans, not to put too fine a point on it, KICK ASS :P Especially if you combine them with a bunch of Sullusts and maybe a Prius etc. Rerolls on all those lovely battle lasers :D.

Incidentally if you scout lock a target twice in the same turn (with 2 seperate scouts obviously) then every ship targeting that 'victim' can reroll attacks for TWO weapon systems etc... not of huge help to the centauri who tend to have only one big weapon and everything else twin linked anyway but it CAN pay off still for ships with lasers and matter cannons, torpedoes etc....
 
Locutus9956 said:
Incidentally if you scout lock a target twice in the same turn (with 2 seperate scouts obviously) then every ship targeting that 'victim' can reroll attacks for TWO weapon systems etc

Actually you can't, Matt ruled as such.

In general, multiple instances of the same bonus do not stack, different bonuses to the same roll do stack.

Examples, multiple instances of Scout ship bonuses do not stack, nor does having a Command +1 and a Command +2 ship on the board give you a +3 bonus, you just get a +2

However, a scout roll to lower Stealth and an aux craft S2F SA success will stack to reduce stealth by 2 if both are successful.

LBH

EDIT : I may be wrong, different weapon systems might work see below :oops:
 
lastbesthope said:
Locutus9956 said:
Incidentally if you scout lock a target twice in the same turn (with 2 seperate scouts obviously) then every ship targeting that 'victim' can reroll attacks for TWO weapon systems etc

Actually you can't, Matt ruled as such.
He did? I thought he said that one was fine. :?:

Wulf
 
Wulf Corbett said:
lastbesthope said:
Locutus9956 said:
Incidentally if you scout lock a target twice in the same turn (with 2 seperate scouts obviously) then every ship targeting that 'victim' can reroll attacks for TWO weapon systems etc

Actually you can't, Matt ruled as such.
He did? I thought he said that one was fine. :?:

Wulf

Damn, maybe he did, I got confused and misread it as stacking multiple rerolls on the same weapon system.

Looks like we're both getting crossed wires today Wulf :lol:

LBH
 
I believe he did indeed rule that scouts could stack. It was a major discussion point around here at the time. It was the basis of our arguement that Drazi and Brakiri definately needed a scout. We were still playing SFoS Vorlons at the time and thought they needed one too.

Multiple scouts at patrol ment that kill the scout was often not possible until several turns had passed as they tended to hide and had stealth. Shoot a corvan when you only have a one third chance of firing or shoot the sulust? Even worse vs the Vree. And EA hides their scout across the room somewhere, luckily its expensive enough that there are not enough of them to expect the scout function to work. Vree/Centauri/Narn/Abbai tend to have enough to expect the roll to work. (of course most of the Abbai weapons do not care but hey...)

Still not relevant until V2 comes out, as we not likely to see new fleet lists until then.

Ripple
 
yep, Im not sure if its been deleted from rulesmasters in the big purge but my version of the above rule is based directly on a Matt Sprange ruling ;)

Multiple versions of the same rule do indeed not stack so you cant use two scouts to reroll a weapon a second time but using a second scout on different weapons for each firing ship is indeed allowed :) (Handy if you take 3 Vaarls and 4 Whitestars in an ISA fleet......)
 
Well not every race needs a scout. Raiders sure dont......

Otherwise you get the every race needs everything syndrome, which already partially exists. Nearly every race has a missle ship. Not necessarily all good.

And when a race does not have access to a scout, like Cents or Vree (Two races that get enough cheap scouts to make it work), you can up AD slightly to represent, that loss of firepower.....
 
if only I beleive that had happened. (Adding AD to make up for scout lacking.)

Though I believe that creates other issues. Namely the same problem that all forward arc vs all round firepower, and the weak ships at some levels vs stong ships at others balances. If my opponent did not takea scout and yet I had advantages based on my lack of access to one I got a free upgrade. Wose if he does take one and makes his roll the one turn in three he should, I still have an upgrade due to my extra ad firing many turns over.

On the other one we have all seen the Sag debate.

Balances that depend on a person selecting only certain ships is dodgy in a free fleet choice game. Your much better off giving most fleets access to all the core game mechanics, it is just where they are located.

You note that most ships have some kind of long range stand off weapon ship. Well from a military standpoint doesn't that make sense? it is a basic role that every military would at least try to fill. Some would rely on it some would not, some could not afford to like EP says but that is hard to reflect in a campaign where Drazi might rule the universe for some reason. Put the designs together from the perspective of 'if the x were to build something for this role how would they do it.' standpoint. It does not mean they actually did it, just that is how they would do it if they did.

The big benefit is as long as it is balanced for the race in question vs the rest of the game, everyone has access to the same special rules and you do not have to hamstring yourself. If you balance based on the well they do not have x trait, then you can never add it, or anything that does the same thing without unbalancing a whole lot of ships. Better put up a sticky note on the desing table. This also means you can do more in depth scenarios and or campaign rules as no race is unable to play due to lacking a vital ship type.

Wow...rambling again...gotta stop doing this post thing in the early hours.

Ripple
 
Well Narn only recently got ceptors.

They didnt have a core rule mechanic available to them. Minbari have Stealth another core rule mechanic to replace a different one.

And ofc races like Drazi and Brakiri should get one. That makes sense, but Vorlons are a different matter alltogether.

They have few ships that boast good firepower. A little boost of 105-110% of firepower, would not put them way out of proportion with a priority lvl, and still give them a little advantage.

But that is useless ramble as balancing the perfect number of AD while keeping kinda within a PL system doesnt work.

The problem actually only comes into existence, when a small number of scouts (Patrol lvl) effect a huge fleet (5 point war). It makes sense, but scouts get better the higher the lvl. Something that few ships do. Every Ship added to the fleet ups the scouts efficiency, up to a point, where any ship gets killed by it. (battle lvl ship left in enemy fleet 3 war lvl ships firing with a weapon reroll).
Also the Scout rule is hampered by the effect, of 1 weapon system per ship. 5 ships use the same data, to effect 5 weapon system. 10 ship achieve the same for 10 weapon batteries. I do not believe that computer power is that limited. ToT values should be that hard for laser beams and energy weapons. How do missles improve from scout data?

ACTA is effects based, so reality doesnt play any big part here, but the rules dont really add up. Well when you look a littble bit too close.

*rambling grrr*
 
True, not everyone has the smae defensive system, but most get a defense of some type. Narn and some brakiri get the damage/crew boost, drazi get the hull 6 early. one issue I have with the larger Drazi is they are not big enough to have no defensive system, which breaks down their balance as they are no longer getting a hull upgrade.

But you hit it on the head with scout being a different flavor. Much like command and fleet carrier it effects the whole fleet. Even ship board fighters really are a game changing aspect as fighters interact in ways that ships do not and grow in effectiveness as the numbers increase. Get to the threshold that you are a threat to a ship of the priority of the battle and you have reached the tipping point in effectivenss. Can not do that and your just an annoyance. That is what I ment by core mechanic, not individual traits but fleet level mechanics. SA's are the other big one, that everyone needs some access too and used to make certain things hard for the vorlons. Not sure hwo they fair yet nowdays.

Ripple
 
Burger,

While I agree that Vaarl's are good scout (so much better than the Corvan's it is laughable)...I perfer the Vaarka's. Sure, you only get 3 (skirmish PL)for one battle point (as opposed to 4 Vaarl's-Patrol PL), but you get the added benefit of a bigger main weapon (antimatter Cannon 12" instead of 10" super AP, DD instead of just Super AP and a plus one on your hull (4 instead of 3).

I would recomend that you try some Vaarka's some time. Unless you have already tried them...if you did, just ignore my whole post...

Except that Vaarl's are better scouts than Corvan's!

Everyone underestimates the Vree. Sure, our ships don't have enough armor to live through a long fight. Sure, we get no intiative bonus. Sure, our main weapon (on the Xaak at least) takes too damm long to recharge! But, take 4 Xaaks against 4 Omegas and I bet that by turn 4...3 Omegas are down, and the last one hurt bad. But that's my opinion.

I just picked EA off the top of my head. I would wager that same with almost any race you can care to name...(except the damm Abbai!! Interseptor lovers!).

My two cents (or whatever moneytary unit applys across the pond) worth.

Please flame me lightly...healing from a broken foot...Really!
 
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