Tournament pack rules updates

[Soulmage]

Sorry for the confusion. That section of my reply was facetious. My point was that the system needs to accomodate ALL kinds of freak hits. . . not simply recreate only those freak hits that actually happened.

My last thoughts on this before I let it go...... I take it accomodating ALL kinds of freak hits does not include any chance of the Scharnhorst etc ever scoring a freak hit (of more than one point), of any sort, on any more up to date ship... or are you saying that there is not one square inch on any 6+ ships where an 11" shell could hit that would cause some sort of crit effect

Note: you also disallow the 12.6" guns of the Caio Duilio and the 13" of the Dunkerque from doing crits against 6+ armour (without modifiers) as they are not AP

My point was supposed to mean that , perhaps there should be, without writing specifics that would clog the game.

Well, I can see that. Unfortunately the ability to critical is an all-or-nothing proposition. Either the weapon will only do normal damage, or the weapon is capable of destroying a ship in a single shot. So I guess it comes down to your willingness to allow Scharnhorst to blow away the Iowa in a single shot vs only doing normal damage and not being able to score less the vital criticals.

Basically, in order to do severe or possibly catastrophic damage to an armor 6+ ship that is augmented with an armored deck, you need to have an AP shell. I don't find that unreasonable.

Also, remember we're only talking about armor 6+ WITH an armored deck here. Against a ship without an armored deck Scharnhorst, C.D. and Dunkerque can still cause criticals with plunging fire. Which could create an interesting tactical situation.

 

[E Nicely]

Soulmage, if I were attacking you my posts would have been worded a lot differently. You're putting a lot of effort into discussing something that will remain as your house rules. Thats all.

 

[juggler69uk]

....My last thoughts on this before I let it go...... I take it accomodating ALL kinds of freak hits does not include any chance of the Scharnhorst etc ever scoring a freak hit (of more than one point), of any sort, on any more up to date ship... or are you saying that there is not one square inch on any 6+ ships where an 11" shell could hit that would cause some sort of crit effect

Note: you also disallow the 12.6" guns of the Caio Duilio and the 13" of the Dunkerque from doing crits against 6+ armour (without modifiers) as they are not AP

My point was supposed to mean that , perhaps there should be, without writing specifics that would clog the game.

Well, I can see that. Unfortunately the ability to critical is an all-or-nothing proposition. Either the weapon will only do normal damage, or the weapon is capable of destroying a ship in a single shot. So I guess it comes down to your willingness to allow Scharnhorst to blow away the Iowa in a single shot vs only doing normal damage and not being able to score less the vital criticals.

Basically, in order to do severe or possibly catastrophic damage to an armor 6+ ship that is augmented with an armored deck, you need to have an AP shell. I don't find that unreasonable.

Also, remember we're only talking about armor 6+ WITH an armored deck here. Against a ship without an armored deck Scharnhorst, C.D. and Dunkerque can still cause criticals with plunging fire. Which could create an interesting tactical situation.

I would have thought "freak hits" were in the category but you disagree so its all good they are, after all, your choice to play

I was not talking about armoured decks or plunging fire as they cancel each other out anyway, I was only speculating on the "Freak hit" under normal fire (NO MODIFIER)on any point that is not armoured as fully as say the deck or side. Maybe knocking out radar or a weapon etc

So I guess your answer to my previous post was NO, your comment on accomodating ALL kinds of freak hits, DOES NOT allow for freak hits by ships not having AP unless theres another modifier (eg plunging fire)

Here endeth my input on the crit matter(I hope)

 

[DSV1]

oh dont stop I was enjoying the handbags guys

Seriously though

Surely the point is COULD 11inch guns severely damage the big modern BB's of the time or not ?

I am sure there are people out there who could tell us, if the answer is yes then there should be that chance written into the rules

Maybe something simple like re-roll the damage dice if its a 6 its a crit etc

Thats not a serious suggestion by the way just a simple idea of something like.

 

[Soulmage]

The information I've seen tends to imply an answer of no. There is no chance the Scharnhorst could achieve a Hood-style catastrophic hit on an Iowa or Yamato class BB.

IMO, if you don't want that to occur you shouldn't open the door to that possibility.

Where I think the difference of opinion lies is in the Scharnhorst also loosing the ability to do critical damage to engines, rudder, secondary weapons, etc.

With the exception of the rudder and other vital systems, the Scharnhorst still retains the ability to destroy turrets, secondary weapons, AA mounts, and inflict engine damage on an Iowa or Yamato by simply doing enough regular damage to cripple her. But some feel that is not sufficient.

 

[Soulmage]

So I guess your answer to my previous post was NO, your comment on accomodating ALL kinds of freak hits, DOES NOT allow for freak hits by ships not having AP unless theres another modifier (eg plunging fire)

Now that I've been prodded into responding, I guess I will go ahead and respond to this, even though I promised myself I wouldn't.

The original topic of "Freak Hits" referred to the expanded d6 roll which allowed for To-Hit numbers higher than 6.

You have now morphed this into a discussion about criticals.

My system also does not allow "freak hits" for things like a Fletcher class destroyer using its 5" guns to blow up the Yamato in a single hit. I think that's a good thing.

This means that those 5" guns also loose the ability to take out radar masts, secondary weapons mountings, AA guns, and the like, which theoretically (in real life) they are capable of doing.

So, already we have a situation where guns aren't able to get "critical" results in the game that they could achieve in real life.

The question simply becomes a matter of opinion on where you draw that line.

To my mind, an 11" gun should not be capable of blowing the most powerful and best protected ships out of the water in one hit. . . even if that means loosing their ability to do some other special results.

You may feel differently.

I will point out, however, that there is EXACTLY 1 ship class in the current Royal Navy fleet list against which 11" guns cannot score criticals.

I see no reason to arbitrarily exclude modifiers such as plunging fire from the discussion of a gun's capabilities. Its a legitimate modifier, just the way AP or Super AP is. It applies in fewer situations, but that just means its a less powerful modifier, the same way AP is a less powerful modifier than SAP.

Truly, when we're discussing 11" guns against battleship armor, I would EXPECT that plunging fire would be necessary to penetrate that level of protection (by hitting the much weaker deck armor).

Finally, from a gameplay standpoint. . . seems like a fun situation to play out to me where the Scharnhorst is manuevering to keep its distance from a Royal Navy battleship to both gain some protection and possibly be able to score a lucky hit on the relatively unprotected deck.

Meanwhile the Brittish battleship is trying to close the distance with the Scharnhorst, knowing that its superior firepower and protection will carry the day, so long as it can get out of the plunging fire danger zone.

I'm still interested in discussing any alternate ideas anyone might have regarding how to handle any of the rules we've been discussing. I haven't yet seen a convincing argument against my proposed damage mod, but would love to hear any ideas on the topic.

OOB will be out soon, so I would think everybody on this forum would want to make it as excellent a rule set as we possibly can, regardless of who came up with what idea. If there's a problem with my ideas or anybody elses, we should all be wanting to discuss them in detail, rather than just say "it was playtested a lot already, just leave it alone."

"That's the way we've always done it" or "That's the way things are now" have never been good reasons not to question something to see if it could be made better.

Soulmage, if I were attacking you my posts would have been worded a lot differently. You're putting a lot of effort into discussing something that will remain as your house rules. Thats all.

You know, that may be the case. . . . but to my mind the more discussion of rules that happens prior to OOB being finalized, the better a supplement it will be.

 

[juggler69uk]

You know what, I typed out a carefully constructed long reply to this logically explaing my comments and agreeing you can use whatever you like, even down to fully explaining why I dislike the 789 and crit system, but the system exited me while i typed it and it was lost.

And I cant be arsed re-typing it

So I wont, other than to point out the futility of you trying to use the extreme case of the fletchers 5 " guns as a dramatic example to reinforce a point. THE FLETCHERS GUNS ARE WEAK so could NOT cause a crit on the Yamato's armour.

Yes I agree the scenarios you suggest would be fun whether cits allowed or not.

We disagree on a matter of opinion on where you draw that line.

Use whatever house rules you want its all ok with me

 

[Thunder]

I typed out a carefully constructed long reply to this logically explaing ... even down to fully explaining why I dislike the 789 and crit system, but the system exited me while i typed it and it was lost.

And I cant be arsed re-typing it

Thats unfortunate and I hate it when that happens to my posts as well. I have learned to highlight, right click and select "copy" before I hit the "Submit" button.

I hope you change your mind and explain logically why you dislike the 789 and crit system. I, for one, would be very interested in hearing another opinion. I am somewhat new to naval miniature games and caught a bit of the bug.

I think the post you lost is exactly the kind of discussion forums like this excell at...open discussion on the pros and cons of different ways to do things. Not everybody is going to agree, and as long as folks focus on the mechanics/numbers/logic and not on the personal then the discussion is positive.

On a side note my convention (www.fallcon.com) is this weekend and the VaS tournament is jam packed with a few folks on the waiting list...Yea! I can't wait!

Peace

 

[Soulmage]

I would have been interested as well. As I've said. . . the more discussion the better. Nobody has to agree with anybody else, but exposure to different ideas can only be a good thing.

. . . but having been a victim of the "lost post" before, I can sympathize with why you might not feel like re-typing it. I've learned the hard way to ctrl-c any time I type a long post.

Thunder:

Checked your FallCon site. . . love to come, but Canada is a little far! LOL!!

If you feel like travelling, you're more than welcome to come down to Flatcon (www.flatcon.com) and play a whole of of VaS and other stuff with us! My wife and I will even put you up in one of the guest bedrooms!



. . . . when I asked whether you were "close Canada" or "far Canada" my wife showed me a map and said, "There IS NO 'close' Canada!" LOL!!

 

[juggler69uk]

Ok Thunder, Soul, Its late and this may not be over coherent

This is only my explanation and is not offered as an argument to Soul, this only reflects My Personal views and they are not offered as a suggestion or reason not to play Souls house rules, Soul has stated he is perfectly happy with the situation and it’s perfectly OK for him to be

Its not the crit system in VaS I dislike, It’s the Crit house rules. The reason being is I feel that some of the guns in the game that are not AP or SAP and not classed as weak (e.g. 11”,12.6” &13”) should have a chance to do some form of damage against a 6+ armoured ship over and above the one point of damage, even if its only knocking out lesser things like radar, AA, secondaries, crew or causing fires etc. Without having to wait for it to become crippled or rely on a modifier, as even plunging fire is negated by an armoured deck.

An example of this house rule crit system is that any of the above guns firing at the Yamato could score 35 damage dealing hits without affecting the fighting ability of it in any way, plus No crew loss and no fires. Note: 35 damage dealing hits are a 1 in 6 chance against 6+ armour so you will on average have to roll 210 hits overall to get the 35. Without any other modifiers on a 4+ that would be 420 shots fired at it, more or less shots with any modifiers and its still at full fighting strength.(some will say it should be). I think this will preclude anyone ever taking such ships in a fleet

I was not wholly happy with the original system where Weak weapons could not Crit a lightly armoured ship, but the new rule that allows weak to crit on 3 or less armour seems adequate, thus no need for a new method which as above I’m not enamoured of

On the 789 I don’t like the addition of an extra roll into the game just to let you hit a fast moving target with any or all guns you have available

It was introduced by some in order to hit the “Unhittable” 7+ targets when they did not want to use other methods but simply pick ships/fleets for other reasons

I felt that it wasn’t needed as large silhouette gave +1 and a spotter plane +1, radar also helps by reducing long and extreme range penalties, also you can always use aircraft or torpedoes against them which don’t use the normal modifiers, We did house rule that secondaries don’t suffer the penalty to hit a fast moving target as we felt that’s what they were for. Anything still needing more than a 6 to hit, I was happy to live with and try and out manoeuvre

I did feel that too many ships came under the “umbrella” of fast moving when flank speed was employed, this to some degree has been rectified by flank only giving 1” so a lot of ships will not now get the “fast moving” penalty. The secondaries house rule looks as if it will be official too.

The new illumination rule also negates the night penalty

The new aircraft rules (when published) may make it even better

I fear this is not as comprehensive or as explanatory as my original however

 

[Shadow4ce]

I fear this is not as comprehensive or as explanatory as my original however

Yet well-stated and persuasive anyway. :wink:

 

[juggler69uk]

.........Yet well-stated and persuasive anyway. :wink:

Thanks Shadow.

Soul Hows this for an idea ?

Roll to hit as per any rules then.....

If the DD adjusted score equals or beats the target armour then it causes one point of damage and then a second roll that equals or beats the target armour causes the crit.

This way the more lightly armoured ships will get more crits than heavily armoured ones. You could factor in that the Ship Explosion can only be caused by AP or SAP if you want.

just an idea, it may not work as I havent tried it

 

[Soulmage]

Interesting. . . have to try it out and see how it works out in play!

 

[gazman]

I played last night using the tourney pack. A couple of questions came to mind.

Say you end up playing the At all costs scenario and you roll to see if land based planes can be used and they can't. What do you do if these are in your fleet list?

Can you have them in your fleet list?

The ten inch close range rule. Most torpedoes have a ten inch range. So do they get the -1 for every shot?

regards
Si

 

[DM]

Hmm, I suspect an "error in translation". If the rule changes are the same as the ones we playtested the +1 attack dice modifier should be applied to GUNFIRE ONLY, and NOT to torpedoes.

 

[gazman]

it just says +1 to ANY attack dice within 10" unless obscured by smoke.

 

[gazman]

what about land based planes?
Can you have them in your list?

Si

 

[DM]

it just says +1 to ANY attack dice within 10" unless obscured by smoke.

Yes it does, but checking against the playtested material for OOB I have confirmed that the playtested change did apply to gunnery only.

 

[gazman]

that makes more sense.

 

[Soulmage]

Soul Hows this for an idea ?

Roll to hit as per any rules then.....

If the DD adjusted score equals or beats the target armour then it causes one point of damage and then a second roll that equals or beats the target armour causes the crit.

This way the more lightly armoured ships will get more crits than heavily armoured ones. You could factor in that the Ship Explosion can only be caused by AP or SAP if you want.

just an idea, it may not work as I havent tried it

Seems to work out OK. Has the drawback of having to roll all damage dice twice and therefore slowing the game down.

Has the advantage of allowing 11" guns to critical the big ships.

Also produces a LOT more criticals on smaller ships by big ships than my proposed rules - which could be a good or bad thing depending on where you stand.

I'm not in favor of the AP/SAP restriction on ship explosions because IMO its an advantage to have a unified damage rule that doesn't have special critical rules for various weapon properties (no criticals for weak, etc.)

IMO, if you want the 11" gun to critical the Iowa or the Yamato, you could use this rule and just accept the fact that it might cause a catastrophic explosion.

If you're comfortable "drawing the line" for criticals on a Armor 6+, Armored Deck ship at requiring an AP or Super AP shell to cause a crit, I would go with my proposed rules.

It really just comes down to what you like better. . .