Vorlon PK rules; suggestions please.

C

Centauri_Admiral

Mongoose
Okay,

A friend of mine has offered to scratch build me a vorlon planet killer, to go with my vorlon fleet, and trust me, he is a wizard of a sculptor . . . . well, more of a necromancer but . . . I digress.

So we were talking the other day about rules, and how best to represent the VPK in games, as this precedent hasn't really been set yet. Okay we have the armageddon level ships of the vorlons and shadows as an indicator, and the ancients too, but the whole lot of them had to gang up to start taking the VPK down right? Correct me if I'm mistaken.

Anyway, after some initial thoughts, I considered that the VPK should follow the rules for space stations, exact stats not worked out yet, but that instead of being immobile it should have some token movement value, after all it was perfectly capable of keeping up with the rest of the fleet, at least in hyperspace.

I'm not wanting to represent the VPK's planet killing abilities in ACTA, I'm thinking that could be more of a special rule in planetary assaults, but I'm not that bothered about it at this stage. I think even though designed to take down planets, the VPK would still have been a consumate warship, showcasing all of the vorlon technology.

So, the only thing I have down so far is that it should cost more than one armaggedon point, possibly two or three. But I want to see what the rest of you guys think.

Rich.
 
It took all of the other ancients to kill the thing. That is 5 "Ancient" points, or 10 Armageddon points. Thats quite a hefty cost.

It didn't actually fight back did it? Thats why it needs a fleet to protect it. It's just a planet killing device.

Oh and the mini would probably be at least 30" wide!
 
and their have been some stats, rules and ideas on building on the forum many many months back, obviously 1st ed.
to fit in with the existing priority system, no reason it couldn't be existing armageddon level, just give it 3 times more hits than a HC, and no weapons. Being scenario specific, IF it reaches the planet, the planet dies..
 
I'm not sure that if you correctly represented it on the table that it would be stopable by most fleets. I'd love to see pictures of the mini (if such a term could be used to describe it) though. I think Hiffano's right, any scenario would pretty much involve the defenders trying to stop the thing getting into position.
 
Burger said:
It took all of the other ancients to kill the thing. That is 5 "Ancient" points, or 10 Armageddon points.
Click to expand...

But they killed it quite quickly. It didn't actually seem to be a match for them.

Oh and the mini would probably be at least 30" wide!
Click to expand...

About the same size as an Adira then?
 
Well when in doubt I generally go back to B5 Wars for things like this since to be quite frank B5 Wars got the feel of the ships compared to their onscreen versions so very right in most cases (and before anyone throws in the usual quip about the Centauri, whilst they DID have beams it was the twin arrays that were the real powerhouses of the centauri fleet (which WERE Ion based pulse weapons so I'd argue that it was Mongooses take on the twin arrays and the battle lasers that was the problem with the 1st ed centauri rather than the wepons themselves (basically the AoG centauri felt, to me, rather more like ACTAs current fleet list for them. But I digress.....)

The Vorlon planet killer in B5 Wars had about 9 billion hit points (and adaptive armour (and shields too but all Vorlons had them in B5wars and frankly Mongoose adaptive armour is way more powerful than it was in B5Wars) but was about as maneuverable as mount everest and had no weapons whatsoever aside from the big gun. This big gun was frairly straightforward. When it fires everything in the row of hexes between it and its target, and in the row of hexes either side of that, was destroyed. No damage rolls, hit rolls, defensive systems etc. You are in the beam, you go boom. The thing is though, the beam was only allowed to actually target planets (in acta though Id rule that it could target space stations too) and had a 100 turn (or it might even have been 1000 turns) recharge sequence. Any scneario featuring it would of course say something like 'there are 7 turns left till the beam is charged' or soemthing and the charge time was basically there to make it impossible to fire more than once (but again in any given scenario there only liable to be one target you can hit with it and one shot is all you will need.

It was simple, elegant and felt true to the show, as was the case with alot of the rules in B5Wars (there was just an awful lot OF those simple elegant rules so that the whole game was, I think, still elegant, no longer all that simple ;))
 
make the beam like the Planet Killer in BFG.............which sounds similar to that in AOG. its probably about Armegedon / Ancient level with just the planet cracking beam...............

make some stats up - put em up and see what people think

if you are doing the V PK gotta do the Shadow Cloud - just to make it fair :)
 
Considering the comparable size of the VPK vs the Vorlon fleet (and the scale issue with minis for B5), I would guess the mini would only be about 10-15 inches across.

Say speed 1 or 2 and 1,000 damage.
 
Da Boss said:
Ripple said:
What's the mini for that one like though?

Ripple
Click to expand...

Simple - Really big ball of cotton wool sprayed black:) stick it on a base - job done.......... :lol:
Click to expand...
Why bother with a base... just roll it over your enemies. Any that get stuck to the cotton wool have been swallowed and count as destroyed.
 
Burger said:
Da Boss said:
Ripple said:
What's the mini for that one like though?

Ripple
Click to expand...

Simple - Really big ball of cotton wool sprayed black:) stick it on a base - job done.......... :lol:
Click to expand...
Why bother with a base... just roll it over your enemies. Any that get stuck to the cotton wool have been swallowed and count as destroyed.
Click to expand...

I like that :) sounds fun
 
I was considering using all of the normal vorlon special rules, not allowing ANY special actions to be performed, either having a token movement value of 2 or perhaps just have it as immobile completely.

Then my initial ideas were to have it follow the space station rules set, in terms of hits and the three thresholds, and the targets system. Obviously keep the adaptive armour, flight computer [if needed at all] and give it self repair [not too hard though]

My initial thoughts for points were along the lines of 2 armageddon or perhaps 3. When you consider swarm fleets, and what the other races could get for 3 points of armageddon, I think it may balance itself out quite nicely.

For instance, 3 drakh motherships against 1 VPK, giving you all the benefits of the extra ships in the hangars. Or 6 warlocks. Or twelve omegas. twelve primus. 6 octurion. 3 adira.

Of course there are in service dates to consider, I'm still not sure whether to wheel it out solely on special occasions, or build a rules set that is more balanced, even perhaps slightly under powered, and use it regularly in my fleet. I have a few opponents who can muster a large fleet; so it would get a reasonable outing.

When I have a rules set I'll post it; when i have pictures of the beast I'll post those as well.
 
Look forward to seeing the model - although I did notice their is one already at Mongoose HQ - I think it is a AOG one?

Could indeed make an interesting scenario - S+P perhaps?
 
For the big gun you could use something along the lines of the mass driver rules only allowing it to target stationary objects.

I think that making it 1 Ancient point feels about right. It is clearly bigger than Armageddon but the 5 other ancients took it down in what would probably be 1-2 turns of firing.
 
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-B5-Ships/Vorlon_PK.htm

Hope this helps to show you what the planet killer actually looked like if u haven't already seen it. I'm sure that Phil and Mark @ id gaming have one of the old AOG planet killers in the shop, this is the AoG mini itself:

fa2507.jpg


Gary
 
Good to know... I may need one...

As to the cloud, was just thinking how huge it is. It covered planets.

Ripple
 
Like I said a REALLY big ball of cotton wool / steel wool :) Scale is a bit mad in ACTA anyway...........the SC in Armada 2 mod is quite fun :)
 
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