I was originally going to write a basic rules overview for BFG for this article but I thought that could be done another day should there be demand for it. So I have made the assumption here that you dear reader know the basic rules of Battlefleet Gothic already. So for this article instead I decided to ask the community as to what their most commonly asked questions were. I asked the community over of various facebook pages as to some of the more common head scratching questions about the game that left them stumped, and there were some good ones. In no particular order, here are the questions that came back and my interpretation from reviewing the rules, along with a few answers that were also given by others: Question: There's a lot of ambiguity around how boarding and hit and run attacks work. I guess clearly saying how that works would help. Answers: Boarding - If you intend to board a ship then you must declare this in your movement phase, you then move into base to base contact (as long as your in range). To work out the winner of the boarding action, the boarding values are added up, which is the damage points the ship/s have remaining and applying any positive/negative modifiers to that value as well, such as +2 being marines etc. Once you have the boarding values, both players roll a D6 and add this to the boarding value. The player with the highest score is the winner and 1x point of damage is caused for every 1 point of difference between the scores. If reduced to zero (0) hull points the destroyed ship does not roll on the catastrophic damage table. The winning ship may then move off in their next turn. If the values are the same then the boarding is a draw and continues until there is a winner. Multiple ships may board at the same time and their values are added together. Hit and Run – to resolve a Hit and Run attack, roll a D6 for each attack you are completing. On a roll of 1 you fail, 2-6 you score a hit and run attack and for whatever you rolled you look it up on the critical hits table. If you have a fleet that has a +1 to their hit and run attacks they can never fail them. Question: Does a fighter token hitting a wave of bombers take out one bomber counter or the whole wave? Answer:
Question: What happens to escort squadrons’ shields and hits when they’re in base contact and take fire, or when they run over blast markers and blast markers in general Answer: Essentially if you have any ship in base contact with a blast marker at any time then for each blast marker you are in contact with reduces the ships shields by one. This is up to the amount of shields that particular ship has. Consequently, only one blast marker is required to remove the shields from escort ships. Escorts have one shield; if they are in base contact with a blast marker then they no longer have a shield in place. Attacks can then be made on the hull itself. There are some escorts with two shields (Tau Niccassar for instance) where you still need to remove the number of shields. If the escort is in base to base with its other escorts and one is in contact with a blast marker then the shields are only lost on the escort in contact with said blast marker. Escorts are fired at as a squadron (unless some are not in arc) and the numbers of hits are allocated to the whole squadron. Question: That Nova cannon doesn't use guess mechanic anymore? Answer: In the original rule set the nova cannon was a guess range weapon. However, this was changed in FAQ 2010 to scatter dice. This was due to some players either knowing the size of the table and able to hit every time. Or with some less scrupulous players, notching boards as to achieve the same affect. So scatter dice were brought in to change this.
Question: How is ordinance dealt with in general, for example ‘what happens if in the movement phase move a ship onto/through a torpedo marker’ Answer: If during the movement phase you pass a ship through any type of ordinance then the attacks are resolved immediately. The below cruiser moves and passes through the torpedoes, all of the torpedoes make attacks to hit on the hull and hits and critical hits applied straight away. Question: How bomber attacks are rolled - handle each bomber individually (I.E. roll the dice one at a time for each bomber to determine the number of attacks they make) or roll them all at once (I.E. a wave of X bombers rolls X dice to determine the number of attacks they make), as well as how turrets factor into that Answer: So the easiest way I think to explain this is in steps: i.Wave of bombers hit a the ship ii.Ship fires its turrets to reduce the wave numbers iii.Remove the number of bombers successfully destroyed by turret fire iv.Roll the remaining dice to work out the number of bomber runs to be completed v.The results of the dice roll is the number of bomber attacks you will complete minus the turret value of the ship that is being attacked vi.Roll the number of dice and compare the result against the armour of the ship and allocate hits if the dice roll is equal to or higher than the hull strength vii.Any hits on the hull are then rolled by the defender to see if any are critical hits. viii.End of that attack. With fighter suppression - If fighters are with the bombers in a wave, they'll add +1 attack to the Wave's total for each fighter, not to exceed the number of surviving bombers. For example, if a wave of 2 fighters and 2 bombers attacks a 2-turret ship, you'll roll D6-2 per bomber, add the results together, and then add +2 to the total. If a wave of 4 fighters and 2 bombers attacked the same, you'd still only add +2 to the Wave's total. Question: Why take weapon batteries over lance batteries? Answer: The main advantage of weapons batteries is that they roll more dice for damage, which in turn means a higher damage potential (yes you aren't likely to actually reach if often, but there's always the chance), as well as higher chances of inflicting damage by forcing favourable rolls through with rule of averages. They are also useful against Eldar. Lances on the other hand generally produce fewer dice, but those dice have a higher chance of inflicting damage (flat 50/50 vs, whatever the target's armour is). The catch is that rolling fewer dice puts a lower hard limit on how much damage you can possibly inflict with them, and leaves you more at the mercy of the Dice Gods. They are also useful against Space Marines and other fleets with ready access to 6+ armour. Another factor to consider is range. Outside of Chaos (who have long-ranged everything) many lance weapons are fairly short ranged, with most lances with a range of more than 30cm being limited to expensive battleships and battlecruisers. Weapon batteries with ranges longer than 30cm are by comparison much more common. Sure, the gunnery table means you aren't likely to get a lot of hits in at those distances, but some dice is better than no dice at all, no? It basically comes down to quantity of dice vs. quality of dice. The main advantage of weapons batteries is that they roll more dice for damage, which in turn means a higher damage potential (yes you aren't likely to actually reach if often, but there's always the chance), as well as higher chances of inflicting damage by forcing favourable rolls through with rule of averages. They are also useful against Eldar as well due to their 2+ save against lance fire. Ultimately both have their place and role, and you'll generally have much better chances of success by using both together - the classic tactic of knocking down a ship's shields with weapon batteries before unloading the lances on it. Question:
Regarding splitting a ship's shooting. Do you nominate all targets first and then resolve or individual targets per weapon type and resolve those before continuing with other weapon types? In practice: is it possible to resolve weapons batteries first and then select lance targets? Answer: Nominate all targets for firing before rolling any dice. You have to shoot at the closest ship unless you pass a leadership test to fire at another. (Note that Necrons can split fire due to a special rule they have) Those were the questions that you guys asked, I hope that helped and went some way to clearing up some of the ambiguity. If you have any other questions please let me know, could do another Q&A session in the future.
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