So my group recently acquired a Gryphonne pattern torpedo bay for one of their ships, and last night was the first time they got to use them. Long story short the Arch-Militant was able to one shot two Wolfpack Raiders. Am I understanding the rules correctly on these things that each plasma torpedo hit does 2d10+14 damage, and basically if all 4 hit its doing 8d10+56? I guess I can understand the power of these things being balanced by the very finite ammo capabilities of the torpedo tubes, and need to restock if they get used on every passing thing, and if so, its time to throw some much bigger fish at them.

Torpedoes are very wicked, and ignore shields, but the ammunition is limited and hard to come by, and often runs out during extended voyages.

Looks about right.

Just rememeber that sometimes you can shoot down a torp or two with turrets.

I'm pretty sure the damage of each torpedo is measured separately against the ship's armour.

Yep. You need to apply each torpedo individually. That means seperate damage rolls and seperate crits. They can be amazing, or meh. The bigger the target, the less valuable they tend to be. Note that Melta torpedos will burn out most ships, even grand cruisers, rather quickly.

I'm pretty sure the damage of each torpedo is measured separately against the ship's armour.

Why didn't I spot this? Ofcourse they are!

Pretty much everyone else here has nailed it - they apply the effects of each hit individually but frankly torpedoes are the best anti-ship weapon in the game, the disadvantages being the difficulty of hitting your opponent and the sheer expense of having them in the first place. Also if YOU'RE using a fleet they can friendly fire your own vessels which kinda sucks. But seriously, torpedoes are the way, the truth, and the light.

...All weapons are anti-ship weapons. What else are you going to fight in ship-to-ship combat?

More importantly, I would argue that macrocannons are the best - for all the same reasons they made those mathhammer house rules.

...All weapons are anti-ship weapons. What else are you going to fight in ship-to-ship combat?

You mean you don't use your ship's weapons against ground targets?

...All weapons are anti-ship weapons. What else are you going to fight in ship-to-ship combat?

More importantly, I would argue that macrocannons are the best - for all the same reasons they made those mathhammer house rules.

Yes, but macrocannons are good in the same sense that dual wielded micro-storm bolters are good - you'll kill everything but no-one will like you and everyone will think you're a bad person.

Also WHADDYA MEAN THAT'S ALL YOU'LL DO. It's almost like you've never taped atomics to Ork raiding parties and sent them over to the enemy via teleportarium before....

See also, using ship weapons against ground targets.

I get that you're joking, but I don't use atomics. I find they cheapen space combat and encourage a playstyle I don't like.

If you fire at the ground, everything pretty much dies regardless of what you use. On a mostly unrelated note, I hardly ever make it that easy for my players to get what they want. And since I gotta go there - you're hardly *fighting* the ground, so nyeh!

And don't talk to me about mass combat rules. The mass combat rules are the devil. Or the daemon, or something.

The BFK Mass combat rules are wretched, even with the errata. I suggest using the mass combat rules from BC's Tome of Blood, which are considerably better.

Cheers,

- V.

Thanks, I'll have to suggest that to our GM. We tried the mass combat stuff in BFK and it was pretty bad.