So I'm listening to NoVa squadron radio (ep. 49) and they are discussing opening moves for the BumpMasters lists. One gent mentioned "castling" "fortressing" for the first few turns (i.e. intentionally bumping into your own ships and not moving) until your opponent shows their hand.

Two questions:

1) Thematically, what should I imagine in my head is happening when ships do this? After some deliberation, I'm thinking that ships facing each other and bumping are simply "climbing" while belly-to-belly (a strange concept in space).. Is that what you imagine? It's difficult to stay in place in space so they are moving in some way, right?! What other instances does your imagination wander during maneuvering?

2) I realize there is no need for a "fix" because the penalty for bumping speaks for itself, but is there anything else you'd like to see to discourage this "slow-rolling"? Personally, I think it's fine the way it is but introducing a damage factor for bumping could spice some games up - maybe a variant for casual games to consider: When a ship ends its maneuver overlapping another ship, roll two attack dice and immediately change all [kaboom] results to [boom] results. Reduce the number of [boom] results by one and suffer the results.

Thoughts?

Side note: How do I in-line images?

Fortress lite. Do not want.

Thematically--I would think of it as 3-d space. Our rounds would be happening incredibly quickly if they were happening a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. The ships don't actually touch-they could be over under and unable to fire on each other. We can't really deal with that kind of positioning without making the game too complex, so this kind of works.

Castling is a ***** ass move. Play the **** game and shoot each other.

As far as inline images go, I've never been able to figure out the "my media" stuff. Don't know how to get images into my "gallery" so I've always used external photo servers for posting anything original.

As to the thematic depiction of two or more ships unable to progress through the same space? There cannot be any since Castling isn't thematic - it is an exploit of the rules concerning overlapping ships.

The way to "fix" it is to say that if you overlapped your own ship neither ship is allowed to fire that round (at anyone).

I'd rather not play than to play with people who warp and misuse the game in such a lame way to try to win.

"It's LEGALLLLLLL"

Yeah, and it's dumb, and it's lame, and it's not right.

Thematically, well, Star Wars makes no actual concessions for space flight whatsoever.

There's no reason any craft couldn't stop and hang in space. While we are on the subject almost nothing in the movies or x-wing makes the slightest bit of sense in terms of spacecraft. A ship moving forward should keep moving forward and no reason you couldn't turn a fighter 180 and fly backwards. The old X-wing and TIE fighter computer games actually did have realistic physics and you could do exactly that.

X-wing makes the craft move like WWI biplanes. This isn't incidental - since the mechanics are lifted from Wings of War, this is perfectly intentional. So when you say something is unrealistic in X-wing, we are really saying it's unrealistic for a space-fantasy atmospheric biplane.

The idea of ships lying in wait is pretty cool if you think about it that way. Boba Fett floating motionless in the garbage before following the Falcon. But it is kind of counter to the spirit of the game for most ships and intentionally doing it seems "gamey" without needing to recourse to arguments about realism as you're on thin ice there anyway.

Before a fight you might want to be stationary to observe how the attack is forming (using scanners while out of range). When the blasts start flying, you want to be moving. That's how I imagine it - "they're closing in - accelerate to attack speed"

Thematically, well, Star Wars makes no actual concessions for space flight whatsoever.

There's no reason any craft couldn't stop and hang in space. While we are on the subject almost nothing in the movies or x-wing makes the slightest bit of sense in terms of spacecraft. A ship moving forward should keep moving forward and no reason you couldn't turn a fighter 180 and fly backwards. The old X-wing and TIE fighter computer games actually did have realistic physics and you could do exactly that.

X-wing makes the craft move like WWI biplanes. This isn't incidental - since the mechanics are lifted from Wings of War, this is perfectly intentional. So when you say something is unrealistic in X-wing, we are really saying it's unrealistic for a space-fantasy atmospheric biplane.

The idea of ships lying in wait is pretty cool if you think about it that way. Boba Fett floating motionless in the garbage before following the Falcon. But it is kind of counter to the spirit of the game for most ships and intentionally doing it seems "gamey" without needing to recourse to arguments about realism as you're on thin ice there anyway.

Thank you

I know it will never happen, but bumping should be treated like debris for the ship that bumps. Take a stress and roll for a crit.

Thematically it works as nearly colliding with a ship would stress the pilot and potentially damage the ship.

Game-wise it would tone down the PS race and the power of Aces, by penalizing them if they bump. Aces would still be good, but Soontir would be a lot more fragile if a bump can give him an extra stress.

Bumping already causes loss of actions, similar to being stressed, except it's only for the turn you bump and doesn't require a green. Perhaps the rule should be changed to stress both the bumper and bumpee. But then every ship becomes a Stresshog.

You guys suggesting debris-like rules for bumping; have you flown swarms? Bumps are a real thing with swarms, whether due to the mess of flying them after you've corralled a target into a pincer movement, or you need to bump to keep from overshooting a target. Putting more punishment into bumping would hurt swarms a lot more.

You guys suggesting debris-like rules for bumping; have you flown swarms? Bumps are a real thing with swarms, whether due to the mess of flying them after you've corralled a target into a pincer movement, or you need to bump to keep from overshooting a target. Putting more punishment into bumping would hurt swarms a lot more.

I hadn't thought of that when I suggested the fix would be to not allow overlapped ships from the same fleet to fire at all that round. That would hurt swarms too.

For that reason, it is probably best that the solution address castling directly. Something like:

Each round that an overlapped ship remains in the same location (beyond the first), that ship takes one damage to its hull.

That allows swarms to bump, but gives them time to move on. It does dissuade them from stacking up and sitting there - which itself is a form of castling, so that works for me.

One gent mentioned "castling" for the first few turns (i.e. intentionally bumping into your own ships and not moving) until your opponent shows their hand.

It's called fortressing, and outside of very high level play where anything goes it'll make you a pariah.

You guys suggesting debris-like rules for bumping; have you flown swarms? Bumps are a real thing with swarms, whether due to the mess of flying them after you've corralled a target into a pincer movement, or you need to bump to keep from overshooting a target. Putting more punishment into bumping would hurt swarms a lot more.

I have flown swarms and I use them to block my opponent's hard to kill ships. Making bumping more costly would boost one of the swarms greatest tools by making them able to stress out opponents and crush any ace who gets blocked.

I agree that it would also hurt swarms, but this is necessary to balance out the added power of blocking.

This is assuming that the only the bumper is affected and not the blocker. I wouldn't penalize the blocker.

One gent mentioned "castling" for the first few turns (i.e. intentionally bumping into your own ships and not moving) until your opponent shows their hand.

It's called fortressing, and outside of very high level play where anything goes it'll make you a pariah.

I wouldn't say pariah but you can see opponents who like the novelty at first slowly reverse their opinion each turn you don't move.

One gent mentioned "castling" for the first few turns (i.e. intentionally bumping into your own ships and not moving) until your opponent shows their hand.

It's called fortressing, and outside of very high level play where anything goes it'll make you a pariah.

I wouldn't say pariah but you can see opponents who like the novelty at first slowly reverse their opinion each turn you don't move.

I wouldn't say pariah at all.

I wouldn't ever judge someone for playing the game by the rules.

If you don't like the rules, blame the game, not the player.

I don't mind them at all, these are spaceships with antigravity, the idea of them just hovering in space doesn't bug me one little bit. And even if it did, there's a flavour justification for it with it representing 3D movement.

Fortressing/castling is a strategy, but it's not a very *good* one, it gives your opponent complete freedom to approach as he wants from the wings of your fleet and pick off the most vulnerable targets whilst they've been unable to take actions.

And at other points in the game, tactical bumping adds a really interesting element, both of your own and of opponents' ships, and comes with the significant cost of action denial, which is huge in this game.

I've only done the fortressing once and that was before the last wave hit. I wouldn't do it again simply because ordinance would murder it. That particular tournament though had a lot of interceptors and imperial aces which is what I wanted to face. My biggest loss was from a dial shifting and me having to fly off the board because of it. It was a fun mixup from my usual lists but its not forgiving and anybody who has the capability to stay at range 3 of a single ship or outright kill one will have no issue with you.

Normally there needs to be some kind of advantage to staying out of combat to make it worthwhile. For example using the shuttle with title to hand out target locks to your squad before the enemy gets in range. But the same effect can often be achieved by running along the deployment zone instead of forward (the moldy crow opening gambit)

In terms of fluff, I don't really mind fortressing. There are a lot of things in this game that don't REALLY make sense if you think about it (like how some ships can magically go faster when pulling a K-turn than when going straight, or just about anything to do with 3D space). I just picture a fortress as two ships stalling out, waiting to start their engines -- since it (almost) always happens at the start of the game anyways.

It's not like it's particularly hard to see that an opponent is fortressing and react accordingly. It's not some magic thing that just happens without some deliberate and rather obvious setup.

Also hot mama jamma why are so many 'casual' people so much more uptight than 'WAAC' people? 'You're playing legally, but in a way I dislike and don't approve of so not only are you a buttface but I also would rather not play than play with you' like what?

I once castled for 3 turns with Bossk and Tel Trevura so that I could get my opponent's Dash into a corner so he couldn't "Dash" his way out of my arcs. It was my opponent's fault for falling for my obvious trap, but Dash died the turn after he was cornered.

Sometimes it is very useful to stall. Nearly every game I play with a YV-666 I start off by doing a full stop, just to get information on how my opponent wants to approach. Usually it isn't too hard to predict, but that guaranteed knowledge is handy.