Ok, I have a slightly dumb question here:

Why would you ever equip a ship with only port/starboard and prow weapon slots with lances? (Lunar class cruiser in exception since it packs 2 slots to each side). A lance can score a max of 2 hits, where the first one would be negated by a void shield and the second will do 1d10+4 damage (granted through armor). And that's with the -best- lance weapon in the core book. the two other lances can't actually hurt a ship on their own.

So, what's the point? Are lance weapons -supposed- to suck this way?

I read another topic where it was asked if lances 'strength' actually counts for anything, where the answer was yes. However, when referring to the rules book, it specifically states that strength 'measures the number of hits -macrobatteries- can inflict.' Nothing about lances. And this was not errated. Why wouldn't it just state 'maximum number of hits a starship weapon can inflict' if it was intended for use with lances?

It is highly unlikely that you will ever score more than 3, at most 4 hits, with a lance, even if it disregarded the strength of a lance. In order to score 4 hits, you'd need 12 successes, and I have a hard time seeing anyone get up there. Yet 40K background makes a big deal of how dangerous lance weapons are. Or maybe I'm just confused and a bit disappointed that you, in effect, can't really make 'ship-hunters' that's outfitted with just a frontal lance and have it actually be any kind of dangerous.

I think the example on page 221 gives a good example of why you want to have a macrobattery that can land several hits to take down the enemy shields and then log on with your lance weapon(s) if any of them can hit. Only the Titanforge Lance Battery is capable of delivering two hits, and as you write it will need 3 degrees of success to land a second hit. But the advantages of Lances are the lower crit rating, only 3 degrees of success to land a critical hit, and that all damage is delivered directly to the hull.

But they work best together. Unless the ship packing only lancers have some other way of taking down the enemy shields.

Why would you ever equip a ship with only port/starboard and prow weapon slots with lances? (Lunar class cruiser in exception since it packs 2 slots to each side). A lance can score a max of 2 hits, where the first one would be negated by a void shield and the second will do 1d10+4 damage (granted through armor). And that's with the -best- lance weapon in the core book. the two other lances can't actually hurt a ship on their own.

So, what's the point? Are lance weapons -supposed- to suck this way?

Well... yes. Except that it's not exactly "sucking". The idea behind lances is simple: They're a combination weapon. You use a cheap macrobattery to take down the shields (or alternatively just do a Hit&Run on them) and then pound on with the lance. This is viable for the Vagabond trader (Dorsal battery, Prow lance), the Hazeroth and Havoc Raider (same), the Dauntless Cruiser (all-direction prow lance and starboard and port battieries) and the Lunar Cruiser (prow macrobattery and dual side lances - ouch). Note that Cruiser-size ships can angle their prow slots like other ships do with dorsal ones. As soon as you've got the shields down, a lance strike becomes vastly more effective than a Macrobattery. Let's assume we're firing a salvo with one macrocannon battery and a lance versus two macrobatteries. If we score just a basic hit with no DoS, we've got one hit that is taken by the shield and one that goes for the ship. And here we've got 1D10+2/+4 to the hull or 1D10+2/+4 to the armour, which may be anywhere between 10 and 20, perhaps even 24 when trying to attack an armoured prow cruiser - so the first two or three hits from a macrobattery likely have no effect at all.

I read another topic where it was asked if lances 'strength' actually counts for anything, where the answer was yes. However, when referring to the rules book, it specifically states that strength 'measures the number of hits -macrobatteries- can inflict.' Nothing about lances. And this was not errated. Why wouldn't it just state 'maximum number of hits a starship weapon can inflict' if it was intended for use with lances?

Um... because. They probably didn't intend to include lance batteries when they were writing that part, shoehorning the Titanforge Lance battery in later and not changing all the references.

And prow based guns on cruisers have a 270 degree firing arc so you can bring 3 batteries at your opponent with a Lunar Class

Santiago said:

You keep forgetting Light Cruisers in there... RT page 219; Prow Weapon Components... "Prow weapons on light cruisers, cruisers, or larger vessels may fire to the fore, port and starboard."

-=Brother Praetus=-

Thank you for the responses. That crucial tiny bit about cruiser prow weapons being able to angle around to three firering archs escaped my notice. And then things make -a lot- more sense

Brother Praetus said:

I know, I refered to cruisers in general and used the Lunar Class as an example...

Full Lance Boats, like you described, do exist (such as a Gothic Cruiser), but are only used as part of combined fleet actions where another ship's broadside batteries can take down enemy shielding first. The power of lances really come into their own in fleet actions and against heavily armored targets, neather of which are really included in any of the rule books yet.

The major difference with BFG and RT is that in BFG a you could pair a lance only ship with another ship to take down the target's void shields. (Certainly if you know you were facing space marines you knew wanted lots of lances....) The problem is that in RT every ship needs to do it themselves. Barring house rules or further rules from FFG a lance only ship is far less effective than a more balanced ship.

Of course you if you target the void shields on your 1st volley or do a hit and run on the target to disable the void shields. A lance based ship would be very effective against heavily armored ships. This of course breaks down when you face a ship that you can't target the shields.....