Lightbringer said:

Not too many = exactly one. You can convert a single Main Cargo Hold over to a Hold Landing Bay.

After thinking about it, is the equal damage between unit sizes in the BK mass combat system really the problem?

If 40 Companies of 50 men attack one Brigade of 2000, that will be 40 combat encounters. During each combat encounter both sides roll damage against each other. So the 40 companies deal 40*(4d10+[power]) to the Brigade, while the Brigade deals 40*(4d10+[power]) of damage to the 40 companies. Given equal numbers of soldiers on both sides, the system makes sure that both sides get and deal equal damage.

The only real problem seems to be that armour increases faster than damage, leading to a situation where high end units like Titans can't actually damage each other.

Yes, but if you split those companies up and attack in serial, you'll probably only need a fraction of them to kill the big army. (Or break their morale, which is relatively easy, especially at Strength above 200) If you had let them clash into each other at equal size, they'd both have sustained equal losses. Add to that that troop Era/quality also does very little, and you end up with relatively insanely powerful cavemen, especially in small groups.

Or what about the scenario where you have 2000 men fighting 100000 men. RAW it would probably only come down to whoever has the better morale/skill and luck on the dice before breaking, since both have more then enough strength compared to Morale, and both damage intake is exactly the same. Why ever bother getting a large army together, apart from splitting it up at your earliest chance?

The very worst damage potential in the book is 4d10+1, the very best (excluding SM/Titans) is 4d10+13. There's a 90 difference in acquisition between the two (disregarding size for that), for a 35% in difference. Such things just do not seem right.

Acquisition of elite units vs conscripts or slave warriors should yield significant differences in quality. 35% is just not enough. Wheres the variation? Wheres the comparative difference in capabilities between unit types?

Even a million man army (with rifles and tanks but no significant anti-air assets) is relatively helpless against a foe with air superiority, orbital weaponry (ships in low orbit) and good INTEL on the command and control of the enemy. Pin them down in place, sned in an assault on the CNC and kill the leaders.

If we can't do this with RAW then i'll stick to an abstract system, ask the PCs what they intend to do to prosecute the campaign and make a few dice rolls.

Orbital Bombardment is done pretty well actually, I like that aspect (I did change it slightly to adjust for a 30min timescale, and to give a shipbased risk on flying low orbit apart from blasting random squares...). If a square gets bombarded, it's pretty much crisp time. Air superiority is decent mechanicly (Due to half damage, many armies can't touch planes unless they have specific gear), though again, size doesn't matter. Best send only one bomber out, it does the same damage as a thousand, and if the enemy does have anti air, your losses are minimal.

This is probably listed somewhere bleedingly obvious, but how to assault craft move? Can they move in any direction? can they turn multiple times in a turn? Do they even have facing?

Has it been said if boarding torpedos or assault craft get bonuses from ship components to their hit an run rolls? I would presume yes.

Can you stack a Power Ram on top of a Armoured prow? Or an Armoured prow + a reinforced prow + a Power ram (2D10 + D5 + 6 to rams). There doesn't seem to be anything that forbids it.

Can't quote an exact page number but I'm not bothering with turn restrictions for attack craft. They can move any direction they want for as far as they can that turn.

TOrpedoes pretty much go straight forward unless they're guided (which boarding torpedoes are without having to 'buy' guided a second time).

You can really only have one prow on a ship, but I would have no problem with the power ram being added onto a armored or reinforced prow. In fact...I'm sure there's more than one Astartes ship that would find that a useful combination.

SanderJK said:

After playing a test session using the rules as written:

1: you'd need to make the split units very small to get the effect described, i.e. the big unit being dead before the small one are. As in small enough that the big unit wastes several points of damage everytime it attacks.Damage waste through overkill is the only way that a bigger unit might be killed by many smaller ones.

2: Having PCs embedded in a unit gives a huge bonus. There is a limited number of PCs. If you have dozens of very small units, only a very small number of units will have PC support (or 'named-NPC support'). The big unit may well have several embedded PCs. Making many small units means spreading your most important ressource where they can't do as much good. If the big unit as PCs in it or skilled NPCs, the small units will get utterly creamed.

3: There are area of effect attacks. If you have many small units, they will take much, much more damage from bombardment attacks and similiar than a single large unit would, even if the many small units taken together theoretically have the same number of people as the large one. Splitting your forces thus is risky .

4: Unit strength turned out as much more important than the Morale stat. In your above example, given average diceluck and without PC support or higher base skill the smaller unit will get destroyed by the larger one.

5: One unit of 10 000 men attacked by 100 units of a 100 men might well decide to have artillery strike its own position. It will survive, the 100 units of 100 men won't, as they get 100 times the damage per point of aggravate unit strength that the single unit would get. Having the smaller units attack in sequence only allows the bigger unit to make itself comfortable by digging in, which also screws over the smaller units.

Now, we did have some problems with the system. Mostly the ranges of certain special actions, the weirdness behind behind things like charge not actually allowing you to do damage and some other. Flash Points have potential, but would need several more pages to elaborate on the rules and help making up new ones before they become really useful. How does attacking with units with more than default range actually work, and so on.

Ack, I hate the way Component Craftsmanship interacts with the acquisition rules.

Say you want a best-quality Sunsear Laser Battery. Not only do you have the -30 for Best-quality you get an additional -20 because the availability jumps from Scarce to Very Rare because of the ship point increase.

That's a whopping -80 on the acquisition roll (-30 for War-component, -30 for quality, -20 for availability). It's just as hard to get as xenotech war components like the shard cannon battery.

Possible error/typo - Rak'Gol Mangler

Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2, Keel 1, Prow 1

Supplemental Components -

2 Prow Howler Cannons (surely these should be dorsal?)

Prow Roarer Beam

Keel Landing Bay

Is anyone else bothered by the incredibly short ranges that Eldar starship weapons have, barring torpedoes and strike craft? The Pulsar Lance has a range of 3, the Starcannons have a range of 4. Even with the Eldar's speed and maneuverability, that's really short. I would have thought that the Eldar would prefer to fight at longer ranges, away from the massed batteries that Imperial ships can carry. Moving into even normal range for these weapons does away with much of the bonus from holofields, and reading the topics on void combat, it's clear that most player groups are loading up on macrobatteries. I think that doubling, or even tripling, the ranges of Eldar weapons would be a good start, or at least putting them on par with equivalent Imperial weapons.

PlasmaBomb said:

Yep, just swap the word "prow" for "dorsal", and you're good.

I have no problem with doing that MILLANDSON, it's just that I don't see a errata thread for Battlefleet Koronus.

BK errata thread: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=123&efcid=3&efidt=463584

iridium said:

Considering they can sneak up and whale on you before you can see them normally (in fluff) the range isn't much of a problem ... and then theres actually having to hitting them back. If you want to make them more deadly simply indicate that eldar holofields are like cloaks until they choose to attack. House rule it.

All,

Forgot to add that in the mass combat rules we also didnt allow a unit to attack all units next to it. If units are within a 'level' of each other they pick a target and go for that while if its bigger the unit in question can spread the damage out amongst the enemy as it sees fit.

Although this didnt happen in our game it might help to represent a smaller more modern force taking on a bigger less-modern force as it should give some advantage to the smaller units., maybe.

iridium said:

I noticed that and made a post in the BFK errata thread about it. In Edge of the Abyss the starcannons actually have a range of 6 not 4 so I think it might just be a typo. Also, if your worried about eldar being weak just give them the Suncannon from BFK p94. I haven't used the pulsar lance in gameplay yet but it seems extremely powerful so maybe thats why it has range 3. I have a fealing any ship that gets hit by more than 1 of those lances in a turn is going to be turned into debri anyways so I doubt the range matters much.

I suspect the real reason Eldar have such short range guns is "game balance". In the original Battlefleet Gothic, Eldar were very agile and hard to hit. But, they had short range weapons to keep their units from being overpowered. In general, adding long range to a fast, hard to hit unit is a game breaking combination. Enemies just die without being able to fire a shot in return.

That said, Eldar are one of the most advanced races in the 40K universe, and realistically speaking they should be able to build/grow long range weapons. Of course, this is also a universe where the most powerful weapons of war are walking, weaponised cathedrals, so 'realistically' doesn't mean that much.

If the short range Eldar bothers you, well, that's what house rules are for.

Cheers,

-V.

In BFG, eldar have 30cm range guns, which is the same as the guns on a Lunar-class cruiser. Dunno why they are so short range in BFK

Moribund said:

And that means (p272) unless your pf is over 80 it is an automatic failure...ouch. Good reason to go out, find a ship with what you want, and take it.

from france

question about the holding bay. does they occupy one of the oblogatary main cargo hold or it can be use t o replace a aditional cargo hold.

the landing bay say that unless specified they mus be on port or/and starboad what about cargo hold not on these place?

can they mounted on hybrid ship?

does they take the place of a weapons place?

The text of the Hold Landing Bay states that it replaces the built-in Main Cargo Hold (you can't, for example, fit it to an added Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay).

It also states that it does not take up a weapons slot, which means that it could be wherever on the ship the Main Cargo Bay was- dorsal, near the spine, ventral near the keel, port AND starboard, or even up forward by the prow; It does not take up a weapons slot, and the only difference its location aboard ship makes is story-wise.

(Essentially, that bit about unless specified it must go on a port or starboard weapons slot? Ignore it for this component. So far it's the only component to specify that it doesn't take up the broadside weapons slot.)

I'm not sure what you mean by a "hybrid" ship- it can be fitted to any ship with a transport hull, and it doesn't really matter if that is the only warlike conversion on the hull, or if she's been refitted as a Q-ship or an armed merchant vessel or even been fitted out as an ersatz warship.

from france

thank you

by a hybrid i means ship like the conquest star galeon who can had cruiser or transport components.

if it is possible can i had a holding bay and remove the port and starboard space to add 2x2 other ligther bay (cruiser ones)?

the 8 spider said:

Well there doesn't seem to be a 'cruiser' variant unless you count the Weapon-Slot occupying landing bays.

Well, as a gm I wou rul that its okay and it does have a significant disadvantage.

Anyway, I like the thought of fighters! Reminds me of BSG.