I was wondering whether or not the prow weapon arc of fire of Ork en Eldar cruisers is limited to the front only. I always considered them as such. Eldar ships are build to fight at their initiative, darting in to deliver a devastating salvo and then zoom away. Ork ships are build to get as quickly nicely close and personnal and then start smashing stuff. In both cases, the ships are build with a frontally orientated armament. For both design philosophies it is logical to presume that the frontal weapons of (light) cruisers are limited to the front arc only, Eldar weapons elegantly worked into their organic designs, Ork gunz firmly pointed forwards. In both the Eldar and Ork cases, the ships were directly lifted from BFG (yes, I know RT is a different game), where these limitations apply. It seems logical to continue applying these limitations, both from the point of view of in game logic (it is hard to imagine an ork kill kroozer turning all those gunz in their armoured prow to their flank) and balance (a kill kroozer would otherwise get 4 weapon batteries on its broadside and an Eldar cruiser with its full weaponry able to strike front/starboard/port would seem hidiously overpowered). What are the thoughts on this?

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

...Why would it not be? Prow weapons can fire in the forward arc. Dorsal weapons can fire to the front and sides. Keel weapons can fire at any target in range.

RAW, light cruiser and heavier prow weapon slots can be fired fore/starboard/port, not just fore (p.219 RT book). In BFK they never specified that this did not apply to Ork and Eldar ships.

FvR

I don't see why RAW rules shouldn't apply to Xenos ships. Its simple enough to have give a different mount if the intention was to give the weapon a different firing arc.

I would stick by the RAW interpretation with only case by case changes. Eldar ships, with their elegant designs and pointy prows, should definitely have Cruisers that can fire prow weapons front/left/right. Ork ships, due to their crude construction and ungainly shapes, perhaps would not have that ability. It's a judgement call, really.

numb3rc said:

Just download BFG from games-workshop.com, Eldar have left/front/right anyway i think.

So going with the RAW rules, unless a case by case change is mentioned in the rules should be a good thing.

Nope, going with BFG they should all fire to the front. That is a part of the problem. And if we would apply the RAW rules, an ork kroozer would have a broadside of 4 weapon system, competing with battlecruisers and grand cruisers. Now those aren't the grandest of them all, but this seems, both from balance and 'ork construction logic' just not right. If we apply the RAW rules very strictly, we could even argue that Garzog's Dead Kunnin Device of the Dethburna might even be used to its sides in the bombardment cannon role, as there is nowhere specifically stated that it should fire to fore only...even if it can fire torpedoes as well and is said to be based on a looted nova cannon.

Arguing against RAW is that this wouldn't be the first time that a slight oversight in the rules might cause massive imbalances. However much I like the game, there are many flaws present, and giving the Orks and Eldar ships with up to 3 weapon systems in their prow mount the flexibility of dorsal mounts seems in my view imbalancing and unlogical. I would guess it just escaped their attention as the ships are directly copied and translated from BFG where the fact that orcs prow gunz can in no way be turned to port or starboard is so logical and ingrained they did not even consider they might have to clarify it in BFK.

FvR

Well if you based on BFG, then every transport, raider and frigate is incredibly powerful in RT comparatively. A light cruiser cannot take 6 times the hits of a frigate - in fact the whole light cruiser class seems a bit little underwhelming in BFG but then a light cruiser in RT cost 3 - 4 times as much as a frigate/raider.

BFG was a point of inspiration for the RT ship combat system but BFG is not RT ship to ship. Should you feel that this makes some xenos ships too powerful, well house rule nerf it.

Xenos Cruisers should be terrifying to players. An eldar cruiser with three prow mounts all capable of firing as dorsal mounts makes for a fantastically deadly ship. As it should. An Imperial cruiser cna managed a 3 weapon broadside (with its two broadside slots and 1 prow slot) as well as a two weapon broadside the other way. Why not an Eldar cruiser that can managed similar feats of carnage.

Personally if my players (in their cruiser) ever fight an eldar cruiser, they are going to come away scared. As it should be. I already scared the bejesus out of them with Ork Roks going straight for boarding actions.

Eldar obviously could have acces and do have acces to technology that the Imperium can only dream about, and their ships have allready been given quite a downgrade from BFG. The weapon range is pathetic and unlogical. With their superior technology Eldar should be able to lance foes from dozens of VU's away. The only possible reason I can come up with for the low range is an OOC downgrade to give player ships a fighting chance. But why then upgrade the ships by giving them a concentration of 'dorsal' weapons? And why call them prow, why not dorsal? That would avoid all the problems. And most off all, why give an enormous boost to Eldar cruisers when the main difference in the interpretation of ships between BFG and RT is the power of the humble escorts, the mainstay of the RT game? Furthermore, with in game logic I can as easily make an argument for inflexible prow weapons as for flexible prow weapons. Flexible weapons offer indeed that flexibility (as with a tank turret) but at a cost: you can mount less power on a turret then on a hull (compare Panther and Jagdpanther). An inflexible but more powerful hull weapon would in my opinion suit Eldar tactics better. Eldar are the hunters, they dart in, deliver a devastating volley of fire and torpedoes, then dart out. The more powerfull the volley they can concentrate forwards, the better, even at the cost of flexibility.

But, my main point is not the level of Eldar technology, but the impression that FFG simply forgot about it. As I still fail to see one good explanation for 'eavy Gunz that are as nimble as Eldar weaponry, both in game and out of game. And if the omission applies to orks, then it is not unlogical to presume there might be more omissions with the Xenos.

FvR

Eldar and Orks are 2 surviving elder races that even in the 41st millenium pose a threat to humanity in terms of military power. I do not really have a problem with their ships being terrifying.

BFG to RT ship battles are very different as I have once mentioned elsewhere. BFG is tactically closer to the age of sail, where large ships where capital ships ruled ship battles. RT is closer to 20th century ship combat tactically, where small warships have a significant chance of damaging or destroying a capital ship. This means that BFG to RT rule conversions RAW will not exactly match. If you feel its too powerful/weak, then alter it as you see fit with house rules.

Orks being a real threat still fails to explain to me how their 'eavy Gunz are as nimble as Eldar weapons. They mount weapons batteries the size of Imperial broadsides in their prow slots. And knowing them a bit, those weapons won't be overly refined and complicated, but will do an enormous load of dakka.

Furthermore, in my opinion RT is not so much the age of sail or the early 20th century or submarine warfare, as an eclectic mix of them all. Just like the whole Warhammer Universe is a matter of grabbing loads of interesting stuff from the real world and making it a nice mix. Who would have believed that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Soviet Comissars would go so well together but for WH40K? I know a bit of 20th century naval warfare, and I can quite assure you that barring torpedoes and mines, size was crucial until the arrival of the aircraft...that could only efficiently be deployed from at least cruiser sized hulls. A first world war destroyer might have had a theoretical 'chance' to deal with a capital ship, but they could only pose a real threat in vast numbers. Their guns would at most be an harassement to a cruiser, leave alone a battleship. No, if 20th century were the norm, we would either have the apex of the heavy gun battleship with a secondary batteries just to deal with pesky light craft or the triumph of the submarine and aircraft carrier. The guided missiles that arrived later in the 20th century are an interesting force multiplier for smaller ships, but by then the submarine and the aircraft (that could both deploy those missiles as well) were allready dominant. In each case, the mainstay of RT, the escort, would only play a role on the sideline, dodging around in the duel of the heavily armoured giants exchanging their broadsides fighting it out with their counterparts in the hope of being able to get in a good torpedo attack. Or it would sail alongside the carriers, defending them against waves of aircraft and missiles.

But instead of that, we have gun armed ships that only differ from the capital ships in the weight of their fire, not so much as in the quality. No, RT is an adaptation of the BFG ruleset with the aim of making escort sized vessels the credible craft for player characters, with the frigate as ideal first ship. To do this, they basically made them far more durable and decreased the resilience of capital ships.

In each case, each to its own. If you wish to have orks swinging their prow gunz to the side with ease, feel free. To me, things like that are against all (internal, as the game is inherently illogical) logic and detract from the suspension of disbelief.

FvR

My opinion on this, as voiced elswhere already, pretty much echoes can Riebeeck:

"My problem is that a cruiser massing 20times as much as a frigate, should not end up as bait for that frigate, unless it screws up. Battleships weigh in at 400times the mass of a single frigate.

While FFG has done well to create a combat system centered on frigates, it certainly does not portray the reality (game reality) of 40k, with a cruiser potentially ignoring an escort vessel, simply due to its size.

The boarding rules are a perfect example. Since the way they work, it is not even factored in that a cruiser has more than 4times the crew (if calculated correctly it has 20times the crew ofc) and is simply boarding bait for a frigate."

40k does not possess equalizer technology that we see in the rules (RT). Torpedoes pretty much are the most powerful equalizer that i can see, and even then RT protrays sword class frigates as the main damagedealers (not the Cobra and neither the Firestorm). Lances should be the equalizer, but is a far cray form that.

If you play RT straight out of the box you can only portray a world that builds cruisers because they have too much resources.

Moribund's hosue rules concerning armour do alot to change this balance around. And most of my gamers with a mind for naval warfare of any kind (those without one either have no knowledge or interest of frigates fighting cruisers), prefer to see a cruiser win out against 2-3 frigates (if said frigates carry no lances/torpedoes) at better than 50/50 chances.

van Riebeeck said:

Easy... a Mekboy gets a mob of several thousand Gretchin to remove a gun from its mounting, and bolts it on somewhere else, and repeats as necessary/desired. Ork vessels are in a continual state of repair, alteration and upgrade, simply through the actions of bored Mekboyz.

Thats some nimble gretchins. rebuild a heavy gun within 15 minutes and reload within the same time amount, to give enough spare time to fire the **** thing.

Where can i buy a few of those?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

But it takes time. To move a macrobatery the orks need several hours to do so. It is still a big complex thing.

Orks pose a threat to humanity because of their numbers and toughness not primarily because of their technology.

Voronesh said:

Dey's not jus' fast, dere's lotz ov 'em too, so's yoo don't care if dey gets smashed. An' dey's been hit good an' proppa, so dey don't fink 'bout runnin' away. 'Onist Gorzag's best grotz, jus' 2 teef fer a mob. Now wiv me "punch me face in" garrantee: if yoo's not 'appy wiv my produkt, den yoo gets ta 'it me in da face an' rip me teef out.

Ork technology, in the hands of Orks, is ludicrously durable; rebuilding a macrocannon is far from the arduous task it would be for the Imperium, particularly given the sheer quantity of manual labour that can be brought to bear upon it. Yeah, sometimes it doesn't go entirely as planned (which is why many Ork macrobatteries have a random strength value), and yes, it should be physically impossible for it to work like that, but for the Orks, impossible is one of those feeble 'oomie concepts that don't suit the recklessly enthusiastic nature of their kind.

Lol - ork gunz (or any tech) do not conform to normal logic period. An ork battery can look nothing like a gun until a huge amount of explosive ordanance (which can look like practically anything) starts flying at you. An ork big gun can fire can fire to the sides because the orks believe it can.

In 1st ed WH40k ork weapons were incredibly destructive and totally unreliable - they were the "fun with dice" army which could destroy an enemy overwhelmingly with the right dice rolls or themselves totally (with no help of an enemy) with bad rolls. As the WH40k universe developed, the orks became more reliable but kept the theme of totally insane tech that logically cannot work. You can have total nonsense like prow gunports turning to one side or the other, or the whole prow turning (like a fish's head), or shells doing a 90 degree turn after firing forward as a reason why they can fire to the sides.

Ork "tek" is scary not because it is powerful (defensive measures can be taken if it were just power) - its scary because its unpredictable.

All this Orky stuff is good and proper, and the collective mind of an Ork ships can indeed do things that are completely illogical, but all these arguments still seem less convincing then the idea that FFG just forgot to specify the limitations. It would not be the first oversight wouldn't it?

FvR

No it is not an oversight. The universal rule or firing arcs is part of FFG's redesign of ship combat. In BFG a prow mounted weapon typically fires only forward regardless if it mounted on a Xenos or Imperial ship. Also in BFG a Dauntless is 6 time tougher and more than 3 times more expensive than a Sword. The reason for the L/R/F arcs of a Light cruiser or heavier is so that a ship like a Dauntless can at least get as many guns to bear on a Sword should they slug it out - otherwise a Light cruiser is totally pointless (it is currently only almost totally pointless).

If you want to do a BFG to RT direct conversion, HI and Crew population of a Light Cruiser needs to be increased by about 5 times with SP being averaging at 150, Cruisers by about 6-7 times with SP being about 250-300, and so on. As of current RAW rules, BFG and RT ship rules are totally incompatible as written currently. Similarly, WH40k rules and DH/RT/DW personal combat/vehicle rules do not directly convert as well.

Take the Voidsunder. And play without hosuerules

Itll turn the Dauntless into a paperweight. Either fire 1 broadside (marginally more effective than a sunsear battery, needs crew rating 50 at least), or the voidsunder (needs to kill shield by itself, needs 6!!! DoS to be better than a Titanforge lance battery).

Yes a perfectly unplayable ship in RT.

Light cruisers in general are a perfect failure for the amount of SP they cost. (Id rate them at 50 SP, then they might be ok).

In BFG the prow mounted weapons of human build cruisers are not completely clear, but a good case can be made that they are build to fire in the fore/port/starboard arcs of fire. This applies to the Voss ships and the chaos ships (which are old human technology). The exceptions are torpedoes (which have to fire forward), Nova cannon (which have to fire forward) and heavy lance batteries (as on the Dauntless, which can have torpedoes or a 3 shot lance battery). I see a quite perfect correlation between BFG and RT here. They even introduced the Voidsunder Lance battery (but typically printed it with 1 point of strength, and do not even try to convince me that is no typo for a Power 15 Space 8 weapon that can only fire to the prow, that weapon cries out it is STR 3) to enable the RT system to mimic the classical Dauntless armament as closely as possible. The fact that most Imperial ships have prow weapons fire towards their prow only is a design choice, whereby a heavy frontal armour and torpedoes are emphasized, not a technological limit. At the moment, a RT Lunar (torpedoes, two Marc Macros, two lance batteries) has exactly the same arcs of fire and armament as a BFG Lunar.

The major design change of RT was to make escorts far more survivable, as they are in essence the basic ship of the traders. This has resulted in them being quite overpowered, especially with PC's in it. One result of this change is indeed a clamour to make capital ships capital again, to ensure player ships have a real threat to face.

So, I maintain my position. The fact that a human (light) cruiser prow mount can fire in the fore/port/starboard arc perfectly mimics BFG. The fact that most Imperial cruiser do not have such a flexible weapon mounted is a design choice, emphasising a heavy frontal weapon system as described above. I see no arguments that can convince me that there was a clear choice to change the arc of fire, as the arc of fire was allready that flexible.

Sorry, but still no good argument to see those 'eavy gunz turn on the spot. I can repeat the Panther versus Jagdpanther argument. Orks don't wish to have that flexibility of a turret, as they won't be flexible: charge in guns blazing, shooting anything up while you get close and personnal for the real fight, boarding! So the bigger and shootier the frontal armament, the better. And if there is one constant design given, both in the real world (75 mm turret or 88 mm gun), in BFG and in RT it is that the heavier prow armament can only fire in the fore arc. Especially if you add another layer of armour on it to make you even more survivable. If I were an Ork Warboss, I'd hammer some sense in my Mek in each case. Mount silly flexible gunz that can shoot in all directions! Wot was he thinkin'! I wants BIGGAH gunz, gottit!

FvR

van Riebeeck said:

? what set of rules are you using? Other than the Emperor, no other ship has F/P/S weapons.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1280005_BFG_Ships_of_the_Gothic_Sector.pdf

Again I repeat myself, I see no good argument why RT has to follow BFG even of any of your above statements is true. They certainly did not follow WH40k stat line - just look at how silly OP they are making Space Marines out to be then compare the SM to an Ogryn which costs 3 times more points in WH40k table top. If you feel that it shouldn't then - just play it your way - ignore RAW - its your game.

Voidsunder lance is a typo, and was already confirmed as one. (But still unimportant, as its strength of 3 is just about never going to matter. An Elite crew with a Command bridge ahs a 5% chance of being better than a Titanforge lance battery. 0% chance at long range and 15%chance at short range.

Why no errata is coming out? Dont ask me, but BFK is full of typos. (They forgot a full ship plasma drive to be printed in the table).

Torpedoes, the Nova cannon follow a simple procedure, same as the Jagdpanther, by removing the turret, you can mount more armour and/or a bigger gun, while you have a smaller firing angle.

The basic set of Gothic. All the human made ships with a prow weapon battery have a fore/port/starboard angle of fire (which includes the ancient traitor ships, made with technology that is hardly used these days). Consistently, only torpedoes, nova cannon and lance batteries are limited to fore only in the prow mount. The fact that the only Imperial capital ships that do not use torpedoes, nova cannon or a lance battery in the prow mount are the Emperor, the Oberon, the Space Marine Strike Cruiser (even manages bombardment cannon) and the Vos triumvirate cruisers does not detract a thing from my reasoning, i.e. an Imperial capital ship has a arc of fire of fore/port/starboard for its prow mount in BFG, unless there is a bloody good reason to have this arc of fire limited, such as the ubiquitous torpedoes. Exactly the same as in RT, so that can hardly be called an adaptation.

My point is that whatever is said about the game design changes, RT ship rules very closely mimic BFG. As such, I use this element to support the other arguments I have, of which one of the most basic remains still unresolved, why would an Ork 'eavy gun be as nimble as an Eldar gun. Amazing meks and miraculous Gretchin or 90 degree turning rounds don't really cut it with me. Or the other, which Voronesh picked up: purely frontal guns allow for far more powerfull weapons and better armour. This is something the Imperium employs, but Orks and Eldar as well. In all three cases because it fits their way of warfighting, getting in close behind a curtain of torpedoes and then hammer with broadsides, charge in guns blasting and go for boarding actions, or dart in and out while you pick of one foe after another.

But let's turn the argument around: why would the designers have deliberately given Ork ships 2 flexible prow weapon slots for their cruisers, giving them a potential total of 4 broadside firing weapons? And why would those prow based weapons be so much stronger then the weapons mounted in the port and starboard slots?

FvR