van Riebeeck said:

Speaking as the designer in question (I wrote the Ork ship rules), I gave the Ork ships so many prow weapon slots because Ork ships in BFG have the greatest concentrations of their firepower mounted in prow slots, and they're more powerful than their port and starboard slots because Orks, unlike the Imperium don't employ heavy broadsides as their primary source of firepower - the majority of guns, (both in terms of number of weapon components, and in terms of the potency of those components) on an Ork vessel are, and will always be, on the front of the ship, fitted in whatever haphazard and rediculous manner the Mekboyz and the Kaptin desire.

Giving the Orks heavy broadsides and weak prow guns would have gone against everything that defines Ork starships. Ork ships intentionally have potentially ludicrous amounts of firepower, on tough but comparatively slow and graceless hulls fitted with heavy prow armour; the easiest way for an Ork ship to use its guns is to hurtle full speed ahead towards the enemy and unleash hell at short range, relying on heavy armour and above-average hits for their size to weather enemy return fire.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

So what is the orks downside in comparison with the IOM ships of the same class?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

As much as i admire you for your great rules, i think you missed his point. (I think, you arent outright saying so.)

RAW states that those prow guns can be turned into broadsides. Orks can truly hurtle at the enemy, and then pull alongside for a devastating broadside, using the same guns, that just pointed forward. (Problem is, those huge guns dont look too nimble.)

Exactly, the question is not whether or not the Ork ships should have a massive amount of firepower forwards (the more, the better!), but whether these vast batteries of stacks and stacks of gunz and ´eavy gunz should follow the rules for human ships and be allowed to swing to the side arcs as well. The power is not the issue, the flexibility is.

FvR

It wasn't a major consideration at the time, nor is it something that particularly bothers me now. Ork vessels and Ork weapons alike are inherently disparate in form, and while broad generalisations can be made, there are few guarantees (hence why I went with a "hull + weapons" approach for the most part rather than defining individual specific classes, which allows configurations that don't exist in BFG).

Consequently, while a general inclination to "put the guns on the front" is known to exist, the nature of those guns is inherently variable, from fixed emplacement creations that can't actually be reloaded without being disassembled and rebuilt, to colossal batteries of turret-mounted guns, to erratic missile batteries and bizarre energy weapons crammed onto empty sections of hull plating.

The imagery of an Imperial Navy vessel doesn't depict the full range of weapons present in a normal macrobattery section (the four big barrels that make up the "batteries" component on the BFG Imperial Navy cruiser kit are only the largest of the guns present, their appearance more representative than definitive). Much of a starship's firepower, then, will be from guns which are too small to depict on the miniatures or in the artwork... and this goes for more than just the Imperium.

In short, I didn't particularly regard it as a major issue at the time of writing, and I don't see it as being (within the context of the setting) outside the realms of possibility, given the sheer eclectic cavalcade of forms that Ork weaponry and Ork starships take.

Well, the result is that right now, the best way to 'fight' an Ork capital ship is to go in with gunz blazing, hellbound for leather, no consideration of your safety but just getting in close and personnal...and then daintily turn so that the Ork Kroozer can pound the ship with its awesome broadside of no less then 4 weapon systems, 2 prow and 2 broadside. Exactly what the rules were not trying to achieve. And an utterly wrong feel to an Ork ship.

The fact that the nature of the prow gunz is as variable as the Ork Meks building them, does not detract from the fact that the Meks build them with one main goal: Fire Forwards at the target that is attacked! Any other silly idea, like focusing on a broadside manoeuvre battle, will get quickly and efficiently squashed. For every gun that can turn left and right, the Mek could have build a bigger gun that can only fire ahead. And bigger is better! Besides that, any image we have of Ork capital ships shows us big, no, huge armoured heads, bristling with forward firing gunz, but no gracefull turrets that swivel about covering the as wide an arc of fire as possible. Yes, Orks can create technology that 'should' not work, but they are bound by some limits. They can not just take a stick and use it as a Deffgun, no, it needs to have loads of barrels, pleasantly clonky sounds while the ammunition is loaded and make a hell of a noise when fired. The fact that a human would not even get it working as the ammunition and barrels don't really fit as perfectly as they should is of no importance to an Ork. But a stick, that just wouldn't do. So they do need an impressive prow mounted broadside to fling all that firepower through the void. Of loads and loads of big, kustomised, personalised gunz, but not the most elegant in design.

If we wish the Ork ships to charge in, hellbound for leather, shooting all over the place and getting close and personnal to board, I see no reason why we should not clarify their arcs fire. Just as it would aid logic and the suspension of disbelief. Xenos ships are not human made, so they do not follow the same rules. Arcs of fire is just one of them. Or, alternatively, if we do not wish to change the rules, let's add one: 'Heavy prow weapons'.

"Heavy prow weapons: These weapons are so heavy that when mounted in a prow weapon slot they can only fire to the fore. Imperial examples are torpedo tubes, Nova cannon and Voidsunder lance batteries. A Xenos example is the Rak'Gol Roarer beam."

Heavy prow weapons...hmm, sounds exactly like what each self respecting Warboss would wish to see on his Kill Kroozer. Really fits Orks and really fits the intention of their ships. Hell, any Ork ship, barring those Ramships but they is only fur Madboyz, from an Attack ship to a mighty Battlekroozer has one main goal, get the heaviest prow weapons you can have.

FvR

Or, just thinking on it, another possibility:

"Multiple prow weapon slots: A ship that mounts multiple prow weapons exchanges forward firepower for flexibility. These weapons are limited to firing in the prow firing arc, barring explicit exceptions (like the Voss torpedo launcher)."

FvR

At which point, I shrug my shoulders and wonder what the point is.

Speaking purely as a GM, my intent with NPCs is not to powergame with them to eke out any advantage I can find with the intent of 'winning' (because, as a GM, 'winning' is both extremely easy and utterly pointless) - NPCs act in character, regardless of whether or not their actions are the most favourable mechanically, because there is essentially no point in doing anything else.

Sure, if you're trying to curb the abuses of players who have an inclination towards playing the system rather than the game, then that sort of ruling is relevant... but it's worth less than nothing to a GM who can ignore it if he wants anyway.

True, a GM can act as he pleases. But there is nothing lost ensuring rules as written fit rules as intended.

FvR

Uhh point is, your Orky NPCs are very much out of character.

First they defy physics (ok orks tend to do that, but this is the "i can fly" level of ignoring physics). Bigger guns cant have turrets as well.

And then they are better then the Imperial Navy at the game of close unti broadsides can be brought to bear. Werent Orks the close and fire as you go, until you ram and board?

Oh well, if you didnt give it much thought, its fair game ^^.

Voronesh said:

There were a lot more pressing issues - like torpedo, attack craft and nova cannon rules, piles of shiny gubbinz and upgrades for Ork ships (and the basic hull layouts... and the Grunt Boarding ship, and two unique ships, that got cut in favour of the anachronistic Hammer-class Battlekroozer), and the squadron/NPC ship actions rules. That was a fairly densely-packed assignment, so if I'm perceived to have overlooked certain things people deem to be important (but which I personally deem to be fairly insignificant), then I can hardly protest against that perception.

van Riebeeck said:

You are, however, assuming the rules were intended to fit what you believe - what if the rules were written to allow exactly what they currently allow?

Rogue Trader isn't, never was, and never will be an RPG port of Battlefleet Gothic (for which I'm glad, otherwise I'd just play BFG) - and who's to say that BFG isn't the game that got the feel of the ships wrong? You are only saying RT is wrong because it came afterwards, despite GW head staff previously stating that all canon is equal.

Voronesh said:

Then just have the OrKs do that, regardless of the weapons and how they work. It's what an OrK would do, anyway.

I also think you don't grasp quite how much Orcs make up their own rules - they have frequently fired sluggas that have, upon inspection, had no ammo, no firing mechanism, and no working trigger. Hell, red ones actually go faster, blue ones are luckier, and weapons that are louder and/or bigger actually do do more damage, all because Orks believe that's how it works - I vaguely remember some bits of fluff basically showing trucks and battlewagons as being heaps of scrap with no engines and flat tires, that only move like it was a working vehicle and have the weapons work because the orks believed the truck should work, and that those weapons should work that way.

When an Ork macrocannon is in reality a pile of scrap, but the Orks believe that it is a weapon with multiple barrels, on a traversable turret housing, and has several smaller turrets on it - that's exactly how it works.

If the weapons work as they do in the rules because that's how the Orks believe they work, you can't really persuade them that they shouldn't be that good, and they should be worse than Imperial ships

Sry long post

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Your words not mine.

MILLANDSON said:

Sry also not correct. Fluff put out is equal and is able to contradict each other, BUT fluff put out by GW is a step above that. Since BFG was initially a GW operation, then a forgeworld one, and now a GW thing (albeit pretty much dead ) again.

Quite simply, if its in a Codex or similar GW publication, you can contradict it as much as you want, it still wont be as canon as the GW stuff.

MILLANDSON said:

Oh do you remember the orky smoke, that only hampered the enemy during shooting? Heck i know alot of Ork stuff is strange. But there is a difference, between a weapon shooting nonexisting ammo, and it simply working, when it shouldnt. (I can already hear a powergamer saying, YES never having to reload!).

I perfectly know how orks work thank you. Thats why i put in the "i can fly, cause the rules dont disallow it" sentence. I simply think you dont know how orks work, lets turn the tables for this at least once.

The more orks are present, the better the orky belief works (more mumbo jumbo, magical stuff happening), because of that you might argue, that the ork ship stops working at all. Conversevly, you could say that the gun should work as a Jagdpanther. And only when enough orks are present (eg 80+ crew) does it get to swing.

There are simply different levels of "OMG physics" orks can achieve. Turning voidsunder lance batteries and torpedo tubes on the spot is just the same thing.

No seriously, you yourself said, it wasnt that high up of importance. And since it never appears once in the rules i am going to go with that interpretation, and mod stuff into a more wargame feel. I have more than enough WW2 fanatics sitting at the table. (okok i am one of them). Also the educationel level at RPG groups tends to be high enough, so i dislike stuff that says, "We ignore the physics whenever we like it", unless given a good rule for that. The big cannons, is simply sure its given a rule, but one that contradicts higher level canon.

OMG never though id be one of those guys discussing levels of canon like the Star Wars, Star Trek guys.....

I have been doing 40k for too long i guess.

Millandson, if you took note of what NO-1_H3r3 just wrote before you, you might have noticed that he as the game designer quite clearly intended Orks to have a whithering forward armament and relatively weak broadsides. If you had read the discussion carefully, that should have been quite clear by now. The RAW give the Ork capital ships at this moment a devastating broadside, as strong as their frontal and side facing armament together, something that was not intended and is, as has been quite long discussed above, unlogical. As Voronesh quite clearly stated, the level of 'I can fly' unlogical, not Ork (un)logical.

The rules that I proposed are as you might notice RT rules, not BFG rules. Neither 'Heavy Prow Weapons' or 'Multiple Prow Weapon Slots' are rules I have seen anywhere in BFG, but are intended for RT, where they align quite well with the intention of the game designer. It would be even easier to simply rule what the weapon arcs of fire are for each Xenos species. Orks build in a different way then Eldar (or is this just my belief again?), so it is not unlogical to presume their weapons behave differently.

Furthermore, my main point was whether or not there might have been a slight oversight here. This realisation came when I was fighting out some scenarios to get a feel of the rules, and it dawned on me that this Ork Kroozer might ,by a very strict interpretation of the rules, turn all those weapons sideways to blast that annoying well manoeuvring craft that kept in its flank out of the void. This felt plainly wrong, not because this was the case in BFG, but because my feelings for the Ork ships was quite in accord with the well written rules for Ork ships, from which the intention was patently clear. I then looked back at BFG to see how the fire arcs of the Xenos ships were in that system. I took this step because both Eldar and Ork ships were lifted straight from BFG and RT has maintained as direct a symmetry as possible under its own rules between BFG and RT. I think this is wise, as it will keep the game as much in accordance as possible with earlier rules, something that can only strengthen all the game systems and the whole internal feel of the WH40K universe. But the main reason is not BFG. The main reason was whether the rules in RT were fitting with what the game designers in RT said they intended. As in the 'Hit and Run' design philosophy of the Eldar, that again aligns perfectly with BFG, but also with Epic, Space Marine...well, with about anything written about the Eldar in fact.

So no, this is not just my opinion and this is not because BFG says so. Next time, rather read the discussion rather then the last posts.

FvR

P.S. Not that it has a direct impact on this discussion, but just take a look at what one of the game designers proposed as modifiers for moving targets. It is in the thread about capital ships in the House Rules. Lifted straight from BFG. I guess there must be some correlation between the systems then, wouldn't it?

But, after all of this, it seems that there has indeed been a slight oversight in the rules considering the Arc of Fire of Xenos ships, mostly because the intended arc of fire was patently clear to the designers. The next question is obvious: If Orc capital ships were intended to fire their forward armament only forward, are there other Xenos ships that have differing arcs of fire as well? Eldar spring to my mind, as their Hit and Run military philosophy would strongly favour a forward armament that is as powerfull as possible, darting in as a bird of prey, hammering a foe and then swooping out, to return as is needed till their enemy is a burning wreck, almost toying with their lumbering adversaries. Rak'Gol also seem to have the 'subtlety' of Orks, focusing primarily on forward armament, while their technology is comparatively simple, so do they have the same arc of fire in their weapons as humans?

Possibly incurring the wrath of some of the anti-BFG crowd, it seems easiest to just continue the clear trend in RT to ensure as much similarity between BFG and RT as possible,as it gives a quick way to determine those arcs of fire. Then we are only left with the few races not described there, and it should not be too hard to determine what is the intention of the design team, and see if it fits the RAW or should need some clarification, as was the case with the Orks. And obviously, if the designers wish to break with BFG and give ships quite differing statistics (as seems to be the case with Eldar weapon ranges), so be it, although a little reasoning behind it would be welcome. Nothing tends to convince people as a logical argument I( I think that Eldar ships with the BFG ranges were far too powerfull and gave PC ships little chance if well handled. The present range forces Eldar to come in closer and gives PC's a chance.). Till now there might have been some technical oversights and loopholes in some of the rules, the athmosphere that has been maintained and created is top notch, and that is what counts the most. There is a **** good reason I find myself too often here writing stuff while I should be busy with quite different cruisers and torpedo boats, this game is far too addictive and the weekly sessions are just not enough of it.

FvR

Ork ships are capable of unleashing a comparatively powerful broadside. But they don't, because that isn't Orky. Unless YOU, as the GM, think that the captain of the vessel would want to take advantage of that instead of hammering the big red button to get closer, perhaps due to a love of extra dakka.

The RAW is that ships of the appropriate type are perfectly capable of using their prow weapons to fire port and starboard as well.

The RAI is that whether the captains utilise this is at the GM's discretion.

Well, RAI seems quite clear to me from the above (loads of that in the whole thread) and there was clearly a difference between RAW and RAI. So I see no reason not to solve it, while I am now wondering if this is just an Ork case, or a Xenos subject that has just not gotten much attention. Because it is quite clear from the designer itself that the idea that Orks would turn their prow gunz to the side was certainly not intended.

FvR