How come that practically all the vessels in the adversary section of Battlefleet Koronus has a smaller amount of small craft squadrons than they have room for?

just to give some examples:

Ork Terror Ships or Hammer Battlekroozer has one dorsal Launch Bay with a Strength of 2 (i.e. a total of 6 squadrons) but has 2 squadrons of Fighta-Bommas and 2 of Assault Boats

Eldar Eclipse Class Cruiser and Void/Night Dragon has 2 Strength 2 Landing Bays (i.e. a total of 12 squadrons = 6 in each) but only has 2 squadrons of Darkstar/Nightwing Figthers and 2 of Eagle/Phoenix Bombers in each for a total of 4 squadrons per launch bay = 8 squadrons total.

Rak'Gol Butcher has 2 strength 2 Landing Bays (i.e. a total of 12 squadrons = 6 in each) but only has 3 squadrons of Bloodflayers in each when it could carry twice that.

Kroot Warsphere has one strength 4 landing bay (i.e. 12 squadrons) but only carries 8 assault boat squadrons

Chaos Hellbringer has 2 strenght 1 landing bays (i.e. 6 squadrons total) but only has 1 squadron of Swiftdeath Fighters and 1 of Doomfire Bombers in eahc for 4 squadrons total.

Of all the Vessels only the Chaos Devestation Class Cruiser that has 2 Strength 2 Landing Bays (i.e. 12 Squadrons total = 6 in each) carries a full complement with 2 squadrons of Swiftdeath Fighters, 2 of Doomfire Bombers and 2 of Dreadclaw Assault Boats in each for a total of 6 squadrons per Launch bay or 12 all told.

Is there a reason why just about all the adversaries are understrengthed concerning attack crafts?

Like they also carry non-combat crafts (though i can't see this working with Orks or Rak'gol) or is it just to make it eaiser for the players and other imperial ships or some such?

Acernis Taine said:

If you'll note, in all those cases, each carrier contains enough of each type of craft commonly used by that race to use all of its launch bays' operational capacity (that is, a number equal to the total strength of all the launch bays on the ship) as a single type of craft at once. Once you've got that, it actually doesn't matter whether you've got more available space for other craft, at least not within the context of a combat. Total capacity (3x total Launch Bay strength) matters less than operational capacity (as defined above), because you can't have more craft in the void at any one time than you have Launch Bay strength.

I'm not sure why the Warsphere and Butcher have more of a given type of craft than they can launch at one time, though.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I am not entirely sure I follow, let me see if I can get it strait: each ship with launch bays can carry up to three squadrons per point of strength each launch have (so it it has two strength 2 bays it could carry 6 squadrons per bay for a total of 12).

When not in combat you can have one squadron point of strength per launch bay ready at any time.

When in combat you can ready a number of squadrons equal to the Launch Bays strength (in the above examble that would be 2 squadron per launch bay for 4 squadrons total).

This you can do each round untill all squadrons are readied and either send them out as they become ready or when they are all ready.

So to take an example (please correct me if I am wrong) a vessel with two strength 2 bays would have 4 squadrons ready at any time (2 in each bay) then in combat it could ready an additional 2 squadrons in each bay (4 total) and send them out, then next round it could do so again untill all 12 squadrons it can carry are in the void, correct?

I can't find anything saying that a vessel has an operational capacity less than the total number of crafts it can carry, as far as I can see you could easily have more crafts than the operational capacity in the void at any one time it just takes more than 1 round to send them out or is it here I have misunderstood something?.

A few things come to mind as to possibilities.

First, the 3 squadrons per strength point is for imperial launch bays based on imperial squadron sizes. While xenos and chaos tend to have larger squadrons (with eldar as the exception) and can thus only carry 2 instead of 3.

Second, non-imperial launch bays may be different, eldar ones for instance may actually be smaller in size and thus they have fewer squadrons.

Third, as those stats are meant to be taken directly from book to game as opponents (I assume as they have combined bonuses blocks) they wanted to deprive them of s few squadrons to show that they may not be full up due to difficulty of supply and or losses in previous fights.

Fourth, it could be a combination of any of the above.

As a side note I would say that the numbers given (3 per strength point) are too small given how large the bays are especially in cruiser sized vessels. So I would rule the actual number you can carry is higher. The problem is not as egregious as with the drop pod component but it is still there.

Acernis Taine said:

Well, that's really not what I intended when I wrote those rules...

The original intent was that, once you've launched squadrons from a launch bay, the that launch bay is tied up in support of those squadrons - the 'ground crews' are setting everything up to prepare for them to return, and trying to prepare other squadrons to launch at the same time gets in the way of that. That was the original intent, in imitation of the rules from Battlefleet Gothic (where a ship with 2 strength 2 launch bays can have no more than four squadrons of craft active at once, in any combination).

That's what I was working to originally, and consequently what everyone else would have been working to when they wrote up the various ships. As far as I can tell, when the rule was changed (at some point after I handed it in; probably after the playtest), the effects of that change weren't taken into account in the rules for the NPC starships (those quantities of attack craft work fine if you can only put a limited number of them in the void at any one time, afterall).

As a result, disregard my earlier comment - I appear to be working to an outdated version of the rules...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Okay I see, thanks

Then I just have to either add additional squadrons to enemy vessels or limit the number of squadrons that the players and other non-antagonists can use at any given time, easily done