I have two questions about the Barony of Letnev's flagship, the Arc Secundus, and it's bombard ability:

1) Does the Arc Secundus`s Planetary Bombardment ability work like a Dreadnoughts or like a War Suns?

I.e. Are you required to have some units attempt a planetary invasion to use the bombardment (like a dreadnought), OR can you bombard without units participating in an invasion (like a War Sun)?

2) Do the leaders "General" and "Scientist" affect the Arc Secundus's Bombardment ability?

The rules state that:
Dreadnoughts and War Suns receive -4 to Bombardment rolls against a planet that contains at least one General.

Would that -4 also include Flagships, like the Arc Secundus? Does it include all Bombardment rolls?

Finally, would a planet with both a Scientist and a PDS be able to block the Arc Secundus's bombardment?

TheChris01 said:

1. War Sun is an exception to the bombard rule, so flagships abide to default bombardment rules, same as dreads.
2. Flagships do not get a penalty strictly rule-wise speaking, but it's a matter for debate whether the rule phrasing was intentional or just poor foresight on the part of developers.

I had similar questions during our last game with a couple of action cards referring to Dreads and War Suns. I'm not sure if there are action cards in Shards of the Throne specifically refering to flagships, but I'd expect the developders to include rules to the effect of "effects referring to dreads and war suns do also apply to flagships" in the SotT rulebook.

I'd also agree to the War Sun being an exception from the bomardment rule so that the same exception does not apply to the Baron's flag.

I think the best way to decide about the rules is to follow the exact wording.

The rules of SotT say: "Each Flagship has its own unique cost, combat value, movement, capacity, and special ability …"

The normal rules of TI say: "Unlike the Dreadnought, however, a War Sun ignores the presence of a PDS unit's planetary shield."

I think that a Flagship is only affected by cards, technologies and whatsoever which say the word Flagship since they are "unique" units, meaning that they do not share anything with other units.

Of course: The abilities which units can have are described in the TI rule book and it may seem as if they define the ability. But the abilities are neutral and some units share the same abilities, meaning that not one unit has the ability of another unit, it means that many units can have the same ability, that's a big difference.

So there are three units which share the ability "Planetay Bombardment": The Dreadnought, War Sun and the Arc Secundus.

So they share the ability to bombard a planet if:

A planetary invasion is about the take place, meaning only if Ground Forces are landing.

There are no PDS on the planet.

Now you may ask: But the War Sun …

The War Sun has the basic ability of Planetary Bombardment but it has the additional ability to ignore PDS and invading Ground Forces. Meaning the War Sun has an additional ability which alters the original ability of Planetary Bombardment which is described in the TI rulebook in the part about the Dreadnought (which does not mean that only the Dreadnought has this original Planetary Bombardment ability, he only shares it and is described before the War Sun is described).

The Arc Secundus has the ability to use Planetary Bombardment, but not any modifications, so it cannot ignore PDS and invading Ground Forces.

About the leaders: As Kouteki has said: "Flagships do not get a penalty …"

However, I think that you may change this rules as you like because the TI rulebook allowed the general to give a penalty to all the units which were able to perform a planetary bombardment at that time. However, the FAQ does not say anything about that.

About the scientist: His ability affects War Suns, not Flagships or Dreadnoughts, so it does not matter because the Arc Secundus can't bombard a planet with a PDS anyway.

I just found something here: http://gameknight.com/?page_id=554

I don't know where they get it from but they say:

Flagship: Arc Secundus (10 / 5×2 / 1 / 2) This ship may bombard planets that contain PDS units. At the start of each combat round, repair this ship.

Maybe you should ask for an official reply in the rule-clarification section of the site.

Though I still hold against the Arc Secundus working this way. The Dreadnought-bombard tech-upgrade could be reasoned to work.

Ok sorry, I confused myself. I thought the initial question was if the Arc Secundus can bombard a planet with PDS. So today I thought about it and looked at the card of the Flagship, so that's where they got it from and it's no question about it, so please ignore my first post… somehow I can't edit it, so don't get confused by the nonsense about the PDS.

After actually looking at all the cards and rules I came to the same conclusion: You have to decide about it.

1) The Arc Secundus can bombard a planet that contains PDS units but it can't bombard without units invading.

2) The rules do not include the Arc Secundus but they probably didn't know about the Flagships when they wrote it. However, the FAQ doesn't say anything about that as well, so you have to decide whether you let leaders affect the Arc Secundus or not.

3) It's the same problem, the original rules say nothing about the Flagships so again you have to decide if they can stop the ship.

The first one is clear (I think they would have written: "This ship follows the same rules like a War Sun when bombarding a planet." instead of just "This ship may bombard planets that contain PDS units.") but the other two are up to you, if you follow the exact wording of the rules the Arc Secundus is not affected by leaders in the situations you described.

And before I forget about the Graviton Negator: I think it is exactly the same as with the leaders, since the developers never mentioned it you have to decide about whether or not the Arc Secundus is affected by this technology. Personally, I don't think that it works, just because it is the only technology that would improve a Flagship, and it doesn't work for everybody, just for the player who got the Barony. It would be lore-friendly of course (I think this technology can be used on every ship) but as long as the FAQ doesn't say anything about it I would follow the exact wording.

To me it doesn't specifically exclude the rule about leaders, so I would say in fairness that yes they affect it as normal. After all every other bombardment is affected, the flagship does not say it isn't, it's special rule only states it can bombard a planet with a PDS on, not that it can't be affected by a general's -4.