Could someone please let me know the status of FB2 development? I've have been
swamped with work and to top it off had some water damage in my home resulting
in downtime for about two weeks. It's a little hard to catch up on all the
email traffic and I realy wanted to get back in quick.
I had done considerable playtesting with the new Kra'Vak and Sa'Vasku rules
and wanted to post the details, but wonder if it's valid anymore. In any case,
all went well and everyone seemed to enjoy the new rules and found them to be
quite balanced. We liked the way the Kra'Vak played a lot better, but still
found the best defense with human ships was using vector movement and plenty
of missiles. When we tried using beam ships and cinematic movement, the
Kra'Vak won everytime. The game can be balanced with equal point fleets as
long
as you design the non-Kra'Vak fleet to meet the threat. This seemed
as a logical progression during a war to better deal with an enemy threat.
Again, we liked it.
An interesting note: I had some Warhammer 40K players try out the FT games as
playtesters and they loved FT! In fact everytime I show up at the store now
they ask me when I will run the next FT game. During one FT playtest they
attended, another WH40K player kept bugging them to stop playing FT and play
WH40K instead. They told the guy to go blow and said they rather play FT.
Now you just tell them that they can use their WH40K minis for Stargrunt
2...
Jade Tseng, who really hast to try FT some time soon
> An interesting note: I had some Warhammer 40K players try out the FT
> Could someone please let me know the status of FB2 development? I've
Done, finished and on sale! The US copies will be shipping over very soon now.
Jon (GZG)
> I had done considerable playtesting with the new Kra'Vak and Sa'Vasku
> Mike Miserendino wrote:
> I had done considerable playtesting with the new Kra'Vak and Sa'Vasku
Depends on which version of the new KV and SV rules you used <g>
> In any case, all went well and everyone seemed to enjoy the
That's a relief, since FB2 has already been printed... :-)
> We liked the way the
That's interesting, since it is the direct opposite of my experience -
the KV aren't particularly afraid of the first few SM salvoes thanks to their
scatterguns, and Vector movement makes it much easier for them to
aim their (F)-arc weapons than Cinematic does (unless the targets have
thrust-2 human engines, in which case they have no chance whatever to
dodge no matter which movement system you use :-/ ).
> When we tried using beam ships and cinematic movement, the >Kra'Vak
Then your ships are too slow ;-) Ships that are effective against other
human designs aren't necessarily good against the KV and vice versa;
IME the NAC is the FB1 fleet which is best suited for anti-KV
operations (being fast enough to dodge and not wasting a lot of mass on
SMs :-/ ). (My opinions on the efficiency of the NAC units against
human-tech fleets has been expressed often enough in the past, so I
won't repeat them...)
> The game can be balanced with equal point fleets as long
Yep. There are a bunch of OK anti-KV designs in FB1, though (at least
for Cinematic).
Later,
> Now you just tell them that they can use their WH40K minis for
Actually that's what I used for the FMA demos to show you can use any minis.
They thought it was great and now have more than one game that can use their
minis. They are starting to get the picture here.
;-)
Mike
> Jade Tseng, who really hast to try FT some time soon
> Jon wrote:
Great! Can't wait to get a copy!
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> >rules and wanted to post the details, but wonder if it's valid
Apparently I'm a bit behind, so I guess I'll be busy when I get the new book.
> >We liked the way the
I guess it's partly based on who you play and their play style. I tried to get
a variety so I tested with two groups. One group consisted on regular FT
players who knew the game well and the other group consisted of nearly
entirely new players (like the WH40K folks) and some with one or two games of
experience. This gave a good cross section of what gamers you might encounter.
The results were consistent with both groups after several weekends of
playtesting. Both gave me the same response in how they found the best way to
deal with Kra'Vak. This included a variety of play styles. Some played their
ships as gun slingers from afar while others did the kamakaze runs fast into
the fray. We covered quite a few styles so I feel good about the results.
> Then your ships are too slow ;-) Ships that are effective against
That's right. That's why I said you said you need to design your ships for the
threat. This works well and fits the premise of early contact.
> IME the NAC is the FB1 fleet which is best suited for anti-KV
Weird. We found the NAC to be OK, but not great. The NSL were the least
effective and got hurt big time with limited damage potential from beam only
ships. The FSE faired the best with swarms of missile salvos devastating the
Kra'Vaks ships.
> >The game can be balanced with equal point fleets as long
For the majority of games we used designs from FB1 to see how they compared
with the new aliens. Again, we found the game balanced and fun. The
strengthened support now for alien ships is a real boost for the game and gave
old players some new toys to tinker with.
> Mike Miserendino wrote:
> I had done considerable playtesting with the new Kra'Vak and
There were a flurry of changes fairly late, but IIRC the last big changes were
about three weeks ago.
> We liked the way the
[snip]
> I guess it's partly based on who you play and their play style.
I suspect it has more to do with the scattergun mechanics used. They now have
inherent ADFC ability which makes a huge difference, particularly if you use
the 3mu target acquisition radius for SMs in Vector (which I think you should,
considering the FB2 modifications to the vector system in general).
Also, one of the scattergun versions had them fire 3 PDS dice instead
of killing 1d6 missiles/fighters (and no inherent ADFC) - if you used
that one, your results make perfect sense!
> IME the NAC is the FB1 fleet which is best suited for anti-KV
Weird is the word, yes... with the final (published) KV rules it takes on
average 4 SM salvoes on target to kill a KV DH (TMF 40), or 6 salvoes to kill
a KV CL (TMF 60)... "devastating" looks a bit too
strong a word :-/
I'd be very interested in seeing more detailed battle reports from
these tests - if nothing else to try and figure out why they differ so
much from my results!
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Figures! I missed a lot I guess. :-(
> I suspect it has more to do with the scattergun mechanics used. They
We did use the 1D6 kills for fighters/missiles. It seemed very
effective especially with larger ships having quite a nice supply of the
scatter packs. It took a couple waves of salvos to get through the malestrom.
Fighters were shredded rather quickly.
> >Weird. We found the NAC to be OK, but not great. The NSL were
Sounds about right from experience. It was devastating for the KV player who
earlier took out NSL ships with ease.
> I'd be very interested in seeing more detailed battle reports from
I'll try to put something together from the SSDs.