From: Keith Watt <kwatt@a...>
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:44:54 -0400
Subject: Fighters and Fighter Screena
Hello all - I'm sending this to both lists since my question is regarding the ship combat system and is therefore as FT-related as it is B5-related. Hopefully Jon or Zeke can answer this.. We recently played a TBP-based ship battle and had a problem interpreting the fighter screen rules. First, here's what happened: Ship A had a screen of 4 fighter groups (24 fighters) and was attacked by a swarm of 8 fighters groups (48 fighters) from enemy Ship 1 and Ship 2. Allied Ship B sent 4 fighter groups (24 fighters) to assist. Ships 1,2, and B were too far away to be a factor in combat except for their fighters. Antifighter weapons from Ship A fired, taking out 3 fighters (not fighter groups). Fighter screens for Ship A took out 0-1 enemy fighters per group. Needless to say, Ship A died in short order. Now, first question: Ship B's fighters are not a screen. Can they dogfight the fighters attacking Ship A? If so, do the enemy fighters get to shoot back at B's fighters and still get to attack the ship? I don't think the enemy fighters should be allowed to fire twice, so it seems they have the choice: break off the attack entirely or just suck up the damage from B's fighters and continue on the capital ship. One reading of the rules suggested that since the enemy fighters are involved in an attack with a ship, they cannot be part of a dogfight - and therefore B's fighters cannot engage at all. But this makes no sense: B's fighters are going to just fly around and watch? But if B's fighters can attack, then fighter screens are pretty useless. You can do the same damage without fear of counterdamage by simply bringing in a non-screening fighter group. Or better yet, the entire attack might be blocked rather than just the one or two fighters that you might kill in a dogfight with your screen. How should this have been handled? Our other problem was more philosophical: capital ships were almost unnecessary in the two battles we played. The fighters went out, swarmed each ship in turn and usually destroyed it in a single turn. Aside from the fact this never occurs in B5 (but I won't start THAT debate), I enjoy FT because of the capitals, not because of the fighters. Here's how we resolved it, and it works quite well: B's fighters can attack the enemy fighters and the enemy fighters must decide to continue the attack or break off and engage the fighters. Fighter screens work slightly differently, however. If the enemy fighters do not break off, they face the fighter screen, and will roll on the dogfight table as usual. Now, however, before rolling the dogfight, every screening fighter (not fighter group) will completely block one attacking fighter (not fighter group). For example, suppose both the attacking fighter group and the screening group have six fighters each. This turn, no fighters may attack the ship - they are too busy with the fighter screen. They dogfight and the attackers kill two screening fighters while the screening fighters kill one of the attacking fighters. The attackers now have 5 fighters to the screen's 4. Next turn: one attacking fighter is unmolested, so will attack the ship. The remaining fighters dogfight as usual, eliminate any fighters as appropriate, and then the unblocked fighter rolls against the ship. Essentially, the only rule change is that before the dogfight with the fighter screen, attacking fighter fighters are blocked fighter-for-fighter by the fighter screen. Only unblocked fighters will actually attack the ship. One possible variant is to match fighter-for-fighter AFTER the dogfight. In this case, the enemy fighters would have had one fighter attack the first turn since they killed two fighters to the defender's one. My problem with this is that it means one attacking fighter both fought a defender, killed him, and still had time to attack the ship. Not likely, IMO. This does -dramatically- reduce the effectiveness of fighters, but that's essentially the point: fighters (in general) should fight fighters, ships (in general) should fight ships. I realize in the modern carrier-based navy, fighters really do take down capital ships, but all my experience with FT has led me to believe that the ships are not just carriers for fighters. But maybe we misinterpreted the screening rules completely? Opinions? Second question: when declaring targets for fighter groups, shouldn't this declaration alternate among the players as with movement? Often times a fighter group will have the option of assisting an allied ship (as B's fighters did above), attacking an enemy ship, or dogfighting. The person who declares his target first is somewhat at a disadvantage. We couldn't find this written anywhere, but seemed to be in the spirit of FT. Thanks..