This is purely about cinematic FT. A few months ago, I wrote offlist:
> 2. Battlefield Set up
One of the comments was:
> would like it even better if you could split the fleet into
And it appears, from other comments that I've heard, that "Mass your
forces into one big fist and bash away" is a favored tactic. I can
see why that would be efficient and popular, as splitting your forces invites
defeat in detail. But are there tactics for which you would enter the board
with your forces split?
("Split" here means "separated by at least 12mu and maneuvering separately".
I'm not talking about contrived scenarios ("your squadrons will rendezvous at
Point X, but you find a BadGuy squadron
already there"), and I'm not talking about operational-level reasons
("Squadron A raids Mars, squadron B attacks shipping, squadron C attacks Titan
naval base"), I'm talking about setting your ships on the table.)
> Laserlight wrote:
[Only in Cinematic]
> One of the comments was:
Yes, definitely. On a large table, if I split up and you form your
non-KV
force into one big fist the only way for you to stop me parking at least
half of my fleet in your (A) arc is to bring your entire fleet to a full
stop to spin in place... which either gives me a very good hit prob for any
missiles (or, god forbid, waveguns/nova cannon) I have, or results in a
Mexican stand-off where you lose if you attempt to move.
KV can turn around fast enough to keep their (A) arcs clear, though :-)
Later,
> But are there tactics for which you would
OO said: >Yes, definitely.
Okay, so how about: a) divide your fleet into squadrons
b) use the formula above to determine initiative for set-up purposes
(use an unmodified d6 vs d6 roll off to break any ties) c) place your
squadrons on the table in order from lowest to highest initiative (ie a
merchant with Thrust 1 and no sensors will set up first; Admiral Vorkosigan
with Thrust 8, Superior Sensor ships will set up last). d) [tentative] You
can't set up within X distance (60mu?) of the enemy but
you can shift the map to accomodate--eg if that merchant sets up 5mu
from the end of the table and Adm Vorkosigan wants to set up behind him, just
move the merchant 60 mu forward.
> Laserlight wrote:
> Admiral Vorkosigan with Thrust 8, Superior Sensor ships will set up
Admiral Vorkosigan *always* sets up last, completely independent of what
equipment he has; *unless* the enemy commander is a certain other badly
shot-up cripple with a six-legged cat familiar...
(BTW, did you mean Admiral *Vorkosigan*, or his son Admiral *Naismith*?
;-) )
> d) [tentative] You can't set up within X distance (60mu?) of the enemy
Looks OK to me, but I'll need to play it to be sure.
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 05:31:32PM +0200, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> shot-up cripple with a six-legged cat familiar...
Ah, you mean a treecat admiral with its empathic slave...
> Looks OK to me, but I'll need to play it to be sure.
I have some similar squadron-scale setup rules which I'm working on at
present; mostly they determine ranges and relative facings.
R
> (BTW, did you mean Admiral *Vorkosigan*, or his son Admiral *Naismith*?
;-
Vorkosigan. Naismith would let Tung do it.
> d) [tentative] You can't set up within X distance (60mu?) of the enemy
Probably "step 1: mark your position on the map; step 2: lay it out on the
table"