Got a question for ya:
Noam-meister and I got together last evening for a game of FT (an AAR
will be posted later when I get some time to write it up). The basic of it is
the scenario we played was an NI (New Israeli) vs NAC encounter (a 'wargames'
scenario). Noam's NI ships use something he's been working
on developing called 'stealth'. Ask him for the details, but in a nut-
shell what it does is reduce the effective range of your weapons (again, ask
Noam for the details; I dont remember 'xactly how it reduces range; it was
late last night and I'm trying to block out the slaughter the NAC suffered;).
Anyway, a situation came up with regards to rerolls of
anti-
fighter weapons and 'armored' fighters.
Noam's fighters were all 'stealth-2', which meant they acted as doubly-
heavy fighters, or fighters with level-2 screens. I wasn't happy
learning this when they came at me (3 squadrons of them; natch my
cruiser-destroyer
group had no carriers, but luckily I had a Furious CE - for what little
it did for me). This means that rolls of 4 have no effect, and rolls of 5 and
6 only take out 1 fighter (I was rolling a LOT of 1s and 3s that whole game).
Now a 6 will allow for a reroll, and the first time I got a reroll roll that
hit (rolled a second 6!:), we weren't exactly sure how to handle it. Does the
reroll do 'straight' damage (ie, take out whatever number of fighters it would
normally do), or does it go against the fighters as if they are normally
screened? (ie, in this case, only 1 ftr killed on a 5 or 6) We opted for the
latter interpretation.
How would this work against standard heavy fighters? The way we interpretted
it, or...? (if this was covered in the recent heavy fighter thread, I missed
it!)
Mk
> The end of the bottomeless pit is a body-length and a half down wrote:
> Noam's fighters were all 'stealth-2', which meant they acted as
Hm... That's quite different from how the ship stealth works, isn't it?
> Now a 6 will allow for a reroll, and the first time I got a reroll
Does
> the reroll do 'straight' damage (ie, take out whatever number of
We
> opted for the latter interpretation.
Against ships, a re-roll ignores both screens and armour - the rule
doesn't say anything about heavy fighters, and neither does the PDS rule.
Against stealthed fighters, I'd say that by rolling a 6 you've managed to
burn through their stealth and locate them well enough that the re-roll
hits as if they were standard fighters as well.
Against normal heavy fighters... well, I'd go with the standard re-roll
rules for simplicity, but I can't come up with good PSB support for it
:-/
Later,
> Noam's fighters were all 'stealth-2', which meant they acted as
Yeah. Noam? Wanna address this? ;-)
> Now a 6 will allow for a reroll, and the first time I got a reroll
> normally screened? (ie, in this case, only 1 ftr killed on a 5 or 6)
Noam's thought on the matter was that he saw the PDS/anti-fighter fire
as the rolls attacking individual fighters, with rerolls attacking new
indi-
vidual fighters, so all fighters retain the benefit of the Stealth.
> Against normal heavy fighters... well, I'd go with the standard re-roll
I'm all for simplicity.:)
I'm also all for my weapons fire to actually HIT something, too. :-/
(yeah, I started getting hits towards the end, but by that point most of my
fleet had been crippled; see also AAR when I get it posted:)
Mk
I tend to disagree. When you are shooting at ships, re-rolls apply
against
the SAME ship. When you are shooting at fighters, re-rolls apply
against a DIFFERENT fighter.
IAS
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Against normal heavy fighters... well, I'd go with the standard
The man who used to be unable to hit with Pulse Torps but has now
> unspecialised on PDSs wrote:
> >> Noam's fighters were all 'stealth-2', which meant they acted as
Um... Mark, are you *sure* you want to cut your PDS ranges to 4-5 mu
when his fighters can still shoot at you from 6 mu out?
> >Against ships, a re-roll ignores both screens and armour - the rule
> as the rolls attacking individual fighters, with rerolls attacking new
Valid point, of course. However, since the entire group tends to travel
together, once you've located one of them you have a fairly good idea of where
to look for the rest <shrug>
Later,
Stop the car?? This is a car chase! I went through considerable trouble
> to set this up. wrote:
XXX
There is no stealth in FT/MT/FB! I feel that 'stealth' should be
reserved for the concept of reducing the effective range of sensors. JTL. XXX
> Yeah. Noam? Wanna address this? ;-)
XXX I tend to agree with #2 is you have to do this sort of thing. JTL (Due to
th fact one must change targets to kill a second fighter.) XXX
> >
While I do not wish to be against innovation in the game. I do not like the
concept of 'things for free'. The 'double screened' fighters have the same
performance
as standard fighters, true. I feel the 'double screen' fighters should
pay the heavy fighter cost twice and loose one dice on the attack due to the
increased equipment each fighter must carry. (Or perhaps a dedicated fighter
carries the additional screen, if you prefer.)
At this point, I feel the need to repost the 'superfighter' message I sent
last year. (Please forgive me!)
Bye for now,
John Leary wrote in reply to me:
> >Hm... That's quite different from how the ship stealth works, isn't
I and Noam discussed his stealth mechanism a bit prior to this battle -
but he never mentioned fighters then :-/
> XXX
It's just that the *first* die-roll can kill up to 2 different heavy
fighters, so the "changing targets" logic isn't entirely solid.
> How about the concept that if a six is rolled against a fighter,
The first six has already killed the fighter, which means that your
concept here disallows any re-rolls against fighters (which contradicts
the FB rule rather than clarify it). If the fighter wasn't stealthed, it also
killed *another* fighter... a fighter squadron is targetted as one single
target <shrug>
Regards,