Kra'Vak Guns

I've been listening to the debate about the Kra'Vak on the list now for about
three weeks and I've found that the following should work really well for
balancing their weapons somewhat.

Scatterguns:- I think that a -1 to the die role for each2" or 3" the
firing ship is away from the target for Scatterguns is a good idea.

Railguns:- Allowing PDAF's and ADAF's (NOT "c" Batteries) to shoot down
railgun shots in the same way as missiles (only on 6's). In the "Aliens:
Colonial Marine Technical Manual" the U.S.S. Sulaco is described as having
Laser batteries that are used to shoot down fighters, missiles
AND railgun shots.  For this, in the "orders" phase, the player _must_
note down how many PDAF's/ADAF's are being dedicated to Railgun defence
and these can then be used ONLY for railgun defence, not for hitting missiles
or fighters. PDAF's only protect the ship they are on and ADAF's have their
area effect as normal.

I think that these rules are simple and effective without making the
Kra'Vak too UNDER-powered (they should still be the all-scary nasty
Chiggie-bug thingies).

Also- for all of you who are having trouble with dealing with the bugs,
here's a tip: BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME!!!!! Use lots of escorts and small
cruisers which are almost as maneuverable as the Kra'Vak ships and this will
really confuse the Kra'Vak player. Then one or two (at most) capitals with
Wave Guns to do some heavy damage and attract his fire. I've found this works
really well. Also I've been meaning to try using four Mass 40 capital ships
with a Nova Cannon on each and sit them at the back of the board and keep my
fleet behind them and keep firing Nova shots all game. Even with their
manouverability they can't dodge templates that cover almost the whole table
and ignore
armour!!!  Never tried it but it feels kinda fun :-)!

> On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Kelvin Henderson wrote:

> I've been listening to the debate about the Kra'Vak on the list

Thanks;) I've tried it a few times; it seems to work OK. (BTW, shouldn't
armour work against scatterguns? Not that I want to make it any better than it
already is, but it does protect against Kra'Vak fighter
weapons...?)

[snip]

> Also- for all of you who are having trouble with dealing with the
Then
> one or two (at most) capitals with Wave Guns to do some heavy damage

Ouch. I'll have to get a bigger table for that to work - a 6 cm template

is pretty easy to avoid when you (ie, I) use cm as measuring unit instead of
inches. Not to mention those tiny Wavegun 4 cm templates:(

In a message dated 96-07-04 14:04:33 EDT, you write:

> I've been listening to the debate about the Kra'Vak on the list

What I like to do to help balance the Railguns is to change the range bands.
Because of its slow speed (relative to a particle beam), the firing solution
for a Railgun is more difficult, so should have worse (not better as currently
written) range performance. I therefor use the following
range/to
hit bands. People have in the past argued that this complicates the issue too
much since the bands are not 6" multiples like all of the others, but that's a
choice you have to make:

Modified RailGun ranges

0-2"            2+
2-6"            3+
6-12"          4+
12-20"        5+
20-30"        6+

This system maintains the same maximum ranges as the standard rules and
further justifies the unholy effective Kr'vack engines.

Later

Brian

> On Thu, 4 Jul 1996 BJCantwell@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 96-07-04 14:04:33 EDT, you write:

I think that this should work very well. If coupled with the idea of letting
PDAF's and ADAF's shoot down railgun rounds (I posted that idea
earlier) or the the other idea of ECM -baffling of targeting systems and
you really bring the Kra'Vak back to a beatable level. On its own though, it
should keep the bugs just that little bit scarier. I like it!!!

Thanks Brian!!!