More and different Sa'vasku ideas

I very much like the IDEA of the Sa'vasku in FT, but I am not particularly
fond of the way they are presented; for an old, powerful race they seem to
have technology that is remarkably similar to that of Humans, both in power
and application. I had a few ideas for making them a little bit
more...distinct, I suppose you could say. In addition, this also makes them
substantially more powerful, more in line with, say, the Kra'vak. And I assure
you all, none of this is motivated by the fact that I have some 50 GW Tyrannid
ships painted up. Really. It's not.

First of all, some new weapons, to be used in addition to the "Energy Pulse"
rules from MT. I see the Sa'vasku ships as having an innate ability to
generate and manipulate electromagnetic and gravitic fields, and it is this
that allows them both their movement and most of their weaponry. Costs are the
costs in power points.

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EMP Burst: Attacks any target within 9 inches as though it had been hit with
an EMP missile (Pg. 3, MT). i.e.. roll one six sided die, with the following
effects:
        1-2  No effect
        3-4  Roll for Every system on ship, as if for threshold roll,
systems knocked out on 5 or 6
        5-6  As above, but systems knocked out on scores of 4, 5, or 6

Cost: 15 points per attack.
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Devourer: The Sa'vasku ship creates and fires an organic missile, which is
moved, maneuvered, and attacks like a standard missile (again, MT, pg.
3),
although it has only 3 turns within which to hit its target.   When a
Devourer hits, it does 1d6 damage to the target ship, and releases a cloud of
nanites over the target, which promptly begin disassembling it down to its
component molecules. Each turn after the Devourer hits, roll 1d6 and subtract
the number of turns since the missile first hit. The target ship suffers this
much damage. If the damage is equal to or less than zero on any turn, there is
no further effect.

Cost: 15 per Devourer (Probably best kept track of by putting a d6 on the ship
diagram and using that to indicate the number of turns since impact.)
________________________________________________
Infestor: Another organic missile, this weapon does one point of damage upon
impact, and, more importantly, contains a number of living creatures, which,
upon impact with the target, flood into the interior of the ship. The
creatures are treated as a six man boarding party, and will attack the crew of
the target ship. If the defenders are overwhelmed, the ship is treated as a
derelict, and may be retrieved later if a campaign game is being played (the
attackers, little more than living weapons, will die about half an hour after
leaving their pod).

Cost: 15 per Infestor
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Singularity cannon: The Sa'vasku ship generates an artificial black hole,
which forms 12 inches directly in front of the ship. The singularity is
represented by a template 1" in diameter; any ship touched by this point is
destroyed. Ships within 3" of the point will be moved 2 inches toward it, and
ships within 5" of the point will be moved 1 inch toward it. For the sake of
simplicity, neither speed nor heading is effected. The Singularity will last
for 1d6 turns, and will move 12 inches straight forward each turn.

Cost:25 points per shot
________________________________________________

Defenses: Sa'vasku do not have shields. Instead, ships may absorb energy from
attacking ship's beam weapons, in the following manner: On an attackers' roll
of One, the Sa'vasku gains 2 power points On a roll of Two, the Sa'vasku gains
1 power point. On a roll of three, there is no effect, and rolls of 4, 5, or 6
are treated normally. The points gained in this matter are stored, along with
any unused power that the ship may already have. A ship may not store more
power than it has power factors; attacks that would increase the stored points
beyond this are disregarded.

In addition, Sa'vasku ships may heal damage, by spending power points equal to
the ship's power factor to heal one point of damage.

That's it for the moment, although I want to do something to reflect the fact
that a damaged ship may actually be in pain from its injuries, kind of like
the Shadow ships from B5. I'm not entirely sure how to work that yet, but I
have a few ideas. These have not yet been playtested, and I would appreciate
any thoughts that people may have on this stuff.

On [Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:40:08 -0500 (EST)] John Crimmins
> <johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:

> I very much like the IDEA of the Sa'vasku in FT, but I am not
And I
I wondered about this - Is it a set part of the FT background that
Humans are at a technological disadvantage against the other 'races' in the
game? While this isn't necessarily a good thing in the pure wargaming aspect
of the product, it does make for some great possibilities if they are thinking
of developing a storyline with time..

> assure you all, none of this is motivated by the fact that I have
I always thought the Tyranids were the only interesting thing in the WarHammer
40K background. Trouble was GW used it as yet another excuse to churn out a
long series of ever more powerful figures you had to have to compete, all of
which were increasingly bigger in size and more expensive to buy <sigh>.

<loads of neat stuff deleted> I particularly like the idea that a Sa'vasku
ship can use power points to heal itself. Why wasn't that thought of? even
better,s ay there are certain forms of damage it can heal (beams, say) but not
say, missiles which cause explosive damage and cauterize the surface of the
vessel. Or is this getting a bit *too* visceral?

> That's it for the moment, although I want to do something to
The weapons do look nasty. You might want to think about limiting the
rate of fire - say it takes a couple of rounds for the Sa'Vasku ship to
'grow' these things to active status. Either that or only allow so many units
of ammo. As to damage effects, well, try this for starters. Every time a
Sa'vasku ship is damaged, you roll a dice. If the damage is greater than the
number rolled, the Sa'Vasku ship is 'stunned' and may take no
action for a round - i.e. it loses it's move/fire this round if it
hasn't
or next round if it already has - and continues on the same vector for a
turn. That would mean that (with the new weapons) they would be VERY VERY
nasty if you let them do what they want, but you can survive if you just keep
hitting them as many times as you can to keep them on the ropes, as it were.

                        TTFN
                                Jon