Well, Nova's been out almost two weeks now, and I still have yet to play a game. Cricket has a web interface for shipbuilding up called the Drydock. Unfortunately, it has save / load / view-other-peoples'-stuff functionality, so it's replacing the Bourbaki Basin subforum. I'm not a terrible fan of its input procedures, nor do I like having to be tethered to the web for my shipbuilding, so I rolled my own. As a result of the lack of a Nova Basin subforum and my dislike for the Drydock, my BFG to Nova conversions are going to be posted here (all ships intellectual property of Games Workshop). There is some debate over formatting for text-only outputs, since ship cards are one of the things Nova set out to accomplish, so I'm going to be using a variant of AE's Drake Notation. Should be pretty straightforward if you're familiar with either Nova or AE.
At this time, I have a strict conversion system for Imperials and Chaos. I tried the same on the Eldar, and, well... they looked like they needed some help (not that the Imperial preponderance of Range 6 weapons is great, mind you, but they needed some extra help). Not sure how to handle them yet; might want to play a few games first.
Anyway, conversions! Without further ado, battleships of the Imperium:
Emperor-Class Battleship (572)
Armor: 6 5 * 4 3 * 2 1
Hull: 18 17 16 15 14 13 * 12 11 10 9 8 7 * 6 5 4 3 2 1
Thrust: 3 2 2 1 1
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
ECM: 0
Shields: 3 4 5 6 6
[X] Batteries, 4 / 8 / 12. [PP4] [SS4] [FX2]
33 23 17 12 | 8 6 | 4 3 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 1 0
[Y] Turrets, 1 / 2 / 3, Acc. [TT0]
8 5 4 3 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
Special: Fighters (Slow; 8 flights), Marines (6)
Retribution-Class Battleship (440), TL1
Armor: 6 5 * 4 3 * 2 1
Hull: 18 17 16 15 14 13 * 12 11 10 9 8 7 * 6 5 4 3 2 1
Thrust: 4 3 2 1 1
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
ECM: 1 1 1 0 0
Shields: 3 4 5 6 6
[W] Batteries, 4 / 8 / 12. [PP2] [SS2]
36 25 18 13 | 9 6 | 5 3 | 2 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[X] Lances, 4 / 8 / 12, Acc, Prc, Gid. [FX0]
5 3 2 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[Y] Torpedoes, 6 / 12 / 18, Dfs, Skr, Slo, Prc. [FR0]
14 10 7 5 | 3 2 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
[Z] Turrets, 1 / 2 / 3, Acc. [TT0]
6 4 3 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
Specials: Directional Defenses (Forward), Marines (6)
Apocalypse-Class Battleship (440), TL1
Armor: 6 5 * 4 3 * 2 1
Hull: 18 17 16 15 14 13 * 12 11 10 9 8 7 * 6 5 4 3 2 1
Thrust: 3 2 2 1 1
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
ECM: 1 1 1 0 0
Shields: 3 4 5 6 6
[W] Batteries, 4 / 8 / 12. [FX0]
9 6 5 3 | 2 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[X] Lances, 2 / 4 / 6, Acc, Prc, Gid. [PP2] [SS2]
18 13 9 6 | 5 3 | 2 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[Y] Nova Cannon, 5 / 10 / 15, Acc, Bls, Gid, Prx, Prc, Cat. [FR0]
3 2 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
[Z] Turrets, 1 / 2 / 3, Acc. [TT0]
6 4 3 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
Specials: Directional Defenses (Forward), Marines (6)
Oberon-Class Battleship (463)
Armor: 6 5 * 4 3 * 2 1
Hull: 18 17 16 15 14 13 * 12 11 10 9 8 7 * 6 5 4 3 2 1
Thrust: 3 2 2 1 1
Weapons: 0 1 2 3 4
ECM: 0
Shields: 3 4 5 6 6
[W] Long Batteries, 4 / 8 / 12. [PP2] [SS2]
18 13 9 6 | 5 3 | 2 2 | 1 1 | 1 0
[X] Lances, 4 / 8 / 12, Acc, Prc, Gid. [PP2] [SS2]
6 4 3 2 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
[Y] Batteries, 3 / 6 / 9. [FX0]
15 11 8 5 | 4 3 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
[Y] Turrets, 1 / 2 / 3, Acc. [TT0]
8 5 4 3 | 2 1 | 1 1 | 0
Special: Fighters (Slow; 4 flights), Marines (6)
Here's what I've been doing:
Hull equals BFG hull times 1.5. Escorts have hulls down in the 4-6ish range; hull 1 just doesn't work.
Armor is equal to 1.5 times BFG shield rating.
Shields are equal to 8 minus the BFG shield rating (this maintains the same probability of damage). For the Imperial armored prow, I used Directional Defenses (Forward), which grants a -1 to incoming fire from the front and +1 to fire from other sides, and ECM 1, which inflicts a -1 to fire from all sides. This combines to produce a -2 to frontal fire, which is half effectiveness, and -0 to fire from other sides (until ECM degrades, at least). The difference between 5+ to damage and 6+ to damage is half effectiveness, so this models that nicely. If you feel like it, swap out the ECM 1 for Stealth 1, which does the same thing but doesn't degrade.
Thrust and ranges are converted at 5 cm to 1 hex. BFG's fighters are too slow to work in Nova on this scale, so I've given them the Slow trait; best I can do. I've also considered doing a "Fighters and Bombers as Slow-Firing Guided Seeking weapons with broad arcs" conversion; that might be in the future (possibly after I add Dual-Modes to my spreadsheet). One problem, though, is that since seeking weapons can't be fired at other seeking weapons, you'd be unable to use fighters to attack bombers. And that just seems wrong... More research is required.
Weapons have BAS of 1.5 (since we multiplied hull by 1.5), and a number of weapons equal to their firepower in BFG. Lances are Accurate, Piercing, and Guided (no range mods), since they ignore armor and range in BFG for 'always hits on 4+'. Torps are Slow-Firing, Diffuse (double range mods), Piercing Seeker weapons; this should model their variation in effectiveness over range nicely. The Nova Cannon is Piercing, Accurate, Ballistic (minimum range), Guided, Proximity (Area effect), and Catastrophic, with a BAS of 3. Be afraid. Very afraid. Turrets are range 3 and Accurate; not much to see there.
So that about covers everything needed for an Imperial or Chaos conversion... Orks should be pretty easy (Direction Defenses + ECM for defense, Volatile weapons), Tau and Tyranids will enjoy the new Seeker rules (but Tyranids are going to need longer-range weapons than the 3-6 they tend to use), Necrons should work OK but will be very expensive (Hyperdrive + Regeneration + Reinforced Hull + best shields... ouch), and Eldar still don't quite work when strictly converted. So it goes.
Showing posts with label Battlefleet Gothic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battlefleet Gothic. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Mailbag 6: Miscellanea
games workshop bfg resources: Yeah, GW took down all the BFG and other specialist games pdfs like... yesterday. I don't know why either. I have most of the BFG pdfs, but don't have hosting; drop me a line in the comments if you want 'em.
mongoose traveller learning new skills: I guess I probably haven't really discussed this before. Basically, learning new skills in MgT is slow, but doable. Raising a skill from level n to level n+1 takes a number of weeks of training equal to the total of all of your skills plus n+1 (to gain a new skill at 0, treat n as -1). Since about the only training you get happens in jump, an experienced character is like to pick up maybe 2 new skills over the course of a short campaign like the ones we play. On the other hand, if you start the campaign with a rank newbie with a skill total of 3, you learn really damn fast, and since you get to choose your training skills (but not your skills from character generation), this also provides a character who can do exactly what you want him to be doing. Avoids the risk of aging, too, but you lose out hard on material benefits.
As an aside, we have a houserule that if you roll snake eyes on a check with an untrained skill, it counts as a week of training. Experiential learning, if you will.
mongoose core weight: I think this is referring to encumbrance, probably (since I don't know what the actual paper copy of the Core weighs). The rules for it are on page 104, and I highly recommend using them. Otherwise everyone ends up in Combat Armor with laser rifles and things go all to hell.
mongoose traveller where does the ship exit jump space?: So, there aren't actually hard and fast rules on this. The only guideline I know of is from page 141:
Short version: Wherever you want them to, with the guideline that success means close and failure means far.
mongoose traveller learning new skills: I guess I probably haven't really discussed this before. Basically, learning new skills in MgT is slow, but doable. Raising a skill from level n to level n+1 takes a number of weeks of training equal to the total of all of your skills plus n+1 (to gain a new skill at 0, treat n as -1). Since about the only training you get happens in jump, an experienced character is like to pick up maybe 2 new skills over the course of a short campaign like the ones we play. On the other hand, if you start the campaign with a rank newbie with a skill total of 3, you learn really damn fast, and since you get to choose your training skills (but not your skills from character generation), this also provides a character who can do exactly what you want him to be doing. Avoids the risk of aging, too, but you lose out hard on material benefits.
As an aside, we have a houserule that if you roll snake eyes on a check with an untrained skill, it counts as a week of training. Experiential learning, if you will.
mongoose core weight: I think this is referring to encumbrance, probably (since I don't know what the actual paper copy of the Core weighs). The rules for it are on page 104, and I highly recommend using them. Otherwise everyone ends up in Combat Armor with laser rifles and things go all to hell.
mongoose traveller where does the ship exit jump space?: So, there aren't actually hard and fast rules on this. The only guideline I know of is from page 141:
When the ship exits Jump space after an accurate Jump, it tendsThat's all there is on it. Jump accuracy is determined on the bottom of the left-hand column on the same page.
to arrive close to the target world, but outside or on the verge of
the hundred-diameter limit. Inaccurate Jumps just dump the ship
somewhere in the inner system, requiring a long space flight.
Short version: Wherever you want them to, with the guideline that success means close and failure means far.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Mailbag 1: Starmada and BFG
As I was checking my search terms, I realized that some of them were fairly entertaining, and others were questions and might entail answers or responses. So, here are some of my favorites, biased towards the ones that appear most often:
"starmada fire arcs": Yeah, these are tricky for beginners. In AE, you have six primary arcs - A, B, C, D, E, and F. There's also a second set, but they're for munchkins and rules wankers (the G arc is too damn good). Each arc covers 60 degrees of... well, arc. If you take a ship's heading to be 0, directly right to be 90, directly behind to be 180, and directly left to be 270, the arcs cover angles as follow:
"battlefleet gothic firing arc templates": These I don't have readily memorized (though I thought they were just forward, aft, port, starboard...), but Games Workshops' BFG resources has something which might work.
"starmada admiralty edition review": Huh, maybe I should write one of those. A bit late in the game's lifecycle, though, since Starmada Nova should launch in the next month or so. Speaking of which, most recent news on that front is that the rules are complete, but they're deciding what should go in the core book, and doing layout / formatting. Also, they have cover art, and it has better texture than in previous versions.
"battlefleet gothic conversion": Let me tell you, when Starmada Nova launches, it's the first thing on my to-do list (possibly after constructing a spreadsheet for accelerated shipbuilding, depending on how fast OldnGrey and the other spreadsheet guys on the forums are about it). I did do a lot of conversion work on the Battlefleet Gothic ships to Admiralty Edition, too (about 5 revisions of Imperials, Chaos, and Eldar, as well as one version each of Tau and Orks)... but the files were lost in the great Laptop Catastrophe of Fall '11. They may be on a backup drive somewhere, but I honestly don't know anymore. There are three relevant threads on the Starmada forums, here, here, and here. The first of those has most of my version 1 work, as well as parts of v3 and my v3.5 Imperials.
"simplest campaign system": It's a simple campaign system for Starmada: Admiralty, originally published in the Imperial Starmada Sourcebook, and republished in the Options Annex. As the name would suggest, it is in fact very simple. You have a fleet registry (where hull damage persists across combats), and a pool of resource points which you can use to repair or buy new ships. After each combat, the winner gets a victory point towards campaign victory, but no resource points, while the loser gets resource points, but no victory points. First one to n victory points wins, for pre-determined n. It's known for creating really torn-up fleets by the end of the campaign. For a series of after-action reports from a game run using a slightly tweaked version, I recommend Blacklancer's posts here. It starts getting good on page 3, particularly this post. Note to self: try running Simplest with >2 players and watch the chaos.
"starmada d12 roll": Huh. Well, there was a forum thread a while back on d10 Starmada. Never tried d10 or d12, myself; I certainly don't have enough d12s for it, and while I have enough d10s, you'd need to do some serious work on the probabilities and the point costings. If somebody writes a conversion to make that happen, let me know.
"starmada fire arcs": Yeah, these are tricky for beginners. In AE, you have six primary arcs - A, B, C, D, E, and F. There's also a second set, but they're for munchkins and rules wankers (the G arc is too damn good). Each arc covers 60 degrees of... well, arc. If you take a ship's heading to be 0, directly right to be 90, directly behind to be 180, and directly left to be 270, the arcs cover angles as follow:
- A: 300 through 360; forward-left
- B: 0 through 60; forward-right
- C: 240 through 300; left broadside
- D: 60 through 120; right broadside
- E: 180 through 240; rear-left
- F: 120 through 180; rear-right
"battlefleet gothic firing arc templates": These I don't have readily memorized (though I thought they were just forward, aft, port, starboard...), but Games Workshops' BFG resources has something which might work.
"starmada admiralty edition review": Huh, maybe I should write one of those. A bit late in the game's lifecycle, though, since Starmada Nova should launch in the next month or so. Speaking of which, most recent news on that front is that the rules are complete, but they're deciding what should go in the core book, and doing layout / formatting. Also, they have cover art, and it has better texture than in previous versions.
"battlefleet gothic conversion": Let me tell you, when Starmada Nova launches, it's the first thing on my to-do list (possibly after constructing a spreadsheet for accelerated shipbuilding, depending on how fast OldnGrey and the other spreadsheet guys on the forums are about it). I did do a lot of conversion work on the Battlefleet Gothic ships to Admiralty Edition, too (about 5 revisions of Imperials, Chaos, and Eldar, as well as one version each of Tau and Orks)... but the files were lost in the great Laptop Catastrophe of Fall '11. They may be on a backup drive somewhere, but I honestly don't know anymore. There are three relevant threads on the Starmada forums, here, here, and here. The first of those has most of my version 1 work, as well as parts of v3 and my v3.5 Imperials.
"simplest campaign system": It's a simple campaign system for Starmada: Admiralty, originally published in the Imperial Starmada Sourcebook, and republished in the Options Annex. As the name would suggest, it is in fact very simple. You have a fleet registry (where hull damage persists across combats), and a pool of resource points which you can use to repair or buy new ships. After each combat, the winner gets a victory point towards campaign victory, but no resource points, while the loser gets resource points, but no victory points. First one to n victory points wins, for pre-determined n. It's known for creating really torn-up fleets by the end of the campaign. For a series of after-action reports from a game run using a slightly tweaked version, I recommend Blacklancer's posts here. It starts getting good on page 3, particularly this post. Note to self: try running Simplest with >2 players and watch the chaos.
"starmada d12 roll": Huh. Well, there was a forum thread a while back on d10 Starmada. Never tried d10 or d12, myself; I certainly don't have enough d12s for it, and while I have enough d10s, you'd need to do some serious work on the probabilities and the point costings. If somebody writes a conversion to make that happen, let me know.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
First Ship Designs for Starmada: The Next Iteration. Also Battlefleet Gothic Parallels
A few more points of Starmada news:
First public and official starship designs released (these images full property of Cricket / Dan Kast at MJ12):
As you can see, they're much stripped down from AE designs. The attack dice chart, while space-consuming, is fairly simple once you know what you're looking at. Also note the fixed size of systems damage tracks (only thrust here, but always 5 boxes regardless of hull. Surprised the weapons track was omitted). Also, 'shields' here are actually armor. Finally, no point values yet.
Underling also released a small fleet of point-costed ships built using playtest ship construction reviews, but accidentally created a fighter scare. He'd put weapons that launch Seekers on his ships and called them 'fighters', and there was much concern that this was how fighters were implemented by default in the new edition. Fortunately, this is not the case; fighters "will work much as they do in AE." I'm happy that seeker-launching will be an available weapon trait, though - it's something I've always wanted in AE. Other traits of note from Underling's stuff include Gid - Guided?, Exp - Expendable (yeah, ammo...), Pwr - Powerful?, Acr - Accurate (hits on 4+ rather than 5+, I suspect), Rpt - Repeating. As for ship traits, Marines look very similar to AE, but Escort and Scout are now also traits. Not sure what they do just yet. Anyways, the mods pulled his ships from the forums because they weren't technically rules legal (had some arc stacking and things, nevermind the fighter confusion), but if you want a look, I've re-hosted them here (likewise, property of Underling).
Finally, some data on Stealth. Stealth n will operate the same as ECM n (applying a column shift of -n to incoming fire), except that it is not subject to systems damage, but also costs more.
One thing that keeps striking me as I read some of the new Starmada material is how similar some of the changes are to Battlefleet Gothic's rules. Grouping of weapons in particular arcs into single banks of given firepower? Check. Firepower column shifting on a giant table based on situational modifiers? Check. Non-plotted movement? Check. Systems damage checks every so often based on fraction of hull destroyed? Yep. Armor and shields as separate defenses? Flipped from BFG where shields are HP and armor is saves, but essentially the same. Increased support for ECM, Stealth, and other holofieldy defenses? Awesome. Their fighter implementation is different, but for a sec there when I saw Underling's seeker-fighters, I went "Aha! Another similarity!"
Not accusing of borrowing; just kind of amused. I believe that MJ12 actually did develop a lot of this independently with Fleet Ops and Grand Fleets, but it's neat to see things converge. Should also make my BFG conversions a little bit easier... Heck, Underling mentioned playtesting using converted Eldar from Battlefleet. Support straight out of the box! Granted, he also mentioned that mobility-based fleets are rather weak currently (though that was true in AE too)... Challenge accepted.
On a completely unrelated note, no confirmation yet that Cloaking will still be a thing... I hope it's still a thing, for the Eldar's sake.
First public and official starship designs released (these images full property of Cricket / Dan Kast at MJ12):
As you can see, they're much stripped down from AE designs. The attack dice chart, while space-consuming, is fairly simple once you know what you're looking at. Also note the fixed size of systems damage tracks (only thrust here, but always 5 boxes regardless of hull. Surprised the weapons track was omitted). Also, 'shields' here are actually armor. Finally, no point values yet.
Underling also released a small fleet of point-costed ships built using playtest ship construction reviews, but accidentally created a fighter scare. He'd put weapons that launch Seekers on his ships and called them 'fighters', and there was much concern that this was how fighters were implemented by default in the new edition. Fortunately, this is not the case; fighters "will work much as they do in AE." I'm happy that seeker-launching will be an available weapon trait, though - it's something I've always wanted in AE. Other traits of note from Underling's stuff include Gid - Guided?, Exp - Expendable (yeah, ammo...), Pwr - Powerful?, Acr - Accurate (hits on 4+ rather than 5+, I suspect), Rpt - Repeating. As for ship traits, Marines look very similar to AE, but Escort and Scout are now also traits. Not sure what they do just yet. Anyways, the mods pulled his ships from the forums because they weren't technically rules legal (had some arc stacking and things, nevermind the fighter confusion), but if you want a look, I've re-hosted them here (likewise, property of Underling).
Finally, some data on Stealth. Stealth n will operate the same as ECM n (applying a column shift of -n to incoming fire), except that it is not subject to systems damage, but also costs more.
One thing that keeps striking me as I read some of the new Starmada material is how similar some of the changes are to Battlefleet Gothic's rules. Grouping of weapons in particular arcs into single banks of given firepower? Check. Firepower column shifting on a giant table based on situational modifiers? Check. Non-plotted movement? Check. Systems damage checks every so often based on fraction of hull destroyed? Yep. Armor and shields as separate defenses? Flipped from BFG where shields are HP and armor is saves, but essentially the same. Increased support for ECM, Stealth, and other holofieldy defenses? Awesome. Their fighter implementation is different, but for a sec there when I saw Underling's seeker-fighters, I went "Aha! Another similarity!"
Not accusing of borrowing; just kind of amused. I believe that MJ12 actually did develop a lot of this independently with Fleet Ops and Grand Fleets, but it's neat to see things converge. Should also make my BFG conversions a little bit easier... Heck, Underling mentioned playtesting using converted Eldar from Battlefleet. Support straight out of the box! Granted, he also mentioned that mobility-based fleets are rather weak currently (though that was true in AE too)... Challenge accepted.
On a completely unrelated note, no confirmation yet that Cloaking will still be a thing... I hope it's still a thing, for the Eldar's sake.
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