A Reflection on My Origins and Supplement Bloat

Freshman year, I tried to run a game that would go back to my roots.  D&D 3.5, 1st level PCs, 4d6 drop and assign with utterly newbie players in the Sunless Citadel.  I expected it to be a blast, and it almost was.  The druid's animal companion was a bit strong, but other than that, things could have been OK.  Except that I had one of Those Guys...  a WoW veteran who went straight for the CharOp boards and ripped through supplements, and ended up running an area control Tome of Battle crusader with a spiked chain.  My official policy on supplements at the time was "anything goes"; I had a fellow who wanted to play a warlock, and what's the danger of supplements for newbies, anyways?  They were having enough trouble getting their heads wrapped around core that I wasn't concerned.  Man, did that backfire.

So that game dissolved, and I started DMing for a group of established gamers.  I guess I took away the wrong message; I thought it was just a problem with That Guy, and people like him.  There was some cognitive dissonance going on, because I saw in him a mirroring of myself, and that led to my first post on powergaming.  But in any case, when I went to run True20 for the veterans, I once again allowed supplements - the Warrior's and Adept's Handbooks (the Expert's Handbook was a terrible affront to True20's design ethos).  And so we had one canny, sneaky thief...  and an absolutely unstoppable warrior and a wizard who was immune to basically everything I could throw at him.  That campaign died when I finally threw up my hands and went "Look, the only thing that can actually threaten Mr. Wizard here is a caster of like 6 higher level than you guys, using True20's Disjunction equivalent.  There aren't many of those in this setting, and I don't have time to prep that ones that do exist.  Also, if they come after you, they will bring a horde of orcs and you will all die."  So we killed that campaign and converted to Traveller.

But during the post-mortem discussion for True20, we as a group realized that supplements were probably the real problem.  The thief was skilled, and could sneak or lie his way out of anything, but was terrible in a straight-up fight.  In short, he was what a thief should be.  The warrior and the wizard were absolute monsters, and the pieces of their designs that enabled that power came primarily from supplements.  So, for the Traveller campaign, we came to a consensus as a group to make things from supplements available only under the GM's purview, and introduced into the game in the manner of his choosing, rather than being driven by the players.  And with that rule established, the Traveller campaign was pretty damn awesome.  We've been running core-only Traveller and Trailblazer ever since, and those campaigns have likewise gone pretty well; none of them have folded over rules interpretations or inability to prepare for PC combat capabilities (though I think we're pushing the limits of Tim's willingness to prep in the current TB game...  :\.  )

My recent musings on playing with newbies brought to mind my own time as one, and how awesome it was.  And I started wondering, "Wait...  how did I get to be a terrible powergamer?  I know I wasn't like this at the beginning."  And I looked back through time.  My first campaign was the 3.0 starter box.  Went great, except for when my fighter died, but hey, that happens.  Second campaign was right after we got the actual 3.0 books, and went fantastically; many dragons were slain, much treasure gotten, and much fun had by all.  We had access to the A & B 3.0 supplements (Tome and Blood, Sword and Fist, and so forth), but we didn't take that much out of them.  No prestige classes, and I don't think any feats, though probably some spells.  After that...  things started to go down hill.  There was the 20th-level game where we went "Let's see what 20th-level characters can do...  holy shit", the Midnight game with Thagg the feral half-orc half-dwarf giantblooded orc-tosser, the X-Crawl gestalt ubergenerics game, the Savage Species monster-gestalt game, our travesty of a Vampire the Masquerade game (featuring Olaf the Brujah lumberjack berserker), the True Sorcery thought experiments...  urgh.  Notable high points were several low-level games with my friends from high school (rather than my family), and my brother's Eberron game, which was distinctly more sane (though still quite high-powered).

And after a bit of reflection on this descent into insanity and powergaming, when I run ACKS over the summer, I don't think I'm going to be allowing stuff from the Player's Companion.  Nothing against the ACKSPC, but...  class and spell construction systems are really more GM tools, anyways.

Starmada Nova: The Armor Trap

When I first read the Nova rules, I started wondering about armor.  It looked like a nice, straightforward defense, so I ran a little math the next day to see how the shipbuilding numbers work out.  I came to some conclusions that I thought it might be best to keep quiet.  The forums (namely BeowulfJB and a few others) reached similar conclusions recently, so I figured I might as well share here.

In short: the trouble with armor is that it costs the same as buying more hull, but it provides you with very little benefit over just buying more hull.  Having a larger hull provides you with more of those delicious SU, whereas armor actually costs you SU.  As a result, if you want a ship that can take n hits, you're almost certainly better off going with just hull n rather than hull m and armor p such that n = m+p.

There are, however, two possible uses for armor that I can see.  The first has to do with thrust.  A hull n ship has a higher thrust factor than a hull m armor p ship.  How much higher?  Thrust factor scales as hull to the 1.7th power, so thrust t on a hull n requires 2*t*(n)^1.6 SU.  If you look just at the case of a hull n/2 armor n/2, then the armor consumes 30*(n/2)^.7 SUs, though for the same thrust you'll likewise need to use 2*t*(n/2)^1.6.  I did some tables in OOCalc, and I'm having trouble creating useful graphs of my findings since they're in three dimensions and relative, but it is possible to generate an SU savings via armor.  The trouble is that the circumstances must be somewhat extreme; for example, if you really, really want a ship that can take 68 hits and has thrust 8, you can save 222 SU by making it Hull 34 Armor 34 compared to straight 68 hull.  But, for 4, 8, and 12 hits, half-armor-half-hull generates no SU savings for arbitrary thrust.  This is also true of any multiple-of-four number of hits less than 68 for thrusts less than 8.

The other thing armor does is that it lets you ever-so-slightly manipulate the way your systems degrade.  For example, a hull 5 / armor 1 ship can take 3 hits before being damaged, then another 2 to crippled and 1 more to destroy, while a hull 6 ship takes 2 for each step of damage.  Likewise, a hull 4 / armor 4 can take 4 hits before being damaged and 6 to cripple, while a hull 8 takes 3 and 6.  This lets you front-load your damage, and retain fighting effectiveness for slightly longer at the price of a more rapid degradation once you hit damaged or crippled.  However, as you move to larger hull sizes, this effect is diminished; you'll only ever be able to front-load one extra point, which is much more significant on small ships (where armor is basically guaranteed to not generate an SU savings on thrust).  I think this may be a worthwhile use of armor on smaller vessels, though; may have to try it out.  But for like...  a ship that you want to take 16 hits and have thrust 5?  Avoid armor.  You could go hull 14 armor 2 for front-loading (6 to damage, 12 to cripple, 16 to destroy vs 6 to damage, 11 to cripple, 16 to destroy), though it's not clear if that's really advantageous, and but other than that there seems to be little to no advantage to be gained from it in the majority of cases.  Flavor / conversion reasons naturally remain valid.

The really annoying thing is that this is, to some extent, true of ECM and shields as well.  These both have actual advantages, though - ECM can turn long range fire into no fire, and shields can beat the odds if your dice like you.  On expectation, though, both of these will likewise increase your effective hull by some fraction, but use up your SU, generating an effective hull n with less SU and higher potential for thrust than a hull n should have.  I have yet to actually run the numbers on them, though.

On Expeditionary Play

 A vital part of retaining command of any expedition is having the fanciest hat.

A sense of direction helps, too.

During the Hollowtown session of Tim's campaign, we ran into an odd situation.  We had decided to head for Helheim Green, and were in the process of negotiating for passage aboard a ship, and for the hiring of a crew.  Being the party treasurer and a covetous old dwarf (gold may not be terribly useful for my quest...  but it sure is pretty), I was concerned that we actually might not have enough cash to make good on Matt's wager and to provide per-casualty hazard pay to all of our surviving crew.  Matt interjected, though, with "Once we get the green dragon's hoard, the expedition should be in the black, though," and then something clicked.

In particular, it seemed to echo something I had read in the rpgist's ACKS playlogs:

"A few days later we're back in Mitylene. The [stone] head they had recovered fetched a decent price, but with two healing potions used the expedition was in the red."

 And I went "Oooh...  so this is that old-school resource management thing I keep hearing about!"  (I'm actually kind of joking; Trailblazer is really fairly weak on resource management, what with the short rests  and similar.  Really the primary resource we're having ground down is action points.  But gold is certainly one of some concern these days, too).

More seriously, I think the usage of the term 'expedition' over 'adventure' is likely worthwhile.  An expedition clearly entails going somewhere, likely exotic.  It conjures images of dense jungles, crocodile-filled rivers, scorching deserts, mule trains, sailing ships, and volcano-temples full of bloodthirsty natives. It has an almost pulpy feel to it.  The term adventure is positively bland by comparison, evoking a slight sense of risk, but nothing on the order of an expedition.  Crossing the street can be an adventure, but I would be hard-pressed to find streets where crossing entails an expedition.  Further, an expedition ends, by definition, when you return home.  You may decide to mount a follow-up, but it's a separate expedition.  Likewise, you may build a camp at your destination as a base for forays into the surrounding area, but this is not home or civilization, where there are shopkeepers, taverns, and the rule of law.  This clear start and end provides a nice kind of bookending, and is very suggestive of episodic play.  Adventure, on the other hand, has been confused in this sense; where does an adventure begin or end?  When the dungeon is cleared?  There is no clear answer, and the issue has only been further obscured by hundreds of published modules.

Finally, to return to the beginning, an expedition suggests logistics, and it is fairly natural for english speakers to say that an expedition is in the red or black.  If you say that an adventure is in the black, the natural response is to ask if you're playing Traveller and speaking in the Firefly style.  Thinking in terms of expeditions seems likely to encourage players toward resource management, because it brings to mind such people as Lewis, Clark, and Shackleton, who made a habit of bringing quite a lot of supplies and henchmen with them.  The term "adventurer", on the other hand, has been torn from its roots among the gentlemen-adventurers of previous centuries and, in an RPG context, means "drifters capable of destroying towns", or, colloquially, "murder-hobos."  Also conveniently, one who undertakes expeditions is not an expeditionist, expeditioneer, or other noun; it is to the players to choose titles for themselves, rather than "adventurer."

So: come summer, when I too run ACKS, there will not be adventures.  There will be expeditions.  And I quite look forward to using the Wilderlands of High Fantasy Ruins and Relics table to generate targets for them (even if I am unlikely to run a game in the Wilderlands, it's a good table).

Starmada Sunday: Nova Clarifications / Errata

The MJ12 boards have been busy shipbuilding and theorycrafting, and a few revisions have been made.  There were a number of fixes for some of the shipbuilding numbers which are fairly irrelevant to people just using tools to build spreadsheets, but a couple of important player-size clarifications have been made as well:

• Long-Range Sensors are going away.  The math didn't work on them properly, and they were going to be the next "Just Too Good" thing.
• Carronade is going away.  There was a fun hack with it that I found where you could use a range 9 carronade on a thrust 6 ship and have it actually cost less than a range 6 weapon, despite being strictly superior.  There's no fix except a total rebuild of the ship pricing rules, and since dual-mode weapons can now have different ranges between their modes, its primary intended use in AE is gone.  Hence, no more Carronade :(
• Double, Triple, and Cata damage have been clarified to not be any more effective against fighters than normal weapons causing the same number of hits (ie, one double damage hit against a fighter flight causes them to be damaged, not destroyed outright).  This is analogous to AE impact / damage against fighters.  These traits have gained a pricing discount as a result.
• Scouts upgraded - If you have one Scout per 400 points of fleet, all enemy ECM values are reduced by 1.  This has the potential to reduce Scout's uselessness against a fleet with no Escorts, but is also useless if they have no ECM.  Scout ships also become high-priority targets when used in this function, which is nice.
• New weapon trait - Pinpoint.  Pinpoint weapons ignore the -1 penalty for firing at fighters, drones, mines, and seekers.  It's the old anti-fighter trait, basically, but less expensive.  Perfect for all your point-defense / CIWS needs.

Mostly, I think these changes are for the better.  Carronade will be missed, but Fire Control can help ameliorate its loss.  In any case, my spreadsheet has been updated to reflect these rules changes.

Cricket has also relented and created a shipbuilding subforum, so I have yet to determine whether to just post my BFG conversions there and link from here, or to double-post.  Remains to be seen.

Duelists and Dullness

The audience loves this guy.  The rest of the players...  not so much.

As I mentioned in my last journal post, a mage-duel took place last session.  Matt's sorc went up against a wizard of similar level, and he had a great time (though he went through a worrying number of action points...).  Meanwhile, the rest of us were sitting around, dispersed among the watching throneguards, waiting for things to go south.  They never did, though; Matt achieved a clean win, and the rest of us were sorely disappointed.  It was a terribly boring event for four out of the six people at the table at the time, which is hardly an optimal outcome.

This isn't an uncommon problem for duels in D&D.  I've seen it happen twice before; once was a mage's duel on an airship in Eberron, and another was a duel of swords in a dungeoncrawl (the BBeG, knowing himself outnumbered, challenged the party paladin to a duel, trying to exploit his honorable nature for a tactical advantage).  Both times, the rest of the party sat around bored while the duelist's player had a high old time, and it was unfun.

I have, however, seen two reasonably successful duels pulled off.  In the first, the party had actually been split, with the fighter fighting his duel against the half-fiend giantblooded gnoll berserker leading the siege of a town while the rest of the party dealt with a separate warband of gnolls many miles distant.  This structure worked out very nicely; nobody was bored, and yet there was still the notable, dramatic event of "fought unaided in single combat against a powerful foe."  The second success occurred during my Trailblazer one-shot, with a lizardfolk berserker challenging a champion of the party's choosing to single combat in a ring of battle.  While this was taking place, though, the remaining lizardfolk sounded their drums of panic and engaged the rest of the party, since the rules of the duel were that 1) the duelists couldn't leave the circle until one was dead, and 2) nobody else could attack or aid the duelists.  Allies were perfectly legitimate targets.  This also was a reasonably good fight for all but the bard, who failed his save against the drums and fled.  This, I feel, is basically the canonical solution - PCs never, ever expect the enemy to fight fair, and so during a duel the rest of the party fully expects to be attacked by whatever minions the duelist may have lurking in the wings.  Sometimes, giving the audience exactly what they expect works out beautifully.

There are also two possible solutions which I have yet to try.  The first I will term the Roman Solution, as it originated in the Dragon magazine issue on gladiators.  Gladiatorial combat is just a long series of duels, and so the solution to party boredom that was suggested was a combination of "make sure everyone gets their time in the spotlight by dueling on a regular basis" and "have intrigue in the stands, in the gladiator stables, and elsewhere while fights are happening".  Thus, PCs not actively engaged in the duel might be busy betting on the outcome, or under attack by members of a rival stable in a dark alley, or trying to rig the fight in some way (or prevent their enemies from rigging it), or otherwise occupied by something besides building dice towers and twiddling their thumbs.  Effectively a variant of splitting the party, but one worth noting for its primarily non-combative nature - the other PCs are doing things, but those things probably aren't fighting.

Finally, I have yet to try the Rokugani Solution - duels which are either to first blood, or which are exceptionally lethal.  Such a duel could work not by keeping the rest of the party involved, but by being exceptionally fast in terms of resolution time, such that the rest of the party doesn't have time to get severely bored.  High lethality dueling also places that much extra tension on the duel and makes the decision to duel significantly more meaningful.

Random Books

Riffing off of Query-Based Reconnaissance, Grognardling, and the Dungeon Dozen, I decided to come up with some books for fantasy campaigns, along with topics and number of questions.  I think I'm going to do something like "For each day of study, a reference work allows you to ask one question about its topic, up to a maximum of n plus your Intelligence modifier.  These questions need not be asked immediately, and may be asked during combat without taking any time."

And so, books!

1. Manual of the Black Lotus: An Assassin's Formulary.  A thin black book with no writing on the exterior; provides up to five questions on poisons.  Often written in obscure, secret, or malevolent languages (Zaharan, Infernal, Assassin's Cant, &c).
2. Drums in the Deep: The Memoirs of Durik Thalagrim, Goblin Hunter.  A formidable tome bound in unadorned brown leather and written in a clear style, providing up to seven questions on goblins or subterranean navigation.  Almost always written in Dwarven.
3. Of Gods Most Foul.  A thick book, with an iron cover and a lock.  An exceptionally complete work on the deities of the monstrous races, this tome provides nine questions on the theology, worship, and rituals of such gods.  Compiled and written by a militant inquisitorial arm of one of the major good-aligned churches, typically in a Church Latin-equivalent language and in a writing style similar to the historical Malleus Maleficarum.
4. A Compleat History of the Broken Wands.  A scholarly treatise on the history, membership, tactics, and campaigns of a famous company of mercenary wizards, as well as the opponents that they fought.  The book provides up to five questions on these topics, and may additionally provide a few tips or suggestions for spell research to combative mages.  Often written in Elvish, and considered a canonical volume by Elven war-wizards.
5. The Saga of Ingbold Norviksson, as Compiled and Translated by Imris the Scholar.  Typically found as an illuminated manuscript, though the first editions are rumored to be on scrolls of sealhide, the Saga provides up to seven questions on the gods, heroes, myth, and culture of the Frozen Northlands or other viking-equivalent culture (should such exist in your campaign world).  Typically written in common, but in the style of the historical Prose Edda, and often with very confusing metaphors.
6. Shortbreads, and other Hobbit Cuisine.  A cookbook, typically bound in green, and providing five questions on cooking or hobbits.  Typically written in Common, as no respectable hobbit would be caught reading a book with such a terrible title.  It's rumored that the original author was ostracized from his shire as a result of the publication, and became the first (and perhaps last) adventuring hobbit.
7. On the Creation and Descent of the Beast Races.  A weighty tome with a wolf's head on the cover, written by a clearly unbalanced wizard with a good amount of personal experience with beastmen, On the Creation is still a useful reference work for those interested in hunting them.  It provides six questions on the habits, societies, religion, and arcane methods of crossbreeding to the astute reader.  Written in an odd rambling style, typically in an obscure arcane language.
8. The Unabridged Travels of Alain of Murdosh.  A blue-bound volume of fantastical stories of the sea by a retired deckhand-turned-pirate captain.  Some of them are even true!  Most useful to adventurers, however, is the section on managing a crew of rowdy pirates.  As a result, the book provides four questions on nautical superstition and the practice of piracy.  It may be used for a further four questions regarding other fantastical locales mentioned, but the answers to these have only a 50% chance of being correct.
   

Starmada Sunday: Battleships of the Imperium

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.