The Battlegroup rule for pursued forces does seem to indicate that sometimes it applies.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 11:47 am: Edit

The pursuing force is allowed no more than 6 ships (307.21) CW's have a command rating (CR) of 6, with the leader rule (303.5), one of these is a CWL with a CR of 7.

A battle group formed as part of pursuit line, pursing both normal and slow units would be allowed, however there are very few CR 4 units that are battle group eligible and fall under the leader role.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 12:58 pm: Edit

My request does not, however, address pursuit forces or reserve forces (though the information given is appreciated), it is meant to only address the use of battlegroups and admirals in _pursued_ forces, as the rules for those are confusing to me and to others in games that I have been in or am in.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 01:38 pm: Edit

(316.213) ...An admiral in the pursued force would
increase the command rating of his ship and might
(307.31) allow an additional ship to be included (up to the maximum force). ...

So yes, if you have an Admiral in the pursued battle force and the ship he is on is part of the pursued battle line, then the admiral would allow and extra ship.

Same with battle groups. If you have 6 ships in the pursued force that are battle group eligible they would only count as 5 command slots.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 02:32 pm: Edit

What does 'up to the maximum force' mean, though?

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Maximum means you've used all the command slots available.


Scenario 1:
Pursued player gathers all 15 of his cripples. He then assigns 2 uncrippled heavy cruisers and a scout to the pursued force. The crippled DN/ADM commands the pursued force.

DN/ADM (Flag) (cripple)
UNCRIPPLED
CA, CA, SC(3cmd slot)
CRIPPLES
Battle group (3xCW+3xDW) (5cmd slot)
CA, CA (2cmd slots)
CA (free ADM ship)

6 additional ships in the pursued force that can be damaged but whose COMPOT does not count.

Scenario 2
Pursued player gathers all 4 (DN+3CW) of his cripples. The crippled DN/ADM commands the pursued force. Since the cripples only take up 3 command slots, he fills the battle line with 9 uncrippled ships to max out his command ability of 10+1(ADM). Note the BG.

DN/ADM (Flag) (cripple)
Battle group 3xCW(crippled)+3xDW (uncrippled) (5cmd slots)
CA, CA, CC, SC, CW
CW (free ADM ship)

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 03:20 pm: Edit

Thanks a ton.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 03:52 pm: Edit

BTW unless you're a Gorn or Lyran AND it's the other sides LAST DN, I would not purse in the 2nd example.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 04:08 pm: Edit

That's awfully specific without knowing what is available to pursue.

I mean, maybe I have BT 2LGE 3RN? Not Lyran or Gorn, but certainly good for pursuit.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 05:13 pm: Edit

Ryan, I don't understand - why wouldn't you pursue?

A decent pursuit force of 60ish firepower (CVA, DN, CC puts you right about there), gives you fairly good odds of hitting the 18 necessary to kill the DN, and failing that you claim two CW. They *might* be able to kill the CC, or simply the smallest escort.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 05:28 pm: Edit

I'm not likely to have enough fighters to soak up all the damage and he's going to have the DN in the formation box so it'll be 3:1 and he's closer to 80-90 COMPOT. He might get enough himself to kill something, certainly be in the 20's for damage scored.

Yes, I'd certainly take a look as to what I have, but if he's got 9 uncrippled ships against my 6 he's likely to score more damage on me than I on him.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 05:57 pm: Edit

See I figure that I'll take more damage, but often only lose a single ship by dirdam, or take cripples, whereas he'll lose either a much better ship or multiple ships.

I lose a CC, you lose a DN or a pair of CW. I'll take that trade anyday, even if I take additional cripples as well. Even better if I only lose a DWE off my CVA for your DN or 2 CW.

If you only had 1 or 2 cripples, it would give me pause. 3 or more, I am nearly always hunting you down!

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 08:48 pm: Edit

Im possibly more confused now than I was before.

Pursuit force: up to 6 ships. Never more, no matter Admirals and battle groups? Or can you actually get more than 6 ships pursuing?

DN (Adm), 4xCW, 4xDW, SC is my total number of ships to choose from for pursuit.

Can I have DN (Adm), [3xCW, 3xDW] ?

Or can I only have DN (Adm), 3xCW, 2xDW ? (Or some other combo of ships.)

For the force being pursued, here is what Ryan used in his example, which I will convert to healthy (capitals) and crippled (lower case).

DN/ADM (Flag) (cripple)
UNCRIPPLED
CA, CA, SC(3cmd slot)
CRIPPLES
Battle group (3xCW+3xDW) (5cmd slot)
CA, CA (2cmd slots)
CA (free ADM ship)

dn (Adm)
2xCA
SC
3xcw
3xdw
3xca

So you could make a line:
dn (Adm)(Flag, form), 2xCA, [3xcw, 3xdw], 3xca, SC

You've got your 3 healthy ships, and the rest is a legally built force based on the command rating of the dn.

I would note that if the SC was put in the Scout formation slot then another ship could be added to the line. Though given it could only be a crippled ship, you may not want to.

Cheers.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 08:57 pm: Edit

No free scout in pursuit.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 09:48 pm: Edit

So the rest of it?

Can the pursuit force be DN (Adm), [3xCW, 3xDW] ?

Or is it a hard cap of 6 ships in total?

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, June 08, 2017 - 09:50 pm: Edit

Hard cap of 6 ships for the pursuing force. (307.21)

By Byron Sinor (Bsinor) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 02:05 pm: Edit

Ryan,

I thought any ships up the maximum battle force would have to be crippled ships unless you run out, at which point they can be uncrippled ships. Your example above seems to imply that battle groups and admirals allow you to add additional uncrippled ships even though you had more cripples available.


Update: My mistake, I'm used to using the CAP letters convention for uncrippled and lower case convention for cripples, so I was confused by your example. After re-reading I see that you're saying yes the extra ships have to be cripples, the question is if you had fewer cripples can the extra ships be uncrippled ships?

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 02:14 pm: Edit

Bryon,

If you have a CR10 command ship and 4 cripples. You can fill out the rest of the battle line with non-cripples.

By Byron Sinor (Bsinor) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 03:41 pm: Edit

Correct, does that mean that ADMs when used in a pursued force will allow more non-crippled ships (if you use all your cripples)? We haven't always played that this was the case, its good to have a contrary opinion, which you appear to be giving, that an ADM can allow more non-cripples so long as you've used all available cripples already and still have space, same goes for Battle groups. We've had pursued forces where this came up and we've played somewhat differently. I don't think we let ADMs add non-cripples but battle groups could, because they use less command rating slots, whereas admirals increase command rating slots, a somewhat different mechanic and because there were some confuse statements in the rules on using them.

Update: I may have that reversed too, because frankly I've found the entire subject confusing.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 04:19 pm: Edit

The only way to add additional non-crippled ships to a pursued battle line is if you don't have enough cripples to fill all the command slots.

You can have 3 non-crippled ships, then fill out the command slots using everything but the free scout.

DN (ADM), CA, CA, (3xcw, 3xdw), 4xcw
DN, CA, CA, (3xcw, 3xdw), 3xcw
DN, CA, CA, (3xCW, 3xdw), 3xCW

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 04:33 pm: Edit

My understanding now, is that if you had, say, 3DN an admiral and 20 crippled DW, that without the ADM and BG you'd have

3DN(flg) 8dw for 63compot and 12 dw not contributing compot.

an ADM would let you have

3DN(flg, ADM) 9dw for 63 compot and 11 dw not contributing compot.

Using a BG would get you

3DN(flg) [6dw] 3dw for 63 compot and 11 dw not contributing compot

and finally using both an ADM and BG would allow 3DN(ADM,flg) [6dw] 4dw for 66 compot and 10 dw not contributing compot.

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 06:30 pm: Edit

YES

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, June 09, 2017 - 08:11 pm: Edit

The first of those forces should be 60 compot. Dunno what happened to my math skills there.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, June 23, 2017 - 11:00 pm: Edit

By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Friday, June 23, 2017 - 10:38 pm: Edit

Do Carriers receive replacement fighters if field repaired?

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Quote:

(501.542) Carriers which are repaired receive replacement fight- ers as part of the repair step. Carriers and FCRs‡ received from Depot Level Repair‡ (424.31) receive replacement fighters at the same time the carrier is received.

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By Mike Curtis (Fear) on Friday, June 23, 2017 - 11:41 pm: Edit

This has been fully discussed by senior staff and no further discussion is necessary now that we have heard from Turtle. (Skype session at StratCon) A ruling will be out after StratCon.