The Mauler Blitzes and is supported by 2 Fast Ships (see Rule 3TB.11). It doesn't defend (of course that's a nasty option too).

That puts a 24 point force that can direct up to 5 damage on a ship in formation. That's enough to destroy a crippled ship with a defense of 5. And 20% of 24 will do 5 damage, so it's guaranteed to happen at BIR 5.

So under the original proposal, a Blitzing Mauler with 2 Fast Ship Consorts, could destroy any crippled ship with a defense value of 5 or less in the Reserve.

WAY too powerful, IMHO.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Craig,

The easiest way to defeat a group with 2FD7s, and a D6M is , drum roll......

To Cripple 1 FD7 for 16. The mauler is then useless in the Blitz.

Now if your going to say, well when I go into battle w/ 3FD7/L-CF+D6M/STT.

Well that's just plain silly if you are banking on a 'blitz' to come up then. That's pulling the old 'uber-group' out of the hat, that will be practically impossible to make, and keep active.

Jimi,

That is true, you can use Mauler's to stop the Blitz as a defender, is that so bad? They have to be in the Reserve Area, so they would be a deterant to stop the enemy from trying it.

By Jimi LaForm (Laform) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Yes, but a Blitzed fleet can pull up to 3 support (odds are up to 2 ships can be pulled up to help the blitzed ship). Those 2 called up ships will be a cripple, a str 10+ ship, plus a mauler for approximately 10+10+5 compot.

By Clell Flint (Clell) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 09:34 am: Edit

If your doing anything like this the blitzing force should come from the reserve. Historically one of the things reserves were used for was to exploit breakthroughs. In general I find the idea interesting but I'm not sure that it can be balanced or is necessary.

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 11:42 am: Edit

Clell, I can see where you are coming from:

Require the one ship in the DB slot, that is 'ready' to Blitz if an opportunity occurs.

But then the other side will never be able to 'hit' the Blitzer before he proceeds into the rear area.

Example:
Kzinti: 3*3CV+BC (form), CC (in DB slot ready to Blitz).

The Defender doesn't have a chance to hit the CC before it actually goes into the Rear Area and hit something.

I think that any ship would have to be vulnerable to be ready to be used. A risk for a payoff.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 12:03 pm: Edit

Too complicated
Too much more time added to combats
Not enough effect (if getting ships killed/crippled faster would end the battle earlier the time waste/gain could net out to be zero, but in this case it certainly doesn't)

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 01:52 pm: Edit

good point about the additional time. But I think that it is a reasonable idea.....assuming that ONLY fast ships can preform the Blitz.

Allowing things like maulers and Command Cruisers is too much.

Also, I think the max number of defending ships should be three.

Three blitzers, up to 2 extra defenders. If a carrier is attacked, then the escorts count as the extra defenders, no matter how many there are. If there are less than 2, then another ship can come up to help.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 12:53 pm: Edit

Cfant, what if the blitzed ship is a CVA?

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 01:21 pm: Edit

What do you mean?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 01:25 pm: Edit

He means, if you target the CVA, and it has 3 escorts (lets say the entire group is crippled).

If you 'limit' then defender to 3 ships only (target+2 others). What happens to the 3rd escort of the group that can't be broken during combat.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 02:48 pm: Edit

You get to keep the escorts.

Sorry, thought that was clear from this

"If a carrier is attacked, then the escorts count as the extra defenders, no matter how many there are."

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Why not just make it one fast ships that gets to go one on one with the crippled ship. We can then either rules that the fast ship will always be crippled afterwards, or give it a die roll to see if it gets crippled regardless of the single combat result. Thereby, should an unlucky soul roll badly twice in a row, they could loose the fast ship, making it an appropriate risk for the reward(potential).

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Oh, and carrier groups and the like would operate normally, except that the outermost escort could be taken on in single combat, or the whole group.

Something like this would actually give meaning to directing to cripple, as you'll know ahead of time if you can blitz or not.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 09:35 am: Edit

"Oh, and carrier groups and the like would operate normally, except that the outermost escort could be taken on in single combat, or the whole group."


Oh I would love that - as the coalition. Bad idea, the carrier groups are too close together to allow something like that, too unrealistic.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 09:44 am: Edit

If you want tactical raids to get at the enemy how about something with some teeth.

Each round of combat each side may designate up to 6 ships to raid the enemy rear areas.

After each sides forces and raiders are revealed each side rolls 1 dice for their raiders, if the number rolled is equal to or greater then the number of raiders then the raiders have managed to get into the enemies rear areas.

For each raiding ship roll 1 die (add 1 if its a fast or X ship) on a 5 to 7 that raiding ship may choose any single ship not included in the battleforce to dual in single ship combat, on a 1 to 4 the defender may choose any single ship to dual the raiding ship with. In a capital defense only ships in a mobile force may be the target of raids. Bases, PDU's, FRD's, LTF's, convoys and repair ships may not be the target of raids.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 10:49 am: Edit

Edward

That makes the LGE absolutly invincible. Team it up with a prime team and it gets a 3-shift against anything 10 compot or less. Bang go those C8s, bang go those maulers - bang goes pretty much anything.

No way.

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 11:19 am: Edit

Then allow any raiding ship to be directed at (at 2:1, no maulers or statis) by opposing battleforces. That will keep it down.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 03:24 pm: Edit

The problem is that any raid into the rear should have to encounter a full fleet or something close to it, why would the enemy split up after all? Are you really going to have crippled DN with no escorts sitting around, Maulers with no consorts, vital reserves in range of the battleforce while reserve battlegroup ships are out of range of those units?

It seems more reasonable to me to allow the Blitzer to force any given unit to be included in the next round's battleforce at some cost to the Blitzer. Sort of an approach battle to a ship instead of just to a base.

Doing it in the next battle round has the advantage that it makes for negligable additional time required.

I suggest that the Blitzing force be able to use only uncrippled units from the previous round's battle + fast units in the next round (nothing else can catch up), and that the defender be forced to include a single unit or group of the blitzing player's choice. The side being blitzed may chose to not use the Offensive ComPot of the units being forced to engage and to not count them for command limits. Neither side may use drone bombardment or independent fighter/PF squadrons in the blitz combat.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 03:40 pm: Edit

I should have amended my idea to state that the only valid targets for the blitz would be enemy ships on the line, and the fast ship would have to be on the line for the friendly side.

Personally, I don't know if I'd trade a fast ship getting crippled to take out an EFF. Against anything larger, and it's an even fight, with a chance to kill the fast ship (either by standard single combat, or the chance of the fast ship getting crippled from the blitz as I proposed).

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 04:20 pm: Edit

I should of stated, when I proposed this, my whole intention for this rule was to give some way for the enemy to target one ship (at a time) of their choice, if they wish to possibly sacrifice something (in this case the Blitzer).

I've seen F+E because a 'specialty ship heaven', where the specialty ships rule many things. Yet there are some things that once you've built them, they will be around forever.

FCR's (the most recent), unescorted CVT's before that, (those are the most obvious).

Anyhow, I find it kinda unrealistic, that in F+E, you can build a Klingon E4R in Y169, and it will survive to Y185 and each and every player turn pump out 6 replacement fighters for carriers.

We are talking about a 3D, space warfare game here, and the Admirals would find a way if necessary to take out key (expensive) support elements like those, "Hey an unguarded CVA Tug, send out the cruisers!".

So anyhow, that was my reasoning. For what it is worth....

By Edward Reece (Edfactor) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 04:48 pm: Edit

A simpler rule would be to allow directed damage at 3:1 or even 4:1 against ships in the reserves.
It might be worth 24 points to pop an FCR, it would certainly explain why the Klingons started building F5R's.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 05:53 pm: Edit

I like Edward Reece's suggestion as a starting point (although there is at least one serious problem IMAO). But I think it should be under a different topic since it is not really a tactical blitzkrieg suggestion, I have added a topic "Directed attacks on reserves" for discussion of this idea.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 11:35 pm: Edit

I disagree with Edward Reece's suggestion, as the results will become to predictable. While it seems reasonable to allow 4:1 dirdam to anything in the reserve, the problem is that some ships will still be hard to kill (and thus rare), but others targets will die **every single time**.

Score a blitz, and any crippled CA would die at 16 points of damage. Sure, that improved F5R would take 32 damage, hard to kill, but those crippled CA's are dead every •••• time.

That creates a distortion of results, even if you at this point think you'd never waste a blitz on taking out something as mundane as a cruiser. Somebody else will, and then those cruisers die in droves. Mind you, I haven't really thought about this, so it might be worse than I describe. What other ships would suddenly die in droves? Who would be hurt by this the most? I see that as having too many possible unforseen ramifications.


As an alternative... I like the idea that the blitz might force the defender to use ships from his reserve that he would not normally use. What if you got to randomly choose ships from the reserve, thus making it less likely that a cripple would be forced to the line - but that crippled CVA might still come up! That FCR might be forced into the next battle, but not automatically.

So, how do we do that? What should be the odds of success? What should be the procedure?

Have the defender choose 3 ships, the blitzer choose 3 ships, and roll a die? I think that's too good of odds, perhaps. blitzer only chooses 1 ship, defender chooses 5? Blitzing might not mean a hill of beans that way. Maybe some kind of provision to prevent the 5 defender chosen ships from being the best and brightest?

Thoughts?

By John Kasper (Jvontr) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 08:58 am: Edit

How about with a higher cost for the Blitzer - something like dirdam at 2:1 or 3:1, but the Blitzer's ship dies (is crippled?) as well?

After all, we are talking about a "•••• the torpedoes, full speed ahead" type of attack, right?

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 09:33 am: Edit

That's possible, though I'd trade crippling my cruiser for killing your crippled cruiser any day. I'd still like seeing some kind of randomizer of the target. The blitz would get *something*, but not necessarily the target you wanted.