Federation Commander

Goonius · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:19 pm Post subject: Marines and Suicide Freighters

Hey, all.

I had a thought about suicide freighters. I know that if a suicide freighter is captured, the capturing player cannot change the course or the ship or fire weapons due to various restrictions. What do you think about letting the capturing marines make one hit and run attack per turn during the marine combat phase at the end of the turn? That at least allows marines to slow down the freighter.
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If it does not fit, use a bigger hammer.
Goonius Maximus

Davec_24 · Commander Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 596 Location: England

As it stands at the moment, marines could make a hit and run raid as normal each turn, by transporting aboard. However, your idea seems to be far more realistic - if you beamed normal "hit and run" parties on board they'd have a high chance of dying, even though the target is an un-defended freighter.

We know the freighter can be boarded as the rules actually say you can capture it. Once the marines were on-board the freighter, you would have thought they could conduct sabotage on the systems by pulling wires out and things, even if they had not got enough explosives to make a traditional "hit and run", but this probably would work fine as they would have captured the ship and have no enemies trying to hunt them down so that they haven't got time to pull wires out.

I think it would make an interesting variant (perhaps as a scenario rule) to say that marines on the ship could make a hit and run raid at the end of the turn and if it is a failure they are not killed. However, you would have to limit this (instead of allowing one such attack per marine) or you may find the freighter swamped with marines for an "easy" solution to the suicide freighter! Anyways, sounds like an idea worth experimenting with to me. Smile

mjwest · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:04 pm Post subject:

SFB had a "sabotage" rule. It said that any marine unit that was not otherwise engaged during a turn could disable a single box on the ship card. I see no reason why you could not adopt such as a scenario rule.

So, I wouldn't even require the H&R roll. Just pick the box and disable it.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

Mike · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject:

So, Mike...is that an "official" BoM rule???

mjwest · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:17 pm Post subject:

Uh, no. There is nothing official about it at all.

However, it does seem ripe for plucking at some point, doesn't it. Smile

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Kang · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:12 am Post subject:

Davec_24 · Commander Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 596 Location: England

Automated defences is more Space Hulk... do that! Smile

On a serious note, I doubt they'd have automated defences like remote-controlled phaser rifle turrets or whatever to defend against marines boarding the ship, but it's likely that some of the systems related to the bomb would be booby trapped by the people who set up the freighter, just like IEDs and the likes are often booby trapped nowadays. This should probably affect marines doing a "hit and run" and marines doing "sabotage" both the same, as the booby traps would be on the systems themselves if this were the case and so the act of attacking the system would potentially subject you to the booby trap.

Mike · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:36 am Post subject:

This is starting to sound more and more like a Prime Directive type of thing...

Davec_24 · Commander Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 596 Location: England

Well, you could go the whole hog and simulate the boarding action part with Prime Directive while playing the space battle around it with FC. That could be pretty interesting, though I don't know how you would implement this as I don't actually have Prime Directive!

mjwest · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:21 pm Post subject:

Ah, finally found the rule ...

Davec_24 · Commander Joined: 16 Jul 2008 Posts: 596 Location: England

That should do the trick - they would then have a chance of getting blown up by booby traps and a chance of not being succesful (maybe they found a booby trap and need to work on disarming it before they can attack the system). If you were going to do it this way, I would suggest letting each marine unit on-board do this once per turn. It may be a good idea to say that only marines who are not busy securing the ship can do this, so probably only marines above the number of control boxes the ship originally had, similar to the capture rules where you can send back any marines over this amount if you want to.

Goonius · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject:

The hit and run raid with out transporting was what were using. My buddies were doing a base assault against me and I boarded the SSF. Then I realized I could not do anything with the damn thing. So, my opponents bowed to my logic and let me attempt to wreck the engines on the frieghter.

Thanks for the response.
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If it does not fit, use a bigger hammer.
Goonius Maximus

Kang · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject:

Yep. Nice idea, Mike. That would have a good balance: the chance of destroying the box but the booby traps [or whatever] factored in automatically.

Can't let the Marines have it too easy! Very Happy

Plus it's nice and simple; just like Fed Commander should be.
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