Borders of Madness Book One

Carthaginian · Post by **Carthaginian** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:16 pm

A Commando Eagle would hamper the Romulans severely compared to most of the other races. Sure, it lands on planets and all, but its single transporter would leave it at a major ship-to-ship disadvantage. It's be nice to see the Roms get a proper, competitive commando cruiser, even if it was at a loss of a little flavor.

Perhaps the Sparrowhawk based commando cruiser would be acceptable?

Requete · Post by **Requete** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:39 am

Carthaginian wrote:A Commando Eagle would hamper the Romulans severely compared to most of the other races. Sure, it lands on planets and all, but its single transporter would leave it at a major ship-to-ship disadvantage. It's be nice to see the Roms get a proper, competitive commando cruiser, even if it was at a loss of a little flavor.

Perhaps the Sparrowhawk based commando cruiser would be acceptable?

It can cloak though, right? That seems like a big advantage for that sort of ship.

Plus, it would be totally inappropriate to give the Rommies a break.

Sneaky Scot · Post by **Sneaky Scot** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:41 pm

Is there an argument for something like the Uhlan as the Hydran carrier? That shows the Hydran "gimmick" of a bigger number of fighters compared to the other races.

Howver, happy to accept an argument that you don't want too many fighters cluttering up the board.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:42 pm

For BoM, we need to stick with SFB data, which means 12 fighters. Please quit asking for smaller groups of fighters on standard size carriers. This means that the FireHawk-B isn't going to have 12. It's going to have 16.

Remember that BoM is for SFB players, not FC players, so they can use faster FC rules for bigger SFB battles.

If we every do a "real FC product" we can revisit the "number of fighter" issue at that time.

Carthaginian · Post by **Carthaginian** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:57 pm

Requete wrote:It can cloak though, right? That seems like a big advantage for that sort of ship.

Well, 'yes' and 'no.'
YES - Fluff-wise, it can travel to the target 'undetected.' Practically, the cloak can reduce the damage that can be done to the ship as it attempts to make it to the target (nice for ph-4's) and it can land on planets.
NO - It can't participate in ship-to-ship commando actions, because it has only ONE transporter, in comparison to most other commando cruisers, which have a minimum of 3 and possibly as many as 7.

All in all, don't think the 'advantages' outweigh the 'disadvantages.'
If the Roms are to get a 'penalized' ship to make up for the cloak, maybe a destroyer hull would be a better compromise. At least then, they could capture small ships.

Requete wrote:Plus, it would be totally inappropriate to give the Rommies a break.

Yes, all the inferior species probably feel that way- it's an expression of their fear of the Empire!

pneumonic81 · Post by **pneumonic81** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:08 pm

My group has played fighters. Many of us are used to playing sfb fighters tho so it was ok, but it is time consuming. In order to keep with the pacing of FC but still have fighters we wondered what might be done.

Here is a couple things we came up with:

1. Use less fighters. I CVS might have 4, and CVA might have 8.

2. Use fighter groups. a carrier launches a "group" that takes 48 points to destroy, has 4 ph-2/3, 4 drones (whatever is the racial weapons) and costs 40 bpv. it moves as a single entitiy

Dal Downing · Post by **Dal Downing** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:49 pm

FWIW - 3 things;

1) Please keep the Squadron and Fleet Card on the same page. If I want a ship I just photocopy the one page fold and laminate. Other wise I wind up having to glue 2 pages back to back to laminate one ship card. (not a lot of work nut still annyoing.)

2) Commando Ships IMHO were really inteneted to conduct ground assualts so I would perfer to keep the Commando Eagle. Maybe stick the Sparrowhawk - G in a communique?

3)Like SVC said leave the Fighter groups as standard for SFB ( I am still annoyed by the reduction on the Hydran DN in FC but can live with it.) If you want to reduce fighter squadron sizes in your own compaigns just mark some of them destroyed

Dal Downing · Post by **Dal Downing** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:52 pm

pneumonic81 wrote:2. Use fighter groups. a carrier launches a "group" that takes 48 points to destroy, has 4 ph-2/3, 4 drones (whatever is the racial weapons) and costs 40 bpv. it moves as a single entitiy

This sounds supiciously like the "Flight" Concept that ws bashed around by B5 players during the DK Fighter Playtest stage. My opinion (and yes it is mine not gosple.) is leave the SFU systems intact (AKA single Fighters not Flights) If for your own campaigns you want to use flights feel free too. But if I am using FC to resolve a fleet action mostly based in SFB why am I going to completely change gears to play it in FC?

Also how are you going tp resolve Crippled or Death Dragging or Dog Fighting with a Flight.

Dal Downing · Post by **Dal Downing** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:09 am

mjwest wrote: For the fighters, take the F-18, F-15, or Z-Y, leaving only the type-I drones (and deleting all type-VI and type-III drones). All are speed 16 and can fire one drone per turn.

You can either fire the drones normally, or use the "direct-fire" option from CL37 (which I am not summarizing here). Fighters must be at 8 hexes or less to fire their drones.

If this is a BoM product why hamstring the fighters? I use Dog Fight Rules so I would like to beable to use RLAD or Dog Fight Drones (Yes I use them as intercept to protect my ships), Chaffs and Warp Booster packs with speed 32 drones. If this was just a FC Product yeah dumb the fighters down but it not it is a BoM Product so why not let the fighters stand?

I agree we do not need F14Ds with Megapacks but I would like to atleast have the Mid War Versions available. I can live with 2 to 4 drones on a fighter + there Type VIs.

Also why not let the Hydrans have there slight larger carriers groups they are the premier fight races so they should get a treat to balance out those Maulers.

As far a Roms go I say make them use 2BHVs and 2SNEs

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:55 am

Dal Downing wrote:If this is a BoM product why hamstring the fighters? I use Dog Fight Rules so I would like to beable to use RLAD or Dog Fight Drones (Yes I use them as intercept to protect my ships), Chaffs and Warp Booster packs with speed 32 drones. If this was just a FC Product yeah dumb the fighters down but it not it is a BoM Product so why not let the fighters stand?

Because they must still work within the FC framework. Therefore, drones are still speed 24, there are no dogfight drones, and RALADs are an unnecessary complexity.

EDIT:
Hmm. Well, I am probably gonna have to at least introduce the concept of type-VI drones for the Middle Years Briefing. And RALADs would be a very simple system to add for individual fighter defense. So, maybe a few things could be considered. But I really don't see dogfighting or chaff or higher firing rates making the cut ...

Mazza · Post by **Mazza** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:04 am

I just thought I'd post here to say I'm very keen on this product! Definitely prefer squadron and fleet scale side by side on the same page.

In addition to looking forward to BoM in its own right, since we use FC in our Prime Directive games as the ship combat system, I have been looking forward to BoM to allow a bit more of the SFB-style flexibility and ships (e.g. carriers) into our games while still keeping an FC-pace. Look forward to picking this up when it comes out.

Carthaginian · Post by **Carthaginian** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:13 am

Dal Downing wrote:2) Commando Ships IMHO were really inteneted to conduct ground assualts so I would perfer to keep the Commando Eagle. Maybe stick the Sparrowhawk - G in a communique?

Sounds like a really good solution.
Or it could just be that I'm greedy and want 2 ships for the Roms.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:35 am

Okay... now I've finally seen what BoM is for. It is for SFB players. Perhaps that was stated before somewhere else, but I may have forgotten. So, this will be a product primarily aimed at SFB players?

I repeat my question that has not been answered yet. What rules will be included in this BoM product?

junior · Post by **junior** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:42 am

It's probably safest to assume that the rules required to use the ships being added (and only those rules) will be included. So scout channels, maulers, fighters and carriers, and maybe one or two other rules that I'm overlooking that are required to get those ships to work properly.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:06 am

Junior pretty much has it right. Whatever rules are necessary to support the ships included.

Oh, one more ship needs to be added: A "fully loaded" BATS. By this I mean a BATS with two fighter modules, one power module, and special sensors.