community rules changes - ideas/direction

[Amiral X]

Hi guys !

For information, we've just started today in the french DW community an initiative to establish a "2.51 FR" version of the rule (FR is not for translated in french but for "in application in France" but translation may come later... ).
The purpose is to have a standardized version for our community until something may appear in the furtur if another company buy DW intellectual property.

We will make a few ammendments on the existing V2.5 rules and correct orbats in order to make them usable and better balanced. Theses rules will be used in tournaments and events in France.

If you are interested by this, I will report here about this process.

[Fracas]

Yes I am interested in the 2.51 mods

[Amiral X]

No problem ! I keep you informed, and the 2.51FR will be made available on our site.

(And if you read a bit french, you can come at our place to contribute to discussion ! its here : http://spartan-forum.forumactif.fr/ )

[Asuo]

That's a good idea, it would be nice to get everyone working together to come up with a standard set of rules, there's a lot of errors in the current orbats that i'd like to see cleaned up to bring us all to the same slate.

[Amiral X]

we discussed a lot abot the better process to come to a stable version that can support your DW games for several years.
There are things that go wrong in the rule, and also there are a lot of errors and issues in the orbats. But all of this is linked because changing rules modify balance of the game and therefore implies to modify the orbats... So we decided to work on rules first and then, when we will have stabilized a version of the rule, we will work on orbats (not only typo and obvious errors, but also ill-models issues that should have been adressed for long by spartan (Indendance, washington, and so on). 

[Asuo]

What do you see is wrong with the rules? Is there a list we can FAQ?

[Amiral X]

Unfortunatly, the closure of SG forum was such a bad surprise that I don't know any extract from the V2.5 rules question and answers section...

About required correction, we are working on them, but one of the most about carrier relaunch action. the re-created SAS come in play without an activation marker, this means that a single carrier with carrier (9,2x4 wing) give you 5 activations, with 2 bombing/torp attack that are mearly impossible to prevent : you activate the 2 wings and send them to death, then activate the carrier to re-create 2 SAS, and then activate the 2 new SAS with potential full strenght bombing/topr run on enemy model that are less than 16'' from the carrier. That is clearly completly broken !

[Ruckdog]

While this exploit is possible, It also strikes me as a very rare occurrence. First, you have to assume that both of the initial waves are completely destroyed, which isn't always a given for most factions (Russians have an easier time with that ). Second, it assumes that the carrier survives long enough with sufficient CP to get within that 16" threat radius to pull off the "double strike" attack with 2x4 SAS once again.

Is it possible? Yes, but to be honest I'm not sure it's a likely enough scenario to be considered game-breaking.

[Amiral X]

It will not accure this way in turn 1, but begginning with turn 2, there are usually enough SAW in scrapyard to rebuilt SAS.

secondly, carrier are rather fragile, but Sky fortress in stratospheric HB are nearly indestructible. With new rules, my Savannah makes it to enemy fleet with enough carrier action point to relaunch 2 SAS bomber or torpedoes... And additionnaly, since the V2.5 release, I never loose a skyfortress...

[Asuo]

From experience it's a very powerful potential but so difficult to achieve, your dependant on the waves of bombers being destroyed completely on the way in.

[erloas]

The issue with getting 5 activations out of a single carrier is that it really isn't going to happen very often at all, and if it does, what you are getting is activations, not damage.  If a SAS is wiped out completely during its attack run it means it didn't shoot a single torp/bomb and has done no damage.  We *know* that having a SAS wiped out completely is not that common because if they were regularly wiped out during attack runs it would make them rather useless.  The fact that SAS are generally pretty dangerous means that in most cases a decent number survive any given attack run.  Short of having CAP on an already high AA model, or a very lucky set of AA rolls, statistics say you're not going to be wiping out a unit of SAS that started out at full strength.

A normal SAS unit (with DR2) at 4 SAW would require 8 hits to wipe out, and since AA is blue that means you have to have 12AD to have a 50% chance of wiping out the unit.  How many models/units do you know that have 12AA?  Even a unit of 1x3 SAW needs 9AA to have a 50% chance of wiping out, 9 AA is possible but not common.  And a 1x5 needs 15AA to take out.  That's just not going to happen.

There might be other reasons to change activation markers and relaunch actions, but that particular problem is a "paper problem" more than something you're actually going to see on the table.

[Asuo]

My initial concern is the ships that have incorrect text or missing segment e.g. The Tunguska which has hunter-, thus meaning it gets +1 to hit everything.

[Amiral X]

A game is several turn, not only one...
For exemple, on turn 1, you send ahead your fighters to dogfight enemy fighters and fast air models. This begin to send some SAW in your scrapyard, as well as inflicting some damage to enemy. Your skyfortress will climb to stratos and move forward.
On turn 2 you continue to sacrifice your fighters to clear enemy fighters and attack flying models. Mid turn 2 you easily should have more than 8 SAW in your scrapyard. late turn 2 you activate your skyfortres to recreate 2 SAS (fighter or bomber/torpedoes if any models is within 16 or 20'' from the skyfortress) this 2 new SAS will be able to activate immediatly and will be able attack the target for which they have been put in air.
And so one... on turn 3 all your initial fighters should have been killed already one time, meaning more than 15 to 20 SAW has been back to scrapyard, offering enough spare to rebuild the turn 3 wave of SAS... At this point the skyfortress is in the middle of the enemy fleet, and can directly rearm and replenish SAS (which therefore don't loose a round to come back to the carrier du be rearmed) instead of relaunching from the scrapyard is there is not enough SAW there...
And carrier points try to compute the nomber or AD you have to send at a Savannah in stratospheric in order to prevent her from relaunching the 2 SAS ? 4 times 18+AD attack to remove 4HP (without using RB1 fire from surface)... It's just enormous !

You should try if you are not convinced that it is awfully powerfull...

[Ruckdog]

I

A game is several turn, not only one...
For exemple, on turn 1, you send ahead your fighters to dogfight enemy fighters and fast air models. This begin to send some SAW in your scrapyard, as well as inflicting some damage to enemy. Your skyfortress will climb to stratos and move forward.
On turn 2 you continue to sacrifice your fighters to clear enemy fighters and attack flying models. Mid turn 2 you easily should have more than 8 SAW in your scrapyard. late turn 2 you activate your skyfortres to recreate 2 SAS (fighter or bomber/torpedoes if any models is within 16 or 20'' from the skyfortress) this 2 new SAS will be able to activate immediatly and will be able attack the target for which they have been put in air.
And so one... on turn 3 all your initial fighters should have been killed already one time, meaning more than 15 to 20 SAW has been back to scrapyard, offering enough spare to rebuild the turn 3 wave of SAS... At this point the skyfortress is in the middle of the enemy fleet, and can directly rearm and replenish SAS (which therefore don't loose a round to come back to the carrier du be rearmed) instead of relaunching from the scrapyard is there is not enough SAW there...
And carrier points try to compute the nomber or AD you have to send at a Savannah in stratospheric in order to prevent her from relaunching the 2 SAS ? 4 times 18+AD attack to remove 4HP (without using RB1 fire from surface)... It's just enormous !

You should try if you are not convinced that it is awfully powerfull...

One thing...have you been playing that the two SAS placed with the carrier at the start of the game are the only SAS that can be rebuilt? That's how I understand the rules. So, with a 2x4 carrier for example, if the carrier's two SAS that it placed at deployment still have any SAW left alive, then the carrier can't use the rebuild action. Another option that could be investigated is to limit the height band from which carrier actions can be taken from. I'm hesitant about putting activated tokens on freshly rebuilt SAS, because I'm worried that it will negatively impact their utility too much.

It would require some play testing either way!

[erloas]

The question was brought up on the forums and clarified by Spartan Mike, though I realize at this point I can't actually back that up since the forums are down and anyone can make that claim. (Anyone tried the page caches on some search engines to see if much could be recovered?)

I'll paraphrase a bit since I can't remember the exact wording.
A SAS can only be rebuilt if a SAS is completely destroyed.  [key there is SAS, not SAW] And that you have to have enough SAW in your graveyard to build the new SAS unit.

So if you have 6 SAS units, lets say 3x5 fighers (Local air support), as well as 1x3 and 2x4 from carriers.  You could loose 1 SAW from each unit, and therefor have 6 in the graveyard, but you can't rebuild yet because no SAS unit has been destroyed.  If the 1x3 unit is wiped out completely it could be brought back as a 1x4 with the larger carrier (as long as at least 4 SAW are in the graveyard).  And the same way if a 1x5 (local air support in this example) is destroyed it could only be brought back as either a 1x3 or 1x4 because that is all the carriers can output.

Also in the rules clarification, the rules state CAP has to come from local air support and therefor has to be fighters.  He said that carriers can't re-task CAP, they have to stay fighters.

edit: so I was mistaken, it was Spartan Josh.  And yes, a decent amount of the forums are cached, no idea how long it will last but if there is something you have to find, I would find it sooner rather than later.