Bell of Lost Souls - Latest Comments in DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

JPMcMillen — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:21:04 -0000

That company doesn't sell scenery. They sell the molds so that you can make your own scenery.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

DaGenruL — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:22:29 -0000

Burna Boyz just got a lot deadlier.
"Ere Boss dey're fortified in da bridge"......
WHOOOOOSH
"Not any more".

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

DaGenruL — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:19:43 -0000

Burna Boyz just got a lot deadlier.
"'Ere Boss der 'oled up in dat room"..... WHOOOOSH
"Not any more Boss".

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

TSINI — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:29:09 -0000

"NO bikes, jet bikes,calvary, Vehicles (besides Walkers), beasts may be taken. Carnifexes, Wraith lords, War walkers, Hive tyrants, IG heavy wepon teams, or inquisiton orbital wepons may not be taken"

What? a dreadnought walker may be taken but 2 guys can't carry a gun smaller than themselves along the same corridoor?

are you mad?

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Xianator — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:02:58 -0000

I've given this some thought and am working on a ruleset now.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Xianator — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:01:21 -0000

I think the deployment aspect and end-game are particularly important.
I don't think the standard game turn limit of 5-7 turns really is enough to portray an involved boarding action.

Plus, after the boarding party does their thing, they're going to need to vacate the premisis. So, that might need to be taken into account as well...

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

rahveel — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:30:30 -0000

tossing in a few pennies of my own, necromunda rules could be easily tied in for things like shooting modifiers in close quarters fighting.

I think we pretty well established in a prior thread that the best way to run this would be for all chapters to use the SM codex, so there is not to much of an issue (in the scope of the badab campaign) as to the use of things like crisis suits, DP's, tryants and the like.

some of the best fluff on boarding actions I have read (outside the BFG material) was in the souldrinkers first novel, and the CSM codex (namely the section on the AC's vrs the SW's).
from these sources, it seems like much of a successful assault on an ship or station depends on the ability to cut your opponents lines of reserves, and control certain choke points. the rest seems to rely on stopping your opponent from forming a unified assault on your positions.

basically, I feel that reserves should feature heavily in boarding actions. expand rules as to were they arrive, and create a modifiers table that affects their roll to show up.

: Example Scenario : (using either of the objective based missions)
deployment :
- the defender begins a 1000pt game with 250 pts of troops on the table. (Scaled for larger/smaller games) additional crew is also deployed at this time. the attacker holds all models in reserve, 250 points of these reserves form the 'breaching party'
- the defender may deploy anywhere on the table (including on objectives). This represents the troops already in defensive positions across key points.
- after the defender deploys, the attacker chooses a board edge, and places D3+1 breaching counters at any point along it. These counters represent the points of the bulkhead the attackers have successfully breached. First turn goes to the attacker.
-Deepstrike. Troops may only deepstrike via teleport, and only if a teleport attack was initiated against the ship the boarding action is taking place on.

BREACH!!

On the first turn, the attackers may choose what breaching counter they arrive on. Roll a D6 for each unit not part of the breaching party. On the roll of a 6, this unit may join the breaching party. On the turn they arrive, the breaching party may move and shoot as normal, although they count as having moved regardless for the sake of firing weapons.

2nd turn onwards.

Both sides roll for reserves as normal (modified by the reserves table). The defending player may deploy his reserves as if they have the outflank special rule. When reserves arrive for the attacker, they arrive at a randomly determined breach counter (representing the difficulties in forming an assault in such a chaotic assault).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Reserves Table
Apply these modifiers to any roll for reserves.

+1 - Defender. The defender is intimately familiar with the layout of there own ship. They always gain this bonus to reserve rolls
+1/-1 – holding an objective. If you currently control an objective, you may choose to add 1 to your own reserve rolls, or subtract 1 from your opponents. You may only modify this by one, even if you control multiple objectives, and must choose to either the bonus or penalty, not both.
+2 – Boarding action. If a boarding action (thunderhawks/boarding torpedoes, ect..) is initiated against the ship, the attacker gains +2 to their reserve rolls that turn. This does not include teleport attacks. Teleport attacks automatically deploy a teleporting unit onto the table, no reserve roll is needed.
-3 – She’s Breaking up! Troops begin to hesitate boarding a ship that is about to go critical, and defenders scramble for life-pods. If the ship is taken down to half its hits, this penalty is applied against both sides.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

rahveel — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:34:35 -0000

if you could get a game of 40k to play like XCOM, you would have just developed a perfect play-aid. wow... havent thought about that game in years.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Mellon — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:46:49 -0000

Loads of really clever ideas here. I'll add some of my own, inspired by lots of spacehulk back in the days and taking special care to connect the boarding action to the BFGbattle.

New terrain type: Corridor.
A corridor is typically about 1” wide, and noticeably longer.
Movement: Models with slightly bigger bases than the corridor with may move freely, but they block line of sight and movement for their friends. Jump infantry must move as infantry due to the low ceiling. Cavalry might be allowed to dismount and walk. Monstrous creatures, vehicles, bikes etc etc may not enter Corridors.
Shooting: All blasts that have the center of their marker in a corridor extends 1” extra along the corridor. All templates that are placed entirely in corridor area extends an extra 2” along the corridor.
If a unit does not run, it may take a 6+ cover save against shooting from hugging the walls. They do not count as defending cover when assaulted.
Wounds are allocated beginning with the frontmost character and away from the attackers. Once every member of the squad has got one wound to save against, start over allocating from the closest one.
A unit blocks line of sight from any other friendly units, but not for its own members.
Assault: The frontmost 3 fighters of both forces in a corridor may fight in assault. Wounds are allocated as for shooting above. Due to the press of bodies and the expectancy of people to die, any combat that ends with only one wound difference is considered a draw.

Force organisation chart and points values:
My most novel idea here is to use assymetric sizes for the attacker and the defender, based on the Boarding Modifiers from the BFG advanced rulebook page 34. Each Boarding Modifier is worth, say 200p, adjust for preffered scale of battle. You might want to ignore the bonus for being a specific race. I'm not sure how that modifier affects balance with the rest of BFG.

Assault boats, Boarding torpedoes and similar have to be assigned a set points value if you want to fight out their hit and run attacks. I'd guess about 200-250p per hit and run effected. The defensive force is based on the remaining damage points of the defender (say 100p each), with a Ld test to be allowed to deploy half of his force on the board from the beginning. Everyone else is in reserve. Teleport attacks are very quick, so against them all the defenders units start in reserve. Hit and run attacks are likely to have plant-the-bomb-type missions.

It was a long time since I played BFG, so some of the suggested point values above might have to be modified. Also, these are all pretty pointless if you intend to just play a 40k scenario in the setting.

Only force organisation restriction is 0-1 HQ, with 1 extra HQ allowed for each full 1000p. Some restrictions on tanks, cavalry, etc etc might be appropriate, unless the defender happens to transport a few Leman Russ-companies :-) It also depends on what board setup you want to use. With only corridors and a few 3”x3” rooms, space hulk-style, anything larger than infantry will be useless.

Blips:
One of the really strong points of space hulk is the scanner-blips that move around. There have been a lot of good points about them made above, I'll add my favs: 1 blip may “transport” up to 6 models and moves at the pace of the slowest model in the transported unit. Terminator armour counts as two models, dreadnoughts and monstrous creatures as 10 etc, as per the transport rules in apocalypse. If a squad needs several blips to fit it, the blips must maintain a 6” unit coherency. You don't have to tell your opponent what a blip contain, nor what blips make up squads. They must however be numbered underneath so you can reveal them with an “Aha!”, pointing to your armylist. In the start of your movement phase you may choose to reveal any units you control. Then place the models as close as possible on and around the blip(s), as per the deep-strike rules, without placing any in difficult terrain. If you cannot _possibly_ fit all of a squad wihtin 6” of any blips it was transported in, extra models are lost. You cannot convert a unit back into a blip once it is revealed.

If a blip comes wihtin Line of Sight of an enemy (remember to test for nightfighting if relevant) that unit is instantly revealed and the enemy place the models as above. If any models have to be lost, the units owner choose them. This will interrupt normal turn sequence.

“I can feel a disturbance in the warp...” All psykers gain the “Warpsense” psycic power. If you pass the psycic test you can ask your opponent to point out all blips that contains at least one model that counts as a psyker.

Some blip-related equipment. Some of these might be available as Assets or similar.
Scanner: Instead of shooting or running in the shoting phase you may select one blip on the board and attempt to reveal it. Roll 2d6x3, if the blip is in range its squad is revealed and you may place the models. Cost 10p, only available to characters that are HQ-choices.

Jammer: Gives a 4+ save against having your blip scanned. 10p per unit.

Cloaking devices: This Blip may “transport” up to 10 models.15p per uppgraded blip, added to the units cost. This upgrade does not need to be announced to your opponent. Just note down the number of cloaked blips bought at the end of the armylist. Makes for good sneak attacks, but watch out for lack of room when revealing your blip.

The biggest benefit of blips are the sneaky movement and the time saved by not having to shuffle large squads across the board.

Overwatch. In the cramped confines of a spaceship it is much easier to cover potential attackpaths with automatic fire. A squad where the majority of the members could fire at least 2 shots this shooting phase may instead opt to go into overwatch. This is done at the beginning of the shooting phase and they will then do nothing more this turn, but will count as defending a 5+ cover until their next turn begins, due to the amount of covering fire they can lay down. This extends to making assaulters roll for difficult terrain and striking at I1. Offensive grenades can offset the initiative modifier as normal.

Optional advanced overwatch rules: If the overwatching squad is already defending a cover, they will get a +1 bonus to their coversave, and a squad assaulting them will not be able to benefit from offensive grenades, and will then (usually) strike at I1. Also template weapon can be used for overwatch. That squad will then count as being armed with defensive grenades.

Hazards of Space. Pretty optional rules really, but can help with the random and unforgiving nature of combat on board of huge battleships.
After the attacker have deployed, roll a D6 to see exactly what hazard is active. Add +1 for each of the following: Ship has taken damage, Ship in contact with at least one blastmarker. Ship within 15cm of warprift.

If the ship is crippled, roll twice and apply both results.

For each hazard, roll on the following table
D6
1-3 Steady she goes. No ill effects.
4 Stabilizers offline: Zero-G, see WH40k rulebook, p 271
5 Power Lapse: Nightfighting.
6 Hullbreach: Vacuum, se WH40k rulebook, p 271
7 Warpleak: All psycic test cause Perils of the Warp on any double rolled. All models teleporting must take a dangerous terrain test. Daemons may reroll failed reserves tests to enter.
8 She's breaking up: At the beginning of each players turn, roll a D6. On a 1, every unit on the board is hit by a “preliminary bombardment”, see 4th ed WH40k rulebook, p194
9 Warpbreach, as per warpleak. Plus place a vortex grenade marker in the middle of the board and scatter it 4D6”. See Apocalypse p187 for behaviour, but it will not dissapear on a double.

Well, I think that's all. I'm really looking forward to see what BoLS piece together from all these great suggestions.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Draxx66 — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:39:12 -0000

GW had some rules for indoor fighting back in the RT era when they released a set of floor plans for 40k and judge dredd rpg, could be useful. Also got myself GURPs Traveller 'Emperess Minarva' far trader ship floor plans, which are in 28mm scale. They also do several other small ship floor plans.
could be useful.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Ian Taylor — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:07:28 -0000

I think that aside for the fact that it would be AWESOME for them, Daemons should be able to move through walls on a T-test, because of the vacinity to the Maelstrom, they would have greater powers any ways. Or it could be more risky- like a Warp Spider's second jump, they can try to fade in and out of the Warp, but if you fail...

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Heavygear — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:31:53 -0000

I picture ship to ship combat in a Space Hulk like environment. The Forgeworld rules for the Anphelion base seem ideal for close quarters fighting of shipboard actions with a few changes.

25mm and 40mm infantry bases only.

Deployment

Role off to determine who is attacker and who is defender. High role chooses.

The defender, representing the ships crew, may deploy units anywhere on the table.

The attacker picks up to 4 entry points 12" wide along any of the table edges. This represents the attackers , docking, boring, blasting, warp jumping, etc through the ships outer hull. The attacker deploys his or her forces at these four points.

Movement

Confined spaces effect movement and shooting is at close range.

No jump infantry, fleet, or beasts

All models move 6" and assault 6"

Shooting

All weapons hit on 2+

No barrage weapons

Cover

4+ cover save for models being fired at through another unit.

Cover Saves - I would have true line of sight and increase cover saves a bit to offset the devastating 2+ to hit rules.

True Line of Sight

Models in the open - no save

50% of model behind cover use the following rules.

Models in a room with furniture, crates, alcoves, machinery, etc - 4+ saves

Models at corners or junctions providing cover - 4+ saves

Blast weapons much more deadly in close quarters. No cover saves vs. Blast weapons.

Assaults

Works as standard rules except

Units being assualted have the option to "Stand and Shoot" but give up the first turn of hand to hand combat. High initiative goes first. Close quarters nature allows defenders shooting attack at double the shooter's initiative up to a maximum of value of 10.

Assaulting models in cover - as per standard rule book.

Grenades as per standard - rulebook.

Sentry guns - May be deployed in rooms or corridors. May "stand and shoot" with initiative of 10.

Doors - The doors will likely be sealed once the enemy threat is discovered. Move a model to within 1" of the door. Role D6. On a 6 the door is unsealed. On 1-4 door is sealed and must be destroyed or the lock must be circumvented. To open inflict a single glancing or penetrating hit vs. AV12.

Infiltrators - Not every enemy will come in with both guns blazing. Models with the infiltrate special ability may infiltrate per the standard rules even though this is infiltrating into a transport.

Deepstrike - Units will deep strike as per normal rules.

Special Rules and Equipment

Teleport / Deep strike homing beacons. 25 pts each. Deep striking into the confined space of an enemy vessal is risky. It is a desperate or callus commander that waists elite troops with this tactic.

To offset the dangers units which deploy normally or infiltrate may set homing beacons during the shooting phase for deep striking units. The beacon must be identified by an appropriate gaming token, marker or model of some type.

Deep striking units will home in on the beacon and deploy per the rulebook but may deploy in a circle around the beacon begining on the turn after the beacon is set with no scatter role needed.

Critical functions / Hull Breach - Shooting in the confines of a ship is not like shooting on the battlefield. The goal is to keep the ship intact until your mission has been accomplished. High powered weapons and explosives may damage critical equipment, power couplings, conduits, etc. or cause a hull breach resulting in combatants being sucked into the icy vacuum of space.

Any model or unit firing weapons at strength 4 or greater who role three or more 1's in a shooting phase role on the critical dammage chart.

1-2 - No damage

3-4 - damage to a critical system - "We have coolant leak down here! Very Dangerous!
A stray shot has damaged a coolant / poisonous gas/ pipe or high voltage conduit. Combatants must immediately fall back 12 " or take D6 strength 6 hits.

5-6 - Hull Breach! A stray shot has breached the ships hull or hit a power coupling causing a massive explosion. The shooters opponent may place a large blast template anywhere on the shooters unit he chooses. All models under the template take a strength 9 hit.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

MadLarkin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:59:54 -0000

how about the defenders have 25%-50% more points than the attacker (e.g. 1000 pts of attacker vs 1500 of defender or similiar) but the only a a quarter of the defender's forces can start on the board with the rest in reserves to represent the defenders stretching their forces out so they respond to the boarding actions wherever they are, also makes the attackers have to play quick and raid like since if they stick around too long they'll be overwhelmed.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Gamers World — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:44:02 -0000

I agree with you.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Anon — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:08:24 -0000

I smell a Goatboy commission =O)

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Anon — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:08:01 -0000

There's an idea - to simulate popping a floor/wall into an adjacent, pressurized compartment, on a To Hit roll of a 1, attack an AV 12 equivalent - a penetrating hit causes the targeted unit to scatter d6" and counts as having moved in the following turn, as a rush of air slaps them around a bit.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Bloodthirster — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:04:14 -0000

Not Call of Duty and i mean suggested strategems

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Bloodthirster — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:02:07 -0000

I have comments are up page :) i was a big fan CoD 2

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Moj — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:40:19 -0000

Couldn't large creature count narrow passageways as difficult terrain to represent them needing to stoop etc. unless they are clearly too narrow then impassable, it would just take an agreement of what terrain is what like you should do in a normal game.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

cavalier1864 — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:26:36 -0000

Very well put Conrad. I think that you are right in the way this should work, however since there is a restriction on weapons heavier than S7, an AV of 14 would never be popped. AV12 seems reasonable as an Autocannon would breach the hull on a 5+.

One of the reasons that I set up the whole hull breach is because I figured that the breaching torpedoes would likely have already damaged the hull significantly and thus the greater chance to cause damage internally. You have to figure in a space battle many compartments would be exposed to vacuum, and so a shot into the ceiling would not necessarily be hitting the outer hull, but possibly be blasting a hole into a compartment that had already been exposed to space during the ship battle.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Nick — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:06:33 -0000

Just a quick one and prehaps a bit rubish. Necrons should be able to phase through walls prehaps. Secondly the Star Phantoms seem to be good at bording actions so prehaps they have use of extremly acurate teloporters or some kind of phasing technology allowing them to walk through walls (prehaps an upgrade to a squad. Just some ideas

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

TSINI — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:02:18 -0000

man that scenery is really cool, and perfectly suited to onboard fights, although it may need to be combined with a couple of other sets to increase its size, (squads of troops are much bigger than the individual models shown in the pics. and modified with plenty of gothic bitz, but i realy like this stuff, its got exactly the feel of a high tech ship interior (space marines or TAU)

i imagine older ships, (Badab war esque) to be much more gothic, with archways and victorian engineering, so the Cityfight kits wouldnt be difficult to use for this image really,

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Mac — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:55:44 -0000

I'm drawn to Rule 2) "no heavies, nothing on large bases, no exceptions."

With regard to heavies, do you mean no picks from the Heavy slot? or no Tanks etc?

Purely from a SM point of view, and I'm sure others can help me out with other races/codices, but I would have thought a Devastator Squad would be an essential addition in holding corridors, creating crossfires etc.

I'm unsure why Tau Battlesuits are excluded because of their jump-packs. I assume that Raptors and Assualt Marines are allowed? They can after all move normally and although realism would suggest low narrow corridors, GW literature does not.

Rule 7) Why can the defender not receive reserves? Surely the captain of the ship or commander of the troops would move squads in to position as required..especially if it appeared the battle was being lost.

Rule 9) as an optional rule maybe it should apply in small areas...a grenade going off in a hanger is not going to have the same concentrated effect as one in a small room or tight corridor.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Conrad — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:03:15 -0000

In all honesty, I'd not bother with the hull thing because most of the fighting should be happening a certain distance into the ship due to the boarding pod having smashed so far into the ship.

There's also the possibility that the whole section may already be subject to vacuum due to either battle damage or the fact that the pod has smashed a hole in the hull....from what I remember, the boarding crafts aren't very subtle.

Of course, if you were going to do it and you wanted it representational....I'd advice making it AV14 with the "Blessed Hull" rule and a slight twist of only 1D6 for penetration....basicaly the Monolith's living hull (Blessed Hull is that lance weapons don't get the lance rule against it). Reason I say this is due to the comments made already about how thick and resilient these craft are supposed to be (Lance batteries etc). There's always a chance a hull breach could happen but it's rare.

Example of pure fluke chance from "small" weaponary to destroy a large thing:
One of our first APOC games a Brass Scorpion was piling over the battlefield and causing general carnage (as they do) ripping people appart in CC and being a pain to the marines. There were missiles, lascannons, powerfists, chainfists all pummeled into this thing and the maximum damage that had been done all game was to destroy 2 weapons and pissed it off. A single marine from another part of the battlefield eventualy joined the fray (lone surviving sarge) and charged into the Scorpion. He slams a Meltabomb onto the Scorpion with a 6....penetrates the hull....gets a chain reaction (another 6), then ANOTHER chain reaction followed by the destruction of the final structure point with a 5 and an APOC explosion following. The little fella was killed in the resultant explosion but I think it sums up the "random" factor of what can happen even against the most heavy armour.

Re: DESIGN CHALLENGE: Boarding Action Edition

Conrad — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:51:18 -0000

I've now got this sudden image of a Space Marine screaming "Turbo boosters" a la Tank Girl and smashing face first into a wall ending up as a 2D splat against it. XD