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Does each turret get to fire at the given Attack Dice pool?

Ex: Britannia Battleship can have 4 turrets. Range band 2 is 7 dice for its primaries. Is this 4 attacks at 7 dice each?

Follow up question, according to rules a single model can link fire with itself. If the Brit battleship had a full broadside opportunity, could it link all 4 turrets for 7 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice for a 16 dice attack?

The way rules are written makes me think this is right, but a 16 dice pool is going to be one shotting everything with the exploding dice mechanic.

Can someone familiar with Spartan Games please clarify for me?

sourclams wrote:Does each turret get to fire at the given Attack Dice pool?

Ex: Britannia Battleship can have 4 turrets. Range band 2 is 7 dice for its primaries. Is this 4 attacks at 7 dice each?

Follow up question, according to rules a single model can link fire with itself. If the Brit battleship had a full broadside opportunity, could it link all 4 turrets for 7 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice for a 16 dice attack?

The way rules are written makes me think this is right, but a 16 dice pool is going to be one shotting everything with the exploding dice mechanic.

Can someone familiar with Spartan Games please clarify for me?

It sounds about right. Battleships in Uncharted and FIrestorm are usually around 16 AD, so it wouldn't surprise me that Dystopian Wars is similar. You also shouldn't be one shotting much if the rules follow Uncharted and Firestorm. 16 AD ends up with around 10 hits on average, so depending on stat lines, thats a crit on cruisers, and possibly a crit on Battleships. You will probably one volley frigates, but assuming you only hit frigates on 5s and 6s, there is a chance you won't even do that.

Thanks for the clarification.

Do you run into problems in practical gameplay with that mechanic? I just perceive that as being particularly viciously skewed toward offense vs defense.

Most CR ratings in Dystopian Wars for capital ships max out around 11. So the 16 Dice pool will probably 'hit' 11 times on average (including 2 sixes and 1 4+ from the remaining sixes), meaning that crits are going to be the norm with something like 60% reliability.

If my battleship shoots first, his battleship is suddenly down two hull points and suffering a critical effect. On average he WON'T be able to crit me back, and my relatively unscathed battleship will continue to burn his down.

I understand that's a pretty universal problem with whoever goes first in the UGO-IGO mechanic, but I'm surprised that a crit effect, which to my perception should be something special, is actually rather common.

Do repair effects compensate enough?

sourclams wrote:Thanks for the clarification.

Do you run into problems in practical gameplay with that mechanic? I just perceive that as being particularly viciously skewed toward offense vs defense.

Most CR ratings in Dystopian Wars for capital ships max out around 11. So the 16 Dice pool will probably 'hit' 11 times on average (including 2 sixes and 1 4+ from the remaining sixes), meaning that crits are going to be the norm with something like 60% reliability.

If my battleship shoots first, his battleship is suddenly down two hull points and suffering a critical effect. On average he WON'T be able to crit me back, and my relatively unscathed battleship will continue to burn his down.

I understand that's a pretty universal problem with whoever goes first in the UGO-IGO mechanic, but I'm surprised that a crit effect, which to my perception should be something special, is actually rather common.

Do repair effects compensate enough?

I'll start with stating that I play firestorm much more than uncharted, and I play dwarves in uncharted which has tons of repair available to them. In firestorm shields are an exploding D6 defense mechanism, so it balances the offense and defense quite a bit, and with Dwarves, my higher than average CR helps, as does the fact that I'm willing to eat your attack if I have a D3 repair damage card in my hand.

Also remember that you're only 16AD at a particular range band -- thus creating most of the fun of a naval game -- maneuver. In a straight up game where two players fly directly toward each other, the one to get the first shots at RB 1 or 2 (depending on game) will probably win. But when you do things like bating your opponent with your battleship to open up a nice 2 arc, linked, double shot with your cruisers that can swing the game.

Quite a fair point.

I'll go explore the rules further.

The other thing to remember is that the FSA deck has a card that allows a ship to repair D3 damage points. This can do wonders, as it can bring a ship back to life. It also encourages focusing fire on a single ship until it is destroyed, which can in turn lead to wasted shots as the shooting player is required to declare all of his firing before any dice are rolled. Both of these do a lot to balance the defense against the offense IMO.

Also taking shots from long range do matter also. In Spartan Games, the effectiveness of your ships is affected by the amount of damage you have taken. Such that if you have suffered 2 HP of damage from a ranged engagement you reduce the AD of each gun by 2, as such you reduce the chances of this happening, so that broadside would be 5+2+2+2 (I think you reduce by damage then halve for linking, if it is the other way damage is way worse).

But yes, the number of turrets you have can be linked together with other Primary (P) weapons to create a large pool of dice. Secondary weapons can then be linked with secondary to create further pools.

Many capital ships in this game have shields so you will have to contend with exploding dice on those as well. The defensive options for specific types of weapons are also there, as in Firestorm Armada.

Lastly remember that any of your (p) weapons suffer a -1 to hit at Range band 1. This really hurts as you need a 5,6 to hit medium and larger ships and a 6 to hit Small Class models.



EshinBinrath

sourclams wrote:Does each turret get to fire at the given Attack Dice pool?

Ex: Britannia Battleship can have 4 turrets. Range band 2 is 7 dice for its primaries. Is this 4 attacks at 7 dice each?

Follow up question, according to rules a single model can link fire with itself. If the Brit battleship had a full broadside opportunity, could it link all 4 turrets for 7 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice for a 16 dice attack?

The way rules are written makes me think this is right, but a 16 dice pool is going to be one shotting everything with the exploding dice mechanic.

Can someone familiar with Spartan Games please clarify for me?

The math is correct assuming that your battleship is positioned so all 4 turrets can draw line of fire to the target ship. This isn't hard with 270 degree arcs of fire. What I will point out is that "one shotting" a battleship is very rare even with 14-16 (or more) dice. Most likely you will get a single crit for 2 damage and a secondary effect. If you roll particularly well you may get two critical hits for 4 damage and two secondary effects. In order to do this you would need to double the CR rating of the ship. Most battleships are CR 10 or 11 so you would need to roll 20-22 hits. Even with 16 dice that is uncommon. You would expect to be in the 9-12 range with some instanced exploding into the high teens and occasionally getting only 4-5 hits. What you are hoping for is to roll double 1's or 6's on the crit chart for an auto kill which combined is only around an 5.5% chance. Cruisers you can sink in one shot needing a 10 for most ships so a double crit is certainly possible but it isn't anywhere near guaranteed.

sourclams wrote:Does each turret get to fire at the given Attack Dice pool?

Ex: Britannia Battleship can have 4 turrets. Range band 2 is 7 dice for its primaries. Is this 4 attacks at 7 dice each?

Follow up question, according to rules a single model can link fire with itself. If the Brit battleship had a full broadside opportunity, could it link all 4 turrets for 7 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice + 3 dice for a 16 dice attack?

The way rules are written makes me think this is right, but a 16 dice pool is going to be one shotting everything with the exploding dice mechanic.

Can someone familiar with Spartan Games please clarify for me?

That is correct, they have included that clarification in the errata.

This gives the KOB BB a linked fire potential of 21/16/11/5. This makes them solid at RB 2 but below average at RB3 and pretty poor at RB4.

16 dice will crit a BB about 60% of the time, but that's only 2 damage vs a BB HP of 8 unless you roll a1,1 or 6,6 on the crit chart which will kill anything.

Like all the Spartan games however, it comes down to maneuver and activation control much more than stat line comparisons. I really like that about third games, but not all agree.

Don't let yourself get hung up on the concept of exploding dice. The game is structured with them in mind, and thus balanced.

Remember that to do damage, you meet or exceed the DR in hits. However, if you meet or exceed the CR rating in hits, you get a critical (which usually does only 2 points of damage and some other critical effect). Once you get a critical, you don't also get the damage for meeting the DR.

The only way to get more than 2 damage from an attack is to get multiples of the CR rating, resulting in that many extra crits, which is very, very, very rare. You're probably more likely to roll a double 1 or double 6 on the critical chart, resulting in an instant death, than you are to get double or triple the CR rating on a battleship.

On a cruiser or frigate it's more likely that you can get multiple crits.

Also when you link attacks that way, that's less AD going out at other targets.

This isn't like warmachine where however much you exceed