Quick question regarding evade! order

[Andreas]

When you take the evade order for your ship affects also dd rolled against your ship from enemy aircrafts?

Thanks

[Nat]

Yes, its an attack so is re-rolled.  The only time this wouldnt happen is if the attacker is a kamikaze or has the twin linked rule, then (as per the FAQ) you may decide that both the re-rolls cancel each other out.

[Andreas]

Thank you very much for the quick reply!

[Nat]

oh one thing I didnt notice before, you said DD re-rolled…
Just to make sure – its the 1 AD thats re-rolled, all flights (except the JU88 torpedo bomber* & the IJN Emily bomber* and some flights in the scenarios) have a single AD which – like a torpedo or Battleships main gun has multiple DD.

eg the B17 level bomber rolls 1 AD hitting on a 5+, if it hits it then rolls 16 Damage Dice with the Heavy Trait!…. might not hit, but if it does – ouch!

*theres still some discussion on the facebook group about how these work

[Finn]

Hi, while we are at that. The AA batteries only do 1 dmg on flights. But the DP guns just kill a flight regardless of its 1 or 2 or 3 hp?

Thanks for your time.

[Nat]

Yes,

Against tough or very tough flights all the hits need to come from the same weapon system (so 1 ship basically) at the same time – so calling tough 2 HP is a bit wrong, its more that tough counts the first hit as a miss.
However dont forget that DP only fires when the ship fires in the gunnery phase not in the defensive fire step when the AA batteries do(as per the FAQ)

[Finn]

Wow, that makes those big planes really good… almost to good for their points.

And while we are at it, the DD for the B17 is very much over the top. Wouldnt it be “more realistic”, or better playable that the carpet bombs hit better, because they may bombard a greater field. 16DD with heavy are for every ship a death sentence … (statistical 4 to 5 crits, that hurts lots, even on big ships)

[Nat]

You’ve hit on 2 subjects which come up a fair bit over on the wardroom facebook group, and Warlord have (unfortunatly in my opionion) ‘doubled down’ on by not acknowleging the issue(s) and saying they’re all fine in the FAQ:

Points – dispite the comment on page 129 saying its balanced for pickup games, they are only any good as a rough guide… and in some cases not even that (look at italian destroyers… 2 costs (30 or 35 points) for 6 destroyer classes…. OR worse the IJN Destroyers pay 100 points for one class or exactly the same stats, weapons & traits + radar pay 60 with another class)

Large bomber loads – only 1 bomber has a limit on the number of DD it can use in one go (the Japanese Emily – 3 out of its 9 DD, so basically it has 3 AD each of 3 DD) where as in the Mongoose beta there was about half a dozen… the B17 was one of them, it was limited to 4 dice per attack…. currently the B17 is  a bomber that has a 5+ to hit with its 1 AD! (and that a single fighter can shoot it down as the best dogfight result a B17s can get is 4… and when a lot of fighters has +3 or +4 dog fight…) So yes it can hurt IF it hits… it can also spectacularly fail as 1/3rd of the dice will fail to hurt a light cruiser, so 10 points of damage + 2 or 3 crits on average -(not 4 or 5 as dont forget that all crits no matter if its standard, devastating or the heavy trait need a 4+ ‘confirming’ it) will leave an undamaged 15 hull light cruiser un crippled*!

So 3 B17s are needed for an average dice of 2 crits & no damage against a 7+ armoured battleship

EDIT – oh and it gets worse on ships with armour 6+ or less that have Armoured deck because that trait applys a -1 to the damage dice roll!

*most level 1 crits do 0 extra hull damage.

 

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Nat.

[Eumerin]

And while we are at it, the DD for the B17 is very much over the top. Wouldnt it be “more realistic”, or better playable that the carpet bombs hit better, because they may bombard a greater field. 16DD with heavy are for every ship a death sentence … (statistical 4 to 5 crits, that hurts lots, even on big ships)

Historically, B-17s never successfully scored a direct hit on a moving warship. There were near misses, but no direct hits. And while a near miss could still be very deadly on land due to shrapnel, and the concussive force caused by the blast (iirc, Fritz Bayerlein reported that Panzer Lehr Division had tanks flipped upside down by bomb blasts during the carpet bombing that took place toward the end of the Normandy Breakout), that wasn’t the case when dealing with armored warships on the water. Warships are generally more heavily armored than even a tank, and weigh considerably more. Further, the water around the hull absorbs some of the shock of the blast from a near miss.

[invisible officer]

Sorry Eumerin, but that is just partly true. As you wrote, “some”.  Water is not absorbing the full energy of a near miss. In part it transports it.  The KTB of German vessels in Channel are full of near misses by small bombs and reports that they did a lot of damage.  Cracks in hull, damaged screws and rudder.    Like the DC that can destroy a submarines hull many meter away. Worse, the concussion destroys delicate engines etc. .

The mine hits on the German big ships in Channel run did much more damage by concussion than by the actual hole in explosion area.

[Finn]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Sadly that warlord does not work with the community.

Btw the crew quality checks on “evade” worked out pretty well for my games so far.

While we are at it, can fighter planes escort ships? Wouldnt that be reasonable? Had a few games now where the fighters escort the bombers and those games where in the airbattle really nice.  But once the bombs are off the fighters may pick up some enemy bombers but since only numbers on those will attack a ship anyway… just an idea.

Another thing i would like to ask is the “Alaska” cruiser of the americans. I see why the ship is in the rebalance over the  double more expansive. My question is: how does the AA work? It has Local 2 and 11AD(Hilariously much) on range. Does the Local 2 + 11 AD shoot at base to base flyers in the beginning of the gunneryphase? Is only the Local 2 for the b2b?

[Nat]

Hi Finn,

flights cant escort ships….infact it’s the worst thing to do to engage flights that are touching your ships as then your aa can’t target them, so you have no chance of destroying them before they attack your ships. (Dogfights happen at the end of the gunnery phase)

the AA batteries (but not light guns firing DP) have a ‘fire step’ at the start of the gunner phase where all the aa fires at up to its max range (so that includes touching bases) against either flights and/or  mtbs… local AA counts it’s range as base to base.

If you head over the ‘news from the wardroom!’ thread there is a cheat sheet 1 page play guide.

[Finn]

Yes, i am using that and it helps a lot. Thank you for that.
By some missunderstanding i thought, the bombers couldnt deliver bombs, when they are in a dogfight… and since the ordinary AA batterie of Local 1 or 2 seems less likely to get most those out of the air.

My question was more into the: it has Local 2 and 11 AD. Does the Alaska roll 13 dice on flights in b2b? On Range i understand that the 11AD get rolled.

[Nat]

Being locked in a dogfight doesnt prevent you from attacking a ship 😮  Think of it as the bomber /dive bomber on its attack run and the defending fighters swoop in on its tail… the gunners on the ship cant target the attcker because they might hit their own guys behind but the guy behind wont get close enough to shoot the bomber down before it drops its load.

However yes local 2 + 11 AD is 13 AD weapon system against flights in B2B!  as thats withing the max range….just dont forget you allocate the AD out to individual flights before rolling any dice as it is a single weapon system.

[Author]

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