Okay how do shields work. They say that you lose a shield when a ship is hit unless otherwise stated.

Now does this mean that if you get 4 rolls to damage a ship with a Weapons Battery then 2 shields are stripped and then you have to roll 5+ to cause points of damage on the hull.

Or do you have to roll a 5+ and any hits are taken on the shields first of all?

Personally i think the first method makes more sense. As ships are hard to miss (unless stated otherwise, for instance the eldar) it makes sense that the shield would absorb the impact before armour comes into play. After that armour then comes into play protecting the ship from further damage?

Nope. Second one.

You roll with batteries against a fully 2 shielded ship, assume 5 hits on a 5+. That means 2 shields down, 3 against the hull.

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you loose a shield for each blast marker you are in base contact with regardless of whether it was placed due to enemy fire or if you ended a move on top of it. The shield is automatically regenerated the instant you leave contact with the marker.

That said a hit only occurs when the enemy weapons rolls beat your armor value so the second option is correct. The first two 5's place blast markers that drop one shield each and the second two hits then reduce the hull of the ship by one point each and provide once dice each to roll for criticals.

The number of dice you roll are not equal to hits against the target. They represent the strength of the weapons fired at the target only.

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-Vaaish

That makes no sense in my humble opinion. Shields should go as soon as a hit is placed. Armour should not have any effect on shields because a shield would seath the armour.
The strength of a ships shields are represented by how many they have so it couldn't be that armour related to the shield strength.


I donno, it just seems a bit strange...

I do not follow your strain.

But both Vaaish and I are correct and I never seen it played differently to be honest.

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That's how it is done and seems to work just fine that way.

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I think that partly this is also an issue of paperwork. BFG has been fairly clear in attempting to avoid book-keeping at all stages, and certain compromises have to be made for these. This is one of those, since the number of shields now can be figured by the number that a fresh ship has, minus the number of blast markers in contact at any time.

It may help to imagine that a shield is not a single entity, but a collection of shields, and so the debris from various hits is actually more damaging to a shield than a single strike.

PS. Your point about armour values affecting shields is well met. It does seem strange that the Imperials have stronger shields on their prow, just because they have stronger shields there, but it is one of the 'characteristics' of the game.

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I know the rules, i understand that answer and thank you for the confirmation.

However it just seems to go against laws of common sense and physics that the armour of a ship would have any effect on Shield strength. From a balance point of view it might work but then it does create problems as regards Imperials having superior shields to the prow when i believe it was just meant to be armour. (effectively making them 4x harder to wound instead of double)

Logically it makes little sense.

It may make little logical sense, but it speeds up the game no end.

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I fail to see how. losing a Shield as soon as a potential hit is placed against your vessel saves you the game time of rolling a dice. Thus resulting in less dice.

It would seem more accurate that a roll is deducted for each point of shield (excluding blast markers etc) untill shields are drained and then rolls are made against armour for the remainder of the turn?

That would be more simple, more effective and would have allowed the Eldar for instance to have better shielding but a fragile hull by introducing a "save" for their shields. That would mean torpedoes and fighter craft would be deadly to them but not normal weapons so much, encouraging mobile warfare but not making them rediculously special rules based (good turn angles and speed would have been enough to evade ordnance with skill and also to out manouver an oponenet. Perhaps suffering less penalties for Come to new heading etc if needs be.)


Just throwing some thoughts and questions about why the system is like it is. Playing the Devils Advocate!

Losing a shield for every possible shot makes shields worthless.

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See, the thing is shields don't block the possibility of hits, just things that actually hit the ship. Given that the IN armors the prow of their modern ships, is it that hard of a logic jump that they would also place their strongest shields there as well?

It would seem more accurate that a roll is deducted for each point of shield (excluding blast markers etc) untill shields are drained and then rolls are made against armour for the remainder of the turn?

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-Vaaish

That makes less sense than the current system to be honest because you get a number of rolls equivalent to the strength of your weapons. Having shields doesn't reduce the strength of the enemy weapons thereby reducing the number of dice they can roll, just the effect that those weapons have on their intended target.

Well perhaps but it makes much more sense in my mind. Unless armour also takes into account the shields...strength.

Thus number of shields are how many you have and armour includes deck plating AND shield resonance, harmonics, yadda yadda

Antonious, there's simply a level of abstraction in BFG between a 'hit' and a 'potential hit' that isn't represented in the game mechanics.

If you try and use your rules with the base BFG game mechanics, then as has been said, shields become nigh-useless, and it would upset the game balance for every fleet that makes use of shields (Eldar would win every game due to not using shields, heh).

So whilst your rule change might make some mechanical sense, it unbalances the game horribly.

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