Aww, bring it in for a bro-hug Weirdo! I feel all special now!
Havok, I figured you were only kinda serious, but it was a valid counter game-wise so it gave me an excuse to talk about it! Even if you don't play that way, its true that nothing in the game is going to stop someone from doing it.
Swarms are one thing the BT game systems just don't handle well. The system is at its best, I would say, at no more than three-to-one in terms of the number of units on each side. Any more than that, and not only does the combat balance start to go out the window, but just trying to physically play the game breaks down! I have enough trouble with the game letting TWO units occupy the same hex (If only DFA's were so darn much fun!) Imagine trying to keep track of ten Battle Taxi's sitting in the same square! It's just unmanageable. Even with the boon of MegaMek, it's still a giant pain trying to remember which of the 10 Taxis got its weapons crit or all its marines killed and needs to pull out for a ramming run (Hey, if yer gonna go Capellan-style, go all the way!) It isn't even really a warship thing, it's pretty much any scale. Piles of infantry with field guns against a lone mech, squadrons of Seydlitzes against an assault dropship, masses of Hover APC's with the worlds worst drivers trying to make sharp turns one hex in front of...well, anything really. It all sort of falls flat when you Zerg rush in BT.
I wouldn't say it is a problem, but BT wants to act like a simulation game. It has all these rules that kinda/sorta try to codify the reality of a made-up sci-fi battle with dice rolls. However, while it has the ABILITY to simulate all sort of things, there is absolutely no guarantee that any particular combination of units and rules will be balanced. It's sort of like D&D in that sense. The rules will absolutely let you create a game-breaking, I-win-button of a fight if you want. The game, once you get outside of TW, really doesn't try to be all that balanced. It's up to the players to embrace the simulation idea and not try to do silly stuff that the game allows, but doesn't make much sense in real-world-land. That said, if you WERE the Capellans and showed up at the table with a 5-gallon bucket full of small craft...I might let the swarm tactic slide...they would just need to be Monarch's or some other civilian unit, and they wouldn't be trying to dock, per se! As long as the craft had room for the pilot and the Mask flunkie holding the gun to their head, I'd consider it.
EDIT: Oh, and to get back slightly on topic, this thread really drove home how few warships there are at or under a quarter-million tons. Most of the canon designs died out in the succession wars. After that its pretty much the Fox, Fredasa, Inazuma, and I guess the Zec if you are feeling generous. Makes it kinda tough to take quantity over quality when those are the choices!
