Experience with bombers in CBT

[Weirdo]

Fair enough. Long story short, FSM is dead dead dead, not just errataed, but deleted completely. Same with the crazy TacOps Arty drift, so we don't have to confuse any newer players by bringing them up. Also, they reinstituted the Ares Conventions, and added light beer to the list of war crimes.


...what? I had to try.

[Lorcan Nagle]

The other option here is to have a scenario.  40 bombers might take out the enemy, but it's no use if the mission is to take and hold a spot on the map.

[Cannonshop]

The other option here is to have a scenario.  40 bombers might take out the enemy, but it's no use if the mission is to take and hold a spot on the map.

Scenarios with actual objectives (victory conditions) certainly do help, esp. with breaking out of the obvious meta that is fed by 'Sa=Waaarrmm" tactics.  (Sometimes overkill doesn't help-as you pointed out, if the objective is to take and hold something, those 40 bombers aren't going to be much use.  Other fun ones are frangible buildings and a point deduction for collateral damage.)

some of the best ones, alas, border on the roleplaying game side of things or require house rules.  A capture mission, for example, or a rescue scenario.  all of a sudden, those bombers can certainly flatten the mapsheet-and destroy  the objective they're supposed to be taking (thus, losing the engagement in spite of leaving nothing alive in their wake.)

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

BV doesn't solves everything, but if you have nothing like that it just end up with Age of Sigma season 2.

The game is far from perfect piece so 'don't be a jerk' idea is a viable opinion, though. No one would think that this is a hardcore competitive game, are you?

That said, if the opponent have that much aircrafts, then why not to have an opportunity to strike them before they actually bombing your ground forces? Although you can't intercept everything but you may got some of them before they are actually get to the battlefield. Boeing Jump Bomber has no weapon except for two bomb racks, so it is an easy prey against any aero unit with a weapon can aim an another aero unit.

Also, it is unlikely that the bomber spam is attacker, or you will have a lots of dropships already.

Well, CA is far cheaper than the battlemechs and you may buy more at ease. But in the longer play, the logistics matters. You will need a 400t of cargo space in order to ship it again, but in the meantime the opponent can order a squadron of Aerospace Fighters and more. Being CA without VSTOL capability means they needs a proper airport, so air-raid the enemy runway would make them frown either.

Remember, if someone goes so mean, you can do the same either. If you are tired to do that? Right, that's why our ancestors were signed Ares Conventions. There is a reason why 'don't be a jerk' is a viable thing on here. In miniature games world, even the hardcore competitive games have the idea of don't be a jerk, for you need your opponent to play the game. Personally, I'm the person that accepts even the most nasty tricks as long as it is legal in games, but not all of us are able to do that.

[victor_shaw]

This is where "One-Off" BV only games become a problem without proper set-up.
This scenario assumes all of the following.

1. That the attacking force (The 5 Battlemech) have no CAP over them, which would be a terrible oversight by the invasion commander.
2. That it was even possible to coordinate a strike by what adds up to 2 full air wings of  fighters on just 5 moving targets.
3. That the attacking force some how forgot to hit the enemy airfields before they landed their ground troops. (Again not a good invasion commander)
4. That all the invasion forces air/aerospace assets some how missed the memo that there was an invasion going on.
5. That anyone in their right mind thought that 40 conventional bombers was a proper response to just 5 mechs.

This scenario demonstrates the issues with a pure BV game set-up, and how when not properly thought-out a game can go from balanced to " What the heck did I just play"
Yes in the scenario that you have in-visioned here, a large force of conventional bombers can lay waste to a over-strength mech lance, but you have to ask yourself what are that odds of this scenario actually happening before you condemn the game for being unbalanced.
The BV system assumes that you are atempting to create a not only balanced game, but a scenario that could actually happen.

[Colt Ward]

This is where "One-Off" BV only games become a problem without proper set-up.

Also to be fair, the Jump Bomber IS one of the BV 'cheating' conventionals . . . if you use any of the more recently designed ones like the Meteor, Katyusha, or Ruabvogel then you get a LOT higher BVs.


I had a mixed squadron of conventionals hit a combined arms company of mechs (Indi & Battle) and armor that was en route from a DZ to a raid objective.  While it was for a campaign, it was more of a learning/RP event since it was preparation for the PC defenders.  The ground forces were not optimized for AA for several reasons and it resulted in a interesting set of trade offs (you can look it up on this forum) . . . CF strike lost one craft completely and another severely damaged with minor armor damage on a few others.  I was mostly trying to concentrate fire on a few to knock them out.  The bomb/rocket strike . . . IIRC, got a crit on a armed indimech's ammo (boom), immobilized a tank, hurt another tank & indimech bad enough they fell back to the DZ, and scattered armor damage.  The damaged raiders were a LOT easier to drive off which kept my forces less damaged.