Marines and Suicide Freighters

[Goonius]

Hey, all.

I had a thought about suicide freighters. I know that if a suicide freighter is captured, the capturing player cannot change the course or the ship or fire weapons due to various restrictions. What do you think about letting the capturing marines make one hit and run attack per turn during the marine combat phase at the end of the turn? That at least allows marines to slow down the freighter.

[Davec_24]

As it stands at the moment, marines could make a hit and run raid as normal each turn, by transporting aboard. However, your idea seems to be far more realistic - if you beamed normal "hit and run" parties on board they'd have a high chance of dying, even though the target is an un-defended freighter.

We know the freighter can be boarded as the rules actually say you can capture it. Once the marines were on-board the freighter, you would have thought they could conduct sabotage on the systems by pulling wires out and things, even if they had not got enough explosives to make a traditional "hit and run", but this probably would work fine as they would have captured the ship and have no enemies trying to hunt them down so that they haven't got time to pull wires out.

I think it would make an interesting variant (perhaps as a scenario rule) to say that marines on the ship could make a hit and run raid at the end of the turn and if it is a failure they are not killed. However, you would have to limit this (instead of allowing one such attack per marine) or you may find the freighter swamped with marines for an "easy" solution to the suicide freighter! Anyways, sounds like an idea worth experimenting with to me.

[mjwest]

SFB had a "sabotage" rule. It said that any marine unit that was not otherwise engaged during a turn could disable a single box on the ship card. I see no reason why you could not adopt such as a scenario rule.

So, I wouldn't even require the H&R roll. Just pick the box and disable it.

[Mike]

So, Mike...is that an "official" BoM rule???

[mjwest]

Uh, no. There is nothing official about it at all.

However, it does seem ripe for plucking at some point, doesn't it.

[Kang]

However, it does seem ripe for plucking at some point, doesn't it.

It's an excellent idea. Simple and fun.

Another side issue from this thread would be that if you did decide to hit-and-run an unmanned suicide fraighter, should there be less [or no] chance that the attacking marines could be lost? Or do we assume that the SF has automated defences that try to take out the raiders....

[Davec_24]

Automated defences is more Space Hulk... do that! On a serious note, I doubt they'd have automated defences like remote-controlled phaser rifle turrets or whatever to defend against marines boarding the ship, but it's likely that some of the systems related to the bomb would be booby trapped by the people who set up the freighter, just like IEDs and the likes are often booby trapped nowadays. This should probably affect marines doing a "hit and run" and marines doing "sabotage" both the same, as the booby traps would be on the systems themselves if this were the case and so the act of attacking the system would potentially subject you to the booby trap.

[Mike]

This is starting to sound more and more like a Prime Directive type of thing...

[Davec_24]

Well, you could go the whole hog and simulate the boarding action part with Prime Directive while playing the space battle around it with FC. That could be pretty interesting, though I don't know how you would implement this as I don't actually have Prime Directive!

[mjwest]

Ah, finally found the rule ...

(D16.54) Vandalism: If there are no enemy units in the area during the Boarding Party Combat Step, each group of five units (ignore smaller groups) may destroy one box (on the SSD) or one crew unit within the area. Units involved in vandalism cannot also be involved in combat.

Given that it takes five units, not just one, it is harder than I thought (which is good). Also note that this is from the advanced boarding combat rules in SFB, not just the basic ones.

So, on second thought, I think that it might be applicable to a very specific scenario rule for a specific scenario. I don't know that it would (or should) have a more general application.

In light of the comments by Kang and Davec, I suggest that for the boarding parties on the suicide freighter to be able to destroy a box, they need to conduct a normal Hit and Run Raid. This includes the chance of death. The only difference is that you don't need to use a transporter to conduct the raid (since the marine unit is already on the ship).

[Important Note: This is not a ruling. It is just a discussion at this point.]

[Davec_24]

That should do the trick - they would then have a chance of getting blown up by booby traps and a chance of not being succesful (maybe they found a booby trap and need to work on disarming it before they can attack the system). If you were going to do it this way, I would suggest letting each marine unit on-board do this once per turn. It may be a good idea to say that only marines who are not busy securing the ship can do this, so probably only marines above the number of control boxes the ship originally had, similar to the capture rules where you can send back any marines over this amount if you want to.

[Goonius]

The hit and run raid with out transporting was what were using. My buddies were doing a base assault against me and I boarded the SSF. Then I realized I could not do anything with the damn thing. So, my opponents bowed to my logic and let me attempt to wreck the engines on the frieghter.

Thanks for the response.

[Kang]

Yep. Nice idea, Mike. That would have a good balance: the chance of destroying the box but the booby traps [or whatever] factored in automatically.

Can't let the Marines have it too easy!

Plus it's nice and simple; just like Fed Commander should be.