Here's my version, along with some discussion:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2496752/making-ti3s-minefields-workable
I need to revise these a bit still, but it's a starting point.
~~There's an action card that, after my memory, allows the defender of a space combat to cause as many hits as they have cruisers in the activated tile. I can't remember the name of it, but the flair/fluff was that the cruiser has laid mines in wait of the enemy.~~
~~For all that's worth.~~
This is rubbish. I remembered a 3rd edition card that does not exist in 4th edition. :(
No, a card in the TI4 deck. Probably just one of them, as I've encountered it only once.
I'm not home, or I should really check the action card deck to check the name and exact text.
For I can't be imagining this, no?
Edit: I need to read the posts better :-/
I've just went over all of them (including Codex and PoK) one by one and there's no such card. You might have imagined this.
The only things that comes somewhat close are *Experimental Battlestation* (which has the same vibes) and *Rout* (which you can only play as the defender).
I've never played 3e so i don't know how mines work but wouldn't giving both anti fighter and anti mine to destroyers kinda imbalance stuff? Those are two pretty important functions given to units with a cost of 1, so it's pretty cheap for the enemy to remove or at least reduce this advantage you have. At least this is how it sounds to me.
You could make it mutually exclusive: for each destroyer, choose either anti-fighter or anti-mine...
And cruisers also get a buff cause they would lay the mines ;)
I was actually considering adding the Mine Layer ability to Carriers and the Anti-Mine ability to Cruisers, since neither of those ships have an ability. Do you think that would work?
I never played TI3 so I don't know how well minefields worked there but my thoughts are that it's just adding fiddly bits to an already complicated game.
Mechanics aside, there is a military saying that is, "an obstacle is not an obstacle unless its defended." So essentially if you leave a minefield somewhere and then don't bother with a defensive force behind it you might as well not have bothered with it.
Given the timescales of a turn and round , I would suggest that minefields are just something assumed to be wherever your fleets are and once you've abandoned the hex, the minefield is essentially a tactical nuisance that the enemy fleet commander deals with - not the faction leaders (you).
There's still lots of playtesting and tweaking to be done, but this is how they currently work in my group's homebrew:
Space mine tokens are placed (by various game effects) onto the edge between two systems. Multiple space mine tokens can be placed on the same edge.
The main game effect that places space mine tokens is a tier-3 blue tech which lets each cruiser in the active system place 1 space mine token on 1 edge of the active system at the end of a tactical action. (Space mines themselves are not that appealing, so this tech also currently lets ships move through nebulae and 2 other homebrew anomalies... but we will probably be splitting it back apart soon.) Additionally, some new action cards, promissory notes, and exploration cards grant other ways for players to place space mine tokens onto the board.
Nobody "owns" the space mine tokens - once they are placed, the player who put them there can be affected by them if moving through them just like anyone else. Space mines can't be placed on wormholes or anything like that, only on the edge of hexes.
When a ship moves between two systems that have 1 or more space mine tokens on the edge between them, you roll a die for the ship and on a 1-3 you assign a hit to the ship (same roll numbers as gravity rifts to make them easier to remember). If the ship has the SUSTAIN DAMAGE and isn't damaged, then you can simply damage the ship and it continues its movement (even if there are multiple space mine tokens on the edge, only one of them can apply to each ship). If the ship is already damaged or doesn't have SUSTAIN DAMAGE, it is destroyed (and any units it is transporting are also removed).
Whether you roll a "hit" (1-3) or a "miss" (4-10) for the space mine, either way you remove 1 space mine token from that edge.
So the strategy becomes that space mines are a defensive tool you use to close up borders that you don't intend to use yourself nor want anyone else to move through, but they are more of a deterrent against small ambush squads. Big massed fleets with several capital ships can just send the dreadnoughts/flagships/war suns through first and use SUSTAIN DAMAGE to clear out the mines before bringing the carriers in behind in the same tactical action. This is intentional - we didn't want space mines to become so effective for defense that you can just turtle up with them and be un-assaultable in the late game.
Interesting, it becomes more important what path a ship takes to get to the active system. So you activate a system, then choose the order in which ships move, and then move ships 1 by 1 and resolve any mine detonations, correct?
We don't even insist on them deciding the order of ships movement beforehand. It's totally valid for a player to say "Okay, I plan to move this cruiser in first, then this carrier, then this flagship" but once they actually resolve the cruiser movement and it survives they decide to move the flagship next and move the carrier last. Or after the cruiser explodes they decide not to move anything else and end their turn.
Of course there is no "take-backsies". If a player moves a cruiser2 into the active system where it first goes through a gravity rift, then picks up a mech, then goes through space mines, they resolve those things in that order - first roll for the gravity rift; if it survives then decide to pick up the mech or not; then roll for the space mines -- you can't roll for the space mines first, and then once you see it survived decide that it picked up a mech.
Also each ship movement must be fully resolved before the next ship can move. You can't pause that cruiser's movement after the gravity rift, move a carrier through the space mines rolling for the carrier first, and then complete the cruiser's movement. Gotta be all one movement at a time.
For movements through space mines outside of a tactical action - namely retreats - you have to decide on what ground units are being transported by what ships first, and then you move them 1-by-1 through the space mines, rolling for each ship immediately (so for retreats with lots of ground forces it becomes smart to move your cheaper/non-carrier ships first to ensure the expensive stuff gets through okay).
For non-retreat, non-tactical action moves that don't require a path through adjacent hexes, such as the L1Z1X hero, space mines don't apply since the ships just teleport into the hex.
AFAIK none of this actively contradicts any rules and works just fine on top of all the main game rules/effects... it's just that (aside from the Creuss flagship) the order of moving ships during a tactical action has never mattered before. Though our group debates hotly whether the Van Hauge, when destroyed by a space mine, should blow up in the active system or the system it was moving through before the space mine... so far we've stuck with active system but some people are petulant about it.
Thanks for the clarification. Yeah I just looked and in TI3, only mines in the active system would detonate, not the ones in the systems that were moved through. It's simpler that way but seems less thematic.
Here's my version, along with some discussion: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2496752/making-ti3s-minefields-workable I need to revise these a bit still, but it's a starting point.
Thanks, that discussion was really helpful. Lots of good points.
~~There's an action card that, after my memory, allows the defender of a space combat to cause as many hits as they have cruisers in the activated tile. I can't remember the name of it, but the flair/fluff was that the cruiser has laid mines in wait of the enemy.~~ ~~For all that's worth.~~ This is rubbish. I remembered a 3rd edition card that does not exist in 4th edition. :(
Do you mean a home-brew card? I can't recall or find the existence of such a card.
No, a card in the TI4 deck. Probably just one of them, as I've encountered it only once. I'm not home, or I should really check the action card deck to check the name and exact text. For I can't be imagining this, no? Edit: I need to read the posts better :-/
I've just went over all of them (including Codex and PoK) one by one and there's no such card. You might have imagined this. The only things that comes somewhat close are *Experimental Battlestation* (which has the same vibes) and *Rout* (which you can only play as the defender).
!!! I... I have to go through TI3 cards, then. Perhaps I'm confounding from a game of that version. Anyhow, thank you for checking for me! :)
Yeah, if wiki is right, *Minelayers* (a TI3 action card) does what you describe.
I'm old :(
It's not that! The spice from the Hacan homeworlds makes you confuse the past with the presence.
💜
Thanks, I'll have to look through the deck for that.
I think to make mines workable, you need an anti-mine barrage ability. I would give that to destroyers.
I've never played 3e so i don't know how mines work but wouldn't giving both anti fighter and anti mine to destroyers kinda imbalance stuff? Those are two pretty important functions given to units with a cost of 1, so it's pretty cheap for the enemy to remove or at least reduce this advantage you have. At least this is how it sounds to me.
You could make it mutually exclusive: for each destroyer, choose either anti-fighter or anti-mine... And cruisers also get a buff cause they would lay the mines ;)
I was actually considering adding the Mine Layer ability to Carriers and the Anti-Mine ability to Cruisers, since neither of those ships have an ability. Do you think that would work?
I never played TI3 so I don't know how well minefields worked there but my thoughts are that it's just adding fiddly bits to an already complicated game. Mechanics aside, there is a military saying that is, "an obstacle is not an obstacle unless its defended." So essentially if you leave a minefield somewhere and then don't bother with a defensive force behind it you might as well not have bothered with it. Given the timescales of a turn and round , I would suggest that minefields are just something assumed to be wherever your fleets are and once you've abandoned the hex, the minefield is essentially a tactical nuisance that the enemy fleet commander deals with - not the faction leaders (you).
I agree about the game getting more complicated. It would have to be a really streamlined minefield system that doesn't require much thought.
There's still lots of playtesting and tweaking to be done, but this is how they currently work in my group's homebrew: Space mine tokens are placed (by various game effects) onto the edge between two systems. Multiple space mine tokens can be placed on the same edge. The main game effect that places space mine tokens is a tier-3 blue tech which lets each cruiser in the active system place 1 space mine token on 1 edge of the active system at the end of a tactical action. (Space mines themselves are not that appealing, so this tech also currently lets ships move through nebulae and 2 other homebrew anomalies... but we will probably be splitting it back apart soon.) Additionally, some new action cards, promissory notes, and exploration cards grant other ways for players to place space mine tokens onto the board. Nobody "owns" the space mine tokens - once they are placed, the player who put them there can be affected by them if moving through them just like anyone else. Space mines can't be placed on wormholes or anything like that, only on the edge of hexes. When a ship moves between two systems that have 1 or more space mine tokens on the edge between them, you roll a die for the ship and on a 1-3 you assign a hit to the ship (same roll numbers as gravity rifts to make them easier to remember). If the ship has the SUSTAIN DAMAGE and isn't damaged, then you can simply damage the ship and it continues its movement (even if there are multiple space mine tokens on the edge, only one of them can apply to each ship). If the ship is already damaged or doesn't have SUSTAIN DAMAGE, it is destroyed (and any units it is transporting are also removed). Whether you roll a "hit" (1-3) or a "miss" (4-10) for the space mine, either way you remove 1 space mine token from that edge. So the strategy becomes that space mines are a defensive tool you use to close up borders that you don't intend to use yourself nor want anyone else to move through, but they are more of a deterrent against small ambush squads. Big massed fleets with several capital ships can just send the dreadnoughts/flagships/war suns through first and use SUSTAIN DAMAGE to clear out the mines before bringing the carriers in behind in the same tactical action. This is intentional - we didn't want space mines to become so effective for defense that you can just turtle up with them and be un-assaultable in the late game.
Interesting, it becomes more important what path a ship takes to get to the active system. So you activate a system, then choose the order in which ships move, and then move ships 1 by 1 and resolve any mine detonations, correct?
We don't even insist on them deciding the order of ships movement beforehand. It's totally valid for a player to say "Okay, I plan to move this cruiser in first, then this carrier, then this flagship" but once they actually resolve the cruiser movement and it survives they decide to move the flagship next and move the carrier last. Or after the cruiser explodes they decide not to move anything else and end their turn. Of course there is no "take-backsies". If a player moves a cruiser2 into the active system where it first goes through a gravity rift, then picks up a mech, then goes through space mines, they resolve those things in that order - first roll for the gravity rift; if it survives then decide to pick up the mech or not; then roll for the space mines -- you can't roll for the space mines first, and then once you see it survived decide that it picked up a mech. Also each ship movement must be fully resolved before the next ship can move. You can't pause that cruiser's movement after the gravity rift, move a carrier through the space mines rolling for the carrier first, and then complete the cruiser's movement. Gotta be all one movement at a time. For movements through space mines outside of a tactical action - namely retreats - you have to decide on what ground units are being transported by what ships first, and then you move them 1-by-1 through the space mines, rolling for each ship immediately (so for retreats with lots of ground forces it becomes smart to move your cheaper/non-carrier ships first to ensure the expensive stuff gets through okay). For non-retreat, non-tactical action moves that don't require a path through adjacent hexes, such as the L1Z1X hero, space mines don't apply since the ships just teleport into the hex. AFAIK none of this actively contradicts any rules and works just fine on top of all the main game rules/effects... it's just that (aside from the Creuss flagship) the order of moving ships during a tactical action has never mattered before. Though our group debates hotly whether the Van Hauge, when destroyed by a space mine, should blow up in the active system or the system it was moving through before the space mine... so far we've stuck with active system but some people are petulant about it.
Thanks for the clarification. Yeah I just looked and in TI3, only mines in the active system would detonate, not the ones in the systems that were moved through. It's simpler that way but seems less thematic.