Race issues

[vexx]

First of all: I love the races for AE and their background. Their relationship with various corporations offers a lot of different potentials for campaigns.

Though I do have some questions:

1) Graffi VS Edassii: What is the point of the Graffi? Won't an Edasii with the ability to pick an extra Gear Slot be able to apply to Armor. Hence both Graffi and Edasii could have a +1 Arm but come at it via different means?

2) Humans: I love the selection with these guys. However, does Hunter X apply to factions as it states in the book. E.G. My Mercenaries now have Hunter (Space Pirates).

3) Pollux: are the pollux reluctant with other pollux? It was their paranoia and ability to work together which according to the background allowed to do well by pulling out the union and quarantining there area of space. If a person places a complete team of Pollux could being reluctant be dropped?

Another thing I'm unsure about is what value, importance of mechanics do the corporate affiliations have with the various races? Will there be bonus for certain races using gear or weapons for specific corporations?

Would their be special gear of weapons selection for certain races only offered by these corporations? I'm just curious to see how these would play out?

Or is more of a scenario thing? Where corporations featured in a specific scenario give or take bonuses to certain races?


Any enlightenment would be awesome!

Thanks

V666

[cybogoblin]

1) Maybe we'll see some racially specific gear and/or weapons in upcoming OTW's and books. That will make picking races a lot more important.

2) From memory, Hunter only applies to races.

[vexx]

it says races or faction in the book.

[varagon]

Jan 4, 2011 3:17:22 GMT -5 vexx said:

it says races or faction in the book.

Yes, you can choose Hunter (Bounty Hunters, Pirates, Mercenaries) as part of Hunter (X).

You take a gamble either way in choosing a race or a faction.

[anaxagorax]

1) The graffi can also pick a light armour suit in addition to its racial bonus. The Edasii cannot pick two light armoured suits to get the same bonus.

[dijit80]

Regarding Edasii vs Graffi. The armour bonus of the Graffi is that it isn't 'armour', that means you can take more armour on top of that and have heavier armour without the negatives of having the heavier armour (ie movement penalties of various types). With Graffi you can have some really heavily armour guys with their armour bonus and a heavy armoured suit.
Duncan

[abbysdad]

There's also the racially limited options too. They will be coming.

And it's a character thing. Some people will want to use all the options, others won't. The graffi are pretty unique in their physiology so I like them a lot.

[cybogoblin]

Jan 4, 2011 7:27:16 GMT -5 varagon said:

Jan 4, 2011 3:17:22 GMT -5 vexx said:

it says races or faction in the book.

Yes, you can choose Hunter (Bounty Hunters, Pirates, Mercenaries) as part of Hunter (X).

That depends on which version of Hunter you use. The one printed at the beginning of the book states races and factions, while the version under the Human species only lists races.

(Unless this was covered by errata that I missed.)

[CmdrKiley]

I think factions option for Hunter (x) is a bit broad and too powerful.

I can already see the players making all human crews with Hunters and claiming X is whatever their opponent happens to be playing.

Keeping it specifically to a race makes it easier to balance and promotes a diverse crew, which is sort of the theme of AE: Bounty.

Anyone that hopes to build a crew based on one advantage by making everyone in that crew the same species will be subject to an opponent with Hunter and claiming that species as their designated specialty.

In most cases, a player with Hunter and claims a certain race will probably have only 1 or 2 models they can use that advantage against. His opponent on the other hand will at least know what the targets are for that model with the Hunter ability and can work against it.

[Scorpio]

Jan 5, 2011 10:36:52 GMT -5 CmdrKiley said:

I think factions option for Hunter (x) is a bit broad and too powerful.

I can already see the players making all human crews with Hunters and claiming X is whatever their opponent happens to be playing.

Don't forget the Human racial description notes that they choose the target of Hunter during the deployment phase of a scenario, by which they already know what you have on board.

[CmdrKiley]

Yep!

Player #1: I'm playing Pirates
Player #2: I'm playing Mercenaries
Player #1: I see you have a lot of humans in your crew
Player #2: Yep, they all have Hunter (Pirates)
Player #1: <Hudson voice> Game Over Man! Game Over!

Basically in this example a Human model with Hunter gets to use his advantage on every opposing model, which I think is too much of an advantage.

If it's strictly just an alien race say, Hunter (Devon), then the opposing player can mix up the races in his crew to minimize this. At best, the player with the human models could pick the race that his opponent has the most of, or he could increase the number of humans and each pick a different race in his opponent's crew. However the more humans he has in his crew, the greater the chance his opponent (if he has any humans in his crew) would select Hunter (Human).

With the alien only option there are checks and balances. With the faction option there is no checks and balances.

[varagon]

I'd suggest that in case of choosing a faction that the faction is chosen when you take Hunter X. Otherwise, you choose a race during deployment if you didn't choose faction.

That way, you can't gain the advantate against "every opposing model" which CmdrKiley mentiones above.

[TrueRonin]

To me it sounds like the "faction" part of the wording for Hunter X should be removed. So that only race can be targeted and not an entire faction?

[cybogoblin]

While I can understand picking the Hunter option first, that just means you have a chance of having a special ability that doesn't give you a benefit at all. If it's just Race, and you pick after seeing your opponent's force, you still have a chance get a benefit against at least some of your opponents models.

Now, if you could build a list using units from different factions, it wouldn't be so bad.

[dijit80]

I think it would better better to add into the Human entry a clause making it clear that it is only alien races and not factions. That way the Hunter X rule could still be used in other situations were a Faction is more appropriate - that new Bounty Hunter entry for a specialist pirate killer or the BANE hunter guy.
Duncan