Hi all,

When facing Duskland's tyranid ships, we came a cross a question with Marines.  As his tyranid ships closed with my valiant Terran Federation ships, waves of tyranid warriors and other biological horrors (marines in the Nova rules) crossed the short distance and boarded my ships, ripping my Marines to pieces and seizing key decks.  Sadly, in the meeting engagement near Carter's World , the Battleship Vengeance was crippled, then boarded and seized by the tyranids.  This is the battle where I first faced his seemingly unkillable vessels (it was our first encounter with his regenerating ships with lots of armor and hull points, and the topic of a separate thread) In order to keep critical technologies out of the hands of the tyranids, the last surviving Terran vessel, the Cruiser Victrix launched a sizable volley of missiles to detroy the crippled battleship before jumping out to warn the colony and TFN headquarters.

So, getting to our rules question.  After the Marine boarding rolls are made and the number of successful boarders are determined, does the defending ship get to make shield rolls to deflect or block some of the successful boarding marines?

Also, are there any plans for a defensive only version of marines?  Maybe call them 'security' and make them cheaper since they would have no offensive boarding capability.  Along those lines, you could also have 'troops,' who could also be used only defensively in boarding actions, but would be very important in strategic or campaign games.  However, since they're not trained for shipboard fighting, and dependent on heavy equipment that can't be used in the narrow corridors of ships (armored vehicles, artillery, and low altitude grav/rotary aircraft), they would need to cross out two 'troops' boxes to cancel out each boarding marine element.

Thanks in advance!
Steve Gibson
Fairfax, Virginia