Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 warboss wrote:
[...] and then pretended to be in a fugue state as an excuse the next day) and I'm not sure he should have policing powers when he abuses them so readily.

wow... Was that before or after the time(s) he claimed to have had remotely stolen log-in information across a number of different sites or the like being used to ruin his reputation?



On the rules side, still pondering whilst others (may or may not) weigh in on the questions & assumptions behind SilCore/HGB! being discussed.

_
_
bah, sorry - Didn't realize I would end up starting a new page.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

 warboss wrote:
[...] and then pretended to be in a fugue state as an excuse the next day) and I'm not sure he should have policing powers when he abuses them so readily.

wow... Was that before or after the time(s) he claimed to have had remotely stolen log-in information across a number of different sites or the like being used to ruin his reputation?



On the rules side, still pondering whilst others (may or may not) weigh in on the questions & assumptions behind SilCore/HGB! being discussed.

_
_
bah, sorry - Didn't realize I would end up starting a new page.

Not sure about his supposed hacking incident. The one I was referring to was when he posted several hundred (400+) cut and pasted "F U palladium you thieves!" or somesuch comments after a particularly long but useless pair of updates in the Robotech KS last summer. The next day he claimed amnesia about the event in his apology. And, no, I'm not exaggerating or kidding about either the number of comments or his fugue rage state. He actually lost the respect of most remaining commenters that day as he drowned out legimate questions and the possiblity for answers at a time when palladium was supposedly (but lying as usual) open to discussion in their own version of an Arab Spring (with the same end results).

I unsubscribed from his channel a year back because he'd do things like post 2 minute convention videos with a minute and a half of ads within the video (in addition to the youtube ad of course); the straw that broke the camel's back for me in particular was a video that had over a half dozen ads in front of the content, the youtube ad prior to the video, another ad in the center, and probably more at the end that I never got to on the 10 minute long video. Taking another channel's old video without crediting them at all (at least in the past Civilian Gamer would get a quick mention when he gave him new videos) and sticking four full minutes of infomercials in front of the rerun video is a new low though as is deleting the simple and polite question about it (to my knowledge... I don't know if he has gotten uncomfortable feedback or questions in the past and deleted that as well).

As for Silcore/HGB, it's hard for me to comment on the actual rule mechanics as I haven't read the last few versions. That's why I limited my commentary to the visual aesthetics of so many tokens on the table (which I'm not a fan of and which was an issue in blitz for over a decade).

 warboss wrote:
As for Silcore/HGB, it's hard for me to comment on the actual rule mechanics as I haven't read the last few versions. That's why I limited my commentary to the visual aesthetics of so many tokens on the table (which I'm not a fan of and which was an issue in blitz for over a decade).

OTOH, trying to play Blitz 1 correctly without tokens? Ugh. Very painful. Almost impossible.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 warboss wrote:
That's why I limited my commentary to the visual aesthetics of so many tokens on the table (which I'm not a fan of and which was an issue in blitz for over a decade).

OTOH, trying to play Blitz 1 correctly without tokens? Ugh. Very painful. Almost impossible.

In my actual play experiences it definitely proved better in almost every instance to use/place each token possible simply to avoid confusion about what happened earlier due to the alternating activation turn structure, especially during the second hour of a game, let alone a third or fourth hour.

Regardless of intent, after all this time the Pod folks still seem to have a pretty laissez-faire approach towards the token question, because the reality is rather different than the stated goal for pretty much every version of the game.
Ideals of how to play out a game, as in the belief of how a game should/might be each turn, do not I think automatically equate to what is required for a game to be played when designing a ruleset.





On another note, it doesn't seem that the folks in Pod-land have manged to figure out any more than the folks at Palladium Books that empty hype, ... is just nothing more than that, empty hype, and helps to sell nothing at all.
If a company has something to show for the $$$ they took in by whatever means, show that, don't just say ''if only we could show you'' a month past the last substantial update, that was itself about two months from a last substantial update.

/sheesh, How can they, or anyone really, not understand that concept.



_
_

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
Anolis ; pg. 106 - ''The Iguana and its variants may be represented by an Anolis model, shown above.'' But no stats, nor any way to include them in a force.
Basilisk ; an ESE army only option for any model with a GP, FS, or RC combat group UA, gaining a small move and sensor bonus for +1 TV.

I'm ok with the anolis counts as iguana substition as the issue for me has always been using the model. If they decide they want the variety at some point in the future, they can always reintroduce it if/when they pump out a plastic. I have a bit of an issue with the "basilisk" upgrage as it is seemingly for any model and not just jagers so anything from black mambas to Drake gear striders can go "basilisk". I'm not sure if that is the intent, an oversight, or typo.

Even with the reviled FIF book, I was expecting some of the more distinct and rarely used variants to go away (despite me using them.. like my Commander Sat Up Link Cobra) and I expect the same now. I am surprised that common variants like a Gunner Mamba (MAC to HAC upgrade) is gone but I suppose mechanically that type of easy upgrade no longer works. Whereas before in the rules it was just a few words on the squad entry and model stat card, squads and models no longer work like that. Changing one single item (outside of a subfaction wide special rule) requires a new entry if they stay in the table format without switching to stat cards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
Regardless of intent, after all this time the Pod folks still seem to have a pretty laissez-faire approach towards the token question, because the reality is rather different than the stated goal for pretty much every version of the game.
Ideals of how to play out a game, as in the belief of how a game should/might be each turn, do not I think automatically equate to what is required for a game to be played when designing a ruleset.

Spoiler:

Dave on January 12th at 7:16AM wrote:Tokens for tracking the game state is fine. This is something we rationalized very well early on. What we were not Okay with was default requirements of tokens (A dice and ammo tracking). 90% of the time there is one token, the damage token. The others are added as required with the ECM defense token being the most popular. We were making a conscious choice to remove the 'comet tail' of tokens that was the default in the previous edition.

The key word to use is reference.Rob Daviau wrote a great article about board game design for Open Design's Kobold guide to board game design where he speaks about how game pieces are there to reference "key rule moments". That's just another way to say memory aid but really that's what tokens are for. If you are playing a fun game and between players you can track everything mentally then sure, do that if you have an agreement between players.

-Dave

Thanks for the link. While I'm not particularly pleased with the response, it is a response if a bit misguided. The same approach to tokens he's talking about using now could be applied to things he mentioned as "default requirements" like ammo tracking. I don't think I ever tracked that in game but rather left it to memory. What I tracked was the same things I'd be tracking with nublitz (locks, environmental effects, EW, and damage); the only thing missing is the movement dice from the table. Is there any use for those 6 siders in the new rules? In one of the previous versions, there was some use but I don't recall what at this point. I do like that damage is tracked with only one pip now but I'll have to try it out to see how the 5 damage boxes for everybody thing works out in practice for such a variety of combined arms. I just don't have enough experience with it to even state an informed opinion at this point.

Having multiple models with the same stats is not a bad thing. But the overall design concept is flawed.

It should be chassis with X light / medium / heavy hardpoints plus 2 hand weapons, build to suit from there. But that would be more Car Wars-like, and a very different game as well.

 warboss wrote:
What I tracked was the same things I'd be tracking with nublitz (locks, environmental effects, EW, and damage); the only thing missing is the movement dice from the table.

Keeping the theme of HG means there's alot of state floating around - forward observations, electronic warfare, varying states of damage, etc. Some of that state was removed (movement type, forward observation) but some of it remains as there's no other convenient way to represent it (EW is a good example). I think there's a good argument that the game may be better off without those complications, or that it should move to being less reliant on persistent state. At the time I was working on the prototype that would become these rules I was heavily involved in Infinity and that likely influenced the decision to use tokens as liberally as the rules originally did.

 warboss wrote:

Is there any use for those 6 siders in the new rules?

You can use them to mark your stance at the start of the turn, but that's about it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, HGB! has a lot of state tracking.

This carries over to KL, where you want to track movement, damage, stun, FO and target. Not really any way of getting around it for a HG-based game, and KL should be about as skinny as it gets.

In how I simplified HG into KL, KL is generally stateless; however a few exception tokens aren't a bad idea:

2-sided Movement
- stationary, represented by targeting cross (+), and
- top speed, represented by arrow (=&gt.
The Movement token gets placed by exception, when a unit is not moving at Combat Speed.

2-sided Damage
- shaken, represented by confusion (?), and
- crippled, represented by an (X).
The Damage token is also by exception, when a unit is not "normal". Though I do like white smoke / black smoke for crippled / destroyed.

2-sided FO
- observer, represented by a radio antenna with outbound waves, and
- receiver, , represented by a radio antenna with inbound waves.
These would be intended to be used as a pair, again, by exception.

Cover and Terrain are self-evident, so no tokens there. EW is folded into defense stats, rather than a specific action.

@IceRaptor:

The first Let's Play video was also exaggerating the extent of the tokens a bit since Ash was using custom ones (from the Descent board game iirc). Other than the occasional "state" effect, the only thing that should be trailing like little cow pies behind the models is the damage track which I'm ok with (and would in my case just track it on off-board stat cards instead). Overall, Nublitz does "feel" quicker than Blitz and I'd say it runs about as fast as my skirmish house rules roughly. Both are of course fringe scenarios as the demo game is the lowest possible TV for a "normal" game though and I'm not sure it would translate well into a game 500% bigger. Two to three squads was the default real world size of HG games anyways and this does speed up that model count size game but I'm not sure it'll take the game to the platoon level model count that DP9 was hoping to sell. I still feels from watching the video a "skirmish" sized game with a comfortable model count of max 20 without getting too unwieldly.

On an unrelated point, is anyone here a regular contributor to Brandon's facebook group? I checked it out (as detailed above in the deleted posts on the youtube channel repostings) and it seemed more active than I thought it would be but also less active in what I hoped it would be. It seemed more like a Pinterest for Heavy Gear where folks post pics of bought, modelled, and painted figs... and that's about it. Granted I didn't look back months (and I assume the discussion is all in one long "feed" and not hidden in subforums like dakka).. but I didn't really see anything in the way of critical (in the true sense of the word... not just "negative") discussion of tactics and rules. Are those types of things discussed there? Or is it more of a collection of fluff pieces? I saw more game theory discussed when I was on the dp9 forums than there. That's fine if it is primarily just a group devoted to artisitic things but I'm curious if I missed something deeper.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

In how I simplified HG into KL, KL is generally stateless; however a few exception tokens aren't a bad idea:

Are those tokens currently existing in your KL system, or ones you think you could add to your KL system?

I'm torn on the stationary / top speed token. One idea I'm playing with (for my house-rules) is that at the start of a unit's activation, you can declare either a rapid or slow advance. A slow advance halves movement, but doubles all other ranges (weapons, etc). A rapid advance doubles movement, but halves all other ranges (weapons, EW, etc). Since those only impact the models being activated, there's no need to track them. I'm liking that better than a token to indicate state, or the bonuses that NuBlitz provides.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

In how I simplified HG into KL, KL is generally stateless; however a few exception tokens aren't a bad idea:

Are those tokens currently existing in your KL system, or ones you think you could add to your KL system?

I'm torn on the stationary / top speed token. One idea I'm playing with (for my house-rules) is that at the start of a unit's activation, you can declare either a rapid or slow advance. A slow advance halves movement, but doubles all other ranges (weapons, etc). A rapid advance doubles movement, but halves all other ranges (weapons, EW, etc). Since those only impact the models being activated, there's no need to track them. I'm liking that better than a token to indicate state, or the bonuses that NuBlitz provides.

Is there a "normal" advance in between? It looks binary from your post above. I'd just point out that the end effect would be a quadrupling difference of the range and speed between the two binary states. You'd never actually use the range and speed listed for the unit without a middle step.

 warboss wrote:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
Anolis ; pg. 106 - ''The Iguana and its variants may be represented by an Anolis model, shown above.'' But no stats, nor any way to include them in a force.
Basilisk ; an ESE army only option for any model with a GP, FS, or RC combat group UA, gaining a small move and sensor bonus for +1 TV.

I'm ok with the anolis counts as iguana substition as the issue for me has always been using the model. If they decide they want the variety at some point in the future, they can always reintroduce it if/when they pump out a plastic. I have a bit of an issue with the "basilisk" upgrage as it is seemingly for any model and not just jagers so anything from black mambas to Drake gear striders can go "basilisk". I'm not sure if that is the intent, an oversight, or typo.

Even with the reviled FIF book, I was expecting some of the more distinct and rarely used variants to go away (despite me using them.. like my Commander Sat Up Link Cobra) and I expect the same now. I am surprised that common variants like a Gunner Mamba (MAC to HAC upgrade) is gone but I suppose mechanically that type of easy upgrade no longer works. Whereas before in the rules it was just a few words on the squad entry and model stat card, squads and models no longer work like that. Changing one single item (outside of a subfaction wide special rule) requires a new entry if they stay in the table format without switching to stat cards.

Interesting; I worked up that post very early this morning and hadn't fully appreciated just which models could benefit from the ''Basilisk upgrade'', let alone that the Drake was one of those models due to having a [Fire Support] UA.
I guess HG as a whole did end up with more ''Rally'' models in the end; Rally Mamba, Rally Cobra, etc etc etc.

Something else strange I noticed this afternoon was that (apparently to fit on a single page, because page count matters in an ebook...) the South no longer has any kind of model restrictions in any sub-faction, while for the North both WFPA and UMFA still do.
To be honest, the more I look at the sub-factions in NuBlitz I wonder why TPTB bothered to keep them, or at least in the form they chose to implement.


My guess on the Southern models that went away is whichever Pod person made those decisions apparently couldn't tell the low/basic tech from the high/specialized tech variants.
Basically, they dropped most of the ones that turned out to be fun to play instead of being just more of the same vanilla.

But by the Prophet, all of the usual ''shiny'' suspects were as per usual instant Southern inclusions that even picked up a few new variants between the lot of them.

_
_

 warboss wrote:

Is there a "normal" advance in between? It looks binary from your post above. I'd just point out that the end effect would be a quadrupling difference of the range and speed between the two binary states. You'd never actually use the range and speed listed for the unit without a middle step.

Yeah, there's a 'normal' speed. I'm just experimenting with what value having a top speed / slow speed actually brings to the game. More and more I'm thinking it's not really necessary to include those mechanics in a mecha game, as they don't add enough to warrant their complexity. I keep wanting to add them back in though, since cinematically they feel important.

I've toyed with dropping range altogether as well, except for very short ranged weapons. But that feels like more of a loss, as positioning should make some difference and the easiest way to reflect that on a tabletop is range.

The "states" exist in KL, but you have to remember them like you do in 40k. In KL, there are a total of 4 or 5 states that a unit can be in, but KL manages this by "flow", in that the movement state only influences the next action of shooting or attacking - it doesn't carry into the next turn for targeting. Being shaken by the opponent affects your next actions, and doesn't carry into their next turn. The only longer term states in KL are crippled & destroyed.

The creation and use of KL state tokens would to reduce mental memory effort, just like in 40k. In a large, platoon-scale game of KL, such tokens are probably advisable. OTOH, in theory, one can play Company-sized games of 40k without such tokens...

Compare with old Blitz, whereby speed carries modifiers until you set a new speed, and the simplification and streamlining in KL is more obvious.


In KL, <1" hold position (~stationary) gives a re-roll to-hit on the next shooting. 2x double move (~top speed) sacrifices shooting. This is a balancing intent, to force the player to make tactical choices that trade one option off another.

Your proposed rule is functionally similar to how KL works, in that state only lasts until the end of the active player's turn.

@Smilodon: I really did like your nomenclature of the Rally Mammoth variant in the Northern Test rules when the Mammoth suddenly sprouted wheels.

@Ice: Good... I just wanted to make sure. I'm not sure that would work for HG given there are already range brackets (it feels too cumbersome at first glance) but I'd find that to be an elegant solution to the issue. As for whether you should drop range, I guess that depends on the complexity of the game you're going for both in terms of rules mechanics and model count. If you increase the latter, the former should ideally decrease.

 warboss wrote:
I'm not sure that would work for HG given there are already range brackets (it feels too cumbersome at first glance) but I'd find that to be an elegant solution to the issue.

I've come to believe the range brackets were a mistake. I think they just don't add enough to the game to warrant their inclusion. The penalty for being inside them isn't serious enough to make them come into play on a large basis, so I think they should just be dropped. They were an interesting concept, but I think their implementation didn't match the theoretical desire I had. I wanted them to give a reason for close-combat style weapons to exist, but that implementation doesn't quite fit the genre all that well IMO.

One of my many mistakes in that system!

 IceRaptor wrote:
Yeah, there's a 'normal' speed. I'm just experimenting with what value having a top speed / slow speed actually brings to the game. More and more I'm thinking it's not really necessary to include those mechanics in a mecha game, as they don't add enough to warrant their complexity. I keep wanting to add them back in though, since cinematically they feel important.

I've toyed with dropping range altogether as well, except for very short ranged weapons. But that feels like more of a loss, as positioning should make some difference and the easiest way to reflect that on a tabletop is range.

It's your game. If you think it's important, then implement some version of it.

In 1/144 scale, range still matters for certain weapons. For example, the early PanzerFaust had a functional range of 30m / 100 feet. In 1/144 scale, that's 8". A flamethrower has a similar limitation of 20-40 yards (60-120 feet), which scales down to 5-10". When you consider to play on a standard 40k-size 4'x6' board, the long diagonal is roughly 8' or 1,152 feet / 350 meters, and if you're moving onto the board, the minimum 4' board span separation is 500 feet / 150 meters. A MP40 SMG had an effective range of 100-200 meters, so this again starts to have an impact.

However, any vehicle cannon is going to be far beyond the board dimensions, even on a 4' x 8' tabletop. For example, a 75mm PAK 40 has a direct fire range of 1,800 meters (1.8 km) -- 40 feet in scale. Indirect goes over 7.5 km, which is 160 feet -- that's from my garage, into the gaming table of my neighbor living across the street. Even a piddly 37.5mm PAK 36 outranges the standard 40k board diagonal.

IMO, terrain as in Infinity is the right solution to making the battle more "realistic". The problem is it takes a LOT of terrain to make things realistic, especially as the board gets larger.

That said, I will be revisiting range for KL.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I'm not sure that would work for HG given there are already range brackets (it feels too cumbersome at first glance) but I'd find that to be an elegant solution to the issue.

I've come to believe the range brackets were a mistake. I think they just don't add enough to the game to warrant their inclusion. The penalty for being inside them isn't serious enough to make them come into play on a large basis, so I think they should just be dropped. They were an interesting concept, but I think their implementation didn't match the theoretical desire I had. I wanted them to give a reason for close-combat style weapons to exist, but that implementation doesn't quite fit the genre all that well IMO.

One of my many mistakes in that system!

I was referring to your half/double advance solution, not the HG range brackets in case that wasn't clear. I wasn't a particular fan of the HG optimal/suboptimal thing. My sweet spot is somewhere above Battletech Alpha Strike but less than Heavy Gear Nublitz for mech combat in terms of complexity. YMMV.

 warboss wrote:
Other than the occasional "state" effect, the only thing that should be trailing like little cow pies behind the models is the damage track which I'm ok with (and would in my case just track it on off-board stat cards instead).

There is at least one game I've seen in online previews that uses mini-D6s on the model base to track damage, somewhat similar to the fuel tracking die used for tiny flyer tokens in Dystopian Wars, but i can't recall the title offhand.

Damage-wise, I've never really been happy with the feel of either direction.
Models going until they take a hit large enough to immobilize or destroy them, and never affected by any lesser damage, has the benefit of not needing to track hull/structure/etc etc reductions but is very zombie-like gameplay.
Models taking granular damage needs a lot of tracking, and can likewise end up leading to it's damage state being used for additional modifiers versus various types of target number tests.



As regards range, yeah, that involves a tough decision about what kind of abstraction is acceptable.
Something I thought about after looking through other rulesets and the like was having a ''step'' for the system lines of a model stat card; it does get harder to shoot with different projectiles or whatnot the farther away a target is but you really shouldn't ever need more than a couple of range increases before your models end up shooting across the board as John noted earlier.

Step [6"], step [16"], step [24"] or something like that with most weapons of the same class/type having similar range steps, and there aren't (or shouldn't be anyways) but a few cases where a maximum range restriction would be necessary.
I think being able to vary how big a step is might give a reasonable abstraction of weapon or system ranges during a vehicle-based game without trending into needing a lot of unnecessary range modifiers.
Folks unable to multiply whole number steps (16 -> 32 -> 48 -> 64 -> 80) in their head due to whatever reason can easily resort to referencing a cheat sheet, calculator, or younger brain.

To denote a maximum range maybe something like Step [12"-] to cap at 12 inches, or Step [12" x3] to cap at 36 inches. Not sure, still a bit wonky most ways I envision it.



One attractive point to me similar to what Ice proposed also came up in the Turn Sequence thread, using chits for orders like ''Slow Advance'', ''Strategic Move'', or whatnot.
Admittedly this is more often a concept found in higher echelon oriented games like Weltkrieg or Striker 2 (Command Decision-based), but it might make command models with their associated abilities more useful while adding a bit more depth to a ruleset.

Likewise, going to a card deck/drawn chit based concept for both movement and firing by combat group would seem to pretty much remove the need for a lot of state counters and initiative rolling/counter-rolling.

_
_

Damage-wise, I have "crippled" as KL's intermediate state between "functional" and "destroyed", as a way to split the difference between all-or-nothing, and fine-grained progressive damage.

KL units have a maximum of 6 Hull, with the implied intent that players may use a single d6 to track hull points, with Crippled at 1 HP remaining. This gives a strong potential functional difference in toughness between a model that starts with 6HP and one that starts with 2HP, although the basic model starts with 3 HP (taking 2 hits to Cripple).

From a functional perspective, it appears that weapons should have a range of 1 foot, or effectively unlimited, within the context of a 1/144 scale game on a standard 4'x6' board. From a design standpoint, just count weapon ranges in whole feet, not inches, if you need more steps. From a practical standpoint, it means that I can greatly simplify weapon ranges in KL to a maximum of 3 bands: 1' - 2' - unlimited, whereby limited range becomes an exception to the default unlimited range.

The card thing is good, but the devil becomes creating appropriate and balanced cards and decks. This is a lot harder than it sounds, given the temptation for varied card effects and special rules. It also creates a printing requirement that also becomes problematic as the decks go from shared deck to player decks to faction decks. While this is great for BattleLore and Magic, the resources to develop this are non-trivial.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

Damage-wise, I've never really been happy with the feel of either direction.
Models going until they take a hit large enough to immobilize or destroy them, and never affected by any lesser damage, has the benefit of not needing to track hull/structure/etc etc reductions but is very zombie-like gameplay.
Models taking granular damage needs a lot of tracking, and can likewise end up leading to it's damage state being used for additional modifiers versus various types of target number tests.

IIRC, nublitz has a state like that. During the videos, IIRC Ash was removing 1d6 from each roll when a gear was in a critical state (i.e. no more of the hull boxes left). There is some granularity there assuming I'm not completely wrong. It's a bit of a middle ground but not too bad and if your memory is good enough it doesn't require any additional tracking beyond the already present damage color coded pip.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Damage-wise, I have "crippled" as KL's intermediate state between "functional" and "destroyed", as a way to split the difference between all-or-nothing, and fine-grained progressive damage.

Same with HG nublitz (see above).

@warboss - keeping Crippled in KL was intentional.

I've been playing lately Epic 40k and Antares, and I think there's something to be said about blast markers instead of damage tracking.

Yes, there will be about the same tokens in the table. But hey, little explosions just look way better in a table!

 warboss wrote:
I wasn't a particular fan of the HG optimal/suboptimal thing. My sweet spot is somewhere above Battletech Alpha Strike but less than Heavy Gear Nublitz for mech combat in terms of complexity. YMMV.

Alpha Strike is interesting to me, because they simplified things in an opposite fashion that I would have. They removed the granularity on weapons, and left the granularity at movement. That's odd to me because when I used to play BT (many years ago), the most important choices were weapon related, as you had the dual axis of heat and ammo to manage. They sorta left heat in there, but I felt like that was such a significant shift away from what my impression of the game was that I was stunned. I had really high hopes for Alpha Strike, but it didn't quite capture me the way I hoped it would.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

Damage-wise, I've never really been happy with the feel of either direction.
Models going until they take a hit large enough to immobilize or destroy them, and never affected by any lesser damage, has the benefit of not needing to track hull/structure/etc etc reductions but is very zombie-like gameplay.
Models taking granular damage needs a lot of tracking, and can likewise end up leading to it's damage state being used for additional modifiers versus various types of target number tests.

I flip flop on this issue myself. I think ultimately end up circling back to where NuBlitz is - a model needs at least a crippled indicator. Though I do admit I've become less interested in tracking damage points, because I think you should just have an armor value and damaged/crippled/destroyed instead of a variable number of boxes to track. Tougher models can just be given more armor, instead of the ability to take more hits.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

Step [6"], step [16"], step [24"] or something like that with most weapons of the same class/type having similar range steps, and there aren't (or shouldn't be anyways) but a few cases where a maximum range restriction would be necessary.
I think being able to vary how big a step is might give a reasonable abstraction of weapon or system ranges during a vehicle-based game without trending into needing a lot of unnecessary range modifiers.

As John has pointed out, except for the most short range weapons most of them should be able to shoot across any board you could play on. The only reason to include them would be if the gameplay benefits of having a range mechanic yields some desirable play style. If you wanted to achieve something like the scrum in the middle that Blitz was known for, granular ranges provide you that incentive to get players to close. But if you have ranges at all, anything beyond 24" is effectively redundant since that's a significant portion of the table being in range at most times. That's assuming that your models have a 6" move, and a reasonable amount of terrain. Ranges at 24"+ only become valuable if you have fairly empty boards, like Warmachine or Fantasy. That's part of the reasons why I'm shying away from them at the moment.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

One attractive point to me similar to what Ice proposed also came up in the Turn Sequence thread, using chits for orders like ''Slow Advance'', ''Strategic Move'', or whatnot.
Admittedly this is more often a concept found in higher echelon oriented games like Weltkrieg or Striker 2 (Command Decision-based), but it might make command models with their associated abilities more useful while adding a bit more depth to a ruleset.

I think if you remove range, you want to add other granularity back in to allow the game to be more than just models blasting each other. Force composition matters to some extent, but I think having some element of command-level interaction becomes necessary for the game to really shine. This can be the ability to let models trade movement for accuracy / range, or other discrete choices - and that's partially where the command actions in NuBlitz were supposed to go. They ballooned out of proportion and looks like they never got reeled back in, though. I'd like to see a 2-3 generic command options, with maybe a few faction specific ones that could spice up the turn order.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

Likewise, going to a card deck/drawn chit based concept for both movement and firing by combat group would seem to pretty much remove the need for a lot of state counters and initiative rolling/counter-rolling.

The system I'm working with now uses cards exclusively, and a bidding system to determine initiative. There are some advantages to raw dice rolls in this respect, and IMO it's better than the completely random approach of Bolt Action. But I think it's largely a personal choice as to how predictable you want the system.

 Albertorius wrote:
I've been playing lately Epic 40k and Antares, and I think there's something to be said about blast markers instead of damage tracking.

Yes, there will be about the same tokens in the table. But hey, little explosions just look way better in a table!

Aren't the blast markers in Antares more like "pinning" markers? Or are you referring to the physical shape of the marker? From following the GOA thread, I was under the impression you get them just from being shot regardless of whether that shot actually does any damage. Didn't HG have something similar in original Blitz? (the pre-L&L first release)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IceRaptor wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I wasn't a particular fan of the HG optimal/suboptimal thing. My sweet spot is somewhere above Battletech Alpha Strike but less than Heavy Gear Nublitz for mech combat in terms of complexity. YMMV.

Alpha Strike is interesting to me, because they simplified things in an opposite fashion that I would have. They removed the granularity on weapons, and left the granularity at movement. That's odd to me because when I used to play BT (many years ago), the most important choices were weapon related, as you had the dual axis of heat and ammo to manage. They sorta left heat in there, but I felt like that was such a significant shift away from what my impression of the game was that I was stunned. I had really high hopes for Alpha Strike, but it didn't quite capture me the way I hoped it would.

The simplified firing is what did it in for me. As soon as I saw that, I disliked it enough to not really get into the nitty gritty of the rest of the rules. While I think the sheer number of weapons on most gears in HG should be cut down significantly for a mass battle game, combining all the weapons into one stat for each range block was a step too far for me. For example, the typical HG like a Hunter should in a mass battle HG game have only the autocannon and rocket pod whereas the vibroknife and APGL should just be incorporated into it's standard hand to hand attack value and no penalty at engaging infantry at a certain range. I'm pretty gearist when it comes to my HG (although I staunchly agree with including combined arms as an option but not the default focus) so I tend to view the game from a gears first perspective. Almost every gear has a vibro-something and some sort of anti-infantry weapon coming in from the RPG roots; since that is the standard/default, why stat it out? Instead, stat out the exceptions when they DON'T have it. If a model doesn't have an anti-IF weapon, give it a trait that makes it more difficult to destroy infantry. If a model doesn't have a vibro blade, give it a trait that puts it at a slight disadvantage in close combat. My goal would be to try and use the least amount of text/rules on the tabletop in front of the player to convey the same or almost the same information. I'd prefer that kind of streamlining to stating out every weapon (like in HG) or combining everything into one (like BT:AS). YMMV.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I've been playing lately Epic 40k and Antares, and I think there's something to be said about blast markers instead of damage tracking.

Yes, there will be about the same tokens in the table. But hey, little explosions just look way better in a table!

Aren't the blast markers in Antares more like "pinning" markers? Or are you referring to the physical shape of the marker? From following the GOA thread, I was under the impression you get them just from being shot regardless of whether that shot actually does any damage. Didn't HG have something similar in original Blitz? (the pre-L&L first release)

Blast or Pinning, they tend to work the same general way both in Epic 40k and Antares: by degrading the performance of the unit/formation when it is shot, wether it's actually damaged or not.

HG/GK/Silhouette had something similar in their morale rules, but it was quite a bit more involved while essentially doing the same.

What I meant was that blast/pin markers would probably take the place of damage tracking in most cases, with the possible exception of big stuff like MBTs. Make it so that each blast/pin gives the unit a cummulative -1 to Def (or whatever) and you'll probably won't need actual hit points for the units.

IIRC, original blitz had a degrading performance rule for each unit that shot at you that I believe was the predecessor to the crossfire rules. Each subsequent unit that shot at you gave you a -1 to defense rolls even if they didn't damage you. I don't recall if there was a 1/3 armor to damage ratio restriction on that though.

I'm not sure I'd like replacing them as you mentioned as you'd end up with units that are functionally useless in game shambling around slowly like zombies hoping for box car dice rolls. I'd be ok though with just a triple damage state though (full, crippled, dead) to speed things up for higher model counts.

As for the physical markers, the little kaboom markers for GOA are interesting but I'm more of a fan of minimizing the distractions from immersion and prefer the least obtrusive marker possible that is still functional (which rules out the super tiny 2mm dice for me).

In KL, I take an AoS approach of defining fighting attacks with the Vibroblade, which allows me some granularity and differentiation between different skill / strength when fighting. Potentially, I could simplify this, but it breaks the deliberate commonality I have between fighting and shooting. For KL, I prefer the consistency of having a single core mechanic, over the creation of a clear exception.

I do like the idea of command, but it's just a bear to work into a heroic skirmish game, which is why I'm just going with Shaken versus something more elaborate.

So after seeing Achillies give a demo, id like to try out the game. Been looking at it awhile. Always a fan a Mechwarrior (and I dont care to much for their minis game)

What would be a good little start to it? The starter boxes are crazy expensibe at 100$+

Any boxes readily avaliable that are a lot cheaper to give maybe a 5v5 aspect with some different mechs on each side? OR where to buy them at a discount?

At this point, you should probably just wait for the plastics in a few months regardless of whether you want plastic or metal. I'm guessing the metals will drop in price as the few online stores that carry them will put them on clearance. That doesn't help you in the meantime but it will save you money. In the meantime, you test out the rules with little minis paper standees or tokens.