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AT–43: bunker units

The game designers at the Rackham studio are offering you the exclusivity to test new units for AT-43. Fortified support units, more commonly known as bunker units, are troops attached to bunkers. In position inside the fortifications, their support is precious to their company. Bunker units are partly or entirely composed from the content of an Attachment Box. The final bunker unit rules will be published in Operation Frostbite, a next supplement of the collection.

This week you get to discover the chapter´s introduction, next week the studio will unveil the U.N.A. bunker units!
Rendezvous on the official AT–43 forum to discuss these new rules and hand in your battle reports.

BUNKER UNITS GENERIC RULES

• Bunker units are deployed inside the bunker they have been attached to during company building. They are not allowed to leave it.
• Each specialist or officer in a bunker unit gains a new special ability detailed below. It replaces his usual one.
• Line of sight is determined from the bunker´s embrasure, no matter how the unit is placed inside.
• Distances are measured from the most favorable side of the bunker.
• A bunker unit can only fire one type of special weapon for each salvo, no matter the number of special weapons it contains. The special weapons of the chosen type fire in the same salvo. However, the Flamers keep their special rule and shoot one after the other. Special weapons of another type cannot be fired.

EQUIPMENT

Flamer: This weapon has the "Projection" ability: • When a unit contains several of these weapons, each of them can pick a different target;
• Cover is ignored;
• No shooting test is necessary, so there are no successes. (Therefore, shots cannot be combined to increase the area of effect.);
• The Accuracy of the weapon shows the weapon´s maximum range, as measured from the special weapon bearer. The template is centered on a fighter. All miniatures located even partially under the area of effect suffer a damage test.

Medium missile launcher: This weapon has the "Locked shot" ability:
• It can only target armored fighting vehicles or terrain elements with Structure points;
• It cannot use Overwatch fire;
• Cover and fighters caught in the zone of fire are ignored;
• Shooting tests are resolved differently: The minimum result needed to hit is always the same, no matter the range. This result is shown instead of the Accuracy of the weapon.

Sniper gun: A fighter equipped with this weapon gets the "Sniper" ability:
• This ability can only be used if the fighter doesn´t move at all during his activation;
• Cover and fighters caught in the zone of fire are ignored;
• This ability cannot be used in "Overwatch!";
• The player chooses the target of each impact among the visible fighters of the targeted unit. If the target is an armored fighting vehicle, the player chooses the location of each impact.

SPECIALISTS

Combat/Field engineer: A Combat/Field engineer in a bunker has the "Land mines!" ability. When his unit is activated, the player displays a minefield card on the battlefield out of contact with any miniature or minefield card previously deployed. Any unit, friend or foe, whose one member travels even partially over one or several of these minefield cards during his movement, triggers the minefield. For each minefield card, which its members have traveled, the unit suffers as many impacts as there are members in the unit (Penetration/Damage 3+/1). The player controlling the unit chooses the casualties removed. The cards that have caused impacts are removed from the battlefield.

Mechanic: A mechanic in a bunker has the "Fixed!" ability. At the beginning or the end off his unit´s activation, he may repair a friendly armored fighting vehicle that is visible from the bunker. The armored fighting vehicle recovers 1 SP in a location chosen by the player. Destroyed parts may be repaired.
The player shouts "Fixed!" to call this ability.

Medic: A Medic in a bunker has the "Doctor!" ability. Once per round, he can save a member of any unit visible from the bunker when the fighter in eliminated. The player shouts "Doctor!" to call this ability.

Officer: An officer in a bunker adds as many LP as he has chevrons to the company´s LP pool. He doesn´t get this ability if he is the Company Commander.

I am going to act like Rackham never made this rule.

Medic due to line of sight?

Mechanic due to line of sight?

Seriously. W....T.....F....?????

Yikes... how official is the stuff in Cry Havoc? These are pretty weak sauce...

RZ

What's wrong with them? I don't really get it.

Seems a bit out of line with the way mechanics and medics 'should' work. just being able to SEE a unit doesn't mean he should be able to heal and fix stuff.

Okay, this may be a dumb question because I haven't played AT-43 yet, but from the way these rules look, it sounds like you don't need any models to represent this unit...other than a bunker of course. Am I wrong in this?

I also agree that I'd have to willingly suspend my disbelief in reality even more than usual for these games to believe that a mechanic or medic based inside a bunker could fix/heal units without leaving the bunker. I mean, maybe if the target unit was touching the bunker or something - or maybe even like a couple inches away. But LOS? Maybe AT-43 uses a whole heck of a lot more terrain than 40k.

Admittedly, these are playtest rules so they can get player feedback for fine tuning.

I will also say that the last batch that they are giving out to players to playtest are quite ill thought out.

I love this game, but I may have to ignore any supplements they give out if this is the tend to come.

Take for example, the "Fire at Will! playtest combat drill:
Combat drill: "Fire at will!"
Once per round each hero can spend 1 LP to give, ,the "Fire at will!" combat drill to an infantry unit he leads and which will not move this round. The rate of attack of the unit´s ranged weapons is doubled until the end of the unit´s activation.

Now take this scenario into consideration when using this drill:

Karman Kaptars unit lead by Cornelius can potentially unleash 8 sniper shots at one unit (sniper weapons being so powerful that they will basically wipe out most units by itself with that many shots), and then potentially unleash 64 ZZ rifle shots at another unit...

Now for my opinion: that!

Imbalanced? The drill is more or less universally regarded as flat out broken!

Add to this that Rackham has backtracked on its previous ruling about how the Cypher ability of how the Creation Routine works (too long to get into that very broken ruling) and I am looking at a game that I am starting to scratch my head at.

The rules are already fabulous, why must they screw with them? It isnt making the game fun for either the player or his opponent....

I have given rackham all the feedback I can concerning playtesting. I hope beyond hell they dont go down the dark path of GW idiocy.

Death By Monkeys wrote:Okay, this may be a dumb question because I haven't played AT-43 yet, but from the way these rules look, it sounds like you don't need any models to represent this unit...other than a bunker of course. Am I wrong in this?

No, you will need the appropriate models to be placed in the bunker to use the specialist abilities. These specialists and officers are commonly part of units. So when a unit with X model is in the bunker, idiocy happens. The dumb thing is that this rule isnt completly fair as some armies dont have access to these units containing these specialists. Some armies, like the karmans, cant even fit into the bunker because the models base is too wide to even enter the entrance! *slaps head*

Hellfury wrote:
Take for example, the "Fire at Will! playtest combat drill:
Combat drill: "Fire at will!"
Once per round each hero can spend 1 LP to give, ,the "Fire at will!" combat drill to an infantry unit he leads and which will not move this round. The rate of attack of the unit´s ranged weapons is doubled until the end of the unit´s activation.

Now take this scenario into consideration when using this drill:

Karman Kaptars unit lead by Cornelius can potentially unleash 8 sniper shots at one unit (sniper weapons being so powerful that they will basically wipe out most units by itself with that many shots), and then potentially unleash 64 ZZ rifle shots at another unit...

Except that Cornelius can only be attached to a Wendigo squad, which only get Grenade Launchers and Drum Guns, but can have 9 Gorillas with ZZ Rifles(72 shots) and either 16 Drum gun shots or 8 Grenade Launcher Shots. So no 8 Sniper Gun shots.... unless you take Mentor Freezer or Saint Anuman!

The point still stands....

Collin KELLY wrote:People don't worry!

Hold your horses. The reason we call these alpha or beta-rules is that they might get changed, or get the boot all together.

If the players are not satisfied with the remote controlled doctor we can still change it. It's the same for the wifi mechanic.


We were simply unlucky this time. some days you're rules are great, some days they suck. It's life Back to the drawing board for us.

It's not all that bad: It seems people like the engineer's minefields though.
1 out of 4, ouch! The good thing is that we can only improve it our score.

We could have decided not to share these beta rules. But we believe our community is mature enough to handle and understand what beta-rules mean. Some people are interested in the way the game is made.

This is the opportunity for us to show you some of the strings and springs behind the making of a game.

And we are very happy of your feedback good and bad. We are able to pocket our pride. We'll scan your reactions and come back to you with new rules. It's your game too.

I'm also thinking of starting a poll for each new rule. that way we'll be able to know clearly the rules you like and does that need to be re-worked.

Hopefully this is a good thing.

That's rather promising. And really progressive on their part. Better than other companies that just throw rules at you and say "Follow this!"

grey_death wrote:Better than other companies that just throw rules at you and say "Follow this!"

QFT.

Death By Monkeys wrote:Okay, this may be a dumb question because I haven't played AT-43 yet, but from the way these rules look, it sounds like you don't need any models to represent this unit...other than a bunker of course. Am I wrong in this?

I also agree that I'd have to willingly suspend my disbelief in reality even more than usual for these games to believe that a mechanic or medic based inside a bunker could fix/heal units without leaving the bunker. I mean, maybe if the target unit was touching the bunker or something - or maybe even like a couple inches away. But LOS? Maybe AT-43 uses a whole heck of a lot more terrain than 40k.

It sounds a bit like the healing-hose from Team Fortress 2 doesn't it?

Maybe they have tissue reconstrcutive nano-serum darts or perhaps the UNA and Red Blok are all heavily hypno-conditioned to "walk off" potentially life threatening injuries when commanded to do so by a medic. "Endorphins on!"

Maybe the Therians somehow built this into the Avans or else the medic can use uh... a laser or infared light control?(line of sight so it can't be radio controlled) to impel the soldiers armor to inject stabilizing drugs remotely? And it's all tied to bunkers somehow?

Oh well.

Rules can't all make sense.

Yeah...

This is hella-g4y.

I like the idea of a bunker-bound squad. I like it as much as I like the idea of them putting transport vehicles in the game. Or Dinosaurs. Or even rules for difficult terrain, buildings and woods.

I dunno, I like how simple the rules are (it keeps them neat and clean). I just don't get why they didn't test all these rules and release them in a comprehensive rulebook. Shoehorning stuff in is just kinda lame. Buying one rulebook with everything in it would have been better than scrounging for Cry Havocs (now out of print and cards like the Orbital Strike will never be released in english) or downloading and printing PDFs.

I dunno, just seems poorly planned. The framework's good and all. It just seems like they keep tacking stuff on.

Well a lot of game now have "effect" based rules that ignore realism in favor of an RTS computer game like utility.

Y'know the drill...you build a bunker(or pay your points) and you get fantastic bunker powers (defense is doubled, shots do more damage, etc.) to represet the effect of the force multiplier. You build a preacher/banner/charismatic leader and any potential moral instability just goes away as long as the unit exists on the table and your troops become happy robots no matter how satanic the unit charging them is or how many losses they've taken.

Warmachine is full of this stuff (and while it keeps that game from feeling like a proper table type army game at times it does add to all the "combo-mania" and "wrasslin' moves/super-powers" fun ).

So maybe it plays better than it sounds.

If it eliminates a few rounds of run out and run back or equally strange rules like AOE "heal templates"(FF love grenades) then maybe it's ultimately a good thing (even if it is a little bit distasteful). It's usually good to give a player more stuff to do in a round (rather than over three rounds) and it might even enhance "York's Drift" type scenarios where the little fort gets swarmed from all directions.