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ferrous wrote:

The factions also need better defining, I'd want easily identifiable factions with things that are really unique to each faction.

This was actually the hardest thing to do, IMO - the new rules were a cake-walk in comparison. They made some... expedient, but perhaps not wise choices with NuCoal and Peace River, that limited how they can compartmentalize miniatures. Largely this grew out of their start, where they were simply creating options for collectors from the RPG days who wanted a full product line to pick from. However, what they need to do now is break down the line into what they classify as sub-factions, and give each of those a strong identity:

UMFA

Gets Tigers and 'fancy' Jaguars, has a focus on elite trooper Gears. Restrict them to only having the Ferret and the Weasel for Scouts. Not sure what to do about support gears - gets trickier.

NAF

Maybe focus them on Cheetahs and Grizzlies, with perhaps a sub-par elite model (+DEF, no +ATK).

WFPA

The easiest. They already have a large line of models - just restrict them to those models (and make them more interesting in the process)

SRA

Actually pretty easy to split - give them the elite gears (Chameleon, SEBM, Fer De Lance) but clamp down on the support options a bit. Make them sorta a mirror for the UMFA, but they would be the only faction to get Duelists.

MILICIA

Pretty easy - focus them on the cheaper gears, but they need to compete in the same design space as ESE and MD. I'd probably drop the MP gears, maybe focus this list around Jager variants and Cobras.

MD

They have the 'samurai' thing going, along with the MP option - there were some additions in FiF that might help them out too (Diamondback). This faction I'd focus more towards an "urban" concept, possibly.

ESE

The oddball. Probably the best choice would be to give them fairly basic units (Basilisks, SD Jagers, etc) and then let them keep their L&L benefit of picking a single type of unit from another list. That gives them a bit of a unique feel, mixing fairly low-end units with cherry-picked high-end ones.

PRDF

I think these get split into two lists - one for elite models, one not. You can cover quite a bit of ground making the elite faction fast models that are mostly geared towards a Strike concept, whereas the second becomes more of a garrison choice and picks up the gearstriders. I'd probably change their models slightly to make them tougher, as (historically) paxton tended to value pilots over gear.

POC

Lots of fun stuff to play with here - but hard to integrate them with the other units. I'd be fairly tempted to shift them from an urban focus to a patrol focus - give them lots of fast scouts, mobile artillery, that kind of stuff. They retain the 'speed' facet like PRDF but trade strike units for a model more like NAF, of combined arms. However, depending on the model counts, you might end up with just two 'lines' of development for Paxton.

NuCoal

I'd split into multiple factions. There were some interesting ideals in the various sub-factions that could be used, and I think the model line could support between 2-3 factions. This would take quite a bit of investigation, though.

Can we put Ice back in charge? Please?

 Firebreak wrote:
Can we put Ice back in charge? Please?

I'll get the shovels.

I don't agree with many of the stuff Ice has just stated for the factions... but at least it would be a vision. Not like right now.

Speaking of burying, man, Firebreak, did your thread piss off Dave.
He didn't even bother moving it !

Of course, 2nd ed is kind of a taboo topic with DP9 nowadays, so... yeah.

The thing about having an explicit vision, and showing it to other people is that they can actually criticize it, and help improve it.
Design by committee is a problem. Figuring out requirements by committee is not.

In other words, get a bunch of people to figure out the high level vision for the game and faction identities.
After that, start doing the designing.

Another way of doing that is to start with a single vision, and try to convince others that it is good. If they cannot be convinced, that's a good sign that the vision is probably not good.

 Albertorius wrote:
I don't agree with many of the stuff Ice has just stated for the factions... but at least it would be a vision. Not like right now.

Exactly, EXACTLY. Ice (or anyone) could say that the North should have fluffy pink tufts of fur on their Gears as a defining trait, but at this point, even THAT much would be better than the design and vision currently on offer.

 HudsonD wrote:
Speaking of burying, man, Firebreak, did your thread piss off Dave.
He didn't even bother moving it !

Of course, 2nd ed is kind of a taboo topic with DP9 nowadays, so... yeah.

Yeah I'm...not sure how long I am for the forum, some days.

ferrous wrote:
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more that I think Heavy Gear is kind of screwed because of inertia. It really needs a slimmed down weapon table, with better defined roles. But you can't really do that without alienating whatever is left of the existing customer base. I personally waver between only one type, or perhaps just Light / Heavy.
The factions also need better defining, I'd want easily identifiable factions with things that are really unique to each faction.

So very true - I think those are the primary reasons most fan created alternatives end up going nowhere, and why the Pod will in all likelihood never be able to dig themselves back out of their self-created hole.

I know for me personally those two areas have generated most of the grief and disinterest my ideas have run aground upon.

 IceRaptor wrote:
As far as list building - I'm firmly in the Flames of War style camp. I believe the best solution (and lobbied for) is to have a free and open building system, where you could take what you wanted - to satisfy the existing customers with armies that might be broken in the transition. But then have 'theme' forces with built-in restrictions, but specific bonuses - I'd consider it a mix between Warmachine theme lists and FoW style army build. You pickup a 3 model squad of 'tank hunters', which are just set models. Maybe you can upgrade (only) their autocannons, maybe not. But it's drop dead simple. If I didn't have to support the legacy side, I'd just go with the FoW style list.

mrondeau wrote:

Models and weapons with significant differences;

Unrestrictive army construction system;

Balanced game;

Pick two.
You cannot have all three. No game, ever, managed to have all three. Pretending you will have all three is not useful.
In fact, it will only please two groups:

Those who do not care about playing the game and just want to move miniatures around while saying "Pew-pew", and

Min-maxers, who will break your army construction system and win without even having to play.

I notice my idea for combining a FoW-style force construction with my idea for a HG module rather quickly became not all that universal regarding availability, and not quite as simple as I originally imagined or intended.

If anyone would like to see the rough draft, shoot me a PM and I'll reply with the "share" link, which if I've set it correctly is supposed to allow comments to be inserted and/or posted, when I get a bit more done and reviewed in a day or so.

 IceRaptor wrote:
It's possible to balance these concerns through a team effort - but generally speaking, design by dictator works better in small groups than design by committee. You need either one or two people with a specific vision of what they want to accomplish, and the market they hope to hit, to guide the decisions that must be made to give the product at least a chance of success.

You can solicit feedback from players, but you shouldn't put them in the role of designer directly - unless you're willing to bring them into that space completely. Once you do, you have to start making compromises on your vision. If your goals align, that can work... but if they don't, the compromises start eating away at the healthy parts of the process.

mrondeau wrote:
The thing about having an explicit vision, and showing it to other people is that they can actually criticize it, and help improve it.
Design by committee is a problem. Figuring out requirements by committee is not.

In other words, get a bunch of people to figure out the high level vision for the game and faction identities.
After that, start doing the designing.

Another way of doing that is to start with a single vision, and try to convince others that it is good. If they cannot be convinced, that's a good sign that the vision is probably not good.

And of course, the Pod in my experience tried to run projects with both dictatorial oversight at an insulated distance and design by committee at the same time.

I'm kind of leaning towards benevolent dictatorship with the ideas I've been fleshing out, even if the end they fail the "trying to convince others" part.

 Firebreak wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I don't agree with many of the stuff Ice has just stated for the factions... but at least it would be a vision. Not like right now.

Exactly, EXACTLY. Ice (or anyone) could say that the North should have fluffy pink tufts of fur on their Gears as a defining trait, but at this point, even THAT much would be better than the design and vision currently on offer.

True enough, even as far back as in The Making of a Universe the heavier Southern models are already sporting their not universally welcomed shoulder spikes.


The one post there by Dave was a little disturbing when I read it.

Dave, Tues 7 Oct 2014 at 8:54 PM wrote:Read the rules Disputes on page 5. If you don't know the rule just flip to see whose rule gets followed and get on with it. Write a sticky and check it after the game. Rules lawyering should not slow the game down. Spend that time after the game figuring out what went wrong.

I think the point is supposed to be that wargamers who do rules lawyer will suddenly not do that, and that everyone should somehow have played enough to not have to look up all of the rules when there is a question on how RAW/RAI work or interact.
It's pretty obvious to most everyone this was not the normal state for OldBLitz, yet in the "vision" TPTB have for NuBLitz the game will magically be free of this situation?

I was very surprised that Dave agreed to post some kind of statement in answer to the questions being asked on the Pod forums, but as mrondeau and others have commented it would've been better to provide that kind of thing back in January for the Alpha, then revised it in June for the Beta.
If he does actually do it...., it'll be interesting to see what he writes about his vision of HG.

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 Albertorius wrote:
I don't agree with many of the stuff Ice has just stated for the factions... but at least it would be a vision. Not like right now.

I'd be horrified if you did. That was 5 minutes of thought, at most. I just started with the premises that 1) the focus wouldn't really shift from Terra Nova all that much 2) the fluff would have to be re-conned somewhat to make a mixture of TN powers as opponents work for the wargame and 3) to give each sub-faction a distinct identity, you'd need to break the 'same-ness' of the current factions and give them unique models, as much as possible. Given more time, I'm sure I could do better.. but I'm not sure it would ever align completely with what you'd like, I think. However, it would be on me to sell it effectively, heh.




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mrondeau wrote:

In other words, get a bunch of people to figure out the high level vision for the game and faction identities.
After that, start doing the designing.

Another way of doing that is to start with a single vision, and try to convince others that it is good. If they cannot be convinced, that's a good sign that the vision is probably not good.

I agree with you that either approach can work, so long as you come to an agreed upon 'high level' design. If the goal is to make a successful miniatures line, and we can get everyone to agree with a limited retcon that makes each 'sub-faction' more prominent than they currently are, that's a significant step forward. You still need to decide what the typical game size should be (are you going Skirmish, Battle, etc) and what the level of detail you want to shoot for are. There are many, many decisions that could very well use input from different backgrounds, like marketing, production, outreach, etc - but once you've gotten a 'plan' you need fewer voices determining how that plan gets fleshed out, IMO.


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 Firebreak wrote:
Can we put Ice back in charge? Please?

I think that ship has long sailed. I walked away for reasons, almost none of which have changed. I hope they can make good on this kickstarter but time will tell...

 IceRaptor wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I don't agree with many of the stuff Ice has just stated for the factions... but at least it would be a vision. Not like right now.

I'd be horrified if you did. That was 5 minutes of thought, at most. I just started with the premises that 1) the focus wouldn't really shift from Terra Nova all that much 2) the fluff would have to be re-conned somewhat to make a mixture of TN powers as opponents work for the wargame and 3) to give each sub-faction a distinct identity, you'd need to break the 'same-ness' of the current factions and give them unique models, as much as possible. Given more time, I'm sure I could do better.. but I'm not sure it would ever align completely with what you'd like, I think. However, it would be on me to sell it effectively, heh.

Heh. Yeah, I assumed as much, and I'm kinda resigned to the fact that it's quite probable that any retcon for the miniatures game will be less than stellar for me, particularly. That's one of the reasons I advocated for a split of timelines/needs.

 warboss wrote:
I do hope as well that Dave addresses some of the questions that popped up overnight (including my own) instead of just deleting them. I find it a bit odd that something big like this would be previewed late at night and not during the morning so as to respond to the potential feedback quicker.

 warboss wrote:
I guess it is too much trouble to scroll back as I don't think the questions themselves were uncomfortable for the most part. Maybe I'll have better luck the second time around.

Spoiler:

1) Will the retail version of the starter also have the same 3 factions making it a 3 player starter as well? How much will the retail version cost in stores?

2) Will the new models like the Arbaleslier and Lion be available in traditional metal as well? No matter how hard you work and plan, things happen that delay plastic minis kickstarters, usually massively. Will the new sculpts be available as traditional metal retail blister releases as well as future plastics for those who want to buy them sooner or have them match their existing metal collections?

3) From the description above, should we assume that the Arbaleslier will be a fire support style hover gear?

4) Will there be wave shipping if a lot of stretch goals are met thereby doubling, tripling, or more the workload making the original delivery date unrealistic?

Looks like the KS discussion is about to end, yet TPTB just didn't want to answer any of your points right now for some reason, as if #1, #2, & #4 aren't going to be asked again down the road.

 IceRaptor wrote:
I think that ship has long sailed. I walked away for reasons, almost none of which have changed. I hope they can make good on this kickstarter but time will tell...

I notice the Pod also plans to try and run it during the holidays despite numerous suggestions to wait, so I guess they decided an attempt to get everything up and going so as to have Gencon '15 repeat the success of their last big hurrah in 2012 was better than a more assured plan for '16 and beyond.
But how many second chances does he think fans, players, ex-fans, or people at large in the gaming community are going to give DP9 if the company can't make good on their promises.



Something else of concern;
One thing repeatedly pointed out not solely by myself during testing for all of 2012, 2013, part of 2014, and probably long before that, is the fact that when an individual model costs $30 USD or more the rules as well as the force construction system need to account for that factor.
In practical terms a lot of work ends up being necessary to create a combat group almost no one is ever going to use that must still be factored for balance and layout for what should be an otherwise center-piece model that tends to attract players.

However, unless I'm reading the Beta force construction pages wrong, the Strider & assorted vehicle combat groups have reverted back to not allowing only a single model as the entirety or core of the "UA" due to the [4] action minimum.
So the only affordable way for most players to add them is as the support unit, with all the limitations that entails by not being their own combat group.
This is a problem combat groups such as the Cavalry Patrol, consisting of [2-3] models costing $27 USD or more apiece, have run into during the entire history (2006 to now) of the HGB! ruleset.

TPTB at the Pod just never, ever, seem able to grasp this essential point.

Dave 31 January 2014 - 08:14 AM wrote:We don't price our figures based on their in game points cost. (See drone packs and infantry), but we can try to fit them a bit better through the design process. If the overall voice of the community is that Caprice needs a point bump to match their power rating then that can be a specific design goal. On a whole the Caprice models cost 25% more than their general equivalents in the N/S/PR.

I think it is completely irrelevant to bother lowering the prices yet keep ignoring the practical side of why those models are under-represented on the actual gaming board in the first place?

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Some comments on the "manifesto":
Anything not mentioned is empty verbiage.

"Minute[sic] of the rules": The minutia of the rules is what this should have been about, but it is not.

"The Goal": That's very high level, but contains one piece of information: 4(!!)-20 models, and 2 hours.
The description of the setting is vague to the point of uselessness.

"You should play Heavy Gear because:" Those are just wishes, and should have been part of the goal. It is, once more, too vague.
Those are high level goals. Most of them are a given, and would apply to any miniature game.

"What aspects of the game does the game designer want the playtesters to focus on?": This is not guidance, and the fact that he thinks it is is confirms Dave utter incompetence.
To summarize it: play the game and email me. The exact same directives playtesters have received since about 2006.

I was planning to write a more complete review, but while doing it I realized that most of the content is empty verbiage that summarized into nothing, and typos.

The fun part there, is that this "new" manifesto was posted to answer pleas for more info on the direction on the game by playtesters that feel left in the dark.

That Dave assumes this is informative is just further evidence of his complete incompetence.

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
I was very surprised that Dave agreed to post some kind of statement in answer to the questions being asked on the Pod forums, but as mrondeau and others have commented it would've been better to provide that kind of thing back in January for the Alpha, then revised it in June for the Beta.
If he does actually do it...., it'll be interesting to see what he writes about his vision of HG.

 warboss wrote:
That seems purposely broad yet focused. In other words, full of conflicting marketing speak.

mrondeau wrote:
I was planning to write a more complete review, but while doing it I realized that most of the content is empty verbiage that summarized into nothing, and typos.

 HudsonD wrote:
The fun part there, is that this "new" manifesto was posted to answer pleas for more info on the direction on the game by playtesters that feel left in the dark.

.... well, uh, I was expecting Dave to put out at least something to the community, but not for the entire content to be essentially nothing that hasn't already been said before now.
I honestly didn't expect him to do it quite this poorly, if he chose to do it in the first place at all, and then five hours later to still not have announced his rehashed update for anyone who doesn't know where to go looking for it.
Just a bit of a red flag there in my opinion.

In retrospect, perhaps the question to have asked Dave was what he thought the definition of "manifesto" and "objective" to be.


No matter how you cut it though, I don't think he and the Pod are looking too good right now, in the week before their KS launch.

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I.... what the HELL was that? I wasn't exactly hopeful for NuBlitz, but I also wasn't especially pessimistic. Now, though? I think the KS is going to fail, Arkrite's thing will never see the light of day, and Heavy Gear's going under.

The "manifesto" was just empty words. It might as well say "We want Heavy Gear to be way rad." The "Vision" section literally says "we want it to be popular."


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Yeah. I don't see this thread lasting long. Poor guys. Sometimes it must feel like DP9 can't do anything right. Wonder what that's like.

Wonder.

Eh, it's something. Is it about as informative and truthful as a 30 second political ad? Sure.. but at least we got one good nugget of info out of it and the actual intended model count is now public.

 Firebreak wrote:

Yeah. I don't see this thread lasting long. Poor guys. Sometimes it must feel like DP9 can't do anything right. Wonder what that's like.

... That's horrifying. At this point, their incompetence must be self-reinforcing.

strawman wrote:No matter what we do, we always get complains. Ergo, it's not about us, it's just that the complainers are evil hateful complaining complainers, and we can just ignore them.
All of them. We are good at our job, it's just that, for some reason, we are surrounded by those evil hateful complaining complainers!
Any and all level of complains, including 0, mean that we are doing a good job!

Which bring us back to the main issue: only one group can stop that cycle; those inside it. DP9 must change.

 warboss wrote:
Eh, it's something. Is it about as informative and truthful as a 30 second political ad? Sure.. but at least we got one good nugget of info out of it and the actual intended model count is now public.

That's how I took it as well, Warboss. I thought it was a fairly well-crafted example of a 'say nothing' piece, where you appear to respond without actually responding.

DP9 doesn't gain anything by being explicit with their goals or expectations right now. If they can be vague and still drum up support, why wouldn't they do that? That's just good business 101 - don't over promise and under deliver.

 IceRaptor wrote:
That's just good business 101 - don't over promise and under deliver.

I agree that they shouldn't over promise and under deliver but I don't think that is what is currently happening. It feels a bit more like they're over estimating and under planning. Stuff that frankly should have been ironed out before the alpha public release is just seemingly being "winged" now on the fly. In any case, I'm curious to see how much on the fly changes will be made with the next KS preview and then between that and the end of the KS. If their funding goals and project scope continue IMO to be so wildly and unrealistically optimistic, I expect further course corrections mid-KS that will give backers sea sickness.

They're trying to do too much with too little.

A relaunch on a giant miniature game that needs a lot of work.

A new RPG system.

A dual revamp to the silhouette rules to fit both games.

I'd suggest a full reboot, start fresh from some core units, with a promise to bring back all current models/units in some usable form. Make this the basis for a proper beta. Discard a lot of the baggage that's built up.

That last part is especially important since DP9 is not the company it once was, and perhaps should never be that original company again, since it ran itself into the ground.

Besides that, there's obviously less staff or money to contract out, hence the need for kickstarters just to publish books.

Making one small game is a helluva lot of work, I should know. Making one game that's already huge? That's exponentially more work. Making a large game with a long history, alongside a big RPG book, all of which is meant to reboot a series with such a small and pissed off fanbase?

I'd also suggest they drop the "Blitz" subname. Just relaunch under the single title, HEAVY GEAR.

 warboss wrote:
It feels a bit more like they're over estimating and under planning.
...
If their funding goals and project scope continue IMO to be so wildly and unrealistically optimistic, I expect further course corrections mid-KS that will give backers sea sickness.

I won't argue with that point; I was just reacting to the manifesto in specific. The kickstarter is a whole other situation - it starting to look like a goldmine of schadenfreude, if you lean that way.


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 Vertrucio wrote:

A dual revamp to the silhouette rules to fit both games.

I don't believe Arkrite is changing the rules, are they? I thought they were shooting to be 2e compatible, instead. And it's worth pointing out that Arkrite is a completely different company, I believe.

 Vertrucio wrote:

I'd suggest a full reboot, start fresh from some core units, with a promise to bring back all current models/units in some usable form. Make this the basis for a proper beta. Discard a lot of the baggage that's built up.

That would be the ideal situation, but the stomach for that never existed. They wanted to keep at least a tentative link to their historical fanbase, potentially as a hedge against failure (though that's a guess on my part). That's understandable to some extent - I don't know what their financial situation is - but typically a cautious approach tends to lead to a long, slow death rather than anything like a rebirth.

 Albertorius wrote:
Heh. Yeah, I assumed as much, and I'm kinda resigned to the fact that it's quite probable that any retcon for the miniatures game will be less than stellar for me, particularly.

I've kind of gotten to the point of a default "meh, what was the person or persons responsible even thinking THIS time around" response to the 'kick ass' art, sculpts, and fluff.

Whatever game it is that Robert & Dave are trying to Kickstart, it sure doesn't feel or look much anything like Heavy Gear to me now.
Just the cost of doing business I guess, but even at my most objective I cannot honestly say I would ever try to interest anyone in the current "official" company, setting, or game(s) because those areas don't seem to be offering anything worth the time and $$$ as developed.

mrondeau wrote:
Which bring us back to the main issue: only one group can stop that cycle; those inside it. DP9 must change.

And of course the crux of our nigh 50-page thread is that not a one of TPTB has proven in the past to possess enough self-awareness, objectivity, or plain honesty to admit to themselves how there might be multiple, repeated, reasons to change in the first place.

mrondeau wrote:
Range:
It's science-fiction. In the future. Anyone who thinks "Let's get in armoured vehicles and run towards each other to try to stick sharp things in the enemy armoured vehicle" should be referred to a psychiatrist, not enabled.
Vibro-blades should be useless, except in exceptional situations. The kind that are remembered for years. Vibro-axes and such should be just as useless.
You want to damage something, you shoot it like a civilized person. It's just polite.

Armored combat at down to 30 or 50 meters:

14 - 18 October, 1973
The Battle of the Chinese Farm (here and here)

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 Smilodon_UP wrote:

mrondeau wrote:
Range:
It's science-fiction. In the future. Anyone who thinks "Let's get in armoured vehicles and run towards each other to try to stick sharp things in the enemy armoured vehicle" should be referred to a psychiatrist, not enabled.
Vibro-blades should be useless, except in exceptional situations. The kind that are remembered for years. Vibro-axes and such should be just as useless.
You want to damage something, you shoot it like a civilized person. It's just polite.

Armored combat at down to 30 or 50 meters:

14 - 18 October, 1973
The Battle of the Chinese Farm (here and here)

I don't really see the link between my anti-melee-in-science-fiction-not-set-in-a-long-time-ago-or-called-dune and those things happening near a Japanese farm, honestly.
Well, except that no one fixed bayonets on tanks.

I suspect he wanted to present a more modern retelling of close combat versus a tank heavy force beyond the usual molotov cocktails thrown at Panzers in Stalingrad that comes to mind for alot of folks. I skimmed through the links and didn't see any references to massed infantry charges at tanks in the hopes of poking eyes out through the vision slits with bayonets which is apparently now the preferred anti-tank strategy in HG.

Seriously though... if vibroblades were such a great anti-tank weapon, why the heck wouldn't someone design a rapid fire vibroblade launcher instead of autocannons, rockets, railguns, and missiles? A vibro atl-atl seems like it fit in great with the nuvision of nublitz.

 warboss wrote:
why the heck wouldn't someone design a rapid fire vibroblade launcher instead of autocannons, rockets, railguns, and missiles? A vibro atl-atl seems like it fit in great with the nuvision of nublitz.

A vibrator gun?

"No matter who wins, someone's going to get #$%@&!"

Yeah, that sounds about right for NuBlitz.

 warboss wrote:
Seriously though... if vibroblades were such a great anti-tank weapon, why the heck wouldn't someone design a rapid fire vibroblade launcher instead of autocannons, rockets, railguns, and missiles? A vibro atl-atl seems like it fit in great with the nuvision of nublitz.

I can talk to the intent behind the melee changes, since the major ones probably originated with me. Simply put - melee needed to have a role in the game. There were many people who commented that melee combat in Blitz was completely pointless; you typically got into base to base and nothing happened. And that was a shame, because for some people, the ideal of using a blade to chop a Gear into tiny pieces is thematically compelling. It's not for everybody - and it shouldn't even be a major component - but it should be possible. I chose to try to make the game more inclusive, and appealing to different styles of play. Which means that melee needed to be a viable option.

All that said, the basis of Heavy Gear has always been some element of realism. So to reconcile that theme (which I love) with the desire to allow melee as an option for someone crazy enough to try it - I tried to make melee a very high risk, very high reward situation. Vibroblades were a decent weapon, but you had to close to use them - and if you were the first model in, you were probably going to be nuked in the process. The defender got a chance to shoot you before you attacked, and you counted as fumbling your roll - so your only choice was to try to overwhelm the defender with numbers. So melee was possible - but was something of a gamble to pull off. It wasn't perfect, most certainly - it was just supposed to be a first step. I wanted to continue to refine it to allow people who liked melee to have fun with that, while keeping the theme of the game primarily ranged combat.

It's worth noting that when I say they were decent, what I mean is that vibroblades started out as being slightly more powerful than an autocannon, but had a trait that allows them to treat armor values greater than their penetration as equal to their penetration. In other words, you could do a point or two against those high armor targets - but you wouldn't cut right through them. That changed to AT over time as there was an attempt to streamline the traits - though it never really fit. The defenseless trait came later and probably should have signaled a loss of the special traits on the VBs, but I don't remember if I simply missed that one or it got lost in the shuffle. At the time - I wasn't testing melee.

At any rate - I still think there's a role for melee in the game. To appeal more broadly it needs at least to be possible, even if it's very difficult. You can argue that I'm demonstrating naivety - there's no good way balance a powerful melee attack without letting a melee rush be possible - and that may be possible. But I thought it was important to at least try to make that possible, rather than just making melee useless.

 IceRaptor wrote:

I can talk to the intent behind the melee changes, since the major ones probably originated with me. Simply put - melee needed to have a role in the game. There were many people who commented that melee combat in Blitz was completely pointless; you typically got into base to base and nothing happened.

In a sad and weird sort of way, that mirrored shooting with most weapons in that nothing happened. In any case, I agree it should be viable but it shouldn't apparently (and I say apparently because I haven't run the numbers myself) be the goto choice for taking out heavily armored targets for models carrying bazookas. I'd probably say the AT trait bothers me the most. In any case, I'd prefer some sort of rule to use grenades against the really armored targets and leave the VB for relatively light ones like gears.

You're expecting a gear portable thrown grenade to be effective against a tank's armor when that tank's armor has been designed to deal with real weapons?

 warboss wrote:

Seriously though... if vibroblades were such a great anti-tank weapon, why the heck wouldn't someone design a rapid fire vibroblade launcher instead of autocannons, rockets, railguns, and missiles? A vibro atl-atl seems like it fit in great with the nuvision of nublitz.

What do you expect the payload of a missile in a setting with practical technology like that is going to be? It's entirely possible that's is part of large scale (ship vs. ship) missile technology.

But that's not going to make a "vibro-autocannon" (or a railgun launched vibroblade) practical, because you would still be looking at launching vibroblade sized devices at your target, and that sort of thing has a diminished effect when your project either gets stuck on the surface of your target, or disintegrates due to the impact. You would, after all, still have to be firing these things at ballistic speeds in order to have a decent chance of hitting your target.

mrondeau wrote:
I don't really see the link between my anti-melee-in-science-fiction-not-set-in-a-long-time-ago-or-called-dune and those things happening near a Japanese farm, honestly.

 warboss wrote:
I suspect he wanted to present a more modern retelling of close combat versus a tank heavy force beyond the usual Molotov cocktails thrown at Panzers in Stalingrad that comes to mind for a lot of folks.

Apologies, yeah, an assumption was made there on my part.

Might be more illustrative; a Gala Village/Chinese Farm aftermath image & here.

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 solkan wrote:
You're expecting a gear portable thrown grenade to be effective against a tank's armor when that tank's armor has been designed to deal with real weapons?

 warboss wrote:

Seriously though... if vibroblades were such a great anti-tank weapon, why the heck wouldn't someone design a rapid fire vibroblade launcher instead of autocannons, rockets, railguns, and missiles? A vibro atl-atl seems like it fit in great with the nuvision of nublitz.

What do you expect the payload of a missile in a setting with practical technology like that is going to be? It's entirely possible that's is part of large scale (ship vs. ship) missile technology.

But that's not going to make a "vibro-autocannon" (or a railgun launched vibroblade) practical, because you would still be looking at launching vibroblade sized devices at your target, and that sort of thing has a diminished effect when your project either gets stuck on the surface of your target, or disintegrates due to the impact. You would, after all, still have to be firing these things at ballistic speeds in order to have a decent chance of hitting your target.

The last part about a anti-tank vibroblade launcher was a sarcastic joke. As for the grenades, I expect a gear handheld shaped charge to do better in game than a KNIFE in that situation (ala the 40k "meltabomb"). I was suggesting that if there has to be some sort of a melee range only ubiquitous anti-tank weapon that a placed grenade style weapon would be a better choice than a vibroblade.