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Wait how does life is cheap not apply in skirmish games?

Edit: NM I read it!

I no longer take issue with the intro scenarios playing as they do if an entire other game mode plays the same way later.

Also in Skirmish you can take a single Glaug and that ONE unit gives you 5 Command Points. Zen are meant to have a commander.

Glaug + regults in skirmish will give you a ridiculous, probably game breaking advantage.

Depends, the other player could take a VF-1S...

That still wont give them anywhere near the CP of the zentraedi player.

The UEDF player doesn't need them as badly.

Actually scratch that whole line of thought. I really should have read the skirmish rules closer. You can only take a special or support. The sentance following force selection lead me to believe it was a special and support.

So you cannot take a glaug and regults.

(1) That might need FAQing. (Probably not given you can only take a single card.)

(2) I hate to say it, because it takes us back to square one, but you gets regults + a glaug in two of the starter scenarios.

 Manchu wrote:
(1) That might need FAQing. (Probably not given you can only take a single card.)

(2) I hate to say it, because it takes us back to square one, but you gets regults + a glaug in two of the starter scenarios.

I always understood 1 or 2 support or special cards. Meh, not many people will play skirmish games anyways. I've been pushing detailed skirmish rules for a while.

Either way here is the fix that I proposed to PB, word for word. You will also notice that they did not change the 2 MPA to 3 like I pointed out to them. There are 3 on a support card not 2.



Skirmish games use the Standard Scenarios and are intended to be played with small forces. The set up for a skirmish game is performed in the normal way outlined earlier in these rules, except for the forces used. First both players will choose a total points value for the units they wish to use for the game. This is typically somewhere between 50 and 100 points and usually never more than 200. Instead of Core Force Cards combined with Support and Special Cards, each player simply chooses any number of Support Cards or Special Cards totaling up to his point total and uses those mecha. Note: Faction Cards are not used in Skirmish games. Mecha with the Life is Cheap special ability do not have that ability in skirmish games. Mecha that normally have the Life is Cheap trait will only generate one command point for every 3 units in a skirmish game, rounding up. Zentraedi infantry only generate one Command Point for every 4 infantry, rounding up. Some sample skirmish squadrons that could face off against each other are:

1 VF-1S VS. 3 Nousjadeul-Ger
2 VF-1As VS. 6 Regults
2 Tomahawks VS. 3 Gnerls

Skirmish sound like fun! just a couple units nice.

 Mike1975 wrote:
Meh, not many people will play skirmish games anyways.

Call me pedantic if you like, but given the units used in the learning scenarios, *almost everyone* will be playing the skirmish game, at least to start (while building models/collections and whatnot).

Which, I'd like to point out, I've been noting for over a year now.

Whether or not they stick with it remains to be seen, but 2 VT's vs 6 Battlepods? The thing we debated for pages on end? Y'know, the thing ND and PB have demo'd the game with, making it probably the most played game setup by a large margin (for now)?

Totally a (modified) skirmish game.

I'm sorry if this has been covered but can a model with flight (that is not an aircraft) turn "off" the ability to use cover?

 warboss wrote:
I'm sorry if this has been covered but can a model with flight (that is not an aircraft) turn "off" the ability to use cover?

No, Flight cannot be turned off. But remember that valks can go into battloid mode, losing Flight.

EDIT -- actually, upon checking, Flight is not listed only for Guardian and Jet but for the valk generally.

And Flight doesn't limit a mecha's ability to take cover AFAIK.

Battloids also have Flight?

Yes. The general special rules for valks are Battloid Restriction, Flight, and Variable Mode.

Jet Mode further adds Afterburner, Aircraft, and Fast Mover.

Guardian mode adds Hands and Hover.

Battloid mode adds Hands, doubles GU-11 range, and allows GU-11 to use Rapid Fire an additional time per turn.

 Manchu wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I'm sorry if this has been covered but can a model with flight (that is not an aircraft) turn "off" the ability to use cover?

No, Flight cannot be turned off. But remember that valks can go into battloid mode, losing Flight.

EDIT -- actually, upon checking, Flight is not listed only for Guardian and Jet but for the valk generally.

And Flight doesn't limit a mecha's ability to take cover AFAIK.

Thanks, I was just checking to see if there was an option to "land" in essence for things like Battloids and QRaus. I don't think flight affects cover but I could see someone reading that (incorrectly IMO) from the rules. You treat terrain as open with flight and the terrain rules say that open doesn't hinder LOS (which is technically related but separate from cover but I could see that as a potentially confusing thing for new players). I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I missed elsewhere. A hovering flight QRau behind some cover is looking pretty difficult to hit (Def 8 or 9 effectively depending on the cover)... which is probably as it should be.

The Flight section though is specifically talking about movement (ignores movement restrictions or penalties from terrain, may freely move over other mecha/scenery/buildings, cannot end movement touching another mecha's base, isn't touching the ground so terrain is open, ignores elevations, etc)

Cover is specifically another section that does not relate to terrain/movement (page 17) and applies only if a Field of View is obstructed.

Question

Now the rules do not play this way but I originally played this way because it made more sense to me. This was that when attacked by...let's say 4 Pods in Close Formation.....you would roll all 4 attack rolls BUT only have to pay one Command Point and make one dodge roll. I saw it as since they all fire at once I only make one mad dash or duck for cover. Even then I might avoid 3 of the 4 hits depending upon the die roll. That way I am not making 4 dodge rolls. The same could be applied if you think you should pay one command point per attack. Pay your 4 command points but then you only make one dodge roll.


Now to complicate things what if I shoot 2 veritechs at 4 Battlepods that are all in close formation and I shoot my missiles since I'm at around 24 inches. I have one guy shoot one missile at Pod A, one at B and 2 at C. Then I have the other Veritech shoot one missile at B, 2 more at C and one at D. If all 4 hit B....and the attack IS considered simultaneous, would he have a chance to dodge from twice, two missiles from two attackers OR would you consider the attack as one since it was simultaneous and under the 4+ missile hit rule not allow that Pod to Dodge? If the Battlepod uses Anti-Missile does he make one roll or two? I would assume 1 but if that is the case then you would think that if 4 missile hit he would not be allowed to dodge.

Fighters can fly thru streets and buildings so could use cover.

PB never gave flight restrictions for height or ground, so if you want to fly nap of the earth go for it.

Leap, Flight, Aircraft and Hover all need to be addressed.
I see no reason why Battlepods with four or five inch Leap should be allowed to jump over a twelve inch high building.

yeah its like PB gave them the abilities but no restrictions on their use.

Hey, guys, I didn't want to spam the main thread so figured I'd bump the unused rules discussion thread to see if there were any thoughts on my Robotech skirmish house rules (link in my blog sig). They're not grandiose enough IMO to warrant a separate thread so I thought I'd post here. Manchu, if you don't mind, I'll post your PM question here as well as elaborate a bit further.

I notice that you do alternating activation by models, which makes the most sense with a smaller scale. But why do players have to finish activating a unit before moving on to the next one?

Backward compatibility, close formation, and ease of tracking My goal was to use as much as possible from the official rules and just tweak it when necessary to better fit the lower model count. I found with my Heavy Gear house rules that folks just didn't bother if you changed too much even if it was in all likelihood for the best. Probably the only rule I'd consider actually "new" rather than a tweak would be to reserve fire and that was mainly to keep the close formation rule relevant with per model activation. At the model counts we're talking about (less than two dozen), it's not ardous to keep track of who activated but it is a bit easier to remember it and prevent confusion by going by squadron then model. I'm not married to it as a rule (it was actually a late addition) but those were my reasons.

I initially didn't have the "finish one squadron" restriction but thought it would be too dissimilar for little purpose. I also tried out some ideas on activating 2 models sequentially for each activation (in conjunction with the existing activation passing rule) if one side has over double the model count of the other but decided not to include that as well. I was a bit worried about zentraedi activation spam from my experience in heavy gear but again didn't want to stray too far away from the core rules and instead went with a hard cap on both cards and models in the game.