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.

1 pt upgrades? Sounds like my CEF Jetpacks!

A little necro (hope this isn't too old!) but I wanted to chime in since I can answer.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Also, adding dice has the Ork effect, where the results get more and more consistent, and therefore predictable. Rolling 5d6 for a 3+ skill gives a vastly more consistent total than rolling 3d6 for a 4+ skill.

One thing that is being missed is how additional dice interact with the roll. There's two systems going on at the same time - the traditional Silhouette system where adding more dice results in a more predictable final result before the augment is calculated. As you add dice you trend towards 6, such that you can (mostly) expect a 4-5-6 on 2D6 and a 5-6 on 5D6.

The augment is a separate system, which benefits as you throw more dice. So a 2+ gains roughly +1 for each dice you throw, whereas a 6+ does not. That layers ontop of the Sil system to give you higher results as you accumulate dice (modifiers).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

And FWIW, going from 4+ to 3+ adds roughly 0.7 to the final total. Numerically, one might as well add +1 for the 3+ over the 4+. At least, assuming that I've made no systemic error in calculating my totals (based on the examples in the rules, I think I'm doing it correctly).

The problem with straight modifiers is that they completely swamp the dice once the delta becomes +2 in on direction or the other. I.e. if you're throwing 2D6 +2 and I'm throwing 5D6 -2, you're vastly more likely to win. This is been present in every version of HG - find the best modifier you could, and you're golden. The augment process is intended to weaken the modifier, especially with the higher augment values. The theory is that it allows tactical choices (that add dice to the pool) to be magnified for high augment models, and minimized for low augment models. A tank with PIL 6+ rolling 5D6 will consistently get a 5-6 value; but a Gear rolling a PIL 2+ on 5D6 should expect 8-11.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
My observation is simply that, for the result that the Pod is getting, the HGB mechanics may be unnecessarily complex.

Entirely possible - but straight modifiers with Sil have significant problems. You have to go to D10s to get enough space to let straight +1 modifiers have some impact without completely flooding the dice result.

What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended. It feels like the sources of close combat extra d6 has ballooned significantly and you can get squads of gears that routinely cripple other trooper gears and deulists that reliably one shot them (>50% of the time) at relatively cheap prices for both. I'm a bit concerned about the close combat power level to be honest.

@Ice, I was just sharing what my simulations came up with. I suspect others can confirm something similar from a statistical standpoint.

Re: 2d6+2 vs 5d6-2? That's completely intuitive, as the equivalent is 4d6 vs 3d6.

Also, 2+ and 6+ are exceedingly rare among standard gears. The vast bulk of HG combat stats are 4+, then a few 3+, then a few 5+.

Most 5+ / 6+ are EW actions that really should be absorbed into the core mechanics. OTOH, it's a logical mismatch for the realism of the universe vs the game that gets played.

But it's OK. I get that you were going for a finer gradation than what I would prefer.

 warboss wrote:
What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended.

The original intent was to make melee deadly enough to warrant dodging 2-3 rounds of shooting. The game was structured (I hesitate to say balanced, because it wasn't) around the idea of a 18" nominal range, with 6" movement. A shot at 18" range in the open should generate 1-2 points of damage 70% of the time with autocannons / missiles. Gears would have 3-4 hits - so basically you were trading not dying for two rounds for a chance at melee. The odds weren't in your favor, so melee weapons needed to be strong enough to make the trade-off worthwhile.

I've not looked at the current version of the rules, but I know they started slapping Agile (+1D6 defense I think) on everything under the sun. I think that was a reaction to people being horrified at how easily Gears died under the alpha system. I know it was a particular point of concern for the Vegas crew, because they played on basically open boards, whereas the game was built around more dense boards. They were basically playing on Warmachine boards, whereas I was testing on boards somewhere between Infinity and 40k levels of detail. At that time, you'd be looking at 4D@4+ versus 2D@4+ for a shot in the open at 18-24" range, which could cripple or kill with some luck. It felt like they kept dialing back the brutality so I'm not surprised if you're back at the situation where melee feels too strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
@Ice, I was just sharing what my simulations came up with. I suspect others can confirm something similar from a statistical standpoint.

Re: 2d6+2 vs 5d6-2? That's completely intuitive, as the equivalent is 4d6 vs 3d6.

Hurm. I've run the numbers (quite a bit - see my Aurora articles about it) and that doesn't seem right. The outcomes of 2D+2 aren't similar to 4D; the 2D+2 will yield 6,7,8 on most rolls, whereas 4D will yield a 5,6 on most rolls. The outcome of 5D-2 will be 3,4 most of the time, whereas 3D yields mostly 4,5,6 (at a higher rate than 2D). In a 'take-the-highest' system adding dice shifts the final result towards 6, whereas adding modifiers shifts the entire curve.

So no, I'd take 2D+2 over 4D any time. MRondeau and I wrote up an article about Sil system dice systems - if you're curious, you can find them on Aurora 5.6, 6.1 and 6.2 - or check the source document.

If that wasn't what you were driving at apologies - I assume you're talking about a 'keep-highest' system like Sil above.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Also, 2+ and 6+ are exceedingly rare among standard gears. The vast bulk of HG combat stats are 4+, then a few 3+, then a few 5+.

Yup. Playtesting was supposed to figure out where to land most things. I started with only the absolute outliers at 2+ (Cheetah) and 6+ (Tanks), but figured most things would move around a bit. 4+ was supposed to be the baseline with room to move up or down for things like the Jaguar or Tiger. 3+ and 5+ should be fairly common though.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Most 5+ / 6+ are EW actions that really should be absorbed into the core mechanics. OTOH, it's a logical mismatch for the realism of the universe vs the game that gets played.

Yeah, the different mechanic for EW was something I really wanted to get rid of. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now - I would rather have keep a consistent approach. I had hoped to replace it with a flat target number, but didn't get enough testing in before I handed the reigns over. This and the cover system were the two big failings I wish I'd gotten to correct before leaving.

Oh well!

That's pretty funny. It's amusing the we now consider 40k boards to be "dense", when I recall when a couple small buildings and a couple tree stands to be typical terrain. I do like the notion of dense (>50%) terrain for skirmish games.

I do like how you were trying to balance melee as an option, where I'm OK having melee as a strictly inferior option compared to direct shooting - but that's a function of the VOTOMs-type anime that I believe forms the basis of how Gears would fight.
____

ETA - To clarify, I wasn't saying that the 2d+2 isn't equivalent to 4d; I was noting that (2d+2 v 5d-2) would be comparable to (4d v 3d) in a general sense of which side should win in a (highest+adders) format.

Quite frankly, I think you did a good job with what you were able to change. Getting rid of the multiplication is a huge help.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's pretty funny. It's amusing the we now consider 40k boards to be "dense", when I recall when a couple small buildings and a couple tree stands to be typical terrain. I do like the notion of dense (>50%) terrain for skirmish games.

Well, we're weren't playing with Infinity levels of terrain, but they were denser than 40k boards. I'd say 60% of the surface was covered, typically with walls, buildings or dunes. I'll try to dig up some photos if I can. I was trying to stay faithful to the source material which makes Gears out to be sitting ducks if they are in the open. The system was structured that way - a tank on a open board was basically unstoppable, because that's the way the fluff read. So that's the way I tried to shape the rules.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I do like how you were trying to balance melee as an option, where I'm OK having melee as a strictly inferior option compared to direct shooting - but that's a function of the VOTOMs-type anime that I believe forms the basis of how Gears would fight.

Yeah, that's my preference as well - but giant axes and swords sell well. People should get to play with the minis they like, IMO. So I had the option - but made it very high cost v. reward. That let people play to their preference, they just needed to work if their preference was close combat. That said, we played a few times on urban boards - and Gears quickly destroyed tanks, but were picked off by infantry in turn. That seemed to fit the fluff, so I was happy with the outcome.

I see Indirect Fire as the primary counter to Direct Fire. But if TPTB need axes and swords to be a thing, well, fair enough then.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 warboss wrote:
What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended.

The original intent was to make melee deadly enough to warrant dodging 2-3 rounds of shooting. The game was structured (I hesitate to say balanced, because it wasn't) around the idea of a 18" nominal range, with 6" movement. A shot at 18" range in the open should generate 1-2 points of damage 70% of the time with autocannons / missiles. Gears would have 3-4 hits - so basically you were trading not dying for two rounds for a chance at melee. The odds weren't in your favor, so melee weapons needed to be strong enough to make the trade-off worthwhile.

I've not looked at the current version of the rules, but I know they started slapping Agile (+1D6 defense I think) on everything under the sun. I think that was a reaction to people being horrified at how easily Gears died under the alpha system. I know it was a particular point of concern for the Vegas crew, because they played on basically open boards, whereas the game was built around more dense boards. They were basically playing on Warmachine boards, whereas I was testing on boards somewhere between Infinity and 40k levels of detail. At that time, you'd be looking at 4D@4+ versus 2D@4+ for a shot in the open at 18-24" range, which could cripple or kill with some luck. It felt like they kept dialing back the brutality so I'm not surprised if you're back at the situation where melee feels too strong.

Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.

I ran a scenario through a dice roller program someone posted on dp9forum and a Jager shooting at a hunter out in the open at its LAC's optimal range will generate an average of about 1.5 damage a turn (so dead in 4 turns roughly)... and that's the optimal scenario. Factor in a suboptimal shot or two coming in, cover, other defensive modifiers (still more common than offensive ones), etc.. and the practical damage a turn is lower. The damage at arm's reach and cutting each other with light vibro blades is also 1.5 damage a turn. The issue though is withclose combat optimized units IMO. For example, a veteran hunter xmg with the melee gear upgrade and vet ability (16pts) overkills a full health Jager 50% of the time (and has an average damage of 5 with his vet reroll)... and you can take a squad of them.. and the xmg takes 0.78 damage per turn under OPTIMAL conditions coming into melee range. Duelist are even more powerful.

Obviously this example is a nearsighted one with the two models alone on the battlefield (apply salt as needed) but it still concerns me.I suppose with open battlefields that it might be a fair fight with focused fire (the hunter is 6pts compared to 16pts for the xmg above) but as it stands I doubt it'll take anyone more than 2-3 turns to get into close combat with some enemy model using top speed double moves unless he or she deploys at the back edge of their own deployment on a 4x4 table (the standard) and the enemy does the same. Once you reach that first target, the rest is just hopping along from one to the next if you weather the snap fire. I fully admit I haven't tested it out but my powergamer sense is tingling. Also, I'm just using northern models as an example as I'm more familiar with them at the moment but similar scenarios exist with the other TN factions (haven't looked at the off worlders much).

IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.

 warboss wrote:
Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.

Hurm... I'd have to run the numbers, but offhand that's an incredibly powerful boost. The opposed system (Sil and then mine) tends to generate ties in the most common case, so modifying that result is going to have an out-sized impact. For instance, in a straight Sil comparison switching from '0 means miss' to '0 means hit' flips the percentages from 40% in the attackers' favor to 60% on 2D v. 2D. So taking that most common case and making it a miss is probably stronger than a +1D, because that dice has a chance not to contribute to the result. As usual people probably thought that was 'toning it down' and - not understanding the math - ended up doing the opposite of what they hoped for.

That's speculation mind you; I went to verify the numbers with my calculators and found they have gone away. I'll have to rewrite them in order to give a definitive answer.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:
IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.

To me, this is the main point. Back in the Alpha, a LAC shot in the open was almost a guaranteed 1 point of damage, and 4 points wasn't out of the question (down in the 5% range). Gears only had 4 points (a Hunter was 3/1) so crippling it on a single hit happened more than once in my playtesting. As I speculated above, I bet they have intentionally made it less brutal over time. That works against the premise which was to build a game where things died quickly, so you shifted the battle-size from 10-15 to 20-30 models per side instead.

 IceRaptor wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.

Hurm... I'd have to run the numbers, but offhand that's an incredibly powerful boost. The opposed system (Sil and then mine) tends to generate ties in the most common case, so modifying that result is going to have an out-sized impact. For instance, in a straight Sil comparison switching from '0 means miss' to '0 means hit' flips the percentages from 40% in the attackers' favor to 60% on 2D v. 2D. So taking that most common case and making it a miss is probably stronger than a +1D, because that dice has a chance not to contribute to the result. As usual people probably thought that was 'toning it down' and - not understanding the math - ended up doing the opposite of what they hoped for.

That's speculation mind you; I went to verify the numbers with my calculators and found they have gone away. I'll have to rewrite them in order to give a definitive answer.

FWIW, I did the calculations in the previously mentioned dice roller. The results were as follows:

GUN 4 optimal LAC vs ARM 6 PIL 3 Agile
52.3% chance of doing any damage, 1.28 average damage

GUN 4 optimal LAC vs ARM 6 PIL 3
60.9% chance of doing any damage, 1.36 average damage

According to the program's creator, the results are gathered by brute force (iirc that is the Monte Carlo method JohnHwang mentioned a few weeks back) supposedly running a million random trials and grouping the results into percentages. Most agile target gears are PIL 3 (Mambas, Jags, iggies, Cuirassier, Gladiators, etc) so I used that as the stat so it's not exactly the 2D vs 2D equal comparison. Bumping it up to a GUN 3 MAC at optimal vs the same imaginary targets:

60.3% 2.12 Agile
76.2% 2.28 Non-agile

The usual disclaimers about me not actually coding the program or having the wherewithall to check it apply.

Doesn't MOS=0 currently have a 50% chance of doing 1 hull?

What level of lethality were you looking for? Obviously, it's less than 4 rounds, but more than 1, right?

As GW famously noted for WFB, 1 model kills 1 model as fast as 100 models kill 100 models or 1,000 models kill 1,000 models. Merely increasing the model count doesn't really change the pace of the game.

 Albertorius wrote:
IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.

To me, this is the main point. Back in the Alpha, a LAC shot in the open was almost a guaranteed 1 point of damage, and 4 points wasn't out of the question (down in the 5% range). Gears only had 4 points (a Hunter was 3/1) so crippling it on a single hit happened more than once in my playtesting. As I speculated above, I bet they have intentionally made it less brutal over time. That works against the premise which was to build a game where things died quickly, so you shifted the battle-size from 10-15 to 20-30 models per side instead.

@ IceRaptor and Albertorius:

I agree with you both. Gears now btw are standard 6 boxes of damage with the hunter at 4/2 and most gears at 3/3. In the scenario you presented (a Jager vs Hunter), an optimal LAC burst has a 65% chance of doing any damage, 24% to do 3 or more (your crippled example), 12.9% to do 4 or more (your destroyed), and 1.7% to overkill a full health target. From the GMG videos I've watched, you can still overkill gears but it seems like that is generally limited to the big dice roll variances with large MOS using upgraded weapons. This is without actually playing myself but it seems deadlier but not significantly so (mainly due to every gear going to 6 damage boxes whereas previously it was 3 standard in blitz). It doesn't seem like it'll promote bigger battles to be commonly played as a standard but rather allow the current default size (2-3 squads of 4-5 gears each per side) to be played to conclusion in a reasonable time frame. Even with low model count armies at the last Gencon "championship" tournament back in 2013, the only battle to actually get past turn 3 in two hours iirc was a super low model count Talon vs Talon battle. I'm guessing that will change rather than the rules raising the standard model count much higher.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Doesn't MOS=0 currently have a 50% chance of doing 1 hull?

What level of lethality were you looking for? Obviously, it's less than 4 rounds, but more than 1, right?

As GW famously noted for WFB, 1 model kills 1 model as fast as 100 models kill 100 models or 1,000 models kill 1,000 models. Merely increasing the model count doesn't really change the pace of the game.

Not technically unless the pen and armor are also equal. MOS+PEN=ARM gives you a 50/50 chance of doing 1 damage. If you get an MOS 0 with a Heavy anti-tank missile (PEN 10) vs a ferret gear (ARM 4, not agile), it goes splat.

As for the 1 model vs 100 vs 1,000, that's not necessarily true. Calculating, grabbing, rolling, determining results, and removing dice and models from the table means that there is a linear relationship between the pace and model count in GW games. The math isn't any more complicated and the time may not increase noticeably in a virtual environment (i.e. a computer game using the rules) but in tabletop practice it most definitely does... just not at a 1:1 ratio.

Sorry, yeah, I was thinking the base case where Pen=Arm. Sorry.

For the 1 v 100 / 1000, if you resolve in blocks of 100 / 1000, it's the same, which is what GW was getting at back when people wanted to know how 12 or 16 models (WFB 5E-6E) could represent massed infantry.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, yeah, I was thinking the base case where Pen=Arm. Sorry.

For the 1 v 100 / 1000, if you resolve in blocks of 100 / 1000, it's the same, which is what GW was getting at back when people wanted to know how 12 or 16 models (WFB 5E-6E) could represent massed infantry.

Ah, sorry, I didn't get that meaning from the reference. In GW's "defense", that's a common hand wave in historical wargaming. I remember my second game ever of historical minis when I was told I'd be commanding a large army of figures representing thousands of troops in a massive battle. When I got to the group DBA game, my Roman Legion was about couple dozen 15mm tiny little low detail blobs on a half dozen strips of metal. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed.

 warboss wrote:

According to the program's creator, the results are gathered by brute force (iirc that is the Monte Carlo method JohnHwang mentioned a few weeks back) supposedly running a million random trials and grouping the results into percentages. Most agile target gears are PIL 3 (Mambas, Jags, iggies, Cuirassier, Gladiators, etc) so I used that as the stat so it's not exactly the 2D vs 2D equal comparison.

What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.

My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.

Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.

The latest version of the HGBTTWGLRB has Jager at AR6 and 6/7/8 AC Burst:1 Split:2. VB is 7/8/9 AP:1/3/5.

 IceRaptor wrote:
What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.

My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.

Current LAC is POW 6 with Burst 1 (+1d6 to attack rolls) and Split 2 (may split attacks between two targets). A Hunter's Armor is 6, with 6 damage points.

 IceRaptor wrote:
What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.

My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.

Yup, the autocannons are 6/7/8 but your armor values stayed the same in that example. I don't recall when that changed (or even recall that it had frankly) as I largely didn't pay attention to the rules for about 2-3 years beyond just looking occasionally at the army construction parts. The average damage with just that 1pt pen increase goes from 1.47 to 2.10 in a hunter vs jaeger fight.

edit: I was ninja'd by the Spanish Inquisition! I didn't expect that....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.

I didn't expect thousands of minis but what I did expect going in was warhammer fantasy (this was around 1993-1994ish) sized blocks of formations but with 15mm figs to simulate the mass battles. What I got was 8-12 15mm blobby figs each glued to a pair of metal strips 4" long and 1/2" wide for my formation. :(

 warboss wrote:

 IceRaptor wrote:
What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage.

My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly).

Yup, the autocannons are 6/7/8 but your armor values stayed the same in that example.

edit: I was ninja'd by the Spanish Inquisition! I didn't expect that....

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.

I didn't expect thousands of minis but what I did expect going in was warhammer fantasy (this was around 1993-1994ish) sized blocks of formations but with 15mm figs to simulate the mass battles. What I got was 8-12 15mm blobby figs each glued to a pair of metal strips 4" long and 1/2" wide for my formation. :(

Spoiler:

So the LAC is supposed to be +1d6 *and* 7v6? Or just 7v6?

Also, you got double-ninja'd.


I don't want 1,000s of figures, I want 1,000s of heads... Basically really bumpy blocks with textured sides.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So the LAC is supposed to be +1d6 *and* 7v6? Or just 7v6?

Yes; the base-line for the system was a ATK:4+ DEF:4+ Hunter with AC: 7 (Burst:+1D) vs. Arm: 6 Jager with 3/1 damage. In the open add +1D. So typical shot of 18" should be 4D@4+ vs. 2D@4+, 7v6. Crippled was half your pool, rounding up (which became -1D because pools rarely went over 4D).

Burst also used to be a pool - so you could throw allocate those dice how you liked (against separate targets). 3x 1D rolls, a 2D + 1D roll, or a 3D roll versus 1 target.

Thanks, yeah, that's a far more lethal environment. And not unreasonable based on the fluff of light armor and big guns!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thanks, yeah, that's a far more lethal environment. And not unreasonable based on the fluff of light armor and big guns!

Much more lethal. Overkill from full health is the single most common dice result (lumping 4, 5, and 6 damage hits together since they're effectively the same result.. overkill) at 24% of shots. If you fire an LAC at optimal range from a hunter to a jager, you'd at do at least a point of damage or more 73% of the time and cripple the target or worse 39% of the time. A commando gear like a Mamba shooting at a hunter with an MAC would overkill it from full health 46% of the time! That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...

 warboss wrote:
That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...

Keep in mind that's against a sitting duck target - they aren't in cover (+1D, +2D, +3D) and you have a clear LoS. Having just some cover flips that to 3D@4+ vs 3D@4+.

Which goes back to - melee needs to be lethal to be worthwhile.

Very true, Ice, and it feeds into the almost infinity level of terrain you were advocating. I'm just not sure that level of terrain is likely for most players (past, present, and future). GMG for instance has plenty of terrain and they had lots of out in the open shots in their videos. Time I suppose will tell.

 warboss wrote:
Very true, Ice, and it feeds into the almost infinity level of terrain you were advocating. I'm just not sure that level of terrain is likely for most players (past, present, and future). GMG for instance has plenty of terrain and they had lots of out in the open shots in their videos. Time I suppose will tell.

Yup. It's definitely a mistake I made when setting the foundation of the game. I wanted a more lethal setup - and the community response (judging from changes made in the Beta forward) was against that approach. I just hope it ends up being good enough to let them continue the line for a bit longer.

Ouch! Just got my IOU for shipping to the UK. $76 shipping for the core set + decal sheets and the b/w reference sheets. Not entirely sure how EU friendly that is..

 IceRaptor wrote:

 warboss wrote:
That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...

Keep in mind that's against a sitting duck target - they aren't in cover (+1D, +2D, +3D) and you have a clear LoS. Having just some cover flips that to 3D@4+ vs 3D@4+.

Which goes back to - melee needs to be lethal to be worthwhile.

Yeah, exactly: basically in a situation where Gears would be at its greatest disadvantage. Which hopefully would make them use their surroundings more tactically, and would also have the side effect of being true to source regarding the tanks-Gears relationship in the setting.

I'd personally add a "dodge" bonus if the unit did nothing but run/evade for the turn, but other than that...

That said, smaller tables with more terrain would be better for the game, I think. 4x4 should probably be the standard for a medium to big game. Hopefully with lots of terrain and at least some hills and the like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Siygess wrote:
Ouch! Just got my IOU for shipping to the UK. $76 shipping for the core set + decal sheets and the b/w reference sheets. Not entirely sure how EU friendly that is..

Hah! I was expecting something like this... now if any store would actually stock HG over this side of the ocean again, I'd probably be able to get it cheaper than with the KS.

 Albertorius wrote:
Yeah, exactly: basically in a situation where Gears would be at its greatest disadvantage. Which hopefully would make them use their surroundings more tactically, and would also have the side effect of being true to source regarding the tanks-Gears relationship in the setting.

I'd personally add a "dodge" bonus if the unit did nothing but run/evade for the turn, but other than that...

That said, smaller tables with more terrain would be better for the game, I think. 4x4 should probably be the standard for a medium to big game. Hopefully with lots of terrain and at least some hills and the like.

IIRC, Gears get +1d6 for cover, or +1d6 for running at fast speed. Or are you suggesting an extra, 2nd bonus die?

Once the game goes 4' deep, you're kind of wanting a dedicated 4x6' gaming table. OTOH, if you're nominally only 3' deep, then you're back to a 3x5' kitchen table with a preferred 3x4' game area.