My point is, in many games if you go overboard with a compact, super elite force you're virtually guaranteed a win, but Ares seems to be pretty balanced with almost any force compositions. And that's a good thing. 

dergrossest1 wrote:

> These responses were helpful, but lead to one last question:
> When a squadron is in line-ahead formation, do all of the
> ships still have to be within the command radius of the
> flagship, or does the line- ahead formation effectively
> lengthen the command radius of the flagship?  Thanks.

> Hmmm...
> Good question.
>
> I'm not sure if we spelled this out in the rules, but I think
> the way we've always played it here is that as long as the
> lead ship in the line ahead formation is in command then
> every ship counts as being in command. In essence, the
> command is given to the lead ship in the line, and then every
> trailing ship is entitled to follow, regardless of the actual
> distance of each trailing ship from the squadron flagship.

Off the top of my head, I can't think why experienced ARES (fastplay) players would be able to finish a 100-figure game any faster than experienced Defiance players, assuming there weren't lots of Elites and Vehicles.

And from articles I read, such weaponry was primarily meant to engage torpedo boats at distances up to a few thousand yards.  They were never meant to tackle legitimate warships.

I talked to Kevin about this a ways back (backed by observations from a full-blown navy fanatic) and while the guy really liked Grand Fleets as a set of rules, he had one suggestion ---  which was simply to reduce the  reach of light guns from 1/2/3 to 0/1/2.

> > Not that I'm objecting to either possibility, mind you... I'm just
> > sayin'...
>
> My thoughts exactly. I was sitting down with a friend and
> talking about this, and I thought I came up with an
> interesting idea for the turn sequence. Let me sketch and get
> comments.
>
> First off, you "plot" your movements. Three quarters of you
> stopped reading right there, which is too bad. Let me explain.

> I'm figuring that you can't really have your ship do
> everything every turn.
> You can't maneuver, fire, run the defensive screens, all of
> that simultaneously. Remember, three man crew, that means too
> bad actors and one guy with lines.

> So, what you're plotting is more general than actual
> maneuvers, fire points, etc. I imagined it taking place with
> cards. Spades = fire, Diamonds = maneuver, anything else = no
> change). You're playing about 3 "turns" behind your ship
> (they're moving at "ROCKET SPEED" you know - much faster than
> human reaction time!) First turn, you lay down three cards in
> the order you want to do them. When you're ready to move,
> both of you turn up the first card.
>
> If it's maneuver, you get to change your speed or direction.
> If it's fire, you get to pick a target and fire. Either way,
> your spaceship is still moving every turn (remember,
> aero-dynamic rocket flight - you can't stop or reverse, but
> you go faster or slower or turn).
>
> After you have turned up the card and performed your action,
> you lay down your next order. So your cards are constantly
> cycling forward.
>
> We discussed some mechanisms for damage and damage control,
> so as you took damage you had to "plot" more turns ahead. The
> idea is you're ship is less responsive, you have to think
> about making it respond.
>
> I honestly don't know how it would play out, we didn't try
> anything. I imagine that on average you could probably manage
> three ships, maybe up to five (again, consistent with Buck
> Gordon to the Moon Genre).

> Actually, I made a photoshopped black "space style" 2"x2" hex
> with the fire arcs on it...good for reference.  Would anyone
> want that if I were to post it to MJXII?

> I've been watching a lot of Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers/Radar
> Men stuff lately, and these are the ideas I gleaned about the genre:
>
>
> Automation - No such thing. Anything that's going to be done
> has to be done
> by a person. Okay, you can have some automation to improve
> what they're
> capable of, but no independent robotic control of fire
> systems, little or
> not automated defenses. Everything is done by the hand of man.
>
> Crew sizes - Typically these ships seem to carry three. In
> Space Soldiers
> (1933), the first Flash Gordon serial with "Buster" Crabbe,
> the ships were
> quite narrow and cramped. In later series, they appear
> roomier, but you
> seldom see them carrying a crew greater than three. Maximum
> capacity seemed
> to be about 7 or 8 people. Think space Mini-Van.
>
> Obviously the reasons for these limitations probably had more
> to do with the
> filmmakers bugetary requirements than any reflection of how
> they thought the
> ships should work, but I'll take my limits where I can find them.
>
> Crew Complement - Again, they had to give each actor a bit of
> business, and
> the way that seemed to break down was Pilot, Gunner and
> Captain. Sometimes
> the Captain would grab a spare gun and shoot some roman
> candles at the other
> ship.
>
> Movement considerations - The ships definitely performed like
> aircraft. That
> was due in part to the fact the effects were achieved by
> puppeting models in
> front of a moving painting, but I think also because that's
> really what
> people were visualizing for rocket travel. I would go so far
> as to suggest
> that the rockets may even be thought of as having some
> anti-gravity drive.
> They took off without the need of runways, the rockets being
> used more for
> motive force than lifting capabilities. Again, this was a
> limitation of the
> filmmakers technology, but it's adorable and I'd include it
> if I could.
>
> Weapons / Defense systems - There is a sense of "ro-sham-bo"
> about the
> weapons systems. They may have magnetic resonance blasters,
> but as long as
> our shields were up, we were defended. Of course, they had no defense
> against our MegaWatt Blasters.
>
> What I'm getting at is that weapon and defensive systems seemed to be
> designed to counter one another. How to include that in a
> thrilling game of
> space combat without making the game a little tedious, I'm
> not sure, but I
> have some thoughts about it.
>
> What do you think, sirs?

> Okay, hopefully I'll make sense when I answer this.
> A squadron flagship may issue one command per turn. In your
> example, the flagship could issue a command to ships 1 and 2,
> or issue a command to ships 4 through 8.
> If it wants each partial squadron to move in line ahead formation.
> So one of those two groups will be out of command.
> OR...
> The flagship could issue the same order to all of the ships,
> if every ship is going to execute the same order. The problem
> with that is that the squadron will really become disordered.

hundvig wrote:

> Unbalanced in the sense you mean, no.  But I do wish there
> was a spell effect for countering magic.  Something that
> could be used both as an active instantaneous counterspell,
> and for removing spells already in place.

> The following is a new spell effect I'm recommending incuding
> in the next ARES supplement.
>
> Dispel (4)
>     There are many spell effects in ARES which last permanently.
> Successfully casting dispel on a model which has had one or
> more of its characteristics affected will reverse the effect
> of the original spell. The success level of the dispel will
> determine how many characteristics can be reversed. The
> player owning the model casting the Dispel chooses which
> spell effects are reversed. A characteristic may never exceed
> it's starting value.

> Saw that there was an Ares Sci fi game at Gencon.  I walked
> by and it looked cool.  Anyone who played or the person that
> ran it like to chime in and tell the masses how it went!
> +++++
> That's rather interesting... I'm pretty sure it wasn't any of us.

> That probably was Steve Gibson and his guys from Virginia.
> They were going to run a game with an armed force in humvees
> going against a tyranid horde.

Saw that there was an Ares Sci fi game at Gencon.  I walked by and it looked cool.  Anyone who played or the person that ran it like to chime in and tell the masses how it went!