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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by FlakMagnet
That's what I've done in the past at a Convention in Ann Arbor, MI.
My gaming group has really latched on to the hex-grid as an aid to speedier play, and that's fine with me. I see their point and understand their preference.
I will try, though, to get them into a compromise where we use the hex-grid AND vector movement using the Max Burn house rules put up by Mr. Drake:
http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/starmada/maxburn.html
I think if they try 'em, they'll like 'em.
--Tim
My gaming group went inactive due to life happening for about two years. It was right about the time that I bought Starmada and we played ONE playtest game with it and the results were inconclusive.
Well, my gaming group is active again. I've played a couple of games with the group and last weekend while I was off doing SCA Heavy Combat two of the guys got together and played a game or two. I thought you folks might enjoy reading some of the comments the posted to my mailing list:
Jeff, our resident munchkinizer wrote:
The big thing we both came away with was we were really glad we moved away from Full Thrust.
Brian, his opponent this weekend said:
Yea as stated, Jeff and I got together for some gaming Sunday. I'm
totally sold on Starmada. Throw Fullthrust to the heathens because we've
found the system to use. I had a blast playing, even though Jeff tore my
ass up. The design system does take some getting used to, but its really
not any more difficult than full thrusts design systems. The only thing
lacking is a fleet manager, but that isn't a huge deal really.Lets get some more one off games in, and maybe a hobby day in sometime
in the next couple of weeks. It will give everyone a chance to become
more familiar with the rules and start assembling/painting our fleets.
We can also start talking about the campaign and how we want to run it.
From the looks of things, the VBAM rules are perfectly set and ready
for us. We can just use their system for ground combat for the first
campaign, which keeps us from having to find a system that suits our
needs in a hurry.
I was a big fan of Full Thrust for space combat, and was loathe to give up vector movement for a hex-grid (or trying to get folks to agree to use optional vector rules)... but I am sold on Starmada as well... It's a much better game, and in my gaming group, we're convinced that Starmada doesn't suffer from as many crippling balance issues that Full Thrust does.
Now I just have to sell them on the movement system from Maxburn!
Is anyone aware of any small scale naval models that I could kit-bash
and convert into space-ship models that would look sort of like the
"Wet-Navy in Space" look that some of the Starblazers ships have going on?
I'm thinking MAYBE that 1:3000 scale models would do, though I'm not
dead-set on that size. Most of the models I've seen are waterline
models intended for gaming, but I'd need full-hull models to mount them
on flying stands and have them look right. I don't want to have to
sculpt the hulls.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
--Flak
Vote?
Here's the challenge, then: post your best fighter-killer design in the Bourbaki Basin given the current Starmada: X rulesbook. Put your money where your mouth is.
Amongst my group, before Starmada we were using FT with all the Fighter "Joy" that entails.
Ships that were designed specfically to give fighter-loving players something to think about we collectively called "Aegis boats/ships". So named after:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/aegis.htm
Myself, I prefer comb bindings... They're less prone to crushing than the wire of a spiral-bound and lay just as flat.
Of course, I've taken to buying rules in PDF form whenever I can so I just print 'em up and bind 'em up myself. (nice to have the resources for that).
--Tim
Mike,
Surely you don't think that he's... DOING the dolphin's blowhole?!
Blowholes are forward of the dorsal fin...
All you have in that graphic is some male nudity, nothing... umm... perverse.
--Tim
Yes, of course.
If you just like seeing painted figs, check these out:
http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72/pics/full-thrust/
They're the GZG and BFG figs I've painted up.
Nope, not gonna paint 'em. I'm gonna cast 'em up, maybe after some mods to get the really big one adapted to a cast-able shape.
EDIT: Oh, and thank you!
Nice work guys.
My efforts in the scratchbuilding realm:
http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72/pics/scratchbuilt/
They're not finished, but I plan on returning to them sometime.
--Tim
Hey again Tim,
I agree that shifting suppression fire is an important "real" effect, but the time scale of the game (seconds per turn) is really designed for these kinds of decisions to be made on a turn-by-turn basis. (snipped)
Hmm... Mneh. Yeah I see your point. I'd forgotten about being able to hold a card, etc...
"Shifting" fire IS already covered by the mechanics of the initiative system. Cool!
--Tim
Hey Tim,
These ideas are great! I'm thinking of incorporating them. One thing I've learned after trying out suppression fire myself a bunch of times is that it's rarely better than covering fire from an "enemy dead per turn" standpoint. I'm therefore actually thinking of making two types, based on your suggestion:
That's fine by me that SF isn't better or even as good as directed, aimed fire at killing the enemy, no matter what. That's not it's point, doctrinally anyway. It's to pin the enemy down until another unit can get into position to polish them off. To deny them the option of maneuver, to fix them in place. Now, whether or not SF is good ENOUGH at that job... well, I don't have the games under my belt to be able to say. If SF is NOT that attractive, then perhaps making the morale effect more pronounced might be a good idea.
As to the killing enemy aspect, perhaps even a modifier to the dmg roll for any enemy models that ADVANCE into or through a SF template.
My guess is that this will get a bit too fiddly in practice, but am willing to consider it if other folks think it's a good idea...
Either way, if high FR AOE weapons are introduced, they should fire in barrages no matter HOW their fired. No chucking AOE templates willy-nilly all over the board from one weapon. Roll to hit, scatter if missed, place templates in a barrage. I wouldn't want to roll hit/scatter for each FR level. Ugh.
I'm gonna let this one mull around in the back of my head for awhile. I think it has some definite advantages, but from the perspective of most players, I think that the opportunity to split unit fire into suppression plus covering might be a better choice in almost all situations.
Likely as not, yes, it probably would be, but at some point, someone's going to want to converge fire... It'd be nice if the rules allowed it.
Again, thanks for your input. I will most definitely take your points into consideration when I tackle the new release.
Glad I came up with something useful to consider.
Something else I though of while typing all this up: Charging an enemy that's in a suppressive fire template. -- There should be something in the rules about "shifting fire" prior to a charge.
Perhaps something along these lines:
Unit A if firing suppressive fire on an enemy unit X. Unit B is in position to Charge and has it's card drawn. The desire to shift fire must be announce before Unit B makes the usual "wanting to charge" morale roll (forgive me if I use the wrong terminology). Unit A makes some roll, perhaps vs. quality to see if they lift the suppressive fire from unit X before the charge takes place. Either way, the charge must take place.
It's not without risk, unit A could shift fire, then unit B fail to actually execute the charge, giving unit X time to recover and perhaps do something the supressive fire was intended to prevent. Or Unit B could charge the enemy only to come under friendly fire because Unit A failed to lift the SF template.
Yes, I'm firing perhaps too many synapses on suppressive fire... I just really like the mechanics that D:VG has in place, and would like to see them expanded. I would guess that large majority of the rounds sent downrange in any modern conflict were fired as suppressive fire rather than aimed, controlled fire. With that in mind, I'd like to see SF be extremely worth using.
Thanks for listening!
Edited Oct 4 2k5 @ 5:37pm -ish:
I was in fact concerned with weirdness that could come about due to the fact that layers tend to "know" the position of enemy squads and could therefore have a given unit shoot at an area that predicts enemy movement in a fashion that would be highly unikely if the enemy weren't in line-of-sight or otherwise tracked. I do think you're right, however, in that a few simple rules might suffice: how about requiring templates to be within a certain number of inches of a sighted enemy squad? That way players can still help deny enemy movement, but must respect the fact that the suppressing units need a "bead" before they can do this.
Perhaps distinguishing between targetted suppression fire that's directed at a unit and "speculative" or area supressive fire, with modifiers that make area fire less attractive. Also (or alternatively) with some sort of restrictions as to template placement to avoid "cheesing".
Having to fire w/in 2" of a sighted enemy unit seems restrictive, and totally ignores the very valid doctrine of "recon by fire". IMO, I think the area fire template should have to be placed in a way that a line drawn from the firer to the template does not pass between two sighted enemy units before it reaches the template. The intent being that a supression template could be placed between two enemy units (and if it's big enough, and the enemy is close enough to each other, hit both units) Kind of the same way that units have a "perimeter" that friendly models cannot enter, area supression templates would not be allowed to enter a "perimeter" or "battle line" defined by drawing a line between sighted enemy units.
Of course, with what I've proposed, I also think that Elite units should have the area fire template placement restrictions relaxed.
Regarding a cohesive supression fire orders:
As mentioned above, this is difficult to do quickly (i.e. on a unit level, not an individual level) and without a lot of math. I'm quite open to any suggestions you might have, however.
Here's a suggestion, with some "setup" that provides rules for AOE suppression templates as well as a framework by which cohesive suppressive fire could work:
Non-AOE weapons list their FR as a number, but that number is NOT the total number of shots fired from the weapon each time it's activated. It's an abstracted volume of fire. So combining multiple weapons' FR into a suppression template is easy to accomplish. It's just a further abstraction/application of the already abstract "Feed Rate".
AOE weapons (in the current system) don't have a FR, and thus cannot be abstracted in this way. Each AOE template is a distinct shot from the launcher. So before what I get into below can be implemented FR>1 weapons should be made possible within the rules of the Army Customizer.
AOE weapons with FR>1 don't create supression templates, but instead create "Beaten Zone" templates. Any weapons contributing to a beaten zone must have a combined FR of 3 or higher (more than that needed for non-AOE weapons due to the lack of a "Volume of fire" abstraction for FR).
If multiple sizes of templates contribute to the beaten zone, use the smallest of the AOE templates as the beaten zone marker that persists until the firing unit's next activation, but still resolve hits with the larger AOE marker against models caught in the initial "volley". You should also use the weaker dmg roll of all weapons contributing to a beaten zone. Dmg rolls are made just like any other AOE roll.
For each collective 2 (or just 1?) FR provided by AOE weapons after the initial 3, an additional AOE template can be placed (again, use the smallest template of all contributing weapons, including those used to initially place the first template) with the center of the AOE template placed directly over the outer edge of the initial template.
Again, this is without any experience PLAYING the rules, just what I've come up with after a pretty comprehensive read-through. Comments?
Therefore, firing an AOE round at the same target area again and again could keep much of a unit shaken.
What it does not provide for is "area denial" the same way supression templates do, a quick unit could move right through the area you're trying to control with one or more AOE weapons. Which is why I suggest what I wrote above.
Now, as far as AOE weapons and non-AOE weapons BOTH contributing to suppression templates... well, without a combined FR of >3, the AOE weapons can't. If they CAN, then simply place AOE template as described above in a way that overlaps the suppression template as much as possible, and treat the templates as two overlapping templates resolving each as described in their rules. This being the only way I can think of off the top of my head (besides perhaps torrential fire) that a single unit could place two persistent templates between activation, but then, I'm no rules guru.
As to what do with with mixed Weapon Affectors and cohesive suppression fire orders, I would say that a persistent template whether it's suppression or a beaten area would only use ONE of the Affector's effects, that of the primary weapon of the squad or the smallest diameter AOE weapon. In the case where a suppression template and beaten area template have both been placed by the same unit as a result of Cohesive Suppressive Fire orders, they can have different affectors, one for the AOE weapon, one for the Suppressive Fire weapon.
I'm afraid I didn't cover a few points clearly or at all, but I think I've communicated what I'm thinking here. Lemme know if my ramblings have prompted any question...
Just ressurecting this discussion because I'm just getting into really reading the rules for D:VG.
I don't have any games under my belt, but I really like the idea of suppression fire and the approach taken by the D:VG rules. At first glance, the LOF modifiers seem a bit harsh , but I'll wait until I play a couple/few games to see if they "feel" right in actual practice.
I definitely feel that SF should be usable against AREAS as well as being directed straight at an enemy unit, though I can see some ways that a player might abuse that ability. So perhaps a restriction on the placement of Suppression templates would be a good idea. Elites can place them anywhere, regular infantry can only target an area that's closer than the nearest enemy unit or target the nearest enemy unit itself.
Something I feel is missing is the option of "cohesive" supression fire. The rules present units as being able to do primary and support supression fire. It doesn't gibe with my own experience in the military where every weapon in a team/squad could be used to contribute to supressive fire.
Also, regarding AoE weapons, it seems to me that an AoE or burst weapon (if such a thing is possible with the Army Customizer) with a feed rateshots ought to be able to lay down a hail of AOE templates that achieves an effect similar to a supression template. Kind of a "beaten area" where explosive shells are falling through-out a turn making an area as dangerous to enter as an area fill with bullets... A real-world infantry crew served weapon capable of doing so I offer as an example the MK-19. It's a 40mm grenade launcher that fires like a machine-gun.
I have a lot of devout models I'm looking to off-load for a fair price. If anyone's interested, contact me off-list. flakmagnet (at) flakmagnet (dot) com
Unless I find a buy between now and when I a round tuit, they're gonna go up on e-bay before too long...
--Tim
Since it's been clarified that option #2 isn't a computer program to assist players in designing armies, that it is instead an open-sourced approach to the points system, I have less interest in #2.
With that in mind, I'd rather see #1 than #2.
Of course, if #4 was a customizer program... I'd be all over putting my vote on that one!
--Tim
@FM: Can you tell me more what you mean by more accessible?
Not accessible, "approachable"...
If I understood correctly, an open source customizer program would permit someone to design an army with a pointy-clicky interface. Hopefully being open-source it would also be compile-able for OSes besides windows (I'm a Linux user).
I have been a "champion" of games that serve as an alternative to wargames rules that are written to support the sales of proprietary miniatures. GZG products, Triskele Games, an now MJ12's game now that I've recently "discovered them.
It doesn't matter how simple the math is, how easy the design system is. If there is a program to make designing armies in it easier, people will like playing the game better. Even BETTER if the army design program can print out handy-dandy reference sheets that include shorthand reminders of the effects of special rules.
Look at WH40K and Army Builder. How much simpler could you get with army design than the ala-carte approach, yet Army Builder is indispensible to almost every 40K player I know!
My friends have never designed a ship for Full Thrust manually... they've always used a ship design program.
Games that include unit design are inherently more complex than games with pre-packaged armies. Not only do you have to learn the rules, you have to learn the design system. A program that assists with the design system frees the players from remembering all that stuff once they've acquired a passing familiarity with the system.
Having such a tool available would make the game much more approachable to anyone that's interested in it.
--Tim
The lack of fanboy-ism in your review actually gave it more credibility IMO.
It's a good review, I enjoyed reading it. If I hadn't already bought the rules, your review would have convinced me to take the plunge.
--Tim
It's down to 6 copies before we crack the top 10 -- come ON people!
I just ordered a couple of days ago, but since I was already signed up at RPGnow I ordered from that site.
What is it with online sites wanting you to sign up for a profile to get the full benefits of their service?
--Tim
I think he's just pointing out that it's an MJ12.
However, I'd like to offer an anecdotal warning to anyone shopping for a computer and considering an Alienware.
A friend of mine bought bleeding edge computer from them about two years ago and has had nothing but problems with Alienware's support from the outset.
First they sent him the wrong keys for his case, and the restore/driver CD they sent didn't work. They tried to charge him for the replacement keys and $50.00 for the restore CD.
After a while, his power supply died. He'd paid for on-site service but the power supply was "an exception" to the on-site because it involved electrical connectors (like what doesn't in a computer?). So he had to send it in to depot, where they'd replace the power supply, wipe his hard drive and re-image the drive with a factory install. No, he couldn't keep the drives when he sent it in. No, he couldn't request that they NOT wipe the drives. BTW, the "exception" wasn't noted in ANY of the documentation of the on-site warranty, nor anywhere else for that matter. They also refused to just send him a new PS so he could swap it out and send the fried one back to them.
THEN, a while later his graphics card died (no overclocking involved, ever) and they attempted to offer him a replacement card that was inferior to the one he purchaced. They refused to offer him an equivalent or better card until he sicced his lawyer on them.
Based on my friend's experience with Alienware's service and support, and the manner in which they try to avoid standing behind their warranties, I would advise everyone to look for a different vendor. His computer is still a very fast, stable machine when the hardware is happy, and those hardware failures can't be attributed to Alienware, but their handling of the situation can be.
EVERY time he has contacted them, he has had problems getting the support he paid for when he bought an extended warranty and support package.
YMMV, but I'll never buy an Alienware.
--Tim
(FYI: I bought a computer from MonarchComputer.com, very nice. I literally picked it out to the component and they built it, burned it in, compatability tested it and such... for a better price than Dell could ever deliver a system that wasn't even as beefy.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_Feed
I hope this helps.
Any plans for trying to implement an RSS feed for the forums? I'd sure like to see that!
--Tim
I'm into WWII gaming big-time. So far I can only run/demo land-based Micro-Armor games set in the latter stages of the war in West Europe but I would like to expand that my "range" of action so to speak.
That being said, I'm in the market for (amongst other things) a naval-combat rulset. Grand Fleets looks interesting, and it's one I consider every time I start looking at getting a new set of rules.
If GF received an expansion or update to include more comprehensive WWII data/scenarios, and rules to handle aircraft better (my estimation of the aircraft rules is not from personal experience, just comments I've read), I'd buy it ASAP! I don't have the necessary time or reference sources to convert a ship into the game, so having it already done by someone who does is a major selling point for me.
There, that's my $.02 into the discussion. (Typical of customers, always wanting just a bit more.)
--Tim
I've read here and there mentions that the design systems presented in MJ12's games standing up to statistical analysis.
Is that true? Can I get a bit more background information on that it just sounds interesting.
--Tim
I use firefox and when I look at the topic list I open a new "Tab" (try tabbed browsing, it rocks) for each category that interests me that has a new posts, then a new tab for each thread I'm interested in with new posts. I then systematically read each new tab, responding if needed.
When I'm done with a topic, I just close the tab.
Doing it this way, I only need to view the index once, so the new messages disappearing on me isn't a problem.
Firefox is D/L-able from www.mozilla.org.
It will have the side-effect of making your computer less vulnerable to browser-related security risks because they generally rely on internet explorer's ActiveX or other script-executing code.
--Flak
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by FlakMagnet
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