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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by dave-the-lost
Pre-Dreds and Great War will get me in. Not so interested in WW2, but I do play moderns.
Abstracted air and submarine assets sounds a good way to handle them.
The cards look fantastic.
Anything ever come of this for IS? Or more ships from Brigade?
I can understand if the minis aren't selling well enough to make it economically worth the risk, but thought I'd ask.
I'm buying stuff as fast as I can, Dan.
At t his point if you want me to buy more you need to release more. Tsar and Emperor is on my list as soon as its available. Making it a dual duty GF/GA pack is a great idea.
Any hope for Tsar&Emperor either for Grand Fleets or for Grand Admiral?
And of course that other game I have on pre-order 
Yes, absolutely.
As i posted (iirc on Facebook) I would also buy a boxed set.
I'll try for some beter close-ups. But there really isn't much more to see. I don't think any of the models so far are longer than 2cm!
I did do up the Chinese from scenario 2 last night. Took about 2 hours start to finish. Barn red paint, and some chunkier hulls.
Japanese are next.
The great bit is these are virtually free. Scrap balsa from a "fun pack" of assorted sizes, some card stock, cereal box card, q-tip shafts, pins and paint. The sort of stuff most modelers have lying around the house.
In this tiny scale the basic hull shape, one or two prominent and defining details, and a lable on the base are all you need to make a ship.
I made a few Alphas out of matchsticks a while ago, and then made the rest to match them for size.
I am thinking of trying some Starmada ships in more durabe meterials to use as masters for resin casting. The IS ships will remain individual scratch builds. They are easy enough that if I can figure how to ship them safely I would be willing to send some to fellow gamers as a novelty.
Pics are up on SSCN message boards.
Now about those FACs, I figure 30-60 length, so 1-2mm in scale. Is that close?
Really I would be happy with anything that puts the games I like more in the public eye.
I really like way MJXII games play so anything that expands the player pool is a worthy endeavor.
If I knew more concrete details about some of the proposed projects that might sway my vote a bit...
Good point Spence. However I do believe tehre are some universals as well.
Let's use the fleets from the Imperial Starmada Sourcebook or ISS as a point of reference.
ISS includes sample ships from 5 factions, three of which have 7 ships listed, the others having 4 and 5 ships listed. I assume it is safe to guess that these ships serve as models for the factions' ship design style and represent the most commonly encountered vessels.
I find it difficult to believe that an interstellar power would have only a half-dozen ship classes in service. I can believe that there might only be a handful of ship types, frigate, carrier, battleship etc, but would expect at least ome of these types to contain multiple classes of ship depending on the role the ship was to play.
Beyond such military types as troop transports, fleet support vessels and long range scouts, also missing are civillian vessels.
System Defense Ships seem largely absent as well. Local system control and exploitation would not require hyperdrive equiped vessels. Some defensive requirements could be met by stationary weapons platforms be they on planets, asteroids, moons, or space stations. However, unless all interstellar visitors arrive via a common entry point at least some mobile forces will be required as well.
If your Starmada universe uses "jump points", "gates", "wormholes" or other known system entry points then system defense is easy. Just build a very large weapon and point it at the door...
If not, you are stuck covering a very large sphere of potential entry points. This type of defense will need to deal with problems of detection and interception.
Detection could be by centralized very long range sensors, a network of short range dispersed sensors, localized sensors focusing on approaches to points of strategic interest or a blend of these.
Interseption could be accomplished by very fast global interceptors, or by slower localized interceptors at points of interest.
These problems are universals that fleet design will have to repond to.
Also universal are the problems of the attack. Range, damage inflicted, accuracy, rate of fire and amunition supply all must be factored in.
A race that favors short range, low accuracy, high damage potential weapons will have a very different fleet structure than one which favors long range, precision attacks with lower damage yielding weapons.
Let me get a little time with ISS under my belt and I'll be able to add a few concrete examples.
The ships for scenario one are finished. Pictures tonite if my internet is back up.
Now I just need to know how long the average FAC is so I can model them...
Having read the old thread on fleet organization, and skimmed over both setting books for SAE, I have a thought about how to make Fleet Organization a part of Starmada games...
The answer is campaign gaming! In a campaign setting players can freely organize their taskforces and fleets as they see fit. Home designed or stock ships, it doesn't matter. Want to send your largest ship out on it's own? Try it and see what happens.
A campaign will inevetablely lead to some severely unbalanced scenarios, that is why the option to decline combat, or to withdraw rom combat should exist. Your oponent may decide to pursue however...
I think a lot of the issue comes from playing one off battles that occur in a vacuum. This has never been the case historically. there have always been military and political circumstances surrounding battles and influencing where, when and with what they are fought.
One off table top battles don't have these influences. We can write rules about margins of victory, morale levels, withdrawal points, etc, but still the players will know that their losses will have no effect on the next game. In historical wars the outcome of this battle will always be influenced by the last one, and influence the next one. Even if only in the attitudes of the High Command.
A further aspect of fleet composition that campaign play (and to an extent free play) will bring out is the psychology of the players. If Andrew is known for building his fleets arounds large carriers with huge swarms of fighters it won't be long before his opponents start designing their fleets to counter this. In one-off play there is no disadvantage to this, but in a campaign which also includes Steve who favors very large, very big gunned ships, and Mark who goes in for stealth tactics and manuverability a fleet which must continue from one battle to the next and potenially fight any of these other players will tend to develop an organizational structure based on which tactics it encounters most frequently, and how its player prefers to deal with such tactics. Just the way fleet structure and ship design evolves in real life.
I don't think rules are needed (nor that they have been suggested), but I do think discussing strategies of fleet design could be fertile ground.
On page 78 of ISS section 7 of the "Simplest Campaign" seems to give an incentive to "play to lose". The side that loses a scenario, and any player who declines battle recives Replenishment Points, but the victor does not.
Is the intention that the agressor becomes stronger strategicly (more Victories towards the required total to win), but the loser becomes stronger tactically (repaired and new ships)?
Is this a campaign ply balance mechanism, or should the victor be recieving RPs too?
I voted for Starmada because i don't think Grand Fleets needs a second edition. I like the way it plays now. An historical battle scenarios supplement would be nice. Or bats, ship stats, and potted history...
Ares and the hex-based squad game I don't play. So that leaves Starmada supplement as the one I'm hankering for.
Ah, yes then FA scale would be ideal. I would say about 2-3 inches long for Capital ships is a good size for gaming.
Those 6" long carriers and Super Galactic Dreadnaughts from MKP get too unwieldy on a hex map.
BFG models are not a bad size, but are not the style I'm looking for. ADB's SFB "Trek" ships, Full Thrust ships, etc are all of appropriate size.
It's more of a shape thing though.
"FA scale"? I should know that one and don't.
Is anybody currently making or planning to make miniatures of the SAE ships available? Either Imperial or Grumm Wars setting? I like both settings and lack time to build (yet another) fleet from scratch.
I have begun scratchbuilding IS miniatures in roughly 1:10,000 scale. A bit of fuging occurs to make the modles easier to build.
A Morozko rocket sloop is about 1cm over all, with a 9mm piece of match stick for a hull.
Think of miniatures the size of the illustrations on the fold up counters.
Each ship is individually scratchbuilt, and is (at least for the smaller ones) a hull, fins, and the largest details that alter the sillouette. So that Morozko is basicaly a match stick with fins at the back. At gaming distance finer detail wouldn't show anyway, so I just leave it off.
I'll be posting pictures etc at the Star Ranger forums. I have 4-5 Alpha/Beta class destroyers and the Morozkos done. Next are the Gammas then I think something big to give my eyes a break.
3mm thick bases from Litko and pins give easy basing.
Well I like it.
I was looking for a set of rules for use with Germy's 3mm SF range. I like MJXII games in general, although mech per se is not my usual game.
I read a couple of over views on TMP and else where, saw that the construction rules covered non-mecha as well as mecha, and the preview rules convinced me that the mechanics were not overly complicated. Colour me sold!
I have all 3 IS books, and some of the models. What more can I do to keep this game going?
I would love to see more IS books, even if they were just background and not rules.
These same minis can be had from Nexus and also from Red Shirt Games in Canada.
They are reasonably generic and will work with 2m to 10mm figures. being very large with the former and quite small with the latter.
Measuring sole to crown they are all in the 35-40mm range.
I am already considering ordering a pack or two, along with some styrene shapre, beads etc, and Alumilite resin to cast up some conversion bits.
Even a simple division into legs/torso/arms/weapons would allow for quite a bit of variety in assembled models.
As far as scale, avoid any dead give-aways like open crew hatches and they could be any size/scale. A "cockpit" canopy could just as easily be a sensor suite canopy.
I usually scale mecha relative to each other rather than anything else on the battlefield anyway.
I'm not sure about naval gaming.
He likes the idea of the Pacific battles, but those really seem to have involved inordinate numbers of air craft. So perhaps it is time to get Spitting Fire.
GF is great fun. All I can say is more, more, more.
That "dolphin" looks to have gills, and a vertical planar tail. I think Neptune has "jumped the shark"
And considering the size of 1:6000 miniatures I he doesn't stop that he could go blind
Has there been anything happenng with the WW2 version?
I have a buddy who prefers WW2 to Great War for gaming.
I have been having great fun reading through Grand Fleets and ordering ships for giving it a sea trial.
I want to say thank you for including the ship conversion formulas. I have been using them to make up record sheets for vessels for some might have been scenarios and cross checking with similar ships from the rules shows my results are not far off.
This is great. Unit design is essential for historical wargames IMHO. No designer can include every possible historical unit.
cheers,
--dave
Hello all,
I have created a Frapper! map for Iron Stars players. Please add yourselves.
This seems a useful tool for finding opponents.
http://www.frappr.com/ironstars
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by dave-the-lost
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