• Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Topic: Thoughts from the weekend

Over the weekend, I had a bit of a social gathering of various friends of longstanding, with the stated intention of getting together for something other than a LAN.

This involved a 3000pt per side, two team, five player game of Defiance, and two smaller 2000pt, five player games.

Thoughts:

Elites and Light Vehicles own all in cities. A friend brought a worldworks "downtown" layout, it looked gorgeous, but my UNE forces were twice TROUNCED by an unholy alliance of Star Marine regulars, Space Thug light vehicles, and four guys we dubbed "Dave's Ninjas".

There weren't many long lanes of fire for starters, so all the UNE ranged advantage came to nought. Then, a cone weapon on a 10S vehicle is just the thing for flushing troops out of cover... or you know, just killing them all while they're still IN cover.

Suicide ramming is a great way for light vehicles to injure (but not kill) mecha. Now if only we'd been using the AFV damage chart CORRECTLY then ramming my ally's Superfortress wouldn't have taken out its main gun and left it chasing down infantry to stamp them to death until a lucky vehicle-peircing shot took it down.

More thoughts later.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

A couple of things came to mind over the course of the fights; one is that having some sort of close range, high manouvre unit would be an asset. In a close environment the UNE Powered Infantry are revealed as one-trick ponies, powerful at range but severely outclassed in terms of manouvre and assault.

I can see I need to resurrect my Commandos from their regular PI proxy grave and figure out how to get hold of an Uber RAM or something to strap to an Old Crow light vehicle. Of course Recce Commandos would be even better, but I don't have any models. All of these are part of the "canon" UNE forces, and the Ford FAV is most assuredly part of my army, but I didn't want to field it without an appropriate model.

The second thing that springs to mind is that move 3 infantry are close to useless without a massive field of fire. Maybe I need to re-stat my Assault Section. Maybe the ASP needs to be an anime Mecha.

So overall, I'm thinking a mild upgrade to some of the weapons is in order. The UNE pay a premium for their long-range weaponry, so to have some of that weaponry utterly suck (plasma grenades!) is kind of perverse.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

Another thought: while the rules take a while to learn, Defiance plays out VERY quickly.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 416

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

So you finally got to play D:VG, didn't ya? smile

Anyhow. Like I said once upon a time in my review, D:VG is a bit of a big board game really...

On a very small or a truly cramped board the troops with cone weapons and/or lots of still relatively cheap 3+ to hit weapons get to the chewing distance pretty easily and/or quickly and this spells doom to pretty much anyone, especially to those who have invested in a bit more long ranged sort of arsenal. Also, ramming as a mechanism for killing infantry gets more effective than it really should be (unless the board is so cramped as to pretty much prohibit the use of vehicles other than mecha altogether of course).

These combine to ensure that a "spitting distance" D:VG game goes truly fast. Such games aren't the very best example of the point-for-point balance of the game engine, tho. For that your troops'll need a bit of "space to breathe". That, or the up-and-coming close quarters suplement obviously.

  • Registered: 2005-03-31
  • Posts: 59

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

tnjrp wrote:

These combine to ensure that a "spitting distance" D:VG game goes truly fast. Such games aren't the very best example of the point-for-point balance of the game engine, tho. For that your troops'll need a bit of "space to breathe". That, or the up-and-coming close quarters suplement obviously.

I'm thinking the Evolution Of Arms supplement will definitely help out with those 'spitting distance' games... as you mention, the CQB section has changes in it just for that type of thing. And its coming soon!

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

Actually, I have gotten.... two games in before this one...or was it one? I don't get to game much  sad

Anyway, one of the fellas had made up a Worldworks Downtown layout to fit an entire table, and we couldn't resist playing on it. The first game was on a more open layout and the difference was marked. I think about a 50-50 blend of the two tables would be best.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 261

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

Yup, CQB is the way to go for city fighting:

D:VG assumes an average firing distance of 15-35", with a significant minority of ranged fire taking place at distances over 4 feet.  HTH combat (or ranged fire that is chosen when HTH combat could have been initiated) is assumed to account for no more than 1 out of every 4 damage rolls.  It also assumes that the total area of the tabeltop will be at least 20 ft^2.

D:CQB, on the other hand, assumes that most fire will occur at distances of 15" or less, and that ranged fire past a few feet will be quite rare.  The choice of whether to enter HTH combat is assumed to occur in up to 1 out of every 2 damage rolls.  There is no minimum table size, although common sense dictates that 2' by 2' would probably be too small.  big_smile

When CQB is released (still on target for May), you will quickly notice that short-range weapons with a 3+ damage band will cost *far more* than they do in VG, and weapons with unlimited range but 7+ or 9+ damage bands will cost significantly less.

  • Registered: 2005-03-28
  • Posts: 480

Re: Thoughts from the weekend

Thanks for laying out the assumptions there, Demian. We had two tables: one could have used some blocked line of sight, etc, and the other was both somewhat smaller and had MUCH more blocked LOS. I think it was a little marginal, primarily the two really big factors were the fast vehicles with cone weapons and the fact that so much UNE equipment pays extra for unlimited and 40+ inch range bands.