Saturday, February 23, 2013

Yesterday's Brainstorming Session

Explorer Picture, Andree Wallin
CaulynDarr came over yesterday for a quick brainstorming session, so that we could quickly work out some of the issues that have been raised lately. We also came up with some initial ideas for vehicles that I want to seed everyone's thinking with.

Suppression Changes

We discussed suppression, and decided to go with Darr's idea for splitting up 'suppression', meaning the requirement that a unit has to make a Ld test, from 'morale', meaning penalties to the unit's Nerve.

So, if a unit takes any hits at all, it will gain a 'Suppression Die' that will track the number of hits up to 6. If a unit has a die, it's suppressed. If it doesn't, it's not suppressed.

If the unit fails an armor save, and/or takes any number of hits from a single enemy unit's shooting after it's hit-count on the suppression die has reached 6 from a previous attack, then it will take a 'Nerve Marker'. Each nerve marker will reduce a unit's nerve by one.

Having nerve markers won't suppress you. The enemy still has to shoot you to force a Ld test. All the nerve markers indicate is how shaky the unit's nerves are.

(To recap for new readers, a Ld test is done by rolling one die per Ld point, and then attempting to roll your current Nerve, or less, on at least one of those dice.)

Next, instead of a suppressed unit having to roll a Ld test before it performs an action, we simply say that suppressed units (ones that have a suppression die) can only perform a fall-back action in the action phase. They also can't perform defensive fire. While un-suppressed units can perform any action they like.

Suppressed units also won't be able to capture an objective during their starting phase.

So when does a unit clear it's suppression? That will happen in the Reaction Phase, which will be right after the action phase. So on your turn, you'll do your actions, suppress some enemy units, and then your opponent will attempt to clear the suppression on each of his units. Which will be pretty easy unless you've hammered that unit hard enough to lower their Nv.

We'll still let a unit remove one nerve marker for a passed Ld test, or if they're unsuppressed (no suppression die) during the action phase. Units which fall back will also remove a marker.

Expected Benefits:
  1. Suppressed units will have to test Ld before capturing an objective.
  2. It addresses Eriochrome's concerns about out-of-order Ld tests (previous solution to #1).
  3. It consolidates all Ld tests into a single phase. Saving a few minutes per player turn.
  4. At the start of his turn, the current player knows which units can perform an action, and which ones can't. Allowing them to form plans before acting.
Close-Combat Sequence

Darr and I went over the current sequence, and whether consolidating before melee made sense. Our decision was that the current system works fine, and is a lot of fun.

We did knock around a few ideas about letting dedicated CC weapons attack just after a consolidation. If a model has a sword or a pole-arm, it makes sense for them to have an 'initiative' advantage over a model with a clumsy club, rifle-butt, or giant super-fist. So expect some new special rules there. In general, I prefer differences-of-mechanic to differences-of-statlines for different weapon types.


Once all that was out of the way, we spent a lot of time discussing how we'd like vehicles to function in WarStrike. At this point it's just a bunch of concepts, but we're eager to try them out.

1) Vehicles Should Be Epic

This is more of a 'feeling' objective. In general, vehicles (especially tanks) should be something that's pretty special on the tabletop. Big, lumbering, powerful, and quite decisive. They should dominate the space around themselves and dictate the enemy's tactics.

2) Vehicles Should Take Time To Use

Moving and shooting a vehicle should be just as mentally taxing, and take nearly as much time, as moving a squad of 9 infantry. Infantry should be simple to move/shoot, and the complexity comes from their numbers. While a tank should be more complex to move and shoot. Because you're only moving one instead of an entire squad.

So vehicles will, depending on their type/speed, have a turning radius (large or small blast template edge). They'll have inertia they'll have to counter, and skimmers especially will move differently because they can't use ground friction. So they'll drift. Which you can use for extra movement, or have to counter if you wish to stop. They'll be more like helicopters than simply a car which floats.

We'll make this as simple as we can. But I do want distinct differences between vehicle types.

3) Awareness For Tanks Should Be Flipped

A battle tank isn't made for rooting out infantry. In fact, tanks hate getting close to infantry. So the Awareness Range of a tank is actually their minimum range. Get within it, and you'll be harder, not easier, to hit.

4) Tanks Should Have A Low BS

If a tank's job is to kill other tanks, which would have a low Evasion (0 or 1), then it only needs a BS of 2 to hit other tanks/vehicles on a 2+ or a 3+.

If we then bump up the average human BS and Evasion to 4, then suddenly we get exactly what we see in the movies. Big, lumbering vehicles that slay other vehicles, but which have trouble hitting small, fast targets like individual soldiers. Except through massive rates of fire.

Darr also wants to see an ability where a tank can sort of 'overwatch' a fire lane. By shooting down it continuously and forcing infantry to take hits if they cross that line. An idea which might also make it onto the Paladins carrying rotary cannons.

5) Vehicles Should Take Suppression From Crossing Terrain

This was Darr's idea, and I think it's great. If a vehicle goes crashing through a wood, it's going to be less prepared to engage whatever's on the other side.

6) Tanks Should Have A High Toughness, But Also Have 'Critical Hits'

In a way, we want to convey the inner workings of a vehicle. I mean, you have 2-5 crew inside these things, and/or a bunch of interlocking auto-systems. It's not a monster or a Knight, where one brain is working alone. If you pour a bunch of fire into a tank, it's going to lose it's ability to move and shoot. But those abilities (unless you roll really lucky and blow it up) aren't going to drop to zero during a battle. There may only be one guy left alive to man the forward machine gun, but the tank isn't completely 'dead' unless you explode it.

So let's say you penetrate a tank. You roll the toughness test, and since the toughness is high (3-5), your chances of simply blowing it up are pretty slim.

But you penetrated, so you may get to cripple it somehow. Your shot didn't hit the ammo bin, but you might have put a hole through the driver or the gunner. Or you might have hit a track.

So here's a quick list of crew/things you could damage in a (contemporary) tank. Most of which comes from my experiences in World of Tanks. :)
  1. Commander (Reduced Ld)
  2. Cupola (reduced/increased Awareness to sides/rear)
  3. Gunner/Gunsights (Reduced BS)
  4. Loader (Reduced RoF)
  5. Driver (fewer turns during movement)
  6. Radio Man (No Target Sharing over TacNet?)
  7. 1 Track (Can't move forward, but can turn in place)
  8. Both Tracks or engine (Can't move at all)
  9. Turret Ring (Can't rotate turret)
  10. Main Gun (Can't fire it)
  11. Fuel Tank or Batteries (reduced toughness)
  12. Suspension (can't move At The Double)
In a similar way to how we're currently rolling wound allocation for infantry, our thoughts were that we would also roll 2 dice when a tank is penetrated, but not destroyed. Each six rolled would indicate a minor (or just randomized) critical hit. While rolling 2 sixes would let you kill the commander, or maybe a specific crew member.

It's still fuzzy, and that list looks too complicated, and it would require some custom counters of some kind, but that's the general idea.

Plus tanks would have to roll Ld for suppression like every other unit. Though they might not take suppression from hits that can't actually damage them.


If I missed anything Darr, be sure to add it in the comments.

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