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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 19, 2008 7:27:30 GMT -5
Gotta side with GIMP here, it might not be the fairest thing from a purely game play stand - but catching a 37mm never improved anyones day, except for a panther or a tiger that just kinda giggles from getting tickled. And if we have game play issues now, imagine if we add the 88?
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Post by malkcntent on May 19, 2008 14:51:44 GMT -5
Welcome to game design! Managing mechanics like these is always a tricky proposal. What you guys are tackling with is the primary reason we left out large-scale weapons like the 37mm cannon. The other big reason was because, in a squad-level game, they really tip the scales quite a bit. We do plan to release rules for larger vehicles, including tanks, sometime in the future and these are the very issues we'll be tackling when we do so. In the meantime, we encourage folks to come up with their own stats and use them. While both hannibal and gimp have some great points, the best way to determine what works in the game is to playtest all options. When designing the game, we have to balance realism with playability, which is never an easy task. So, give all the possible rules a try and see what works best. Sometimes reality has to give way to playability... -Matthew
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 19, 2008 15:48:51 GMT -5
One thing to balance out the power of something like a 37mm is making it more difficult to target individual troops - it was designed and built to shoot at tanks, which last time I checked were larger then even the Sturmaffe.
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Post by gimp on May 19, 2008 21:09:21 GMT -5
I like a concept for vehicle weapons from Disposible Heroes that a lot of games overlook: vehicles are trying to find targets through small view ports and periscopes. To balance the danger, and show what advantages infantry can have, a vehicle has to roll to acquire a target before they can fire on it. evernevermore(john), One of my favorite stories about AT guns concerned an American 37mm that found itself facing a Panther. In cover, but with nowhere to run, they opened fire, and the Panther crew bailed out and ran. They heard the clang of something hitting them, but they couldn't see the AT gun, and had no idea just what had hit them.
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 20, 2008 8:30:22 GMT -5
@ gimp - and for every store like that there are about 25 were the panther just kind of laughs and forcefeeds a 88 through the allied tank shooting at it. I've come across similar, I know of two battles where one sherman took out the tiger opposing it, but they are few and far between. (Incidentially in one of the two fights the tiger crew bailed because the Sherman gunner reactively fired upon seeing it, was loaded with a wiley pete round and the round hit close enough to a bad weld that it let dense white smoke into the crew compartment. The other time a sherman found a tiger that was bogged down in a low area, the sherman spent most of the engagement come up the surrounding hill, firing a shot and running like hell. After around 25 shots the sherman finally managed to catch something on the rear deck on fire and the tiger crew bailed rather then burn)
Anyways... I see two options for the vehicle weapons - the rolling to acquire and creating rules where anti tank weapons are much more likely to hit vehicles rather then troopers, as even a Sturmaffe is smaller then a tank. Rolling to acquire is good for simulating a buttoned up crew shooting - but since this AE-WW2, what happens when we hand one of the trinkets the archeologists get to a tank commander - he can now sit up in the hatch and aim much better. Another option (or in addition) we could look into a rule to simulate that a tank gun is intended to hit a great big chunk of steel and not some human shaped bag of meat. Perhaps a rule saying that against small targets the gun has to roll twice and take the worst result or take a penalty to shoot.
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Post by gimp on May 20, 2008 11:18:41 GMT -5
Internal weapons should be subject to acquisition, but pintle mounts, or commanders playing with shiny new toys, would fire as infantry, just as an Audie Murphy climbing on board could use a pintle mount normally. AE doesn't really have a method for making firing at infantry more difficult, because any spot on the ground is a target. Limiting the size of AOE's is likely going to be enough, because big tanks are probably going to mean very few extra units to protect them. Since artillery is only a 3" radius, keeping tanks to 2" or less would be reasonable. I have concerns on how AE could handle bigger vehicles as targets. A bazooka should stay a threat to a tank, but a PTRS shouldn't be able to kill the big ones. Armor piercing currently makes a slow death by pin pricks more likely if only armor increases. Perhaps larger vehicles could be given a 'vulnerability' to certain classes of weapons. A bazooka might roll an extra dice (or two, etc) against progressively larger vehicles, but also have a smaller threat of increased wounds (ex: 15+ or 17+ to cause two wounds instead of 11+). Larger tanks could be protected from light anti-tank weapons by giving them a growing partial invulnerability. Weapons in certain classes might only be able to cause superficial wounds, that can cause drive loss, but not actual wounds and destruction. That could let light weapons harass a bigger tank, and even drive it off if they got lucky, but not destroy something they couldn't really destroy. To offset that, infantry close assaulting a tank could be given a varying penalty chance to fire through vision slits, etc. to take out the crew. That could keep green troops from being as much of a threat, but allow veterans to do what veterans did. If an exposed commander trying to use a pintle mount against infantry is killed, it could make the vehicle count as open topped within a limited range until the end of the turn (perhaps only against close assaults). That would allow grenades to be used against tank crews (Think, 'Battle of the Bulge'). Perhaps even require an action to remove the commander and close the hatch. Back on historical anecdotes, my favorite came from a documentary about Shermans. A British tank commander was talking about a platoon running into a Tiger. The lead Sherman went up from ambush. The second Sherman was caught running for cover. This man commanded the third Sherman. He made it behind a building, but the Tiger was good, and fired through five walls of the building and still took out his tank. You could still see the look of awe on his face talking about it sixty years after the fact.
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 20, 2008 12:22:51 GMT -5
Well one thought for vehicles is adding in a rule similar to what battletech does where movement adds penalties to hitting the tank. Plus only American built tanks (if I remember right) had the gyro stabilization of the main gun - might be worth adding in.
And if the tiger was as nasty as the Brit found what will the Ratte be like?
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Post by gimp on May 20, 2008 17:08:20 GMT -5
Well, beyond a point, bigger guns didn't always mean much better anti-armor capability. Muzzle velocity becomes a bigger part of the equation once the rounds get enough mass. It's the whole E=m*v*v thing. The 128mm AT gun wasn't as good as the long 88mm until they worked out some problems. Even then, it wasn't a big improvement. Around 10% better penetration at their bests, but the HE was more potent. Other limiters for big guns would be either an increased reload time, or just a slower rate of fire. A 1:4 for smaller single guns, up to something as bad as 1:12 for big guns, would reflect the variations in reload time, and serve to limit their impact. Rate of fire would be nice, because it wouldn't require additional rules. It's an already present weapon stat. A big gun only getting one or two shots in during a scenario, and otherwise relying on machine guns, etc. for defense, would be very fitting. For those enjoying the historical bits, the Tiger I mentioned was a Tiger 1, not a King Tiger.
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 20, 2008 17:25:01 GMT -5
The problem with the rate of fire suggestions is that right now as the rules read you cant carry over action points between rounds. And even the largest guns didnt require more then 2 loaders - usually a mechanical system was used then (I'm talking tank not naval guns)
Of course should a 128mm HE go off on the board that had better be some high strength damage or the template will need to be bigger then 3"
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Post by gimp on May 20, 2008 17:53:28 GMT -5
As is, a green model firing a 1:2 weapon is restricted to firing it every other turn. It wouldn't be too hard to extend that to allow a long lag time that can be reduced by a loader/gunner pair. The base mechanic is already in place. A simpler mechanic would be to specify how often the weapon can be fired, with a reduced time if both loader and gunner were present, but that wouldn't reflect crew TL as well. As for the damage from a 128mm, it doesn't need to be that much, or that big. Artillery support is only 8+2d6 with a 3" AOE. Since that is including support from several guns larger than 128mm, that would keep things in line. 8+2d6 is nasty to infantry, and dangerous to light vehicles. That works, because HE is not as dangerous to tanks unless it's a big shell with a direct hit, which is not very common for indirect fire (the Army figures 1:300 for dumb shells). While a 3" AOE is small for any HE shell, it keeps the game from becoming an artillery duel when artillery isn't normally used close to engaged friendlies unless it's desperate. I'd prefer to see a 128mm have something less than 8+2d6. More on the line of 6+2d6 with a 1" or 2" max AOE. You don't want on board HE to be that much of a bunker buster, so keeping the damage lower and slowly increasing the AOE would be a better idea. An average roll on 6+2d6 against infantry in a bunker leaves no save, so you have to limit the big boom some other ways.
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Post by shmitty on May 27, 2008 0:54:12 GMT -5
Wow guys, great discussion.
I think you lined out the pros/cons of AP vs 2d6 weapons really well. We have been finding that AP weapons are really powerful as they just nullify cover. Part of me feels they should only effect armor, but you would still get your cover bonus against them. Still, right now in our games the PTRS will more conistently wound a vehicle, but the Bazooka gets multiple kills far more often.
I do like the idea of targeting restrictions for big guns. Maybe a weapon special rule would state the size of models it could be shot at. A light gun like a 37mm could be shot at even a Buffalo sized model, but say an 88mm couldn't be shot at anything less than a vehicle.
HE rounds could either be targeted at a large terrain feature or shot at a point and then scatter per Indirect Fire rules.
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 27, 2008 10:06:55 GMT -5
Well a PTRS should consistently do little wounds - its going to peck a tank into uselessness as it cracks periscopes and damages mechanisms...
Sounds like the simplest method of handling main guns is to add a rule that all (non anti aircraft) guns above say 35mm take a penalty against non vehicle non terrain targets. Another thought is perhaps steal from Hordesmachine and if the shot doesnt directly hit an infantry figure it only takes a half strength hit (canister and HE ignoring this). That way the AP shell is less likely to splatter a squad of soldiers then it would a tank while Canister will barely scratch a proper tank and pulp troops.
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Post by gimp on May 27, 2008 13:07:18 GMT -5
I like the idea of differentiating between HE and AP rounds. It could give a nice, simple addition to tactical options. Perhaps give a trade off of -2 damage, or even -1d6 damage, for a slightly larger AOE radius. Limiting target allowances wouldn't make as much sense from a tactical standpoint, because soldiers will fire what they have at a percieved threat. While there were rules of engagement, especially in the desert, they were regarding ranges and chances for effective hits instead of target types. A tank facing panzerfausts in a building is not going to limit their fire to their machineguns. I understood the rationale for Warmachine's 1/2 strength within the template, but I've never liked it, because explosions don't really work that way. Shaped charges and fast AP, yes, but Warmachine is using mostly short barreled boomers. Warzone used to have degrading effectiveness based on distance from impact, and that represents explosions better. Perhaps drop the lowest remaining damage dice for each inch away from the center of the blast down to a minimum of 1d6 remaining. Artillery can saturate an area, so there is no reason to change that mechanic for Artillery Strike (Consider it multiple guns). Grenades and mortars are only rolling a single dice, so they don't change either. All the current AT rockets are using a small enough AOE that they are not reduced. Taking a penalty against 'non-terrain' targets could get dodgy, as players can target any spot on the ground and call it terrain. Depending on whether players are using felt forests or actual trees that can be identified individually causes another issue. It would be easiest to simply apply the penalty to non-vehicular targets. Buildings are easy to hit, but can be harder to destroy than a tank. Easy to damage, but there can still be structure standing. Running with non-vehicular targets can be considered under a simple weapon trait called 'anti-tank,' or something. I wouldn't exclude many main guns, as even the anti-air guns above a very small size had trouble bearing on dodgy infantry. The lightest AA mounted for close support (40mm would cover the bofors) could track quickly, but the 20mm AT guns couldn't. Using a trait would allow a crossover a size limit wouldn't. It would also allow the field guns that were designed for rapid target acquisition to avoid the trait.
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Post by evernevermore(john) on May 27, 2008 13:27:40 GMT -5
I can see what you mean about the gun size - I was just trying to think of ways to not include setups like the German Wirbelwind or the American M16 (mostly because I want to play with them eventually.
Warzones idea is good but AE has always come across as a less is more game so I always try to keep the rules simplest. Ideas?
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Post by xeoran on May 27, 2008 16:12:58 GMT -5
evernevermore(john), One of my favorite stories about AT guns concerned an American 37mm that found itself facing a Panther. In cover, but with nowhere to run, they opened fire, and the Panther crew bailed out and ran. They heard the clang of something hitting them, but they couldn't see the AT gun, and had no idea just what had hit them. I've heard others of tank crews bailing out or running after being fired at with automatic weapons. Being in a tank is scary, you're intensely vulnerable. Only way to really cover that though is to run some kind of morale check whenever they are fired at with a failure resulting in them bailing or making a run for cover. I like the idea tanks have to try and find before they fire but then I'd like that applied to infantry too: a common theme in combat was trying to find the enemy, hence the four F's: Find, Fix, Flank and F--k Up.
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