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I got mine too (despite cancelling my sub over a year ago; they keep sending me magazines), but a lot of the little bits like guns were crushed and maimed.
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Dec 4, 2018 16:48
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Anarcho-Commissar posted:I got mine too (despite cancelling my sub over a year ago; they keep sending me magazines), but a lot of the little bits like guns were crushed and maimed. Mine got through rather unscathed. Only some bending on the Flakvierling 38. My biggest gripe is there is no assembly guide. I had to look up what was on the S-100 and S-38 because I know tanks but I don't know boats. And in the issue there's nothing specified as well.
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Dec 4, 2018 16:59
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moths posted:Losing the commander would be a problem, but as long as each model has LoS to the commander, that doesn't seem to be the case? No; your hit allocation happens in a 6" bubble, and your commander's jump radius is the same. This means if you focus fire on the middle of a line-abreast formation you can kill everyone within 6" of the commander, meaning he has no valid units to take over, and meaning the unit is automatically in bad spirits regardless of how many extant teams there are. The "kill the center" tactic is very handy on anyone who uses any of the extended command ranges because most people assume that Good Spirits is an "in command" check, but it isn't; good spirits is always within 6" of the commander. quote:Is that typical for terrain setup? It looks like a 15mm Infinity table! I don't think you could play anything on that table without it becoming a bunched up mess. Ours are usually a little denser than that.
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Dec 4, 2018 20:53
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NTRabbit posted:No, it should have been 1/35, and every time you want to play you need to book out your local indoor basketball court!
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Dec 5, 2018 02:22
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Want to meet those English dudes. Thanks for the explanation, I haven't gotten through the shooting / hit allocation section yet, but I could generally follow what you were saying about sniping out the commander. It seems like an oversight to not resolve shots simultaneously, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. And here's some hobby progress! It's a microarmour Polish Hind:  (I still need decals, unfortunately. )
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Dec 5, 2018 05:11
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Arquinsiel posted:Some English dudes I know rent out a stately home once a year for a conference and play a 1/35-ish scale tank combat game on the lawn. Shine on, you crazy diamonds 
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Dec 5, 2018 05:19
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spectralent posted:No; your hit allocation happens in a 6" bubble, and your commander's jump radius is the same. This means if you focus fire on the middle of a line-abreast formation you can kill everyone within 6" of the commander, meaning he has no valid units to take over, and meaning the unit is automatically in bad spirits regardless of how many extant teams there are. The "kill the center" tactic is very handy on anyone who uses any of the extended command ranges because most people assume that Good Spirits is an "in command" check, but it isn't; good spirits is always within 6" of the commander. The few times I've played Team Yankee we've always forgotten/couldn't be bothered with the morale rules, and maybe that's for the best. I still like it as a system. Weren't Battlegroup working on some Cold War rules?
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Dec 5, 2018 08:40
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BeigeJacket posted:The few times I've played Team Yankee we've always forgotten/couldn't be bothered with the morale rules, and maybe that's for the best. I still like it as a system. Yes. Some guy on Dakka said they were aiming for release at Salute 2019.
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Dec 5, 2018 08:52
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moths posted:Thanks for the explanation, I haven't gotten through the shooting / hit allocation section yet, but I could generally follow what you were saying about sniping out the commander. It seems like an oversight to not resolve shots simultaneously, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. It's because it's simultaneous. Say O is your commander, Xs are in 6" of him, Vs are outside of 6", but within 12". V-V-X-O-X-V-V This is an in-command unit, because everyone is in a line. It's also a unit that's in Good Spirits, but this is a seperate check. V-X-O-_-V-V-V The unit is hit but a small unit, and loses one tank. The enemy targets the commander, but, that's largely irrelevant, because someone was within 6" of him and there was only one casualty. The commander jumps to a tank within 6" of him, and at the end of shooting, there's at least one other tank still within 6" of him, so they're in Good Spirits, and don't have to take a morale check. The furthest right V might be out of command, depending on where it is, but it's almost certain you could tidy up the formation in your move step so whatever. Now, assume this happened with a massed abrams gunline or something. Everyone targets the commander, rather than trying to spread shots out, because they're aware of those mechanics above, and there's five hits. Here's a not unlikely result: V-V-_-_-_-V-V Shooting is resolved simultaneously, on a per-unit basis; everyone declares their targets at once and rolls all those dice, so all three tanks in the middle are hit first. Because hits can only be allocated within 6" of your target, despite there being seven tanks (we'll even assume they're all visible), the five hits are allocated to the middle three tanks twice instead of wrapping around to other tanks, so one tank's hit once, and two are hit twice, meaning odds are good they'll all be dead. Because commanders taking over happens to tanks specifically within 6", not tanks in command, there's no valid tank for them to jump to when the shooting is resolving, so the unit is now leaderless and can never not be out of command. Also, at the end of the shooting step, the tanks are now a leaderless unit that's taken casualties, and in bad spirits, at risk of running, because the check for that is also "within 6"" and not "within command" (and also their leader is dead so there's nobody to draw command to anyway). Line abreast ends up being a bit of a trap for people who're unaware how hit allocation works because it makes those big formations deceptively easy to break. They removed it in V4 and I suspect it's because they couldn't work out how to make it work.
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Dec 5, 2018 08:53
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Fish and Chimps posted:Yes. Some guy on Dakka said they were aiming for release at Salute 2019. I'd be mad, bad and sad about it, if not for the solid knowledge that there's 0% chance of any sort of game like that catching up at my flgs.
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Dec 5, 2018 09:03
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There was a recent reenactment of Austerlitz, and man, there are some great photos from it. Highly recommended if you're into napoleonics, the recreated uniforms are top notch. https://www.facebook.com/events/1118221168330689/ lilljonas fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Dec 5, 2018 |
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Dec 5, 2018 11:13
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Dec 5, 2018 13:37
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The new Wargames Illustrated has an interview with PSC, and apparently Battlegroup NORTHAG is moving to fastplay 10mm rules with multi-based infantry. Which is odd, given that they're already producing 15mm cold war. But they also hinted at rescaling their 15mm WW2 down to 10mm for fast-play and calling the system Battlegroup 10 or something. They also mentioned fast build models, so it's unlikely we'll get two part tracks on 10mm tanks. Thank God. spectralent posted:Line abreast ends up being a bit of a trap for people who're unaware how hit allocation works because it makes those big formations deceptively easy to break. They removed it in V4 and I suspect it's because they couldn't work out how to make it work. Oh, woof. Yeah that's way more bleak than I had understood. I imagine targeting formations instead of individual models could help somewhat, but that's a whole other can of worms.
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Dec 5, 2018 15:25
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What the hell does "fastplay" mean? I wonder if the same genius that wanted to pull units PSC doesn't produce from BG Normandy made the game go 10mm so as not to get any business poached by Battlefront 
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Dec 5, 2018 15:29
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Typically less book-keeping, faster mechanics. You lose some fidelity, but it's better for larger games IMO. And you're totally thinking of Pendraken with Blitzkrieg Commander. That was a really baffling decision, they rushed the "corrected" lists, and still haven't issued corrections to the first edition that was only half-fixed. Ugh.
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Dec 5, 2018 15:34
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moths posted:Typically less book-keeping, faster mechanics. You lose some fidelity, but it's better for larger games IMO. But I wanted BG Normandy's fidelity 
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Dec 5, 2018 15:44
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I found my old pigments in the basement while rummaging around for a can of primer. It's time of fun!   
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Dec 5, 2018 15:59
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I like Cold War Commander's command mechanics, where command units have to pass skill checks to give orders but your units can still make simple initiative moves like shooting at the nearest enemy or continuing to move in the same direction as last turn.
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Dec 5, 2018 17:57
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Borrowed from the old Epic rules IIRC. There stuff had default orders it could take, like Orks would always attempt to move and shoot if possible.
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Dec 5, 2018 19:10
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I haven't picked up the copy of WI yet, but here's the Northag ruleset based on the BG rules https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmzVr9cTCzcqzaw3d_6QjGflLLzJh4aM/view From this blog, which has a bunch of stuff, including lists. If you check out the Battlegroup forums (which is slowly dying I guess, because there's a fb group now, with Warwick answering questions), you'll find a bunch of research also. https://coldwarhot.blogspot.com/ I'm not really sure how much the BG rules will be adapted, but this seems nice and well-researched. I'm not really interested in gaming the period, so I'll probably skip buying this.
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Dec 5, 2018 19:16
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I need some ACW ironclad rules that aren't like pounding nails into my balls, someone help!
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Dec 8, 2018 04:05
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muggins posted:I need some ACW ironclad rules that aren't like pounding nails into my balls, someone help! Here are some simple rules: Each ships moves between 1-6" in a 45 degree angle. Each ship may fire at a ship on a 3+ On a 1, a ship hits a friendly ship. On a 2-5, is misses. On a 6 it hits. On a 1-6, the ball bounces harmlessly off of the other sides ship. In the end phase, on a 5+, lose a crew point due to fainting. I feel this is accurate enough for ACW play.
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Dec 8, 2018 06:06
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muggins posted:I need some ACW ironclad rules that aren't like pounding nails into my balls, someone help! Then you want the old Yaquinto Ironclads game and play it with miniatures instead of on hexes. The best version of that game is 3W's Shot & Shell, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6924/shot-and-shell The joy of that game is in pounding your opponents into submission, the damage tables and critical hits get vicious. Movement is pre-plotted so there's a chance to outwit the enemy every turn. There are spar torpedoes that let you one-shot anything if you ram them with one; a spare torpedo is literally a barrel of gunpowder on a stick. There are also actual rams, ships designed with a nasty underwater beak to tear open other ships. It's also something that you can teach to experienced wargamers after you've gotten them hosed up on hashish, so it's pretty approachable set of rules. There are massive number of ships in the game. It covers just about everything from the American Civil War, plus South American and European ships to cover all of 1858-1870. Forts are well-represented, since many ACW actions involved ship to shore bombardment. S&S goes into a lot of detail on individual ships. It tracks armor on a pretty wide scale, 1-27 are the practical range. Weapons likewise are tracked in granular detail. Guns have a damage rating from 1-10, with a few late-period heavy guns at 15 for, you guessed it, shot or shell ammunition; their range table shows the chance to hit and damage multiplier for various ranges. Damage multipliers are keys to the game - get close and your damage 10 gun versus 16 armor becomes a damage 30 gun versus 16 armor. The damage table is in columns of damage minus armor, and the good results are very much concentrated to the right. Let's take the USS Carondelet and the CSS Atlanta as examples, because I pulled their ship cards out of the box at more or less random. The Carondelet was a squat, ugly turtle of a ship. Just a casemate with two paired smokestacks. The Atlanta was also a casemate with a smokestack, but had better lines on the casemate; follow the links and look at their pictures and you'll see. One thing about looking at pictures of this kind of ship is that you can't always count gunports to get the number of guns. On many ships,guns at corners would pivot between two ports. The Atlanta has only 4 guns, but 8 ports. Her 3-gun broadside is composed of the bow and stern guns, plus the one gun actually on the port or starboard side. Let's shoot stuff. The Carondelet didn't have the biggest guns, her 3 8" Dahlgren smoothbore muzzle loaders mounted forwards compared poorly to the 11" guns fitted to the USS Monitor. Later monitors would have 15" Dahlgrens that could smash a big hole, producing clouds of splinters [1]. They're rated as 5/4 for shot/shell, and let's give them a 3x multiplier at a range of 3 hexes. That's a 15 versus the Atlanta's waterline armor of 19, and casemate armor of 27. Uh oh. Let's put two guns firing shot on her, and one firing explosive shell at a random wooden gunboat who really doesn't want to be here. The wooden gunboat CSS Fulton has a hull armor of 5, so we roll with a 12-5= +7. The result is a p*2a-c. That's a critical hit, 2 points of armor removed, and a crew factor killed; that's out of 26 at start so no biggie. For the critical hit we roll 2d6, a 9 gives a result for a casemate hit with shell of 1a, 2H, 3C, and a roll on the Fire table. It's 1-2 on a d6 to catch fire, and we roll a 5. She's lot 4 of 26 crew, 2 of 30 hull - at 15 damage to hull she starts taking Float damage and rolling on a not-quite-critical-hit special damage table (there are lots of special damage tables). Against the Atlanta both guns will hit and roll a 2 one the 0 to -4 column, which is an A. That's two points of armor removed and 1 flotation hit for each damaging hit on the waterline hit location. She's down 2 armor from 19 on that waterline location, and took 2 Float hits out of 28. 12 more to start taking consequences from flooding. The Atlanta has 6.4" Brooks Rifles in the bow, port, and starboard positions, with a 7/6 rating. Her stern gun is a 7" Brooks rated at 10/8. They get their 3x multiplier at range 5 and 7 respectively. Let's go with a 5-hex range broadside against the Carondelet's 14 point bow casemate armor. At 3x that's 21-14 twice, and 30-14 once. A 4 and a 5 gives is A and H damage. She got off lightly, that's minimal damage for heavy hits. A 1 or 2 would have been penetrating hits and done much more. The 7" gun rolls a 3. That's a penetrating hit plus 2A. A 3 on the Penetrating Hit table adds A-2H-C to the total. From 3 point blank hits at point blank range, the Carondelet has had her bow armor reduced from 14 to 10, lost 3 out of 28 Hull points, and one of 35 crew points.The compromised bow armor will constrain her tactics, she can't afford to point her best guns at anything that can hit back any more. I seriously love this game and can't recommend it highly enough. I've seen every ironclads game published since. You want this one. [1] Punching a projectile through several inches of wood and iron produces clouds of large splinters moving very fast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfsuIaTU92Y
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Dec 9, 2018 04:27
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Wow, thanks!
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Dec 9, 2018 06:42
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Hey, have any/many of you played Blood Red Skies? (Which I think they're totally ripping off the classic Crimson Skies, name-wise  ) Since I recently ordered the starter set and a box of Yaks, after hearing about it from a friend and reading about it online. Although what I'm wondering is, do you have any general suggestions or tips, to get me started? Whether it's about building a list, tactics, or what to get/avoid.Since, assuming I like the game (and during the last couple of years or so I've quite enjoyed playing X-Wing, and like the sound of a couple of the features in BRS) I'm thinking of making a very USSR-focused force, by eventually getting the Yak ace and perhaps also some I-16s. But also, I'm at work so I can't look through their Facebook page right now, but I remember reading something about an effect (I think it's an ace ability, or something? That boosts pilot skill/initiative IIRC) that affects planes within a certain distance - six inches, I think. So, will I need to actually keep a measuring tape on-hand, or is the firing-distance ruler (or whatever it's called) conveniently the correct length, for abilities like that?
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Dec 10, 2018 04:11
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I didn't know my life was missing a game about Ironclads, but now I really want to try that out. Great writeup.
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Dec 10, 2018 05:24
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Reported for unmarked and unspoiled porn. 
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Dec 10, 2018 05:47
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mllaneza posted:Then you want the old Yaquinto Ironclads game and play it with miniatures instead of on hexes. The best version of that game is 3W's Shot & Shell, My friends and I played the hell out of an older version of this game. If you want ironclad action in your life, I can't help but recommend this.
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Dec 10, 2018 06:42
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mllaneza posted:Then you want the old Yaquinto Ironclads game and play it with miniatures instead of on hexes. Excalibre Games publishes a reprint of the first game (Ironclads) and the Expansion. The drawback is that the counters show ships in profile/from the side (instead of from above). The good part is that the games are still in print, and if you're playing with miniatures the counters don't matter. If you're thinking of buying some little Ironclads, may I suggest Thoroughbred miniatures? Their models are just gorgeous. 1/600 scale:    Edit to add: Ironclads is a great game. I played frequently back in the day, and this makes me want to dust off my copies and buy some more little models. BUT - be warned, the game can bog down when you play big scenarios. Remember, you're rolling dice for every gun you shoot, checking for critical hits, etc. When you're doing something with a turreted ironclad (with two guns) or a casemate ironclad (maybe 20 guns, of which 4-5 are shooting at any one target) it goes smoothly. But when you start bringing in the big steamships with 30+ guns per broadside it can get a little tedious. And if you're doing a fleet action with a dozen of those ships it gets reeeeeaaaalllllllyyyy draggy. The game is at its best when you're doing a quick action with 2-4 small/low gun count ships per side. Don't try to do the Battle of Lissa or Mobile Bay at first, work your way up to that. Cessna fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Dec 10, 2018 |
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Dec 10, 2018 16:04
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Or, if you're used to machine sheet style games, go hog wild. Seems like it's comparable in book-keeping to Battletech.
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Dec 10, 2018 17:28
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Arquinsiel posted:Seems like it's comparable in book-keeping to Battletech. Yeah, that's about right. I think the game is at its best when you're doing relatively small battles and using terrain. Think "you've both got a single ironclad and couple of crappy sidewheelers that can barely turn around, and you're fighting in a narrow river clogged with obstacles - good luck." Once you start doing open ocean fights with hundreds and hundreds of guns blasting away it turns into a marathon of dice rolling...
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Dec 10, 2018 17:41
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An era I'd absolutely love to get into but know would be a total waste of time and money is Russo Japanese war naval. Old Glory has a line of 1/600 scale ships for this war. They are flat-out beautiful:  But the problem is that they're too drat big. Each battleship is 8" long. One would be a nice display model, but as a gaming piece it is impractical. Say I do a "Battle of the Yellow Sea" with this range – four Japanese battleships lined up stem-to-stern, that's a formation almost three feet long. With spacing you'd be looking at almost six feet. And that's just one squadron in a relatively small battle. I've got a decent sized house with room for gaming, but once you add in cruisers and torpedo boats there's no way a game could fit on a table. I suppose I could do a game on the floor, Naval War College style, but that's a hassle and I don't know if my wife would want me to lay down blue carpet. Too bad, those ships sure look good.
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Dec 10, 2018 18:06
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It's the grand tradition of "renting the church hall" for a game TBH. You can totally have a fun naval game at that scale when you've got a room 100 feet long to work in. Or, TBH, even better would be doing 1/3000 on the same space...
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Dec 10, 2018 18:13
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Are those sandbags? 
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Dec 10, 2018 21:34
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Geisladisk posted:Are those sandbags? Cotton bales, I would imagine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottonclad_warship
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Dec 10, 2018 21:40
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The early steam paddle frigates were very derpy vessels. Maybe these are Merlin-class vessels from the late 1830s.
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Dec 10, 2018 21:43
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golden bubble posted:The early steam paddle frigates were very derpy vessels. Some ships of this era are quite ugly.  
Cessna fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Dec 10, 2018 |
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Dec 10, 2018 21:52
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Cessna posted:An era I'd absolutely love to get into but know would be a total waste of time and money Love this, new thread title Edit: lol Yessss, Excalibre games only way to order is sending them an Excel file order sheet via email. Hip deep in the grog muggins fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Dec 12, 2018 |
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Dec 12, 2018 01:20
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Major Isoor posted:Hey, have any/many of you played Blood Red Skies? (Which I think they're totally ripping off the classic Crimson Skies, name-wise I don't think anyone here has tried it. Cruel Seas also just launched and I'm waiting for my starter set to arrive. I've also been eyeing Blood Red Skies but I've held off so far. I'd love to have a game that mixes blood red skies with ground units.
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Dec 12, 2018 09:49
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See, I wasn't to interested in Cruel Seas until I saw the US Fleet had landing craft - some form of combined arms game would be amazing. The Landing craft are an interesting choice, as their non-combat, and I want to know how they will fit into the game.
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Dec 12, 2018 10:24
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