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If anyone is looking for a bridge for historical gaming, this one from father and son gaming is really well made. That’s my Tamiya 1/48 Tiger 1 crossing it. 
Zuul the Cat fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 03:10
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Beardless posted:Does anyone have a preferred US-based online store for war games stuff? I ordered from one of the ones listed in the OP a few times, but they've since gone out of business. https://nwswargamingstore.net/shop has good prices, but shipping can be very slow for anything that isn't in stock.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:10
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JcDent posted:At least the WW2 March to Hell I'd never do in 28mm unless I wanted an army that was on part with Worms 3D in realism. People have reported success by shrinking the X and Y axis or stretching the Z. The stubby proportions also allow them to look good shrunk down to 10mm, but they look like Fisher-Price soldiers at 28mm.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:36
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Arquinsiel posted:Funnily enough that's the exact complaint I had with Infinity back in 2nd edition - too many variables. I just expected SpecOps to be less 'ok, here is a giant table of ingredients, now make the kind of cake you want!'. I'm not expecting everything to be Bolt Action or CoC but some post-book support would be nice. I've looked at the recommended fan facebook group, and there's no big collection of missions there either. And SpecOps definitely seems to live and die on the quality of the missions. We played the second one and basically budgeted 200 points for an Elite force to fight a mixed professional+trained force and it was barely a contest. Anyway have some shots of the game. A lone Elite SAS soldier sorts out the last of the militia, before returning to the diner  SAS hold down the diner as some paramilitary professionals slink around the back  In the followup game, evil SAS chill in their grey box blasting the noble militia as they crash through the diner 
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Mar 15, 2021 07:15
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) seems to have died a death. I'm not sure if "Part 2 Vehicles" even exists yet, because their website is 500'ing.
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Arquinsiel posted:Funnily enough that's the exact complaint I had with Infinity back in 2nd edition - too many variables. I can't say if I played during 2E, but for Infinity, you usually have range and cover (which is either Yes or No) as variables for most firefights, with a few select units getting camo, and a few select armies getting access to smoke grenades. Force on Force would definitely us a God-drat editor to lay out the things in an easier to understand/parse fashion. Sanging is full-on  as far as I've read it in that it has an initiative track, and your dudes can act in multiple steps of it. Just like with Force on Force, I wouldn't take it on without someone holding my hand through the first battle.I actually have the OSC book from the time it was free with a pack of 20mm minis, and I wasn't impressed with it IIRC. I think Disposable Heroes/No End In Sight should work fairly well tho.
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Mar 15, 2021 08:49
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Oh yeah, and if the game is focused on narrative missions rather than tournament rules, that's totally fine and cool and good. Just, give me some missions to play???
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Mar 15, 2021 09:55
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Woo, got all my Romans shielded up and printed out a unit of Celtic Warband last night  Considering the resin cost for each unit is $1-$2, I'm pretty happy.
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Mar 15, 2021 16:58
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I've had, yet again, a look at the Cold War Gone Hot fronts in Europe and one of the less explored battlefields of that hypothetical war I think is really interesting but also unexplored is the Battle for Berlin. One one side, a division-sized battlegroup comprising the US Berlin Brigade, the British Berlin Field Force, and the Forces Françaises à Berlin, each uniquely equipped and organized and bereft of NATO's strength in the air, and on the other, nearly three divisions of Warsaw Pact troops of all kinds, from NVA and Soviet motor-rifle troops to East German paratroopers, militias, police response units, and a division of mechanized border guards. It's just such a fascinating situation.
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Mar 15, 2021 23:08
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LatwPIAT posted:It's just such a fascinating situation. It's hex-and-counter, but this was a good game back in the day: /pic64875.jpg)
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Mar 15, 2021 23:22
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No. 1 Juicy Boi posted:I did a late pledge for the March to Hell: Rome set of 3D printing files since it should be everything I need to build both sides for a Boudica campaign. Really happy with the quality of these prints for 15mm! I can crank out about 1 of those 40x15mm infantry stands every couple hours, which sure as hell is faster than I'll be able to paint them. I even threw together a movement tray in TinkerCAD Oh cool, I backed that too. The printer isn't here yet, but I'll have lots to print when it does !
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Mar 16, 2021 00:31
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JcDent posted:I can't say if I played during 2E, but for Infinity, you usually have range and cover (which is either Yes or No) as variables for most firefights, with a few select units getting camo, and a few select armies getting access to smoke grenades. Cassa posted:Oh yeah, and if the game is focused on narrative missions rather than tournament rules, that's totally fine and cool and good.
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Mar 16, 2021 00:37
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Arquinsiel posted:What threw me was how much space was devoted to cubes and how things interacted there, but them only mattering for campaigns. Why even bother so? Seems like stuff you could easily ignore, then. I think cubes these days mostly matter for Sepsitorization... and maybe getting rerolls on doctor rolls? Not much space these days. Imagine how I felt when O-12 was announced with the special Peacekeeper rule... and it basically only mattered in campaigns. Almost made me not collect them! Then N4 dropped almost immediately and that rule was axed! LatwPIAT posted:It's just such a fascinating situation. Be the change you want to see in the hobby 
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Mar 16, 2021 06:19
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I keep seeing kits by Rubicon Models. Are these wargames minis or more scale model stuff?
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Mar 16, 2021 18:46
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They're certainly an option for gaming. I think it's a midway between say a chunky 28mm warlord vehicle and a hyper-accurate but fiddly 1/56 scale model. I'd look at some comparison shots if you're going to mix them as there might be some size variance side-by-side.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:10
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Yes rubicon is clearly marketing their kits for wargamers, so they have fewer details than say, a tamiya kit, but will handle the wear and tear of gaming much better.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:26
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Beerdeer posted:I keep seeing kits by Rubicon Models. Are these wargames minis or more scale model stuff? I think they're a really good midway point between the two. I try to exclusively use Rubicon Models for my armor for Bolt Action. One of their most recent kits, the King Tiger, has options to model the entire interior of the tank, including ammo racks. I find the detail on the models themselves of a higher quality than other wargaming kits. Also, the precision of the kits is on par with the Tamiya 1/48 Tiger 1 I put together. Things line up perfectly. Here are some Rubicon kit's I've assembled: King Tiger & StuG III  Panzer IV - The side skirts here are made of metal mesh. Some of the Rubicon kits come with metal bits, which is a nice addition.   Panzer III   For comparison, here is the Tiger 1/48 from Tamiya   I highly recommend just trying out one of their kits.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:49
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JcDent posted:Seems like stuff you could easily ignore, then. I think cubes these days mostly matter for Sepsitorization... and maybe getting rerolls on doctor rolls? Not much space these days.  about having won a game because their opponant killed their dudes with guns that didn't wipe cubes therefore only half victory points. It's a very long time ago anyway, and is at best a secondary concern to the D20 swingey-ness was at the time.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:53
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I didn't think I'd ever find myself playing Flames of War, but the maxim about 'the best wargame being the one people are willing to play' holds true, so here's a Battalion HQ T-34/85: 
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Mar 17, 2021 01:19
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Nice T-34! Flames of War isn't a BAD game, it's just - unremarkable? It's exacting enough for rivet-counters who want every millimeter of armor perfectly accounted for, but it's also not as fast and loose as, say, Memoir '44. I've played a lot of it because, as you say, it's a game others play. It's not my favorite, but as an excuse to push around little T-34s it's not terrible.
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Mar 17, 2021 15:43
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I'm not a huge fan of what they did with the latest edition, but that's just because I already have armies for previous editions that now have lots of pointless bases of figures. If you're getting into it brand new then it's still a solid enough game that does "good enough" as long as you don't go too hard on building broken lists.
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Mar 17, 2021 17:05
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Arquinsiel posted:pointless bases of figures. My Katuyshas have been through enough variations (trucks with separate bases of loaders behind them, then trucks ON bases of loaders, then trucks with no bases) that I've just given up on it all. I'm only pushing around toys with friends over beer.
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Mar 17, 2021 18:47
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That's the exact reason that my Soviets never had any, even when Zvezda had cheap ones right there for me to build.
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Mar 17, 2021 19:27
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Arquinsiel posted:That's the exact reason that my Soviets never had any, even when Zvezda had cheap ones right there for me to build. I've got eight of the old resin/metal ones. Yes, I drilled all of the holes in the rails. And yes, they aren't great in the game. But a Soviet army without Katyushas doesn't feel right, you know?
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Mar 17, 2021 19:29
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The Soviets generally having appalling artillery in BF games is a consistent grim point, really. It'd be something if they went "Soviet artillery worked differently so here's how it works instead" but it's taken them absolutely forever to give them the Something Else.
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Mar 17, 2021 21:01
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I vaguely remember it only being worth taking 120mm mortars for smoke last I tried mid-war. That was just an excuse to get a bunch of KV-1s and Matildas on the table at once though.
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Mar 17, 2021 22:28
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I should have rephrased my post to be less negative, I'm actually getting into the swing of it. I've been reading the rules, and honestly I'm pleasantly surprised. The Soviets don't seem to have any particularly egregious rules, at least compared to my extremely vague memories from a long, long time ago. Didn't Commissars shoot your own dudes in the past? Honestly, I'm keeping an open mind and viewing the game more as a kind of 'pulp history' sort of thing, rather than something that attempts absolute realism. I like the fact that Soviet Engineer-Sappers wear their body armour, even if they rarely if ever did in reality because it was too cumbersome and barely provided any protection. Katyushas do seem underpowered at Anti-Tank 2 and Firepower 4+ though. I would have thought slapping a tank with a gigantic 132mm rocket would do a little more than that.
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Mar 17, 2021 23:05
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Arquinsiel posted:I vaguely remember it only being worth taking 120mm mortars for smoke last I tried mid-war. That was just an excuse to get a bunch of KV-1s and Matildas on the table at once though. I don't think the soviets ever got smoke bombardments until very recently. Endman posted:I should have rephrased my post to be less negative, I'm actually getting into the swing of it. They did shoot their own dudes as recently as last edition, and, yeah, BF really hates tanks getting KO'd by artillery. It's apparently unrealistic.
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Mar 18, 2021 00:14
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spectralent posted:They did shoot their own dudes as recently as last edition, and, yeah, BF really hates tanks getting KO'd by artillery. It's apparently unrealistic. To be fair getting a direct hit on a tank with a Katyusha was historically pretty unlikely.
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Mar 18, 2021 00:32
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feedmegin posted:To be fair getting a direct hit on a tank with a Katyusha was historically pretty unlikely. Sure, but there's definitely instances of tanks taking what FoW classes as damage from artillery overall, which in Flames as-is now is essentially impossible (excluding a few plane attacks).
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Mar 18, 2021 00:49
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spectralent posted:I don't think the soviets ever got smoke bombardments until very recently.
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Mar 18, 2021 00:55
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I had enough V1/2 models kicking around to make a few formations with the new rule books. My latest kink has been semi-historical solo wargaming by matching orders of battle with the approximate equivalent rule-wise and it's been pretty fun so far. Loading up the table with bocage/buildings/forests lets me try out units and mechanics that would probably get me laughed out of a tournament, if I lived near anybody who played. It also got my oldest kid interested enough to tell the difference between most of the US and German MBTs. I might start experimenting with some house rules for unit activation and armor checks (1 always fails/6 always passes with roll to bail) or individually base things for some 15mm BA-esque squad level play because why not? If gaming isn't fun, it's probably being done wrong.
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Mar 18, 2021 02:34
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Endman posted:Katyushas do seem underpowered at Anti-Tank 2 and Firepower 4+ though. I would have thought slapping a tank with a gigantic 132mm rocket would do a little more than that. I'm pretty sure the warheads on the rockets were mostly just HE fragmentation, with much poorer antiarmor performance than say, an 88mm, despite being significantly larger in diameter.
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Mar 18, 2021 05:00
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feedmegin posted:To be fair getting a direct hit on a tank with a Katyusha was historically pretty unlikely. Of course, but Flames of War and its spinoff Team Yankee under-power artillery to an unrealistic degree. Even if you aren't in much danger of being directly hit by a rocket you're going to be affected by being under an artillery barrage. At an absolute minimum you'll button up and you'll probably be shaken up by it. Signal posted:I'm pretty sure the warheads on the rockets were mostly just HE fragmentation, with much poorer antiarmor performance than say, an 88mm, despite being significantly larger in diameter. Yes, but that 88mm is hitting the armored front or sides of a tank, while the rocket has a chance hitting the relatively thin roof or engine deck. If it hits nearby it'll shake you up, if it hits you directly you're extremely dead. I've been in a tank that was briefly hit by Iraqi mortars. Even though we weren't realistically in a lot of danger it was extremely unnerving and we wouldn't have been at our best if we'd also been engaged by tanks at the same time. The gamer's idea that tanks can just ignore artillery is a non-starter for me.
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Mar 18, 2021 15:43
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Cessna posted:Of course, but Flames of War and its spinoff Team Yankee under-power artillery to an unrealistic degree. Yeah I'm just talking out of my rear end right now without any solid sources, but I belive that I've read that it was not that unusual for WW2 tank casualties to be caused by artillery. Not due to the tanks themselves being heavily damaged but that it's really unnerving and that crews would be likely to bail from the tank when under a barrage. In comparison, barrages can be too effective in CoC, as all movement is locked down completely and your men can't even crawl to try to get out of it or get into better cover. E: ok I dug out some numbers "The TDI search found that an average of 12.8 percent of tank and other armored vehicle losses[3] were due to artillery fire in seven cases in World War II where the cause of loss could be reliably identified. The highest percent loss due to artillery was found to be 14.8 percent in the case of the Soviet 1st Tank Army at Kursk (Table II). The lowest percent loss due to artillery was found to be 5.9 percent in the case of Dom Bütgenbach (Table VIII). ... However, the similarity in results remains striking. The largest identifiable cause of tank loss found in the data was, predictably, high-velocity armor piercing (AP) antitank rounds. AP rounds were found to be the cause of 68.7 percent of all losses. Artillery was second, responsible for 12.8 percent of all losses. Air attack as a cause was third, accounting for 7.4 percent of the total lost. Unknown causes, which included losses due to hits from multiple weapon types as well as unidentified weapons, inflicted 6.3% of the losses and ranked fourth. Other causes, which included infantry antitank weapons and mines, were responsible for 4.8% of the losses and ranked fifth. " lilljonas fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Mar 18, 2021 |
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Mar 18, 2021 15:50
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Is there a good source for the Saga rules in the US, or should I just go ahead and order them directly from the company?
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Mar 18, 2021 15:56
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lilljonas posted:Yeah I'm just talking out of my rear end right now without any solid sources, but I belive that I've read that it was not that unusual for WW2 tank casualties to be caused by artillery. Not due to the tanks themselves being heavily damaged but that it's really unnerving and that crews would be likely to bail from the tank when under a barrage. This is really odd to me, as the last thing I'd want to do when hit by artillery is get out of the vehicle and expose myself to shrapnel. If anything, the reaction I'd expect is that you'd want to floor it and get the hell out of there by driving as fast as possible - which would make you more exposed to fire, more easily spotted, out of formation, etc. I'm not saying your source isn't correct, it just seems strange.
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Mar 18, 2021 16:03
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Is there a good source for the Saga rules in the US, or should I just go ahead and order them directly from the company? Ebay, otherwise gripping beast over in the UK
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Mar 18, 2021 16:09
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I don’t know, I could believe it. Being trapped in a hot, cramped, metal box with four other people for hours while deafening explosions go off outside and debris rings off the hull sounds like a nightmare. A certain amount of people are going to crack and let fight or flight take over. Hell, lots of people in WW1 ran out of their trenches into artillery barrages because they just couldn’t take it anymore.
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Mar 18, 2021 16:19
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Class Warcraft posted:I don’t know, I could believe it. Being trapped in a hot, cramped, metal box with four other people for hours while deafening explosions go off outside and debris rings off the hull sounds like a nightmare. My granddad's tank platoon (13th Armored) got ambushed in Europe and his tank took a hit from something that wounded him and his gunner but not critically. His uninjured driver dropped out of the hatch and ran back to the next tank in the line and told them that their tank was hosed and the rest of the crew was dead, so his platoon ended up assaulting through the ambush and then driving off without him. He was kind of pissed off about it.
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Mar 18, 2021 16:27
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Class Warcraft posted:I don’t know, I could believe it. Being trapped in a hot, cramped, metal box with four other people for hours while deafening explosions go off outside and debris rings off the hull sounds like a nightmare. Oh, absolutely - we're dealing with human psychology under conditions of extreme stress. People aren't going to react predictably. My point here is that wargames that say (essentially) "your odds of a direct hit are low and misses won't get through the armor, therefore artillery is ineffective against tanks" don't work for me.
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Mar 18, 2021 17:33
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