[NetEpic ML] Titan Legions of Doom!

From: Daniel Wiebell <dwiebell_at_...>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 20:01:58 PST

Howdy,

It just dawned on me how to fix some of these titan survivability problems
and make the system more 'realistic' at the same time, and its all thanks to
fluff!!! I was just thinking back to a GW novel I read called 'Space Marine'
when it hit me. For those of you who haven't read the book, give it a look
its quite good (Author: Ian Watson).

Anyway, there is a titan battle in it where it graphically describes how
void shields work. Each shield converts energy or motion to heat, until it
shuts down to cool off. Now what happens in the book is that the land
raiders, space marines and the only good titan are firing at the traitor
titans and it describes how long it takes to shut down a shield firing at it
with puny weapons. However, when the good guy warlord fires its big guns
they shut down a whole shield with one shot.

Why not adapt the ablative armour system recently proposed, to void shields?
Example, say each void shield has four or so void shield points, and each
hit subtracts one from a weapon subtracts one point plus the inverse of its
save modifier. When four (or however many points) are gone, a shield shuts
down and can be repaired at end of turn like normal. If at end of turn a
shield still has points left, you can add the number of points it has
remaining to the repair dice roll to see if it gets them back. The really
big advantage of this system is that smaller weapons now take multiple hits
to knock down shields, while big weapons knock down one or possibly more
void shields with one hit.

This system would also allow us to keep our nice simple armour save/location
system for the titan itself (though perhaps with a few changes) while still
improving not only titan survivability but perhaps the 'realism' of the
system as well. This will also dodge the problems raised about turning our
titans into battletech since you can record the number of void shields on
paper or on dice, without reference to location.

Another proposal I would like to make is that weapons with no save mod, ie:
small arms, should not be able to penetrate titan armour. They can knock
down void shields in this system (slowly), but I find it hard to believe a
lowly lasgun or heavy bolter can actually damage something that huge! Would
you fire your lasgun at a titan?

Also, I would like to cast my support for the morale check for infantry
fighting titans. I recently read a bit of W40K III and found out that troops
now have to pass a leadership test for tank shock. I think titans may be a
little bit scarier than tanks. Hell, I'd run for the hills if I got attacked
by a skyscraper mounting cannons!

Well, that should make titans a little better!

OK. That's it for now, I think I'll rant some more at a later time. Gimme
some feedback if you can be bothered.

Thanks guys.

Dan
______________________________________________________
Received on Wed Dec 15 1999 - 04:01:58 UTC