RE: [NetEpic ML] Re: Heresy II Feedback (long post)

From: Peter Ramos <primarch_at_...>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 12:17:45 -0400

Hi!

Yeah, I figured I made more changes before you could get them and try
them. Then again is a prototype and there's lots of typos to be fixed.

Hi Peter

I just read your comments above and that answers one problem we found
with the game - the commands were too big and unwieldy. I'll have
another look at the organisations with the new suggestion.

Using the rules as they stood an Imperial guard company was way too
big to actually deploy everything within the commanders command
radius.

This remains the only real problem I still have. I don't know exactly
how to make the different army organizations. I'm still working on it
though. Any thoughts?

Anyway, we played a game with the Heresy rules last monday. It was
nice to get all the scenery and models out again after a few years
but my opponent and I did have some trouble with the rules. Maybe we
misread things or didn't quite follow the reasoning behind them. here
goes....

1. Dismounting troops from transport. Couldn't find anything on this.
In the end we assumed half a turn for mounting/dismounting.

Crap, I deleted this whole part and didn't re-write it. They are simple,
5cm for each disembarking/embarking stands and 5cm to the vehicle
carrying them. You can mount and dismount in the same turn.

2. Leader movement. Do leaders have to activate to move? This one
arose when I wanted to move a leader to place him closer to another
unit.

Another omission. I decided that they activated automatically. I thought
to make them roll would be too much of a burden overall. What do you
think?

3. Visibility ranges and spotting. At what distance can units be
identified to be fired upon? We are more used to historical games
where target location and visibility are based on the game's ground
scale.

Nominally there are no spotting ranges other than those for the optional
hidden rules. I'm not quite sure they are needed or how to put them in
if we did use them. Any thoughts?

4. Reactive Fire. Why do units have to take both a Morale Test and
and Activation test to issue reactive fire? This appears to add more
dice throws, and doubles the chance of failing, without offering any
advantage to game play. As reactive fire would be initiated at the
unit level and probably not co-ordinated at a higher lever, we
thought a simple Reactive Fire value might be allocated to each troop
type. This would require a single success or fail dice roll.
Incidentally, poor quality troops could have a rating which makes it
compatively easy for them to reactive fire - this would have the
effect of allowing them to fire more easily than moving, representing
the tendency of green troops to simply stay put and blaze away at
long range etc.

Should have been clearer (I corrected it in a later draft which you may
not have gotten). You just need an activation roll not a morale roll.
One roll. You fail, no reaction fire, you succeed fire way.

5. Close Combat procedure. This was the one that stumped us - we
couldn't figure out the process and gave up after several tries. It
seemed a bit over complicated to us, particularly when it got into
the realsm of column shifts and the various modifiers.

Hmmm...now that's a problem. Its one of those things that is simple in
practice but hard to lay out in words. Lets see:

1. Everyone charges into close combat. You'll have two types of units.
Those in base-to-base contact and others within support range.

2. Add the assault factors of all units in base-to-base contact and then
add those within support range (15cm). Remember that those in
base-to-base contact get their full value and supporters only get +1
(unless they have the close support skill).

3. Once you have each side's totals compare those on the table. Where
the values intersect is the modifiers you both use. It doesn't matter
who attacks first or not since it's simultaneous. One player takes his
score as the attacker the other as the defender, it doesn't matter who
is who because the table is made to give the die roll bonus to each
depending on his assault score. Note the die roll modifiers are given in
x/y fashion. Where "x" is the attacker modifier and the "y" is the
defender modifier. This is the number you will add/subtract when you
roll the d10 for casualties.

4. Column shifts. You do these before you determine where the two
columns intersect. Shifts are due to morale/better training. So given to
evenly matched forces in regards to pure score the one with higher
morale will get a column shift and thus have the advantage.

5. Assault dice. Once you determine your bonuses you check how many dice
you are entitled to. Use the table for that. Cross reference you total
score and see how many dice you get to roll.

6. Casualty determination. You now know how many dice to throw and what
modifier (if any) you die roll gets. You now nominate targets amongst
the base to base models first then roll a d10 plus the modifier, if the
number is equal or greater than the units assault value (if its
infantry) or armor value (if its an armored unit) you have inflicted one
point of damage. This in most cases eliminates the model. The rational
is that infantry are better in close combat than vehicles so they use
their assault value instead of armor rating to avoid getting killed.
Whereas vehicles depend on their armor in CC since their assault value
is low. Your opponent does the same until you both run out of assault
dice to use.

7. Who gets pushed back? Once casualties are removed, every battlegroup
involved that suffered casualties rolls morale to stay or flee. If there
are still units engaged, fight CC again until all units on one side are
destroyed or has fled (note its possible for BOTH sides to fallback and
thus end CC).

It's a bit wordy (perhaps there's a better way), but in practice its
easy.

6. Finally, it seemed as though there were too many dice throws -
particularly when firing. For example, two vehicles to fire, each has
a firepower of 2 - throw 4 dice. Penetration factor 2 - throw 8 dice
and so on. We seemed to be throwing ever increasing numbers of dice.

Yup, its true, especially with vehicles. I haven't figured out how to
remedy this without stripping units of individuality. One idea I
originally had was thus:

Instead of penetration being translated into dice thrown, it instead
represents a modifier to a die roll. Thus penetration is d10 +
penetration stat. I combined this with an altered armor stat that was
also a modifier to a d10 roll thus armor was: d10 + armor stat. It would
be an opposed roll between the two. If the firer rolled higher the
weapon penetrates and destroys the unit. If the defender rolled higher
the shot was stopped. This markedly reduces die rolling due to
penetration rolls and gives the other player a sense of being able to
defend his vehicle with an opposed roll. It also introduces a lot of
variability since you are never quite sure if you'll penetrate.

Now couple this with a way to lower firepower dice. The mechanism is
similar to the above. The firepower stat would be a bonus to the d10 to
hit (more firepower = easier to hit) and change the accuracy state to an
evasion stat which would depend on model size (in other words how easy
it is to hit something), large models get a penalty to their evasion
roll and small quick ones a bonus. It would be opposed roll. If the
shooter rolled higher you hit, see if you penetrated (as above). IF the
defender rolls higher he evades the shot and it misses.

Firing is reduced to 1 roll per model fired (if it misses) or 2 per
model fired if it hits (plus penetration roll).

My original testing showed this was workable too.

Any thoughts?

Right, sorry if all that sounds a bit negative - however, it's not
all bad news.

Oh no on the contrary, this is GREAT feedback. If all was well and good
I'd be disappointed. This is precisely what I wanted to make the game
better, be it new army organizations or overhauling basic mechanisms
(shooting and close combat).

We did like the initiative system. During the game my opponents Space
Marines managed to manouvre like "sh*t off a shiny shovel" (ie
fast!), which is pretty much how we imagined Marines to operate. As a
result they managed to get right onto my flank before my humble PDF
troops could do anything. However, at a crucial point I got the
initiative and managed to redeploy some tanks to counter the marine
attack. The system allows the player with better quality troops to
plan ahead but with just enough of a chance that something may
(probably will) go wrong. Incidentally, in the game the Marine player
was able to activate two battlegroups automatically before the -2
modifier kicked in. This meant that he hit me with a very fast moving
armoured assault before the marines actually got out of their
vehicles to fight. This seemed to reflect the marine doctrine quite
well to us.

Yes, I thought this was a keeper too.

The reactive fire system seems to work OK (apart from the comments
above). A detachment of PDF militia managed to ambush a marine Recce
unit with Land Speeders and shot down two in the initial firing.

It works fine and is not too overpowering since it requires a successful
activation check to do it.

We liked the concept of the different troop attributes, and in
particular, we felt that the "fire support" attribute, allowing
nearby units to give fire support to troops in close combat, was an
excellent idea (it is very similar in practice to the fire support
tactics used by modern British tank crews when supporting friendly
infantry in the assault). This will reward players who van
effectively apply the "combined arms" process.

Indeed the skills permit variation without making special rules for
everything.

Finally, the rules did actually prompt me to dust off my space
marines etc. More interestingly they have even inspired me to start
work on some 6mm science fiction terrain and buildings for TimeCast
(about a year ahead of schedule!). I have several masters on the
workbench representing a recently established colony - lots of bubble
domes, solar power panels, life support units and hydroponic tanks
etc embedded in rock outcrops etc. If all goes well these will be
available in a couple of months.

By the way what did you think of the morale system? The different levels
of morale an their degrading during battle?

Thanks!

Peter
Received on Thu Jun 06 2002 - 16:17:45 UTC