Re: [Epic] SHW's & BlastMarkers - kinda long

From: Thane Morgan <thane_at_...>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 22:28:25 -0700

Miller, Chris wrote:
>
> > > Who thinks titans are too big to be affected by blast markers when
> > > firing?
> >
> > Not I
> -------> I have mixed feelings on this but it doesn't seem broken
> yet.See below.
>
> > > The rules lawyers won't care and may cry a bit, but having a
> > > shadowsword shut down by one BM,
> >
> > Umm... he was in a squadron with at least one Baneblade, right?
> >
> --------> That may be the point: Using the current rules he has to be.
> Should "Super Heavy Tanks" have to travel in groups to be safe?
>
> > > a reaver by 3,
> >
> > Where was your Heavy Weapons Batteries?
> >
> --------> Again, this may be the point: 3 weapons are 3 weapons, so why
> are we required to take a HW battery?
>
> > When you use a strategy of combined arms (as has been forced by
> > reality
> > on real-world commanders time and time again) you will find that
> > Blast Markers hurt your firing much less.
> >
> --------> I'm jumping off the bus here:
> Real-world commanders don't use combined arms because of the
> things BM's represent. They use them because it's a more flexible and
> effective force. Infantry firing at a tank causes it to button up (close
> the hatches), but does not prevent it from firing it's main gun, which
> is what BM's do to Shadowswords and Land Raiders and any titan not using
> a Heavy Weapons battery. Is it reasonable(notice _reasonable_ and not
> "logical" or "realistic") that it takes 1 BM to shut down a Super Heavy
> Tank's main gun, but it takes 2 to shut down many infantry heavy weapon
> stands or a Predator tank? This makes predators and Leman Russ tanks
> _more resistant to hostile fire_ than a Shadowsword. Sure, it takes 4
> hits to kill one vs 1 for a normal tank, but if you factor in the
> "single blast marker effect" vs the multiple BM's to stop multiple FP,
> the hits to kill is not quite so important. And if you compare equal
> point values, it gets really ugly.
> Early in the life of SM/TL one big issue was how a normal
> infantry stand could take out a void shield, so an infantry unit was
> unexpectedly dangerous to titans - theoretically 35 guys with bolters (7
> stands) could take down a Warlord class titan. When your talking 900
> points of titan offed by 100 points of troops (approximately) that's an
> issue. This was later amended (in TL, though much earlier by some of us)
> to say they had to have at least a -1 save mod to affect void shields.
> This instantly corrected the problem, as it was mainly heavy weapon
> troops or some kind of special troops at least who had these mods. And
> no, points values were not changed because of this.
> Now, I see something similar. BM's are supposed to largely
> represent fire suppression - the concept that even if you don't hit the
> enemy, if you pump enough fire in his direction, he starts to worry more
> about keeping his head down than shooting back at you - a good thing if
> your on the ground nearby. Maybe it also covers smoke and blast effects
> screwing up your targeting ability for vehicles - great, I like the way
> it works for them. I even like it's effect on normal artillery, as
> artillery in the real world is fairly easy to disrupt - mostly open
> vehicles, guys are scurrying around in the open, and the equipment isn't
> too mobile compared to other units - fine. But what on earth is
> happening to a titan when blast markers start interfering with it? Are
> the gun crews retreating deeper into the titan? What the hell is it
> supposed to represent _then_? Is the titan ducking behind cover, thus
> blocking some weapon barerels? If these are the case, FP batteries
> should be blocked also. I guess my problem is that I see what BM's are
> supposed to be and why they affect other units the way they do, but
> those same thoughts do not apply to titans and super heavies and
> certainly shouldn't depend on what kind of energy comes out of the
> barrel of the gun.
>
> OK, now that I've gone off on BM's, let's be posititve: What do
> I suggest as an alternative?
>
> This:
> BM's should affect a Superheavy weapon's chance to hit if it has one: -1
> per BM. This way it's not an all or nothing proposition. Death Ray
> normally hits on a 2+, but if you have 2 BM's it hits on a 4+. It takes
> 3 BM's to shut down an AT shot completely, but even with 2 , it still
> has a chance. Now a Shadowsword with 1 BM can still fire, it's just a
> little less likely to hit...
> For Blast Marker Weapons, they lose 1 fp per marker just like any other
> fp weapon
> MegaCannons are a little sticky, but I still think the -1 to hit better
> represents what a BM is supposed to represent, rather than , say, not
> rolling vs one target under the Blast template.
> Now here's the rationale: For the roll to hit weapons, BM's
> represent smoke, bouncing off terrain as they take evasive manuvers,
> things smacking the hull, and gouts of earth thrown up by larger
> weapons, so it's harder to effectively target things, and you're more
> likely to miss. For template weapons, again, you're bouncing around and
> dodging things, so your shell (or whatever) isn't placed as accurately,
> so it does less damage.
> The only hole here is disrupt weapons. Not sure what to do with
> these - could just keep the same "1 BM shuts them down" policy as we
> have now, but that seems a little unfair. Adding an effective to hit
> roll of 1+ could solve it (i.e. normally they hit on a 1+ so it's not
> even rolled unless they have a BM on them when firing) but I'm open to
> other suggestions.
> Again, I like Blast Markers and what they do, on everything
> except SHW's. I didn't like the initial ruling, and I didn't like the
> alternative (which the uninformed often play, I find locally) where BM's
> do _nothing_ to SHW's, so I'm throwing out an alternative.
>
> Chris Miller

Great answer! I think just reducing a disrupts chance to hit the same as
 the other SHW makes sense; 3 blast makers on a war engine stops one
disrupt, 6 stops 2, etc. We are agreed that this only applies to WE,
right. LR's are affected as before?

Thane
Received on Fri Feb 06 1998 - 05:28:25 UTC