I have set out several times to design DS2 stats for Space Marine miniatures,
but usually got discouraged on the way and never finished. I've got Henry
Morris' stats, and Steve Gibson's, but I'd like to give them a try myself. To
succeed this time, I need to make some assumptions about a number of things,
and know what rules I want to break. I don't think DS2 is generic enough to
cover everything.
1) Leave out the difficult things for now. Bikes, wheeled or jet, for example.
Are they transportation for infantry? Are they an infantry class, or size 1
vehicles? Walkers, too, though I'll take a look at other people's walker
rules.
2) I'll design things by the way I see them, not necessarily trying to get the
same effect that GW used. For instance, I'll
use skimmers as grav vehicles, but they won't get pop-ups. They
look like things that skim over the surface, not like things that jump up in
the air. VTOLs will do that (maybe thunderhawk, maybe nightwing). Another
example: I haven't yet decided if I want the Land Raider to carry troops.
Well, it probably will, but I don't want to make that so just because GW says
it does.
3) I'm adding Renegade Legion tanks to the Eldar forces (what I'm just calling
the Advanced Alien force), but I need to leave out the smaller ones. I just
couldn't stretch the vehicle classes over the range I wanted for the smaller
ones.
4) Don't follow the recommendation of limiting number of weapons to vehicle
size. (Though I'm not sure this rule would come into play very often.)
5) Allow breaking of the rule that a vehicle may only have a weapon
of vehicle size + 1. If it fits in the capacity, allow it. Though
I'd leave it as a guideline. I'm thinking of the vindicator, for instance.
6) Allow multiple firecons. Well, some way of shooting more than one thing at
a time. Maybe I ought to try it first, to see if I care about this, but GW
miniatures have tons of weapons on 'em, and I have trouble not seeing them
shoot as many as possible. I've heard of some people just allowing vehicles to
fire every weapon, but I think there should be some cost. DS2 allows oversize
vehicles to have more than 1 firecon. You just pay more points, and it allows
you to fire more weapon systems. How about allowing any vehicle to buy more
than one weapon system of any quality, and every weapon has to be assigned to
one firecon? You pay for each firecon points according to the largest weapon
assigned to it. You still may only be able to fire one weapon per firecon, but
if you want to pay the points, you can put a firecon per weapon on. Firing
systems down would take out all weapons on that firecon. Any thoughts on this?
If you've made the SM to DS conversion, how did you handle this?
7) Minor infantry changes. Add a Heavy Infantry type, like Line except taking
5 hits to kill. These would be my Space Marine figures, and I think of 'em
like Star Wars Stormtroopers. I'd probably make Terminators powered infantry.
8) Minor movement changes: Medium tracked, halfway between slow and fast in
cost and speed. For the Land Raider.
9) Think about the roles of things before I start. The Advanced Alien race
(Eldar) will use lasers, for example. I need to design stats that use point
defense and area defense
and ECM--it would be easy to forget those as I start out.
10) Most importantly--write the stats down on vehicle cards,
so you don't lose 'em and have to do it again!
I'd appreciate the thoughts of those of you who have done this.
Thanks,
> At 02:39 PM 1/29/97 EST, Andy wrote:
I've done Space Marines and Orks, so I'll comment as per your request.
> 1) Leave out the difficult things for now. Bikes, wheeled or
I left out walkers but I think I included bikes. I used them as simple recon
vehicles (they don't live long in DS2, though).
> 2) I'll design things by the way I see them, not necessarily
That's what I did. I essentially used the GW figures without worrying about
the GW universe.
> Another example: I haven't yet decided if I want the
I created both types! When using DS2's vehicle design rules, I found that you
could not give it 4 class 2 lasers and have room left over for carrying
infantry. Therefore, I created one type of Land Raider with two lasers and
infantry carrying capacity, and another with 4 lasers and no carrying
capacity. It seems to work well enough.
Remember to invent new firing arcs for the Land Raider.
> 4) Don't follow the recommendation of limiting number of weapons
This may or may not be useful to follow. I think I did follow it. If you're
not that stuck on GW's rulings then you might want to follow this rule.
> 5) Allow breaking of the rule that a vehicle may only have a weapon
I threw that ruling out for the Vindicator. The rest of my vehicles follow
this rule, though.
> 6) Allow multiple firecons. Well, some way of shooting more than
I didn't worry too much about this.
> Any thoughts on this? If you've made the SM to DS
I didn't give them extra fire cons. I didn't see this as much of a problem.
Most of the vehicles only have one main weapon and some infantry weapons. If
you do change this rule, remember that the DS2 point system starts to deviate
more and more from "reality." If you do decide to tinker around with this, you
should remember to take the point system with a larger grain of salt than
usual.
> 7) Minor infantry changes. Add a Heavy Infantry type, like
I used someone else's infantry rules, but this makes sense.
> 8) Minor movement changes: Medium tracked, halfway between
I didn't think it needed it. I just made them fast tracked. Your idea sounds
fine, though.
> 9) Think about the roles of things before I start. The
This is very important. For one thing, when you start adding back up systems,
ECM, point defence, etc. etc. your designs no longer act like GW vehicles. You
might as well have fun with the designs and forget where the models came from.
I invented my own Rhino based vehicles, for instance. One is a counter battery
radar vehicle and another is a Command Control Centre. They don't exist in
GW's universe, but they do in DS2.
I gave my races different abilities, too. The Orks have big (usually
single-mounted) vehicles that do a lot of damage, but they only have
Basic fire control and ECM. The Empire has Enhanced ECM and fire control,
representing an edge over the Orks. The Eldar, which I haven't done, would
have Superior for both, representing a much better technology level. Then the
games become quality versus quantity. The Orks will outnumber the Eldar and do
a lot of damage when they hit but the Eldar will hit more often. I gave the
Empire smaller weapons than the Orks, but I hadn't decided on whether the
Eldar would have smaller, larger, or similar sized weapons than the Empire. If
I give them larger, there would be fewer Eldar on the table. Not necessarily a
major thing since I haven't bought a GW product in YEARS!
> 10) Most importantly--write the stats down on vehicle cards,
I've got them on a spreadsheet.
A couple of follow-up things I forgot to mention. Why am I
doing this? The obvious reason is that I've got a bunch of Space Marine
figures. But I like that the models look far out and different. The things I
see in the pictures in Dirtside look like regular tanks to me (though I'm not
knowledgable about such things). I'm not crazy about people
with swords in a sci-fi game, and I'm looking forward to
the DS style of close assault (not having to have the models contact each
other). But I like that the models look fantastic (I'll admit that they aren't
necessarily futuristic) and exaggerated.
The other point: I've got 3 armies in mind, basically divided along GW lines.
The monster army is a bunch of Orks, with some Ogryn and Beastmen mixed in.
Just for fun. The advanced alien army is Eldar plus some Renegade Legion
tanks. The Chaos dreadnaughts looks sorta futuristic, and I'll put them there
too, maybe with the skull filed off. I'm not sure I want Eldar style titans,
so maybe some of the Battlemechs that don't look like a big guy in armor. I've
got the basic Battletech set, and there were two in there I'd use. Finally,
there is a human army, made up of GW's Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Knights,
and Titans. Not as high tech as the alien society, but lots of guns and
hardware. I'm trying to decide if I want to split that army into more than
one. There are tanks in a couple
of styles--a bunch looking like Rhinos with additions, and a
bunch with treads like the Leman Russ and Land Raider. But I don't think I can
split it cleanly, so I'll mostly stick to alien vs human, with Orks
occasionally for grins.
Thanks, Allan.
> Another example: I haven't yet decided if I want the
and
> infantry carrying capacity, and another with 4 lasers and no carrying
I think I had two versions, too. I only have two weapons on it (one on each
side, though I suppose those guns are supposed to represent two barrels), but
I have a larger class weapon with no room for infantry and a smaller one with
room. Do you just decide which it was going to be before a battle, and tell
your opponent at some point? Did you try to distinguish them? Except I'll be
giving lasers to the advanced aliens, and I'm really tempted to put DFFGs on
the Land Raider. The close range power seems to fit when I look at the thing.
> Remember to invent new firing arcs for the Land Raider.
Yeah, having both be at 2x for capacity seemed reasonable to me, and each with
180 degree arc. (Or even 90, depending on how far those things will swing.)
> 4) Don't follow the recommendation of limiting number of weapons
Although I don't feel a need to stick with GW rulings, I do want to give all
the weapons I see. That was hard
with the smaller Renegade Legion tanks--they're small,
but have a pile of things on their turrets! Although
this was a recommendation, not a strict rule, I suspect most vehicles will
fit.
> 5) Allow breaking of the rule that a vehicle may only have a weapon
The Vindicator is the obvious candidate. I may downgrade this from a rule to a
guideline, and just make a note on any designs that do this to check with
opponents. I may need to do this with the Warp Hunter.
Firecons:
> I didn't give them extra fire cons. I didn't see this as much of a
with
> this, you should remember to take the point system with a larger grain
of
> salt than usual.
I'm not sure if you're saying you didn't let them shoot more than one system,
or if you did but didn't make them take more firecons. I've heard of people
playing the latter (I think that's what we did in Steve Gibson's Origins game
a coupla years ago), but buying more firecons makes a distinction between
vehicles that may shoot more than one weapon a turn and those that can't. It
also was an extension of a current rule (for oversize vehicles).
I'll keep the points in mind. Maybe make a note of how much the legal vehicle
costs, for when I play people that want to stick with the rules.
thanks,
> On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Allan Goodall wrote:
> >10) Most importantly--write the stats down on vehicle cards,
> At 04:41 PM 1/29/97 EST, you wrote:
Well, I put HELs on it to make it equivalent to the vehicle in Space Marine.
If you don't care if it's the same as the GW weapon, put anything you want on
it. I didn't want to put DFFGs on it as I used DFFGs on one of the Ork
vehicles. I wanted the technologies to be different. I never used both
versions of the Land Raider in the same game. If I did want to do that, I'd
probably make the differences obvious and tell my opponent ahead of time. I'd
assume that once the vehicle came within line of sight it would be obvious
which variant it was.
> Yeah, having both be at 2x for capacity seemed reasonable
I gave them something like 200 degree arcs: 180 degrees with an extra 10 to
either side of forward and backward. We found that 180 degrees created a few
too many arguments as to whether one or two sets of sponsons could fire at the
target. Increasing the arcs so that the weapons had a 20 degree overlap made
the EXACT positioning of the figure less of an argument.
> Although I don't feel a need to stick with GW rulings,
I just assumed that most weapons were either additional APSWs or were part of
the APFC belt.
> I'm not sure if you're saying you didn't let them shoot
I didn't let them shoot more than one system. On the other hand, the extension
of the oversize rule makes sense. DS2 is meant to be generic. If the model
doesn't fit with the rules as written, change the rules. I think this is what
makes GZG's games so good. They are very easy to modify.
Haven't had computer access over the weekend, so this is a bit late:
Since I have lots of GW troops (some 14000 (GW epic) points of Eldar, and
about as many Orks - though most of the Orks are as yet unpainted) I
just had to convert them to DSII <g> I've tried to stay fairly close to the
way the armies play in Space Marine, though.
> On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Andy Skinner wrote:
> 1) Leave out the difficult things for now. Bikes, wheeled or
I made my Jetbikes 'size 1/2 vehicles' - ie, 1 stand of two bikes count
as one size 1 vehicle with lots of APSWs; my Vypers are size 1 vehicles in
their own right. Both are soft-skinned. This makes them lethal against
infantry - but they are vulnerable to infantry fire as well as to
vehicles (...not that they're that easy to hit, though <g>). The problem is
that missiles get pretty powerful against them... and I don't quite see those
missiles targetting individual bikes.
> Walkers, too, though I'll take a look at other people's walker rules.
War Walkers and Dreadnoughts seem to work pretty OK per the DSII rules -
they are pretty to kill in Space Marine too:( Knights and Titans are a bit too
vulnerable; the only way to make these things viable is to get really powerful
protective systems (like Void Shields or Holofields) for
them. (...which is, of course, exactly what GW did!) My Holofield variant
gives the Eldar Titan a secondary die:
1D12 if the Titan is 'evading' (but then of course it can't fire - yes,
I allow Eldar walkers to use evasive movement as long as their holofields are
intact) 1D10 if the Titan moved during its last activation
1D8 if the Titan did not move during its last activation - usually this
only happens if it used opportunity fire.
In addition, this die is the ECM die used against missiles. OTOH, a Phantom
has no PDS... If you use the points system, this holoflage should cost
somewhere around 100 points per size.
Yes, Phantoms are fairly tough to kill. They should be (now if my opponents
could stop drawing a 'BOOM' every time they get a hit...),
considering the cost - somewhere near 1800 - 2000 points
(coincidentally, about the cost of 10 tracked medium tanks such as Predators
or Leman Russ
<g>)
> 2) I'll design things by the way I see them, not necessarily
I added the pop-up for (high-tech) skimmers... at an increased cost, of
course. Not that the added cost means much, considering the high precision of
the DSII points system <g> The reason I did was to retain
the 'Eldary' hit-and-hide feeling (...since those Falcon IFWs obviously
have fixed guns...)
> They
I made the Nightwings aerospace fighters instead...
> 3) I'm adding Renegade Legion tanks to the Eldar forces (what
Oh? I don't have any clue about vehicle stats in RL, so I just cobbled up
stats for the RL plastics in Space Marine; the light vehicles became Sz 2
(although I'm condsidering making the APC Sz 1 instead - fast transport
for single Aspect squads...), and the bigger vehicles Sz 3. The Tempest
becomes a Sz 4 grav tank with HEL/5 w/ superior firecon (...about as
lethal as twin-mounted HEL/4 w/ enhanced firecon, but takes far less
space), APFC (ie, shuriken catapults), LAD and Basic PDS (the Shuriken Cannon
takes both roles), and Enhanced ECM. Huge Imperial tanks could be
size 5 (or possibly 6), and my Ork battle fortresses are size 5.
> 4) Don't follow the recommendation of limiting number of weapons
This tends to be self-regulating unless you really like small weapons,
though. You just can't fit that many weapons (except APSWs) on a small
vehicle; and I wouldn't want to fit only class 1 or 2 weapons on a bigger
tank. I don't count infantry teams as weapons for this rule, though; it
makes GWs heavily-armed IFWs possible.
> 5) Allow breaking of the rule that a vehicle may only have a weapon
Well, this is only a recommendation in DSII anyway... a strong one, but
still. As for the Vindicator, I'm thinking more of a direct-fire
artillery
vehicle - a shell that big ought to be able to flatten houses (although
I don't remember if it can in SM).
> 6) Allow multiple firecons. Well, some way of shooting more than
I've allowed vehicles with multiple APSWs to target more than one infantry
team (helps no end against orcs!:), but not against vehicles.
(...of course, I don't have any of those triple-gun Imperial tanks...)
> I've heard of some people just allowing vehicles to fire every
I'd also say it requires more space, although the rules don't say so. Just
like the 'escorts have 1 firecon, cruisers 2 etc' rule from FT. What would be
reasonable? Mass 1 per extra firecon?
> You pay for each firecon points according
On my Titan designs (Phantoms, size 7, 1 Superior and 2 Enhanced firecons) I
never bothered with assigning a specific weapon to a certain firecon; instead,
any firecon could direct any (combination
of) weapons. On the bigger Gargants (Greater and Mega-) (which I
classify as multi-sectioned) each armed section has one firecon to
direct the weapons of that section.
> 8) Minor movement changes: Medium tracked, halfway between
For my Eldar, I added:
Fast grav (Base Movement Factor 20) (ie, Jetbikes) (only available for Sz 1)
Fast walkers (BMF 15) (...those Bright Stallions, Revenants and perhaps
Warhounds...)
Anti-grav (or similar) weapon platforms (Tarantulas, Rapiers, Eldar Las-
and
Vibro- cannon; I treat them as soft-skinned size 1 vehicles with
non-powered infantry mobility)...
> 9) Think about the roles of things before I start. The
Missile infantry (read: GW support troops) with Basic firecon vs vehicles with
basic or enhanced PDS seem to work pretty well. Remember that HEL is MUCH less
powerful than GWs lasers if the enemy uses ablative armour (well, otherwise
too...)!
> 10) Most importantly--write the stats down on vehicle cards,
Or as a computer file. One day I'll do it... once I've found my missing
stats :/
> At 05:37 PM 1/29/97 -0700, you wrote:
Thanks.
They are in Excel 5. Can you handle Excel 4 or Excel 5? Can you handle PKZIP?
> On Sat, 8 Feb 1997, Allan Goodall wrote:
> They are in Excel 5. Can you handle Excel 4 or Excel 5? Can you handle