From: John C <john1x@h...>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 18:00:15 GMT
Subject: [DSII] Burrowing Vehicles
Grav and hover vehicles travel above ground. Tracked and wheeled vehicles
travel ON the ground. But what about UNDERground? Why should this mode of
travel be neglected? Sure, it's slow. And inefficient. And dangerous.
And you can't see what you're doing. Or where you're going. But hey, sometime
you have to just shut up and live the adventure.
Burrowing must be purchased in addition to another mode of movement --
usually, although not always, tracked -- and costs the same as
anti-gravity.
Burrowing vehicles are limited to a maximum speed of 9" (I know, I
know...that's too fast. But it's playable....), although this can be increased
or decreased according to the density and composition of the soil.
To burrow, the player must announce the fact, and place a marker to show the
vehicle's original position. He must then write down his target location
("18 inches north, 6 inches west", for example, or "23 inches to 11:00") on a
piece of paper which is then sealed and placed aside. The burrower is
then removed from the table, and the player measures his movement from this
marker, always moving directly towards his objective point. At the end of each
turn of movement, another marker is placed to indicate the current location of
the vehicle. Each turn, the player must repeat the process until he reaches
his target point and emerges from the ground. The burrower may not pass under
streams, rivers, swamps, or lakes. In addition, each
turn the burrower must draw one chit from the damage counters -- if he
draws a "Boom" the tunnel collapses and the vehicle is destroyed. Burrowing
vehicles cannot attack, or be attacked, by any weapon (although nukes should
do a good job taking them out, and I intend to come up with some burrowing
torpedos sometime soon).
I'm not going to debate how realistic this idea is -- it isn't, not even
a little. Although it's probably still more likely than FTL.... But even so, I
think that it would be a fun thing to play around with. I know that GW made
some burrowing vehicles, and I don't think that the ability would be entirely
inappropriate for some of the organic forces out there, like the Bugs or
Tyrannids. And I have a Thunderbirds burrowing vehicle in 25mm scale
somewhere....