It's been years since I played DSII, and at the time I was using Epic figures
that I've since sold. I have a number of figures I picked up at GenCon 2000
(Renegade Legion gave vehicles, a number of air support and tracked ground
vehicles from GZG/Geo-Hex).
What size force/force organization makes a good start for DSII?
What size force, or what recommended organization, makes a good "normal" game
of DSII?
What is the maximum size force and its composition for a large (say 6 hour or
more) scenario?
The reason I'm asking is that I want to paint up some DSII stuff. I want to
paint up enough to get me started, and then later paint up more for a more
"normal" sized game. I also want to buy some infantry figures (I was going to
use Epic/Space Marine plastics that I have but I'm sort of shying away
from that) and want to have some idea of the infantry figures I need to buy.
Any help is appreciated!
> Allan Goodall wrote:
*SNIP* Renegade Legion gave vehicles,
I have a bunch of RenLeg. I like the TOG tanks and the lighter
RenLeg/Wealthie vehicle, but the larger RenLeg have a funky look I don't
like for vehicles - I'm considering converting them to ships for FT.
> a number of air support and tracked ground
I have a couple of GZG figs, but the only ones I ever bought that I was wild
about were the VTOL's.
3B^2
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 13:17:05 -0600, Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net>
wrote:
> Renegade Legion gave vehicles
D'oh. That would be "grav" vehicles...
Allan Goodall agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com
"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, unimaginable mortician was
revealed!"
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
> (Renegade Legion gave vehicles, a number of air
I like Renegade Legion stuff, actually.
> What size force/force organization makes a good
Well, if you use high-tech stuff and good troops, you
can do with a reinforced company (~20 vehicles). Using crap troops, you need
at least a full batallion.
> What size force, or what recommended organization,
Uhh. . . 5k-7.5k points. As for organization, that
depends on doctrine and equipment availible.
> What is the maximum size force and its composition
Batallion-sized. I'd have to know more to be more
specific. Hell, give me an idea of what you've got and the background you're
using and I can write a
whole corps-level MTOE to pick and choose from.
As for the question re: infantry, I'd recommend at least a company's worth.
You don't have to use it all in any given fight, but it makes the enemy plan
for it (just like real life).
And don't neglect artillery support, preferably at
least 6-8 guns worth.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
Well, I'm not a DSII expert (heh!), haven't had a lot of field time with it,
but I always thought a company or two of armor on a side made a good base
game. But, that's just me. Others might have a diff. view.
Anyway, something with 16-32 tanks on a side (**assuming** you have
4-tank platoons, 3-platoon companies)
> What size force, or what recommended organization, makes a good
Unsure about that. I'm trying to set up a brigade-level game in the near
future to give that a feel.
> What is the maximum size force and its composition for a large (say 6
Do I hear a desire for a Carter Island scenario? John A? You can help
him out in this one! ;-)
> The reason I'm asking is that I want to paint up some DSII stuff. I
Now that that's been answered (well, sorta), I have my own question for
anyone listening. What is with the '/' seperator in unit designations?
For example, what does "2/66 Armored" mean exactly, anyhow? (well, I
can figure out the "Armored" part, but not the "2/66" bit).
Why have I been asking these questions lately? I'm trying to understand
things better so I can work on a TO&E for my UNSC forces. :-)
> Indy wrote:
> Do I hear a desire for a Carter Island scenario? John A? You can help
Carter Island? Huh?
3B^2
> Brian Bilderback wrote:
A DSII scenario John A ran a few years back at ECC II. It was....big. Large.
Massive. Huuuuuge! A seriously grandiose beach invasion (check out the website
for pics at:
http://www.warpfish.com/jhan/ft/gzgecc/gzgecc2/index.shtml )
It started in the Sunday morning timeslot (9am). IIRC they wrapped up the
scenario at 4 or 5pm? Unfinished. It became infamous in the ECC area of life,
and we now have an award for the longest running game at ECC called the Carter
Island Award. None of the games played this
past year qualified, though. ;-)
See? You guys should come to the ECCs, get in on the fun!! :-)
Mk
> Indy wrote:
> A DSII scenario John A ran a few years back at ECC II. It was....big.
Ironic, since in one of my RPG groups, we have a reference to Riker's Island
that has similar connotations (an episode while playing champions in which our
characters responded toi a prison break by about 20 supervillains).
> See? You guys should come to the ECCs, get in on the fun!! :-)
> From Oregon? Thanks, anyway. I'll wait for WCC.
3B^2
> Brian Bilderback wrote:
Eep
> >See? You guys should come to the ECCs, get in on the fun!! :-)
Yes, from Oregon! :-) KR (Portland man) makes it out this way! (well, he
got kinda blindsided this year, but he woulda come again!) And Ted Arlauskas
has made it out from Calif twice (he would have made it a third time had
he not been called to duty :-/ ). ECC is the Happening Place(tm). ;-)
;-)
> Indy wrote:
, since in one of my RPG groups, we have a reference to Riker's Island
> > that has similar connotations (an episode while playing champions in
> which
Yeah, I recall reacting in a similar fashion. That GM had a power gaming
problem. Of course, he got taught a lesson. He let one player, an even
bigger munchkin, run a character with an EB with variable advantage. When the
villain had us all trapped in a force field, Our Man Flint switched his
advantage to Indirect, clobbered El Villaino from outside our confinement. My
friend's kitchen still has a dent in the floor from the GM's jaw.
> Yes, from Oregon! :-) KR (Portland man) makes it out this way! (well,
Plus, it's a business trip for him, I would be hard pressed to write this off.
> > >Do I hear a desire for a Carter Island scenario? John A? You can
Didn't John already volunteer to help run brigade-sized action called
> --- Indy <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote:
> > Carter Island? Huh?
It wasn't that big. The attacking force was an ad hoc batallion (1 company
each mech infantry, medium tanks, heavy tanks, scout platoon, mortar platoon,
artillery battery, engineer platoon, and IIRC some aviation) against a
hodgepodge of defending forces amounting to 2 batallions or so. With a good
block minefield group in, which nicely channellized the attackers.
> It started in the Sunday morning timeslot (9am).
Well, the attackers had pretty much broken through the main line of
resistance. The defenders might have won if they had mustered a counterattack
and rolled really well, but it was unlikely.
> infamous in the
Speaking of which, I still havn't gotten my retroactive Carter Island Award
certificate...:)
> --- Indy <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote:
> > What size force, or what recommended organization,
I think I'm the only one that's done any work with Brigade and above
structures for DSII, so I'm curious to see what anyone else comes up with.
Keep me posted on MTOEs for that.
> > What is the maximum size force and its composition
It depends on the mission. A movement to contact (Russians spell this 'meeting
engagement') scenario
will take maybe 2/3 the time of a deliberate attack
like the Carter Island scenario. Generally anything
more than 2-3 companies on a side qualifies for Carter
Island award.
> Now that that's been answered (well, sorta), I have
"Of the". In this case, that probably means "2nd Batallion of the 66th Armored
Regiment". US generally
uses dashes instead, ie: 2-66 Armor.
> John Atkinson wrote:
Looked it to me back then. ;-) I still don't have near
that many DSII minis [yet]
> The attacking force was an ad hoc
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts as to how to
use/run/work engineering platoons/companies in DSII.
> > infamous in the
Send me your addr, John, and I'll get it out to ya.
> John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It depends on the mission. A movement to contact
Could you define this type of action for a civvy?
3B^2
> Indy wrote:
What! A shameless plug!?!
The year following Carter Island, Tom Barclay and Los ran 'A Grey Day to Die.'
They spent Friday evening and Saturday morning setting it up and played from
Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning. We've not had a game of that magnitude
in the past two years.
Don Maddox was planning on running a two table and two time slot Star Grunt
event based in the Dune universe this year, but we had
to scale it back to a one table-one time slot event. Then Don had
to cancel his travel plans, unfortunately.
> --- Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:
You there's enemy out there. You know he's "Thataway" but since he's moving
also, you're not sure how far. He's in the same situation. You run into each
other in a place where neither of you have any defenses set up. One (or both)
side shifts to hasty attack and the other shifts to hasty defense, usually.
In scenario design terms: Neither side sets up on the board, you both enter
from opposite sides.
> From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> You there's enemy out there. You know he's "Thataway"
Ah, ok. Thanks.
> In scenario design terms: Neither side sets up on the
Actually rendering recon units as useful in the game as IRL, especially if you
use any sort of FOW rules. At least that's how it strikes me.
3B^2
I love RenLeg vehicles, and have a whole mess of them. Which ones do you have?
The plastic cohort packs?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as kids, we'd
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc. 1989
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
[quoted original message omitted]
> Chen-song Qin wrote:
Those figures are the ones I have. I bought some off of Ebay and some from
Jerry Han a few years ago. They are the figures I use in the Hot Spot scenario
that I ran at this year's ECC and ECC IV.
I also added an Ogre universe missile tank as a heavy rocket artillery vehicle
for the defenders. It was tracked so it had to stay on whichever piece of
crust that the defenders placed it on.
> --- Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Actually rendering recon units as useful in the game
Frequently the recon units initiate combat and their success determines who
goes defensive.
[quoted original message omitted]
Part of the problem was that almost all of the players were newbies! I was
chosen as attacking commander because I had played 1 game! Unfortunatly, I had
to leave before the game finished (compromise with wife on usage of vacation
time).
-----
Brian Bell
> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de (K.H.Ranitzsch)
> Not neccessarily useful for recce in game terms. Most fog-of-war rules
This is one of the few major gripes I have with most ground combat games,
especially large-scale. Recon units are not as useful because you have
to assume some level of recce or intel has already occurred in order to
justify having both forces on the same table. Makes it hard to recreate a need
for scouting forces.
3B^2
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 12:19:21 -0800 (PST), John Atkinson
> <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well, if you use high-tech stuff and good troops, you
Okay, that's cool. That's a good start, anyway.
> Batallion-sized. I'd have to know more to be more
I haven't picked a specific background as yet, though I have one of my own
that I'm thinking of toying with.
I have four boxes of RL plastic vehicles, two from each side. I have them in
the storage locker right now, so I'm not sure how many vehicles of each type
are included. I think it's 18 tanks (split between medium and light grav
tanks) and 18 grav APCs per box. I also have some tracked tanks I was planning
to use as mobile artillery, a couple of packs of VTOL gunships, and a pack of
tracked vehicles for air defence.
As for my own background, back when I was writing fiction I came up with what
I called "The Arbiter Wars". In essence, a huge ship arrives at Earth and
offers humanity a deal: supply "mercenaries" and the ship's aliens would offer
all manner of gifts to us Earthlings, like cures for nasty diseases, new
technology, etc., etc. While the world ponders this, some poor country with a
reasonable sized army jumps at the chance.
There are several phases to the "wars". Phase one, humans are using
essentially their own technology, perhaps upgraded a bit to make things at
least reasonable. Tanks would be tracked, look more or less like modern
vehicles, etc. Phase two was a much upgraded technology, but one supplied by
the aliens, known as "Arbiters". Phase three was one with high tech supplied
only by humans as the Arbies had taken off by this point. At first humans had
no idea of why they were fighting. Strict rules of engagement applied, and
commanders were severely punished by the Arbiters for breaking the rules. To
begin with, humans fought a wide assortment of opponents. Eventually they
started fighting an alien race, the T'Chell, almost exclusively. The climax of
this phase of the "cycle" was the Arbiters leaving and why they left.
Anyway, for phase one I have modern microarmour, heavy on Warsaw Pact stuff
(mainly because I had thought, a while ago, of doing a Russia versus Ukraine
campaign). For phase two, I had the RL stuff, and the T'Chell were going to be
heavy on some old Space Marine Eldar stuff I still have lying around. Or, I
would use one RL faction for the humans and one RL faction for the T'Chell. I
wasn't sure what to do with phase 3, probably just use the same stuff as phase
two but the opponent's stuff would be... well, that would be telling.
*G*
That's a rough idea of what I have.
> As for the question re: infantry, I'd recommend at
Okay, that's good! Thanks for the help!
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:31:54 -0500, "Laserlight"
<laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> Didn't John already volunteer to help run brigade-sized action called
If I _ever_ get enough figures finished, I was going to run a regimental
sized American Civil War game of Stargrunt II. Specifically, either the 47th
Alabama's assault against the 20th Maine on Little Round Top, Gettysburg, or
the 15th Alabama against the 20th Maine (depleted) and 2nd US Sharpshooters.
It would require around 500 figures per side...
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:42:25 -0700, Chen-song Qin <cqin@ee.ualberta.ca>
wrote:
> I love RenLeg vehicles, and have a whole mess of them. Which ones do
Those are the ones! Do you happen to know how many vehicles are in a pack? I
will find out this weekend when I get to the storage locker, but I'm not sure
at the moment...
Oh, and back to John, I do have enough figures for at least a company per
side, plus artillery, for a World War II DSII game, but I was thinking more
along the lines of sci-fi.
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
There's 54 vehicles in each box. 18 medium tanks, 18 light tanks, 9 medium
APCs, and 9 light APCs. This fills out an entire cohort according to the
RenLeg TO&E (thus "cohort packs"). They are on 9 sprues with 1 medium APC, 1
light APC, 2 light tanks, and 2 medium tanks on each sprue. Hope this helps.
I've got 8 (!) packs of these myself, 4 from each side, plus the ones in the
second edition Centurion box. So I've got quite a few of these:) Although I
use a TO&E that has 4 vehicles per platoon, so they won't fill out a battalion
sized unit per box. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance of painting any of
these. (I've been working on a modern GHQ based force recently with GZG
infantry) Does anyone know if the RenLeg plastics are easy or hard to paint?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as kids, we'd
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc. 1989
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
[quoted original message omitted]
> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
> I have four boxes of RL plastic vehicles, two from
OK, that's actually 36 tanks and 18 APCs. 50/50
heavy/light.
So. . . old armored-cavalry style MTOEs could work. I
don't know how you are on converting, but some of those APCs or light tanks
need to become mortars and
air defense vehicles. You need about 4-8 of each per
batallion. Or 2 per company, although for admin purposes grouped in HHC or
weapons company. That's going to drive a lot of other decisions. I would NOT
have tracked vehicles for air defense trying to keep up with grav maneuver
forces. I'm used to trying to
keep up with M-1s in an M-113, so I've formed some
religious beliefs about having support troops in slower vehicles than your
maneuver forces.
On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 18:38:41 -0700, Chen-song Qin <cqin@ee.ualberta.ca>
wrote:
> There's 54 vehicles in each box. 18 medium tanks, 18 light tanks, 9
Although I use a TO&E that has 4 vehicles per platoon, so they won't fill out
a battalion sized unit per box. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance of
painting any of these. (I've been working on a modern GHQ based force recently
with GZG
infantry) Does anyone know if the RenLeg plastics are easy or hard to paint?
Easy. I generally prime with enamel, but acrylics go on just as easily.
I
picked up some extra turrets from Brigade -- I don't really like the
turrets
that they come with -- to make AA vehicles and such. Still haven't come
up with a paint scheme that I really like, though.
Are the boxed sets still available anywhere?
Thanks everyone for the painting tips. I've actually been using the
method of priming with enamel and painting with acrylic for my 1/72
scale figures. I guess the same kind of plastic is used for the RenLeg figures
as well.
As for the availability of RenLeg boxes, I think they've been out of print for
a while. I got mine from a guy who had a stockpile of them a few years ago. As
far as I know, neither FASA nor Crunchy Frog makes them anymore. Sorry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as kids, we'd
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc. 1989
> Chen-song Qin wrote:
> As for the availability of RenLeg boxes, I think they've been out of
They DO pop up on E-bay though.
3B^2
OK, this brings up my complete lack of knowledge about land warfare.
Definitions:
Fire Team - 3-5 men
squad - 2 fire teams?
Platoon - 3-4 squads? or 3-4 units of armour?
After this I am even more clueless
Company? Brigade? Battalion? Any I missed?
On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 17:44:02 -0800 (PST), John Atkinson
> <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> So. . . old armored-cavalry style MTOEs could work. I
Hmm... That could work. I don't think they'd be that hard to kitbash. (Thanks
all for comments, and for the list of figures in the Cohort packs).
It sounds like I've got a fair sized force started, anyway. Now to get some
infantry...
Want to do it in 15s? I think I can help (I have the better part of Union I,
XI and XII Corps painted and based for Fire and Fury, as well as Confederate
II Corps)
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 03:58 PM 3/21/02 -0600, you wrote:
(Thanks
> all for comments, and for the list of figures in the Cohort packs).
Let me say again: order some turrets from Brigade! They look fantastic atop
the RenLeg tanks, they really do. The AA turrets that Brigade has available
are particularly good, at that.
> Roger Books wrote:
> OK, this brings up my complete lack of knowledge about
Try http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/index.html
On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 21:03:19 -0500, John Crimmins
<johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:
> Let me say again: order some turrets from Brigade! They look fantastic
Just thought I'd mention that I put in an order with Brigade! Probably far too
many turrets (almost more than I have figures for!) but this way I will have
plenty extra if I manage come across more RenLeg figures.