FMA Full Thrust - Playtest Notes (long)

I just played the first playtest of my new FMA combat rules for Full Thrust
and I thought I'd drop a few notes in here.

For those that missed the first message, the system briefly works like this.
All ships have a quality rating of green, regular, or veteran. To resolve an
attack, an opposed die roll is made with the attacker rolling a die for crew
quality plus one or more dice based on the weapons being fired. The defender
rolls a die based on the size of his hull plus a possible secondary die for
ECM. The score of the attacker's crew quality die is paired with each of the
weapons dice and these pairs of scores compared to the defender's score. If
both of the attacker's dice score higher than the defender a major hit is
scored. A minor hit is scored if one of the attacker's dice beats the
defender, and if neither is greater that weapons die misses. The size and
number of weapons dice and the effects of major and minor hits is dependent on
the weapon used. For instance an A battery has 3d8 weapons dice at close range
each of which may cause a hit. The minor hits cause one damage and major hits
cause two. The attacker's quality die may be shifted up by commiting extra
firecon to an attack and the defender's die may be shifted up or down if the
ship uses no thrust or is attacked from the rear. Screen protect the ship by
adding their level to the defender's primary defense die.
 I've extended this system to cover fighter/missile intercepts, ECM etc.

Observations from the playtest

1) "Exec. Make a note of commendation to fire con section A. That was an
awesome shot!" Since the quality die is paired with each weapon die and
compared to the defender's die, a great roll hear can result in serious
carnage since if this die exceeds the target's die you are guaranteed at least
a minor hit with each weapon die. I had a light cruiser fire 2 B's, 2 C's, and
3 submunitions at range 10" and score 15 damage. Ouch! By the same token, a
great defense roll can negate even the best gunnery. The damage overall
jackpots a lot more but seems pretty close to the original. Probably a little
deadlier provided the opponent does not have good defense, but less overall if
the opponent is well screened and using ECM. 2) "Decisions, Decisions" If you
would like to have to play guessing games a little more during the fire phase,
this is for you. Committing extra firecons to a salvo will shift the crew
quality die up a size, increasing the probability for big damage. On the other
hand, the ECM die shifts down with each subsequent attack, so using multiple
firecon may get you past the countermeasures. Firing order becomes a real game
now as well. Do you go ahead and fire the big guy first in the traditional
manner, or do you peck away with some smaller ships hoping to get him to use
up his ECM before the big guns blaze. A perfect example from the game came up
with a task group of heavy and light crusiers escorted by a DD providing wide
area ECM coverage. The ships were facing a dreadnought and had two pulse torp
DD's approaching from the side. I decided that since the pulse torps ignored
the screens, I'd commit the ECM against them. This allowed the dreadnought and
a crusier to fire their beam weapons without ECM hindrance resulting in a
threshold check (which was disasterous) for one of the heavy cruisers. The
gamble paid off though since both of the pulse torps missed completely. 3)
"Big Ships, Little Ships" The sized based defender roll seems to offer a
balancing point for the three ship classes. Escorts are harder to hit but not
able to pack in the defensive systems and still pack a punch. Capital ships
are easy to hit, but have the space to carry screens and ECM. The larger
number of firecontrols on capitals allows them to bump their dice up to hit
the little guys, but then they can only slam one of them each turn. 4) "Close
only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" The system of minor and major
hits offers possibilities for intermediate damage which really helps for some
of the all or nothing type weapons. For instance, needles may score an
intermediate effect on a minor hit where they damage the system in question,
but not beyond repair. Damage control may bring it back as normal. A major hit
whipes out the system completely 5) "Ready in 5 minutes or it's Free" The
system didn't seem to take much more time than normal. Most of the extra time
seemed to be taken up by picking out the right dice size. I plan to get a set
of dice colored in the standard FMA colors, which shouls help.

Overall, I was very pleased. Seems to capture the feel of the original weapons
nicely. I consider the movement and threshold check systems to be the heart of
Full Thrust and this systems touches neither of these. The biggest adjustment
is the jackpot effect where weapons do nothing for a few turns then the
defender gets a low roll, the crew gets a high roll, and lots of debris
appears.

If you are interested in these rules drop me a line and I'll mail you a copy
with the latest changes. I'd appreciate any feedback, comments, bugs,
corrections, etc.

Later

Brian