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ce the subject came up here, one of the reasons this wasn't enjoyed by some of
us was how it actually played out. We played a number of games, some of which
were asymetric. These make (normally) some of the most interesting
scenarios - a small team of experts versus a larger mob, etc. But the
reality was with the 'leader rolls points to activate', large forces rarely
got most of their activations and got their head handed to them to a much
greater extent than one would expect.
That mechanic did not seem to handle mismatched forces very well. The normal
alternating activation mechanic with leaders simply transfering commands
seemed better.
The roll for activations does work to a point with nearly balanced forces, but
I find this the less common scenario in most games I've run or played
in. Besides, even your elite guys D12 has a 1 on it - it makes
activations incredibly swingy for good troops and that tends to make for hard
to balance games.
TomB
> On Mar 7, 2009, at 4:20 AM, Tom B wrote:
> That mechanic did not seem to handle mismatched forces very well.
Activation points really requires a bell curve of sorts so that good leaders
will, on average, score better than mediocre ones. Did leader activation not
work because of the ratio of leaders to
troopers? In your asymetric games perhaps the lower-tech force had
too many leaders?
D.
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:
Excellent point, that last one.
One of the issues for poorly-trained forces is that while they
frequently have the requisite number of corporals, sergeants, lieutenants,
etc. as per an MTOE in the sky, lack of leader development means that they
really don't get the same use out of them
that a force with long-service professional leaders gets out of
theirs. Something to consider is that if your overall force quality average is
green, at least half of the "leaders" out there are not much more good than
any other guy with a rifle, and shouldn't be able to pass activations. This
gets worse with militia types whose leaders are selected on the basis of
social status in the civilian world rather than military experience.
This isn't to say that all leaders for a lower tech/lower trained
force would be ineffective, just that the effective ones will have more to try
to handle, and the overall force structure is much more sensitive to the loss
of those leaders that are effective. Shoot a US or UK lieutenant, and his
platoon sergeant will (as a general rule) step up and fight the platoon just
fine. Shoot an old Soviet lieutenant, and you've killed the only guy who can
read a map and
perform many other functions--his "platoon sergeant" is a draftee with
perhaps a year's experience. Maybe he'll step up, maybe he'll run away.
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recollection, and it has been a while:
If you get a small force (squad size, say) with a good leader (D10 or D12) and
most of them are motivation 1 or 2, then that leader can often get many of
them acting in a round. But the single die roll means numbers 4 or less come
up quite often, usually when that is an utter disaster for your battle plan.
Contrariwise, the D4 or D6 leader has a lot more predictability to his
outcome - it may be a usually crappy one, but it is much less swingy.
Then compare the squad (or fireteam if you have two leaders) led by the good
leader vs. a horde of crappy opponents. The theory of balancing them for a
game says the larger force should get advantage from weight of numbers. But
if you give them few and/or crappy leaders (for instance some of: green
leaders, green or yellow troops, motivations of 2 and 3 common), then you'll
find that quite often it is possible to stress those leaders into
non-function with a few shots and then *nobody* acts.
This literally makes it a walk over for the good guys, unless of course their
activation dice suddenly develop a craving for low numbers, then they fail
dramatically. Ultimately, good strategy is undone by terrible luck with
activation dice and numbers either count for very little or are very hard to
get to do anything.
The first of these two problems is not generally appropriate to good leaders.
The second may or may not be appropriate to hordes in the real world, but if
it makes the game suck because the horde side sits around a lot of the time,
it's not very fun and tough to balance.
The issue with some rules is that, in some circumstances, they distort or
don't operate well. This one also adds to difficulty balancing scenarios that
are asymetric and that's already a challenge with the other variables.
I've been running SG games now for nearly 15 years. I've run huge ones that
turned out okay and very few that have turned out 'a walk' for one side or the
other or that didn't play out somewhat like I expected. Yet with this mechanic
in FMAS, I'd have much more trouble gauranteeing balance.
Yes, it is a 'neat' mechanic. And with two squads of regs fighting, not so
bad. They both have the same swingy dice for activations and thus the same
degree of predictability (or lack thereof) and the same number (or close to)
for troops. But when you take this into the realm of 1:2 or 1:3 battles and
stack a bunch of dodgy leaders against one good one, you see both flaws in
this - the larger force often does not recieve any benefit of numbers
(can only activate 1 or 2 guys out of any fireteam) and the good force can
have a very swingy set of dice results for activation.
The game, as Damo ran it without this sort of mechanic, is a much better game
IMO.
YMMV.
TomB
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> My recollection, and it has been a while:
That's been the Achilles Heel of the FMA system in a lot of ways. Good
leaders, higher morale, better gear, nothing means a things if you roll a 1
That's more likely with garbage troops, but even Green troops only suffer a 1
twice as often at Elite troops do. It seems to
me that this is backwards--even the greenest trooper has a chance of
an amazing moment, but the point of regularly trained troopers is that
they are reliable--you can count on the leaders to do the tactically
sound thing and the troopers to fight with proficiency and a degree of
elan. Perhaps Greens should be rolling a d12 and Elites a d6+6. :)
> Activation points really requires a bell curve of sorts so that good
Consider this example as a simplified illustration of the problem.
A force of 5 orange 2 troopers led by an orange 1 leader is assaulting a force
of 100 green troops organized as fire teams of 4 green 2's led by a green 2
leader.
The attackers activate, rolls a 5 on a D10 for points, and banks it. The
defenders roll a 3 on a D6, and bank it. The attackers activate, roll a 6 on a
D10 (bringing them to 11) and activate every figure en masse. The greens roll
a 4 on a D6, and because things are now tight, activate 3 figures. The
attackers respond by rolling a 5 and activating their leader and 2 troopers.
The closest defenders, now under fire, try to activate the leader to roll
points, but he has a stress marker, and needs to roll better than a 3 on D6 in
order to activate...
In an 'even time' game model, where every figure activates once per turn, you
can expect each to take a certain number of actions as a function of their
quality, firepower and survivability. In an 'uneven time' model, the
calculation gets a lot messier because the quality of the leader (and his
ability to activate under stress) is a multiplier to the effectiveness of the
troops under him. And so long as that orange squad doesn't get divided or
bogged down, the number of troops assaulting won't matter because you've
always got that orange squad to activate.
This is an interesting mechanic but I suggest that it might be best for FMAS
Basic to keep the one activation per player.
As for the mechanic itself, I need to game it out but it is at least one take
on Small Force of High Level takes on The Rabble.
----- Original Message ----
From: "McCarthy, Tom" <Tom.McCarthy@xwave.com>
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2009 8:47:39 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] FMA multiple activations
> Activation points really requires a bell curve of sorts so that good
Consider this example as a simplified illustration of the problem.
A force of 5 orange 2 troopers led by an orange 1 leader is assaulting a force
of 100 green troops organized as fire teams of 4 green 2's led by a green 2
leader.
The attackers activate, rolls a 5 on a D10 for points, and banks it. The
defenders roll a 3 on a D6, and bank it. The attackers activate, roll a 6 on a
D10 (bringing them to 11) and activate every figure en masse. The greens roll
a 4 on a D6, and because things are now tight, activate 3 figures. The
attackers respond by rolling a 5 and activating their leader and 2 troopers.
The closest defenders, now under fire, try to activate the leader to roll
points, but he has a stress marker, and needs to roll better than a 3 on D6 in
order to activate...
In an 'even time' game model, where every figure activates once per turn, you
can expect each to take a certain number of actions as a function of their
quality, firepower and survivability. In an 'uneven time' model, the
calculation gets a lot messier because the quality of the leader (and his
ability to activate under stress) is a multiplier to the effectiveness of the
troops under him. And so long as that orange squad doesn't get divided or
bogged down, the number of troops assaulting won't matter because you've
always got that orange squad to activate.
I remember (dimly) playing Wargames Research Group ancient/mediaeval
rules (6th edition?) that attempted to simulate precisely this reliability of
"regulars" by using "average dice" (d6 marked 2,3,3,4,4,5) for regular troops
such as Roman legions, but normal d6
for tribal bands, feudal levies etc., in rolls for morale/reaction,
weapon effect etc. I don't remember, but I'm sure that, then as now, there was
lively debate as to how well this simulated reality...
I don't know how you'd set about doing something similar with the FMA system.
I confess that I'm not all *that* interested in elites vs. hordes of mooks in
games. I did most of my mediaeval gaming in a fantasy Italian "condottiere"
campaign based on Raphael Sabatini's novel "Bellarion", so generally there
wasn't a huge difference between the troops on each side.
> On 08/03/2009, at 08:42 , John Atkinson wrote:
> That's been the Achilles Heel of the FMA system in a lot of ways.