From: Barclay, Tom <tomb@b...>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 04:21:07 -0500
Subject: rolling more or less dice for SG2 vehicles/weapons/armour
Well, Hasn't this just stirred it up. I've been doing this now for more than a year... more like two now. It seems to make the supertanks perform more admirably (or reasonably) and it seems to make the HKP/4 pointed at the Recon vehicle more likely to pop the armour 1 target. Jon, why don't you do what I've come to regard as "the Tuffley Manouvre" - specify Die x N as your standard method, and NdX as an alternative for those who like to roll more dice. That way you can (in a very easy method) have your cake and eat it too! You all know we'll do thins the way we like anyway, so just put these two options together, and there you are. I've found since I use a lot of vehicles that it makes their relative performance more in line with their size and presumed point value (SG2 has no points, but one has to have some method of balancing sides even if it is reading tea-leaves or chicken entrails). Someone - Peter? Allan? Suggested that varying IAVRs have differing stats. The same should pretty much be true of SAWs as well. You might have "Old antiquiated IAVR, iron sights, D6* Impact, maximum 3 bands" "Modern IAVR, limited fire control, D10* Impact" "Cutting edge IAVR, better fire control, D12* Impact" Similarly "SAW, firing light rifle rounds, bipod, no steady harness, D6 FP, D<rifle> Impact" "LMG, firing heavier rounds, bipod, steady harness, D8 FP, D<rifle> Impact" "GPMG, firing same heavy rounds, bipod, steady harness or tripod, D10 (D12 if tripod) FP" Etc. To some extent SG2 is too granular to show the differences in rifle qualities. But right now, IAVRs are pretty potent and the SAW (with D10 or D12 FP) seems to put out a heck of a lot of fire relative to the rest of the squad with FP2 rifles. Essentially, it can easily double the FP dice of a squad and that has noticeable ramifications (I'm not doing the math, but experience has taught me it is nasty). In fact, sometime for a yuk put two SAWs in a large squad. Horrendous. OTOH, if you imagine a SAW as a Minimi/C9 style of weapon, you'd imagine D6 would be a fair firepower die for it. But, to each his own! That's the nice thing about SG2, it is real easy to modify. It's a hackers dream. Also, on the topic of hitting moving vehicles with IAVRs and such.... if you use staggered movement (standard rules) and you use no opportunity or snap fire (definite candidates for inclusion in SG3), then you won't ever really fire at a moving vehicle... it'll be stopped. When did it stop? Hard to say. What if it only drove a few meters... is that moving? It gets to be a thorny question. I like the idea, but it could be hard to do in a straightforward way.