During my GenCon scenario playtest we encountered an interesting situation.
The Japanese player had extracted enough soldiers to draw. With one last
missile, the NSL player fired at the remaining VTOL transport, hitting it but
not penetrating it. The transport rolls a 2 on the +2 Confidence test
(Veteran 2, needing >4 on a D10 to stay) and aborts his mission.
This got us into a discussion of aerospace vehicles and the nasty Confidence
Test that can have them abort even the most important of missions. This rule,
in fact, is part of the reason I don't use ADE in the scenario. I don't want
the Japanese player losing the scenario simply because the transports were
shot down (or worse, bug out) before reaching the battlefield.
So, I came up with the following house rule:
All aerospace craft have morale levels. They (usually) start at Confident.
When an aerospace vehicle must make a +2 Confidence Test, it does so,
but if it fails it does NOT immediately abort. Instead it drops morale levels
like a normal unit.
If the aerospace unit is Confident or Steady, it operates as normal. If it
becomes Shaken, it immediately moves from the table top to the Loiter Box. In
order to leave the Loiter Box to move to the table top, a Shaken unit must
make a Reaction Test in the same way a Shaken unit must make a Reaction Test
to move towards the enemy. If the aerospace unit becomes Broken or Routed, it
aborts the mission.
This gives more flexibility while not complicating the game. In fact, it
slightly simplifies it because aerospace units now behave almost exactly like
ground units.
I look forward to questions and comments!
Not arguing with your house rule but traditionally aerospace units in OUR time
are schizoid, being robustly fragile. Tremendous tactical staying power until
the break point when they melt into effectiveness zero.
> From a player viewpoint the current rule might be difficult and perhaps
Gracias.
Glenn Wilson, Triple Threat Wargamer - (loses equally well in
SF/Fantasy/Historical Games.) Prefers Fantasy Dwarves, Starguard
Science
Fiction, 1500-1700 North America Skirmishes, the First Crusade, and most
anything prior to 1861!
On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 22:08:38 -0400 Allan Goodall <agoodall@interlog.com>
writes:
> During my GenCon scenario playtest we encountered an interesting
Just back tracking here a moment.....if teh NSL player is firing a missile on
table then the rules simply require the VTOL to immediately make an evasion
move (I forget teh exact distance....) but he certainly isn't required to
leave the table....the Abort action you are referring to is for a VTOL wishing
to ENTER the table but fails his Confidence Roll....
We have used VTOLs on quite a few occassions and in some we simply state as
part of the scenario condition that the VTOL comes on on Turn X (assuming
that the pilot/crew have passed the appropriate Conf check).
We are talking Stargrunt here; not sure if DS has a different On Table results
set.
Cheers,
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 14:17:25 +1000, "Glover, Owen"
<oglover@museum.vic.gov.au> wrote:
> Just back tracking here a moment.....if teh NSL player is firing a
Nope, that's not what I'm talking about.
First, the VTOL isn't required to make an evasion roll. He CAN evade the
missile, but so doing counts as his activation (and I'm inferring from this
that if the unit has already been activated, he can't do this).
This is after the missile hits, but it does not penetrate. On page 48 it says,
"If a hit is scored, roll its effect as for any anti-vehicle fire (using
the aircraft's Armour Rating) and read the results as follows: any result less
than a DISABLE forces the pilot to take a CONFIDENCE TEST at a threat level of
+2 - if he fails this test he must abort his mission and leave the
table."
The person I was playtesting this with agreed with me that this seems kind of
all or nothing. A VTOL transport making a critical pick up is plinked by the
first GMS/P fired at it and if it fails the confidence test (if the VTOL
is piloted by a Reg 2, the chance is 50%, a Vet 1 is still 30%) the VTOL
scampers off. In my house rules there would still be this possibility (25% for
the Reg 2, 10% for the Vet 1), but even if that happens he can still show up
later from the loiter box if the shaken pilot can make a Reaction Test.
As I said, it's a house rule. It just adds a little morale colour to pilots
while giving them a little more staying power on the battlefield.
> On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 06:50:39 EDT, wargamergmw@juno.com wrote:
> Not arguing with your house rule but traditionally aerospace units in
That's a good point. In the case I was looking at, when an aircraft is hit but
undamaged, I thought it was a bit harsh to have the pilot bug out on a failed
Conficence Test at TL +2. I preferred to have him drop in Confidence
Levels before he ran away. In other words, he should be treated like any other
unit and not a major exception.
But this is just a thought. I plan to use it with my scenario but I wanted to
see what the other SG2-ers thought of it.
The pg 48 rules is really meant for craft in High mode (fighters & fast
travelling vtols). The situation you discribe is a Low Mode situation, where
you treat it as any other vehicle (stupid airheads...) where the pilot can
dodge; if he wishes to...
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 12:40:24 +1000, "Robertson, Brendan"
> <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:
> The pg 48 rules is really meant for craft in High mode (fighters & fast
Umm, that's not how I interpret it. In fact, the rulebook on page 48 (second
paragraph) seems to contradict what you say:
"All air vehicles actually appearing on table are assumed to be operating at
low altitude, and are classed simply as either "airborne" or "grounded"
-
there are no distinctions between different height levels."
Maybe there are different height modes in DS2 and that's what you're thinking
about? There is no reference to "high" or "low" mode situations in the
Aerospace rules that I can find...