Thoughts and musings after first read-through.

[Twin]

Congratulations sir, you've got me hooked well and truly!

The Rules at the beginning seems very solid. A bit hard to get used to at first (I took ages to wrestle my mind off of 40k to the new names, dices and whatnot ) but it works out nicely in the end. I can't really comment on the Rules or gameplay, since I havn't playtested anything yet. So I'll just move on to what I have tried; Creating mechs.

When I first started I had a pretty good image in my head of what I wanted to create already. Still, with all those options and possibilities, I was a bit dumbstruck at first. Now, even though all the tables and such are crammed into one page, new players won't really know what "Counter-impulse-systems" do anyways, so I ended up doing quite a lot of flipping up and down the pages. I guess as I grow more familiar with the special rules and such, it will go smoother.
The one thing I found myself having to scroll up to over and over again though, was the "How many weapons can you fire on the move" chart. Since it's way up there in the Shooting Rules, this got a bit tiresome. Maybe I'm just too slow to memorize it, but I think the Mech creation would flow better if this table was also present in the Creation section.
Even with this, creating the base of the Mech was actually very pleasant I had great fun picking out all those neat little upgrades and stuff, adding characteristics and Daemoncores as I went.

After I had a base for my mech, now I only needed some really big guns. At first, I just sat there, looking at all the options. I slowly found that if I was going to be getting anywhere, I had to bust out pen and paper, draw a scetch of the Mech (with all Weapon Slots marked) and start ticking boxes. This was actually very fun too (especially drawing on all the enormous guns as I added them ). If there's anything to be learned from this, I think that having schetces of the mechs in this section might be good. Just a shadowy, rougly scetch of all four chassis sizes, with small holes showing the Weapon Slots, and some text next to them saying how many Big Guns and stuff could be added, and where. The chart works, but for me atleast, having a quick way to visualize it would be good

The next mech I made (another super-heavy) I did the same way, but this time I tried to make him a combat monster. After adding all the CC stats, speed increases and stuff, i arrived at the Create a Close Combat Weapon page. I hung the weapons on a Modulus Hand ( ) each. This is where I'm really stuck. With the five lists, I can't seem to come up with a satisfactionary CCW... I would love to see an equivavelent to the "Giga/ordnance" weapon types of the Ranged weapons. I know the List 5 upgrades might do some of this, but still; it's quite possible to create a total monster shooting platform, but I can't come up with something equally powerful for an assault monster. Even though the game is supposed to be about big mechs tooting large guns and shooting eachother to shreds, I still think that Assault should be just as powerful. It won't be "better" because you still have to reach your enemy, and you'll sacrifice a lot of firepower to get there. You'll also be the main target of enemy fire, if they see a combat mech running straight for them. Yadda yadda, lot's of ranting on this issue It all boils down to; I want to be able to feel I've got a totally optimized combat monster, just as much as I felt it when I had a great shootie monster. Now I feel like I've just made a lot of compromisses... it doesn't feel, finished... if that makes any sense.

Okay, ranting aside, I'll try and be constructive on this issue:

Maybe if the CCW creation system was more similar to the Ranged weapon system? In that you first added Characteristic stats, for a price (Rn: range/AP/str) and then you got to add the "special rules" (Rn: Surge/flamer/etc) after that? Also, maybe every third mech or so could have a "giga-" equivalent, restricted to one in three mechs in a team/a certain chassis size/unique or something like that.

Alright, that'll be it for now. My impression after reading the whole shablang is that it's a very promising game, which I'd love to make models and fluff for, and play with them. Very good!

[Adam]

Thank you for the evaluation!

Mass quotation time, I think. Sigh. (Always reminds me of times on some forums where two members start batting massive, massive threads back and forth about the efficiency of x unit, quoting and dissecting the other guy's post ad infinitum, and everybody else is like 'uh, hey, we were talking about this...' Happens all the time on the PP boards and Warseer.)

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

Congratulations sir, you've got me hooked well and truly!

This is my favourite bit. ;D

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

The Rules at the beginning seems very solid.

This actually surprises me (pleasantly, of course). I didn't expect it to be that firm. I have rewritten everything lots of times, and I guess the system's not that different from a few other games out there, but still, I'm surprised.

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

When I first started I had a pretty good image in my head of what I wanted to create already. Still, with all those options and possibilities, I was a bit dumbstruck at first. Now, even though all the tables and such are crammed into one page, new players won't really know what "Counter-impulse-systems" do anyways, so I ended up doing quite a lot of flipping up and down the pages. I guess as I grow more familiar with the special rules and such, it will go smoother.

Yeah, it does get a lot easier as you get used to it. That's the main problem really with the system; it's quite difficult to get into creating mechs quickly. Once you've done a few though, it smoothes up nicely.

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

The one thing I found myself having to scroll up to over and over again though, was the "How many weapons can you fire on the move" chart. Since it's way up there in the Shooting Rules, this got a bit tiresome. Maybe I'm just too slow to memorize it, but I think the Mech creation would flow better if this table was also present in the Creation section.

D'you know, you're absolutely right. So's this...

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

If there's anything to be learned from this, I think that having schetces of the mechs in this section might be good. Just a shadowy, rougly scetch of all four chassis sizes, with small holes showing the Weapon Slots, and some text next to them saying how many Big Guns and stuff could be added, and where. The chart works, but for me atleast, having a quick way to visualize it would be good

Let's see. 3 summary pages. One with the chassis/body bit, a second with the weapon move-fire, big gun limits and the silhouette diagrams, and a third with the weapon charts condensed down. I could just replicate the lot at the end of the creation section, right after the CCW bit so it'd be easy to flip back to the CCW creation rules (which fit nicely on a page). How's that sound?

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

The next mech I made (another super-heavy)

You have good taste.

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

With the five lists, I can't seem to come up with a satisfactionary CCW... I would love to see an equivavelent to the "Giga/ordnance" weapon types of the Ranged weapons. I know the List 5 upgrades might do some of this, but still; it's quite possible to create a total monster shooting platform, but I can't come up with something equally powerful for an assault monster. Even though the game is supposed to be about big mechs tooting large guns and shooting eachother to shreds, I still think that Assault should be just as powerful. It won't be "better" because you still have to reach your enemy, and you'll sacrifice a lot of firepower to get there. You'll also be the main target of enemy fire, if they see a combat mech running straight for them. Yadda yadda, lot's of ranting on this issue It all boils down to; I want to be able to feel I've got a totally optimized combat monster, just as much as I felt it when I had a great shootie monster. Now I feel like I've just made a lot of compromisses... it doesn't feel, finished... if that makes any sense.

I get you. I understand what you're saying here. As it happens, the game is supposed to be about both assault and shooting - I'm a Tyranid player, I loves me some Close Combat.

Assault is actually pretty powerful. The problem with it is that if you get two CC mechs going toe to toe, they won't damage each other that much. If you get a CC mech run up to a fire support mech, the poor gunner is going to get its face smashed in.

Having said that, that could be easily remedied by having the first hit caused count as two, or something. So when two duelling CC monsters spar for a bit and then one of them lands a hit, it'll do some telling damage. Whereas when one of these monsters walks up to ol' fire support in the backfield and slugs him with 5 or 6 hits, one extra won't make that much difference...

Since I increased the hits values, too, CC might experience a comparative power drop - that is, close combats will last for ages before somebody dies, particularly with models immune to morale involved. Thus I might as well boost the Strength values. I can give basic CCWs 2D6 Strength, put the upgrades in List 2 up to 2D10 and 3D6, and the one in List 5 to 3D10 or something. That's considerably meatier and 3D3 never seemed much like a CCW to me anyway. This way, Ghallen (as an example) slugs 11+2D10 damage at the target per hit. 'Specially with the extra first hit, that'd cause 4D10+2 damage even against an Ar 10 target - that's a statistical average of 26 hit points. Quite respectable. I agree with you wholeheartedly, then.

*rushes off to edit rules*

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

Maybe if the CCW creation system was more similar to the Ranged weapon system? In that you first added Characteristic stats, for a price (Rn: range/AP/str) and then you got to add the "special rules" (Rn: Surge/flamer/etc) after that? Also, maybe every third mech or so could have a "giga-" equivalent, restricted to one in three mechs in a team/a certain chassis size/unique or something like that.

Characteristics would be a difficult thing to add for CCWs. I mean there's Strength and AP/Power like you suggested, but they're handled neatly by the list system. The thing with the lists is that it's quite versatile, but at the same time, very easy to regulate. If I don't want two things to combo up, because they'd be too powerful or bad fluffwise, they go in the same list. I can restrict some uber upgrades via List 5. Etc. It does mean two different creation systems, but it allows me to offer a whole slew of combo-able special rules when CCWs only really have two stats, Strength and Power. (Whereas guns have 4, plus there's the Type distinction and special rules.)

As to giga close combat weapons... That gives me an idea... (You'd be advised to duck, about... now.)

Giga CCWs wouldn't really be suited to normal mechs because they'd be hard to make with the list system. But for special characters...! 'Ave Some of This for example. You know its huge fist? Well, now that huge fist is going to be holding an even huge-er wrecking ball, modulus hand style.

So this wrecking ball, causes one hit for every two you roll up, but it does something obscene like 5D10+12 damage. You can explode it whenever you cause one or more hits in CC. Then it hits once, but does 6D10 damage, doubling the result... and then is destroyed, ASOT drops it and resorts to beating things up with its Strength 3D6 power fist. Oh well. ;D

How's that for Giga? *BOOM*

Jun 7, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -5 Twin said:

Alright, that'll be it for now. My impression after reading the whole shablang is that it's a very promising game, which I'd love to make models and fluff for, and play with them. Very good!

Thank you sir! And thank you very much for the ideas and feedback - much appreciated!

[Twin]

Jun 7, 2008 14:39:35 GMT -5 Adam said:

Let's see. 3 summary pages. One with the chassis/body bit, a second with the weapon move-fire, big gun limits and the silhouette diagrams, and a third with the weapon charts condensed down. I could just replicate the lot at the end of the creation section, right after the CCW bit so it'd be easy to flip back to the CCW creation rules (which fit nicely on a page). How's that sound?

That sounds pretty good to me. Another thing I forgot about this "flippin' issue:" the first time I kitted my mech out with a ton of different Upgrades, I didn't look at the compact list, only the large one with all the Upgrades explained toroughly. Same with the second mech. Then, when I looked at that compact list again, I got quite the shock. A lot of my pickins turned out to be illegal together/unique/one-in-three only etc etc. To avoid this kind of thing, I suggest you write the legal bits of the Upgrades (in italics in the compact list) also in the long explaining list... Having to look at TWO lists is too much for my poor head

Jun 7, 2008 14:39:35 GMT -5 Adam said:

Giga CCWs wouldn't really be suited to normal mechs because they'd be hard to make with the list system.

Aww, but, but... wait, an idea! Giga-meele-weapons could be able to pick more than two things from Lists 1-4, in addition to one from List 5! This would still leave you with the ability to stop people combo'ing things they shouldn't (as all of these could technically be taken together anyways... just not all at once!) and allow for some serious, uber-ccweapons. They'd also give meele-mechs (who'd otherwise be kinda stuffed if they were to pick a giga-ranged-weapon) their rightfully deserved giga-weapons The only legal problem I see then is pairing the thing... but that could be a rule; "Giga-CCWeapons can be paired." See, problem gone!

Pulease?

[Adam]

I thought I did have the limits with the big explanatory list! Whoops... *edits* There, the problem no longer exists.

It is tempting, I admit. It'd be way too overpowered on light or medium mechs though, which are as a rule really good when tooled out as assault mechs (they have much higher Speed, Reflexes and Assault than the big stompy guys do) and wouldn't really be able to wield weapons of this magnitude anyway, but I suppose you could do it on heavy and superheavy mechs. They'd take up the same weapon and allowance slots as normal gigaweapons (so only a superheavy could have a paired giga CCW, because other mechs can only have one giga) and have a premium cost of about +40 cogs.

They'd also have to have some kind of inbuilt rule representing sheer brutality and mass. Problem is, the Brute upgrade already caters nicely for that, with its rerolling of low strength hits and knockdown effect. Any ideas?

[Twin]

Ideas, alright... time to put on the thinking cap...

Okey, how about this; The current system, with modifications something along these lines:

'Heavy' mechs are allowed to make one CCW Giga for +40 cogs.
A Giga-CCW gives the ability to pick one more upgrade from the list in addition to List 5 (So three from 1-4 and one from 5).
A Giga-CCW rolls one more dice for strength.
A Giga-CCW has +2 to lasting damage rolls.

'Super-Heavy' Mechs are allowed to make on CCW Giga for +40 cogs, and pair said Giga-CCW for 50% cost +50 cogs.
A paired Giga-CCW can pick one upgrade from every one of the 5 lists.
A paired Giga-CCW gains +3 attacks for pairing, instead of the normal 2.
A paired Giga-CCW rolls two extra dice for strength.
A paired Giga-CCW has +2 to lasting damage rolls.
A paired Giga-CCW will make your opponenet soil his pants.


... yeah, pretty damn though. But I'm just thinking; a close combat monster will have to be able to earn his cogs back in some way (no, I don't normally focus on this tactic in games, but here it seems appropriate) and if he get's stuck in one combat for three turns, and spends two turns getting to his enemies... he'll be a total waste. While a ranged heavy-support-monster mech can potentially dish out a crippling or even killing blow each turn for the whole game, our current assault-'monster' mech has a good chance of just running for a few turns and then get locked in one combat for the remainder of the game against a Light mech with tons of As and Re...

Yup, I do like me some close combat as well

Hope this helps

[Adam]

Yes, light mechs make the better assaulters. Think of it like Genestealers and Carnifexes. Genestealers can tear down anything given time and/or numbers, while Carnifexes do a huge amount of damage when they hit, but they're slow and cumbersome and more suited to plunking down barbed strangler templates.

I think I'll go for the extra dice on Strength. Just one though; two would be even more obscene than they already are... I'll follow you on the unlimited upgrades, too. There, that's quite nice, although it still lacks a certain 'wallop'. Chance of knockdown?... yeah that sounds good: if you roll a double on your attack dice, the opponent is knocked flat on its metal rear. That'd cost about 40 cogs all told, methinks.

Also, giga close combat weapons don't get +1 attack from being doubled up with non-giga CCWs - it'd be like trying to dual-wield Cloud's sword from FF7 and a sharp stick.

[Twin]

Thoughts and musings, Vol 2.

I decided to have a go at the basic rules section again, for the simple reason that if you told me to play DoS now, I wouldn't have a clue how to do it. Since I'm reading it anyways, I thought I'd point out what needs pointing as I go


First and foremost. "Hits" will have to change. With that I mean the mix-up of "hit"ing with weapon fire, and taking "hits" on your ablative armour. Especially in the "Resolving hits(!)" section of Shooting, this is utterly confusing. There's the "hitty-hits" for shooting at stuff and not missing, there's the "ouchy-hits" for when you take damage, and then there's the normal use of the word hit for normal hit'iness on top of that. I only figured out just now how the Grinding special rule works, before I vaguely thought I got +1 AP for each "ouchy-hit" damage I did... but the AP would've already been used! Yeah, anyway, luckily, it's not a big problem to amend.

With that out of the way, I'll be more pleasant The intro thingy, explaining models, dice, stats and soforth do their job very well.

The Moving system also seems good. Maybe the Terrain section could be moved here (because right now it's one of the first things new players get to read about) but that's a minor thing.

Shooting also looks very neat (all the way up to where you start hit'ing everything ) I really like the Lasting Damage system, it adds a lot more realism than simple shooting the thing X times and then it automatically blows up.

You know how I feel about Close Combat The "2x hits on first hit" idea should eliminate some of the stalling between Assault beasts, but we'll have to see. Anyhow, I can't really know without having playtested. Btw, what on earth is "the Converging Fire rule?" It's mentioned briefly in the CC section, but I searched the PDF (not manually) and it's not written anywhere else.

Multiple combats... ech, I don't know. It seems the other mechs are just loitering around. On the other hand, as I plan on fielding a single (or a small number) of combat monsters and then charge headlong into all of my enemies, this is an advantage for me, so I'll just shut up and wait for playtesting.

Combat Resolution looks good. However, two things; maybe there should be a way to deal extra damage to an opponent as he breaks off (maybe trading the Consolidation for D6 hits?), and Consolidation into assault should really count as a charge. I think ;D


And that's it. I hope I made atleast a few helpful observations

[Adam]

I know I haven't replied to this in a while... Haven't had the time to implement it yet. I have copied it to a .txt file though, I'll get on it as soon as the exams are outta the way.

Good point on the hits - I'll rename the stat 'Integrity' (or In) which sounds better, and call the damage bits 'Mass Damage' and 'Serious Damage'. Mass damage is the blasting off of ablative armour, reducing the mech's In stat as per today's 'ouchie-hits' (well put ) but having no other adverse affects until all of 'em are gone, save the -1 Ps for half health. Serious damage is a renamed version of lasting damage, a name I had an idea was kinda misleading since not only was 'ouchie-hit' damage lasting as well, it was actually easier to repair "Lasting" damage since regenamer went for that first and engineers can't restore lost hit (eh, Integrity) points! So it's now called Serious Damage. Or will be when I get round to fixing it.

I did once have the terrain section with the movement stuff. I got it out of the way so that the movement rules could be consolidated. The thing is, you need to explain terrain to explain the movement rules, but you need to explain the movement rules to explain the terrain page! Perhaps I'll just add a note to this effect at the top of the page?...

Yeah, I was proud of my damage grid. It's obviously inspired by Warmachine, but the Integrity AND damage box system is something entirely unique, I think. From what playtesting experience I've gleaned so far, it works pretty well, although with the new doubled up Hit values I may need to expand the damage grids to fit (as the mechs might turn out to fall apart long before they actually die). It may work fine, though. As with everything, it'll need testing.

Converging Fire used to be an optional rule to speed up the Shooting phase before I integrated it into the basic rules. Ignore the reference; incidentally I was going through the book for whatever reason (to add the double hit in CC, I think) a couple of days before you mentioned it, saw the reference, and got rid of it. We think alike. Converging Fire, for your information, is basically the way the game combines multiple shots into one big damage roll and distributes it across a smaller number of locations. It vastly, vastly speeds the game up. 13 or 15 separate rolls and many repetitions of "Ok, the second lot of 2 damage goes on the... *rolls* ...body, ok..." drop down to 3-5 rolls and increased serious damage output to go with it (as you're hitting fewer locations). It does involve some maths, but meh, it's well worth it. Plus you get to roll lots of dice at once. I don't know why I find this fun, maybe it's just the inner Tyranid going "Lots of dice = Lots of attacks = Victory + Evil Laughter", but there's just something about gathering 30 or 50 dice between your palms and letting them loose...

(Incidentally, this is part of the reasoning behind the scatter cannon rules and the way you roll for lasting/serious damage. Multiple dice = Fun.)

I came up with the multiple combat rules with a couple of things in mind.
1. It's quicker than dealing with them one at a time.
2. If the rules allowed the outnumbered combatant to duel each enemy in turn, even with related mild bonuses, an assault mech could easily tear up 2-3 opponents. Swarming a CC fighter would become suicide. This way, it's a brilliant tactic.
3. It gives low-capability mechs a chance to hit assault monsters. +1 Attack and +2 CS is an awesome bonus. If you can plant 3 or even 4 mechs on one assault monster, it's going down even if you don't have so much as a 20 cog* oversized baseball bat between you.

*Basic CCWs are 20 cogs now, on account of having 2D6 Strength.

I hear you on the Consolidation. I'll think about those, the first one in particular sounds good. Although doesn't the backstrike rule cover that? If you roll equal, one combatant gets to hit the other? I thought I had something like that in there...

...Wait, I allow Consolidation after a break off move? That can't be right, 'specially for light mechs, they'd easily catch up with their opponents all over again. No use there. Another edit to enact when I have time!...

[Twin]

Good point on the hits - I'll rename the stat 'Integrity' (or In) which sounds better, and call the damage bits 'Mass Damage' and 'Serious Damage'. Mass damage is the blasting off of ablative armour, reducing the mech's In stat as per today's 'ouchie-hits' (well put ) but having no other adverse affects until all of 'em are gone, save the -1 Ps for half health. Serious damage is a renamed version of lasting damage, a name I had an idea was kinda misleading since not only was 'ouchie-hit' damage lasting as well, it was actually easier to repair "Lasting" damage since regenamer went for that first and engineers can't restore lost hit (eh, Integrity) points! So it's now called Serious Damage. Or will be when I get round to fixing it.

Sounds neat, but why would you name the ablative armour procces thingy both "Integrity Points" and "Mass damage?" If you named the ab.arm. stat "Mass Points" or simply "Mass" and the damage "mass damage" of course, along with "Serious Damage" then there's only two terms to keep track of. That, and Integrity just doesn't sound very "armour-like" to me

Multiple dice = Fun.

Oh yeah! Can't wait to fire up my double wrist-mounted Alien blasters with four super-deadly shots each. I'm going to need a bowl to roll all the Mass Damage dice ;D

[Adam]

Jun 17, 2008 7:15:16 GMT -5 Twin said:

Sounds neat, but why would you name the ablative armour procces thingy both "Integrity Points" and "Mass damage?" If you named the ab.arm. stat "Mass Points" or simply "Mass" and the damage "mass damage" of course, along with "Serious Damage" then there's only two terms to keep track of. That, and Integrity just doesn't sound very "armour-like" to me

Please don't ask me why I didn't think of that.

*slaps self*

Good thing I haven't got round to doing it yet, then.

Jun 17, 2008 7:15:16 GMT -5 Twin said:

Oh yeah! Can't wait to fire up my double wrist-mounted Alien blasters with four super-deadly shots each. I'm going to need a bowl to roll all the Mass Damage dice ;D

Ah, 2x4 alien cannons... I did a mech with those once, although if I remember rightly they were 2 lots of 3 shots at 2D10 Strength and AP6 (and a three foot range, I mean why not). Inspired by Bumblebee's weapon from Transformers, you know, that little revolving-humming energy cannon he's got in the film. Take that and make it fire dark matter at an obscene rate, and it's all good in the 2D10+6 world.

Oh, and nah, you won't need a bowl: it's quite possible to roll 72 Hormagaunt attacks in two cupped hands...

PS. Serious damage, you mean?

[Twin]

Yeah, well the Mass Damage dice that are about to turn into Serious Damage anyhoo

Well atleast then I need to buy more dice...

With the alien blaster I was thinking something like this blokes arm;


Just mounted on the wrist and with a more alien colour to the glow. Maybe I'll model it with some translucent coloured plastic or something... then it charges up (sucking light into it ofcourse ) and let's loose a hail of beams, woO!

[Adam]

Put an LED in it. Dares ya. ;D

PS. I have 104 dice myself.

[Twin]

You don't know what you just did

...so if I make the mech *this* big and the arms so-and-so wide, I can fit a battery in *there,* and the wires will go through *here,* then I only need to...

[Adam]

Jun 20, 2008 7:31:23 GMT -5 Twin said:

You don't know what you just did

...so if I make the mech *this* big and the arms so-and-so wide, I can fit a battery in *there,* and the wires will go through *here,* then I only need to...

Don't forget watch batteries: ultra small. In fact you could easily fit an LR20 battery and attached LED into a heavy or superheavy's arm, perhaps even smaller. It's easier again with combat shields. The only problem is mounting it so it's replaceable, and/or adding a switch so you can turn the thing off. However having a battery pack in the main body is more convenient.

You could even do cool stuff with it like switch it off when the weapon gets disrupted...

...Anyway. ;D Any more rules stuff?