BW 2010: Testgame + Combining damage and Armored

[IVhorseman]

I walk with a cane now, actually!

I spent pretty much the entire summer at the gym getting my legs strong and shit, and holy shit I can finally kinda walk now! That doesn't mean it's easy, but holy shit I'm actually walking to campus now. I mean it's been 15 months now, so I'd better be making some damn progress.

Of course, when I get home I absolutely collapse on the couch though.

[WestNordOst]

If your tracks are just made up of tires, then it's: ...

For example this?

I like that as a middle ground, but it's hard to explain in-game. What would cause a gun to stop firing but still be usable when you fired again?

You misfire that bad (in the air, almost yourself,...) that you don't have enough time to get back to fire at the target in your turn.

It misses the exact spot on the target you were aiming at (meaning it's no longer part of Combined Fire), but it can still hit some other part of the target if the target is bigger than the NearMiss. I need to add examples for this.

So can I miss up to 3 points to still hit a 6" target (I assume minifigs automatically aim for the center)? If my gun is aiming for a single spot of the big target all along, why do I still get UR-boni when rolling to attack this target? Sounds as if I get a bonus to hit a large target twice: It's not as if the bullseye of a giant target would be easier to hit than the bullseye of a tiny target.
Also, I can't find the NearMiss rule in the book.

[IVhorseman]

It's in the Combat chapter.

When a Ranged Attack misses, a shot is usually considered to have flown off into the sky or landed harmlessly on the ground next to the target. Any player may insist on tracking a Missed Shot more accurately, if he has a good reason to make the effort; for most shots it's not worth slowing down the game. He might think that the target is big enough that even a bad shot would have hit it, or that an Explosive landed close enough to the target to damage it anyway. On the other hand, he might be looking greedily towards other potential targets in the field of fire.

When an attacker misses a shot, and he or another player insists on tracking it, check to see how many points the Attack Roll missed by. (For instance, if the attacker rolled a 3 when he needed a 5, then the Attack Roll missed by 2.) The Missed Shot landed somewhere within this many inches of the target. The defending player may pick any spot within that range that he wishes. That's where the shot goes, provided that it's somewhere the weapon could theoretically have hit in the first place, no matter how ridiculous or unlikely. The weapon's Damage is then dished out as appropriate.

The only restriction to the defender's choice of accidental targets is that he cannot choose a victim owned by an unaffiliated player. Player-controlled targets are fair game if they belong to himself, his attacker, or the allies of either party. Anyone else's units are off-limits, unless hitting them can't possibly be avoided.

That particular vehicle shows a good example of armor plates on the sides of the treads. It'd be up to you if you wanted them to count as such, but that's more or less what I'd expect armor plates to look like.

[WestNordOst]

It's in the Combat chapter. ...

Reads differently as what stubby just mentioned about NearMiss

[IVhorseman]

As far as I've understood, if you're adding the size bonus of the target, the "target" is the entire vehicle as a whole. If you miss the target by 1, it should stand to reason that you miss the entire target (the vehicle) by 1.

For these reasons, component attacks are almost always more effective in my experience since they still have a chance of damaging the vehicle, but at the risk of my opponents just choosing for the attack to blow off a decorative fin or something.

[stubby]

Oh yeah, that's true.

NearMiss and Size Bonus are roughly equivalent - saying you can miss by one and hit somewhere 1" to each side is the same as saying you get +1 to hit a circle 2" across. If the real targets were all circles that you were trying to hit dead center, we wouldn't need two separate rules.

As it is, I'm wondering if I should get rid of the size bonus completely. You have to declare the specific spot you were aiming at and leave the rest up to nearmiss.

[Apollyon]

As it is, I'm wondering if I should get rid of the size bonus completely. You have to declare the specific spot you were aiming at and leave the rest up to nearmiss.

I agree wholeheartedly because it will make the game faster and much more fun in my opinion. Anyone with a sane mind will rather go for component damage when attacking large targets anyway. If an attack misses the crucial point it was directed at the attacked players can just say, 'well you actually hit here but that means i can roll 4d10 instead of 3d10, bwahahahaha'. I think in Brikwars the building of humongous machines of death should be rewarded more than anorakish tactics.

[IVhorseman]

Dude, that what you just described there is an anorakish tactic.

I would stick with the size bonus, because most vehicles aren't actually perfect circles. Even if 4" away is still a point on the size 8 vehicle, but blowing up harmlessly on the tree only 3" away is a much more attractive option to the defender.

The size bonus grants a hit somewhere vaguely on the vehicle statistically more often with the size bonus than without. I'm in favor of attacks hitting more often than they miss.

[stubby]

Dude, that what you just described there is an anorakish tactic.

NearMiss is supposed to go to the most lucky spot for the defender, no matter how ridiculous or unlikely. Anoraking up a NearMiss just makes it funnier.

[Bragallot]

I tend to have people who miss accidentally shoot allies with their Nearmiss. It's one of the reasons I never field any Stormtroopers.

[Zupponn]

holy shit I'm actually walking to campus now. I mean it's been 15 months now

It must take a long time to get somewhere with a cane.

[WestNordOst]

There are a bunch of rules sections that are going to get simplified and edited down significantly once the main content is complete, Fire and crash rules among them. Anything related to field hazards and thrust rules also. I want to finish getting everything in place and playtested before I start the process of deciding what to delete.

A bit on short notice but did you have anything specific in mind regarding the simplification of fire, crash and thrust? We are going to play another round with the 2010 rules now, so if you want to have something playtested.., go ahead ;-P

[stubby]

Nothing that'll change the playtesting. Thrust is just going to be an introduction to The Finger, and anything about vectors is getting removed, or at best, sidebarred as an anecdotal curiosity. The Crash rules are going to be presented differently, mainly to fit in with the style of SuperNatural Dice, but no one has seen those yet anyway. And Fire/Field Hazard rules are still up in the air, I haven't figured out the best way to trim those down yet.

So the changes are to put the focus on the parts of the rules people actually use and to make them simpler to understand, rather than changing them very much mechanically.

[MDT-Maikel]

You know what else has been depicted as OP? Tanks. Let's imagine you were facing a tank in real life. I don't know if you're imagining that tanks are built out of 20 gauge (0.04") sheet metal like cars and washing machines, or what, but armor plating is serious business. The armor plating on an M1A2 Abrams tank is 4.72 inches thick. Can you name a hand weapon that can damage 4.72-inch-thick steel plating? How about a sidearm? Is it entirely outside the realm of possibility that maybe there are targets for which you need something a little heavier than 9mm rounds?

The only thing "outlandish" is that I let hand weapons damage Armored targets on a critical success. In real life there is a 0% chance that this would happen.

The only man-portable things I can think of that would damage an Abrams are the Javelin Missile system (requires 1.5 operators) and C4... both of which would be incredibly dangerous to use on your own against a crewed tank.

What we learned in infantry basic training: if you encounter a tank, HIDE!

We also learned that the hard way, yesterday. In a game against WestNordOst, my infantry was not able to shoot a single time, and his one effectively got killed by my evil Karl Mortar
Somehow large groups of infantery seem especially vulnerable once you play on rather open maps, with launchers or rockets.

[stubby]

Somehow large groups of infantery seem especially vulnerable once you play on rather open maps, with launchers or rockets.

Yeah, it's actually in the rulebook.

There is no environment more dangerous to the fighting minifig than the flat open field presented by the typical player's dining room table or hardwood floor. [...] minifigs are tender, fragile, and slow compared to armored vehicles and other large units. Without cover to hide behind, they have a tendency to get ground up like plastic hamburger meat.