Re: (FT,SG) News Break

I was musing to a friend of mine (and a bit of a WWII guru) about how to

modify the artillery rules from a game intended for 15mm skirmish down
to 
squad-level (for infantry, vehicles would have been 1:1) for use with
6mm 
miniatures for playtesting and just because my 6mm collection is more
than my 
15mm expansive and actually painted.  Enough about that.

My point (aside from the one on the top of my head) was that my friend 
basically suggested that is wasn't that big of a deal.	Artillery is, in
his 
view, something that ought not to show up too much in games where you
have 
relatively small forces per side.  It makes sense too.	If an attempt is
made 
to model arty with anything resembling realism then in FMA (or just
about any 
skirmish) games your poor ground-pounders are pretty much toast.  He
then 
went on to educate me as to which artillery assets were available at
which 
organizational levels for different WWII-era forces.

I can certainly see where he was coming from there.  Realistic arty, in 
small-unit actions can dominate a game.  I think arty is one of the
biggest 
things that betrays wargames for what they are for a lot of people:  An 
opportunity to play with cool models/toys.  The desire to bring all of
the 
big toys to the table is what drives the relatively inaccurate and 
less-lethal artillery rules present in most games.  If it was modeled 
realistically, the amount of arty on the average wargaming table would 
crushing for both/either side.

I know _I_ LIKE to drop artillery all over a table (hopefully on the
other 
side's troops).  I also know that I'd like it a lot less if it was so 
accurate and lethal that "he who drops arty first wins".  So I don't
mind 
fudging for the game's sake, but I do prefer PSB over kludges anyday.

--Tim

On Monday 21 July 2003 2:51 pm, John C wrote:
+++slight snippage for brevity+++

> Sure, more accurate artillery would be more "realistic" (although it's
easy
> enough to PSB accuracy away in an SF game), but devastatingly accurate
> artillery strikes in SGII scale can just...suck..  Makes for a very
quick,
> and generally quite boring, game when Death From Above wipes out one
side
> on turn two.
>
> I generally avoid the use of artillery in my games, for much that
reason.
> It's just not as much fun as a pitched firefight.  If it's going to be
> used, I'd *prefer* for it to be relatively inaccurate, and as risky
for the
> attacker as it is for the defender.  Increases the tension level,
makes the
> game better.	For me, at least.
>
> All that said, Ultra-Grunt would be the bee's knees.
>
> John Crimmins

-- 
--Tim
http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72