Re: [GZG] DSIII
From: Mark Kinsey <Kinseym@p...>
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:23:13 -0500
Subject: Re: [GZG] DSIII
I had a couple of thoughts on Dirtside III as well. Mine were more of
the "things you don't want to do in Dirtside III because of the game
mechanics".
1) Remember that a Dirtside III game rarely goes past 3 turns. The
Friday night game was two turns and the Sunday morning game was one
turn. As a result you need to be very careful about what order you
activate units. In the Sunday morning game I had my commander activate
about 2/3 of our force in one action (a big plus in DSIII) since we had
three players and were eager to get started we all started moving our
units onto the board at once. WRONG. Huge mistake.
I was expecting to get another turn or two, so I moved my 2/3 of our APC
force onto the board just to have them sit in the rear, expecting to use
them to follow up in the next turn. Had I waited to see what all the
tank units did I could have used that force to follow up on our sweeping
right flank move during the end of turn one. As it was I only had one
company I could have moved before we called the game for time (did I
mention that we still had 3 activations left?). So only move one unit
onto the board at a time in turn one and be very careful the order you
use them in.
2) If you're the defender, don't shoot at a superior force that has
stopped after a firefight is over. It only gives them a reason to
reactivate and continue their move. In my opinion, this is a problem
with the rules. Grant's heavy tank force moved onto the board, got
involved in a firefight, moved out of LOS and the firefight ended. They
moved around a large outcropping (using ALL of their major move) and
began another firefight at closer range.The firefight ended because the
defender went under cover. Then at the end of the game the defender
activated a unit that had LOS on the stopped Tank unit. The resulting
firefight gave Grant all the excuse he needed to roll into the base and
wipe out the defenders command unit. This create a bit of a cascading
stress situation, which seems to be the way most DSIII games end, which
is fine by me. I don't think any unit should be able to move beyond
their major move capability, firefight or not. The major move is the
maximum move you can move during the time a turn takes if you were
unopposed. Firefights should not extend this ability.
3) Having enough color coded dice and perhaps color coding the vehicle
charts would definately speed things up. Next time I'm bringing some
color coded dice.
4) As I was the commander I felt engaged the whole battle, which is more
than I can say for some. Grant did most of the heavy lifting, but I did
have a lot of fun with my "not-Death Gliders". And the K'Hiff did get a
nice meal out of the whole engagement. So there's that.
-Mark
P.S.John, what's your preferred storage solution for DS vehicles?
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