Re: Battlepod Swarm from Hell...

From: JAMES BUTLER <JAMESBUTLER@worldnet.att.net>
> Subject: Full Thrust

[MUNCH]

> So here's the problem--how in the world do you stop a 1500 point force
> consisting of 100 Mass 2, 1 submunition armed, drive 12 craft?
Including
> an FTL drive, these little battlepods come out to 15 points total!
> 
> Double the size of the pod and instead of a submunition, you can carry
> a single missle and never even have to worry about casualties while
> closing with the enemy! 

Hello James...

Here are some ideas:

1)  Use a campaign setting.  These little battlepods from Hell may be 
able to kill ships, but they won't be able to do anything else.  Their 
endurance time will be nil, their ability to land troops will be nil, a
host
of mediating factors will come into play to sevrely punish somebody who
uses
the above gang tactics....

2)  An idea that might work; use fighters.  Since these battlepods will 
"pop" when you hit them, just build a super mega-carrier and launch
hordes
of fighters at them.  They may get the carrier, but you manage to kill
off
all those battlepods.

3) Use the Nova Cannon or the Wave Gun to set up a "cone of death" that 
the pods can't get through.  Especially if you're on a somewhat
restricted
playing surface; just get a whole bunch of capital ships firing these
area
effect weapons.

4)  Use optional rules... the above concept, while it works, goes
against what
can be argued the "spirit" of the rules.  Make FTL drives extremely
expensive,
or rare a la Battletech.  Use the "AEGIS" optional rule that some people
have played with the render missiles not as effective.	Develop a weapon
system
with some sort of area/fragmentation effect; since these pods have no 
endurance, they'll pop really easily.  (Use an extremely large fusion
bomb
or something.) 

I feel that the best idea though is 1).  That's the reason why the
oceans 
have carriers and cruisers on them, not a whole bunch of hydrofoils
armed with
SSMs.  A Swarm of battlepods, while a viable game tactic, seems to go
against
the "spirit" of the game system.  

Hope this helps,
J.

-- 
     Jerry Han - Network Engineering - UUNET Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada
	     http://www.uunet.ca/~jerry -  email:jerry@uunet.ca 
"It's not enough to just stand and stare, is it only a dream that
there'll be
	  No more turning away? " - Pink Floyd, On the Turning Away