Re: Battlefleet Gothic Report

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Aaron Teske wrote:
> At 11:37 AM 1/25/99 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:
> >i've been pondering on gw -> gzg migration paths recently; i have a
friend
> >who's deeply into most things gw, but is otherwise quite intelligent.

> 
> Well, hey, I really like the background (especially the earlier
works), but
> am not so hot for the games at the moment.

the background has some interesting features, and a lot of it is
consistent. it's just that a lot of it is really offensive to my hard-sf
wired brain (warp navigation, chaos gods, grrr).

>  Then again, I seem to go
> through phases, though this *definitely* has to do with opponent
> availability

tell me about it!

> >i
> >know that if he really got to know some non-gw games (gzg being the 
> >easiest to come by, and providing a total solution with ft/ds/sg), he

> >would realise how bad gw stuff (mostly) is and be much better off.
> 
> besides, there are generally some mechanics within the GW games that
other
> games won't have -- they may be illogical, unrealistic mechanics
> (especailly within Battlefleet Gothic, as a recent example see
Oerjan's
> response to my post) but they definitely make for a unique system.

that's true; gw games are really quite good at simulating the gw
universe,
it's just that the gw universe is not very much like ours.

>  And
> they're not all unbalancing, so long as they are applied across the
board.

well, gw's notorious newest-army-wins effect can be hard to deal with.
mind you, we did have a touch of that with smls; it is now known how to
defeat them, but you have to modify your tactics considerable in a way
beams and torps don't force you to. jon tuffley beware - gw is the ghost
of christmas future!

> >it's hard to persuade people to give one system up and start another
> >simply on the back of argument, testimony or one or two games -
people are
> >to used to what they play. 
> 
> Actually, the other reason I haven't done so much with Dirtside has to
do
> with the minis I have painted; the Squat SHVs aren't likely to make
really
> good conversions, barring (maybe) the Colossus and Leviathan (though
why
> you'd need that large a troop transport...).	And the Squats never had
> standard MBTs, and I don't have many of my Marine tanks painted up....

i was lucky - i played squat at first but switched to imperial guard,
whose tanks are vaguely realistic, if a bit world war i. mind you, the
squat iron eagles make pretty good vtols.

> >if there was a series of steps, where each one
> >was quite non-threatening, it would be a lot easier. i was thinking
> >something like pure epic -> epic with ds2 morale rules -> epic with
ds2
> >morale and fire rules -> ds2 with epic units -> pure ds2. the same
could
> >be applied to 40k/sg (maybe) and BFG/ft.
> 
> Interesting approach, I guess it is different from the "full
immersion"
> technique.  I'd actually aim for first playing an E40K game, then
repeating
> the game using DS2... it'd be interesting to see if the points balance
out,
> for one thing.

hmm, good plan. a key factor is being able to reuse gw minis, as all my
ds2 minis (the whole seven platoons ...) are in a box in the loft, 100
miles away. yes, playing the battle over with the different systems
would
be interesting. one problem is speed; ds2 is a great game for company
group actions, but it is a little detailed for regiment-size stuff. e40k
is good at big battles ( as (a) the rules can be simpler and so less
work
and (b) people will buy bigger armies).

there are two options here.

one, use some sort of TurboDS2 with rapidified firing (perhaps using
some
of the ideas proposed for sg2 acceleration, eg rolling one defence die
for
a whole unit, or using companies rather than platoons as basic units.
possibly replacing chit-pull with a roll.

two, play a small battle. this will put the emphasis on epic's lack of
detail, not ds2's lack of speed.

> ^_^  (Though Space Fleet conversions to Full Thrust
> certainly do.  How, exactly, I'm going to convert BFG to FT is still
up in
> the air.  Another reason I'm likely to play both: they are fairly
different
> games!)

Tom