RE: DS - BUGS!!!

G'day,

Sorry about taking so long to respond to this, but anyways... 

>I've got a small wave of bugs on order from GZG
> (11 packs coming plus the 1 I already have...)
>and need to develop stats for them in DS.  

Thank you you've just saved Derek a lot of trouble ;)

>My current idea is that they move like powered
>armor (6" with the same restrictions), take 5 valid
>damage points to destroy from the front (the heavy
>frontal carapace), 4 valid damage points on the sides
>and rear, draw 4 chits in close assaults, have no
> range fire capability, and are always veteren units.

Sounds great so far. One thing though, did you think about the odd
ranged
fire abilities, before discounting them? Its just that Derek has a 25mm
bug
that has 'bioweapon guns' (for want of a better word  much like the
Blister? Los mentioned appears in the SST show) on one set of its
forward
legs (one of the varuants he picked up from Nic, I guess Jon has them
too)
and as he wants his DS and SG forces to match he would like to seem some
ranged fire possible. Maybe a swarm of these would have the same fire
ability as standard infantry, but such swarms would be rare, what do you
think?

> Bugs can attack vehicles in close assaults.  
>They draw 4 chits per bug and only yellow 
>chits count.  Bugs are organized in to "swarms"
>of about 12 bugs each.  

If it were me I'd probably knock that down to 6, they are pretty big
compared with a human <and I'm gonna be broke otherwise ;)>. Maybe to
keep
the flavour of your larger swarms there should be a restriction on how
far
apart swarms can be (then again may be that's too restrictive)

>If a swarm ever get a rout result, they immediately
>go beserk and automatically pass all confidence
>checks for the rest of the game.  

Ouch! Good idea, but ouch ;)

>Each bug in a swarm is an individual target.
>Bugs can be shot at by vehicle weapons as
>either infantry, or as size class 1 targets.
>Any valid damage points will kill one bug,
>if the bug was engaged as a size class 1 target.

Sounds good too.

Just some background fluff we were mulling over (if your interested), we
were thinking of allowing the bugs to communicate via radio by an
internal
organ able to generate VHF/UHF (some form of radio) waves. We hadn't got
down to whether or not it could be 'stumbled upon' or jammed, but I'd
say
that'd be possible, giving you another way of breaking down their
cohesion
- with the very real risk you may send them frenzied by the look of it
;)

Have fun

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax (03) 6232 5199 International +61 3 6232 5199

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au