Re: Hills, Mountains, etc.

On Thu, 07 Mar 2002 11:29:18 -0800, "Brian Bilderback"
<bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Sounds interesting.  Is that game still available?

Nope. It's been out of print for a while, though it does show up on eBay
a
fair bit.

It's an interesting system. It started life as a combat system for
roleplaying
games, but it was quickly used as a small scale skirmish system.

I used to enjoy playing it. Some hate it because it is very chart heavy.
There
are optional rules, in the single figure scale, for handling things like
time
of flight of a projectile (admittedly, only at very long ranges), and a
whole
raft of other stuff.

They developed a science fiction RPG with it as the combat system,
called
Living Steel. They further expanded it with a power armour supplement
and a
board game that simplified the game to allow more troops per player.
This
simplified system became the basis of their basic RPG combat system.
They also
used the game system in the Alien RPG, Terminator RPG, and Dracula RPG.

I liked the way the mechanics worked. I liked how aiming was modelled.
It was
also one of the few games that really showed a difference between
different
types of weapons. 

It wasn't without its flaws, though. The main one being that while the
entire
system was supposedly very accurate, each figure had a skill value that
was
basically a number from 3 to 18 (it's showing it's "generic RPG system"
roots
here, though you could generate these numbers from a point system or
through
porting from another RPG). With all the complex tables, this was a major
fudge
area. It's like calculating a number to two decimal places, and then
adding it
to a number rounded off to the nearest decimal.

It didn't have any command control rules. It had a very rudimentary
morale
system (essentially just a suppression system). 

On the other hand, they also released a mechanized system that was a
game
scale up from this. I enjoyed that. It was the same basic system as
Phoenix
Command, but for handling tanks and squads of figures. The tank versus
tank
detail was pretty explicit, for all those gear heads out there. The only
problem is a particular section of the rules that are less than clear.

If you are interested, you want to look for the Phoenix Command
Mechanized
System book, Pakfront (WWII anti tank guns), Medium Tanks (WWII medium
tanks),
Heavy Tanks (WWII heavy tanks) and a supplement (can't quite remember
the
name) including some lighter modern vehicles. The main book contained a
number
of other modern tanks. Oh, there was also an artillery system, intended
for
both this and PC.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,