Re: [DS2] Spoon Feeding SciFi Genre to players

At 08:40 PM 09/08/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>
>Army lists are a nice idea but they tend to fall down in practice. When
DS2
>was first published I started trying to write an army list for it based
on
>popular sci-fi novels. The problem was (with one or two exceptions)
that
>such lists were just plain boring. Sci-fi writers seem to like having
armed
>forces that think that a particular weapon is a "killer" and have
nothing
>else. Take "Starship Troopers" for instance. Fine if you want an army
that
>consists of nothing but PA but how boring to play would such an army
be?
>The strength of DS2 is in the subtle interactions of different weapon
>systems and defences. There are not very many novels where you will
find
>that sort of army. David Drake's Hammers Slammers series are a good
>exception. There's even an orbat in one of the books. Only trouble is
their
>opponents sadly fall into the "boring" category. So you can put
together a
>nice DS2 Slammers army, but then who do they fight?
>

Good point. I think the best will be to have "starcraft" like list, were
each have some chance about other. When you just want to do a pick up
game
(instead of a scenario), the list can help to have an idea of what your
opponent might field. Like in Full Thrust, if you know your opponent
will
bring 1000pts of Kra'Vak, at least you have an idea of what kind of ship
you should select from your race. And when you are a bit lazzy, you can
just throw an army more quickly.

>The best approach would be to design an army around particular models
you
>like. I have a GEV army based around the Slammer Heavy Hover Tank and
the
>Gauntlet APC from GZG's  Dirtside Miniatures range. Generate the stats
for
>each type of vehicle that your army could have. Try and be consistent,
for
>example most vehicles might be GEV with a few support vehicles either
>tracked or wheeled. Or you could have an entirely Grav based army. Then
>design a TO&E for your army based on these vehicles. Job done!
>

Right now, I'm trying to collect as many vehicule type I can, to be able
to
field any kind of army. I don't go as far as having each type of gun,
but
at least to have track, wheel, grav and so on with some size variation.
That's why I'm after some sort of list or list of TO&E.

>Hope that helps
>Mike

Well, any word from one of the designer of such a great game can only
help!

Thanks,