Re: [GZG] Stuart Murray's Games at GZG ECC IX

On 3/16/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
<gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:48:07 -0500
> From: Mark Kinsey <Kinseym@ptd.net>
> Subject: [GZG] Stuart Murray's Games at GZG ECC IX

> I wasn't in either of Stuart's games at GZG IX ("To the Victor the
> Spoils" and "Contact, Wait, Out") but I kept sneaking over to check on
> them and I was fascinated by a number of things; Gorgeous terrain,
> wonderfully painted figs, but also the fact that he bases his 15mm
> Stargrunt figs and his games seemed to move fairly quickly.

<<snippage>>

>  I don't think Stuart is a list member, so I'm wondering if anyone who
> was in either of his games could clue me into any rules
> changes/shortcuts that Stuart uses to move the game along.

I don't know about Stuart, but I discovered while doing my board game
version of Stargrunt that there is only one reason for _not_ mounting
SG2 figures onto a single base: the unit integrity rule.

When I first taught myself SG2, I had all figures clumped together
around the squad leader. All measurement was from squad leader to
squad leader (which is easier to adjudicate than centre-of-squad to
centre-of-squad). The individual placement of figures didn't matter.
In fact, due to the way the integrity rules, you are encouraged to
clump the figures together.

The only time you don't do this is for the squad spread out in
different terrain, or you are using minefields, or you are using
artillery.

If you have a squad at the corner of a building, having individual
figures pointing down each wall of the building makes it easy to see
who can attack whom. You can't do this with a base. The easiest way to
handle it is to write a quick note, or drop a numbered counter on each
side of the terrain feature indicating the number of figures down
where.

I have an "enhanced squad sheet" I use with the board game. It has the
unit's quality, leadership, IAVRs, missiles, etc. on it. I'm thinking
of creating an area on the sheet that could handle players splitting
the figures between terrain features, or I may create a new sheet. I
have an idea how to handle this, but it would take some playtesting to
see if it works.

Minefields attack everyone in a squad that is within so many inches of
the minefield counter. There are a couple of ways to handle this: 1)
Attack every member of the squad with the minefield. 2) Roll a die
with a number of sides equal to the number of figures in a squad
(rounding up); that's the number of figures caught in the minefield
when the first figure triggers a mine. 3) A minefield has, what, a 6"
radius? (Don't have the books with me.) If the centre of the squad
comes within 3" of the counter, all figures are caught in the
minefield. If it is 3" to 6", assume half the figures are caught in
the minefield, and if 6" to 9", assume 1/4 of the squad encountered
the minefield. Roll randomly for who was caught in the minefield. (You
could change these numbers around, such as all figures up to 2", 2/3
for 2" to 4", and 1/3 for 4" to 6".) 4) Use a template. More on this
below.

The third use for the unit integrity rules has to do with artillery.
When artillery hits, all the figures within the blast range of the
artillery shell are caught in the blast. All the other figures are
completely safe. To avoid the integrity rules, you have the same
options as those listed above for minefields. For the record, my
preference is number 3, though there's a lot to be said for number 1
(it's simple, and artillery _should_ be nasty; besides, artillery
already seems to be a little underpowered, given that you still get to
make armour rolls for each figure caught in the blast). By the way,
option 1 is what I use in the SG2 board game and it seems to work
fine.

Finally, templates. I ran an SG2 PBEM game a couple of years ago for
Laserlight, Beth, and Roger. It worked okay. I used MS Excel to
adjudicate the game, with squads indicated by dots on a map. This
caused some issues with regard to artillery, so I came up with a new
spreadsheet. I allowed the players to indicate if their figures were
spread out in a row or column, or if they were equally spread out in a
circle. I then let them decide the diameter of the circle. I plugged
in the shape and size of the squad formation, I plugged in the radius
of the artillery or mine blast, and I plugged in the direction from
which it came. The spreadsheet then showed me each figure as a point
on a graph with a big circle representing the blast. Any point within
the circle was hit by the artillery.

I think I could reproduce these in cardstock form, if there was any
demand for it. They would be slower than any of the other options I
listed above, and I'm not sure -- given that there's not a lot of
artillery use in SG2 anyway -- that they would produce a "better"
result.

--
Allan Goodall		 http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com

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