BW 2010 feedback

[stubby]

Heavy Infantry gets the ability to form shield walls when squadded up with other Heavy Infantry.

A Heavy Infantry with another Heavy Infantry on either side of him no longer has to actively Parry; he automatically gets the Armored bonus from his Shield (including against ranged attacks).

I also want to have them braced together into one giant Creation against Collisions and Knockback, but that'll take some more testing.

There are also some questions about whether a Shield Wall squad will have to take facing into account, or if a squad of Heavy Infantry will be treated as a turtle.

[Keldoclock]

Can we also brace them together into human ladders?

[IVhorseman]

There are also some questions about whether a Shield Wall squad will have to take facing into account, or if a squad of Heavy Infantry will be treated as a turtle.

If you're building a squad plate of heavy infantry guys, the least you could do is place the ones in the back and on the sides so that they actually face their shields in a useful direction. Facing already matters for response actions, and then it makes stuff like flanking fun.

[lawmaster]

Why not have it so when they form a shield wall they can turn their shields into weapons?

[Falk]

Because no one cares about bashed in heads. We want minifigs ripped apart, not squashed.

[IVhorseman]

Because they should already be holding weapons in their other hands.

What I was wondering if I was gonna see is if Heavy Infantry could use two-handed melee weapons like halberds and longspears along with their shields. Then again, there's the heavy for that.

[Gungnir]

Finally got around to reading the rules for thrust vectors and inertia. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to disregard them completely. That's way too much work.
Besides, my 'figs really like handbrake turns.

[Whiteagle]

Uh, I think there might be an error with the "Gunner" and "Heavy" card pictures...
They're marked as "6CP", but their skills are only +1CP...

[IVhorseman]

Heavy has a bit more armor to make up for it, but yeah Gunners should be 5.

[stubby]

They should both be 5.  Heavy's higher Armor is offset by lower Move.

Good news everyone, I finally started traveling again, which means more time stuck in airports writing chapter ten.  Rulebook progress depends heavily on my vagrant lifestyle.

I wonder what you'll think of my refinements to SuperNatural Powers.

[stubby]

If you're building a squad plate of heavy infantry guys, the least you could do is place the ones in the back and on the sides so that they actually face their shields in a useful direction. Facing already matters for response actions, and then it makes stuff like flanking fun.

Flanking is something I really, really want to make a bigger part of Squad combat, but I can't figure out a way to do it yet that isn't more complicated than it's worth.

I am kind of tempted to do the Art of War thing where if you attack a Squad plate on two or three edges they take penalties, but if you attack four edges they're on Deadly Ground and they fight twice as hard.

What I was wondering if I was gonna see is if Heavy Infantry could use two-handed melee weapons like halberds and longspears along with their shields. Then again, there's the heavy for that.

That was my thinking also.  You can make a Heavy Heavy Infantry if you want though.

Finally got around to reading the rules for thrust vectors and inertia. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to disregard them completely. That's way too much work.
Besides, my 'figs really like handbrake turns.

This is as god intended.  There are very few battles where vectors are a good idea.

[IVhorseman]

I wonder what you'll think of my refinements to SuperNatural Powers.

I'll probably hate them, but the biggest problem I've run into is the simple fact that though it's expensive CP-wise, a wizard using two awesome dice (say, a d10 and a d12) can combine them to create a ranged attack with the range of one and the damage of the other, at a UR of only two. The downside of doing so is of course that those dice are stopped from being used defensively, but that's still a pretty hefty, low-risk attack. Currently, I'm okay with it on the basis that wizards are totally sweet.

I like the idea with the baseplates, but I wouldn't make flanking very in-depth just to avoid messy rules. Shields work in the direction they're pointed in, and squads take a -1 penalty to all rolls for every side of the squad plate they're being attacked from (but get +2 for that Deadly Ground bonus). Anything more than that is just asking for trouble.

[stubby]

I'll probably hate them, but the biggest problem I've run into is the simple fact that though it's expensive CP-wise, a wizard using two awesome dice (say, a d10 and a d12) can combine them to create a ranged attack with the range of one and the damage of the other, at a UR of only two. The downside of doing so is of course that those dice are stopped from being used defensively, but that's still a pretty hefty, low-risk attack.

Don't forget the other downside that one of those dice might roll a one and get handed over for enemy sabotage.  It's a low percentage with such high-value dice, but that's my favorite part of the whole deal.

[Porphyrogenitus]

Testudo/schilltrom should only work if you have your squad plate arranged so that shields are actually covering all sides.  Otherwise it's just a shield wall/phalanx/whatever (which are generally vulnerable to flanking).

The Death Ground bonus should only apply if you have an officer in the squad (leaderless rabble tend to try to run even when they can't and therefore die horribly, but an officer should be able to rally them to fight to the death in that situation).  Actually, if officers are an issue rules-wise (if you eliminate the forming-up interactions, then what does being an officer mean?), then squad flanking seems like a great place to have them.  Maybe an officer reduces the penalty by 1, and enables the Death Ground bonus (or if you keep Death Ground broadly available, have an officer improve it to +3).  Nice and simple, and potentially well worth it to have one in each of your squads (especially for aggressive play where flanking is more likely).

This brings up ranged flanking too.  Does flanking only work if there is an enemy squad in plate-to-plate contact?  Would horse archers who ran around the side get flanking bonuses?  They'd be able to get around the shields if they did it right, of course, and that could be all that is needed.

[IVhorseman]

Flanking is just for melee attacks, right? Why not just treat it exactly like Ganging up?

Number of units in a squad shouldn't matter either, but flanking attacks should come from the opposite side in order to get the bonus. Still, two ninjas on opposite sides of even a moderately sized squad could be a death sentence.

Besides, getting around a Heavy Infantry's shields and attacking them is still an attack made possible by flanking, even if it doesn't force the opponent to start taking penalties.

Hey, this might be stupid, but is the whole "surrounded on four sides" thing a good place to play with morale? Something like at the beginning of each turn when surrounded, the squad must make a collective d6 roll, where 1 means run screaming and 6 means double actions or something like that?

Ker-rounded!