Pimp my Tank: Episode one

[Battlegrinder]

A few weeks ago, I asked for some advice on how to customize a Best-Lock tank (http://www.brikwars.com/forums/viewtopi ... =8&t=11573). I’m pleased to report that I’ve just completed the rebuild, and am reasonably happy with how it turned out.



Here’s the tank as it was when I started out.


My first task was to sand down part of the tank’s turret, since most Lego’s won’t attach to the vehicle’s current ones (“compatible with other brands”, ha!). I cut some of the damaged Lego plates that have found their way into my collection down to size, and hot glued them into place. I also glue most of the tank’s other components together at this stage as well, managed to eliminate most of the instability that is endemic to clone brands.


With the sanding and gluing complete, I moved on to painting. I decided to go with an urban camouflage pattern, and after a few minutes of googling had a rough idea of what to do. One trip to the craft store later, and I was ready to start. The first step was to apply a base coat. In my case, I used a can of modeling grade spray-on enamel.


Once the enamel had dried, I went to work applying the rest of the pattern. While it didn’t work out as well as I hoped (thanks to my inexperience with this kind of thing), I wound up with a passable camo pattern.


The last step was to reattach the various surface elements I’d removed before spraying, as well as a final round of glue to attach the turret and some of the new parts. I also brought the tank closer to its real-life counterpart by adding a Brickarms M2 onto the roof. I’m going to be working up and posting its stats shortly.

Comments/questions/feedback, anyone?

[Battlegrinder]

One stat card, as promised. Does anyone know what the average cost and stats for a tank are, I'd like to know how the Ares stacks up against the completion.

[IVhorseman]

I personally stat tanks to have one armor class lower, so the CP would end up costing a bit less in that case.

What's with the complicated side-skirt rules? Why not just consider the treads shielded instead?

EDIT: holy crap I forgot to tell you that you did a good job. The paint job came out awesome! How satisfied are you with the plate replacement?

[Battlegrinder]

I personally stat tanks to have one armor class lower, so the CP would end up costing a bit less in that case.

What's with the complicated side-skirt rules? Why not just consider the treads shielded instead?

EDIT: holy crap I forgot to tell you that you did a good job. The paint job came out awesome! How satisfied are you with the plate replacement?

Thanks for the complement, I'm glad you think it looks good. The stud replacement worked out ok, but it's not a perfect solution, since most of the bricks I used for it were the wrong color and had to be reprinted anyway, so it can be a bit risky to be swap parts out. Granted, it's not as bad as it can be on some other models (I don't think 40k models can be modified after they're built at all), but I'll half to do some touch up work if I add or remove parts too often. But I have a lot more flexibility than I did with the Best-Lock studs in place.

For anything but an abrams, I'd also go with SL of 3, but given how insanely tough the M1 is, I decided it was worth the cost. I didn't have the treads be shielded because I forgot that you could do that. I'll consider changing it, but the reason I wrote the rule the way it is was because the treads aren't any tougher then other surface elements, they're just harder to hit since the side skirt will be in the way of most of the shots. Switching the rules around is worth thing about though.

[IVhorseman]

I only recommend it because it's an easier solution. Calculating out the actual to-hit chance for any given shot takes more time than simply cancelling out one of the die rolls.

[cleanupcrew]

I only recommend it because it's an easier solution. Calculating out the actual to-hit chance for any given shot takes more time than simply cancelling out one of the die rolls.

Well, I'm too lazy to have this discussion again.

[Overwatch_Elite]

I only recommend it because it's an easier solution. Calculating out the actual to-hit chance for any given shot takes more time than simply cancelling out one of the die rolls.

Well, I'm too lazy to have this discussion again.

Then why did you bring it up?

[Battlegrinder]

After some consideration, I've decided not to change the tread rule. This is partly for logical reasons, as a shot that hits the treads will be hitting the treads only and not the side skirt, but mostly for more pragmatic reasons. Given the treads have 3D10 armor, anyone trying to destroy them will be forced to use something very big. I doubt knocking one die off the damage roll would be that helpful, especially since the current rule makes it much hard to hit the treads in the first place.Spending effort to prevent the tank from taking damage is much more efficient than trying to decrease the amount of damage it takes.

[IVhorseman]

Actually, combined fire is going to be the downfall of those treads, not a lucky hit from a big weapon. Lots of minifigs with small guns have an okay to-hit chance, and even if most of them miss, as long as about 4-5d6 goes through there's a good chance at overwhelming 3d10 armor.

Each wheel appears to be about an inch long from what I can see, which means zero targeting penalty. A minifig firing a pistol will hit on a 3 or better.

The side-skirts reduce that to-hit bonus by half: technically there's no bonus to reduce unless the fig is aiming or whatever, but I'm 90% sure that that's not what you intended the wording to actually mean. Reducing the to-hit chance by half means doubling the UR, so a fig will hit on a 6 or better. Interestingly enough, hitting on a 6 or better is exactly the threshold for a minifig to overcome a shielded bonus in the first place.

One of the other reasons I suggest ditching the 1/2 targeting bonus thing is that I have no idea what you mean, as it seems useless according to one interpretation of the rules and totally broken according to another. According to the first interpretation, you'd need about 4 minifigs to combine fire and break a tread - the second reading requires about 20.

Sticking a flat -1 or -2 to hit would probably be closer to what I imagine that you mean, as well as making the game run a bit faster.

Collette's a big whiney brat about armor rules, so he likes to passive-aggressively moan about them being broken instead of trying to actually playtest them or anything.

[Battlegrinder]

Actually, combined fire is going to be the downfall of those treads, not a lucky hit from a big weapon. Lots of minifigs with small guns have an okay to-hit chance, and even if most of them miss, as long as about 4-5d6 goes through there's a good chance at overwhelming 3d10 armor.

Each wheel appears to be about an inch long from what I can see, which means zero targeting penalty. A minifig firing a pistol will hit on a 3 or better.

The side-skirts reduce that to-hit bonus by half: technically there's no bonus to reduce unless the fig is aiming or whatever, but I'm 90% sure that that's not what you intended the wording to actually mean. Reducing the to-hit chance by half means doubling the UR, so a fig will hit on a 6 or better. Interestingly enough, hitting on a 6 or better is exactly the threshold for a minifig to overcome a shielded bonus in the first place.

One of the other reasons I suggest ditching the 1/2 targeting bonus thing is that I have no idea what you mean, as it seems useless according to one interpretation of the rules and totally broken according to another. According to the first interpretation, you'd need about 4 minifigs to combine fire and break a tread - the second reading requires about 20.

Sticking a flat -1 or -2 to hit would probably be closer to what I imagine that you mean, as well as making the game run a bit faster.

Collette's a big whiney brat about armor rules, so he likes to passive-aggressively moan about them being broken instead of trying to actually playtest them or anything.

I hadn't considered the danger of a large number of minifigs combining fire against the treads, but in hindsight that is a rather obvious threat. Though I was also thinking that the entire tread assembly would be the target of any attempt to M-kill the tank, not the individual wheels, since the tread as a whole is a much larger target and the tank will move a lot slower if it's destroyed, compared to the penalty for moving with one less wheel. And since the full tread is about 8 inches long (I mismeaaured when I wrote up the initial stat card,the Ares is actually 9 inches long), infantry will have a very hard time not hitting it. Since preventing infantry and light weapons from getting a clean shot is pretty much a lost cause, I think giving heavy weapons a hard time is still the better move. I think the "large target" bonus would be around a +4 (don't remember if its +1 to use for each 2 inches visible, or for each inch, but I think its 2), so cutting that down to a +2 could make the difference between a shot hitting or missing. For smaller weapons, that wouldn't change the odds, since the UR is so low that the only way to miss would be if you critfail (with a rice's UR of 4, even a +2 bonus is enough to change the "to hit" roll into a "let's see if you found a way to miss" roll). Without the skirt, every gun up to size 5 would only be able to miss on a 1.

[samuelzz10]

This looks really good, the name reminds me of this:
http://www.reasonablyclever.com/lego/contest/pimp/

[piltogg]

definitely a significant improvement.

[Battlegrinder]

definitely a significant improvement.

I'm glad you like it. Oh, and thanks for the advice with in the first thread about adding sponsons to the tank. I wasn't able to add them to this vehicle, but on the next one I was able to add on a pair of minigun/rocket turrets.

[Alcatraz]

Brickarms!