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Post by phgamer on May 3, 2016 20:15:09 GMT
When I started playing the Land Ironclad, I felt it was under priced. So I wrote a program to cycle through a number of battles, increasing the number of tripods fighting, till I hit approximately 50/50. The answer is against 7 Tripods, the Land Ironclad wins 52%. Against 8 Tripods, the land Ironclad wins 39%. So to my mind, a fully functional Land Ironclad is worth just more than 7 Tripods, so I point it at 1500.
Since I don't have a lot of Tripods, and it really isn't much fun to play many to one, I developed a number of special rules for the Landship, increasing it's vulnerability. For instance, if you cause it to take a critical hit on a 6+, instead of just 10, the numbers change where 4 Tripods win 72% of the time, and against 5 33%. Pointing the Landship around 900 points.
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Post by boxholder on May 3, 2016 21:06:46 GMT
Nice job of working out the relative values by combat simulation! Good going.
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Post by phgamer on May 3, 2016 22:26:52 GMT
I introduced a number of rules limiting the Ironclad's capability and reducing the points. I justify this by a story that it was stolen by the Canadians. For that back story: philsmartianfront.blogspot.com/2015/07/nell.html Ironclad Special Rules: The Canadian-American Alliance has been strained by the Canadian acquisition, either found or stolen, depending on your point of view, of the Landship, “Nell”, otherwise known as “The Spirit of Detroit”, as the Americans have named it. The Americans have been putting pressure on Canada to get “The Spirit of Detroit” back, as such there are numerous rules governing its use. Low Ammunition. The Americans have refused to provide the 12”, 7” and 5” shells for “Nell”’s guns. Britain has made shipments of ammunition of all these calibers, but it has yet to reach the Western Canada. When each of these calibers makes a “to hit” roll that is exactly “1”, that gun is out of ammo. For the 5” guns, this applies only to the turret in question. That turret is out of ammo for the next turn, but is restocked by shifting rounds from other turrets. A gun that is out of ammo may still be target and fire blanks, to try to fool the Martian that it is still functioning. Low Coal Nell needs more coal than all the rest of the 2nd Squadron combined, as such, measures have been taken to conserve coal. Nell is deployed next to the coaling station. Nell needs to remain there until turn 4 to be fully coaled. If a heat ray misses Nell, (I.E. A “to hit” roll of 1 or a 2) the coaling station is hit instead, exploding, causing 5 +4 hits to Nell and everyone else within 6”. Units at a range of 6.1 to 12” suffer 3 +2 hits instead. Nell is running on one boiler out of four, it takes time to stoke up the remaining boilers. As such she moves only 1” on turn 1, 2” on turn 2 and 3” on turn 3. If not fully coaled, roll a D10 each time Nell moves, or uses the Steam Defense. On a 1, the coal bunkers are empty, and Nell can only move 1” a turn thereafter. Skeleton Crew. The proper crew for the Landship is considerable and Nell hasn’t been fully crewed with trained personnel. Due to minimal crew available for damage control, all hits on the Damage Chart 6+ are considered critical hits towards the 5 critical hits required for Nell to be considered destroyed. If a critical gun hit is made, roll the die to determine which gun is hit. The Martians may reroll that die if they see fit. The reroll must be kept. Cannibalizing units. Some of the manpower to crew Nell was taken from infantry units. Infantry and Machine Gun unit only gets one additional hidden movement counter instead of two.
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Post by madmorgan on May 4, 2016 9:51:38 GMT
Hmmm really good analysis and rule set - might have to become one of the Optional ones.
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Post by phgamer on May 4, 2016 12:03:08 GMT
The only problem with those special rules is that there are too many of them. It was hard to keep track of, and the game was distracted a lot by constantly referring to the. What did I write? Oh yeah.
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Post by mikedski on May 4, 2016 12:05:25 GMT
Perhaps an alternate rule that allows the Martian to use heat rays to target individual guns and critical systems if within sweep ray range. Seems odd from a realism point of view that a tripod can shoot an individual truck or a couple guys on motorcycles but can't target a 12 inch gun turret.
I do get why from a gaming perspective this limitation maybe necessary but as Phgamer has shown the LIC is nearly indestructible.
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Post by phgamer on May 4, 2016 13:52:31 GMT
It puts things in perspective with the write up that 3 of them held the line against a major force of Tripods.
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Post by madmorgan on May 5, 2016 9:39:54 GMT
Well as they're Land Ironclad 'ships' thats not surprising. If they were waterbourne monitors they'd be much the same. I'm not sure whether to kick or run on this one. It is a big part of the background, so you want them in the game (run). But, if you don't tone them down there is a battlefield problem off overbalance (?)(kick). As with the larger tripods, the simple game takes a hit by 1 unit having so many special rules. Guess what I'm saying is that if the LIC is mankinds best hope, we're in for a strange game. Once enough modelers (or Conqueror!) start making these things available on the market again, I can see the the situation of 3x750 (2250pts) LIC showing up on the table. Despite the very low BP of 3 these things have a full 11 order tokens! Thats enough to get at least one or all into dominating any table with those 12" guns. They already 'range' a normal tables width (4'x 8') and take only 3 move phases to get a narrow edge table in range of that 60" gun (72" table). Even limiting them to two total in a force (point total for game set at 2000), they will tend to dominate, smaller support units just adding more BPs to the mix. Even at 1500 points, just one makes a much better situation for the humans. Not that I don't pull for the humans usually, but, again this is a Game not a beatdown feast. Well, maybe its been a beatdown feast for the Martians until now. Anyway, I'm still trying to figure it out. The limitation rules from phgamer would make the 750pts a little easier to swallow. More thought, less typing...
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Post by phgamer on May 5, 2016 13:04:44 GMT
Or up the LIC to 1,500 points. Another thing I do as a home rule, is the LIC is exempt from the command rules. It does not count as a unit towards the Army breakpoint, nor does it contribute to the command point total. To quote my favorite dwarf, "I still only counts as one!" So if the LIC comes out on a 2,000 point game, then the Martians only have to kill maybe 2 or 3 units to rout the army.
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Post by madmorgan on May 6, 2016 2:23:49 GMT
A simple solution, but do we really think a force will break with that beast still in the fray?? Its a nature rally point.
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Post by novista on May 9, 2016 17:40:03 GMT
And seeing it's destruction might put a small damper on things.
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Post by boxholder on May 13, 2016 23:18:43 GMT
It is a natural rallying point, but it is also a magnet for fire. During WW-1, troops would tend to stay away from tanks because they tended to draw a lot of fire.
Novista understates the psych impact of seeing such a dominant weapon being destroyed. Its destruction might need to be considered as morale breaker for the army.
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Post by madmorgan on May 14, 2016 9:18:31 GMT
I tend to agree, which is one of the reasons I never even attempted to get a AD one. Thats a heck of a lot of money for one model. Even with their occasional sells. And it really didn't look right on a battlefield without the corresponding Martian 'big' machine - the Overseer. I see the Dominator as kinda the counterpart to the Goliath & the Overseer as counterpart to the LIC. Or did, I suppose.
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Post by skibble on May 31, 2016 2:27:52 GMT
I like how the rules for Nell played out in your battles.
As a side note what stats did you use for the Fixed turrets?
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