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Post by Quendil on Jul 15, 2024 19:47:45 GMT
The only change I ended up making to the US data cards is to machine-guns. I made them the same as the German machine guns by removing the 24" range and sweep ability, reducing the rapid fire from 3 to 2, and adding +1 power. I wrote them up as new data cards and made a PDF, which I would post but I am not finding the "attach" button. Has this been disabled? Unfortunately you can't add files due to limited storage so the ones linked to this site are held in a dropbox. If you want to message me I can arrange to get it added to the dropbox and linked to here |
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Post by terrance on Jul 20, 2024 15:56:42 GMT
Since the only change I made was to the machine-guns I ended up just using the cards developed by Abby Normal and writing in the changes. So I will let others follow the process. In case you don't know the US Army files are available from Abby Normal Media.
For this game I greatly reduced the size of the armies on both sides so we can focus on getting the rules right. Here is the scenario and armies. The plan is to play August 3. I'll let you know how it goes.
I am using the Line of Battle Scenario from the Return of the Tripods rule book, but with the small size of the armies am suggesting the humans are manning a forward observation post that the Martians attack.
Scenario: Line of Battle (Forward Observation Post)
Attacker: Martians
+2 initiative first turn.
+1 Command point per turn (must be used the next turn)
Defender: US Army
Hidden Deployment
Objective markers: none
Game Length: No limit
Victory Conditions:
Defender or attacker wins if the opposite side is reduced to fewer than half its starting units.
Martian Army
Raider Tri-Link; 35 points, 2 link points available, 1 Command token per turn.
Upgrade to Assault tripod-Heat Ray; 25 points, link point cost 2, Reaper tentacles 2 points, Lobototon trinary 10 points = 39 points
Upgrade to Slaver tripod; 0 points, link point cost 0, 3 Drone trinaries 45 points
Upgrade to Slaver tripod; 0 points, link point cost 0
Total points: 117
US Army
Field Commander; 5 points, 5 command tokens.
Options: Forlorn Hope (x3); 5 points
Attachments:
1 Recon Squad (Rough Riders); 10 points +1 command token.
Field gun battery; 15 points, +1 command token.
35 points
Line Infantry Company Formation; 5 points, 5 command tokens.
Options: None
Attachments:
MK II Tank Squadron; 20 points, +1 Command token.
2 Line infantry Platoons; 30 points, +2 command tokens:
1st platoon Line infantry Squad (x3) Anti-armor grenades, 3 points, Veteran 3 points +1 command token.
2nd platoon Line infantry Squad (x3) Anti-armor grenades, 3 points, Veteran 3 points +1 command token.
2 Machine gun squads; 10 points, +1 command token
77 points
Total points: 112; 17 Command tokens
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Post by terrance on Aug 3, 2024 22:37:42 GMT
We played the game with the armies I listed above earlier today. Here are pictures of the starting setup. Here are the Martians:  Here are two pics of the US Army.   Just looking at the units I thought the humans looked pretty strong against the Martians. Turned out to be pretty close. |
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Post by terrance on Aug 3, 2024 22:45:49 GMT
We played 4 turns in 2 1/2 hours. We are still working on getting the new rules in our heads, but it went a lot more smoothly than the first attempt we made a few weeks ago. The victory condition was the side that looses half its starting units loses. Humans won but it was a really close game. Martians had 6 units (7 counting the lobototons, but they do not count against losses), so had to have 3 units destroyed to lose. They lost 1 tripod and 2 units of drones. The humans had 11 units so had to have 6 destroyed to lose. They lost 5 units an had 2 more that only had 1 element left. So it could have gone either way. Here are some pics of the final situation.    We learned that use of order tokens is critical, especially for the humans. We also felt the game moved slightly more quickly than when using the old rules. Everyone felt good about the game, that it was a good challenge well balanced. We had fun and are looking forward to playing again. |
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Post by GarageBay9 on Sept 22, 2024 2:43:11 GMT
Hey guys - based on the feedback here in this thread (and a couple other places) about feeling constrained by the Force Assembly rules and point totals, we added the following line to the rulebook: "Players are, of course, allowed to field any force their opponent agrees to play against. War is rarely fair; if both players want a battle with one side desperately or heroically outnumbered, that is entirely ok!" Hope that helps address some concerns.  |
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jmccarroll
Assault Tripod
" The only good Martian, is a dead Martian "
Posts: 338
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Post by jmccarroll on Sept 24, 2024 20:24:06 GMT
I think you should keep Force Assembly rules for tournaments.
I know I would not want to play against a all Dominator list!
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Post by GarageBay9 on Sept 29, 2024 20:52:43 GMT
I think you should keep Force Assembly rules for tournaments. I know I would not want to play against a all Dominator list! Yeah, the fact that you could theoretically fit three Dominators and some drones in under a 200pt force budget - if you ignored the other construction rules - is one of the bigger clues that those game mechanics have a fairly important job beyond first glance. There is no 200pt Human army that could realistically stop that even with a K-wagen in play. David also did some neat things in there with the different force construction mechanics for each faction that were meant to capture some of the flavor of each faction, and it's neat to see that come out in force composition.
Even then... The force construction rules are really meant for organized play, like you said, and for letting two players that don't know each other balance a pickup game without too much deep-dive analysis of game mechanics and unit stats.
But we're also really serious when we say that is not the only allowed way to play the game. This thread here was the big impetus for me to push for the addition of that new paragraph in the rulebook. You folks here have shown some absolutely fantastic story-driven scenarios, stuff that would never fit under the force construction rules, and yet... those games are the heart and soul of AQMF. On top of that, we didn't anticipate anybody reading the original force rules and feeling like they shouldn't play if they didn't use them. But, that's clearly what some of the readers took away from those rules, so it's on us to fix that. The real linchpin ended up being "you can field any force your opponent agrees to play against". As long as everybody involved is onboard... fight's on. 
The absolute last final edits of the rulebook are turned in and a proof copy is being prepped to go to the printers as we speak; the revised PDF should be out around the same time, and I can't wait to see you guys turn it loose on the table. There's so much more stuff we're planning to expand the game with after that too. David is probably getting a twitch in his eye because just about every time I ping him on Messenger, I've got another new unit idea or some lore I want to write. |
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