VSF for FUBAR

[Froggy the Great]

All,

I just posted a VSF expansion for the one-page FUBAR rules (which you can find by clicking here).  I covered such things as characters, VSF/Steampunk equipment, vehicles, and automatons.  You can find my expansion by clicking here or on the ForgeOfWar Yahoo group.

I would very much appreciate having it mercilessly ripped apart so I can make it better and put it back together.

Thanks!

[Dr. The Viking]

Great! I'll try them out. I'm really sick of the GASLIGHT rules. 

[Grimmnar]

I'm really sick of the GASLIGHT rules. 

Care to elaborate some more on this statement?
What is it your "really sick of" about the rules?
I am curious on your reasons or issues. I personally like them and think they work very well. Nothing like a set of rules that work well in the gaming club as well as a con set of rules.

Grimm

[Dr. The Viking]

Care to elaborate some more on this statement?
What is it your "really sick of" about the rules?
I am curious on your reasons or issues. I personally like them and think they work very well. Nothing like a set of rules that work well in the gaming club as well as a con set of rules.

Grimm

Of course! First of all please excuse the rather short and abrupt comment I made... I guess I should have put it a bit more diplomatic and less powerful.

My main hassle with GASLIGHT (and really by GASLIGHT I mean Battles by Gaslight) is that I feel it's slow, to put it mildly. I feel I spend a lot of time not making decisions, but looking up stuff in charts or tables. To me it feels quite aged.

The morale system seems rigid and inflexible to me, with unit sizes other than 10 requiring a new dice type or similar unnecessary quibbles. 

I don't like the hand to hand combat system as it seems to put way to much in favour of the chargers. (in my opinion).

I don't feel there's anything particularly VSF about it either. At least not anything that couldn't be easily translated into every other rule set out there (exaggerating to prove the point).

GASLIGHT comes in best at skirmish hero gaming in my experience. In other words the non-battles version.

We've played some 10-20 games now I think. Of different sizes and shapes. I believe that is enough to have some basis to review the game upon.

There some good things about it too... I like the start and sustain of steam engines. Although one could argue that riding into battle would require the engine to have started priorly.

Overall I find the game altmodisch and a bit on the boring side. Especially considering how colourful and audacious I find the VSF genre.   

I'm quite aware though that all of these things that I see as flaws could easily be merits to someone else.

[Froggy the Great]

Great! I'll try them out. I'm really sick of the GASLIGHT rules. 

Cool!  Plese let me know what you'd add or change!  I wrote it to my vision of VSF and to the figures I had, but I would love a broader perspective.

[Dr. The Viking]

Cool!  Plese let me know what you'd add or change!  I wrote it to my vision of VSF and to the figures I had, but I would love a broader perspective.

I'll keep you posted. And please excuse the entire derailment of your thread. I believe I share the honour with Grimnar. 

[Horatius]

I'm going to give this a shot asap, when I finally get around to foisting some VSF action on my friends.  I have to say, I like your method for resolving rules disputes by erring "on the side of the Rule of Awesome."  That is the true spirit of this kind of wargaming and I applaud you. 

[Froggy the Great]

I just updated the FUBAR VSF rules and posted them to the ForgeOfWar Yahoo group files section.

[Calimero]

I’m probably doing something wrong but I can’t find them (the FUBAR – VSF rules)

[Froggy the Great]

Um  Ok, try <here>.

[Calimero]

Got it! Thanks Froggy

[Jonas]

We did try and use FUBAR for VSF with small luck, but we needed to use more of the VSF elements and are planning to do some more testruns in the (near) future... Hopefully a battle report will follow.

[Froggy the Great]

Actually got to play last night!  The game had to be called just as the British dinosaur cavalry was about to roll up the Martian Hinterlanders' right flank, but a good time was had by all. 

However, this pointed out glaring weaknesses in the VSF supplement.  I therefore made the following changes:
What needs to be changed (VSF supplement)
-Characters got reworked.  They are now independent units instead of attaching them to larger units:  If a character activates while in cohesion with an unactivated unit, that unit may also activate with the character's activation roll.  A failure by the character means the whole unit has failed to activate.
-We'd been playing that leaders who took the "inspiring" skill or something similarly named, could roll two dice for activation and take the best.  That is most emphatically going away - that's what hero points are for.
-The Sniper, Pilot, Medic and Engineer skills got reworked.
-VSF vehicle speeds got tweaked.
-Automatons and vehicles now suffer malfunctions on an Activation roll of 1, rather than "less than half of their activation score" - it's easier that way.

The links should be the same as before, but I'll repost it anyway:  <here>.

[Craig]

Hi Froggy,

Would you like me to put FUBAR VSF up on the Blog?

[Froggy the Great]

Hi Froggy,

Would you like me to put FUBAR VSF up on the Blog?

I thought you already had, but yes please do.  The most recent version is on the Forgeofwar yahoo group, and here:
LINK