Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => VSF Adventures => Topic started by: Sinewgrab on November 15, 2009, 12:59:38 AM
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How do others of you rate the guns? I mean, they have light, medium, and large, but I don't know which they mean to be what. For example, I armed my Norwegian 'Nefs with 75mm Guns, 77mm Guns, 12lb Quick Firing Guns, and a 6' Naval Rifle. Would they be Rapid Fire or light? Or medium? Or what? They don't give any examples for me to work from, and I haven't caught up and that eras weaponry enough to know which would be what. Heck, suggested reading for figuring that out would be good, too.
Help!
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We don't really spend much time on it. I just look at the vehicle and say "Hmm, Big tank, big gun" We do have a holdover from playing Rampant Colonialism in that anything under 90mm is a Light Gun and anything 150 mm and over is a Heavy Gun. Mediums Guns falling in between the two.
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Suggested reading... to add flavor to the typical VSF genre I would suggest taking the time to read thru the on line thread of
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php
Provides many ideas to be sure :)
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Suggested reading... to add flavor to the typical VSF genre I would suggest taking the time to read thru the on line thread of
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php
Provides many ideas to be sure :)
Very familiar with it - one of the reasons I got started on VSF.
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We don't really spend much time on it. I just look at the vehicle and say "Hmm, Big tank, big gun" We do have a holdover from playing Rampant Colonialism in that anything under 90mm is a Light Gun and anything 150 mm and over is a Heavy Gun. Mediums Guns falling in between the two.
That helps, at least. So would you guys rate Reviresco's 6" as a Medium, then?
(http://www.tin-soldier.com/6incher4.jpg)
I am going to be introducing the system to a group of fervent historical gamers - mostly Sword and Flame players - and want to at least be partially able to justify what I am rating the guns as. Also, in your experience, is the rapid-fire gun really freakin' overpowered? The templates just seem really, well, oversized to me, and the idea of several side by side...
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6" = approx 150mm, so that's borderline. If you are going to use 8" or larger guns, I'd say have it as medium, otherwise if it's the biggest you have use it as large.
Just an opinion based on what seems reasonable to me, as I don't have V&S&F as yet :(
6" would probably count as large in WW1 or WW2 land actions, but medium in naval terms, however I'm nowhere near an expert on 20thC, so I could well be wrong.
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6" = approx 150mm, so that's borderline. If you are going to use 8" or larger guns, I'd say have it as medium, otherwise if it's the biggest you have use it as large.
Just an opinion based on what seems reasonable to me, as I don't have V&S&F as yet :(
6" would probably count as large in WW1 or WW2 land actions, but medium in naval terms, however I'm nowhere near an expert on 20thC, so I could well be wrong.
Well, heck. I could just call it merium and go from there, then. That way my converted cannon from Games Workshop can look like Heavies, and not "holy crap that's a monster".
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It's pretty rare in our VS&F games for a vehicle to mount anything bigger than a light gun. I
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I don't know the implications of light, medium, and heavy guns in the rules you are using, though I guess I'll find out on Saturday! But for games with individually based figures in a colonial or Victorian setting, I would think that "light guns" would range from 25mm to 65mm, including things like 37mm revolving cannons, and guns rated as 2 pounders and 6 pounders (57mm), basically, very light damage and blast radius, but perhaps firing three times as fast as "heavy guns." I would think that "medium guns" would include 70mm to 140mm guns, 12 pounders, 18 pounders, and 25 pounders. At the lower end of the scale some of the 12 pounders, 18 pounders, and guns 70mm to 105mm might be rated as "quick firing guns" in terms of rate of fire in ship to ship action, perhaps getting twice the shots of "heavy guns."
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It's pretty rare in our VS&F games for a vehicle to mount anything bigger than a light gun. I
I am betting you meant to put more here!
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Just not deleting all of an incomplete thought. My further comment was to be something along the line of "I think you could go either way, medium or heavy with that one"
For Warrenbruhn: The basic differences between the classes of guns are range, size of blast radius, and the time required to reload. When we play with rotary cannon, which is rare, I always treat it as a Medium gun but having the same tendency to jam as a gatling gun.
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Just not deleting all of an incomplete thought. My further comment was to be something along the line of "I think you could go either way, medium or heavy with that one"
For Warrenbruhn: The basic differences between the classes of guns are range, size of blast radius, and the time required to reload. When we play with rotary cannon, which is rare, I always treat it as a Medium gun but having the same tendency to jam as a gatling gun.
So you have the tendency to ignore the way they use Rapid Fire Guns? I felt they were a bit powerful, so I decided not to use them in a game I am running. If you guys have any house rules put together, I would love to see them.
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I haven't really used rapid fire guns. To be honest, with its Impact classification, I wasn't really certain as to what type of weapon he was trying to represent.
I don't think we've come up with much in the way of house rules. After the game we played on Friday we talked about some kind of Peril roll for lone characters running about unattached to units. In other rulesets we have played, whole units were either not allowed or had their effectiveness reduced when firing at lone, character type figures. We were discussing having loose characters and exploring officers make a check on activation modified by the number of units within firing range to see whether or not he gets shot at.
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Yeah, I looked at Rapid Fire and originally thought that it looked like a workable weapon - and then when we used it, we realized that for anything unarmored it was far more powerful than a heavy gun. 2 4" x 8" templates that do not scatter and are set side by side if they both hit? Holy infantry smasher, Batman!
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It's really not fun to set up beautiful figures on the board only to have to take them all off within two or three turns due to overpowered ordnance. Experienced that in a Russian Civil War game last year. Would have been more fun just to leave the figures off the table and admire the great paint jobs there. Saw the same thing a few years ago when a fabulously painted unit of German schutzetruppe in cover were all blasted off the table in two turns by an offshore cruiser with a template of six adjacent round blast zones for 152mm guns. What was the point?
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One big consideration in the rules is the cards. Do you plan to have generic cards (ie Prussian, British, etc) or specific, (ie. Prussian 1st cav., British 2nd inf., Colonel Symthe, etc). While I recommend the later, it does make for more prep time. The other thing to remember when running one of these games is to take out the cards of destroyed units.
Guns should be like a card collector game, lots of "common" a few (Medium) uncommon and very few Rare (Large).
We usually put the medium on a fortress or ship, but rarely on a land vehicle. I don't think we have ever actually put a large/heavy gun on the table.
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Well, this being my very beginnings running this system, of course, I have already messed with it some to make it more friendly to a smallish game of 6 players with 1-2 units each. I have a Nef for my Norwegians that I built with a bucket of weaponry, and when you really look at the scale of a GW Tank gun compared to a normal 25 or 28mm, it is about an 18" gun...so I managed to have built a 'Nef with a heavy ground assault gun, a Medium up top for ship to ship, and two lights. So, I just took the step of limiting ammo in this game. They have no shells for the big gun, and only one shot with the medium. Otherwise, this game as laid out would take about 2 turns for the 'Nef at full armament.
What size of a table do you normally play on? I have a 4'x6' that I play on at home (standard size for GW games, which is where I cut my teeth, and still play faithfully), but V&S&F seems to want a larger table...
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If you are using a lot of vehicles, especially flyers then a larger table is always nice but for most games a 4x6 works fine. That's what Leadfool and I usually play on but we have the option of being able to push two table together to get a 6x8 or 4x12.
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I actually resent the 4x6 becomeing the "standard". I prefer a 4x8 which is a standard piece of plywood. However at the game store where we play all the game boards (which are very nice) are 4x6, so Skrapwelder is correct. It is usually 8x6, by attaching 2 4x6.
Good luck on your game. The other thought with your Nef is to make it experimental, ie on its maiden voage and therefore subject to some sort of random breakdowns.
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The reason for the 4x6 becoming standard is not purely due to GW, the reason GW did that size for their boards was because that size fits very well over a 'standard' dining table (at least the ones in the UK). There is of course an overhang but it's not too big so no sagging of boards etc. Most tables (and dining rooms) in the UK would struggle with an 8' board, I know I couldn't have one up and get around it.