Quote:
Originally Posted by FJCestero
You have a fair point on the question of, say, a special howitzer with a 6(AP) attack. However, it's not hard to imagine that fewer/bigger sub-munitions -- capable of affecting true armor -- could still deliver the same effect versus battle-suited infantry. In that case, why have 6(AP) shells when you have 6(regular) shells that do the same job, plus they take out vehicles too???
We could just as easily imagine howitzer shells loaded with rice grain sized explosives that would be ineffective against anything tougher than Militia. (Even lowly regular BS-infantry are still armored in BPC!). But why build such a thing?
I'm not saying that a single 6(AP) attack is impossible, the laws of physics are pretty lenient on what can or can't be built by clever enough engineers. But there are lots of ideas in the pages of defense magazines that never make it out the door because of reasons. A solitary 6(AP) attack might be one of them because it's (*comparatively*) dumb, i.e. a little more design effort and you don't have the (AP) restriction nor have to stockpile two types of ammunition...
So, you can have a 6(AP) attack if you like (I don't *think* SJG will send anyone to stop you) while at the same time, fluff-wise, making it a weapon of 2nd tier powers (it was the best they could do...), or an experimental weapon pushed by some procurement officer gone bad (he/she needed a pet R&D project to embezzle), or simply the OGRE equivalent of using swarms of frigates armed with grav-lances to take on an Apollo equipped Manticoran SD(P) wall of battle: it's an idea, it can be done, but umm... good luck.
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It's something that's sticking with me entirely on a conceptual level, rather than a gameplay one. Call it a nasty habit, but I try to think about game rules in terms of "What do they represent / what are purpose do they serve", and I ended up with 'But there are times where getting to decide how to spread the love might not be conceptually appropriate, so I'm struggling to come to terms with all AP being *-rated and/or point-by-point allocated' stuck in my craw, that's all.
Ultimately elegance of rules is going to win out...Ogre is abstract enough that [at least in terms of hex-board play] where stacks are in relation to one another is entirely arbitrary, which is probably what'll convince me there's nothing wrong with splitting even something like that. In inch-board Minis play, that could be a different story, but I don't think it'll be enough of a difference to matter.
I'd played with the mechanics of a [host unit A-rating](AP) Howitzer shell last night for several hours. Several ideas came and went...everything from 'Must attack a hex, spillover only' [great for fitting the concept of a truly indiscriminate weapon, beyond awful for combat odds] to fixed odds [great at serving a battlefield purpose, but a use case so narrow I can't justify it existing]...and nothing panned out. The math sucked, the overall balance sucked, the 'Dx3 vs Dx1' balance sucked, the VP cost was way too high or way too low, it was a litany of annoying case rules, or any combination of the above.
Tactically, the only time I'd ever take such a thing would be as a squatter-squisher...the AP designation would mean the round, no matter how powerful and no matter how much you combined fire, can't damage terrain...good for driving Infantry out of a town that you want to park your own infantry in for that sweet, sweet 3x D.
That's it. That's the only benefit such a thing provides over just using a regular HWZ...clearing a town with no risk of turning a 3x D hex into a 2x D pile of rubble. That's such a narrow window of value that I don't see them being viable as anything other than a scenario gimmick.
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Though now that you bring it up, a *-rated standard howitzer munition could be interesting...but thinking practically I don't see how it's different enough from a trio of LADs to warrant a brand new unit / case rule.
Fluff-wise, I could see an "AP howitzer" it being something Nihon might explore for use in urban areas against China and their tidal waves of infantry, without having to take the time to flatten each and every city they come across...but given how much the two empires hate one another, would Nihon even hesitate before shelling Chinese cities back to the stone age?