Balancing out the Missile Tank

[Macunaima]

Costing it out in the Cobb Calculator as three 1-4 attacks brings the MSL up to 5.87.

It's also a nasty anti overrun vehicle in that configuration.

[Ashley]

Tweaking with HC formula:

Atk 1 Rng 5
Atk 1 Rng 5
Atk 1 Rng 5
D 1 M 2 LT

Where it moves as a Light tank and gets double in overruns costs 6.25 VPs, which looks like it's on the nail, and is probably as much as I would want to polish up the unit. Still needs play-testing though.

[hcobb]

The target the Missile Tank was born to shoot at is the cruise missile. If you leave important parts of the game in the box, you'll get a distorted view of it.

[Macunaima]

Wrong, Henry. The MSL existed long before the cruise missile and 9 out of 10 ogre games don't use cruise missiles anyway. I, for one, prefer to ignore them and lasers except in very specific circumstances. Many other players feel the same way.

[hcobb]

Saturation Fire: The Msl Tank, MHWZ, and HWTZ can devote their entire sensor systems to scanning a single hex for their missiles. Before rolling the die for a ranged attack with these units the owning player declares "Saturation Fire" and their contribution to spillover fire is not halved as would be normally calculated. All of these units are then flipped over to their disabled side after firing, and will recover during their next recovery phase.

Note that this has no effect on movement, it just lowers their effective defense for one enemy turn because of the distraction of target focus.

[brettd]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Saturation Fire: The Msl Tank, MHWZ, and HWTZ can devote their entire sensor systems to scanning a single hex for their missiles. Before rolling the die for a ranged attack with these units the owning player declares "Saturation Fire" and their contribution to spillover fire is not halved as would be normally calculated. All of these units are then flipped over to their disabled side after firing, and will recover during their next recovery phase.

Note that this has no effect on movement, it just lowers their effective defense for one enemy turn because of the distraction of target focus.

Interesting idea. I always thought of the How as an 88. Probably cause it looks like one. Always thought of the Msl as an MLRS or a Katushka. So I think of the Msl as more of a a saturation weapon and How as more a precision weapon. It therefore would not bug me to restrict this kind of thing to Msl. Just personal taste.
You could argue that reduced defense is due to extended fire giving away position too.

[Ashley]

The more I think about this the more I like the idea of being able to split attacks into one point packages for howitzers and missile tanks. It changes none of the mechanics and needs no new rules, but adds tons of flexibility, and for me adds the in game feel of lots of shells/missiles being fired.

[hcobb]

How about allowing light missile armed units to split their fire, but all targets must be in the same hex and all attacks are declared before any are rolled?

[brettd]

Originally Posted by Ashley

The more I think about this the more I like the idea of being able to split attacks into one point packages for howitzers and missile tanks. It changes none of the mechanics and needs no new rules, but adds tons of flexibility, and for me adds the in game feel of lots of shells/missiles being fired.

Makes sense to me. Not sure HOW needs help tho, and would cream gev units, no?

[dwalend]

Originally Posted by Ashley

The more I think about this the more I like the idea of being able to split attacks into one point packages for howitzers and missile tanks. It changes none of the mechanics and needs no new rules, but adds tons of flexibility, and for me adds the in game feel of lots of shells/missiles being fired.

You might also like Talorien's CRT-free combat resolution. It takes away the need to split attacks to integer division, so it plays faster. Plus you get to roll lots of dice, so howitzers are louder than LGEVs. http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=86186 (I'd skip the activation bit -- it's slow and moves the game pretty far from Ogre, but the combat resolution is pretty fun.)