Pointless Units

[Cat]

Pointless, but we love them and think they deserve points of their own.
: 3

I'm in the midst of working up a deluxe unit reference sheet for gaming with miniatures instead of cardboards. To date, I've been using a 3"x5" sheet with scans of the most typical unit counters. I greatly prefer how easy it is to visually scan the counters for all the combat data compared to tracking lines and columns in a tabular format. Currently beefing that up with additional text info that everyone wants to know at some point during the game.

Adding text for each unit with the abbreviation used on the Terrain Effects Table, unit size, armor unit value, squad unit value*, and victory points. With the extra text, I'm going up to the next size thermal laminating pouch, 4" x 6". 4" x 6" also allows room to add a bunch of the less common units; wherein one discovers that those less common units don't have assigned points values. Well, I shall value them, even if others don't.

With games at the FLGS and local cons, I've come to appreciate the whole Armor Units thing as the quickest way to get new/rusty players into tweaking their forces. The quickest approach is to layout a 'suggested' force, and then let them swap as desired to taste. Gaming at homes with friends who are reasonably up to speed on the rules, we typically decry the combined and quirky use of both 'armor units' and 'victory points'. But running games with lots of new/rusty players, I've found that the armor units scale immediately wins the day during set-up. Victory points are for the end of the game.

* So, I've drunk the Kool-Aid and thrown myself on the Hand Grenade Equivalents (that's a Car Wars joke): just went and created the parallel category of Squad Units to keep infantry selection on a par with vehicles. 1 regular Infantry Squad = 1 SU, the base value by which one trades infantry types. For unarmed transport vehicles, I'm assigning them values in both AU and SU, so they can be purchased from either pool.

For a standardised set of values I'm starting with the following.

Transports (they can always be adjusted if desired for specific scenarios):

Truck, TK, Sz1, 1/6AU, 1/2SU, 1VP.
Truck (Armored), TKa, Sz1, 1/3AU, 1SU, 2VP.
Hovertruck, HT, Sz1, 3VP, 1/2AU, 1-1/2SU, 3VP.

Guns:
If there are points for these somewhere, I've missed them.

Light Artillery Drone, LAD, Sz1, 1AU, 6VP.
Light Howitzer, LHWZ, Sz2, 1AU, 6VP.

Also, haven't seen an official Size rating for a LHWZ; could be a 2 or a 3 depending on how crunchy they are as ramming targets. Without the big ground installation of a full HWZ, I'm leaning towards 2.

Big GEVs:
I don't expect we'll be seeing plastic versions of them anytime soon. (Unless someone at a high enough pay grade would care to drop a helpful hint....) They will likely go on the back of the card along with useful info for Ogres and other odds and ends.

Have these been given points and sizes in a scenario or article that I've overlooked? I'm leaning towards 9VP, but 12VP has merit too. They shoot like (2) GEVs, but die like (1) GEV, and move a smidge slower.

Heavy GEV, HGEV, Sz3, 1-1/2AU, 9VP.
Missile GEV, MGEV, Sz3, 1-1/2AU, 9VP.


GEV-MCP size question — a regular MCP is Sz4; so, GEV-MCP I'm thinking Sz5?

[TheAmishStig]

Can't speak for most of it, but! The MGEV / HGEV are both listed at 9VP in Barbarians at the Gate. The Cobb formula gives them slightly lover values, they're rounded up to reflect their rarity compared to standard GEVs.

[Cat]

Originally Posted by TheAmishStig

Can't speak for most of it, but! The MGEV / HGEV are both listed at 9VP in Barbarians at the Gate. The Cobb formula gives them slightly lover values, they're rounded up to reflect their rarity compared to standard GEVs.

Ah, good to know. Others may be squirrelled away someplace too and not ported into the 6E(R) rulebook. 9 is just a more sensible number for trading AUs around.

If the price point turns out to be unbalanced in play, they could always be adjusted with a few AP for a small buff.

[Misplaced Buckeye]

Great work Cat. I understand the sheet would be easier but did you try the counter under the mini that we discussed in another thread? If so How did it work for you?

[Cat]

No, I haven't gone for the counter under the mini. That would be too fiddly for movement and the numbers not always readily visible across the gaming table. By local convention, we allow stacking to be whatever minis can fit in a hex without piling them on top of each other and counters would be extra fiddly for that. Even without vehicle stacking, infantry riding vehicles becomes problematic.

I'm quite happy with the speed and ease of use of a reference card which also contains more tidbits of useful information that speeds up play if players have it at their fingertips.

[offsides]

Originally Posted by Cat

Ah, good to know. Others may be squirrelled away someplace too and not ported into the 6E(R) rulebook. 9 is just a more sensible number for trading AUs around.

If the price point turns out to be unbalanced in play, they could always be adjusted with a few AP for a small buff.

The HGEV and MGEV are, IIRC, officially unofficial units (does that even make sense? :P), as they have not been published in any official rules that I can recall. Their stats (and 9VP cost) are part of Drew's amazing Barbarians at the Gate booklet, but with the reskin only using units with existing rules/stats (plus armored trucks & GEV-MCPs) I don't expect the {H|M}GEV to become official anytime soon. That said, there's no reason you can't use them in your games, especially if you have the counters :)

[GranitePenguin]

Originally Posted by offsides

The HGEV and MGEV are, IIRC, officially unofficial units (does that even make sense? :P), as they have not been published in any official rules that I can recall. Their stats (and 9VP cost) are part of Drew's amazing Barbarians at the Gate booklet, but with the reskin only using units with existing rules/stats (plus armored trucks & GEV-MCPs) I don't expect the {H|M}GEV to become official anytime soon. That said, there's no reason you can't use them in your games, especially if you have the counters :)

This is the correct assessment. They are not official units, which is why they have not been included in official rules.

[dwalend]

Originally Posted by TheAmishStig

Can't speak for most of it, but! The MGEV / HGEV are both listed at 9VP in Barbarians at the Gate. The Cobb formula gives them slightly lover values, they're rounded up to reflect their rarity compared to standard GEVs.

Henry's latest modifications to the formula have MSLs at 5.67 . Plus they're rounded quite a bit. I wouldn't worry about it overmuch unless some unit starts showing up in your games too often for reasons that don't make sense.

For example, I'd expect variant GEVs to rule water scenarios. If they start showing up - and winning - in slug fests in forest then something may be out of joint.

[Cat]

Originally Posted by dwalend

Henry's latest modifications to the formula have MSLs at 5.67.

Hmm, the Missile GEV should be more than a basic GEV. They lose a point of movement in each bound, but at 3/3 they have a stronger attack than a GEV; and firing at range 3, they can retreat just as far from the target as a GEV firing at range 2.

[hcobb]

Does the formula still apply under the new rules?

You can see all of my decade old tweaks in the source code for

http://www.hcobb.com/gev/formcalc.html

But those were mostly to address things like laser weapons that can't actually hit all of the hexes within their radius.

BTW: If you want a missile tank that's actually worth a full armor unit then give it Heavy mobility so it can blast SHVYs.