It has begun...

[Sergeant Crunch]

I guess the real question is, what kind of stats do you give radioactive breath weapons?

[DSumner]

Originally Posted by Sergeant Crunch

I guess the real question is, what kind of stats do you give radioactive breath weapons?

Attack 6, Range 2. Think of it as a short range charged particle bean type weapon.

[gamerrev]

Originally Posted by DSumner

Attack 6, Range 2. Think of it as a short range charged particle bean type weapon.

I read that sentence and thought of my father. "Bean type weapon." Lethal in the car or other enclosed spaces.

[D351]

Originally Posted by gamerrev

I read that sentence and thought of my father. "Bean type weapon." Lethal in the car or other enclosed spaces.

I approve this message.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by gamerrev

I read that sentence and thought of my father. "Bean type weapon." Lethal in the car or other enclosed spaces.

My father possesses the same, uh… weapon. I'm afraid I can't offer any specific stats, because I'm not going on the suicide mission it would take to gauge those stats. All I know is that it's an AOE attack, and it lingers.

[HeatDeath]

Originally Posted by Sergeant Crunch

I guess the real question is, what kind of stats do you give radioactive breath weapons?

I honestly have a hard time visualizing a Godzilla-type monster breath weapon damaging anything from more than 750 meters away. So I'm gonna have to give it a range of 1 tops. Come to think of it, I'd say it does full damage at a range of 0 and half-damage at a range of 1.

As for the damage level... If the monster is HUGE, I might give it a damage of 3, 4 tops, against units in the same hex. A radioactive breath energy weapon of any reasonable energy level just isn't going to have the punch of a stream of smart tacnuke shells.

A strength of 4 gives it reasonable odds of taking out a heavy tank in it's own hex, which feels about right.

I realize that at this point I've nerfed our monster into the point of near-irrelevance on the Ogre battlefield, so to compromise... I'll make the breath weapon area affect, so it affects it's current hex and one hex at range 1, and attacks everything in both of those hexes separately and simultaneously, with the additional wrinkle that infantry platoons each defend against it separately with a defence of 1. This makes the monster positive death on infantry, but only a mild inconvenience to nuke-hardened heavy armor, which seems plausible to me, and has the additional bonus of being a pattern not represented in any of the game's existing units.

To finish fleshing the thing out, I'll give it a movement of 1, 2 tops - again, I have a hard time visualizing a Godzilla-type thing doing much better than that in a sprint. I'm being somewhat charitable letting it keep up with power-armor infantry, so it definitely shouldn't go faster than that.

That leaves defense. Hmmm. I'm probably gonna have it take damage like Ogre treads - it has hit points that get reduced by incoming attack factors until it's dead. Fewer than a Mark III though - I'd guesstimate 20-30.

An alternative would be to give the thing an armor threshold - say maybe about 10 or so, so that if you do more than 10 damage points to it in a single turn you've penetrated it's skin and killed it dead, otherwise it's thick hide protects it. I actually like this better than the tread factor "life bar" because it's a different mechanic than any other unit in the game currently has.

And it should be different, because none of the other units are organic. The area affect weapons and "threshold to kill" mechanic give this beastie quite a different "feel" from anything else in the game. Which seems right.

[underscore]

I'd give him one 2/0 "bite" attack, one 2/0 "punch big things/grab and throw small things" attack that moves any surviving target one hex back (with a 1/0 "beanball" hit?) and maybe two 1/0 AP "stomp" attacks. (Maybe the "stomp" attack can target armor with Xs -> Ds: it takes a while to dig your BPC tank out of the hole it's been squished into.)

Plus I'd let him "ram" immobile targets (and city hexes) for lots of dice. Godzilla attacks a huge city map, anyone? ^_^

How about a final 2/0 revenge attack when he dies, signifying him falling over on something?

EDIT: I found (mod edit: broken link removed) from a link on the BGG thread. I really like the "energy reserve" and "regeneration" rules. All the distances need 'minis -> hexes' translating. (And I think you'll agree to reduce the movement from 3 hexes to 2 and redistribute the 'body points'.) And we have to work on the attack strengths... although, down that road, "how tough is BPC" madness lies.

[MongolHorde]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

To finish fleshing the thing out, I'll give it a movement of 1, 2 tops - again, I have a hard time visualizing a Godzilla-type thing doing much better than that in a sprint. I'm being somewhat charitable letting it keep up with power-armor infantry, so it definitely shouldn't go faster than that.

But, Godzilla could fly!
That ought to be worth a special movement, say at least GEV quick, but unable to attack during any turn while moving in this manner...
:-)

[underscore]

That's clearly a ram at the end of that video, :-p

[six's monkey]

That also took place on Planet X, IIRC.
Conditions there may well be different, considering that gold is apparently more plentiful than water.