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Old 07-12-2022, 05:08 PM   #1
HeatDeath
 
Join Date: May 2012
Default Midville Drone Ambush scenario

Quote:
That's what the guy with the dreg-shredder thought. What he did not reckon with was me, and my knowledge of "insurgent" tactics.

For ex.: The battle was played out on the original Midville maps -- which included a department store. My side rigged the old store mannequins to look like a cluster of dregs hiding in the building. The drone came thundering up, rammed through the wall -- and plunged straight through the strategically-weakened floor into the basement filled with "dragon's teeth" obstacles.

Also: Have you ever noticed how much a typical streetside storm drain looks like a slit-bunker? I have. I had my troops shooting from those; the TH penalty to shoot at them was *huge*. And the less said of the AV Crossbows shooting "Bangalore Torpedo" bolts (the 2' bolt described in _Chassis & Crossbow_, loaded with homemade Plastique)....

End Result: I was able to annihilate his $500,000 force using maybe $50,000 in gear, through superior strategy and tactics.

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've created...." >;)
Interesting battle. This definitely highlights the difference between 4e's nature as an RPG [Gamemaster definitely /not/ optional] vs. 6e's lesser ambition as "merely" a supremely well-balanced wargame. Hidden information can be fun, but it's not really in the cards with 6e atm. I actually appreciate that - keeping all the information public makes soloing the game both possible and fun.

What rules were you using for the drone's sensors? Or was it a subjective call by the GM?

Seems like the battle began and ended when the GM let you spoof the drone's sensors to that degree. Drone player should definitely have studied those rules harder and made sure his tactics failed gracefully in the even his sensors betrayed him.
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Old 07-13-2022, 02:03 AM   #2
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: Midville Drone Ambush scenario

With infantry in later rule sets it is very easy to invert the CW rules as the basic premise of the game is predicated that infantry need to be fairly ineffective. In the original game (1985 and earlier) very few pedestrian weapons could even scratch a car and the few that could were woefully inaccurate or hideously expensive (and the two tripod recoilless only had 3 shots).

The best AV weapon was arguably the SMG and that could do a maximum of 3 points per firing action so with 10 pedestrians with equipment costing $3700 you could reliably breach the side armour off most of the stock vehicles in a few turns (since most had 20 points or less). The only car approaching that price was the Killer Cart and a lucky pedestrian could breach that with a single burst. With AV rifles and the like several pedestrians are usually better than an equally costed car. It is inevitable as the majority of the cost of the car is getting the weapons into the fight, with a pedestrian the majority of the cost is the weapon itself.

Infantry in ambush can knock out a car before it can respond effectively. The more expensive the car, the more cheap infantry you can field. Every one of them gets a firing action each turn, the vehicle will probably get two. Pedestrians are vulnerable to burst effects, but that is easily mitigated. They are hard to hit and when braced they can easily hit the much larger vehicle even with it's speed modifiers. That is probably why we don't tend to have normal cars with guns attached in real-world militaries (technicals are usually improvised by militias). Real-world doctrine is that even tanks don't go into urban areas without infantry support.

The best tactic for a car that encounters emplaced pedestrians is to "get the hell out of dodge". It subverts the scenario, but the scenario isn't a fair one in the first place. The only defendable measure of victory is if you play the scenario twice and each player has a turn playing the pedestrians. Then you can see who destroyed the car with the least loss of life (or expended ammo if it turns out the car failed to kill anyone at all).

Basically it is one of those cases where the car can't really win, but the pedestrians can lose if they are deployed badly. Simply hiding spread out in rubble (which is hardly sophisticated) is probably good enough.
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Old 07-13-2022, 02:38 PM   #3
43Supporter
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Midville Drone Ambush scenario

[QUOTE=HeatDeath;2442807]Interesting battle. This definitely highlights the difference between 4e's nature as an RPG [Gamemaster definitely /not/ optional] vs. 6e's lesser ambition as "merely" a supremely well-balanced wargame. Hidden information can be fun, but it's not really in the cards with 6e atm. I actually appreciate that - keeping all the information public makes soloing the game both possible and fun.[.quote]

"Hidden info" can be done in 6E -- it's a simple matter of "if it's behind something reasonably solid, it cannot be seen". This is where "what is a light obstacle, and what is a heavy obstacle" becomes an issue.... :)

Quote:
Originally Posted by HeatDeath View Post
What rules were you using for the drone's sensors?
_CW Tanks_. The drones had radar, IRSS, and other-such sensors. Those were useful, but could only tell the drone player so much -- radar says "there's something big over there"; IR says "there's heat signatures inside"; there's *nothing* to tell him "the floor will not support the weight of a car".

Quote:
Originally Posted by HeatDeath View Post
Seems like the battle began and ended when the GM let you spoof the drone's sensors to that degree. Drone player should definitely have studied those rules harder and made sure his tactics failed gracefully in the even his sensors betrayed him.
While not *quite* as arrogant and stupid as the Omnicidal Maniac of NOVA, this person definitely thought he was more clever than he was. He was the same idiot who accidentally left his folder of vehicle designs at the gaming shop, which I then photocopied and returned to where he'd left it; he never figured out how I knew what vehicle he was using at an event after that....

But: Yes, that battle was over before it ever began -- like most battles in history. Just not for the reason you mention. :)
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Old 07-14-2022, 02:56 AM   #4
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: Midville Drone Ambush scenario

For those like me who are confused by the open ended references this thread has been transplanted out of context from the 6th Edition forum.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=183148

NOW it makes sense :)

Last edited by swordtart; 07-14-2022 at 03:02 AM.
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