Are we looking at it wrong?

[mughzee]

Cheer up buckeroo....There's a way. There's always a way.

 

 

 

right now the way stirkes works is that an model with FIST declares it...So if you have a platoon of 8 models all with FIST you could have eight stirkes back to back....(in essence) is this right?

 

K, going off of this being right.

 

25% of point can be alotted to strikes. In a 2000 point game that 500 points of strikes.....that a sh!t load of droppage. why not reduce the amount to 10%. in a 2000 pt game that's only two big nasty stirkes......not over balancing at all....now if you have 8 models w/ FIST it won't matter...you'll most likely have that many just to ensure you have someone on the table to call the strike when needed.

 

 

The other thing i was thinking iis that a strike could be an initiative card in itself. I model with FIST is required to call the strike, but use an initiative card to use the strike? I strike would be it's own platoon.

[Sergeant_Crunch]

The other thing i was thinking iis that a strike could be an initiative card in itself. I model with FIST is required to call the strike, but use an initiative card to use the strike? I strike would be it's own platoon.

 

Interesting idea. It would have to be worded that the player can pass on using the strike in case he wants to hold on to it for later.

[mughzee]

The other thing i was thinking iis that a strike could be an initiative card in itself. I model with FIST is required to call the strike, but use an initiative card to use the strike? I strike would be it's own platoon.

 

Interesting idea. It would have to be worded that the player can pass on using the strike in case he wants to hold on to it for later.

Right, definately give the option to pass.

[smokingwreckage]

The idea behind the chits declaring several POSSIBLE strike points is two fold: one, the strike has immediate tactical benefit, even before hitting. You can force your opponent to move, you can deny him ground. Two: when a strike is aimed at YOU you have a chance to either get out of the way or- and this is the potentially very fun part: call the other guy's bluff. It's a gamble, which is fun in itself. Then if you need to increase the effectiveness of strikes for a given faction, make the area effect bigger and therefore harder to avoid.

 

The idea here is to add FUN to the GAME. CAV2 is not going to be a simulation. What's needed is a mechanic that's fun. Getting your force hammered in the first turn with no opportunity to respond is frustrating, pointless, and un-fun. It will turn people off on the first turn of their first demo game. BAD!

 

If you want realism, most of your infantry should die before the battle starts (historically the great majority of infantry casualties are caused by artillery). Realistic? Yes. Fun? Not even a little bit. To be frank, ditch realism right up to the point where doing so makes the game counter-intuitive or obviously silly.

[Ivarr]

Nicely put....

 

I am quite curious to see how things look in the next rewrite of the beta rules.....

[mughzee]

really nicely put, but you still run into the problem of cost..I feel inevidably that spending 100 point on a strike will come to a halt if you never get to blow anything up with it (or hardly) because of everything reacting to it. It will definately be a great tactic to force ground and herd cattle..strikes would just have to be cheaper, cause they will be the ones everyone gets.

 

Now, going with the blips...I think its a great concept. you have x amount of blips to distribute on the table when you are calling a strike. you're really going to juice up your opponents nerves when s/he has to decide "which-way-do-i-go-george?which-way-do-i-go?" We just have to come up with cost vs effectiveness about it.

[Ivarr]

the cost vs effectiveness question is a huge concern.....and definately the primary problem with the strikes currently. But unless I am completely mistaken, it has already been posted somewhere that the next rewrite will include some cost adjustments...

 

I feel inevidably that spending 100 point on a strike will come to a halt if you never get to blow anything up with it (or hardly) because of everything reacting to it

 

Just bare in mind that this concern is a two way street...the flip side of what you stated is that if you can spend 25% of your points allowed and wipe 40% of your opponents forces off the board in the first turn or two, two things will happen....1. every tournament player involved in CAV will play with strikes....and 2. everyone else will quit playing CAV all together...or at barest minimum...every house will have complicated rules to "rope strikes in" or ban them alltogether.

 

After playing several games of CAV2 last night, I still have the same concern with strikes that I have stated before.....If the writers actually find a balance for strikes...then in an average game....player A spends 25% of his army points on strikes....and if he rolls decent, uses them to wipe out about 25% of the total damage tracks of his opponent....(given, there should be the chance that if he rolls well, it could be slightly more) But in the end...player A has used 25% of his army (which he does not represent aside from dice rolls) to remove 25% of his opponents army (which he presumably has bought, built and painted) ....why not just reduce the game by 25% so player B doesnt have to bother putting effort into painting and modelling an extra 25% of models....after all there is money being spent by player B to field 2k points or more

 

And honestly if the balance is proper with the strikes, both players probably spend their points on strikes....so player B loses 25% of his assets to player A strikes, and then returns fire with his 25% strikes (which BTW cannot be taken from him unless you remove all models with the ability to call for fire) hopefully getting the same value for them ...and thus removes 25% of player As toys......so in the end you have cut the game in half.....and I dont like the idea of half the toys on the board!

 

If this standoff of strikes occurs, the Terran faction ability of extra strikes is really useless also for all it does is increase the percentages spent and lost by the players...though with the extra FIST infantry perhaps a bit of an advantage getting to spend their strikes where they would like.

 

I understand that it is late in the writing process to change existing rules on a mass scale, and that the only suggestions being honestly considered at this point are minor changes to make the existing rules flow....so my suggestion is simply this: strike costs should be adjusted to be as fair as possible...and perhaps the requirement of a successful scan for fire will cut down the butchery in the first turn, though with a 60" range on scan... that particular adjustment wont help much in the shop where I teach and play as our largest board is 6'X6' and the ones we play on most are 4'X6' ..... But I honestly feel that what I have stated above is the truth about the outcome of including offboard assets...especially as such a poweful part of the basic rules to CAV2, and I emplore the powers that be to honestly consider major change....

 

I for one would be happy to wait a couple of extra week/months to have the game written and playtested properly......as this occurs so rarely in the modern gaming climate....

[von Richtor]

Ivarr has pretty much mirrored my thoughts I think. I would add (apologies in advance for my harshness) that strikes are the tools of the tactically inept. This is why I never considered playing the Terrans. To push the rediculous to the sublime, I say double the cost of all strikes and remove the 25% cap. I show up at the table having spent no points on strikes and my opponent shows up having spent 100% on strikes. Turn one, he dumps everything he has on me eliminating 50-75% of my force. I hold the table. I win. Yea me!

 

In short, I think that strikes should be expensive. It's a first turn concession to the superiority of your opponent. You should pay for that. Personally, I'd rather bank my points on being better than you rather than luckier.

[Crazy8]

How about this:

Remove the percentage cap for strikes.

Make the strikes fairly expensive.

Allow the Terrans to purchase strikes at 2/3's the cost of normal to keep their faction SA.

All strikes require LOS and Scan.

Strikes take place on the next turn after they are declared using the chit system.

Fluff the rules to ensure that all players can get their forces deployed before being bombarded, strafed, WMD'd etc, etc.

 

OR

 

Pull strikes all together and let house rules dictate strikes for each game. Leave CAV 2 as a small scale, tactical bloodbath. There's already a lot of fluff that points towards CAV conflicts as being fast and brutal. I'd rather play that way then have the strike option bog down the game or offset the whole point of it to begin with.

[mughzee]

You know, I played two games today. one with strikes just to see how they work, and the second without. the one with we used them as their own platoon. It worked well, but made the game too much....it just puts this bump in the game.....the second game, since we know what we're doing down, did indeed go smooth, fast, not many stop and asks and strikes just weren't even yearned for.

 

i like Crazy's or option. now that enough player have seen the strikes and have some sort of beta rules....pull them, make them house rules or optional, but not core..the game really doesn't need it....

 

 

You have a battlefield that a run down part of town.....building and city streets....cav chasing each other putting skill vs skill then.......wham! cruise missile.....yeah. just don't need it. I like that idea....and don't get me wrong....strikes were definately cool to use....but I didn't feel like I was playing the CAV I expected it to be.

[smokingwreckage]

IF they don't make the game more fun OR they don't increase tactical play THEN there is a strong theoretical case for axing them. I guess it comes down to wether you want the strategic stim.... I mean simulation intruding on the tactical in the form of strikes.

[Crazy8]

IF they don't make the game more fun OR they don't increase tactical play THEN there is a strong theoretical case for axing them. I guess it comes down to wether you want the strategic stim.... I mean simulation intruding on the tactical in the form of strikes.

I can't really see them enhancing the tactical aspect of the game. You've already got the airpower aspect covered by gunships and artillery with mortars and IFM's. Cruise missiles would be geared towards stationary hard targets, not individual units. And orbital strikes... well, I really don't have a modern day equivalent for an orbital strike. However, with the speed that CAV battles take place, it would be more luck then anything if an orbiting warship was in the right place at the right time to effect a battle on the surface.

 

If it comes down to it I'd rather see no strikes or have them be a set of optional rules for campaigns. Or make some broad generalizations covering cost, how to use a strike, etc. etc. and then let individuals make up their own house specific rules from the generalizations.

 

Like Wreckage said, strikes carry that taint of "strategic" with them. And CAV is a very tactical oriented game...

[smokingwreckage]

Yeah, when your air and artillery assets are already on the table, remote strikes lose their niche IMO.

 

I'm not a playtester though. I just have an over active opinion gland. If I didn't relieve it with some opining on the boards here I could end up in some sort of opinion-overload toxicity and go into shock..

[mughzee]

And even with the world around us......Stirkes most of the time occur before troops arrive. they prepare the lines.

[Chrome]

I can guarantee that if the US Army could call in pinpoint artillary strikes or orbital bombardment during a fightfight, they would. Comparing CAV strikes to how things work right now is pretty fruitless.

 

However, with the speed that CAV battles take place, it would be more luck then anything if an orbiting warship was in the right place at the right time to effect a battle on the surface.

How do you figure? They're in orbit. Their firing arc is over 1/3 of the planet's surface and they know where their guys are. All they have to do is stay in position over them.

 

You have a battlefield that a run down part of town.....building and city streets....cav chasing each other putting skill vs skill then.......wham! cruise missile.....yeah. just don't need it. I like that idea....and don't get me wrong....strikes were definately cool to use....but I didn't feel like I was playing the CAV I expected it to be.

Whisper missiles were my single favorite weapon in CAV and have been there since the beginning. Getting rid of them would be getting rid of an integral part of the game. You might as well get rid of Gunships.