Pre-release Bug cards
- Thread starter Poi
- Start date
SIcon advisor
Mongoose
cool
most stats are similar to existing ones
a few kill scores went up
tunnelling now free, but random when tunnellers arrives.....
basically removed a few of the special rules and weapon abilities or just simplified them.....
most stats are similar to existing ones
a few kill scores went up
tunnelling now free, but random when tunnellers arrives.....
basically removed a few of the special rules and weapon abilities or just simplified them.....
Mixed opinion. Stats on the cards are fine and easier than crossreferencing, although I'd already been using Hiromoon's 1st ed. cards. I'm glad to see the stats have changed very little. Reactions are now 6" away to countercharge. I'll have to see how that plays.
Tanker Bug- I don't often use these myself, so this is mostly an observation. It is Size 4, yet the card says it ignores terrain 1" high or less. That's a big change for folks who use taller terrain that the Tanker would have simply ignored in the past.
Tunnelling- my initial reaction is that this new method is way too abstract for my tastes. Besides having 3 sets of GF9 tunnel markers and homemade tunnel assets that I'm not planning to dump, I also felt the original tunnel rules added an extra and unique dimension to the rules and more tactical decisions and challenges for both the Bug and MI players. Nominating a point and having a die roll seems too much like the other sci-fi skirmish games using teleport or other types of gimmick deployments based on nominating a point and a straight die roll. Been there, done that, passed on the T-shirt.
I'm still very much looking forward to trying this at Gencon, but I'm guessing my local group will be discussing whether to stay with first edition rules for our home games, especially the tunnel rules. A few wanted something simpler but a majority of us already playing, myself included, really like many of the sophisticated mechanics that set SST apart from other games. We'll see how it all plays out. I can see the advantage of the simpler rules for mega-games. In smaller games I would miss the extra mechanics.
Tanker Bug- I don't often use these myself, so this is mostly an observation. It is Size 4, yet the card says it ignores terrain 1" high or less. That's a big change for folks who use taller terrain that the Tanker would have simply ignored in the past.
Tunnelling- my initial reaction is that this new method is way too abstract for my tastes. Besides having 3 sets of GF9 tunnel markers and homemade tunnel assets that I'm not planning to dump, I also felt the original tunnel rules added an extra and unique dimension to the rules and more tactical decisions and challenges for both the Bug and MI players. Nominating a point and having a die roll seems too much like the other sci-fi skirmish games using teleport or other types of gimmick deployments based on nominating a point and a straight die roll. Been there, done that, passed on the T-shirt.
I'm still very much looking forward to trying this at Gencon, but I'm guessing my local group will be discussing whether to stay with first edition rules for our home games, especially the tunnel rules. A few wanted something simpler but a majority of us already playing, myself included, really like many of the sophisticated mechanics that set SST apart from other games. We'll see how it all plays out. I can see the advantage of the simpler rules for mega-games. In smaller games I would miss the extra mechanics.
That is interesting. Not sure this really changes anything if you have been using the Evo rules. You can still "charge" from outside the 6, it is just called a move reactionGoldwyrm said:
I wonder if this is a change to the size/clearance rules or a nod to the fact that a tanker's rear half body really isn't size 4 off the ground...Goldwyrm said:
I hear that. I will miss the tunneling. I would want a change to make them not as available as before. I have to agree that the all tunneling army is kind of beardy, and shatter is not a scenario in all games. One solution would be to make them a Heavy asset, i.e. only one of every swarm can tunnel, and you are sacrificing a Tanker to hide under some rocks. Or you can make anything tunneling need a burrower bug(taking points and a Support slot at least). I like this latter solution because in the book, tunneling was done exclusively by workers if I remember correctly. In the movie, you see bugs come from the ground, but not actually tunneling distances. I imagine the tunneling bugs set up their ambushes.Goldwyrm said:
The old tunneling rules might make decent "scenario" rules, that just keep popping up in almost every scenarioGoldwyrm said:
Argh. Non-tunneling Brain Bug. That's just silly.
How are you supposed to defend this thing?
It'll be dead in 2nd turn.
Also I miss the style of some units. This Tanker spit stream was so cool and the new artillery rules are REALLY weird.
To just not only complain here a list of good things (bad thing list will folow soon enough):
- Some bug's stats are better than before (Guards have 3+ Save and make otherwise sense now, Firefries D6 CC, Tiger Bugs have Target 6 and thus are worth fielding)
- I like the new swarm/horde rule
How are you supposed to defend this thing?
It'll be dead in 2nd turn.
Also I miss the style of some units. This Tanker spit stream was so cool and the new artillery rules are REALLY weird.
To just not only complain here a list of good things (bad thing list will folow soon enough):
- Some bug's stats are better than before (Guards have 3+ Save and make otherwise sense now, Firefries D6 CC, Tiger Bugs have Target 6 and thus are worth fielding)
- I like the new swarm/horde rule
Galatea said:
I missed that. Doh!!
Galatea said:
Actually, I thought the old artillery rules were weird. So this is an improvement :lol:
Galatea said:
I play Bugs more than MI but the stats before were fine by me. I'm wondering why forming a horde is useful if the other side only gets 1 reaction anyway? In the past if you had 2 units of Warrior Bugs closing in on a MI squad both could be reacted to, since movement is by unit. Combining them into one unit before moving made sense in that case to reduce the alert status reactions. Now with 1 reaction per turn there is no need or am I missing something?
MaxSteiner
Mongoose
Not looking to shabby appart from the tunneling rules, but I imagine they'll make their way into the optional rues available for download or something simmilar prettydarn quick, they're just to good to replace with GW's tunneling system! 
That said, as a bug player, I dont think I'll be complaining to much when I can travel all the way to the end of the board in 3 turns, only have to face one fire reaction per squad lol, Im assuming bugs have been boosted for reasons of balance? (I'd normally mention how I thought the balance was pretty damn tight before, but what with my recent run of extremly bad luck against marauders I think I'll let someone else take up that banner)
I only have one thing to ask...
Does the brain bug only get id sending now? It seems trange that it would list that and no other powers on the card if other are available...
So either it losses the subteranian trait and gets id sending for free, which I can kind of live with since it makes Guard bugs worthwhile, or its lost 75 points of free psychic powers and become a 250 pt extra action per turn, which will die on turn 2 unless you spend 150 points adding some guard bugs :shock: .
Oh and the new artilary rules are stolen from Warzone which isnt too bad. I thought it was quite a novel system back in the ninetees, and its way way better than using GW style artilary dice.
I think I might kinda miss the old artilary rules, but if it stops every single MI shot being direct fire I suppose it might be a good thing...
That said, as a bug player, I dont think I'll be complaining to much when I can travel all the way to the end of the board in 3 turns, only have to face one fire reaction per squad lol, Im assuming bugs have been boosted for reasons of balance? (I'd normally mention how I thought the balance was pretty damn tight before, but what with my recent run of extremly bad luck against marauders I think I'll let someone else take up that banner
)I only have one thing to ask...
Does the brain bug only get id sending now? It seems trange that it would list that and no other powers on the card if other are available...
So either it losses the subteranian trait and gets id sending for free, which I can kind of live with since it makes Guard bugs worthwhile, or its lost 75 points of free psychic powers and become a 250 pt extra action per turn, which will die on turn 2 unless you spend 150 points adding some guard bugs :shock: .
Oh and the new artilary rules are stolen from Warzone
which isnt too bad. I thought it was quite a novel system back in the ninetees, and its way way better than using GW style artilary dice.I think I might kinda miss the old artilary rules, but if it stops every single MI shot being direct fire I suppose it might be a good thing...
JoseDominguez
Mongoose
Hmmmm...... tunneling was what our group felt set SST apart from the rest, now it's no different to drop pods or deep strike in 'other' games.
Definately starting to feel that the differences that made SST stand out are vanishing. Tunneling (and countering it) was a major part of any game plan, now it's just a random dice roll.
Why buy a brain? It's a 250 point target designed to cripple your army for two turns now (you lose your reactions in the turn it dies, as well as only getting one action in your own). And not being able to go underground.... that's got to be a general rule that's not shown on the card. Otherwise this isn't even feeling like starship troopers anymore.
Guard bugs..... nasty when used in conjunction with the new 'pop up anywhere on the board' tunneling rules. In fact, won't most games deteriorate into a game of 'whack-a-mole' now? The main focus for bug armies was to advance under heavy fire and get into close combat (using tunnels, flight etc...) , now you get that on a dice roll, e.g. if there are five decent bits of cover on the board, send a tunnel unit to each, sooner or later you'll wipe out a unit with some cheap tunneling warriors.
Do MI still get emplacement assets? Surely this makes them pointless as you just send a tunneller to each, no chance of stopping it now.
Take a 2000 point game. I'll have 1000 points of hoppers, ripplers and plasma, and 100 workers in units of ten.
100 points of workers, dirt cheap, if they tunnel up under a unit of MI, that's one less unit of MI, you've only got to get lucky two or three times and they make their points back without effort. Even with warriors it's worth the risk. ten warriors will shred most MI units, with the old tunneling rules you had to think about it and spend the points carefully, 50 points added to the cost of a cheap unit was a risk..... but now, what the hell. It's like a supercharged 'ambushing warrior bugs' you can take as many times as you like, plus the unit gets to move afterwards. A bog standard MI unit with no heavy weapons is 195 points. Thats 2 units of 10 undergound for each unit, just not possible with the old rules: a bit of luck and every Mi unit could be wiped out with no real chance of fighting back, not saying that relying on luck is a good thing, what I'm saying is you couldn't do it with v1, the greatest tactical genius on the planet could be wiped out of half a dozen warrior units pop up under his units at the right time.
Far too random for me, I hope it gets fixed.
Not trying to be negative, but the SST connection was what got me interested in the game, the mechanics are what encouraged my group to buy into it. But arachnids with random tunneling doesn't feel like Starship Troopers and the mechanics are getting way to similar to other games. The other problem with the random dice roll is timing.. I'm fairly sure a subterranean tunneling race could coordinate it's arrival slightly better than that
The random popping up of bugs would be a great command asset, but it's far to simple to replace such a big part of the original game.
Bring on the whack-a-mole
Definately starting to feel that the differences that made SST stand out are vanishing. Tunneling (and countering it) was a major part of any game plan, now it's just a random dice roll.
Why buy a brain? It's a 250 point target designed to cripple your army for two turns now (you lose your reactions in the turn it dies, as well as only getting one action in your own). And not being able to go underground.... that's got to be a general rule that's not shown on the card. Otherwise this isn't even feeling like starship troopers anymore.
Guard bugs..... nasty when used in conjunction with the new 'pop up anywhere on the board' tunneling rules. In fact, won't most games deteriorate into a game of 'whack-a-mole' now? The main focus for bug armies was to advance under heavy fire and get into close combat (using tunnels, flight etc...) , now you get that on a dice roll, e.g. if there are five decent bits of cover on the board, send a tunnel unit to each, sooner or later you'll wipe out a unit with some cheap tunneling warriors.
Do MI still get emplacement assets? Surely this makes them pointless as you just send a tunneller to each, no chance of stopping it now.
Take a 2000 point game. I'll have 1000 points of hoppers, ripplers and plasma, and 100 workers in units of ten.
100 points of workers, dirt cheap, if they tunnel up under a unit of MI, that's one less unit of MI, you've only got to get lucky two or three times and they make their points back without effort. Even with warriors it's worth the risk. ten warriors will shred most MI units, with the old tunneling rules you had to think about it and spend the points carefully, 50 points added to the cost of a cheap unit was a risk..... but now, what the hell. It's like a supercharged 'ambushing warrior bugs' you can take as many times as you like, plus the unit gets to move afterwards. A bog standard MI unit with no heavy weapons is 195 points. Thats 2 units of 10 undergound for each unit, just not possible with the old rules: a bit of luck and every Mi unit could be wiped out with no real chance of fighting back, not saying that relying on luck is a good thing, what I'm saying is you couldn't do it with v1, the greatest tactical genius on the planet could be wiped out of half a dozen warrior units pop up under his units at the right time.
Far too random for me, I hope it gets fixed.
Not trying to be negative, but the SST connection was what got me interested in the game, the mechanics are what encouraged my group to buy into it. But arachnids with random tunneling doesn't feel like Starship Troopers and the mechanics are getting way to similar to other games. The other problem with the random dice roll is timing.. I'm fairly sure a subterranean tunneling race could coordinate it's arrival slightly better than that
The random popping up of bugs would be a great command asset, but it's far to simple to replace such a big part of the original game.
Bring on the whack-a-mole
JoseDominguez
Mongoose
Probably...
I wouldn't have thought so though, can't see them overhauling everything, simplifying it then making it complicated again in the book.
I'd like to think otherwise though.. mongoose, is this the extent of the new tunneling rules? Or do we get more depth? (pun intended).
Still, it's easier to pick up than the original, so new players will take to it quicker.
I wouldn't have thought so though, can't see them overhauling everything, simplifying it then making it complicated again in the book.
I'd like to think otherwise though.. mongoose, is this the extent of the new tunneling rules? Or do we get more depth? (pun intended).
Still, it's easier to pick up than the original, so new players will take to it quicker.
I seem to recall that the Tunneling rules in specific were going to have a more complete (a.k.a. like the old) version in the advanced rulebook. I'm unable to search for the citation at the moment, though.
Did the old Brain Bug have Tunneling? I thought it didn't, and had to use other bugs for mobility. I'll check when I get a chance, I guess.
Did the old Brain Bug have Tunneling? I thought it didn't, and had to use other bugs for mobility. I'll check when I get a chance, I guess.
JoseDominguez
Mongoose
It couldn't tunnel itself, but could access tunnels and move freely. I assume (hope) that's an 'extra rule' not needed on the card.
Gauntlet-
Banded Mongoose
Well first off... Matt Sprange did say at several topics that more advanced tunnel rules will be included in the main rule book!
secondly, your brain can be underground they just force you to do so via a Guard Bug unit!
thirdly... hmmm Id Sending has become Rupture's retarded cousin... I'm okay with that, as Rupture was utterly broken.
secondly, your brain can be underground they just force you to do so via a Guard Bug unit!
thirdly... hmmm Id Sending has become Rupture's retarded cousin... I'm okay with that, as Rupture was utterly broken.
Voracioustigger
Mongoose
These are temporary tunneling rules, so nobody should worry about these being in the game for the long term.
@ Jose -
Workers definitely are too cheap (and always have been) & Tigers are still too expensive...
The new rules of only being able to be knocked back 2" max definitely helps workers a TON too (as that was one of the major drawbacks of workers before)
But SST is made to be simple and odd numbers like 11pts or 23pts just don't seem to fit in the game for matt.
Maybe someday I can convince him...
@ Jose -
Workers definitely are too cheap (and always have been) & Tigers are still too expensive...
The new rules of only being able to be knocked back 2" max definitely helps workers a TON too (as that was one of the major drawbacks of workers before)
But SST is made to be simple and odd numbers like 11pts or 23pts just don't seem to fit in the game for matt.
Maybe someday I can convince him...
Tiger Warriors are worth taking. They have target 6 - remember this makes in combination with evo rules Target 7 if there's any obscuring terrain between them and your rifle.
So a small wall or hill will make them invulnerable to gun fire and firecrackers.
(just another problem I have with Evo, these Models with target 5 and 6 getting unshootable beyond cover/obscurement)
So a small wall or hill will make them invulnerable to gun fire and firecrackers.
(just another problem I have with Evo, these Models with target 5 and 6 getting unshootable beyond cover/obscurement)
Voracioustigger
Mongoose
Galatea said:
Lots of playtesting makes me believe that that is a LOT less useful than you might think.
