Question on the new cards for SST EVO- PEE-WEE nukes

jmpltd

Mongoose
PEE-Wee nukes.

I don't have the advance rules for BFE - just the basic rules. We don't usually play head to head games of SST just scenarios. Many of which are shoot and scoot - take out the evil plasma bugs that are killing the fleet and then get away before you are all killed in the process. (Lot's of fun no matter which side you play)

Where I was headed was that in the old rules a Pee -Wee rolled three d10+4 - If you made the target score it equaled 2 hits and if you rolled the kill score it was 4 hits. (Because of the multihit factor) Flame and killshot too.

This is sorta a question for the Mongoose folks who are on the list. As written so far (on these demo cards- that is) if you roll the target number it equals a kill and 2 hits. Still with three d10+4 rolled. Which if you look below means a Plasma and King Tanker have a 100% chance to survive a Pee-wee Nuke.

Unless I am am missing something?

I would suggest that if they insert the sentence?

"Damage dice that roll the kill score of a model will count as having rolled two kills......" thus a maximum of 12 hits which kills everything under the sun.

Then the universe is back in order again.
(This is the way we will play it anyways)

Since the point shift didn't really affect the old play as all these items nuke and bugs are more or less 300 pt. Unless my reading of the the 300 points per pee- wee is wrong and I get two if I bought two longbows all for 300pts??

Here is the problem:

Old rules: plasma bug -10 hits Target 5 and Kill 9 Good chance a nuke toasted the bug
Now: Plasma bug 8 hits Target 5 and Kill 10 Nuke can not kill as written -six is the most hits possible?

Old Tanker 6 hits. Target 7 and kill 12. Good chance a nuke kills the bug
New tanker 6 hits. Target 7 and Kill 12 Good chance a nuke kills the bug
No problem here three roles of three or better equals a kill - 2 hits. total 6 hits.

Old King tanker I can't remember- don't have my Bug book with me. Good chance a nuke kills the bug
New King Tanker 8 hits. Target 7 and kill 12. Nuke can not kill as written- again six hits is the max?

BTW- I do like the faster pace of the EVO rules especially when we have a big turnout of players.

Pondering all this as we await the new release. So did I miss something??
 
I'd imagine Evo is alot quicker, simply because theres alot less you're able to do under the new rules.
Painstaking movements taken to deny reactions, out the window, why bother when you only have one reaction per turn?
Cinematic fights flowing up and down the table, a thing of the past.
Tunneling from mulitple angles to herd the MI into a death trap replaced with the much faster rolling a D6.
MI flying from one end of the table to the other in a masterful display of shoot ready reaction jump, ready, jump, ready, not anymore ready's dont carry over into the next turn.
And with the shatter rule objective you can win in 2 turns conciveably.

Probably is a much better set of rules for people rushed for time, like a after school clubs (I remember trying to play massive 4 way wfb battles as a kid, didnt work :D), or for conventions for all those reasons.
 
Like I said when you have 8 to 10 players the one reaction does take less time per trun. Which gets used up trying to get that many players to move all their troops. These are usually new players so we try to keep the pace up as sitting sucks.

We actually play a bit of a hybrid of both rules merged together to give a good game flow. (We use EVO methods if they speed play - but I should say often we give better units more than one reaction per turn- avoids the cheese of moving a unit to entice the use of a reaction so you can move other units up with no reaction) I still like the old " Units Act, models React."

Since we play scenarios rather than head to head games (never played one of these myself- About the time the Wasp boys did a flying version of daylight bombing raid I would have lost interest or just laughed- after all it just a game)

In our games if you are a timid Bug player- micro measuring your moves to avoid reactions your fellow bugs players will pick on you for being workers rather than warriors. We/ they reward themselves for most bugs killed in battle- It's better that way!

Like I said the games are all scenarios so most liekly there will always be lots of bugs, bad terain and the MI under the gun to complete a mission.
Most of the time the MI are LAMI so they can get hard pressed to complete the mission and live.

We also use a hybrid of the tunneling rule. As in EVO you are rolling a die to see when you break through but there are tunnel markers on the board some real some not mvoing at you from several directions. We also have a option for a hidden bug hole ambush as well.

Our games are for fun -LAMI (like in the movie) trying to win one for the species. If you live your unit gets better. If not just more fodder for the machine.

So I really agree more with all of you about EVO- my note was really about a pee- wee nuke defying the laws of physics and not normally vaporizing anything in it's area of use???

So are most or you head to head players?
 
jmpltd said:
So are most of you head to head players?

Not in my area. We almost always run larger multi-player games of SST with 2 or more players per side. Our next battle is about 6,000 points per side on a 4x24 with probably about 6+ players per side.

We're still playing 1st edition, but the SST:Evo Pee-Wee does sound understrength if it can only do 6 hits. Of course cockroaches are expected to survive a Nuclear Apocalypse so why not the the very big ones too?
 
jmpltd said:
So I really agree more with all of you about EVO- my note was really about a pee- wee nuke defying the laws of physics and not normally vaporizing anything in it's area of use???

Defying the laws of physics? Nukes are just explosives, the same as anything else explosive, and you want your man-portable ones to not blow up the launcher. So you squeeze down the yield until it can be launched from less than the next county over. If in the process you lose the ability to take out hardened bunkers (or the bugs that approximate them), then I guess that's why you've got all those other weapons :). If SICON wanted to level the place, they wouldn't have sent MI in the first place: that's why they have those fancy starships up in orbit.

Don't get me wrong: if you want to up the power level on your nukes, feel free. But I'd boost the point level a bit. As described in this thread, it seems like you would never see Tankers or Plasmas on the table: too easy to nuke.
 
Yep - our games are usually 5 by 12 or 5 by 18. Lots of room but we never really use the pts that much- except when designing a secnario to try and have an idea of play balance.

Well the understrength nuke in EVO will never really be a problem because there is alway the 1st edition rules which covered everything nicelyl. I like the new cards as they will help new players and we'll use them after we correct them! Just add the one line- "Kill rolls equal two kills". Wanted to have some consistency between the two rules- I only wondered if it was just an edit error that needed to be fixed?

But since you bring it up. A nuke really isn't like a regular explosion of TNT. You can compare it by it's yeild to a level of TNT but the ground zero effect in even a very very small tactical nuke is not just it's explosive power. Disruption of atomic partical makeup, heat, fusion, fireball affect, bah bah bah-bah bah.

Now tankers do just fine in our games- yep they often attract pee wee's. In the last game there were six LAMI units with some built up areas, two heavy weapons, 2 pee wee nukes and a Tactial air stike if it arrived (it did).
VS 10 warrior units of 10 bugs, 3 Tankers and three units of hoppers 5 bugs each -just in the first wave.... The LAMI's did complete the mission- loss a bit over 60% and the rest were retieved. Some nice comendations were written for both living and dead MI. Everyone had a great time- 8 players our usual group. I suspect the points totals made this a very unfair fight as there were three waves of bugs possible. It did have a very low probablity of survival for the MI. That is why it was fun.

It's Better that Way!
 
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