VAS vs. ACTA

[Burger]

From what I've seen, VAS looks to have pretty similar rules to ACTA.

When I play a game, I'm not interested in discussing if a certain gun could fire a certain ammo type in a certain year, or whether my men should be wearing green or brown hats... that kind of stuff belongs on history channels, not round a gaming table. Of course it is good to be accurate but I don't want a 10-minute discussion whenever I try to fire something. I just want to pick my ships and play.

Is VAS something I should take a look at, or is it more for the history buffs and "accurate" wargamers who prefer historical recreations than blowing each other up in new and amusing ways?

How much of a learning curve (rules-wise) is there, considering the only game I know how to play is ACTA?

 

[Alexb83]

That's pretty difficult to say without a look at the full rules - I guess Wulf and Matt will have to answer.

But from the preview, it looks like they've pared down the rules quite nicely. If you were being really historically accurate, torpedoes wouldn't necessarily be one shot!, and you could argue for ages like you say about different ammunition types (the advantages and disadvantages of cordite, delayed fuses etc etc). Or how many damage dice you should get for a 15 inch shell compared to a 12 inch. It seems quite nicely put together.

 

[Shadow Queen]

I know that the U.S Navy carrys Marines (or jarheads no offence ment) for bourding actions and ship security

 

[Burger]

Oh yeah, there is a downloadable preview... DOH... only 1 other thread and I can't even read that properly

 

[Wulf Corbett]

How much of a learning curve (rules-wise) is there, considering the only game I know how to play is ACTA?

Barring the split of firing into Target Number and Damage Dice, the game runs pretty much identically to ACtA (and it's got fires!) Mind you, that can be a handicap, as there ARE some details of difference you have to catch.

Wulf

 

[Locutus9956]

well Im only going on the preview and the stuff from S&P a while back, but basically, it seems to differ from ACTA largely in the following ways:

Damage is ever so slightly more complex, but for my money seems actually to be a more refined and better system than ACTA.

Movement and turning is alot slower in general (turning uses a special template) again this is more than reasonable for a WWII naval game as opposed to fancy starships

No Premeasuring. Alot more guesswork involved when moving and more importantly, shooting. Again very small practical difference as once you get used to playing the game nearly any gamer gets pretty good at 'guestimating' range anyway!

All in all, VaS is probably NOT all THAT realistic n the grand scheme of things, its WAY WAY too simplified to make any such claims, but it DOES look like alot of fun for those who want a nice quick playing naval combat game where you can focus on the much more important factor of blowing the living monkey crap out of your opponents fleet :twisted:

Been looking forward to this one for some time now, (I even bought a load of WW2 ships in preperation)

Incidentally, since Mongoose have now said theyre NOT going to be producing their own minis for the game I offer this link to some abosolutely GORGEOUS 1/2400th scale WW2 (and other era's stuff)

http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/military-models-wwii-micronauts.html

Theyre amazingly detailed minis and I can highly recommend them to anyone interested in VaS

 

[Burger]

It sounds cool
Maybe I can use my Pirates of the Crimson Coast minis...

 

[Locutus9956]

Well ok its not quite THAT simple (though theres no real reason you couldnt use them to stand in (though personally I like to have cool minis that look like what theyre representing, hence the Micronaughts )

 

[Wulf Corbett]

All in all, VaS is probably NOT all THAT realistic n the grand scheme of things, its WAY WAY too simplified to make any such claims, but it DOES look like alot of fun for those who want a nice quick playing naval combat game where you can focus on the much more important factor of blowing the living monkey crap out of your opponents fleet :twisted:

We had a discussion on that, and the official word for palytesting was that we did not WANT it to be so realistic it slowed it down. So long as the data was accurately reflected between ships, and the results realistic (yes, the Hood can go spectacularly Bang!), the goal was to make a fast-play fleet action game.

Hell, originally 'Destroyer' was a generic one-size-fits-all template :shock:

Wulf

 

[Burger]

Yeah they are pretty cool models
For a n00b who doesn't know what 1/2400 translates to, how big are they?

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Yeah they are pretty cool models
For a n00b who doesn't know what 1/2400 translates to, how big are they?

Battleships are a few inches long, comparable to ACtA I'd say. I use 1/3000, which are an inch and a bit in general.

Wulf

 

[Burger]

Is there anywhere to download the other required materals to give VAS a try (templates, moving rules, firing rules etc)? Or do I have to wait for it to be released properly?

 

[Locutus9956]

yep the Micronaughts ones are about ACTA sort of scale minis. The Bismark is about 4" long with destroyers and Uboats about 1" long. Also the pictures on the site really dont do them justice, I cannot begin to describe quite how amazingly detailed they are (I havent got round to painting mine yet or Id post some piccies, though Im almost scared to touch them with a paint brush for fear of losing some of the detail )

 

[Locutus9956]

Is there anywhere to download the other required materals to give VAS a try (templates, moving rules, firing rules etc)? Or do I have to wait for it to be released properly?

I expect theyve changed a bit since here but heres the orignal preview rules in S&P (including some templates and counters) theyre a bit rough about the edges and I decided to wait for the proper release before really trying the game out but it should give you a bit of an insight:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp29wargamer.pdf

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/spwargame30.pdf

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Is there anywhere to download the other required materals to give VAS a try (templates, moving rules, firing rules etc)? Or do I have to wait for it to be released properly?

If you trawl through back issues of S&P you should find the first free version. I think they were in the mid-20s issues. The original template (which I hate & hope was changed) is there, as are full simple rules.

EDIT: OK, late 20s 8)

Wulf

 

[Burger]

Cool thanks guys I'll take a look

 

[mthomason]

Is VAS something I should take a look at, or is it more for the history buffs and "accurate" wargamers who prefer historical recreations than blowing each other up in new and amusing ways?

I can't imagine any game that would force you into historical accuracy - if there were rules that said it it's easy enough to choose to ignore them.

I usually feel it's better that the game represents historical/canon accuracy as much as possible, because it's easier for a group to decide they don't want to use those bits than to decide they want them and have to do the research to add them back in ACTA works well there, for example, because you have the in-service dates and can choose whether or not to use them. I feel the whole accuracy thing is something thats more up to how an individual group wants to use the rules, than something that should be "hard-coded" into the rules.

Much like roleplaying, wargaming is your game, so when your group wants (through concensus, obviously) to deviate from the rulebook you should feel free to do so.

All of that said, I haven't seen the final version of VaS and can't really answer your question...

 

[Locutus9956]

I think the point is not so much the historical accuracy issue but some games in their search for 'realism' end up with collossaly detailed tables for every little factor and it ends up taking 6 hours to play out about 3 minutes of 'real time' (this I would say was the one big problem with B5 Wars when compared to ACTA, in just about every other respect I actually prefer B5Wars and yet I have played ACTA sooooo much more)

 

[mthomason]

I think the point is not so much the historical accuracy issue but some games in their search for 'realism' end up with collossaly detailed tables for every little factor and it ends up taking 6 hours to play out about 3 minutes of 'real time' (this I would say was the one big problem with B5 Wars when compared to ACTA, in just about every other respect I actually prefer B5Wars and yet I have played ACTA sooooo much more)

Yup. And you know, I've actually found most of those games with the huge tables end up feeling far less realistic because you end up worrying about niggling little rules details that a real commander wouldn't be aware of. You end up with something that spends so much time simulating real-world physics that you lose all feel of the action in the battle.

I much prefer something that abstracts as much as possible (not too much, obviously), leaving me to base my tactics on which models to move where.

 

[E Nicely]

I was playing one of the more complex WWII naval games and completely gave it up for VaS. It's nice to play a game that I'll actually finish rather than stop playing because everyone's too wiped out from handling lots of tables and using algebraic formulae to fire torpedoes.

Yeah, it's on the abstract side, but a 16 inch gun is still a 16 inch gun. A few special traits differentiate the hardware in the game. If you like CTA and think WWII ships are cool you'll love this game.