My son and I ran another bout of "Panzer8 - Sci-Fi" this past Sunday. This time around I set up urban terrain, courtesy of downloads of printable terrain from "Dropzone Commander".
Here is the setup and starting forces:
The goals were to control the black church building on the upper right corner of the map and the gray military control building on the lower left corner.
I tweaked the hover units to give them about 50% more speed and tweaked the mechs so the Medium Walkers moved a little faster than the Heavy Walkers and the Light Walkers moved a little faster than the Medium Walkers. We allowed that the big buildings would provide cover for the walkers and the VTOL ("Gravity Effect Vehicles" in the original Panzer8 rules) provided the VTOL was not flying "over" the building. Makes the city more claustrophobic and deadly.
VTOLs can only be hit by Light Weapons and Infantry. This means that the darned things can hover around shooting at your medium and large Walkers/Tanks with impunity. Luckily I had 2 Light Walkers and 2 Light Tanks. My son made those the primary targets. Didn't help him much - but one of the two VTOLs was the last unit left on his side at the end of the game. Those "hammers inside of eggshells" can be more useful than you think.
Running a Light Walker past a Medium Tank (with a turret) was not a good idea in this case. The standard 360 degree firing arc vs the rear armor of the Light Walker (Half Defense Value) made for an ouch for my son.
At the end of the battle I had won a clear victory - which could have been very muddled if I had lost my ability to deal with the air power from the VTOLs.
I also looked at the game balancing - while the points added up and yes, I ended up making hovertanks more expensive due to increasing their move...well, it seemed unbalanced even then. Which made me think about another game involving quick carnage and hovertanks - Steve Jackson's "GEV".
I decided to look at the force lists I had put together and give them arbitrary "Armor Unit" values. A heavy tank or walker was given 2 armor units, a medium tank or walker was given 1 armor unit, a light tank or walker was given a 1/2 armor unit. I gave the VTOLs 1 armor unit. I gave infantry a 1/3 armor unit and Marines/Motor Bikes/Jetbikes/etc a 1/2 armor unit.
Applying the Armor Unit values to the forces I put together gave the Tracked Forces a 2.5 armor unit advantage over the Hover Forces. My son and I will have to try again with a game balanced by armor units.
And darn it, I need to get more MechWarrior Clickies, both mechs and vehicles. We want more options....
Thanks!
Mark Gipson