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Here's my dilemna - how should I treat a WWII-style howitzer in Brikwars
rules? The barrel, from breech to tip, is 16 studs long, and it's
simply mounted on a two-wheel chassis with which to be towed by my
Sd.kfz 251 Halftrack. When we last played Brikwars, lo those many days
ago. I was using it as a Mark II Ballistic Weapon ('using' is a bit of a
stretch - it never fired). This seems somewhat reasonable - all mounted
large machine guns or large machine gun emplacements can be treated as
ballistic weapons, which is in keeping with the WWII theme, IMO (since
ballistic destruction comes from the kinetic impact, not an energy pulse
ala lasers ...)
BUT I decided I wanted to limit the ammo of the howitzer to as many
"shells" as I decide to pack into the halftrack (a shell being composed
of two 1x1 gray cylinders with a gray or black 1x1 cone on the end).
This looks cooler, and simulated the large shells that need to be fed
into the breech between every shot. This *feels* right to me. But,
this is more in keeping with the idea of a mass driver - large amounts
of damage, large range, manual reload each turn, etc. etc. So the
howitzer becomes a Mark II Mass Driver.
Which is all well and good until I hook it up to the back of the
halftrack and note that it instills a -12" movement penalty, which drops
the swanky halftrack down to a robust 4" of movement each turn.
Grrrrrrrrr. That doesn't seem right a'tall. Granted, some penalty for
towing a howitzer is appropriate, but this is a little hard to stomach.
So I guess what I'm asking is how to resolve this in a fair,
justifiable, "historically consistent", and communal fashion. Should I
forgo the coolness of the mass driver and return it to its ballistic
status? Should I abide by these rules, and say the howitzer is made out
of cast iron and uses epoxy for axle grease? Should I wiggle through a
loophole and say "well, technically, the howitzer isn't mounted on the
halftrack ..."? Can we come up with some reasonable middle ground that
makes everybody comfortable (though I don't want to jump on the slippery
slope of making everything customized in the game). Keep in mind, my
object here isn't to have a kick-butt weapon - I don't care if my guys
get pummelled, as long as they look cool and have a strong theme to
them. I'm looking for the most historically-and-sensibly (in Brikwars?
Blasphemy!) WWII-accurate interpretation of a towed howitzer that fits
in the framework of the game.
Any thoughts?
[expletive deleted], I have a tendency to ramble!
shaun
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On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 22:25:06 GMT, Shaun Sullivan <sullis3@mit.edu>
wrote:
> Which is all well and good until I hook it up to the back of the
> halftrack and note that it instills a -12" movement penalty, which drops
> the swanky halftrack down to a robust 4" of movement each turn.
> Grrrrrrrrr. That doesn't seem right a'tall. Granted, some penalty for
> towing a howitzer is appropriate, but this is a little hard to stomach.
Well it does say that you can tow other, smaller vehicles, with a
movement penalty equal to that vehicles power rating. (2000 rules
4.1.3 - third from last paragraph) If you treat the Mass Driver MkII
as a vehicle in and of itself, you'd only have a -10" movement penalty
as its power rating is 10.
The 2000 rules show a MkII Mass Driver movement penalty as -16", while
the MkI has a -12" penalty.
Jeff Christner
Visit Sixby Fire Tech at - http://members.aol.com/regult/
Help support my LEGO habit. Ship by rail.
Visit http://www.nscorp.com/ to find out how.
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Ahh, that's it! I looked up vehicle stats in the Brikwars 2000 tome (I'm
slowly making the conversion from version '98), and it all makes sense to
me. Under the 2000 guidelines, the halftrack is actually a "huge" treaded
vehicle, with base stats of Power 14, Move 8". Towing a Mark II Mass Driver
would incur a movement penalty of 10" (due to the power rating of 10 for the
Mark II), which the Power 14 of the halftrack could absorb, with enough left
over to account for the Ballistik machine gun mounted on the roof and an
additional 5 troop payload. Thus, the halftrack can putter along at its
maximum speed of 8" towing the Mass Driver/Howitzer, which seems reasonable.
Not too fast, not too slow, etc. I can live with that.
Thanks Jeff!
shaun
Jeff Christner wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Apr 2000 22:25:06 GMT, Shaun Sullivan <sullis3@mit.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Which is all well and good until I hook it up to the back of the
> > halftrack and note that it instills a -12" movement penalty, which drops
> > the swanky halftrack down to a robust 4" of movement each turn.
> > Grrrrrrrrr. That doesn't seem right a'tall. Granted, some penalty for
> > towing a howitzer is appropriate, but this is a little hard to stomach.
>
> Well it does say that you can tow other, smaller vehicles, with a
> movement penalty equal to that vehicles power rating. (2000 rules
> 4.1.3 - third from last paragraph) If you treat the Mass Driver MkII
> as a vehicle in and of itself, you'd only have a -10" movement penalty
> as its power rating is 10.
>
> The 2000 rules show a MkII Mass Driver movement penalty as -16", while
> the MkI has a -12" penalty.
>
> Jeff Christner
>
> Visit Sixby Fire Tech at - http://members.aol.com/regult/
>
> Help support my LEGO habit. Ship by rail.
> Visit http://www.nscorp.com/ to find out how.
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