In non-political news
Posted By matt on October 7, 2008
I picked up a copy of Battlefield Evolution: Modern Combat.
Some thoughts:
- I like the idea of a “Fire Zone”. Basically, if shooting at a squad of baddies with small arms fire, you designate a center and take casualties within 3″ of that center. This solves the “you can only shoot at one squad” problem you see in games like 40K.
- I don't like the fact that you have to be within 6″ of your squad leader in order to be in coherency. I prefer a straight “within 2″ of other folks in your crew forming a chain to the squad leader”, so you can set up a proper skirmish line.
- There are no morale rules. I can't say that I care for that from a simulationist perspective, but it probably makes it fun to play when your soldiers don't run away (but they can be rendered ineffective and reactive only if they lose too many folks).
- I like the integrated rules for combined arms – artillery, air, etc.
- The combat seems pretty simple. Your weapon determines your range and the number of dice you get to roll for attack (presumably these numbers change depending on if it is an AR in the hands of a US Marine vs. an AK in the hands of a random untrained civilian, but I haven't gotten to comparing the army lists yet). The target numbers you need depend on whom you're shooting, and there are two “hit” and “kill”. Kill casualties are removed immediately, and hit casualties get to make armor saves. The numbers make it way easier to shoot untrained civvies vs. Navy SEALs, and the SEALs get an armor save. So, you end up with a roll to hit and maybe a save, and that's it. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Specifically, I'm not sure the to hit rolls have enough variability to account for the vast differences in the training of troops. Remember – it's not being able to fire your weapon as much as it is able to deliver effective fire under combat conditions.
I'm not sure how readily adaptable this is to micro armor, though. The fire zone stuff and ranges are easily handled, but the only way I can think of to handle infantry is to actually roll for individual soldiers and then have dice next to the stands to track the wounds.. which is kind of lame.
So, I think it is still Dirtside II for microarmor, but I have some 15mm marines and insurgents which should work well with this ruleset.
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