[DW] The Desolation of Innocence (RPG OOC Thread)

[Machine God]

That's what I thought Trokair.

Space Hulks are conglomerations of ships squashed together in the Warp. In this part of the ship Width has been shrunk.

Mazer has turned into Rod Serling...

 

Look at this way:

Movement and shooting on the Horizontal Plane is twice as quick than on the going Up and Down.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Machine God
Let me take you on a journey...

[Mazer Rackham]

7 minutes ago, Machine God said:

Mazer has turned into Rod Serling...

Turned into him?

Rigged from the start. 

[Lysimachus]

Either way they get to move (and possibly Charge) first. At 0.5m grid they might be close enough to Charge at us in Round 1, at 1m grid it's less likely...

To be honest though, I like the 0.5m. It feels much more claustrophobic, which is what SH should be! 

 

Edit: there isn't any way to set Overwatch before they come around the corner, is there? Whoosh!!! Mmm, crispy! 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Just tell me how you want to roll lads, and I will make it so, through the magic of television.

You don't even need to adjust your set, after all...

In other news, I have all the Init values now, so the phase will be a new map, I just need to know which scale you all want by majority vote.

EDIT: And your choices are 1 x 1 or 0.5 x 0.5

InB4 Necro with "HaLf A MilE pLs GM, okthx bye." 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Trokair]

I don’t mind either, as long as it makes sense. So whatever the others are happy with.

[Machine God]

Let's just go for 1m x 1m squares, normal speeds and ranges.

For all we know they might just be more Hybrids or maybe Grots....

Or Genestealers

[Necronaut]

I don't understand why noble Britannia has abandoned the Imperial system of measurement in favor of the heinous (and FRENCH) abomination that is the metric system, but this is not the forum for such discussions.

That aside, I'm indifferent as to whether we're operating on a 0.5 m^2 or 1 m^2 system, though the 1 m^2 scale makes the math marginally easier/faster to calculate, so out of practicality 1x1 gets my vote. Also Terminator armor is massive, being nearly as wide as it is tall (call it a roughly 2/3:1 or 2:3 aspect ratio), so the 1x1 scale looks more true to my eye, assuming those smallest squares are 1mx1m and our character tokens are roughly true-to-scale.

Also why would I want the scale to be half a mile?! I'M HERE TO RIP AND TEAR!

[Necronaut]

8 minutes ago, Machine God said:

Let's just go for 1m x 1m squares, normal speeds and ranges.

For all we know they might just be more Hybrids or maybe Grots....

Or Genestealers

Definitely grots. Strap on your stomping boots -- we're making grot-paste today.

[Mazer Rackham]

4 minutes ago, Necronaut said:

I don't understand why noble Britannia has abandoned the Imperial system of measurement [SNIP]

Indeed, I believe Decimalisation was the original cause of the Horus Heresy, and we cannot afford such dissention here.

Necro makes a good point about the size of TDA.

So we're 2 votes for 1m squares, with Tro being his reasonable self, and 1 vote elsewise.

[Necronaut]

I actually had a good chuckle IRL when @Trokair brought up the possibility of spatial distortion along the y-axis of Mazer's grid. I'm a delight at parties.

[Mazer Rackham]

58 minutes ago, Lysimachus said:

Edit: there isn't any way to set Overwatch before they come around the corner, is there? Whoosh!!! Mmm, crispy! 

Unlikely.  Er, I mean, we'll see, no problem.

*Space Hulk Vibes Intensify*

EDIT: Oh, on the crispy thing, do be advised the napalm enemas you're handing out will burn for a while, and anyone crossing it will be subject to potentially becoming a candle.

EDIT 2: And weirdly, you can't Overwatch with a flamer.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

1 hour ago, Lysimachus said:

Edit: there isn't any way to set Overwatch before they come around the corner, is there? Whoosh!!! Mmm, crispy! 

Yes - for two cohesion points (plus any additional for cross-chapter activation) Luthais can activate his squad mode as a reaction to the start of combat.

Everyone gets a free surprise round which can be used to set overwatch, etc, and can also roll an extra dice and pick the highest for initiative.

Whether that is worth burning the cohension though...

[Mazer Rackham]

Map is now up:

 

[Machine God]

Apparently it was a Britannic Clergyman that invented the accursed system the Frankishmen under Old Bony adopted it so that they could make some Excellent Water Slides.

I change my vote to 3' x 3' squares.

Anyway as an aside FFG were an American company and all the Ranges in Deathwatch are in metres

[Mazer Rackham]

I do enjoy these little intellectual sojourns between bouts of unruly and unmitigated violence.

It somehow stirs within me the hope, that one day, we will all lay down our yardsticks and slide rules, and embrace the grim inevitability that aliens measure in screams and entrails*.

I've set the scale for 1m x 1m for now, for ease of use for everyone.

 

* Kidneys, Liver or other biological equivalent which meets the weight value for "gobbet" or "giblets".

Edited July 11, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

If I am reading the map right, 11 squares away - so I could move into combat but not attack?

[Machine God]

If I am reading the map right, 11 squares away - so I could move into combat but not attack?

A.T. - No Luthais is fine. 11 squares is your Run move(?) gets you to the square just around the corner next to the First Blip. He just needs to whack out with his LC's and touch his friend the Blip. Remember that Terminators are larger than the squares.

 

Or just Charge like you did last time Charge range is further...

Edited July 11, 2022 by Machine God
Charge!

[Mazer Rackham]

Yep Charge is possible, as only last 4 metres have to be in a straight line, or tactical advance - either is up to you.

I'll put an update up to reveal what you can see.  If you wish to alter your action, a Challenging (+0) Ag test will allow a change.

[A.T.]

Due to a streak of very marginal dice rolls (and the possibility that the target may dodge the thunder charge rendering all of the rest of the action invalid) I shall wait on some of the outcome and edit my post as appropriate.

Possible outcomes range from absolutely nothing happening through to some hundred points of damage being inflicted - given genestealers considerable dodge rolls i'd suspect the former...

[Mazer Rackham]

Response up.  Grisly!

Necro, you're on.

[Necronaut]

@Mazer Rackham okay so Luthais splatted the gene-stealers 1 & 2 by the look of things. Should he be moved all the way up to where 2 is currently shown on the map?

Additionally, sorry to be a bother but it is still a little unclear to me as to which size of square is our 1m square on your map -- is it indeed one of the smallest squares that denotes a 1m square, or is it a 2x2 cluster of those small squares, or a 3x3? I hope I'm not asking too much, but if you could please clip a small snippet of the map and post it in here with a red box surrounding an example 1m square I would be most appreciative. Or alternatively maybe just adding an equivalently/correctly sized box to your map key next to the grid description should help clear things up. Or just confirmation one way or the other in text as to your design intent would be most satisfactory. At present I'm having a little difficulty determining where I could move Arcturion and what he would see at the end of said movement action. 

 

Much appreciated.

 

Edit: I now see the wisdom of declaring the smallest squares to be 0.5m squares, if that was indeed the original intent. As Lysimachus said, it would certainly make for a more claustrophobic map like in OG Space Hulk. I had not fully processed the scale of the map whilst on mobile, sorry. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

@Necronaut Yes Luthais should be there, but due to the reveal of the Genestealers, I "paused" his move, to give him a chance to react if he didn't want to charge into melee with a four-armed horror.

His turn was then resolved after the map was put up, so yes, he should be all the way to Genestealer 2's position.  However, I have not revealed the other blips because of facing, and to try and drag out a little tension, thus providing a more Space Hulk-like experience.  I can resolve this if players prefer, by setting the map up with the Blips fully revealed.

On the map scale, yes, my intention was (as discussed with Trokair above), to have the smaller squares be 0.5 x 0.5. 

After player consultation above, they were changed to 1 x 1m.  This may have been passed over in editing.

My underlying intention was to try and capture the feel of wandering around in a space hulk, with some space crusade overtones.

Since this is now causing player confusion, we'll pause things while I have a look at how I can improve the maps.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

That was unexpectedly messy.

Terminator move speed is pretty terrible - however the attack and auto-stabilized rules do make up for this to some degree.

-anyone making a semi-auto or full auto attack (but not a single shot) can make a half move plus their agility bonus and still shoot, but their lose the bonus to hit.

(i.e. a marine with agility 40 can move 9m and shoot their stormbolter on semi-auto)

If anyone took the armour ability 'death from afar' this extends to using heavy weapons like assault cannons.

[Mazer Rackham]

After some experimentation, I think one avenue that would solve this problem is the realisation that we're converting a board game. A simple solution could be just to get rid of movement rates, and change them to Tile Rates ie, 3/6/9/- (metres) turns into 3/6/9/- TILES on a 1-1 scale map, just like the board game.

However, that brings its own problems with special abilities/effects based on movement rates.

Re-reading Ark of Lost Souls doesn't solve this, because it obviously places emphasis on theatre of mind.  That could work, but it removes the focus of strategising.

Test Map:

Spoiler

 

[Lysimachus]

That's an interesting idea!

I've played the SH board game once or twice back in the mists of time, did it work that you were engaged in combat if you were in an adjacent tile to an enemy? Might be an idea to widen the corridors to 2 tiles so players can pass each other?

Hmm, the question that comes to me now is how would Philemon's Heavy Flamer work?

Hmm.

I think the trouble is that there are probably all sorts of interactions like that that we haven't though of yet that will be made more confusing if we use tiles (Weapons ranges, Short and Long Range, Support Range, etc, etc).

My gut feeling is it might be easiest to go back to your original plan of 0.5m grid? We still get some movement (8 squares as a half move isn't terrible?) and it keeps things simpler? Plus, Terminators are meant to be slow (edit: and Genestealers scary fast!) so we'll just have to think more carefully about how we want to use our Actions?

Edited July 12, 2022 by Lysimachus