Ambush Alley Designers Lessons Learned from TW

[darren damant]

For the designers of TW, what are your “Lessons Learned” from TW.  What did you find worked?  What did not?

IMO what seemed not to work:

No meaningful command structure for regular units.  Higher Headquarters personnel were pointless and contributed nothing meaningful in-game.

The Reaction Player being able to continue to potentially react fire throughout the turn with the same unit while the Initiative player could only shoot once with an activated unit.  The whole Action System was rather vague with few hard limits on what a unit could do in a turn.  Stargrunt 2 had a limit of 2 actions per unit which makes sense and puts a limit on what can be achieved in a turn.

Close Combat ambiguities (eg: what is the TL of the close combat weapons of the human troops  in the book?  Are US marines TL3 (lightsabers) in close combat or are they TL1 (bayonette?)

The Morale system is very bland, with only Pinned or Pulling back as a game effect during fire combat.  There is almost no meaningful way to reduce a units morale and cause them to break other than by Close Combat.  There should be specific events which if occur can reduce a units Morale over time (loss of the unit leader, excessive casualties, abandoning casualties, ect) and ways to inspire units which have had their Morale reduced.

Stress Test System too cumbersome.  To use the system one has to track each unit and record what occurred to them throughout the turn.  This is unfortunate since this is the only real way to effectively reduce a units Morale and potentially cause them to flee the field.

Confidence System broken.  High Confidence troops are impossible to suppress while low confidence units are almost always suppressed.  This whole system seems to have been a modified version of the Mission Motivation System from Stargrunt 2, which was better IMO.

Small arms combat too effective at long range.  Perhaps making the target number for the attacker higher the farther the target unit is would be an answer?  (eg D8 units within optimum range hit on a 3+, at 9-16″ they hit on a 4+, 17-24″ 5+, and so on).  Heavy Weapon teams could be allowed to double their effective range according to their TQ, making them more effective at killing.  Or, rather than changing the target number a reduction in Firepower would be in order?

These are just a few things off the top of my head which I find troublesome with the game engine.

 

 

[Jörgen Andreasson]

darren damant wrote:

No meaningful command structure for regular units. Higher Headquarters personnel were pointless and contributed nothing meaningful in-game.

To be honest I don’t think that leadership on a higher level play much role on the level this game is played. Regular troops can easily have almost anyone act as a squad or platoon leader, these troops are trained to easily replace chain of command for temporary solutions. Combat in TW are just too short and direct for higher up leadership to be relevant.

 

darren damant wrote:

The Reaction Player being able to continue to potentially react fire throughout the turn with the same unit while the Initiative player could only shoot once with an activated unit. The whole Action System was rather vague with few hard limits on what a unit could do in a turn. Stargrunt 2 had a limit of 2 actions per unit which makes sense and puts a limit on what can be achieved in a turn.

Not really sure what really is the issue here. Initiative troops may always fire back in a Round of Fire as long as it have firepower dice and initiative side can use over-watch for suppression or interference firepower.

If two acting units activated in front of two reactive units and they both shot at both acting units then all involved units will each be able to shoot two times each, even the initiative units. Unless someone is pinned, suppressed or broken that is.

This is why I think this game are so great, it is very realistic and dynamic in that sense. You obviously don’t want to draw too much reactive fire with one and the same unit unless you have good over-watch fire as cover.

 

darren damant wrote:

Close Combat ambiguities (eg: what is the TL of the close combat weapons of the human troops in the book? Are US marines TL3 (lightsabers) in close combat or are they TL1 (bayonette?)

Close Quarters combat in this game is not reflecting hand to hand combat as it does in most other similar games. It just mean that units are so close that weapons killing power increase exponentially and cover becomes more or less irrelevant. I guess most soldiers just use their primary weapons or things like grenades more than bayonets and laser swords. In my opinion a Space Marine Bolt pistol or Gun are more dangerous than a chain- or power- sword, the sword are just a “what if” weapon, much like a knife would.

Models armed with a Bolt Pistol and a Sword such as a Space Marine I would mostly just treat as any other soldier and assume he is also armed with a regular assault rifle (Bolt Gun). I see no reason why all Space Marine standard issue weapon would be a Bolter, Pistol and perhaps each leader in a half squad have a ceremonial sword with no particular bonuses.

 

But that is just me… 🙂

 

darren damant wrote:

The Morale system is very bland, with only Pinned or Pulling back as a game effect during fire combat. There is almost no meaningful way to reduce a units morale and cause them to break other than by Close Combat. There should be specific events which if occur can reduce a units Morale over time (loss of the unit leader, excessive casualties, abandoning casualties, ect) and ways to inspire units which have had their Morale reduced.

I agree with this to a degree, the problem is that high quality troops are VERY difficult to pin down or suppress effectively in my opinion so some sort of degradation here would be good. Something in the line of if half squad is seriously injured or dead you degrade quality/confidence one step for moral purposes. Or something along those lines would be fine.

This would also give some good incitement to offload wounded soldiers to be transported to a safe area so your front line soldiers morale can be boosted to normal again.

 

darren damant wrote:

Stress Test System too cumbersome. To use the system one has to track each unit and record what occurred to them throughout the turn. This is unfortunate since this is the only real way to effectively reduce a units Morale and potentially cause them to flee the field.

Agreed, this system need a revision. It is great if you care to use it.

 

darren damant wrote:

Confidence System broken. High Confidence troops are impossible to suppress while low confidence units are almost always suppressed. This whole system seems to have been a modified version of the Mission Motivation System from Stargrunt 2, which was better IMO.

Agreed… this is a problem with how higher dice value increase the chance non linear. For suppression I think that any casualty on the suppression roll should degrade the roll to resist suppression.

 

darren damant wrote:

Small arms combat too effective at long range. Perhaps making the target number for the attacker higher the farther the target unit is would be an answer? (eg D8 units within optimum range hit on a 3+, at 9-16″ they hit on a 4+, 17-24″ 5+, and so on). Heavy Weapon teams could be allowed to double their effective range according to their TQ, making them more effective at killing. Or, rather than changing the target number a reduction in Firepower would be in order? 

Do not agree at all with this. Small arms combat effective range are way beyond engagement ranges in this game, distances in this game are very short. I think that Optimum range as it is works just fine, especially for support weapons it is rather powerful.

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