Experimenting with long range

[squinch]

Hi folks,
I've been a long time lurker and figured it was time to show myself.

I wanted to say I appreciate all the people willing to take the time to post questions and comments.

In the few games I have played to date, I noticed what feels like a mental conflict with the hit probabilities once you exceed the normal range. I'm refering to the -3. Especially when you are just over the primary range band.

I understand the arguement for preserving the element of maneuver on smaller boards with this rule. In trying to build primarily seasoned (as typical) armies, it leads to fairly low hit probabilities. I prefer to handle the manuever element by board setup (terrain) and scenario. I also want to reserve the assignment of higher troop classes to specific builds (e.g. elite forces,etc), not be forced to upgrade just to achieve intuitive results. Anyone else feel the normal -3 leads to non-intuitive hit probabilities?

Has anyone experimented with modifications to this rule with any success?

My gaming group has tried one variation with vehicles only, whereby each range band above base is -1. So a range 10 weapon is -1 at 20" and -2 at 30". We left gruntz alone. We also considered limiting range by saying a light weapon could go two range bands; base range plus one more band. Medium up to three bands, and so forth.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
squinch

[timvidlak]

I think Range Bands for weapons is a good Idea with a progressive -1 to hit per Range Band beyond Combat Range. I think the Combat or Primary Range equals the Weapons Range listed in the book & each Range Bands beyond this should be 1/2 the primary Range for the weapon, as this would have less of an effect on the overall Game mechanics with all weapons Having 4 Range Bands. The Range Bands being Combat or Primary Range, Extended Range, Long Range & Finally Extreme Range. This also makes it playable on a smaller Table.

[baldlea]

We were thinking the same thing about the -3 at the weekend but, to be fair, we were on an 8 x 4 table.

I think Squinch has it covered in saying that the terrain and scenario should control matters. Most of our games have bespoke rules based on the scenario at hand. I guess you should keep the rules as they are if you are going for a claustrophobic feel in a built up area. Perhaps reduce double range shots to -2 (or even -1) if you have loads of vehicles manoeuvring round a desert.

[inrepose]

Incremental ranges would work fine I think. I wanted to just avoid too many different modifiers, so although it is a little hard to swallow the concept I went for something generic and quick to use.

However building a range band would certainly work OK, or even just going for a flat -1 or -2 to improve the odds if you want longer range firefights.

One word of warning though. I tried variations with longer ranges being easy to shoot and even on a 6ft table things were turning into a bit of a turkey shootout with very little manoeuvring and a lot of sit still and shoot. I also used to play games before Gruntz which were clearly primarily built for 28mm but had adjustments for 15mm. They all felt very turkey-shoot biased, with figures sitting at long range and taking "pot" shots or lots of table checks for ranges. It can work with easier shooting at longer ranges though and is probably nearer to a simulation of a real firefight in contemporary warfare.

Instead I was aiming for something more like a game with influences of "Dune", "Command and Conquer" and "Starcraft". These are all more about the close in firefights, even with the vehicles and although simulating a computer game on the tabletop is perhaps not a perfect ideal it sort of worked for me and I had several playtesters comment that they enjoyed the computer game feel.

On a related note I did have a few die-hard 28mm players in the early playtest, that used mostly WH40K models. They all hated the ranges, because they used them straight from the rules, which made their various 28mm scales feel really to short. So for players not used to 15mm it can be a shock moving to the smaller scale and a challenge when presented with a 48inch range where you would expect to fire a lascannon and actually find it is extreme range in Gruntz.

[inrepose]

I was also thinking of suggesting that it would be fine to start an "Advance Range" topic and get some feedback from players to try and establish a common set of advanced rules on ranges. It may even help with adaptions needed for 28mm players.