Anti-armour weapons for infantry underpowered?

[kashirigi]

I realize that one of the design goals for Gruntz is to make vehicles more a part of the game, so they're harder to kill with infantry. If I'm reading my stats and rules right, the heaviest specialist weapon, the Medium Missile Launcher will not do a huge amount of damage:

12 Dam + AP3 +2 for flank shot = 17.
Boxcars = 12.

That gives a total of 29 damage in the best possible case, vs, say a 16 soak and 18 damage on a light tank. Even though it's arse is on fire, it's still alive and ready to turn around an punish any infantry dumb enough to shoot at it.

Perhaps a second critical roll for already damaged systems can knock it out entirely.
Eg: First critical roll results in 1 vs. Tek. Now the skill rolls are at -3.
The next time the critical rolls around we get a 2 vs. Tek. This results in the weapons being destroyed.

In the case of the light tank above, this would result in a reasonably good chance that the tank is neutralized in some way, as it would involve rolls on 3 critical boxes, which would probably knock out at least one system. This is more of what I would expect from a rear shot from an ATGM.

I'd be interested to hear what others think about this.

[inrepose]

It actually feels right when playing it something with damage 15 and an average roll of 6 or 7 on 2D6 from Specialist is some significant damage on most vehicles. The games are also about a mix of combined arms, so those extra knocks you can squeeze in from the less powerful weapons will often trigger a critical on the vehicle.

If you took your example in isolation it still represents a significant chunk of damage. If it was not on an isolated patch of gaming board you would normally be able to follow up with other support weapons or vehicles in the area. The combined incoming fire will wear down light tanks very quickly.

The scout and light vehicles are usually quick to fall if they put themselves into the line of fire.

So I think weapon damages are just about working at the moment but I would certainly welcome ideas.

[kashirigi]

I think it might not be the damage per se, but the chance of immobility, etc, that feels wrong to me. I can see a missile not utterly destroying a tank, but it feels a bit futile to reach a critical box and not have a chance of immobility or more serious weapon damage.

Of course, that can be an [easy] house rule:
Eg:
First critical: 1 on d6 results in no flank move
Second critical: 1 on d6 results in immobility
2 on d6 results in no flank move
Third critical: 1 on d6 results in crew bailing/death/etc
2. immobility
3. no flank move

etc.

The problem with this is that it makes the table bigger, which reduces the simplicity factor which is Gruntz' strongest point.

It's also possible that it feels wrong because I'm coming to Gruntz from Stargrunt/Traveller/WWII and not from 40K. It's just different design philosophies at work.

[Idle Scholar]

I'd say it feel wrong because it doesn't tie in with modern day experience. That is you either get through the armour and total the tank in a single hit or don't get through the armour and maybe do some minor damage to the tracks or something. The trouble is to replicate that with Gruntz you'd need to adjust the vehicle points to reflect their new found fragility.

[kashirigi]

For points calculation, you could always just divide the point cost by two. Or, to make it even simpler, don't divide the Gruntz' cost by two, thus saving a math step.

To make vehicles more destructible without making drastic complex changes, you could:

A: Change the rule to make rear shots use half (or some other arbitrary amount) soak, possibly still with the +2 damage. That way you don't have to muck about with 4 or more armour facings.

or

B: Instead of +2 Damage for rear hits it's x2 damage, possibly for AP weapons only. It's amazing what a 45 degree rotation of a symbol can achieve!

B is possibly the simplest solution. Tanks are still king, but exposing your rear is extremely inadvisable, which is as it should be. It also encourages manouevre and ambushes for infantry, because the potential payoff is enormous and possibly worth the risk of closing with an armoured vehicle. The points calculation would be the same, because the weakness is only important because of the player's bad positioning or unfortunate luck.

[Raziel]

I haven't played the game yet, so I just speculate.

It's a game it doesnt have to exactly match with reality, but it must be balanced.

I would sugest rock paper scissors aproach. Tank shouldn't overkill infantry, and infantry tanks. I don't know if possibility to immobilize a tank wouldn't brake the game, cause you could get rid of a problem with a lucky dice roll, not mentioning that a tank cost 5 times more than infantry

Lower the damage of weapons and add Armour piercing instead, "forcing" vehicles to use anti infantry weapons which wouldn't hit your specialists infantry men as hard. But with those new rules about automatic weapon it would make sense (shorter range, less damage, rapid fire)

For grunts you could give them AP granades and boost its AP rating, change range, at the moment its 6, just like a pistol , you would have to be close to a tank to use it thus making it more strategic.

a little offtop, Is it right to let units shoot double the range for extreme range? I would give them a bonus or additional 50%.

Memoir 44 has a great mechanic dealing with infantry damage against tanks, it changes with range, at 3 hex its 1die, 2 hex =2 die, 3=3 die, each die has a different probability to deal damage, 2 sides for inf, and 1 for a tank. Now tank has the same damage throught the range of 3 hex, but when its close it can do an armour overrun, meaning, that if it forces units to retreat it can shoot them in the back. so its kind of trade off, you have to think if you have enough power to come close, or you might risk retaliation.

Anyway, I am curious what you will agree on.

[pancake]

so far i've only had trouble with heavy and assult tanks, but then they were only a problem in death match games. In scenario games the big hitters CAN NOT be all over the board at the same time. Pick your targets well and gang up on the big guys. I see little change if any on this only IMO