They should have made vehicles and infantry have to perform a movement order to exit the transport from the get go. That would have ended tank drop all together.

If I was the target of the mock comment, I apologize, I was laughing at Nanholds quote. I'm the opposite of serious....so if you take me seriously its going no where ;) I'm always in laughter, everyone can tell ya that. Eek! I dont care what kids do with their games. That includes myself.

Well, it wasn't my most hilarious contribution to this forum, but if it was considered as something funny, that's fine by me. Go nuts. Now I can be a serious git myself if the opportunity presents itself, but I've discovered that this forum is a lot more fun if I don't take myself too seriously.

Amen.....but I promised Kotch I would be more serious on the unit reviews....he smacked me one day for stating that a piece wasn't any good because it didn't have laser guided lasers ;)

Laser Guided Lasers huh... Tht's Freakin Hilarious!!!! :laugh:

My main MW opponent wants to give assault orders to vehicles, but have them locked up with two order tokens to do so. Perhaps we'll try it, but I'm against it. I think Mechs should reign, and vehicles as they are now are fine support pieces.

We've been using cards on Dark Age mechs since AoD came out, however, and it's working out great. Our formula:

non-unique: up to two gears or one pilot, one gear
Unique: one gear card only

It's really fun to build armies and to face them, when suddenly a Banson's Raiders Uller is a viable threat on the battlefield. We've had few issues with game balance, because the suped-up Dark Age mechs tend to be expensive with cards, so it evens out.
Give it a try in your group if you haven't yet; for informal games, it may very well add a breath of fresh air into your latest scenarios and battles.

Hmm... I've been thinking. The whole thing with giving vehicles assault orders is that you need to balance it, so that they don't get too powerful in comparison with the 'Mechs. If you would make it so that 'Mechs would never gain heat from walking, assault orders for vehicles maybe wouldn't be too big a deal.

Interesting you bring that up Nanhold -- another house rule we immediately played with when AoD came out is that mechs DO NOT take additional heat for assaulting. If a mech with no order tokens scoots n shoots, it takes one heat, period.
This makes mechs the true kings of the field, but trust me, we still have to vent, and they still blow up. It's just way more fun to have them be a little more versatile.
So maybe I need to give my friend a break and try the vehicle assualt = two token compromise.

btw, I was at a used record store in San Jose recently and found a Great Kat cd. I was going to buy it and send it to you, but I thought perhaps you would get a little too excited ha ha

Vehicular AO does not make vehicles reign. Made a few experiments.

* Puts two tokens on vehicle. If the vehicle already has one token, it gets one pushing damage.

* +1 defense on target

* half movement

* no tank drop

* cannot use formation when AO.

* no close combat AO.

The result is this. Vehicular AO is actually inferior to tank drop. Tank drop has more range and accuracy, and allows you to shoot in the next turn for a push. The cost of TD is more orders and the cost of the transport, so it evens out. The 'feel' of the unit however, is that it does not get the job done against mechs with high defense values. Also the order of AO - Rest vs. TD-Shoot-Shoot doubles the damage output on two turns.

For Hovercraft, it's better for you to just ram and shoot in the next turn.

Heh. But seriously, you would do LordNth a favour with that cd.

But back to the subject. Seems like an AO for tanks as an alternative for tank drop would actually benefit 'Mechs, if I read Deadbolt's post correctly. So it's maybe useful to allow cap 3 VTOLs to still transport vehicles. Those VTOLs at least look the part when it comes to hauling tanks.

No, I smacked you for rating it 1 and making that comment when the unit was plainly not a 1. Your attempt at humour on that unit went so far as to abuse the ratings system just because you thought it would be funny.

Make silly comments by all means but NEVER rate a decent unit as a 1* "just for a laugh" or "because you don't like the faction" or I will point out the abuse of the system.

There are enough problems with the ratings system without people DELIBERATELY abusing it.

The rating system is mainly flawed because of the simple fact that the internet is literally infested with utter and complete idiots. Unfortunately MWRealms hasn't been spared this epidemic, proof of this can be found in abundance in the unit reviews section. Hell, the stupidity was so overwhelming that it inspired me, thanks to the suggestion of another forum member, to start a thread specifically dedicated to the ineptitude found in the unit reviews section of this forum.

But weren't we talking about assault orders for tanks here?

Thanks for getting us back on track Nanhold.

So now that vehicle-assault (VA) has been diagnosed as inferior to tank-drop, I think I need to give my main opponent a break and have us try it a few games. Why? Because we HAVE NOT allowed tank-drop since the Counterassault expansion. We cut it out early, and never missed it. I'm not intending to start another debate, just asking for feedback from all of you -- if you played with no tank drops or tank transporting period, would you want VA at least?

Personally, I'm still happy keeping them reaaaaallly relegated to a modest support role, but perhaps my friend has a very valid concern.

Thoughts?

Vehicular AO won't tip the balance for tanks and hovercraft, and that is a reason why I think they can find a place in the game. Maybe we should keep tankdrop, but I have not studied the effects of tankdrop followed by AO in the same turn. That gets pretty lengthy if you ask me which is why I still favor vehicles still being carried by transports but not shoot when after they are dropped. If you use this on a tank with streaks, there is nothing on the board you can hide away from. May not have enough attack values to target a mech successfully, but the opposing support is more vulnerable. It might make VTOLS obsolete as a category.

My personal opinion is that I don't see enough advantages to change the present system; vehicular AO is more of a nerf than a boost, and I would rather keep the present system of TD no AO instead of trading TD for AO. TD with AO is something that may need to be studied further but I'm not in favor of making VTOLS obsolete and moot from the game.

Kelly stated that they looked at removing tank drop with the AoD ruleset. You may be surprised to learn that on balance they felt that it was required to balance tanks.

That was using the then-legitimate SH Behemoths with a 10 Improved Targeting and 14" range.

The reason? With 'Mech defenses climbing thanks to Gear and Pilots such that the old "hurdle" of 21 rose to 22 at least, that meant tanks needed formations to crack any decent defense. By using transports, irrespective of the perceived "reality", it was balancing because you used all three of your orders to get the shot off.

AOD gave you the balance back. Tank drop was still strong but it took some planning to pull off and with 'Mechs gaining assault orders it became increasingly difficult to pull off.

Then the cheap command units got retired (Bayin Killer Clown and BR Sprints) as did the cheaper transports and either attack values on vehicles dropped or else their ranges did. All of a sudden something changed in the dynamics because three things effectively got nerfed at once.

So now tank drop is more costly, has fewer orders and loses range and/or attack value. Some tanks can hold up but most are wasted.

I'd rather lose tank drop altogether and have some assault dynamic from a realism perspective but at the same time, tanks are weaker now than they have been since transports were introduced. As such any assault order mechanism would need to cater for the fact that vehicles have a serious attack potential disadvantage.