Reply To: There is no place for (armoured) vehicles and fliers in a 28mm skirmish game?

[limburger 21704xp 2]

People who play to win at any cost will find ways to exploit lists and rules regardless of how balanced such things are.
They will do so with systems that aren’t designed to be competitive …

To summarize so far :
– big vehicles can work … they may need bigger tables
– flying vehicles are a challenge that bigger tables won’t solve;
– helicopters and their fictional equivalents can work so shouldn’t be a big problem
– list building rules and point limits help keep them to a “realistic” ratio
– players with a competitive focused are never going to ignore an exploit when it is available …

I suppose terrain may be a bigger factor in making these (big) vehicles behave in a way that is ‘fun’ for both players.
So maybe … the key here is not so much the rules but the lack of scenarios that teach people how to handle vehicles ?

Or maybe the better question is :
Who has the ‘leading role’ on the battlefield ?
Infantry or the big monster/vehicle ?

I suspect one could make a game where the vehicle is the star and the infantry is merely there to serve its needs and not the other way around.
Such a system probably would have more focus on how a vehicle operates and how (in)vulnerable it is in a given situation.
It’s easier to create ‘special’ behaviour, because players will be focussing on their big monster by default.
Trying to do this in a game that doesn’t favour the big shooty thing only creates problems when you do prioritize it.

I suppose ‘Adeptus Titanicus’ is doing exactly that … the big stompy things are the star players and thus they get all the ‘fun’ stuff. I know it’s not exactly a ’28 mm skirmish’ game, but when you look at the abstract it isn’t *that* different from a skirmish game with a focus on hero characters and their disposable cannon fodder …