Monday, October 11, 2010

Orangistan 2011 Fall In 2010

So i'm running a game at Fall in. and the above image is of shanties I am building for same.
It is listed a Star Grunt, but whilst typing up the sheets for the sides i decided to do it using USE ME instead.
15mm uk will be represented in the minis used as will Old Glory command decision, Quality Castings, Irregular, Rebel, QRF, and GZG. for whatever thats worth.
S-320 - Orangistan 2011
The Red Skull or one of his clones is still on the loose and up to no good. Border incursions from Iranistan have put the Orangistan Army on hight alert. Peace keepers, contractors, the Media, dinosaurs, grey aliens and a marked increase in sunspot activity… as life goes on for the Mujhadeen.
more on this later...

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

USEME game #1

Our first outing with USE ME rules. They are ultra simple as advertised. I liked how they played, and Think they could easily be tweaked to what i want from a game right now.
Here's what i don't like or am skeptical of at this point.
Missing dedicated CC and Infantry AT weapons, also suppression or morale.
1" template, why bother you are only going to hit one unit unless you are stacked on top of each other.
No Quick Action Sheet in the book itself.
What I like, intuitive, simple, seems to give decent results, appears very adaptable.
5 characteristics or values to each unit basic building block in the book is a single mini,
1, Type -Infantry, Lt, Hvy or Super Heavy Vehicle.
2. Elan - quality
3. Movement rate
4. Weapon
5. Armored yes or no

Initiative is determined by dicing then Elan 6's go per initiative order then 5's etc etc
Infantry is grouped into squads with a designated leader. Move the leader then group the rest of the squad in cohesion.
Squad to squad shooting is determined from leader to leader. Flunkies die first.
You can do 2 actions each turn, and you can do 2 of the same action however the second time you are penalized.

Everything is D6,
Shooting get a modified 4,5,6 to hit.
Penetration is an opposed modified roll. A heavy tank is +3 defense, and the best penetration bonus is a +1 so good luck.
Each mini can take 2 hits before death.
Winged, Struck, then Killed
It also gets progressively worse as it takes hits.


Our sides were
Earth Force Marines
2 squads of a Leader, 2 riflemen, a heavy laser, and rocket launcher -Elan 5
2 light gunships - Elan 4
1 tank -Elan 4

allied with
Mujhadden
2 squads of a Leader, 3 riflemen, and a rocket. Elan 3
2 mortars Elan 3
2 tanks ELan 4
2 artillery strikes.

VS
Corporation
2 squads of a Leader, 6 riflemen, and a rocket. Elan 5
1 HVY Mech Elan 4
2 Lt gun crabs Elan 3

allied with
2 squads of leader and 14 GIANT ants Elan 3
1 Lt helicopter gunship Elan 4

Considering it was our first game, I was the only person to have read the rules, and I hadn't played it yet either, it went very well. Much better I would say than our last game of Future War Commander, and that was about my 12th game of it, 3rd with those players. Granted Future War Commander is a much more involved game, and i'm sure it will do whatever it is i'm trying to do, However,,,
and anyhow how involved exactly do things need to be.
StarGrunt is probably my favorite system, but the math overwhelms a lot of people. Even though I have a kind of tourettes response to SG dice, blurting out the answer i.e. "2 hits and 3 chances on a D6 for another one." It can get a little taxing. + SG doesn't hold up as well in larger battles, or so everyone says I never tired it.
The point of that diversion, USE ME is not as complex as those other games, and it doesn't necessarily need to be either.
The fact that out of the gate we were able to use, Infantry, gunships, mechs, tanks, mortars, and off board arty says it all.
Now here are some pics from our game, I'll add some captions later.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

USE ME

Got the USE ME rules in the mail today 14 days after ordering, every link of the overseas media mail chain seems to werk

They appear very usable, with the exception of no suppression or morale. I'll probably just use a variation of the Star Grunt suppression system, with attempt to remove suppression an action roll vs Elan rating.

noticed some typos, wanted to notate them somewhere so why not here.

Pg 10-11 Penetration - In the example Tom has a -1 (INF vs Hvy Veh)
Then at the bottom of pg10 it says Tom adds his +1 to each penetration result.
On pg 11 Tom gets a 6 so he could not have had a -1, so where did the +2 come from that gave Tom his +1?

Pg 11 Weapons- minimum range - " and is stated above in brackets."
No it isn't.

Pg 18 Character Points - In the example an INF character is pointed out "for a total of 18 points per character." but then says "a cost of 8 x 5 = 40 per squad of five"