How do you handle attacks & damage in your Alpha Strike Games

[MarauderD]

Hey all.  I've been playing Alpha Strike for about 3 years now.  Up until now, I've always played the standard, "All or Nothing" style of accounting for damage.  ex:  My Nightstar hits at medium range, that is 6 damage to your unit.  I started playing that way to learn the game for simplicity, and to keep the game fast so I could finish matches.  I'm starting to consider using the optional rules for damage.

So what do you do in your Alpha Strike games?  If you are interested in sharing, let me know the PV range you usually play with, and what method for attacks/damage you use, and why.  Cheers!

[MarauderD]

I generally play in the 500-1000 pt range, and have used All or Nothing for the past couple years as I picked up the game.

I'm considering trying Multiple Attack Rolls so there is a little more nuance and a little less insta-gibbing the next time I get a chance to play.  (who knows when that will be!)

[Lanceman]

A lot of my games have been introductory recently so I'm usually doing standard/all-or-nothing, but once folks are comfortable I like to move to MAR if they are up for it. It's fast and easy if you have enough unique pairs of dice, and reduces some of the swinginess you can get with all-or-nothing and adds a bit of tactical options since you can split fire between multiple targets.

[MyndkryM]

All or Nothing is what I'm most experienced playing with. The games move at a good pace. I have a feeling that using MDR (instead of MAR) could add that variable outcome feeling, without sacrificing speed of play. With a single attack rolls, a miss just then proceeds to the next unit until damage needs to be rolled.

Most BT players local to me play more Classic than AS...so All or Nothing is the most practical for those that do. 

[Charistoph]

We use MAR because it helps keep some of the feel and variability of Classic without tossing the whole thing under the bus.

We usually keep them under 70 minute games with forces of about 4-6 Mechs, or more if cheap auxiliaries are present.

[House Davie Merc]

One of the things that I've always liked about Battletech is that damage stacks.
That insignificant MG hit you got on round 4 from my Locust could cause that
PPC hit to penetrate by 1 point and cause a crit later on.

The " All or nothing" style of OG AS has always seemed about as anti-Battletech to me as
just about any rule in the history of any version of this game.

Every group I've ever seen has used the optional rule of 1 role per point of damage for so long
that they forgot what the original rule was.
I've long thought that the original rule should be outright replaced by the optional rule and
the critical hits table should be modified to reflect that change.

[Lanceman]

I have a feeling that using MDR (instead of MAR) could add that variable outcome feeling, without sacrificing speed of play. With a single attack rolls, a miss just then proceeds to the next unit until damage needs to be rolled.

MAR doesn't have to slow your game down. It tripped me up at first as well thinking about rolling for each point of damage, but using multiple pairs of matched dice (so if your mech does 3 damage you roll a blue pair, a green pair, and a red pair) let's you settle the whole attack as quickly as All or Nothing. Unless you are using some of the crazier variants like the Turkina Z you don't need that many. And it's an excuse to buy more dice!

[Elmoth]

We never go above 500, and a lot of our games tend to be smaller, as they are part of a RPG game. As such we prefer the granularity (sorta) of multiple attack rolls (one per point of damage) over all or nothing. it does not slow the game significantly, in our experience. But we do not use THAT many units.

Cheers,
Xavi

[paladin2019]

We use MAR because it helps keep some of the feel and variability of Classic without tossing the whole thing under the bus.

We usually keep them under 70 minute games with forces of about 4-6 Mechs, or more if cheap auxiliaries are present.

This is why I don't like MAR. If I want to play BattleTech, I'll play BattleTech. If I'm playing Alpha Strike, I'm playing it because it's the BattleForce successor, not BattleTech.

[Charistoph]

This is why I don't like MAR. If I want to play BattleTech, I'll play BattleTech. If I'm playing Alpha Strike, I'm playing it because it's the BattleForce successor, not BattleTech.

Well, none of us played Battleforce, so that relationship carries no meaning.

In addition to that, MAR makes units a lot more surivable.  It SUCKS to have your unit disappear when it first appears in LoS and Medium Range with no chance for variability.  Which is why we use it.

[Go For The Throat]

My group uses MAR when playing Alpha Strike. Despite the abstracted nature, even though most of us used it our first couple games, nobody in our group is a fan of the “all or nothing” nature of the Alpha Strike “RAW”.

[MarauderD]

I've noticed that one of the by-products (for me) of using "All or Nothing" damage is choosing units with very high medium range damage.  If you get two or three units doing 5-7 damage each, one round is deleting most Assault mechs (XL engines).  So I have really skewed to avoiding too many units that try to have rounded damage profiles, in favor of really pouring it on once the range closes.

With MAR, at least conceptually, having a few units doing 2-4 damage at long range gets really attractive, because you can do a few points of damage as things close (assuming you get that one good roll per 4 dice average).  Also, more crits do to the extra rolling would add some granularity.  Very attractive option. 

[Burzmali]

My group varies depending on the situation.  A couple of points to remember though:  MAR leads to TACs and MAR has a substantially different balance.

With MAR, TAC crits happen a lot more frequently, especially when folks are bringing lots of high damage units. A TAC crit is a 1 in 36 chance for RAW but closer to 1 in 6 for a damage 6 attack in MAR. This is cool until realize that Fire Control hits are tied for second most likely crit, which can easily remove an assault mech from being a threat for the rest of the match. This also leads to "Oops all crits" situation where units are lobbing shots back and forth at long range with targets of 11+ where as many as half of all hits are crits, which as any Xcom player can tell you, never feels good.

The other point is balance. RAW and MAR are substantially different. A Fire Moth H is easily worth 25 PV in RAW, but that's a hilarious waste of PV in MAR. The same happens on the other end of the scale where assualts with 10/10 armor/structure are going to rendered combat ineffective by crits long before they take enough damage to drop them.

[VanVelding]

We used Multiple Attack Rolls (for non-physical attacks) and quickly limited an attacker to inflicting one crit per turn. But mostly use the rules as-written.

[Charistoph]

We used Multiple Attack Rolls (for non-physical attacks) and quickly limited an attacker to inflicting one crit per turn. But mostly use the rules as-written.

The RAW of MAR does only allow for one Crit per unit Attacking, no matter how many Dice they Roll.

[MarauderD]

The RAW of MAR does only allow for one Crit per unit Attacking, no matter how many Dice they Roll.

I think this is a true, BUT, situation.  If you attack with MAR, have a natural 12, and damage structure, I think you can have two crits with a single unit.  Since I play with 12-20 units per side, that is a LOT of possible crits once you hit structure.  So I think the point Burzmali makes is valid.

VanVelding's house rule for that makes sense--one crit max per attacker.  Wouldn't effect lights/mediums and XL engine units very much, but would really help Assaults and Heavies with Standard Engines from being crit out light years before they die from structure loss.

[paladin2019]

I think this is a true, BUT, situation.  If you attack with MAR, have a natural 12, and damage structure, I think you can have two crits with a single unit.  Since I play with 12-20 units per side, that is a LOT of possible crits once you hit structure.  So I think the point Burzmali makes is valid.

VanVelding's house rule for that makes sense--one crit max per attacker.  Wouldn't effect lights/mediums and XL engine units very much, but would really help Assaults and Heavies with Standard Engines from being crit out light years before they die from structure loss.

It's not a house rule, it is a standard part of the optional rule. No more than one TAC can be scored on an attack. This does, however, mean that with MAR, you are rolling far more dice per attack so 12s will come up with more frequency per attack. If you are dealing 4 damage per attack for 6 attacks, you have 24 chances to score a crit rather than 6. (The house rule is to designate a single pair of dice as the controlling roll for determining TACs and a 12 on other rolls does not trigger one.)

[Burzmali]

It's not a house rule, it is a standard part of the optional rule. No more than one TAC can be scored on an attack. This does, however, mean that with MAR, you are rolling far more dice per attack so 12s will come up with more frequency per attack. If you are dealing 4 damage per attack for 6 attacks, you have 24 chances to score a crit rather than 6. (The house rule is to designate a single pair of dice as the controlling roll for determining TACs and a 12 on other rolls does not trigger one.)

Yeah, last time I had a match with lots of heavy units I took more crits than structural damage due to a mess of TACs. I'm not saying it's wrong, and there has been talk of using the house rules "only one set of dice can TAC", but it changes how you approach assaults.

[Charistoph]

I think this is a true, BUT, situation.  If you attack with MAR, have a natural 12, and damage structure, I think you can have two crits with a single unit.  Since I play with 12-20 units per side, that is a LOT of possible crits once you hit structure.  So I think the point Burzmali makes is valid.

VanVelding's house rule for that makes sense--one crit max per attacker.  Wouldn't effect lights/mediums and XL engine units very much, but would really help Assaults and Heavies with Standard Engines from being crit out light years before they die from structure loss.

I'm sorry, but even with normal rules, if you roll a 12 on a single roll for 6 Damage and you hit Structure, then you get 2 Crit Rolls.  MAR mirrors this by only allowing one 12 Crit Roll per Attacker.  All MAR does improve the chance for a non-Structure Crit Roll to happen.  MAR doesn't provide for 4 Crit Rolls because you roll 4 boxcars from a single unit (unless they Split Fire).

Yeah, last time I had a match with lots of heavy units I took more crits than structural damage due to a mess of TACs. I'm not saying it's wrong, and there has been talk of using the house rules "only one set of dice can TAC", but it changes how you approach assaults.

And I've had a Mercury II effectively made useless after taking 2 Crits from 2 Attacks in 2 different Missions (40t, 4A, 2S).  First time took both Damage out and the second was Fire Con which made Short Range shots like Long Range.  It's bound to happen when to get ANY hit on it was an 11 or 12. 

The only reason she stayed on the board for the first game was because she was also a Forward Observer for our Artillery AND she had a Probe (making one of the Artillery shots a 5+ To-Hit).  The second was she was part of an MHQ capture team going on a flank, and she was the most mobile of the 3.

[Burzmali]

I'm sorry, but even with normal rules, if you roll a 12 on a single roll for 6 Damage and you hit Structure, then you get 2 Crit Rolls.  MAR mirrors this by only allowing one 12 Crit Roll per Attacker.  All MAR does improve the chance for a non-Structure Crit Roll to happen.  MAR doesn't provide for 4 Crit Rolls because you roll 4 boxcars from a single unit (unless they Split Fire).

Yeah, TACs are more common in MAR because a.) you have n chances to roll a 12 in MAR, where n is your damage, as opposed to one chance in RAW and b.) you are likely to face more attacks as pecking targets to death at L range is more viable. On top of that, you are going to take more crits from Structure hits as it takes more hits, though the same number of attackers, to destroy a mech, beefy assaults are regularly combat ineffective long before they are destroyed.

None of this is specifically bad, it's just different the RAW, which means a mech that is a good deal for the PV under RAW could have a different value proposition under MAR.

Same goes for MDR, under MDR it's damage 1 units that are underpriced surprisingly.

[Shin_Fenris]

We do All or Nothing. I -prefer- the roll per available point of damage (and sometimes prefer rolling a handful o D12s to individual 2D6 rolls) but light 'Mechs get absolutely plastered real fast doing anything other than All or Nothing. When you have two armor and two internal structure, your only hope on that 4+ damage 'Mech is that they miss you with your high TMM. MAR allow a MUCH higher chance that they hit you, and repeatedly. Since the PV of fast lights takes into account their TMM, MAR tends to make them kind of a waste of points.

[Elmoth]

I have the opposite experience regarding lights :)

[CarcosanDawn]

As a newcomer to BT (on tabletop) - well, someone who played classic for a bit but came back for AS - my friends and I prefer All or Nothing. There's lots of reasons, but the main one is it frees up the old processor (brain) to focus on other rules - we play combined arms and as many optional rules as we can cogitate to try to get the feel of the universe right.

We tend to trust the abstractions made and the designer's awareness of the 2d6 bell curve/triangle.

[Burzmali]

We tend to trust the abstractions made and the designer's awareness of the 2d6 bell curve/triangle.

I'd agree if the designers weren't rabidly opposed to the "pilot die" house rule while simultaneously contending that Multiple Damage Rolls is balanced equal to MAR and RAW 

I'm not advocating pilot die or anything, but even a fistful of D12s has a closer damage curve to MAR and RAW than MDR.

[Charistoph]

I'm not advocating pilot die or anything, but even a fistful of D12s has a closer damage curve to MAR and RAW than MDR.

Not even close.  Every single number on a D12 has an equal chance of happening.  While the number after the Pilot Die will be just as flat as the D12, the Pilot Die still provides a starting point to the curve that the D12 just doesn't touch.  Of course in some cases that Pilot Die can basically mean "all hit" or "all miss", but it is still there adjusting the curve over the course of a game.

[nckestrel]

I'd agree if the designers weren't rabidly opposed to the "pilot die" house rule while simultaneously contending that Multiple Damage Rolls is balanced equal to MAR and RAW 

Who are these "designers"?

[MarauderD]

Who are these "designers"?

If it ain't you, I guess I won't feel bad about trying MAR and the Pilot Die.

[nckestrel]

If it ain't you, I guess I won't feel bad about trying MAR and the Pilot Die.

Yeah, that was confusing me.  But somebody offered an explanation that makes sense.  (Burzmali isn't refering to me or anybody else that has had anyting to do with the Alpha Strike attack options.)

[Brym]

I am personally a huge fan of the pilot die approach.  Splits the difference in terms of swinginess between MAR and all or nothing. 

[Burzmali]

Yeah, that was confusing me.  But somebody offered an explanation that makes sense.  (Burzmali isn't refering to me or anybody else that has had anyting to do with the Alpha Strike attack options.)

I'm been driven off a Discord server from an AS channel by a mob led by one of your coworkers for the crime of suggesting that the pilot die might not have been created by Satan, not even advocating its use. The natural assumption is that if folks associated with CGL are willing to drive folks off of discord servers over pilot die, that the feeling was shared by the organization in general. I might have poked the bear a bit but never did I get more dog piled than when pilot die was brought up.

Not even close.  Every single number on a D12 has an equal chance of happening.  While the number after the Pilot Die will be just as flat as the D12, the Pilot Die still provides a starting point to the curve that the D12 just doesn't touch.  Of course in some cases that Pilot Die can basically mean "all hit" or "all miss", but it is still there adjusting the curve over the course of a game.

Actually pretty close, especially when damages are in the 4+ range. Mind you that is in comparison to MDR. You point out that a D12 is flat, well, once you start rolling 4 or 5 for an attack, you get a similar bell curve to MAR, not perfect by any means, but way closer to MAR and RAW than MDR. Heck, expected damage doesn't even scale linearly with damage in MDR, three damage 1 units have almost twice the expected damage of a single damage 3 unit, no other damage system for AS has that property.