Another weekend done

It was all in all a productive weekend. I am working hard on my Twilight 2000 items and they're really coming together. I anticipate that I will be done with the US vehicles soon, and then it's on to working on my Soviets, getting them cleaned up and to a standard I like. I really am proud of the work I am putting in thus far, and so far, all seems to be going overly well. Also updated the AA terminator rules..upped the defense dice and played with the movement rates. I think this will work better and hopefully, there will be more playtests.

Also, played CBT this Saturday with my old group. I think as much as I wanted to support the GM of this event...and I really did, I made a mistake going to the event. The company was well, juvenile. It wasn't everyone, and some of the members of my old group, I genuinely enjoy their company...others..let's say they need a Dale Carnegie book or three (and I can't stand the guy, but some of his advice is sound). Also, CBT is losing interest for me..the game is falling into the "Ok, folks are losing interest, let's introduce a new army with all new wiz-bang toys orders of magnitude more powerful than than what's in the game already!" trap that 40K wrote the book on. Not good. Worse, folks are fretting about the battle value system as it was supposed to give "balanced games"..there's a myth if I ever heard one...no damn such thing. If you make things totally equal, you get nightmares like Iran-Iraq or World War I. Battletech, last I looked, was supposed to be about armored warfare, of concentrating all available assets at the point of decision and smashing the other guy! Now, it's nothing more than a fanboy arms race with the "faction-de-jour". And now, they're throwing around tons of nukes to do it. I point out the last time someone did that in another game I love...Megatraveller. Dave Nielsen said it best, "have the cataclysm, then game the aftermath". People don't like their sacred cows becoming hamburger, and worse yet..having the ending resolved with an inferior product (Down in front Mechwarrior! At least it keeps me in cheap 15mm VTOLs and 'Mechs).

I know this might not make me popular with some. Know what? Don't care. I am pretty convinced play balance is achieved by giving out realistic victory conditions that both sides have a decent chance of achieving, and an even handed ref who isn't looking to screw one side or the other. Like I said..if you're doing the Seelow Heights in 1945, and you're bitching that you've got a scratch force of rear-area types, cadets and HJ for your Germans, with a pair of Stug IIIs and a couple of PaK 40s, and you're expected to hold off a company(+) of Russian tanks...well, that's the way it was, and perhaps you're playing the wrong game. One victory condition is for the Russians to exit X amount of troops off the table in a VERY short amount of time..or to kill or capture ALL the Germans? Not so easy no matter HOW many troops you have. See, balance? The Germans, they have it easier...knock off X amount of Russians or have X amount of their force still alive. Balance is possible, and points/values IMO, aren't a magic solution!