Space Crusade 'Points match'

[MortiS-the-Lost]

So here's an idea I've had for a while and only just got round to sitting down and doing the maths (well getting a spreadsheet to do the maths for me really).

The idea goes something like this; each blip in Space Crusade has a points value on it (infrequently referred to as C.E.R. Value in the rulebooks) and each mission lists the blips it uses - therefore you can work out the total points value of all the blips used in a particular mission. The upshot of all this is that first of all you now have a rough way of rating the difficulty of a mission based on the blips used and secondly if you have a set of custom blips to represent new enemy types you can swap them out for the same points value worth of the standard blips. To put it another way; if you know the points value of a mission the Alien Player can 'spend' that points value on the creatures he wants to inhabit the hulk in the same way a 40k player 'spends' points on an army list.

Ok if can get the HTML to behave now, lets look at an example ... ok screw that ... I'll use a screenshot JPG instead



 ^the above chart shows the total points value for all the standard blips you get in the basic Space Crusade game box

So a mission that uses all the standard blips (such as Mission 7 - 'Clear Loading Bay') uses 152 points worth of blips. therefore using 152 as a target I can now re-work the same mission with a custom set of blips.


 ^so here's the points value for the same mission worked out using only my custom Tyranid Blips (See Here for my custom blips and Tyranid Rules)

A further and at the time of writing unexplored branch of this thinking is that the same principles could be applied to SpaceMarine Squads ...

 ^yes I do know the chapter names, but I didn't have room to fit them into my chart

Now if points values could be assigned to Order and Equipment Cards, Marine players could choose their squads based on a points value .... and as a campaign progresses earn more points to buy in new troops and replace dead ones in a similar way to a Necromunda campaign

As you can see this opens up all kinds of possibilities for expanding your Space Crusade games ...

[TheVega]

maybe you should devide the Marine Points by three for the three squads and set it to the starting set of a marine squad (1 Commander, 1 Lightweapon, 3 Heavy Weapons) so you'll get 45 points

then take the basic orders and equipment: 1 order and 4 equipment cards at startup and give them values too:

1 order 10 pts.
1 equipment 5 pts.

this will give us another 25 pts.

so a marine player gets 45 + 25 = 70 pts. at startup

each honor marker adds 5 points to his points pool
each rank adds 10 points to his points pool

so the maximum woul bei rank 5(minus 1 Rank for starting rank) with 4 honor markers this gives us a maximum of 4x5 + 4x10 = 60 points

this plus the squad points would give us 130 points (all without the extra marines and tarantula from mission dreadnought)

so a newly marine player gets 70 pts and can buy orders, equipment and marines with it, example:

1 commander 10 pts.
1 Heavy Weapon 10 pts.
3 Light Weapons 15 pts.

leaves us with 70 minus 35 = 45 points for which he could buy 2 orders and 5 equipment cards

i think the super heavy weopons from mission dreadnought should get a value of 15 points (10 without the marine)
the tarantula 20 points

if we would add this values to a squad, then we add 1 tarantula 20 + 2 marines 10 pts. (light 5pts each) the base option to have 3 super heavy weapons which gives aus another 30 points extra = 60 points

this 60 point could be handled in tqo ways, first, add them to the starting points for a newly marine squad, if mission dreadnought is availble ( i wouldn't prefer this method, because it gives not much room to 'level up' later)
second method: add them to the maximum of 130 points for a total of 190 points...

with the second method, the way up to maximum is a bit longer, but i might make more fun, cause you have a span from 70 points up to 190 points. that are 120 points to grow in power, maybe 12 levels with 10 points each...

and if you want to give a marine squad the very hard way, reduce the starting points by 10 to 60 points, in assumption, that a new player starts with a squad of 3 light weapons, 1 hevy weapon and a commander

[TheVega]

For the "alien" player, you should not forget the reinforcement troop points.

maybe a newly alien player should get a base of 152 points, with no reinforcement.

the complete reinforcement set would be another 152 points

for each honor marker a marine player gets he should add 5 points to his complete points pool, not only to his reinforcement

for each rank he should add 10 points

so at base he has only the 152 points for a complete alien set

he can spend this points for base blips, reinforcemnet blips and/or eventcards

an eventcard shoul have a value of 10 points, like a marine command

he can buy a maximum of 4 event cards, but must choose them at random(face down from the deck)

mission dreadnought will give him another 50+40+30+25+4x10 = 165 points + 165 points reinforcement = 330 pts.

the highest rank would give him 4 possible event cards worth 40 points

the maximum of 4 honor markes in will give him 20 points

so his staring points of 152 can go up by level to a full value of 152 + 152(reinforcement) + 20(honor) + 40(rank) = 364 points (we should round it up to 365 points)

with mission dreadnought 695 points

a level for the alien player should be achived in steps of 40 points, 695 - 150(152 startup pts. round down) = 545 points to get (12 levels for space marines means 12 levels for alien player as well, so we devide the 545 by 12 and get nearly 45 points)

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Thank for your very well thought out input Vega

Sorry it's been so long between you posting and me replying to you - you might be pleased to know that in that time my group has played a few games using your suggestions

We normally play with standard 5-man Squads of 1 Commander, 3 Bolter Marines and 1 Heavy (35 points)

After considering game play effects we decided that Equipment Cards should be 10 points and Order Cards 5 Points

Giving us 35 points of troops plus 1 equipment card (10 points) and 1 Order Card (5 Points) = 50 points per starting squad

Interesting side note here – the Terminator Armour rules in WD134 state that you can equip your squad with Terminator Armour in exchange for 4 equipment cards – so with a little maths that I haven’t done yet we can figure out how much a Marine in Terminator Armour should be worth when the Alien player kills one (which then leads onto the possibility of Chaos Terminators!)

(ok, ok I'll do the maths)

Hmm … so … 4 Equipment cards worth 10 each = 40
So divide that by 5 marines = 8
and finally add that to basic marine costs:

Terminator Commander 10+8 = 18
Terminator with Storm Bolter 5+8 = 13
Terminator with Heavy Weapon 10+8 = 18

Since killing a Marine armed with the extra Heavy Weapons from the Mission Dreadnought doesn’t earn the Alien Player any extra points beyond that of killing a Marine with a Heavy Weapon from the original game, we've kept all Marines with Heavy Weapons at the same points costs

The Mission Dreadnought rulebook has the Tarantula valued at 10 points for the Support weapon and a separate 5 points for the Marine Gunner (which of course has to be killed separately) which is not really enough for the Tarantula as it's rules stand (even considering the disadvantages), but I've got a mind to tweak the Tarantula's rules a little because IMHO it's a little too powerful - for instance I think it should increase the Gunner's AV to 3 rather than 4, the Tarantula's own AV should be 3 or 4 and it's Move should be 4 rather than 6

As for the Alien side of things we thought it best to keep the points 'pool' for the re-enforcements separate from that of the main Blips to stop unscrupulous Alien players spending it all on Blips to get more than their share of large and expensive monsters on the table from the start.

[spraygold]

Hi,

(my first post!)

The points match sounds like a great idea. You mention that the Alien player can buy Alien event cards. Do you see these cards as a private 'hand' of cards in additional to the normal rules for Alien Event cards being played please? How do you see these Alien Event cards rules working please?

Thanks in advance!