"How similar are SGII and TW, really?" Topic

The comment that "Tomorrow's War is the spiritual successor to Stargrunt II" is almost a mantra at this point. The reasons for this seem clear, at least at first glance. Jon Tuffley endorses TW in no less than the book's preface. Both games are the same scale (reinforced platoon) and make roughly the same assumptions: that the future will not be unlike the present, that troop quality and training matters more than equipment and that humans ought to be the focus of hard science fiction wargaming.

Now, I do not own TW and indeed I have only a general understanding of its system (sadly, 95% of TW reviews are the useless "it's got colour, and pictures!" type). Nevertheless, it seems to me that the similarities between SGII and TW stop there—on the level of general themes and broad approaches. When it comes down to the crunch, as far as I can tell, the two are very different games.

For example, the basic shooting mechanic for SGII is rather revolutionary. You roll (for instance) 1D12 for six troopers firing "firepower 2" assault rifles, 1D8 for their quality and 1D6 for their squad support gun and read the dice against the opponent's range die roll (say, 1D10). If you get the highest die, it inflicts a minor hit which causes suppression. Highest two or more dice and you deal casualties. Comparing the sum of your attack roll (say 26) versus the range die type (here, a D10) means 2.6 potential wounds (two, with a 60% chance for a third).

The genius of this system is that attacks can still be effective suppression at a distance, but casualties inflicted drops off considerably. They read the same dice roll in two different ways and are truly unique.

In comparison, TW shooting mechanics seems to be constructed upon a very different (and arguably fairly derivative) base. You and the opponent roll a bucket of dice, where the die type is determined by troop quality. Each roll that is 4+ is a success. The defender's successes negate the attacker's successes, and remaining attack successes cause casualties. Regardless of whether this is similar to other wargame rules out there (for the record, I think it is), it is without a doubt extremely different from SGII.

This is not at all a problem, as I am sure both games are quite fun. But just to clarify, when we say TW is the spiritual successor to SGII, is it just the general themes and assumptions (about gritty warfare, focusing on troop quality and so on) that we mean to highlight? Or is there something more to the rules that really take the particular game mechanic advancements and innovations brought by SGII mechanics forward into the modern game design scene?

Personally, I find TW to play a bit faster than SG2. Less mental math as you try to calculate squad firepower, just grab another die.

But to answer your question, I would have to say that it's the general themes and assumptions, not so much anything mechanically.

In fact, I kinda wish TW had the leader mechanic from SG2.

They are both platoon level SF rulesets that eschew points values but that's about it IMHO.

I find that they have very little in common mechanically, though they do try to hit the same sort of atmosphere (fairly hard scifi platoon infantry battles)

TW is the spiritual successor to SGII, is it just the general themes and assumptions…

Yup, that's how I read it. The mechanics have little in common but the spirit is the same. Hard, crunchy rules that cover gritty sci-fi combat using teams and squads as units. In that respect the two are a lot alike.

I like both systems actually, but I go to Tomorrow's War more often than SGII. But your milage may very.

I like TW, but I have to admit that after all the hype I was disappointed it wasn't actually a SGIII.

Stargrunt is less interactive (not a lot of reactions) and close combat is garbage but it's easier to explain and the morale system is still unbeaten in my opinion.

close combat is utter garbage

That's surprising to hear, since the majority of the rules for close combat in SGII are the morale system. I'd even say that the combat rules have the most reactive mechanics as well. What about the close combat do you find distasteful? I thought they seemed pretty brutal and bloody on first read.

I actually thought about adding reaction mechanics to SGII, but I'm not sure it makes sense, given that the game uses alternating activations anyway (so in a sense, you are always already reacting). If I were going to do it, I'd require a normal reaction test roll and give the successful reacting squad a single action.

I think we experimented with it a bit but the turn sequence already makes it so that you are never really waiting around for a long time to play.

As far as close combat goes, if one veteran soldier (D10) fights 3 or 4 grunts (D6), if he rolls a 7, 8, 9 or 10, he wipes them all out with no chance of losing because they have no chance of reaching his roll.

It's easy enough to fix (dice shift for being outnumbered) but we never really felt it flowed very well compared to how shooting works between squads.

Don't mistake this for saying Stargrunt is garbage, it's not, probably one of the games I've clocked the most hours in, that part just never quite worked for us.

edit: These things are obviously different from person to person so your mileage will vary :-)
I might be the only gamer alive who don't mind the vehicle rules in Crossfire f.x.

Hmmm, that is interesting, for CC in SG.

I think a total die-shift against all four, might be too severe, though if they were all to be able to coordinate their attacks on him, that'd probably be appropriate. Probably not very likely though.

Perhaps a more reasonable fix might be to assume, like on TV, and in the movies, the Vet can read who the biggest threat is, so he rolls off against each opponent, in separate combats, e.g. the Vet rolls his 1D10 against the first fighter, but suffers die shifts for each additional opponent he has to fight in the same round (four maximum), so then rolls 1D8, 1D6, and finally 1D4 also. Assume he is getting tired, and/or losing some situational awareness over time, so the dice used get weaker against multiple opponents.

Then, his opponents roll their D6s, but the Vet matches his dice up against them, as he desires, from highest to lowest (for both sides), and he only loses if his roll(s) is/are lower than their die rolls. He wins ties, and/or at least gets to fight against ties again, in the next round.

Alternatively, if you don't like the "cinematic" combat theme, then just match the die rolls up randomly to see who wins/loses. Ties can either go to the better combatant, or result in a stalemate, and another round of combat next turn.

Start anew, with the dice values again, in the next turn, so the Vet starts out at D10. Same for his opponents, who use their D6 dice.

Mako – we've tried something like that (roll against each in turn). Even without changing the dice types, it does work a lot better, since he can have a bad roll.

The biggest fuss for me was still that the combat is now man to man and not squad based, as in the firing rules. (but I didn't even do that in No Stars in Sight so who am I to talk?) :-)

Squad-based close combat rules would indeed be very cool. In keeping with the regular ranged attack rules, perhaps each side rolls one dice for quality, one dice for number (just like firepower) and maybe a final die if they have a special close combat weapon. Defender rolls armour die instead of a range die (shift up or down for each multiple that defender outnumbers or is outnumbered. Resolve hits as normal, then defender checks confidence and, if still in the fight, rolls their attack back. Continue till one side fails their confidence roll.

So an attacking PA unit of 5 would roll 1D10 (quality) plus 1D10 for number (5x2) and 1D6 because one model in the squad is carrying a power axe. The 12 defenders would roll their quality (1D6), shifted up twice to 1D10 for being twice or more numerous. In the counterattack, the surviving 10 defenders would roll 1D6 for quality and 1D10 for number (10x1) against the attacker's 1D10 quality, shifted down twice to 1D6 for being twice or more outnumbered.

Then again, maybe that is too slow-moving. The trick with ranged attacking is that it very slowly degrades the enemy. The house rules for combat would have to deal out damage more quickly, perhaps?

On the initial question, I agree that mechanically they are quite different games in many areas. The only common mechanism is teh die shifting, but it is them applied differently. In most respects, they do, however, have a similar gritty near future feel.

Personally I prefer SG but that may be because I have had a lot more experience (familiarity) with it and have developed many house rules to cover different troops, aliens etc.

On close assault, as "achtung minen" suggests above, I play squad vs squad with rules that almost mirror the shooting ones. There is a brief description here (towards the end of the text) link

Basically, troops have a strike value just like firepoer (usually 1) troops with a special weapon (power sword, light saber etc) add a support die. The (more or less) usual confidence tests are done to assault/ stand (including final defensive fire) and then a round of hand to hand is fought. Attackers rolls quality plus attack dice etc against defender's quality and then defender gets to hit back in the same way. Die shifts for special conditions/ weapons etc.

It is a bit bloodier than shootng as attacker only has to beat defender with one die to score hits. More than one die is a major sucecss and total hits are doubled. (remember in each round both players get to attack and defend and it is considered simultaneous so both sides usually score a few hits) Hits are converted to wounds in the same way as shooting – opposed impact vs armour roles.

After wounds are done, you do another opposed quality die roll (with shifts for wounds and other modifiers). Loser withdraws and drops a confidence level, if they are doubled by the winner, they drop 2 confidence levels. If its a draw, both withdraw but dont drop a level.

it sounds complex, but is actually simpler and I think quicker than the original rules with much more variety.

I also allow assaulters to try to catch troops who chose to voluntarily withdraw before combat and a few other minor changes like that.

Tmason – looks phenomenally straight-forward and much more consistent.

Never played them, so I get your concern, Weasel.

However, in looking at the rules for close-combat, and since supposedly SG is a small, skirmish-level game anyway, at least theoretically, I don't see too much of a problem with dealing individually with close-combat.

Especially since, in SGII, the original rules have you facing the squads off, man against man, anyway, already, for close combat.

Yeah, it's not a /problem/ in the sense that it breaks the game or anything.

Just one of those things, like having a kind of mediocre pickle in an otherwise excellent cheese burger, you know? :)

I agree: TMason, very cool and very consistent with Stargrunt's game design. I'll have to give them a spin!

I couldn't bring myself to finish reading TW. They felt disorganized to me, but I may not be smart enough to read them.

At least SGII rules were short and you teach someone to play in fifteen minutes.

What makes TW's rules so complex is the reaction cascade. That gets very complicated (and I have a house rule that can make it a bit less painful, but needs some kind of marker to show which teams have Reacted and which still have yet to react).

My house rule? Resolve all Reacting units from nearest to farthest (and mark with some kind of "have reacted" indicator like a string of dirt puffs from a MG burst). Resolve unit's action. Finally, resolve all actions from Reacting units that failed to beat Active unit's dice.

If anyone wants a complete set of my SG house rules, email me: masont at bigpond dot com

What'd really be nice, for SGII, and/or other rules, is some really easy to calculate system where you factor in the fighting quality of the troops and their weapons, against the fighting quality of their opponents and armor protection, and vice versa.

If that could be done, without have to stop to work out a lot of math, that'd be ideal, even if it needs to be applied man-to-man, since I imagine in a lot of games, close combat is a rare occurrence.

Of course, if fighting in built-up areas, or in spacecraft, things may be a bit more intense.

For me the close combat is quite important because I play a lot of games with aliens with claws etc.

tmason an email sent :)

Thanks :) Matt