Toadmaster

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? I got the complete Black Adder for christmas last year, we recently re-watched the entire series. I can't believe I missed a Rowan Atkinson series, I'll have to watch for that Thin blue line.

Re: Good animated supers flicks? Thanks, I have some of those listed (love Samauri Jack), but hadn't even heard of a few.

I'm mixed between whether this belongs here or the NGD but I figure if you people don't know which ones are good you've picked an odd genre to play. Its hard to miss the big studio movies (The Hulk, Spiderman etc) but I see alot of supers series DVD's at Walmart and such, I'm wondering which ones are worth getting. I really liked the Batman Animated Series and have the 1st 2 collections (I think its up to 4 now), also like Justice League. I have a 6 year old who likes both of the above and would like to get some more variety for him (and it doesn't hurt that I like them too ). I've seen a fantastic 4 series and just saw an Iron Man DVD is coming out next year, just wondering whats out there that is of similar quality to Batman and Justice League. Thanks

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Viva Las Vegas - ZZ top

Re: Aircraft that Never Were Bah, taking propellers off aircraft was a really bad idea. The XB-70 and B-66 Hustler are favorites of mine despite being prop challenged. I'm not really familar with the Avro Arrow, not a bad looking plane, kind of reminds me of the F102 Delta Dagger and F106 Delta Dart.

Re: WHFRP -> Hero conversion? Thanks, I saw there has been a new version done for WHFRP so hopefully there will be new stuff coming out, thought about getting the new one then thought WarhammerHero sounds better.

Just curious if anyone knows of a Warhammer Fantasy to Hero conversion. I like the world of Warhammer but the system is kind of for me. Its ok but I'd prefer it in another system (preferably one that has a green guy on the cover).

Re: Some Ideas for Tank Gun Ammo I liked the 3rd edition version of modern weapons much better, DI had some of the best fragmentation / shotgun rules I've seen. Grenades were deceptively dangerous since the shrapnel on modern grenades was effective well beyond the blast. I've tried to write up alot of the old rules under 5th ed but they usually comeout very complex and still not as good.

Re: Some Ideas for Tank Gun Ammo Yes, I know the feeling, thats where I got the idea of trying out piercing, same damage but much better armor penetration. I mean from a practical perspective getting hit by a 120mm or 16" round probably doesn't make alot of difference (just a different consistancy of mist), but a 16" round will penetrate alot more than a 120mm gun.

Re: Some Ideas for Tank Gun Ammo I figured it was a generic tank gun, at first I thought it would just be modifiers so seeing the actual DC etc stat-ed out kind of had me wondering. I had not heard about a new round but they show up from time to time, the 105mm used in the M60, Centurian and early M1 had a beehive round. For a game it doesn't really matter if both are called Cannister but there is a difference. Cannister or going back further Grapeshot is literally a big shotgun, multiple projectiles emerge from the bore of the gun. Beehive on the other hand a single round exits the muzzle and goes down range hundreds or thousands of meters before it is triggered and detonates sending its payload of multiple projectiles downrange, so Beehive has a much longer effective range. Not really sure how you would write it up since its kind of like a shotgun that teleports the muzzle way over there before the RbR etc starts to kick in. Interesting idea on the lim for ammo, personally I'd leave it as an RP thing done in game as its availability varied through the war. Same could be said for the HVAP in US tanks, it was hard for tanks to get it since most went to the tank destroyer units. Until late in the war most tanks were lucky to have 2 or 3 rounds of HVAP on hand. Not even sure of how to do a split availability but I'm thinking something like APCR 1940-1943 11-, 1944-45 8- HVAP Tank destroyer 14-, tank 1944 8-, tank 1945 11- Still unless the PC's are buying it with points think its probably best to just put it in the description. I had some much more radical ideas for armored combat I wrote up some time ago. It involved changing alot of assumptions like more use of advantages / lims than currently used (AP, hardend, piercing etc). Its difficult to work with PD / DC and still have some variety when you get past the DC9 / PD 15-20 range. I'll try and dig them up, to see if there was anything useful or just mad ravings.

Re: Firing Into Melee, a rules quandary You could go the GURPS route, if you miss the intended target start rolling against other possible targets inline with the target from nearest to farthest with an unmodified 9- roll. Another idea which I think is kind of where AmadanNaBriona was going is allow the shooter to take a penalty based on target size (head -8 etc) but I would allow the higher the penalty the less chance of hitting the unintended target, perhaps use the same penalty against the random 9- roll, this is not exactly a called shot as I would not allow an automatic head shot since that was not what the were doing they were taking an extra penalty to not hit another target. I'm not sure that actually makes sense from a purely "realistic" point of view but it feels right to allow a very skilled shooter to make these kind of shots with less risk than a less skilled shooter.

Re: Some Ideas for Tank Gun Ammo These are some WW2 era guns I did awhile back, the 75mm is very expensive compared to the other guns because of the WP round. 75mm M3 tank gun: (238 pts, max range 1000") Rmod +7 Multi-power (283 pts), 97 charges (+¾); OIF Bulky (-1), Real weapon (-¼), Charges must be assigned to slots when re-supplied (-¼) Armor Piercing (188 pts) RKA 5d6, +7 Increased STUN multiplier (+1 ¾), Beam (-¼) High Explosive (149 pts) Energy blast 17d6, Explosion (+½), Increased maximum range (+¼) White Phosphorus Incendiary / smoke (283 pts) Energy blast 6d6, Explosion (-1 DC per 2”; +¾), Increased maximum range (+¼), Continuous (+1), Uncontrolled (+½), 0 Endurance (effects last for 1 minute; +½), (120 pts) RKA 3d6, Area of effect (9” radius; +1¼), Increased maximum range (+¼), 0 Endurance (+½), Reduced penetration (-¼), Linked (-½) (101 pts) Change environment – Smoke (-3 to sight group), 16” radius, Increased maximum range (+½), Uncontrolled (+½), 0 Endurance (effects last for 1 minute; +½), Linked (-½) (62 pts) 76mm M1 tank gun: (166 pts, max range 1500") Rmod +8 Multi-power (225 pts), 71 charges (+¾); OIF Bulky (-1), Real weapon (-¼), Charges must be assigned to slots when re-supplied (-¼) Armor Piercing (220 pts) RKA 5d6+1, +7 Increased STUN multiplier (+1 ¾), Increased maximum range (+¼), Beam (-¼) High velocity armor piercing (225 pts) RKA 4d6, Armor piercing (x2; +1), +7 STUN multiplier (+1¾), Increased maximum range (+¼), Beam (-¼) High Explosive (131 pts) Energy blast 15d6, Explosion (+½), Increased maximum range (+¼) Smoke (65 pts) Change environment – Smoke (-4 to sight group), 8” radius, Increased maximum range (+½), Uncontrolled (+½), 0 Endurance (effects last for 1 minute; +½), Gradual effect (1 turn, post-segment 12; -¼) 8.8cm KwK36 tank gun: (236 pts, max range 2000") Rmod +12 Multi-power (300 pts), 92 charges (+¾); OIF Bulky (-1), Real weapon (-¼), Charges must be assigned to slots when re-supplied (-¼) Armor Piercing (249 pts) RKA 5½ d6, +8 Increased STUN multiplier (+2), Increased maximum range (+¼), Beam (-¼) Armor Piercing Composite Rigid (300 pts) RKA 5d6, +8 Increased STUN multiplier (+2), Armor piercing (x2; +1), Increased maximum range (+¼), Beam (-¼) High Explosive (158 pts) Energy blast 18d6, Explosion (+½), Increased maximum range (+¼) APCR is basically the German version of HVAP You may notice the "better" AP rounds have AP x2, I was assuming tanks would have 1 level of hardend, this allows these rounds (which typically were 50-100% better penetration than the standard AP rounds) to get through heavy armor that stops the standard rounds without having tanks with 100 PD.

Re: Some Ideas for Tank Gun Ammo Since you've listed actual stats I assume this is one tank gun, it doesn't say which (100mm, 105mm, 115mm, 120mm 125mm?) I am assuming a modern gun. This brings up pt 2, the range of ammo is pretty wide for a specific gun, APHE, APC, APDS & HE are primarily WW2 / Korean era rounds, you won't find them in a modern gun (most modern guns use HESH or HEAT for the HE role), Cannister is rare in modern guns, when it is found it ofetn goes under the name Bee-hive which uses flechettes trigered at range, Cannister uses pellets out the bore like a shotgun. HEAT and HEAP are basically the same thing, there is another HEAP which is not AP at all but designed for extra anti-personnel effect, I believe it is just a Soviet thing. Also if you are going for all round types you left out HVAP High Velocity Armor Piercing, this was sort of an early APDS round, lightweight non-discarding sleeve with a hard core (usually an aluminium "sleeve" and a tungston core). WP White Phosphorus, used for smoke and incediary / anti-personnel effect, and Chemical rounds (primarily smoke but poison gas is available for some guns). As far as the gun itself I'd add a limitation, slots must be selected out of game, basically the ammo has to be loaded before battle, as it is theorectically the gunner can adjust the ammo during the fight with a magic ammo selector lever.

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw backs away slowly...

Re: Modern Mililtary Vehicle Reference Sites Suprisingly (at least to me) Wikipedia has some very good entries on military hardware. As an example here is the entry for the M1 Abrams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams Here is another for nuclear weapons design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw um well nice drawing, I think I'll leave it at that um, yeah I think that is best

Re: Steam Power in Fantasy Dwarves in Warhammer and a few other games have steam powered technology, but thats the only example I can think of. I had the idea of a college of technomages, magic used to create technological items, magic fired steam engines etc. GURPS Vehicles gave me the idea because some of the power plants are magically or demonically powered. A permanent heat metal spell put on a rod would basically allow one to build a fantasy nuclear reactor.

Re: Guns on cards I did a whole box of 3x5 cards for GURPS years ago, I got tired of having to re-write lists of guns every time a new cool gun came out so I came up with the idea of using 3x5 cards, so I could just drop the new gun in the right place. This was before I had a computer so I had to type up lists of guns on this funny device called a typewriter. I still have them around somewhere, must have done about 1000 of them.

Re: Flyboys: WWI pilots, dogfights, and zepplins!!! Speaking of Zeppelins I remember a movie where the British are trying to shoot down German zeppelins, but due to their altitude the British fighters have trouble reaching them. I don't remember much else except that was the main theme behind the movie. It was an older movie (at least the 60's), any idea what it might have been?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Jimmy Buffett - Pencil thin mustache

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Bob Seger: Her strut

Re: Flyboys: WWI pilots, dogfights, and zepplins!!! I just saw a commercial for this, I'm glad to see some WW1 dogfights in CGI but something I was thinking as I watched it was I wonder how the CGI dogfights will compare to some of the spectacular dogfights using real aircraft in some of the 60's WW1 movies. The Blue Max has some amazing flying scenes, I know I've seen others but that is the only one I know the title of. I am disappointed to hear they seem to have missed the opportunity to show off the wide variety of WW1 aircraft. The DR1 wasn't really even that good of an aircraft, the Fokker DVII and Albatros DV were better dogfighters. The DR1 does have a certain coolness factor to it which is probably why hollywood picked up on it. As far as DR1's being all red one of the features of Richtovens "flying circus" (not to be confused with that other flying circus) was each pilot had their own scheme. I've personally always been fond of the german lozenge "camoflage" pattern, diamonds in purple, blue, green etc. So I'm glad there is a new WW1 movie but not so glad to hear hollywood is blowing the chance to play with all the cool aircraft of the period. Zepplins are nice though so I guess I can cut them a little slack. Hope someone picks up the idea and does another movie but with a good story and more aircraft. I'll see it though, even if only for the flying scenes, I hate Top gun but always have to sit down and watch the great flying scenes.

Re: on another note... WW2 aircraft still flying The USFS DC-3 is a turbo prop conversion but its not a tri-motor, it is primarily used to drop smoke jumpers. Here is a photo of it (top pic) http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/aircraft.html Until 2002 there were a number of WW2 era aircraft still flying as air tankers (also popularly known as fire bombers or borate bombers). Canada still uses A-26 (B-26) Invaders and Martin Mars flying boats, TBM Avengers were quite popular but I believe the last ended their careers in 2000. The US Forest Service has used PBY Catalina flying boats, F7F Tigercats, TBM Avengers, B-25 Mitchells, A-26 (B-26) Invaders, B-17 Flying Fortresses, and PB4Y2 (Naval version of the B-24 Liberator). Most of these went out of service in the 80's but the PB4Y2 was still flying in 2002. The P2V Neptune is a WW2 design that entered service in the late 40's, they are still in service as air tankers. The DC-4 (C-54) and later DC-6, DC-7 are still flying as Airtanker's. After 2 spectacular fatal tanker crashes in 2002 (C-130 Hercules & PB4Y2) the use of the older aircraft was severely questioned, in a knee jerk reaction the political appointees overseeing the air tanker program cancelled contracts for all except the P-3 Orion (it is seen as more modern since it has turbo-props, but ironically some are older than piston powered P2V's). One of the requirements to get a new contract is documentaion from the manufacturer on life expectancy, for the Navy planes (P-3 Orion and P2V Neptune, the crash in 2002 was the end of service for the PB4Y2's) this was harder to do since the Navy doesn't keep good records apparently. However the Douglas DC series (3,4,6,7) have been given a clean bill of health by Douglas, the company (Mcdonnell Douglas now) has stated they built those planes to fly forever, they have no service life. Aviation experts pretty much agree saying the Douglas DC series from the 30-50's are some of the toughest over engineered aircraft ever built. So its no wonder so many are still flying.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? White Zombie: More human than human

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Bruce Hornsby & the range: Look out any window