Ulysses

By Lotus, in Dust Tactics

My scratch-built take on the Grant conversion.

Turret and hull-mounted cannon move. Hull pivots per standard. Everything else moved until I got the legs positioned.

ulyssesle.jpg

Here's the Ulysses pre-paint:

ulyssesunpainted.jpg

Cool beans. Really like what you did with Grant Walker.

hey_yu said:

Cool beans. Really like what you did with Grant Walker.

Thoughts?

I like what you have done with the hull and turret but something about the legs looks slighty off. It may just be the angle or the pics. Either way excellent modelling skills man. For rules as the Grant/ Lee had a turret mounted 37mm and hull mounted 75mm maybe a weapons similar to the 5cm and the 75mm on the Mickey would be closer. The pounder mounts a long 17 lb which is way beyond either of these weapons.

DoomOnYou72 said:

I like what you have done with the hull and turret but something about the legs looks slighty off. It may just be the angle or the pics. Either way excellent modelling skills man. For rules as the Grant/ Lee had a turret mounted 37mm and hull mounted 75mm maybe a weapons similar to the 5cm and the 75mm on the Mickey would be closer. The pounder mounts a long 17 lb which is way beyond either of these weapons.

Thanks for the good words, Doom.

Yeah, the legs are my own take. I noticed the Allies, having a German walker leg in their possession, went w/ a bird design instead of the man leg. I understand it was meant to be a crude start, but I figured if a bird design was the way to go, I wanted to make it more something (to me anyways) that would handle terrain better...grip the unevenness and still do it fairly fast enough to challenge the German walkers. Everything (pistons included) are the same size and I kept it all loose until I had the walking position I wanted, so the gait may add to the oddness of my take on the bird-leg design.

I see your point on the guns. I was initially thinking something along the line of a sherman -- though that has too-large a gun also. The pounder is the closest we have (with its Stuart chassis) but yeah, the forward gun needs to be substantially weaker than the medium tanks of both sides.

Do you think 4 dice against 4 armor is reasonable for the forward gun? Maybe 2 dice against same for the turret?

The 75mm was pretty pathetic against armour and was there as HE support to mainly take out infantry so should be 2 or 3 dice down on the 17pdr against armour and better than Mikey's 75mm, probably keep the stats the same as the 17pdr against infantry.

The closest weapon we have to the 37mm is the Axis 50mm and as the 37mm is an AT weapon and the 50mm an AA I think it would be fair to give them the same dice against armour. Whatever you do, the combined dice of both 37 and 50 should not be as good as the 17pdr, 4 or 5 total against A4. It is acually a very difficult combo to get right, maybe you could balance it by one or both guns having the Reload trait, the 75mm with a limited arc of fire or able to only fire one a turn, but that would conflict with current rules. Don't forget that this tank was designed to take on the weak Panzer 2 and 3's and was soon droped from favour when it was found to be useless against anything heavier, in 1947 the guns would be almost totally useless.

The 37mm would have 0 dice against aircraft and negligable against infantry, maybe 1/1 against all.

Major Mishap said:

The 75mm was pretty pathetic against armour and was there as HE support to mainly take out infantry so should be 2 or 3 dice down on the 17pdr against armour and better than Mikey's 75mm, probably keep the stats the same as the 17pdr against infantry.

The closest weapon we have to the 37mm is the Axis 50mm and as the 37mm is an AT weapon and the 50mm an AA I think it would be fair to give them the same dice against armour. Whatever you do, the combined dice of both 37 and 50 should not be as good as the 17pdr, 4 or 5 total against A4. It is acually a very difficult combo to get right, maybe you could balance it by one or both guns having the Reload trait, the 75mm with a limited arc of fire or able to only fire one a turn, but that would conflict with current rules. Don't forget that this tank was designed to take on the weak Panzer 2 and 3's and was soon droped from favour when it was found to be useless against anything heavier, in 1947 the guns would be almost totally useless.

The 37mm would have 0 dice against aircraft and negligable against infantry, maybe 1/1 against all.

Thanks for all the tech advice. I have a feeling this might be better against the Japanese, LOL.

How's this? Also, any reason why it might not (in the Dust setting) get an upgraded gun or upgraded rounds?

ulyssescard.jpg

Looks pretty fair to me. I'd give it 1/1 against all infantry armour though as it would be no protection against a 37mm shell. Whats the definition of frontal target, up to the 45' angle from dead ahead?

Nice. Are there any "points" guidelines for figuring out how much something should cost?

I think introducing "frontal targets" is an unnecessary hassle. The game has no system whatsoever to determine which way a unit is facing, so this rule would add a lot of paperwork. The allies' .50 (or is it the .30?) is also forward-facing, with no special rules for ir.

Major Mishap said:

Looks pretty fair to me. I'd give it 1/1 against all infantry armour though as it would be no protection against a 37mm shell. Whats the definition of frontal target, up to the 45' angle from dead ahead?

1/1 against all infantry added. Guess I was thinking the 4 as a squad, not armor. Good call.

Your def of frontal target sounds right...works for both squares and hexes. I think it's needed per the gun design and it should only come into play in larger games or games where the enemy breaks past the line. We're playing more on 3" hexes, so it opens up the field quite a bit. Still experimenting.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Nice. Are there any "points" guidelines for figuring out how much something should cost?

Just using the original cards as benchmarks. The new cards will change all that.

Nice model! For the hull cannon, I'd consider something like 'cannot be used the same turn the model moved'- this represents the Ulysses needs to be turn itself in place to help track targets, instead of being able to move and track the target with the turret at the same time.

-Will