House Rule Vote - SE-5 top defence

[kevan]

This is intended to be the first in a series of surveys that will set standard VDP house rules.

Since I designed the survey, I've added a personal option. So, to recap, the options are:

1. We stick with the 7th edition rules, which allow top defence outright.

2. We allow top defence only against attackers entering from front 3 squares.

3. We eliminate top defence.

4. I've always thought it should be allowable, but the pilot should have to choose to point the Lewis either up or forward, and take a full turn to adjust it to the other facing. From what I've read, the pilots who used the Lewis for raking top attacks would deliberately set the Lewis back on its mount in advance, not on the fly. A Lewis adjusted this way would also allow a pilot to make a bottom attack with the Lewis, without going nose up.

[kirkh]

Well this poll isn't working out like you planned, is it? When all the options have roughly the same support it means you're back to square one.

I voted for "leave it as it is in the rules" for this reason: I think VDP needs to be as close to the standard 7th edition rules as possible. For the most part the same folks take part in the games but every so often a new person shows up. Any time new "house" rules are accepted and used it makes it just that little bit harder for an outsider to come in and play. I'd want it so any person with VASSAL and a copy of the 7th edition rules could come and play without needing to know a bunch of "house" rules.

[albpilot]

OMG, the 'front 3 squares' idiocy continues....

;D

[kevan]

kirkh said:

I voted for "leave it as it is in the rules" for this reason: I think VDP needs to be as close to the standard 7th edition rules as possible. For the most part the same folks take part in the games but every so often a new person shows up. Any time new "house" rules are accepted and used it makes it just that little bit harder for an outsider to come in and play. I'd want it so any person with VASSAL and a copy of the 7th edition rules could come and play without needing to know a bunch of "house" rules.

The reason that I put this poll up, and that I expect to put others up in the future, is so that we can then have a single reference page of VDP house rules. As it is, there are several common house rules that we've gotten in the habit of using without any real documentation. Once we have a single reference page, any new players can be directed to it as the definitive record of any deviations from 7th edition.

I went with the poll so that it's completely open, as opposed to having votes during games where there are rarely more than 4 people. I'm thinking that the next poll I'll be putting up is the "single deck gun up a table" rule. I suspect that one will be less controversial.

Personally, I'd hate to see us stuck forever on vanilla 7th edition. I'd eventually like to see us adopting some of the great resources that have been developed by the community in the years since, such as the FITS expanded aircraft stats and scenario lists that would make use of the aircraft counters included in the v1.1 and 1.2 module updates.

[kevan]

This poll has been up for a month, and the highest vote goes to leaving it as it is.

So, for now, no VDP house rule on SE-5 top defence. However, I will keep checking on this, and if the vote swings otherwise at some point in the future, a rule may be adopted at that time.

I'm going to throw up a new VDP house rule poll question.