JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Military Vehicles presents over 100 military vehicles for any d20 campaign that utilizes d20 Mecha. That’s the important part to realize. This isn’t necessarily a d20 Modern book, but a d20 Mecha book.
The book is divided into four chapters and then each chapter is divided into smaller sections. It starts off with land vehicles, moving onto aerospace vehicles, then water vehicles and ending with weapon systems. For an example of the type of in chapter break up, lets look at tanks. The in-chapter divisions cover things like tanks, APCs, IFVs, scouts, air defense, artillery, and military trucks.
Each chapter starts with a full-page photograph. Most, if not all of the vehicles are photographs lending them a strong presence but making certain details difficult to see, especially since the photos only capture one side of the vehicle. In addition, some of the photographs look like highly detailed charcoal drawings, which is why I don’t know if they are all photographs. The book is densely packed with text but text isn’t on every page.
After the full-page photograph, the book starts with a tactics section. For me, as I don’t know a lot about military tactics, this is a fine introduction. The descriptions and details seem very real and applicable to any military campaign without relying on any game details. A lot of specialized terminology is also included but thankfully, explained. For example, in the first chapter, it mentions skyline, which is where the tank crosses high ground without cover, silhouetting the tank against the sky. It makes the tanks easy targets.
The statistic blocks start with name, manufacturer, physical characteristics (length, height, weight, powerplant, range, max speed, cost), and then vary according to chapter. For example, the aerospace vehicles have helicopters that have a rotor diameter while the submarines have a draft. Off to the side is the game mechanics according to the d20 Mecha book. This includes type, mecha point costs, class, size, hit points, occupants, cargo, armour, defense, speed, handling, special abilities, and defects. Like the physical characteristics, each type of vehicle has extra information. The aircraft for example, have a ceiling and an air speed while the corvettes have water speed. My biggest problem with the book is that in order to save space, the weaponry only lists the type, relying on the reader to flip to the weapon systems chapter to get the specific details. It saves a ton of space as it prevents information from being repeated over and over again but without a quick page reference with the weapon, makes the readers job more difficult.
The background and details of each vehicle take up about half the page and ring very true. Often this includes modern uses and historical uses, mentioning events that are happening right now ranging from Desert Storm to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It includes not only those who currently use them, but those countries that purchase the vehicle. This allows you to see that the AH-64 Apache helicopter is used not only by the US Army, but also Egypt, Greece, Israel and the United Arab Republic.
The chapter on weapons is impressive. It breaks weapons up into different categories like machine guns, miniguns, automatic cannons, grenade launchers, tank guns, artillery pieces, unguided rockets, and other goodies. It’s nice when you can look up the standard NATO air-launched rocket and see that it inflicts 7d10 points of damage and has an increment range of 350’.
The appendix provides some rule clarifications, additions and errata. This ranges from simple things like rounding mecha point costs down as well as bonuses on mecha costs for reducing the base hit points of a mecha. Gear heads that want to create more vehicles will eagerly devour the design formula where the author provides the details on how certain statistics came to be. For example, the hit points are 23 times the square root of the square root of the vehicle’s usual operating weight in tons.
Other tools to ease use include a table with velocity class, including class, MPH, KPH, RT.RD, M/RD, Default and Defense Modifier, as well as a table that lists Vehicles by Country. For reader like myself, you’ll find the two-page index useful for quickly finding what you want.
At 144 pages, the book is slightly overpriced in comparison to other books on a page-by-page basis. The two pages of ads don’t help. This slightly counters the densely packed text. Like other books by Guardians of Order, there is a large amount of open game content here. So much so, that I’d be surprised is someone didn’t start using the d20 mecha rules and examples from this book as default elements for other publications.
For those using d20 Mecha and want a complete military reference that provides background and game statistics, this book is perfect. For standard d20 Modern players, the background information can be clipped without issue but you’ll need the d20 Mecha book to get the most from the game mechanics.
The book is divided into four chapters and then each chapter is divided into smaller sections. It starts off with land vehicles, moving onto aerospace vehicles, then water vehicles and ending with weapon systems. For an example of the type of in chapter break up, lets look at tanks. The in-chapter divisions cover things like tanks, APCs, IFVs, scouts, air defense, artillery, and military trucks.
Each chapter starts with a full-page photograph. Most, if not all of the vehicles are photographs lending them a strong presence but making certain details difficult to see, especially since the photos only capture one side of the vehicle. In addition, some of the photographs look like highly detailed charcoal drawings, which is why I don’t know if they are all photographs. The book is densely packed with text but text isn’t on every page.
After the full-page photograph, the book starts with a tactics section. For me, as I don’t know a lot about military tactics, this is a fine introduction. The descriptions and details seem very real and applicable to any military campaign without relying on any game details. A lot of specialized terminology is also included but thankfully, explained. For example, in the first chapter, it mentions skyline, which is where the tank crosses high ground without cover, silhouetting the tank against the sky. It makes the tanks easy targets.
The statistic blocks start with name, manufacturer, physical characteristics (length, height, weight, powerplant, range, max speed, cost), and then vary according to chapter. For example, the aerospace vehicles have helicopters that have a rotor diameter while the submarines have a draft. Off to the side is the game mechanics according to the d20 Mecha book. This includes type, mecha point costs, class, size, hit points, occupants, cargo, armour, defense, speed, handling, special abilities, and defects. Like the physical characteristics, each type of vehicle has extra information. The aircraft for example, have a ceiling and an air speed while the corvettes have water speed. My biggest problem with the book is that in order to save space, the weaponry only lists the type, relying on the reader to flip to the weapon systems chapter to get the specific details. It saves a ton of space as it prevents information from being repeated over and over again but without a quick page reference with the weapon, makes the readers job more difficult.
The background and details of each vehicle take up about half the page and ring very true. Often this includes modern uses and historical uses, mentioning events that are happening right now ranging from Desert Storm to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It includes not only those who currently use them, but those countries that purchase the vehicle. This allows you to see that the AH-64 Apache helicopter is used not only by the US Army, but also Egypt, Greece, Israel and the United Arab Republic.
The chapter on weapons is impressive. It breaks weapons up into different categories like machine guns, miniguns, automatic cannons, grenade launchers, tank guns, artillery pieces, unguided rockets, and other goodies. It’s nice when you can look up the standard NATO air-launched rocket and see that it inflicts 7d10 points of damage and has an increment range of 350’.
The appendix provides some rule clarifications, additions and errata. This ranges from simple things like rounding mecha point costs down as well as bonuses on mecha costs for reducing the base hit points of a mecha. Gear heads that want to create more vehicles will eagerly devour the design formula where the author provides the details on how certain statistics came to be. For example, the hit points are 23 times the square root of the square root of the vehicle’s usual operating weight in tons.
Other tools to ease use include a table with velocity class, including class, MPH, KPH, RT.RD, M/RD, Default and Defense Modifier, as well as a table that lists Vehicles by Country. For reader like myself, you’ll find the two-page index useful for quickly finding what you want.
At 144 pages, the book is slightly overpriced in comparison to other books on a page-by-page basis. The two pages of ads don’t help. This slightly counters the densely packed text. Like other books by Guardians of Order, there is a large amount of open game content here. So much so, that I’d be surprised is someone didn’t start using the d20 mecha rules and examples from this book as default elements for other publications.
For those using d20 Mecha and want a complete military reference that provides background and game statistics, this book is perfect. For standard d20 Modern players, the background information can be clipped without issue but you’ll need the d20 Mecha book to get the most from the game mechanics.
