[DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

20 posts ยท Apr 1 2002 to Apr 4 2002

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 08:47:58 -0800

Subject: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

I had an idea for DSII pop into my head last night while drifting off to

sleep (a sure sign of severe mental problems), and haven't been able to check
my rulebook yet, so before I make the suggestion, I was wondering two things:

1. Can someone refresh my memory as to how hidden units get revealed in DSII?

2.  Can any vets out there comment on how Recon-by-fire works IRl to see
if my idea meshes with reality before I go further with it?

Thanks,

3B^2

From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@m...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 11:52:35 +1000

Subject: RE: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

G'day,

> 1. Can someone refresh my memory as to how hidden units get

When owning player reveals them or opponent gets clear line-of-sight on
them.

Cheers

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 07:03:45 -0800

Subject: RE: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> From: Beth.Fulton@csiro.au

> G'day,

That's what I thought I recalled. I was considering HR modifications to

make it a little harder to uncover them than JUST LOS. Suggestions?

3B^2

PS Thanks Beth!

From: Robin Paul <Robin.Paul@t...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 17:19:03 +0100

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

[quoted original message omitted]

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 08:56:51 -0800

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> Robin Paul wrote:

> Steal the WRG WW2 or Modern acquisition rules?

WRG?   Not familiar with it - remember, my wargaming exposure's pretty
limited (ASL long ago, Battletech & GZG more recently), I'm a converted
RPG'er.

> There's also a freeware set of coastal warfare rules called "Hunters on

Sounds fun, where can I get them?

with a simpler version:
> (paraphrase follows)

*SNIP*

> Inside this distance, a size-specific die is rolled for each target,

Sounds easy to wedge into a FMA system.

> You could modify this so that e.g. in the table above, "small target"

I'm thinking along the same lines, but want to base the rolls not just on
range, but also FIrecon quality & overall signature.

3B^2

From: Ryan Gill <rmgill@m...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 12:37:02 -0500

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

Wouldn't it make more sense for a Recon by fire result of discovered be based
on the "target" unit being forced to make a reaction test. If they fail,
someone shoots back thus revealing their position and type. If they make the
test, then they don't respond (which is what recon by fire is supposed to make
a unit do) and thus they wait out the fire. Ideally, the reaction test would
be made in secret whether there were a unit there for real or not, thus not
really revealing if there is a unit there or not if the roll is made or if
there is nothing there or not.

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 09:51:29 -0800

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

Ryan M Gill werote:

> Wouldn't it make more sense for a Recon by fire result of discovered

Yes, but I was first working on establishing general rules for hidden units, I
had not yet moved on to my RBF ideas.

> If they fail, someone shoots back thus revealing their position and

This is actually what I had in mind. More on that once the rest of the hidden
unit house rules are established.

3B^2

From: KH.Ranitzsch@t... (K.H.Ranitzsch)

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:23:19 +0200

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

[quoted original message omitted]

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 12:33:49 -0800

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de (K.H.Ranitzsch)

> "Wargames Research Group". Active since the late 1960's/early 1970's.
Best
> known nowadays for their DBM/DBA ancients rules, but have been active

Danke

From: Derk Groeneveld <derk@c...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:39:22 +0200 (CEST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
Best
> known nowadays for their DBM/DBA ancients rules, but have been active

I'll grant you the 'popular' part. I'm quite willing to argue the 'well
thought out' for a good many of their rule sets;)

Cheers,

From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@y...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 18:26:55 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> --- "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de> wrote:

> "Wargames Research Group". Active since the late

Stupidly popular, but some serious flaws in the way they think. Of course,
when your goal is to produce a tournament ruleset so that you fight ancient
Egyptians against medieval Koreans (who happen to have Aztec allies). Armies
line up from one side of the table to the other, with no room for flanking
maneuvers or any sort of more complex thinking than "Run forward and die." You
can't tell the difference between Viking raiders and Roman Legions.

Oh, and they never heard of horse archery.

From: Edward Lipsett <translation@i...>

Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 11:36:57 +0900

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

That's all right. Neither had the Romans.

> John Atkinson wrote:

> Oh, and they never heard of horse archery.

From: Roger Books <books@m...>

Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 23:20:34 -0500 (EST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> On 2-Apr-02 at 21:27, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:

> Stupidly popular, but some serious flaws in the way

That's odd, the DBA rules I just picked up specify which armies may fight.
They all look like historical matchups. They dispense with this in
tournaments?

From: Michael Llaneza <maserati@e...>

Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 21:56:35 -0800

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

DBA is an evolutionary offshoot of WRG Ancients (7 total editions, or is it 8
now?) and its very persnickety army lists. DBA was explicitly designed to be a
very realistic wargame given its very high level of abstraction and to avoid
all the tournamenty aspects of 7th Edition. And

it's a fast play system - exactly 12 stands per army, balanced against
their historical opponents; and there are 180 armies listed. DBA is to 7th Ed
Ancients as FT is to SFB. Then they did DBM, which is a full sized game, but
retaining the simple mechanics of DBA.

With 12 stands per side (fewer than chess I'll point out) you can do an
amazing amount of flanking work on a 2" by 2" table. It scales down bigger
games very well. You usually have one block of infantry, maybe two, and
flanking units. This lets you do battle planning with minimal distraction in
detail. Roman and Carthaginian armies come down to how the infnatry action in
the center turns out. 100 Years War armies shatter quickly (100 YW games take
about 45 minutes once the terrain is
set).

WRG Ancients seems to be at a dead end from my limited perspective, and
DBA/DBM has taken off nicely.

> Roger Books wrote:

> On 2-Apr-02 at 21:27, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:

From: John Lambshead <pjdl@n...>

Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 09:44:30 +0100

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

WRG are the British Wargame Research Group. An old traditional wargame rules
group associated with Phil Barker and mates. They have a cult fan base, who
tend to be rather hostile to 'trivial' wargaming, with no sense of humour.
Their rules are cheaply produced and sold with endless versions. They strike
me as amateur, for good and ill. I have found their later rules sets not much
fun but like the earlier ones (1970s) People seem to either love them or hate
them. It won't cost you much to try them. John

> Robin Paul wrote:

Dr PJD Lambshead Head, Nematode Research Group Department of Zoology The
Natural History Museum London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel +44 (0)20 7942 5032
Fax +44 (0)20 7942 5433

From: DAWGFACE47@w...

Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 08:35:44 -0600 (CST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

REPUBLICAN AND EARLY IMPERIAL ROMANS DID NOT HAVE HORSE ARCHERS.

BUT. . . .

later Imperial romans, mid-imperial romans and late imperial romans
were all very well acquaiinted with horse archer as auxiliaries. even in the
western armies.

and the "byzantines', who thought of themselves as "romans" made extensive use
of horse archers, as skirmishers, as auxiliaries, as
lancer/archers,and later in mixed units of lancers and archers.

From: John Lambshead <pjdl@n...>

Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 16:46:32 +0100

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

DBA was a little competition game written for a meeting. It was fun but I
would not consider it especially realistic. DBM was an attempt to turn DBA
into a real WRG style wargame. DBM has been popular but suffers from having no
morale rules as well as the WRG obsession with 'troop types'. There have been
so many modifications that it is difficult to keep track (the errata alone is
colossal). The current best type, I am told are light knights that cream
everybody. DBM is the competition gamer's choice but warhammer ancients is
making big inroads

WRG 7 was the last big game in the 1-7 range (although they were not a
continuous development). It was really bad and is largely unlamented (unlike
6th edition which is still played). I agree WRG Ancients is dead.

J.

> At 21:56 02/04/2002 -0800, you wrote:
And
> it's a fast play system - exactly 12 stands per army, balanced against

> 7th Ed Ancients as FT is to SFB. Then they did DBM, which is a full

> amazing amount of flanking work on a 2" by 2" table. It scales down

> flanking units. This lets you do battle planning with minimal

> DBA/DBM has taken off nicely.

Dr PJD Lambshead Head, Nematode Research Group Department of Zoology The
Natural History Museum London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel +44 (0)20 7942 5032
Fax +44 (0)20 7942 5433

From: Chen-Song Qin <cqin@e...>

Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 13:04:28 -0700

Subject: RE: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

That's what I meant. The Romans that I talked about didn't have horse archers
in their own armies, but they fought, and often defeated, armies that did have
horse archers. Of course, they had horse archers as auxiliaries as well. (I
believe Roman armies as early as Lucullus had impressed Armenian horse
archers)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as kids, we'd
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc.  1989

From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@y...>

Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 18:44:50 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:

And in casual play.

From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@y...>

Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 18:56:16 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

--- Edward Lipsett <translation@intercomltd.com>
wrote:
> That's all right. Neither had the Romans.

Really?

I think Belisarius might be surprised to hear that.