FMA Skirmish guns

Well here goes my.02 worth.

The battle had been going fast and furious for longer than Sgt Gump cared to
think about. Alot of guys had run out of ammo a long time ago. Rookies
unloading full clips at bushes that looked suspicous did not help matters.
They had shared out the last couple of clips and waited for the next enemy
push.

Ammo consumption becomes important when you only have what you carried into
the fight.

Firing options.
			die level    ammo
 Full Auto    -    FP +1           4
                        FP +2           8
                        FP +3           16
(Your typical clip would hold 10 shots. oversized clip 20.)

 Spread Fire  -  FP -1 die level per target(must be within 4" of each
other), 2 actions. May be combined with auto fire. (Mr. Barclay's rules were
good but a bit involved for our tastes.)

 Reload       -  Reaction test to load in 1 action otherwise 2 actions

In the play test we said that one side would be trigger happy so we could see
what the difference would be. Each trooper carried 3 normal clips and one ext.
clip. We had an even split of reg and green with one veteran per side. They
started at 40" apart with dense to moderate terrain. The trigger happy squad
opened up early and suppressed squad B pretty well but could not get any kills
due to the range and cover. Once they had to start reloading squad B got a
break, spread out, moved into even better cover and started firing back. When
trig. squad let loose again the effects were not as good as they could not
spread fire 2 or 3 enemy at a time. Eventually they started to run low on ammo
and things started to go wrong. Due to some incredible die rolls by squad B
they got 4 out of 10 guys knocked out in one turn and the others decided to
leave. This kind of stopped the play testing portion of our game.

RESULTS:
-The biggest difference we could see was that you could get suppression
easier but the casualty rate was only slightly more.
-If you have to reload and there are still bad guys you are in trouble.
-Green troops like to use lots of ammo.  They suppress things alot but
never really hit anything.
-When a veteran troop autos on 2 or 3 guys at close range there are lots
of screams and gurgling noises.
-More experienced troops could spread fire without using up gobs of
ammo.

Other thoughts... I like the idea of being prone giving a cover result. But I
dont think there is much difference between being prone behind the dege of a
brick wall and kneeling behind same wall. The area exposed to fire is roughly
the same. Maybe say that going prone gives a die shift for cover but is not
cumalative with hard cover. As far as leaving a prone position maybe it could
be just 2" of movement to do?

Bracing--  I am lnot sure what all AIMING entails but you can use an AIM
action anywhere. Mr.Barclay was saying something about being prone or kneeling
next to cover giving a die shift up for firing. This sounds like the trooper
is bracing himself against a sturdy object to give a stable firing position.
You could brace in any stance as long as there was something to brace against.
I.E. wall, car, Bobs corpse. Once a figure was braced he would keep the bonus
until he either moved or was suppressed. This should take an action I would
think.

Seems that we are loading up on the firing bonuses. Is anyone still giving
figures the option of going IN POSITION?