Someone at our club came up with a suggestion for SG and the turn sequence.
Each squad has two actions in its activation. The suggestion was to use a
'deck' of cards containing two cards for each squad on the table. Shuffle the
deck and then draw a card at a time. The card is the squad that can do its
action. Obviously this means that squads are moving at random and there will
need to be the exception where a squad will use its two actions at once to
conduct a close assault. Commanders activating subordinate squads will occur
as normal. Now it appears that this would only be useable for the smaller SG
games where you have 4 to 6 squads a side.
Now, this is prompted by noticing that some people 'play the rules' in some
situations and not the spirit of the game. Specifically two examples were:
1. A squad firing at a squad directly to its front with one action then laying
down smoke to prevent the enemy squad returnign fire. Now the game is meant to
be simultaneous activity but broken into squad activations as a mechanic to
manage the game turn. In reality a squad is not really going to have the
opportunity to fire at an enemy squad then pick up and throw smoke grenades
and whilst the smoke is billowing up sit smugly knowing that they can't be
shot at as teh enemy squad hasn't had his turn yet! If the squad throwing
smoke is on the smaller side he will ALWAYS have initiative and can do this
every turn for the entire game!! Yes, I know that you can use house rules to
limit smoke and we try to get people to play realistically using smoke only to
cover advances or withdrawals.
2. A squad is wanting to do a dash across an open piece of terrain. The player
doesn't want to chance a Combat Roll going short so he waits until all units
in LOS have activated. Now he can stroll across happy in the knowledge that he
CAN'T cop a burst of Reaction Fire.
Has anyone heard of this style of turn sequencing before or played it? how
much do people think it would effect teh flavour of the game?
Owen, I understand what you are trying to do here - and I've seen
plenty of examples of play like the two you described. But is "randomizing"
the turn sequence a good solution? Think about a platoon commander who gives
an order for two of his squads to lay down supressing fire so a third can
break position and advance. He has to order the squads to act in sequence
- or he'll have the advancing squad chopped to ribbons 'cause the
supressing fire isn't...
How in this type of system would you account for the need to sequence events
based on your tactical situation, objectives, etc.?
I know it isn't entirely useful just to criticize without offering a
constructive suggestion - but I'm at work (at 5pm on a Sunday, no less,
and want to get out of here...) and don't have time to think the problem
through all the way... sorry. My gut reaction is to tend toward guilting
people into not doing cheesy crap during a game, and recognizing that the game
is a big abstraction and will always have some
inconsistencies/inaccuracies. That's not to say the rules can't be
sharpened up when something bother you... it's just really difficult to force
people into playing by the "spirit of the game" with game mechanics, without
getting into a huge morass of complex rules. Where there's gamers,
there's people who want to play the rules not the game - and there are
people who will find any and every exception to exploit. Ever been to a GW
tournament? You'll end up trying to create a house rule for every possible
situation - and that would get really tiresome. Maybe the trick here is
to
make sure that the people you play with are somewhat like-minded toward
this kind of thing, and have a "gentleman's agreement" not to do stuff like
that unless it really makes sense from a situational perspective.
Anyway, just a thought...
Adrian
> Someone at our club came up with a suggestion for SG and the turn
Shuffle
> the deck and then draw a card at a time. The card is the squad that can
The
> player doesn't want to chance a Combat Roll going short so he waits
how
> much do people think it would effect teh flavour of the game?
Owen Glover spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Has anyone heard of this style of turn sequencing before or played it?
how
> much do people think it would effect teh flavour of the game?
Well, I've seen advances directly into the face of an enemy unit because the
player knew that the enemy unit could not fire, or dashes across wide open
areas where no one had a chance to interrupt. So I can see where one might
want to do this. But I can see some issues here too:
1. Battle plan: It's kind of hard to execute one when the units you want to
move first move last and vice versa. If I want 1 squad to (for example) run up
and blow the door off a bunker and the second squad to close assault the
occupants.... this is thorny if the assaulters activate first.
2. Do you think the command elements should be activated this way? It sure
seems that goes against the spirit of the game. The game is about choices, and
command control. This flavour would be about random chance and the ebb and
flow of battle. Maybe leaving the command elements able to activate at any
point in place of a card draw would be useful.
Plus, do you use two separate decks and alternate between them (one for each
player) or do you allow for that awful random chance where one player gets
(for example) five or six activations in a row before the enemy can react?
Yikes!
This might be a viable option, but it would certainly want to be tested out a
few times. I think it offers a potential imbalance and it seems to take away
from your ability to react and plan. Maybe that is fair, maybe not.
Tom.
/************************************************
Adrian spake thusly upon matters weighty:
Maybe the trick here is to
> make sure that the people you play with are somewhat like-minded
I can see Owen's point. It's why I use my home-written overwatch
rules. It kills both the situations he is talking about - if an enemy
squad is on overwatch focused on either the space your unit will move through
or directly on your unit, it will activate when you do. That
means that if you try the cheesy shoot-smoke activation, you'll get
hosed by them before you get to do it. If you try the dash across a space,
when you pass the overwatch target marker, the watching squad will fire on
you. So it kills both of these without destroying the turn sequence in SG2.
What if the enemy isn't watching? Then your action isn't cheesy, its good
planning. Overwatch is a KEY component of real infantry combat...and something
sadly missing from SG2. It makes for cleaner rules, but it lets a lot of
cheesy things happen.
My rules for overwatch have been used a couple of times and I didn't see it
slow down the game noticeably. My mechanic was reasonably simple (if
convoluted to explain!) and works (AFAICS) well within the existing SG2
system.
Here is another alternative for initiative: To determine who goes next: Roll
d12 before each subsequent activation (or once a turn at
the beginning if you like less overhead). Ties go to defender. +1 to
roll for each unit less than the other player you have. This means it is not
ALWAYS the smaller squad that goes next, unless he is profoundly smaller. It
just gives the little guy better odds of going next.
Tom.
/************************************************
> Owen Glover spake thusly upon matters weighty:
The free choice of when to activate is central to the SG/DS/FMA
mechanisms,
and turning it into a chance-based system will change the game A LOT. By
all means try it if you wish, but it isn't something we'll be putting in any
"Official" rules....! Agreed, there can be quirks in the turn sequence when
one player is trying to exploit the rules as (Owen? I think you started this
thread?) suggested. One rule idea that I've been working on for FMA (which
will retrofit to SG
or DS) is to actually have two different kinds of "opportunity fire" -
split into Overwatch fire and Reaction fire; this is how they are currently
defined in the FMA test draft material - note that here they relate to
single-figure actions, and obviously modifications would be required for
SG
or DS use.....
REACTION FIRE is when a character wishes to take an opportunity-fire
shot
at an opposing character that it in the middle of his/her activation.
This may only be performed by a character that has NOT yet been activated in
this turn; it allows them to immediately take one fire action, using the
normal snap-fire rules, at the character who is currently being
activated; the firing character then has their marker flipped, and their
activation is counted as used up for that turn.
OVERWATCH FIRE is similar to Reaction Fire, in that it allows an immediate
shot against a target that is currently being activated. However, Overwatch
Fire may ONLY be performed by a character who currently has a OVERWATCH
marker, which must have been placed by the character as an action during their
last activation. The presence of an Overwatch marker allows the character to
make one Fire Action using DOUBLED range bands for their weapon, just as if
they had spent an AIM action prior to firing.
Immediately after the shot, the Overwatch marker is removed - a fresh
one may be placed if desired in the character's next activation. Note: an
OVERWATCH marker takes one action to place; it may NOT be placed on a
character who has made a MOVE with their other action in that activation.
Just some thoughts.....
> On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Glover, Owen wrote:
<snip>
> Has anyone heard of this style of turn sequencing before or played it?
how
> much do people think it would effect teh flavour of the game?
from what some people have said, it seems that randomizing things like this
would take out some of the fun of the game, as it makes collaborative actions
harder. here are a couple of other proposals which are
non-stochastic:
* each squad has two activations. all squads have their first activation, then
all squads have their second activation. the sequence of activation of squads
within each half of the turn is exactly the same as in sg2. this
eliminates the shoot-and-smoke problem, but not the
dash-through-death-ground problem, as the player can still move a unit
after all others.
* as above, but the activation sequences in the two half-turns are
inverses of one another; if there are squads A, B and C against X, Y and Z,
and the activation sequence in the first half was BXCZDY, the sequence in the
second half is YDZCXB. thus, if a unit goes early in the first turn, it goes
late in the second and vice versa. this also does not solve
the invulnerable-dash problem, but it is a mild improvement (possibly)
over the first idea. order of activation could be recorded with cards -
when a squad activates in the first half, push its card onto the top of a
stack (the stack starts off empty). in the second half, cards are popped off
the top of stack and the squad they point to is activated; the stack thus ends
up empty.
add some overwatch rules - as ali.bry said, these are really important
in
squad-level games - and you're laughing. alternatively, allow players to
'pass' on activations, so if you suspect the other player will try a dash, you
can hold back a squad until he tries it. this may end up with both players
passing indefinitely, in which case some squads just end up not
moving - they are sitting there staring each other out ...
Tom
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
Actually, it's Andrew, whose email is: Al.Bri@xtra.co.nz
> but I think you mean "Thomas Barclay" who wrote:
> Thomas Barclay Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 08:30:47 +0000, Ground Zero Games
<jon@gzero.dungeon.com> wrote:
> REACTION FIRE is ...
I take it that this would be the standard Reaction Fire rule from the SG2
Advanced Rules section if we were to translate it to SG2 terms?
> OVERWATCH FIRE is similar to Reaction Fire, in that it allows an
Wow, Jon, Great Minds Think Alike and all that... I just came up with a house
rule I was planning to try this weekend, and it looks VERY much like this.
I came up with a second form of Reaction Fire. I called it Advanced Reaction
Fire. It allowed a unit to conduct Reaction Fire at any time an opponent moved
provided that the unit make a Reaction Test at TL0. I also increased the range
band by one. This could even occur in the middle of a unit's movement.
I then came up with Overwatch, which allowed a unit to place an Overwatch
Counter at the cost of both activations. The Overwatch counter allowed either
form of Reaction Fire, however the unit STILL had to make a Reaction Test if
it wanted to conduct Advanced Reaction Fire. The advantage of the Overwatch
Counter is that it didn't add any modifiers to the range die.
I guess another way of handling this is to allow the Overwatch counter to NOT
require a Reaction Test for firing at a unit that crosses its path. This makes
Overwatch much more powerful.
So, in summary, I'm going to try these house rules:
1) Reaction Fire is as per the advanced rules in SG2.
2) Snapshot Fire is a version of reaction fire. It may be used at any time in
an enemy unit's activation, but the firing unit MUST perform a Reaction Test
at TL0 in order to do it, the range is increased by one range band, and it
counts as the unit's next activation.
3) Overwatch Fire allows a unit to conduct either Reaction Fire or Snapshot
Fire. It costs one action to perform, but the unit could not have performed a
Move or Fire action that turn. When using Overwatch Fire to do a Snapshot, a
Reaction Test is NOT needed and the range band is NOT modified.
I'll let everyone know how this goes... Meanwhile, any comments?
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 13:03:39 +0000 (GMT), Thomas Anderson
> <thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
> add some overwatch rules - as ali.bry said, these are really important
As an alternative, allow either player to pass any number of times they wish,
but when both sides pass consecutively, the turn ends.
Allan spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> >OVERWATCH FIRE is similar to Reaction Fire, in that it allows an
Apparently, as I had been thinking about what Jon said and had some ideas for
SG2.
> I came up with a second form of Reaction Fire. I called it Advanced
Snap Fire. Range Band +1 would work. So would shifting the FP or
quality die down.
> I then came up with Overwatch, which allowed a unit to place an
This makes
> Overwatch much more powerful.
I think it should be - you've kissed off two actions for it. Besides,
turns are 2-5 minutes and your targets are moving tens of meters in
sight potentially. I think no test should be required.
Of course, my solution was to make you mark some target points so that you
weren't watching anywhere and everywhere. A reaction roll is
a good substitute, but lacks the flexibility - that is to say you
can't concentrate your attention.
Maybe in my variant, I'll allow the reaction test to see if you can snap fire
at something not near your overwatch targets. Thus you could react.... but I
would reduce the effectiveness too (as you did above).
> 2) Snapshot Fire is a version of reaction fire. It may be used at any
Here is a question: If you snap fire, and you have yet to activate, do you
lose your activation? Do you lose 1 action? Can you fire again during your
activation?
> 3) Overwatch Fire allows a unit to conduct either Reaction Fire or
Wherein lies the benefit re: Reaction Fire from the rulebook?
It costs one action to perform, but the unit could not have performed a
> Move or Fire action that turn.
I thought you thought it should be two actions? That was what you
said above. But one action is fine too - going IP is only 1 action,
as is a move or fire - so an action is something significant.
Plus I can move and fire at full effect. Why can't I move to a position and
enter overwatch? I can see a fire restriction. Can I use two overwatch actions
on a unit (one for rifles, one for SAW)?
When using Overwatch Fire to do a Snapshot, a
> Reaction Test is NOT needed and the range band is NOT modified.
> I'll let everyone know how this goes... Meanwhile, any comments?
With the exception of not placing overwatch targets (thus allowing apparently
a 360 reaction to anything in any range bands) you've defined my overwatch
rules more or less.....:)
Tom.
/************************************************
On Tue, 1 Dec 1998 13:28:44 -0500, Thomas Barclay
<Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> Of course, my solution was to make you mark some target points so
The only problem I had with your Overwatch rules was the extra use of
counters. This is already a counter heavy game, and I found the counters to be
a little too cumbersome. This isn't a criticism, as your system does work, but
a personal preference on my part. I thought it pushed things over the edge for
me.
> Here is a question: If you snap fire, and you have yet to activate,
Snap firing loses your entire activation. You gain an advantage from
preplanning (i.e. activating the unit as normal and declaring Overwatch).
> 3) Overwatch Fire allows a unit to conduct either Reaction Fire or
Good point. Okay, it allows a Snapshot Fire without the range modifier or the
Reaction TEst.
> It costs one action to perform, but the unit could not have
That was my initial take on it. As I responded and thought about what Jon
said, I modified it to something closer to the Overwatch rule in FMA.
Unfortunately, I was thinking and modifying as I wrote the message, and I
don't think I was too clear on that. *S*
It takes 1 action, but you can not fire or move in the other action. This
allows a unit to reorganize or remove suppression and still go on Overwatch
(the latter being an important ability). However, I didn't believe the unit
should be allowed to move before/after going on Overwatch, and it SHOULD
NOT
be allowed to fire before/after going on Overwatch (as that would allow
a unit to fire twice in a turn).
But, I'm rethinking this, as seen below!!!
> Plus I can move and fire at full effect. Why can't I move to a
Hmmm, not sure. *L* Originally, I wanted the unit to have to concentrate on
setting up the overwatch. However, if you allow a unit to reorg, remove
suppression, rally, etc. then I guess it doesn't make sense to prevent it from
moving.
So, here's how it works:
It costs one action to set up Overwatch. Overwatch must be the last action of
the activation. The unit can not set up Overwatch if it is suppressed. The
first action of the turn can NOT be a Fire action.
> I can see a fire restriction. Can I use
Yes. You can use two actions to set up two Overwatches. Doing so allows the
SAW and the other weapons to fire at two different targets (or in the case
where a unit is separated, such as with a wall between them or on either sides
of a house corner, two different parts of a unit can fire at two different
targets).
> When using Overwatch Fire to do a Snapshot, a
I guess I have, but without the need for the counters. I guess there are only
so many ways that Overwatch can be done in SG2 and fit in with the existing
rule set.
I've also come up with a better Enfilade Fire rule. I'll see how THAT works
and report on it.
Geez, I'm really looking forward to this Saturday's game!