We don't play SG2 much at our club, so last saturday we decided to try it out
with several people who had played it maybe once or twice.
Basic setup: plonk a lot of terrain on a table and see what happens.
Well, I saw alright:-)
Defender had the high ground with a command squad, 2 normal squads and a PA
squad. He also had a small walker. All were vet as he seemed to be seriously
outnumbered (yeah, right). Attacker(me) had 1 command squad(vet) and four
regular squads. As my minis were skeletal terminators(from legions of steel)
we decided I didn't have morale problems.
My squads had 1 support weapon each. This hurts a bit. His normal squads had
2 support weapons each. This hurt more:-)
We didn't have a real scenario except for the attacker having to wipe the
table clean of the defenders.
Well, I wasn't thinking about artillery, but he definately was, so in the
first round he put some counters down, and in the second round 4 grenades
landed in the midddle of one of my squads. The squad had cover in a river bed,
except
it could be seen from the only vantage point on the table. Sigh:-)
> From then on we kept to cover even more so we didn't have that much
We did manage to do some things right: we close assaulted one of his squads,
so it ran away and lost a morale rating. Also, his walker walked in on one of
our squads and fired but missed us completely. The next activation the squad
fired with everything including the grenade launcher and the walker went
kablooey!
Strange situation. At one point he had a squad in the forest edge on one side
of a river while I was advancing through the forest on the other side of the
river. When I reached the forest edge I fired on him. After that he fired on
me. Both didn't have much effect. The next activation I fired again and
retreated into the forest. After that he retreated as well and asked for
artillery. The result was the SPLAT! above. How would people handle this
situation, especially without artillery support available? This seems very
difficult as you can't sneek up on somebody, and once you see each other, both
can fire at short range. Close assaulting is also very unhealthy and not
something you would do, except for desperate situations.
A few questions: how do people use artillery support in SG2 games, and how
much do you use? It seemed to have a big impact, especially with multiple
rounds.
About close assaults. In the beginning it says that if the enemy runs away,
take the position and follow up the next activation. However, this paragraph
also references the end of the section where it says you can follow up the
same activation instead of occupying the position. It seems that if you don't
folowup the same activation the enemy has the chance to get away relatively
unscathed.
We also had loads of cover on the table. The result was that once you could
fire on something, most of the time it was within the first range band, which
resulted in loads of damage most of the time. How much cover do people put on
the table most of the time?
I also sort of suspected some of the participants to use some of the more
extreme things from the rules, just so the conclusion from this game would be
that the rules suck. There are some people at our club who seem to have
problems with every ruleset they didn't invent themselves.
Cheers,
G'day Frits,
Sounds like you had fun, though it is actually easier to play games with
objectives I've found.
> How would people handle this situation,
We don't usually play with artillery support so I would've gone to ground
(i.e. in position) in the wood and started a firefight (unless I had green
troops then I'd pull back and let a better squad come forward).
> A few questions: how do people use artillery
We don't use artillery much at all, and vehicles other than
APCs/trucks/zodiacs only occasionally. SG is much better suited to
mainly infantry I reckon, but other probably don't agree.
> About close assaults...It seems that if you don't
That depends on what lies beyond and what your newly taken position is like.
If you've just won some hard cover and the other guy is fleeing across open
ground with his other squads all around I'd stay where I was
;)
One thing to watch though is how many follow-ups you allow. Down here we
allow one, but that was our choice the rules don't say. You probably should
decide before the situation arises which way you're going to go though.
> We also had loads of cover on the table...
On average we'd have >75% of the board covered with some form of terrain, but
not all of it blocks LOS (shrubs etc won't, parks won't, but thick woods
will). However, we've also had games in deserts (where sand dunes and holes
you dig are it) and jungles (where you can't see anything until you just about
stand on it). This is where objectives come in to play more, good choice of
objectives (and tailoring them based on the competence of
the players) makes all the difference.
> I also sort of suspected some of
I've run into people like that too. I wouldn't let them ruin your day, you
don't need to heaps to play SG. I'd suggest you and the guys who are
interested try another game with a couple of squads each, some lighter terrain
(maybe with a village in the middle, whoever holds it for 2 turns wins) and no
artillery. I think you'll find it a better introduction to the game.
Cheers
Beth
On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 12:01:50 +0100, Frits Kuijlman
<frits@pds.twi.tudelft.nl> wrote:
> Basic setup: plonk a lot of terrain on a table and see what happens.
The problem with SG2 is that it works best with a scenario with victory
conditions and everything. It doesn't work well in the, "build a team, tear
each other to pieces" mould. This makes it harder to set up than a game like
WH40K. It also makes it more satisfying in the end.
> Defender had the high ground with a command squad, 2 normal squads and
Ummm... he wasn't outnumbered. A PA squad is worth 1.5 to 3 regular squads.
making them all Veteran helped him out.
> As my minis were skeletal terminators(from legions of steel) we decided
If this meant that your squads couldn't take suppression, then yes, YOU had a
major advantage. If it just meant that you didn't have to make morale rolls,
that's not much of an advantage. Some of us have house rules to make morale
nastier, which would have helped you out more. I would probably have made your
troops High motivation, and his Low or Normal. That would have allowed the
same effect without going "outside" the game.
> My squads had 1 support weapon each. This hurts a bit. His normal
That did hurt a lot.
Okay, so he had one squad less than you (treating the walker as a squad), but
had PA. He had more support squads. AND he was defending? If you had about
twice the squads you had, it would have been much better.
> How would people handle this situation, especially without artillery
There is no hidden movement, true. You were in a pretty desperate situation. I
think if it was a case of one side having to sweep the other side, I'd have
found a place to hunker down and let him come to me.
> A few questions: how do people use artillery support in SG2 games, and
I don't use artillery much. Usually the mission is to get a team close to a
bunker or location or something and call in artillery as the purpose of the
scenario. I have used air support, but you have to be careful with this and
artillery. It can be overwhelming (though air is more susceptible to ground
intervention).
One good place for artillery is if you give one side a big advantage and allow
them to attack against a defender with artillery. Another is if the artillery
pieces are on the board (kind if a sci-fi equivalent of SCUD hunting).
> About close assaults. In the beginning it says that if the enemy runs
Yes, that's true. They can run away, though we make them still have to take
the test to stand in place, just so they risk a morale check. Close assaults
aren't the "be all and end all" that they are in other games. Our group tends
not to use them until the enemy is suppressed first. We keep them fairly rare.
> We also had loads of cover on the table. The result was that once you
Depends ont he scenario. Anywhere from "lots" to "next to none". A lot depends
on where it's placed, and what kind of fire lanes you can set up. Usually more
cover is better than less cover, but a lot depends on the type of cover too.
Lots of bushes and stuff that you can still fire through may be better than
big woods where movement and firing is drastically restricted.
> I also sort of suspected some of the participants to use some of the
I know the type. You were outnumbered, really, and artillery isn't THAT common
in SG2. Remember, just because some skirmish games have rules for 16" naval
gunfire doesn't mean that every WW2 skirmish game should allow it!