From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 00:06:56 -0400
Subject: SG2 leaders, bail outs, and GZG rules clarifications {LONG}
GZG rules clarifications compendia:
Bad plan. Two reasons.
First, the strength of the game system is that people can play it the way they
want. This is not the "drones only" game that GW releases. Feel free to sit
down with your group and agree on any contentious issues. If you can't make
decisions and enjoy living with them, the group has some problems of its own
beyond the scope of the game. People tend to use so many house rules anyway
(not often to address loopholes, mostly for flavour as they see it) that this
wouldn't (IMO) serve a big purpose.
Reason number two has three letters many of
us FT players have come to loathe: S-F-B. They
provided rules, clarifications, rulings, interpretations, analyses, tactical
term papers, additional subrules, etc. Please God Save Me if Jon even
considers this. Plus Jon can make less than optimal decisions even when
playtesting is involved (anyone remember MT KV costings?). If he was answering
questions off the cuff or
even with help from the oft-contentious playtest
group, he's gonna introduce a problem here and there as he "fixes" others. And
people won't agree with the fixes he picks, so they'll do their own thing
anyway. So, just learn to resolve matters at the gaming table amicably without
a resort Deus Ex Cathedra. It's far easier. And easier on Jon, who has BDS,
FMASk, DS3, FT3, and a pile of sculpting on his plate already. And if this
plan were to delay one of these long awaited products, I'm sure he'd cause
froth in this community.
Bail Outs:
My thoughts: 1) Armour crew perform badly as infantry 2) Bailing out of a
vehicle should be difficult in proportion to how blowed up the vehicle is
(simulating how much time you had to get out perhaps)
3) Bailing out of a vehicle is traumatic - you
could have died! And someone very nearby, you probably aren't sure where, is
very seriously trying to kill you. Not good for the mental health.
So, what does this mean: 1) If armour crew (as opposed to infantry) bails out,
they automatically lose 1 quality level (they
can do infantry stuff, just badly - imagine
infantry trying to operate a 100mm Gauss Cannon).
3) Crew or troops bailing out also get to drop a morale level from having
their vehicle shot out from under them. (This last I inflict on infantry as
well, though they don't drop quality). Plus of course any casualty based
morale or suppression effects caused by deaths in the bailout attempt. In
fact, I'd say this penalty should be applied to troops that don't bail out
(assuming it isn't enforced) but have their vehicle temporarily or permanently
disabled around them by enemy fire. That isn't going to be a good feeling
either.
2) When a major impact is scored on a vehicle, I double the bail out rolls.
Otherwise people seemed to survive far too easily.
As for staying in a systems down vehicle (a dead duck for a turn or two), make
a reaction
check (1/2/4 by mot hi/med/lo). Similarly for a
suspension hit vehicle. For a disabled vehicle,
make this test at +1. If you fail, bailing out you
go.
I'd place a suppression on any bailing unit -
effectively they were hit by fire. Losses may also
necessitate a casualty-based morale check. I'd
place a second suppression (and commensurate morale check) if they lose the
squad leader. This is more than enough and more or less implicitly follows
other rules. No magic suppressions applied. Combine this with a basic morale
penalty for having your ride killed out from under you, and you're not a happy
camper.
Leader hide-out-itis:
1) I like the rules Allan and I worked up for penalizing command transfers.
The reason the penalty is only 1 kind of assumes a high level of computer
aided situational awareness. If the troops have crappy kit, maybe this should
be a 2 (the leader has even less clue what troops he can't see are doing). The
fact that many of these circumstances require a comms roll nicely goes in hand
with EW units. If you don't stay close to your troops to hand direct, you're
gonna get jammed. 2) Other reasons for a leader not to hide out at the back
that I use: First, I modify rally rolls by
+1 difficulty if the officer isn't there in person
("What sir? I'm not receiving you. Your signal is weak. What?...Withdraw?
What? Pulling out!"), snipers, random unspotted enemy units appearing when the
CO has no protection (D'oh! and you thought you knew the enemy OB... silly
boy!), make leader roll a quality check for a reorg he can't see (esp if
trying to detach or something), artillery ("Hmmm... we seem to be getting a
lot of comms from this map
reference - seems a good place for a mortar").
Generally, I think you'd try to (in the early stages of a battle) conceal
forces from one another and radio silence might well be a part of it. So
having the officer with the troops might well be pretty key here too. Another
way: Make the leader player sit in a blind corner with his map and make the
other units radio him info and he can try to give sensible orders. Far more
comms rolls, more opportunities to jam, more confusion. Or make him use his
binos to spot whats going on. Do that for a while and he'll be convinced to
move forward. Also, officers who lead from the spineless rear area like that
should (over time) suffer motivation issues with their soldiers. 3) I don't
like on the move stuff, just because it looks more complex to administer. And
the CO being busy doesn't necessarily mean his squad can't act well. I think
if you cut the CO to 1 transfer per round, you gut stargrunt a bit. It is part
of the mechanic that differentiates it and makes it interesting.
G'night.