Morale: Morale is weak in SG2. Some people like having a game where units
don't route with 10% casualties like real units sometimes will. Some people
like fighting to the last man. And others don't. (Me included). Allan took
some good steps towards remedying the problem with morale. There was a
cascading morale rule suggestion (don't recall if Allan was using it) but it
seemed like too much rolling to me. Platoon morale is actually a good idea.
Platoon commanders sometimes also bug out without losing that great a
percentage of their force... (This isn't such a big deal in platoon sized
forces... victory conditions can serve well here)...and this matters most in a
company sized game. Although I would certainly NOT do it as the recent
suggestion was made by rolling for every squad on the board.... that isn't how
it happens. If one platoons morale reaches a point where they refuse to
advance or will pull out, then test other platoon commanders for morale (and
possibly the company commander). You don't need to test the units. If the
company commander decides then is the time to withdraw the force, then
everyone goes. If other platoon commanders morale drops to the point they
don't feel they can advance, then they don't and the company commander may
have to withdraw. Individual squads in other platoons leave or stay based on
their platoon commander or the company commander (and of course, their own
casualties, but that is a whole separate issue). In a case like this, any
higher level of command (platoon commander if it is a platoon, company
commander if it is a company) should be able to rally his broken forces (or
attempt to) and get them back into the fight. History has plenty of stories of
units that rallied, returned to a fight
after an initial fright/retreat, and gave a good accounting of
themselves.
2) Close Assault Close assault has lots of little idiosyncratic behaviours.
Think on these ones: 1) Why do you retreat from CA before you even know the
enemy will reach you? 2) Why do whole units retreat or stay? (I think this is
simplicity reasons, but in real life some retreat, some stay to the bitter end
from time to time)
3) Why do you have to be base-to-base when close assault is grenades and
high volume fire at close range? Would 2" away, 4" away or 6" away not be
close enough? <Make ALL combats under 6" close assaults???> 4) Why do you find
your Nike's when fleeing? Or when advancing against opposition? You move far
faster than you might in an unopposed advance. 5) Why can you pull up short
and shoot the crap out of your pursuers without any sort of leadership test to
rally your routing troops? 6) Why is the retreat 6" and the follow through a
combat move? 7) Why are odds not accounted for in the close assault combat? <I
mean the actual fighting, not the die roll to stand>. One elite trooper can
pretty much slaughter 20 untrained soldiers.... or 2000... if he rolls a 5 or
better... 8) Does anyone else notice that CA rules seem to have been written
for
assaults on fixed positions/points of tactical significance? They seem
to assume that the defender WANTS to hold. Many times, I see them used to rush
units in the open who have ZERO interest in holding their piece of grass
(usually because the attackers outnumber them). The parts that speak about
"moving to the objective" for the attacker before a followthrough don't make
much sense if your objective is _the_enemy_unit_ rather than a piece of
ground. Perhaps the idea of assaulting units in the open was not really
considered when these were put together. But it is the most common use I've
seen for them so far. 9) Why are units running from close combat still combat
effective? I'd think
a re-org might be necessary as a first action after a retreat from CA.
Heck, if the retreat was involuntary, many times in history, soldiers have
discarded weapons, armour, ammo, packs, webgear, etc. when trying to beat feet
from an onrushing enemy.
Interestingly, I've seen many green forces advance to 2" from the foe and
fire, because at that range their fire IS dangerous, whereas a CA would get
them killed. And the difference is what? Their opponent doesn't fight back
(until after he's shot), no rolls to initiate, more chance of killing the
enemy.... and all when within a distance I'd call "close combat range".
Fascinating....
Anyway, I can see areas to work on here.
> Tom Barclay wrote:
> Morale:
That was my suggestion, and I agree it's too much rolling. But...
> Platoon morale is actually a good idea. Platoon commanders
> force... Although I would certainly NOT do it as the recent suggestion
How do you determine when a platoon's morale has reached the point where they
won't advance or will retreat? Mean morale? Mode? Median? Should a platoon be
more penalized for having eliminated units? (I'd think that having a squad in
your platoon killed to the last man would be more troublesome than having two
of them retreating, but maybe not).
> You don't need to test the units. If the company commander
Since most OrBats have the platoon, company, and battalion officers also in
command of their own squads, how do you indicate the difference between a
routing company and a routing command squad? I can see a lot of situations
where the commander might
break/die, but the platoon commands would carry on.
> In a case like this, any higher level of command
SG2 already has rules for this, fortunately.
> Tom Barclay wrote:
> 2) Close Assault
Close assault is a bit weak. Hopefully Bugs Don't Surf or SG3 will clarify a
bunch of this stuff.
> 1) Why do you retreat from CA before you even know the enemy
Err? What do you expect the grunts to do, wait until the other guy's hand
grenades are rolling into their foxholes and then decide to get up and run?
The time of decision is when it looks like the other guy is coming, not when
it's apparent he won't make it there.
> 2) Why do whole units retreat or stay?
Simplicity, just like why can't I have a unit with some green members and some
veteran members.
> 3) Why do you have to be base-to-base when close assault is
I agree that base-to-base is unreasonable, but I think
6" away is a bit much - that's short range for green troops!
I'm going to push for some house rules around here such that 3" is the minimum
distance between unfriendly, unsuppressed
units - any closer and the non-moving unit gets a free shot
(possibly at reduced firepower or quality) on the moving unit. But I don't
think performing close assault on an unsuppressed unit should be allowed by
the rules. Regardless, 2" should be more than enough for close assaults.
> 4) Why do you find your Nike's when fleeing? Or when advancing
Given that SG2 has standard movement rates of 120 meters per 5 minutes, I
don't see a problem that units can sometimes move much faster when they need
to. If anything, I think the restrictions on travel movement should be reduced
quite a bit.
> 5) Why can you pull up short and shoot the crap out of your
You can't. Routing and broken troops can't fire on anyone who hasn't fired on
them first. Oh, you mean why can a unit voluntarily fall back from a position
and then turn around and shoot people? This makes sense
to me - it's a fighting withdrawal and some booby-traps. Sure,
it's abstracted a bit, but so are a lot of things in SG2. As a house rule, I
agree with the idea that close assaulted units should be suppressed or
activated or both, and units that perform an involuntary retreat should be
disorganized at the end of the retreat and automatically out of coherence.
> 6) Why is the retreat 6" and the follow through a combat move?
To guarantee that fleeing units have a good chance to get away. Isn't retreat
supposed to be faster than pursuit, anyway?
> 7) Why are odds not accounted for in the close assault
Good question. I like the "extra fighter reduces opponent's die" house rule,
myself. Simple, and reasonable, but a good fighter can still get lucky and
take all his opponents down. (We also play that you beat everyone who rolls
under you, even if you get beaten by someone else. Simulates what I've seen of
large melees and other close actions).
> 8) Does anyone else notice that CA rules seem to have been written for
Yep.
> 9) Why are units running from close combat still combat
See above. Also, a unit that drops down to BROK by failing morale tests
(happened to me) is no longer combat effective, and that's a single bad roll
on the morale test for a ST unit.
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:53:29 -0500, "Barclay, Tom" <tomb@bitheads.com>
wrote:
> Morale is weak in SG2. Some people like having a game where
Me, as well.
> Allan took
but it
> seemed like too much rolling to me.
No, I don't. Thought about something like it but discarded it in SG2 in favour
of scenario specific rules.
> If one platoons
This is an interesting idea. At what point to you test morale for a platoon?
You could generate platoon commander tests in a similar manner to squad tests.
Test when a squad breaks, routs, or is destroyed. Test at a higher level when
a certain percentage break, rout, or are destroyed. Perhaps do a rally test if
a squad rallies. I'm not sure, this is all just scream of consciousness stuff.
> History has plenty of stories of units that rallied, returned to a
Oh, definitely...
> 1) Why do you retreat from CA before you even know the enemy will reach
I hadn't thought of that, but that's an interesting point.
> 2) Why do whole units retreat or stay? (I think this is simplicity
Well, the entire game is based on whole units where morale is concerned. Whole
squads do not break and rout like they do in SG2. You get one guy panicking,
another slinking off, a third refusing to move, etc. An argument can be made
that you don't need morale in SG2. You basically only have casualties, but
some are through wounds and death, and some are through slinking away. Of
course, then you have to have a mechanism for getting some guys back in a
reorg. I've seen this in other games, mostly regiment + ACW games. I'm
not suggesting it for SG2. SG2 would be a LOT slower if you had to deal with
every figure running away or cringing.
So, in general, the game deals with morale at a squad level. All the figures
stay or run. They all find your morale collapse in stages.
> 3) Why do you have to be base-to-base when close assault is grenades
Okay, I checked the rules. A combat move must be sufficient to allow "at least
some" of the figures to come within base-to-base contact with the other
squad. If you look at all the other rules, distance is measured from the
centre of a squad to the centre of a squad. In close combat, it's essentially
from some undisclosed number of lead elements to another undisclosed number of
lead elements.
It was intended as a 25mm game, so technically (on a 1" diameter base) each
figure in Close Assault is essentially 10 m apart or closer. But, more
importantly, the squad centres can be as much as about 6" apart (3" radius for
both squad centres, if you assume an evenly spread out squad spread out the
full 6" integrity range). So... if you look at regular ranged fire measurement
of centre of squad to centre of squad, you can actually have a close assault
at about a range of 60 metres. You certainly do NOT have to have your squad's
centre actually run right up onto the centre location of the other squad.
> 4) Why do you find your Nike's when fleeing? Or when advancing against
Well, while fleeing is easy. You tell troops to pull back and they will, often
with uncontrolled results. No one wants to be left behind. Now, why faster
than an unopposed advance? Well, first off, an unopposed advance is rarely
known to be unopposed. Second, I think this may be a throw back to charging
into melee. Certainly troops in the 19th and earlier centuries rushed forward
very fast for a charge, but they always ended up disorganized at best.
This is just a possible idea based on a guess at Jon's thinking.
> 5) Why can you pull up short and shoot the crap out of your pursuers
Well, that's a very good point.
> 6) Why is the retreat 6" and the follow through a combat move?
Probably to put a random factor into the rushing and retreating system.
Attackers may be able to catch up to fleeing troops or not. I prefer my
suggestion of both sides making combat moves.
> 7) Why are odds not accounted for in the close assault combat? <I mean
I think we all have some issue with this. It was probably to make things easy
to calculate, but it bothers me too.
Another weirdness is that the side that loses the most casualties, not the
greater percent, tests for withdrawing first. If you have a squad of 10
figures attacking a squad of 5, and the attacker loses 5 figures (50%
casualties) and the defender loses 4 (80% casualties) the attacker still tests
first to see if they pull out of the assault.
> 8) Does anyone else notice that CA rules seem to have been written for
I usually find, instead of assaulting units out in the open, that CA is used
to push figures out of covered positions. CA is often used to push troops out
from behind a wall than out in the open.
But the way the rules work (point 7 above) tied with cover, it is easier to
succeed out in the open. I just don't usually do it, for whatever reason.
> 9) Why are units running from close combat still combat effective? I'd
Heck,
> if the retreat was involuntary, many times in history, soldiers have
I was thinking that a Confidence Test is needed during a retreat (voluntary or
otherwise) and if failed the unit should lose a CL AND panic (or possibly just
panic). This was the great fear of retreating a unit during the American Civil
War. They feared that "retrograde movements" would demoralize the men and lead
to panic. It was, in fact, a primary factor for why Burnside continued his mad
assault on Fredericksburg in 1862 (and partly why Lee assaulted Cemetary Ridge
in 1863). We're talking corps level actions, but the thinking is the same.
Soldiers who retreat are not easily reigned in.
I haven't tried it, but the possibility of a panic (can't do any actions
unless removed, possibility of CL loss during removal) might work well to
simulate disorder.
> Anyway, I can see areas to work on here.
Yep.
> At 11:53 AM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote:
but it
> seemed like too much rolling to me.
(This
> isn't such a big deal in platoon sized forces... victory conditions can
Although I
> would certainly NOT do it as the recent suggestion was made by rolling
> 5) Why can you pull up short and shoot the crap out of your pursuers
> 7) Why are odds not accounted for in the close assault combat? <I mean
What we do is roll against each defender: In your example, the elite trooper
will have to roll 20 times (1 time against each defender). I was playing that
way until I notice that the rule said only 1 roll per soldier... We tried the
official way to do it for a while but revert back to what I said. What I like
about this way is that you can still hope to kill the elite trooper until your
last untrained guys is down.
> 8) Does anyone else notice that CA rules seem to have been written for
Heck,
> if the retreat was involuntary, many times in history, soldiers have
We had try a game where one side had only PA and the other had mostly lots of
untrained and green. What you describe tend to happen a lot. The untrained
were at 2" most of the time...
> Anyway, I can see areas to work on here.
> -----Original Message-----
[Tom B]
> > 2) Close Assault
[Mark L]
> Close assault is a bit weak. Hopefully Bugs Don't
[Tom B]
> > 1) Why do you retreat from CA before you even know the enemy
[Mark L]
> Err? What do you expect the grunts to do, wait until
[Tom B]
> > 2) Why do whole units retreat or stay?
[Mark L]Simplicity, just like why can't I have a unit with some
> green members and some veteran members.
[Tom B]
> > 3) Why do you have to be base-to-base when close assault is
[Tom B]
> > 4) Why do you find your Nike's when fleeing? Or when advancing
[Tom B]
> > 5) Why can you pull up short and shoot the crap out of your
[Tom B]
> 6) Why is the retreat 6" and the follow through a combat move?
> To guarantee that fleeing units have a good chance to get
[Tom B]
> > 7) Why are odds not accounted for in the close assault
[Tom B]
> > 8) Does anyone else notice that CA rules seem to have been written
[Tom B]
> > 9) Why are units running from close combat still combat
> -----Original Message-----