Greetings, Folks!
Well, it looks like we're getting quite a few folks interested in SG2 as an
alternative to WH40K <eg>. In the demo game tonight - my second - we
came up with a couple of questions that weren't clear by the rules.
Question #1) Can a unit "split fire" against the *same* target in a turn by
using both of its actions?
Situation: Blue Unit A is hunkered down In Position. They fire all of their
small arms at the enemy Red Unit 1, then use their *second* action to fire the
SAW at the same unit. The difference between doing this split fire and simply
adding the SAW into the first roll is that it gives the firing unit an extra
die roll for the second attack.
(Quality+Firepower+SAW
vs Quality+Firepower with Quality+SAW as a second attack)
** I'd say not. Or at least, it seems cheesy. I'm not so hot on firing the SAW
separate from the squad... (after all, if your squad is engaging a target, it
isn't like the rifles fire... THEN the SAW fires... they all fire at their
appropriate rate from the minute the target is called by the SL). If it is
engaging another target, okay. Otherwise, I'd call this cheesy. But maybe I'm
alone in that opinion.
Question #2) Can a unit perform a Close Assault in the same turn that they
have performed Ranged Fire?
Situation: Blue Unit B performs Ranged Fire against an enemy unit during
their normal activation. Later in the turn, the Platoon Commander passes one
of his actions to Blue Unit B, giving them a second activation in the same
turn. Can the Blue unit now perform a Close Assault, or does this violate the
"can only fire each weapon once per turn" rule?
** THAT one is a typo. The rules are meant to read (from the errata) once per
activation. So if your squad is reactivated, you can in fact perform a whole
new set of actions. This is one of those reasons some of us limit a squad to
one reactivation to avoid the supersquad breakdancing their way across the
board killing people if there happens to be a few leader types present...
On Wed, 16 Feb 2000 02:29:19 -0500, Thomas Barclay of the Clan Barclay
> <kaladorn@home.com> wrote:
> ** I'd say not. Or at least, it seems cheesy. I'm not so hot on firing
It's not expressly prohibited. I did some analysis and found that splitting
fire increases suppression, but decreases damage. Of course, once the unit
takes a suppression or itself it will only have one action to fire. Hunkered
down units defending a position result in a lot of suppression, which may seem
cheesy but from a macro game point of view seems reasonable to me. My house
rules for opportunity fire mean that the squad usually eats up two actions to
go on overwatch anyway, so this doesn't happen that often in my games, anyway.
If you want to limit its effectiveness, here's an option. Instead of
preventing it entirely, only let one squad inflict on suppression marker per
target squad per activation. In other words, the unit CAN fire twice at the
same target by splitting fire, but the most suppression markers the target
will take will be one. This increases the chance of getting that ONE
suppression marker at the cost of a decreased chance of inflicting casualties.
> ** THAT one is a typo. The rules are meant to read (from the errata)
Hmmm. I thought that was a rule. I know that a command unit can only activate
a squad once when it transfers actions. I never gave it much thought as to
what happens if a command squad is activated more than once due to the
presence of the command's squad's command squad. I always suspected that the
game broke down if you had two many echelons on the battlefield at once.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> I know that a command unit can only activate
I can't find this in the book. Can you cite the rule? Thanks.
-Mike
On Fri, 18 Feb 2000 09:14:28 -0500, Michael Sarno <msarno@ptdprolog.net>
wrote:
> I can't find this in the book. Can you cite the rule? Thanks.
It's not explicit, but implicit.
On page 16, under "Transferring Actions" the following is stated:
The first paragraph states, "One of the key uses of actually having command
elements... presnt on the table is that in certain circumstances they can
'transfer' one or both of their actions... down their chain of command to a
subordinate unit or units, thus allowing the subordinate unit to take an
'extra' activation in a turn whether or not it has already used up its own
activation."
The fourth paragraph states, "Note that the superior only has to use ONE of
his actions in order to give the subordinate a full 2-action activation,
and thus may attempt to communicate with and activate TWO subordinate units in
the one turn if he wishes (though both must be resolved at the same time)."
The first paragraph implies that a unit can get a single "extra" activation
each turn from a transferred action. The fourth paragraph implies that if a
command unit wants to use both actions to activate subordinate units, they
both have to be different units and the roll is resolved simultaneously.
Now, this is IMPLIED, not explicitly stated. It's one of the few true
ambiguities in the game. I took it to mean only one extra activation per squad
per turn. A couple of the guys I talked to about this at GenCon agreed. I'm
curious if this is how the group took it, and whether or not this should be an
official pronouncement...
Regarding transferring Activations, Alan is quite correct in his quotes and
indeed if you read carefully it is actually quite clear that a single squad
can only be the subject of ONE Activation although it can be attempted to
Activate twice if the first communication fails.
Alan says it is implied but I think it is pretty well expressly stated. It is
that "Both must be resolved at the same time" bit that cinches each.
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
BIG SNIP
> The fourth paragraph states, "Note that the superior only has
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> The first paragraph implies that a unit can get a single "extra"
activation
> each turn from a transferred action. The fourth paragraph implies that
Thanks for the detailed quote. I see your point. I've never read the rules
that way, but what you say is perfectly valid. We might just be changing the
way we play SGII around here. <g> But the rules don't specifically state one
way or the other, that you can't attempt to activate the same squad twice with
one leader's activation. By your interpretation, though, it is certainly
reasonable to assume that activating a squad two times in a row is not
allowed.
> Now, this is IMPLIED, not explicitly stated. It's one of the few true
Well, at least one extra activation per squad per leader's activation.
> A couple of the guys I talked to about this at GenCon agreed. I'm
The big problem is the following statement from p 16:
"One of the key uses of actually having command elements... present on the
table is that in certain circumstances they can 'transfer' one or both of
their actions... down their chain of command to a subordinate unit or
units..."
Which could be reasonably edited to read: "One of the key uses of actually
having command elements... present on the table is that in certain
circumstances they can 'transfer' both of their actions... down their chain of
command to a subordinate unit."
Being activated multiple times does give the activated squad the use of many
more actions, but it is at the expense of the leader activating other squads
or taking other actions.
Here's the real problem I'm having with limiting the transfer of actions. Way
back in the 1900s, we used to take these little tactical marches wearing
fatigues, full canteens, with bayonets on the web belts, and carrying M14
rifles. It was not uncommon to make a mile in 20 minutes. Now that's 1.6 km or
1600m in 20 minutes. In SGII, 20 minutes could be as few as 4 turns. So that's
about 400m per turn, which further translates to 40" on the table in one turn.
Let's assume that we were classified as "very light troops" so we got the 8"
movement rate. We were certainly in travel mode, so we could move 16" with one
action. On our own, i.e. without the transfer of activations, we could only
expect to move 32" in a turn, which is only 80% of a rate I know we sustained
routinely for up to 60 minutes.
-Mike
Hi Mike,
I don't know if we need to make too much of the time scale. Jon T states in
his first chapter "....the game turn may be safely assumed to occupy one or
even several minutes of elapsed time. If it is necessary....treat each full
turn as....5 minutes." He's also talked about this on the list more than once
and really the time isn't necessarily going to be a consistent quantity on the
game board.
Also, I'm not sure if comparing the time/scale of an administrative move
to
the stop/start nature of a fire fight; which is what the SG game is
meant to be. The forced march which you were referring to will have likely
taken place on the way to the place of the battle (which is the game table).
A lot of rules use admin moves and some of them are way over teh top. In WRG
Ancients 7th ed normal infantry can move 80paces/2 inches in an
Approach/tactical move but can move 480paces/12 inches in a March move.
Anyway, in our games of SG we rarely see march moves employed.
Cheers,
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
> "Glover, Owen" wrote:
> I don't know if we need to make too much of the time scale. Jon T
But the quantity is listed in the rules and is mentioned as a reasonable
average. I'm just trying to analyze this situation with an eye towards all
rules in the book. I don't think every turn takes 5 minutes, but since it's a
realiable average, it seems like a good place to make our reality check for
this situation.
> Also, I'm not sure if comparing the time/scale of an administrative
It seems perfectly reasonable to draw the analogy between the speed of a
tactical march and travel move in SGII. You're only going to attempt travel
move when you really need to get somewhere and are reasonably sure that you
are secure, or your security just isn't as important as speed. Often times,
this "administrative move" will extend onto the table itself and have a turn
or two of travel move which ends once contact is imminent. I've seen these
kinds of travel moves occur
in a number of games; one even occurred at GZG-ECC II.
-Mike
> Allan Goodall wrote:
Several people have commented on this, suggesting that the rules strongly
imply that any given squad may be reactivated by it's command element only
once. I play this way also - it seemed quite natural a conclusion to
draw from the way the rules work.
But nowhere does it actually say that a squad can't be reactivated more than
once in a turn. The statement:
"One of the key uses of actually having command elements... present on the
table is that in certain circumstances they can 'transfer' one or both of
their actions... down their chain of command to a subordinate unit or
units..."
from page 16, certainly suggests that a command unit can transfer both of its
actions to a subordinate UNIT. I don't play this way because I like the "one
reactivation" limitation. But that's just personal preference.
Perhaps we could interpret the rules to mean that a squad can be reactivated
only once by it's command squad during it's command squad's normal activation,
but what if the command squad gets reactivated?
You don't see company level games happening too often in SG, but in the
situation where you have two levels of command, a company commander can
reactivate subordinate platoon commanders. They can then reactivate units
under their command. As this is a NEW activation, I don't think there should
be any limitation on which of their squads they can reactivate. Why would
there be?
So, the way I would play it is that a squad CAN be reactivated more than once
in a given game turn, but only in the situation where there is a "company"
level command element reactivating the platoon level commanders. When there is
only a platoon level command on the table, a squad can only be reactivated
once per turn.
> On 19-Feb-00 at 01:31, Glover, Owen (oglover@museum.vic.gov.au) wrote:
On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 17:30:40 +1000, "Glover, Owen"
<oglover@museum.vic.gov.au> wrote:
> Alan says it is implied but I think it is pretty well expressly stated.
It
> is that "Both must be resolved at the same time" bit that cinches each.
It's not explicit... but it was that "both must be resolved at the same time"
part that put me over the edge, too.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2000 17:30:40 +1000, "Glover, Owen"
<oglover@museum.vic.gov.au>
> wrote:
The one sentence paragraph reads: "Note that the superior only has to use ONE
of his actions in order to give the
subordinate a full 2-action activation, and thus may attempt to
communicate with and activate TWO subordinate units in the one turn if he
wishes (though both must be resolved at the same time)."
It is unclear if the "resolved at the same time" applies to a single unit,
since the sentence specifically mentions TWO units. It is also unclear if the
"both" that must be "resolved at the same time" refers to the communication
rolls or the actual activations. If it refers to the activations, it could be
interpreted to mean that the two seperate activations are completed before any
other actions occur, ie before the opponent gets to activate.
-Mike