From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 15:09:02 -0600
Subject: [SG2] PBEM AAR - Valley of Death - Playtest Rules - 3 of 5
We tested a few new rules with this PBEM game. That might seem like a lot, playing a blind game _and_ testing rules, but it seemed not to be too much for the players to handle. EW This isn't so much a new rule as an interpretation of the EW rules. The HyperBear EW rules were not used. I'm still not happy with the EW rules on my web site, so I wanted to try out a new variation. EW units can go _active_ for free (i.e. they do not need an action). If an EW unit goes active, it will be unhidden if there is another EW unit on the board (active or inactive) and a Detection Roll is made. A Detection Roll is an opposed roll by both players. The player going active rolls his EW die. The other player rolls his EW die, shifting down one if the EW set is inactive. The player who went active _can_ spend EW counters to shift the opposing die down. The EW unit is considered inactive when all EW chits are used. An EW unit becomes inactive as soon as it is activated (i.e. it loses any chits left over from the last activation). The Detection Roll is made each time the EW unit goes active. The reason for this rule is an interpretation of the EW rules. The act of going active not requiring an action is sort of implied in the rules (sort of, because this section is still ambiguous). The detection roll was added to give players a reason for being inactive. Otherwise there was no reason why an EW unit wouldn't always go active. The reason for it not costing an action is an interpretation of the rule written in the rulebook, and to make some of the TO&Es in the rule book viable. (Another option is to just ignore the references in the rules to "active" and "inactive", and give the chits for free every time the unit with an EW set is activated.) HILL CRESTS AND MILITARY CRESTS All hills in this scenario have a white line on the top of them. This represents the actual crest of the hill. Units behind this crest (that is, the white line is between the target unit and the firing unit) are considered to be behind hard cover against enemy units on the same elevation level or higher, and are out of Line Of Sight to units below this level. Units in front of the crest line are said to be on the military crest. Units in front of this line (that is, the white line is _not_ between the target unit and the firing unit) are considered to be behind hard cover against enemy units on a lower elevation, but are _not_ considered to be behind cover for units at the same or a higher elevation. Note that if a hill has additional cover, the best cover is used (the cover is not cumulative). For instance, if a hill is covered in bushes, a unit on the military crest gets the hard cover die shift for units at a lower elevation, and a soft cover die shift for units at the same elevation or higher. Likewise, on the same hill, if the unit is behind the crest line it is given the hard cover die shift for units on the same elevation or above, and still can not be seen (or see) units on a lower elevation. For the purposes of using this rule with miniatures (as opposed to a PBEM with a virtual map), the rule would be slightly modified. If the unit was on the highest elevation of a hill but _not_ touching the edge of the hill (assuming flat topped contour-line style hills), it is behind the hill crest. If it is on a lower elevation, or it is on the top elevation and touching the edge of the hill, it is considered to be on the military crest. HEAVY WEAPONS VS. PA Heavy Weapons have a choice when targeting PA troopers. They can fire at one individual trooper as though it were a point target, or it can fire at the squad in general using the rules for dispersed targets in the rulebook (i.e. a D8 impact die). When missiles fire at PA, I gave the PA a Basic (D6) ECM die. The assumption is that PA don't have the space for bigger ECM suites (and you could argue they should have none, but I thought that was a bit too nasty. Heavy Weapon Range Bands Heavy Weapons use a new method of figuring out range bands. Instead of the range band being 12" x target size class, the range band is now Quality Die in inches x target size class x 2. Example 1: Regular quality RFAC/2 firing at a size 3 APC. The range bands would be 48" long (D8 quality gives 8" x size class 3 x 2). Example 2: Regular quality RFAC/1 firing at a squad. The range bands would be 16" long (D8 quality gives 8" x size class 1 x 2). HEAVY WEAPONS AND COVER MODIFIERS Treat cover modifiers to heavy weapon fire as an Open Die Shift. If the range die is shifted beyond D12, keep the range die as D12 but shift the Firecon die down. If a Firecon would go below D4, the weapon can not fire at the target. COMBAT MOVE A combat move shifts the range die down 1. This gives players a reason for doing a combat move other than just to have a way of getting somewhere a little faster. For instance, the most common use of a combat move is when a unit wants to move 8 to 10 inches. Instead of spending two actions doing a regular move, players tend to do a combat move on the first action, hoping to get there in one shot. If they don't, they usually follow up with a regular move. By giving a die shift, players have a reason to move most of the time using a combat move.