Strike the colours/overwatch/Battle of DejaVille (yes, it is quit e a mix!)

Yes, quick thoughts in three areas:

Strike the colours: Interesting arguments all sides. Strikes me that what is
missing is the concept of mission motivation (present in SG2) which defines
how important the mission is to the force, hence what level of losses the
force will voluntarily endure before breaking contact. This can easily
encompass the fact that a force is doing a "battle of the line" (HIGH mission
motivation) or is performing a patrol where they are more than willing to
break contact at first sight (LOW mission motivation). This is
one way to balance disparate forces - in SG2, a high mission motivation
force really does have some profound advantages over a low mission motivation
force.

Battle of Deja Ville: Setup time: 2 hours Play time: On and off over about 14
hours (2 companies fighting with support). Much of that time was spent in
closing action and getting new people to have a feel for the rules. Plus some
of the players are of the
"waffler" variety....  I estimate 2-4 more hours would have given a
decisive outcome. It was two days of gaming, but we played a lot of rogue
spear multiplayer interspersed so we didn't get two full days in.

Overwatch: Allan, overwatch should be (IMO) 1 action, last action. Overwatch
counter stays until the unit activates again (essentially, you've given up a
fire
action so you really shouldn't be gyped). I too have shifted to 4-6 man
fireteams in place of squads, for more flexibility and manouvre. This means I
rarely have more than 1 SAW in a squad, so I don't often have problems with
too much FP. Again, you can use or not use the repeated fire from MGs and SAWs
at your discretion (in fact, you can do whatever you want...).

Aside: Owen was telling me about their Borneo campaign and they have some
plans to make vehicle autocannons just terrifying.... (as, from my experience,
they
should be) - something about rolling quality + firecon + FP dice (# =
size
class). So a 30mm RFAC might just roll quality + firecon + 2D10.... and
if
you don't think that'll make for some terrifying anti-infantry FP -
yikes. I still remember watching a clip from Tet where the Army had a quad.50
on a
little trailer setup to fire at the VC/NVA in the woodsline.... it was
_terrifying_ how much lead left that weapon.... it was very hungry but I
sure as heck wouldn't have wanted to be downrange....

Vehicle action issue:
As the rules have it, you probably have to fire main gun and SAW/APSW
separately eating up the two actions of the vehicle, so your vehicle can't
fire on the move. If you move twice, your commander can't spot, despite the
fact he isn't driving. Vehicles are intentionally penalized in SG2. If you let
them do more (ie let the commander and driver or gunner act somewhat
separately) then you really change the balance. So this problem extends well
beyond just overwatch and into normal game play. If I have a Slammers Combat
Car with 3 tribarrells and 3 gunners targetting different targets, they can't
all fire under existing rules! So, however you resolve this to your
satisfaction should similarly be applied to overwatch.