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Re: still FMA-40k

From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 18:19:21 -0500
Subject: Re: still FMA-40k

Oerjan spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> > I understand that the SGII game is more a "shooty" game than wh 40k 
> > (which isn't?)....
> 
> Yes and no. You shoot more in SGII, but tend to inflict less real
damage
> - the usual result when you open fire at a unit is that its soldiers
drop
> prone and refuse to move for a while. Wholesale slaughters of troops
in
> open terrain (as many 40K battles involving Orks seem to be) aren't
very
> common in SGII. This is particularly true if the enemy is smart enough
to
> use cover properly :-/
> 
> In order to inflict serious casualties on the enemy, you have to call
in
> artillery support - or send in a close assault. Getting artillery
support
> can take a lot of time and isn't able to handle all situations anyway,
so
> the close assault gets important.

I take one exception to this comment. A typical section of eight guys 
with modern rifles and a saw can put out a lot of firepower with a 
high impact value. Casualties from such massed fire are quite likely 
in all but the most heavy armour, at moderate ranges. Closing to 
close assault against such troops can be very difficult unless the GM 
has went out of his way to lay out a battlefield to encourage this. 
And then, as defender, you'd have cut down the offending trees to 
give yourself a free-fire zone (so such battlefields only make sense 
really during encounter style gaming). I've noted the arty
dice isn't that big (d8 is it?) and therefore at close ranges I'd say 
the massed fire of a section is more likely to cause casualties. 
Unless of course you have smaller sections (why? It sucks for morale 
and FP and 8-10 seems a sort of normal figure... certainly no less 
than 5) or an ungodly quantity of artillery. Volume of fire of 
any variety always counts! The point is, I think, that in SG2 one is 
required to come up with a good use of cover, fire and manoevre and 
combined arms to close with and destroy the enemy effectively without 
suffering large casualty figures. Charges into fully automatic 
weapons are suicidal and poor use of cover is too. Plus, weapons 
actually have some range.... and good effects vs armour.... hence the 
effect of fire in the game is more pronounced.

Tom. 
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay		     
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Fax: (613) 831-8255

 "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes
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