RE: [SG2] articulation and efficiency

One thing that you did not address is leader activation. And it
probably balances out.

More articulation either means that you have to increase the 
leadership hierarchy OR there will be more units that will not
gain benefit from leadership reactivation.

On the other hand, more articulation provides greater area of
coverage and greater flexibility to leadership activation.

Disclaimer: I play Stargrunt once a year at GZGECC. So weigh
my comments appropriately.

-----
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net  
http://members.nbci.com/rlyehable/sg2/ 
-----

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barclay, Tom [SMTP:tomb@bitheads.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 12:24 PM
> To:	Gzg Digest (E-mail)
> Subject:	[SG2] articulation and efficiency
> 
> Allan has raised some very interesting points, with which I concur. 
> 
> Articulation of a fighting formation (that is using smaller squads to
> produce more manouvre units) is an interesting issue. 
> 
> Let's look at the benefits of increased articulation:
> 1) Harder to completely suppress the unit
> 2) Easier to execute supporting bounding tactics or other tactics
> requiring
> mutual support
> 3) Better efficiency of fire (you don't waste extra FP from larger
> formations)
> 4) Squads with (for example) 7 men with rifles and a GMS are at a huge
> disadvantage [snip]
> 5) similar argument applies to why officers and PSgts might want to be
> treated as individuals rather than as parts of a command squad  [snip]
> 
> 
> Penalties:
> 1) More brittle morale
> 
> Other considerations
> 1) Every infantry formation in RL is trained to do this type of stuff
> instinctively, but in SG2 you might want to restrict this increased
> initiative/control to higher troop qualities - setting a minimum level
> such
> as reg or vet. 
> 2) It adds extra time to an SG2 game because it adds to the number of
> manouvre units on the board
> 
> Analysis:
> Good benefits - efficiency of fire, hard to pin down, easy to
manouvre.
> Penalties - Ha! The SG2 morale rules are very generous (they don't
track
> accumulating casualties which is a MAJOR shortcoming) and the tests
for
> some
> things are a bit easy. 
> 
> Effectively you get far more bang for the same amount of buck. [snip]
> 
> 
> I think SG2, by virtue of being more complex than FT in many ways, is
not
> well given to a point system for balance.  [snip]
> 
> 
> Newbies find the lack of point balance painful - it can be. But I'd
share
> this bit of wisdom with them:
> 
> The trade off in this format of a game is that the balance is harder
to
> predict (eventually, you get a good idea from experience, but it takes
> time)
> but you reap a more complex tactical game from this.	[snip]
> 
> Just ask, we like to help out. 
> 
> Anyway, I don't think increased articulation is something for the
timid or
> new to the game necessarily (nor running officers and NCOs as
individual
> figures).  [snip]
> . 
> 
> Similarly, some people have tried to address the poor morale rules
> (various
> suggestions around the net  [snip]
> 
> 
> Glad to see discussion on such issues. They might be of some
illumination
> to
> those new to the game or to those thinking of trying it. It is a more
> costly
> game than FT (you need terrain of some sort plus more minis) but I
think
> it
> is actually a better game (which is saying a lot since FT is good).
Give
> it
> a try!
> 
> Tom