Scouts/Spotters, HTML, Drones and odd cross cultural experiences

John A. said:
Nonsense.  I've won scenarios with scout 
platoons.  Or at least, decisively engaged 
the enemy with indirect fire and caused so 
much damage that he spent a LOT of
effort tracking down the scouts, which 
caused him to loose the game.

[Tomb] Funny similar example. Iraqis in 
Gulf War dug in in coastal town. Water 
along one long board edge. Mines, T-72s, 
BMPs, lots of infantry, mortars. US and UK 
attacking - Challengers, M1A1, Bradleys, 
etc. (At least 2:1 numercial plus tacair and 
arty). 

Iraqi player puts up fake minefield signs 
and little sand lumps all over. Totally fakes 
out US advance (no engineers 
accompanying apparently... nor intel....). So 
the Yanks go for a wide swing into one end 
of town (take a flank). Cram their WHOLE 
force down this narrow alley. Send an 
apache or some other sort of chopper into 
town (oops, say hello to SAMs... boom). 

Iraqi player has one little observer unit with 
a 105mm RR on the hill at that end of 
town. No infantry. Fires at a Bradley. Light 
damage. The US player debarks an entire 
infantry platoon plus an armoured platoon 
and conducts a hasty attack upon the hill 
thinking it is loaded with enemy infantry. 
Meanwhile the Iraqi player is calling in 
some off board fire support and lining up 
his tanks for flank shots at the almost 
parked US attack lane while they wait 
painfully for the US attack on this hill to 
locate the (obviously well hidden) Iraqi 
infantry and mines.... whereas the spotters 
and their jeep just burrow down to dodge 
fire from 4 tanks, 4 bradleys, and 8 stands 
of infantry....

Now, this was quite a few years back and 
the players made (in some sense) a 
credible assumption that the Iraqi defender 
would have defended this location.... but he 
stopped his entire attack to overrun this 
one hilltop.... and that let the Iraqi player 
play Hobb with his parked armoured 
formation. Won the battle on the hilltop, 
lost the battle for the town.... 

HTML:
Chen-song, could you (if possible) disable 
your HTML on list mails? It is really doing 
_ugly_ things to the digests. Thanks. 

Drones:
I see they now have a pie-plate sized unit 
controlled by a wrist computer and flown 
via a thin optical fiber. Short range (couple 
of hundred meters) but lets infantry squads 
look over hilltops, buildings, around 
corners, into caves, etc. Very cool. I'm 
trying to think of how to do this justice in 
SG2 but haven't quite got it figured yet. 

Molotovs and Satchel Charges for SG2:
Molotov... I'd give these D6 impact. Range 
short only. They might work versus a 
normal vehicle, mostly just annoy a tank 
unless they get a very lucky hit in. 
Satchel Charges - I'd give them (note, at 
Oerjan's guidance I know give my IAVRs 
this) 3d12* impact. Some of the new 
satchel charges (large, tis true) are killing 
Merkavas now. Short range only. Or maybe 
even you have to do some sort of close 
assault to place one. Give the tank gunner 
a chance to mow you down. 

Cross Cultural Wierdness:
Sitting in a local Scots Pub on St. Andrews 
day. Used to seeing fairskinned folk a 
plenty, mostly fair or red-haired. Piper 
shows up (like me, dressed in the good 
black jacket, the high collar white shirt, and 
a lovely kilt and sporan) and is a very dark 
black skinned gent with a brilliant white 
mop of thick curly hair. Had quite a Scots 
accent too as I think he hailed from 
Glasgow. Now, as Alan said, this kind of 
thing shoudn't be all that surprising... but it 
was nonetheless. Nice guy, I bought him a 
single malt... that lad could pipe!

And lastly, you lot have made me decide I 
must now rent (and possibly later buy) Iron 
Giant.... I hope you're happy..... ;)
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. 
[The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.]
-- Tacitus