Re: [SG] More questions from the weekend

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:27:50 -0400, "Thomas Barclay" <kaladorn@magma.ca>
wrote:

>1) Debark/embark: 
>Does this take 1 action from the infantry and 
>one from the vehicle, or merely one from the 
>infantry and none from the vehicle? 

I agree with Adrian that it's the moving unit that pays the cost. The
wording
is ambiguous, though. This is another area of the rules that really
needs
clearing up.

It appears that most of the playtesting had vehicles as integral to the
squad,
thus the whole "vehicle is parked" comment in the second paragraph
(dealing
with the vehicle as a detached part of the squad). 

I can see TomB's point, as there is a line that says, "Getting troops
into or
out of a vehicle takes one MOVE action per squad/unit, during which
neither
the troops or the vehicle may do anything else." This is very vague. If
you
read it as covering both vehicles as separate entities and vehicles as
attached to the squad, it seems to imply that the vehicle may not do
_anything_ that turn while the squad loads. That doesn't seem fair. It
doesn't
say how many actions the transport eats up. Then there's the next
sentence
that says, in part, "...[after they leave the vehicle with a move
action, the
troops] are then free to use their other action to move away, fire or
whatever."

I'm of the opinion that Jon mostly used attached vehicles when
playtesting
SG2. As such, most of this section implies that the vehicle is part of
the
squad. Hence the part about neither the vehicle nor the squad doing
anything
else during loading (otherwise how could a vehicle do anything else in
the
middle of another unit's activation?).

Considering the structure of SG2 (one unit activates at a time) and the
difficulty of keeping track of which vehicle has already spent an action
loading or whatever, I have ruled that it costs the troops embarking and
disembarking an action to do so. The vehicle, if an independent unit,
remains
unactivated and still has its two actions.

This, of course, means that there is _no_ reason for vehicles to be an
integral part of a squad. It's actually a major disadvantage to make
them part
of the squad. I don't know if Jon's idea was to most always make them
part of
the squad, with the exception being things like VTOL transports and
such. I
don't know what his "default" squad structure is with regard to
vehicles.
Without any guidelines, no one will make them part of the squad because
of
this disadvantage.

So, my interpretation matches Adrian's. However, it's now got me
thinking
about vehicles in a new way. I suspect that Jon's original plan was for
mechanized units to have the vehicle part of the squad. The rules work
best
this way, with regard to loading and unloading.

As a house rule, you could require the vehicle to eat up an action in
this
loading process, too, but that becomes a headache from a bookkeeping
stance. I
wouldn't sweat it and just let the vehicle keep its two actions while a
squad
loads. That's how I've always played it.

>2) Does it seem sensible to anyone that an 
>infantry squad in hard cover can only be 
>targeted at 360m by a DFFG/4 or 5? 

And wouldn't that be down to 240m if they were in Improved Positions?
Yeah,
this seems a bit weird. The problem is the upper limit of a D12 range
die in
the firing rules. If the range die is greater than D12, combat is not
allowed.

I've been somewhat miffed by that rule for a while, but never had a
scenario
where this gap (being able to fire at a vehicle while totally safe from
it)
has shown itself. 

> In firing at infantry with such 
>weapons, would it make sense to ignore the 
>range band shifts but still give the infantry the 
>armour shift benefits? 

I'm not a big fan of special rules for special weapons in SG2. How about
you
just make the shift open? If the die shift would be beyond D12, shift
the
firepower die down. That way if you have a D12 firepower HMG on a
vehicle, it
has a maximum range against troops in hard cover of 840m. Still lower
than
"realistic", but much closer (and would fit most wargame tables). You
could
even extend this rule to all combat, including infantry firing at
infantry.

>3) When a heavy weapon is fired at a squad 
>(said DFFG), the way it was resolved was FC + 
>QD vs. Range die, and casualties were 
>determined as infantry fire. OTOH, I maintain it 
>should have been resolved as FC + QD vs. 
>Range die, and if a hit was scored, all squad 
>members should take a D8 attack (heavy 
>weapons versus dispersed targets). Are either 
>of these right? Or are neither? If not, what is? 

The rules are clear on this one. Page 40. You roll FC + QD for the DFFG
vs.
Range Die for the infantry. Casualties are determined as per small arms
fire.
The impact die, though, is D8 versus the infantry's armour.

>4) An HMG (RFAC/1) hit a PA squad. The RFAC 
>only does D10* impact. So it was D10 vs. D12. 

No, it's worse than that. The RFAC/1 is considered a "heavy weapon", so
it's
impact versus a dispersed target is D8.

>The HAMR does 2d12 impact. Anyone think 
>there is something awry here? 

Yeah, there is a weirdness here. But the HAMR is used in the sniper
rules. I
assumed that the impact was higher because of limitations imposed on it
that
are abstracted into the sniper rules. If used against PA, it can only
fire at
one armoured trooper. That RFAC/1, though, can affect every PA trooper
in a
squad.

Just leave it as is and assume that the reason it has such a high impact
is
because it's only used as a sniper weapon, with lots of good optics,
specially
trained soldiers, and the team has the chance to aim at vulnerable parts
of
the target. If you want to use a HAMR in a non-sniping role (as a
support
weapon, for instance), come up with new stats for it, such as FP of D6
(down
from D8 as the firepower would be reduced due to not having as much time
to
aim), and an impact of D12*. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
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