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Re: SG2 Platoon leader casualties

From: Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@s...>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 03:20:03 -0400
Subject: Re: SG2 Platoon leader casualties

Hi folks,

>>   Since everyone has been so helpful to this new vachead I am going
to ask
>>I'm not sure about this. On page 16 Transfering Action : "For a
superior
>>officer to transfer an activation, he must make a succesful
Communication
>>action in the same way as a normal communications". So, to me, it look
like
>>the Transfering Action is a special form of Communications action.
>
>Except that you don't need to do a Communicate action to do a Transfer
Action
>if the unit is within 6" of the squad. So, does this mean that a unit
that is
>suppressed can't tell guys within 60 metres what to do, but he can tell
guys a
>kilometre away what to do?
>

Just curious... (I don't have my SG rulebook handy)... does it say that
you
don't need to do a communicate action if 6" or less, or does it say that
the communication is automatically successful because you don't need to
use
a radio - you just yell?  My impression was that you're taking the same
*action* (game mechanic term) but that it automatically works because
you're yelling rather than using the radio, so no chance of the radio
call
going wrong... (plus the commander can point, wave arms, gesture
emphatically, use hand signals, etc etc...) but the commander is still
*communicating*...

?

<snip lots, and switch to Yves...>

>What I came up was to give the command squad 3 actions (yes 3!). One of
>those action is a free transfer of action. The other 2 action are
normal
>action (except that the command squad can't do more than 2 transfer of
>action total). This allowed the command squad to follow the rest of the
>troop. It made it as far as the center of the table (even a bit more).
We
>didn't feel it was too powerful. In fact, the command squad didn't do 2
>transfer of action each turn. On about 50% of the time, it was moving +
>firing and doing it's free transfer.
>
>It gaves a nice flow to the games since all attacker where moving and
the
>command squad play a role by itself, not just transfering action. I
tend to
>made my command squad a normal size unit by itself so this look more
>realistic than seing 6-7 fig in a corner.

I've played giving 3 "command" actions to a platoon, using the officer +
his command squad with 2 actions, and the platoon sergeant with a
separate
"command capable" action.  In other words, the platoon sergeant is
located
somewhere in the platoon OTHER than the command squad, and he can
transfer
one of his regular actions.  The platoon sergeant, and his squad if he's
with one, have two actions as per normal, but he can transfer one of
them.
The officer has two actions as normal, and can transfer both if he
chooses.
 This way, you don't have one squad getting 3 actions, but you can still
have 3 actions transferred if you want OR you have two transfer actions
and
two squads that can still move.

Where this was really effective was in a game where I had a mechanized
platoon, including 4 dismount infantry squads, 4 apc's, and a tank in
support.  We said that the platoon sergeant was commanding the apc's and
the tank, but the whole force was organized as a single platoon.  So,
the
officer disembarked with the dismount infantry to run the battle, and he
could transfer his actions to everybody.  The platoon sergeant (I think
I
put him in one of the apc's) could transfer ONE of his two actions, but
only within the vehicles - he couldn't transfer an action to the
infantry
dismounts.  It worked really well.

To combat the 6-8 model command squad in the corner problem, I cut down
the
command squad in many of my units to only 4 figures, and include a
separate
medic team (2 troops) who are "administratively" part of the command
squad
(out of game) but on the table are run as a separate unit with their own
actions.  Of course, this does nothing to stop the commander being in
the
corner, it just prevents having 6 or 8 guys sitting in the corner with
the
commander... 

:)

-Adrian

***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca

***************************************

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