Re: going to try SGII (long)

Thanks for all the comments.  The only ones I was able to see before the
game were KRs, 'cause I posted late in the day, but thanks for all the
others.  I'll try to respond to various people's comments in this post.

First, we did try it, and it was fun.  I set it up very generically.  I
know that scenario stuff will make it more interesting, but this was a
sampling of the rules, so everyone started at confident (I think next
time I'll assume that a generic starting value would be steady, or use
the suggestion to choose that level by quality).  Both commanders were
quality 1, all other sergeants 2.

I also set up the terrain.  I explained the two sides to my wife, and
she chose the army she wanted, the Imperial Guard.

Space Marines: 2 squads of light, slow PA (leader, 2 marines, 1 support
marine), where the leader of the elite squad was the commander, the
leader of the veteran squad was a sergeant.  1 squad of heavy, slow PA
(leader, 2 marines, 1 support (robot)).

Imperial Guard: 3 squads of partial armor infantry (leader, 5 troopers, 
2 support), 1 squad of heavy, slow PA (3 "robots", 1 designated the
leader).

So I had 12 guys, she had 27.

I setup the the terrain using GeoHex stuff on the kitchen table (4 full
hexes, plus some half hexes around some edges, with a stream going
through 2 hexes and a hill in one of the others.  Two bridges across the
stream.)  Various woods around.  Total fit in a 2.5 foot diameter
circle, I'd guess.  Still looked like a long way for the guys to march
across the field, but I found the travel movement rule during the 2nd or
3rd turn, and that sped up stuff.  :-)	We did not finish the game-it
got late, with all the explaining rules to her and looking up stuff
myself.  But the summary was that everybody ran and got in cover, then
nobody wanted to use any actions to do anything but shoot.  Using better
scenarios would definitely give us reason to come out and try
something.  That's later.  :-)

I had one Lt PA squad spend most of the game removing suppression and
then having it put back on.  They were in woods, but had two squads
which could shoot at them, repeatedly because of the commander
activating them.  My heavy PA squad was destroying her troops on the
other side, though, and I think I could have brought them into the side
I was having trouble in after another turn or two.

Stuff:
Wow, the number of things you can do when your leader activates other
units!	I see why KR suggested not taking support weapons with my
commander--he's really better off just being used for extra
activations.  I'm still glad I didn't take specialists I don't know what
to do with yet, but neither of our commanders' units played any part in
actual firing.	I guess I'm surprised that there isn't some sort of
limitation, like his activating a unit gives them one action, not an
entire activation; or a commander can't activate the same unit twice. 
But I guess that's what the leaders are for.

The "robots" I'll call a support Heavy PA guy, since that's how I used
them.  They're GW robot figs, but I don't usually care that much about
what they're intended to be.  So I used them as the support guys for the
heavy PA squad on my side, and 3 of them made up her H PA squad.

We did take the rule that one of those guys could shoot one weapon in
one action, and the other in another action.  For instance, mine added
his small arms fire into the squads during one action, then fired the
support weapon during the second action.  I'd still like to know whether
this is against the letter of the rules, since the rule says you can't
fire a "weapon" twice in an activation.  Is it against the spirit?  If
it was intended to be a Rambo guy with a big gun in his arms and a small
gun at his holster, I'd say yes.  As a H PA guy, I'm not sure.	Pictures
of PA in the book look more intimidating than most of my models, some
like little battlemechs.  I'm not sure what they're capable of, with all
this stuff on them.  This guy has a big gun on his head, and another on
his arm.  My original question was could he add both to the squad's
fire, since that would not be using the same weapon twice.  Then I
thought maybe I'd limit it and say no, but he could use them in
different actions, though now I think this is not really more limiting. 
Maybe it makes more sense to say he could add both to squad fire or
shoot his support weapon at another target, not both.  I'm not trying to
break the spririt of the game, but I'm not sure this (Heavy PA) guy
isn't capable of using both.  However, a game note: I think this is one
reason why we spent all our activations shooting.  He could add his
regular firepower to squad firing, and his support weapon in another
action, and it was hard to pass up.  If he had had to make a choice, I
think I would have added his support weapon to the squad fire and then
moved or done something else with the other action.  Maybe, the squad I
have in mind was in hard cover, so maybe would have just stayed put.

The Space Marine army wasn't chosen as all PA because I thought it would
win.  I just wanted to make armies from the minis I have.  They were
very obviously vulnerable, and when I give them a healthy helping of
opposition, Owen is right that they take a lot of suppression.	That's
fine.  However, sometimes I view these guys as more like Star Wars
stormtroopers, so maybe they'll turn into Full Suit Light Armor.  Except
I like the relationship of regular guys as Light PA,  terminators as
Heavy PA.

I hope it is clear that just because I'm using GW figures, I'm not a
teenage min-maxer munchkin fan-boy.  (I'm a 33 year old min-maxer
munchkin fanboy :-)  I'm using the figures because I've got them,
they're cheap (when used as I'm using them) for an interesting variety
of neat figs, and I like science-fiction stuff to look sorta far-out.  I
wouldn't give two weapons to any old trooper, just because they're
muscley, but I did get some agreements that with a powered armor guy
this might be possible.  I have not looked at the close assault rules
yet, and I've heard PA does well there.  I still have trouble relating
to close assault, rather than shooting from a safer distance.  (And yes,
I _am_ using GW figs.  :-)  I'm not using the PA because I think I can
always win with them.  I hope to have several armies and switch off
which ones I'm using, and give the PA plenty of challenges.

Questions:
1) I'm not sure about just what the word "weapon" means in the rule that
no weapon may be fired twice.  Does it mean a particular piece of metal,
in a particular guy's hands?  Or does it mean a kind of weapon?  For
example (and sorry if I missed it in the rules--some things in their are
spread out over several pages and I don't see them), can I split my
small arms fire into two actions?  With the first meaning of weapon, I
can put 2 guys' weapons against one squad in one action, and 3 guys'
weapons against another squad in another action.  With the meaning that
"weapon" in this case means their regular rifles as a kind of weapon,
then they can only shoot that kind of weapon in one action during their
activation.  Which is it?

2) I had a question about "in position" markers, but I found the answer.
:)

3) Do you make a decision about whether a move is normal or a combat
move, or does the situation (as judged by both players) always
determine?  Or both, in that if the situation is obviously under fire
you make a combat move, in other situations you decide?

4) If you get more potential hits than there are figures in the target
squad, do the potential hits get applied more than once to those
figures?

I took some pictures.  If they look OK and I can get a friend to scan
them, I'll put them on my web site.  (www.avs.com/~askinner--you can see
some of my epic stuff by following the pic link.  Also a neat hill I
made.)

-- 
Andy Skinner
askinner@avs.com