Re: FMA Skirmish test results

>Ran some sessions of FMA Skirmish at the club over the weekend. Each
game was
>two sides of 5 figs which was very manageable. One was a defense attack
and
>one was 'advance and hold'.
>
>Several points came up
>1) COMBAT move is mentioned at one point, but the rules for it are
missing.
>:)

Yep, sorry, this is one of the things I'd never really finalised. A
combat
move action should be movement die (normally a D6 or D8 for most troops)
roll x 2. We'd already also had an idea (echoed by someone elses's
comment
a few posts back, I think) of a "evading" or "stealthy" movement mode,
where you move just 1 x movement die roll but are a harder target. Will
try
to write this up properly soon.
>
>2) Single supression. The DSII players said they preferred the 'two
>suppressions' system. As it stands you can't actually 'slap a figure
down' -
>they will usually have at least one action. If that is the game intent
then
>fine but if people aren't really 'suppressed' in this game as they are
in
>DSII

Interested in others' opinions on this one - originally we had no limit
on
number of suppressions, but in testiing this meant that sometimes a
figure
got loads of them piled on it at once and it got a bit silly. Question
for
discussion: if you're under fire, are you more inhibited if you think
more
people are firing at you, or doesn't it make much difference?
Then we tried a max of 2 suppressions, which works OK-ish, but then
thought
we'd try going to one only. That way, you CAN pin someone down
completely
but ONLY if they fail their first remove suppression test, which gives
good
troops a bit more chance to keep moving.
An alternative idea we had was to allow up to 2 suppression chits, but
to
say that if you rolled better than TWICE your motivation number, then
you
removed 2 chits at once (eg: a Veteran/2 would need 3 or better on his
D10
to remove 1 supp chit, but 5 or better to remove 2 in one action).

Opinions, anyone?
>
>3) Isolation rules - we nbeed to have some small list of exceptions to
this
>rule - one player in the defense/attack game wanted to deploy a lone
sniper
>on the defensive side -as the rules stand that's not really feasible.

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to say the buying SNIPER skill
negates the isolation rules, and I agree that we may have to define a
few
other exceptions to this as well.
>
>3) This is the major one - everyone feels there is a distinct imbalance
>between Reaction and Overwatch fire. It was generally though they
should have
>if not actually the same 'cost' then approximately the same. As things
stand
>this is not the case. To elaborate :-
>
>Reaction fire : Cost - 2 actions (one activation). Gain - 1 action
(FIRE
>action)
>
>Overwatch fire : Cost - 1 action and a restriction on the other. Gain -
2
>actions (AIM and FIRE actions).
>
>People couldn't see why Overwatch fire gets the benefits of an aim
action
>whereas reaction fire doesn't.

Well, the idea was that Overwatch is a "prepared" action that you have
to
plan for in advance (ie: in your last activation), while reaction fire
is a
spur-of-the-moment, target of opportunity thing. However, this is what
playtesting is all about, and if an imbalance is showing up then we'll
need
to sort it out.
I had wondered about making Overwatching figures have to define a target
area or point (eg: put a "reticule" marker down on the table, and
anything
that comes within (say) 6" of it is a valid overwatch target), but the
downside of this is that no player is going to deliberately move near
one
of these markers if he can avoid it - but on second thoughts, isn't this
kind of area-denial and channelling of movement exactly what we want
this
rule to do anyway....?	Alternatives are a) writing down the overwatch
aim
point (cumbersone, open to abuse and I don't like it) or b) giving
figures
an overwatch ARC insted of an area or point, which starts to get us into
questions of figure facing, requires marks on figure bases etc.

Furthermore as it stands Overwatch fire
>'breaks' the 'fire once every so often' idea - it was felt that the
rule
>about firing should be changed so that once a figure has fired, it may
not
>fire again until it's next 'full' activation - a further restriction
upon the
>'other' action in Overwatch that was felt would balance things a little
more.

Yes, this could work well.

>Also on this topic, there was confusion about exactly when things are
>resolved. Reaction fire as stated happens between the targets first and
>second action - does the same restriction apply to Overwatch or does it
have
>the further advantage that it can be imposed at any point in the
targets
>activation?  It is feasible that a target could end it's first move in
cover
>or out of sight - negating reaction fire. If it then moves out of cover
in
>it's second action does it then become vulnerable to Overwatch fire but
*not*
>Reaction fire? Why should that be?

Good point - so, do we add the same restriction to overwatch, or remove
it
from reaction fire?
>
>So there you go. The core move and fire rules worked well and were
quickly
>picked up - even the detailed fire rules being easily followed. However
it
>was felt that Overwatch fire was too 'strong' - I have to admit I
>particularly got scragged by it due to the AIM benefit, but I also
managed to
>rule double 1's twice on armour rolls when I only needed 2's so I guess
it
>just wasn't my night.

Glad to hear it generally worked well, Jon - the most important question
is
DID THE PLAYERS LIKE IT?

Thanks for the feedback,

Jon (GZG)
>
>			TTFN
>					Jon