Re: Movement thoughts for FMA from Mike - my reply

>** First: Standard move action (1 action): 6". Standard Combat Move
>Action: d6x2".
>Two actions per activation. Average on combat move is 7", so on
>average you will move farther than a normal move. Also, you will
>certainly have a greater potential - 24" if you do two combat moves
>(unlikely but possible). So there is a quantitative difference.

Where do you get a move of 6" from? I quote from the original email from
Jon T of 09/07/99:

BASE MOVEMENT VALUES:
Heavily encumbered character (eg: carrying wounded comrade):
	       4" (D4)
Encumbered character (eg: carrying heavy weapon, or wearing heavy
unpowered
armour):       6" (D6)
Typical normal character, or "Slow" power suited character:
		    8" (D8)
Very lightly equipped or very agile character , or "Medium" power suited
character:		 10" (D10)
"Fast" power suited character or typical Combat Cyborg etc.:
	       12" (D12)

I was using the "typical normal figure" value of 8".

>** Well, if you interpret (as some do) some of the stuff in the
>rulebook, you could conclude that as he is double moving, anyone who
>has not activated can actually fire at him in the middle of a full
>move in view of their unit. But that is another point.

Yes, that’s Reaction Fire.

>** Of course, the wise gamer (someone who should IMHO (only my own!)
>be playing chess or bridge since they have set rules and clear cut
>moves) says "But I can move 6 inches! Why take the risk of a combat
>move!" - The answer is because in combat your soldier has *NOT* got
>that choice - his move is a combat move! He won't *saunter* from a to
>B, nor will he march. He might dash (roll a combat move, hope for a
>six to let him move 12" in one move to avoid mid-move fire!) or he
>might do the "Up-he-sees-me-down" thing or some combination of
>dashing, ducking, and even rolling around dodging bullets... assuming
>he doesn't trip or stagger. But the time it takes him to get from A to
>B is a range of possible values. Boy, would most of the Warrant
>Officers in any military I've encountered just love it if their whole
>squads would move together, or even if any one individual would snap
>to an order all the time without fail. But combat is by its nature
>stressful, random, and isn't turn based. So we place it into a turn
>based abstraction of a game with small lead men who don't panic,
>hyperventillate, zone out, or trip or otherwise do dumb ass stuff that
>is the natural province of men being shot at.... and so we try, by
>whatever method, to preserve the non-deterministic feel of combat. The
>combat move should (most likely) be the only form of movement once
>combat has been initiated. There are varieties of how it is executed
>(the dash from cover to cover, the A2C up-run-down, the combat crawl,
>the Airborne Shuffle, whatever), but it is very rarely deterministic.

While I agree very much with your thinking here, as the rules stand at
the
moment, the combat move is NOT the only form of movement allowed once
combat is initiated. There is nothing to say that you can’t use normal
movement at any time. Hence my previous argument.

Now, you and I being "sensible wargamers" will probably
use the combat move because a) its more realistic and b) the element of
risk
makes the game more interesting. However, there are some people out
there
who will say "It doesn’t say I can’t do it in the rules". Therefore
we must
legislate if we want to enforce the random combat move once in combat.
Next
problem then: define "once combat has been initiated". After the first
shot
has been fired? What if the shot was from a silenced weapon? Once the
figure sees an enemy figure or is shot at? Now you’re going to have to
track who is "in combat" and who isn’t....

>But I don't
>believe the answer is to not reflect the nature of combat or the
>nature of the range of individual choices - rather it is to have
>simple, easily memorable mechanics and let people play with 6 guys
>instead of six squads in SG2.

Couldn’t agree more. So how do we define "in combat" then, or more
specifically, when can and when can’t a figure use normal movement
rather
than combat movement. Any suggestions anybody?

Mike Elliott

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