FMA Suppression

1: You should use 3 suppressions. 1 isn't enough to pin figures. 3
with reactivations is sometimes not enough... ;)

2: Since a figure uses motivation level to remove suppresion, limiting
suppresion to motivation level is a double penalty for the low
motivation troops and will make for "heroic" high motivation
characters. I don't like this (YMMV). You already have an easy roll to
remove given a 1 motivation. And even heros get pinned by a wall of
hot death...

3: HMGs vs. LMGs. vs. SAWs - someone pointed out (via a wonderful
URL - written by a US Marine I'm thinking) a bit about the use of
suppression and aggressive attack even in the defence. One of the
comments made was that the HMG is not necessarily better at
suppression - it fires slower. It's rounds have more penetration, but
the higher ROF from the lighter weapon may give better suppression.
HMGs are good for killing light vehicles and for attacking at long
ranges.

4: The problem with some of the beaten zone target engagement rules
I've seen suggested lately is the failure to mention things like
blocked arcs of fire (probably obvious) or the danger to figures of a
friendly nature anywhere near the beaten zone of autofire weapons.
Area suppression weapons rarely allow "selective" targetting. You tend
to spray an area and try to avoid doing it when your buddies are
nearby - though gamers will often try to fire into or very near their
buddies. This is risky. Heck, I remember one ex where we used MILES
gear and fired most of the time with rifles on semi-auto and there
were STILL a number of Friendly Fire casualties. On FA, I'd hate to
imagine.

Here's a better question. Enemies hunkered down behind a berm 20m
out.... my guy fires his SAW on FA to rake the position and keep their
heads down. He doesn't try to kill them, just prevent them from
moving. How do we do this in FMA? I activate, and fire. They are down
out of LoS and can't be hit. On their activation, they can stand up
and move to wherever. If you have overwatch, you can hold your fire
until they appear, but even then that isn't actually what might happen
in RL where you'd be chunking out short bursts to keep them down - no
chance of a kill, but they might be hard pressed to even think of
moving. Suggestions? There is no way I know of to suppress a position
or piece of cover such that coming out of it is dangerous...

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008