Strike the colours/overwatch/Battle of DejaVille (yes, it is quit e a mix!)

Yes, quick thoughts in three areas:

Strike the colours: Interesting arguments all sides. Strikes me that
what is
missing is the concept of mission motivation (present in SG2) which
defines
how important the mission is to the force, hence what level of losses
the
force will voluntarily endure before breaking contact. This can easily
encompass the fact that a force is doing a "battle of the line" (HIGH
mission motivation) or is performing a patrol where they are more than
willing to break contact at first sight (LOW mission motivation). This
is
one way to balance disparate forces - in SG2, a high mission motivation
force really does have some profound advantages over a low mission
motivation force. 

Battle of Deja Ville:
Setup time: 2 hours
Play time: On and off over about 14 hours (2 companies fighting with
support). Much of that time was spent in closing action and getting new
people to have a feel for the rules. Plus some of the players are of the
"waffler" variety....  I estimate 2-4 more hours would have given a
decisive
outcome. It was two days of gaming, but we played a lot of rogue spear
multiplayer interspersed so we didn't get two full days in. 

Overwatch:
Allan, overwatch should be (IMO) 1 action, last action. Overwatch
counter
stays until the unit activates again (essentially, you've given up a
fire
action so you really shouldn't be gyped). I too have shifted to 4-6 man
fireteams in place of squads, for more flexibility and manouvre. This
means
I rarely have more than 1 SAW in a squad, so I don't often have problems
with too much FP. Again, you can use or not use the repeated fire from
MGs
and SAWs at your discretion (in fact, you can do whatever you want...). 

Aside:
Owen was telling me about their Borneo campaign and they have some plans
to
make vehicle autocannons just terrifying.... (as, from my experience,
they
should be) - something about rolling quality + firecon + FP dice (# =
size
class). So a 30mm RFAC might just roll quality + firecon + 2D10.... and
if
you don't think that'll make for some terrifying anti-infantry FP -
yikes. I
still remember watching a clip from Tet where the Army had a quad .50 on
a
little trailer setup to fire at the VC/NVA in the woodsline.... it was
_terrifying_ how much lead left that weapon.... it was very hungry but I
sure as heck wouldn't have wanted to be downrange....

Vehicle action issue:
As the rules have it, you probably have to fire main gun and SAW/APSW
separately eating up the two actions of the vehicle, so your vehicle
can't
fire on the move. If you move twice, your commander can't spot, despite
the
fact he isn't driving. Vehicles are intentionally penalized in SG2. If
you
let them do more (ie let the commander and driver or gunner act somewhat
separately) then you really change the balance. So this problem extends
well
beyond just overwatch and into normal game play. If I have a Slammers
Combat
Car with 3 tribarrells and 3 gunners targetting different targets, they
can't all fire under existing rules! So, however you resolve this to
your
satisfaction should similarly be applied to overwatch. 

------------------------------------------
Thomas R. S. Barclay
Voice: (613) 722-3232 ext 349
e-mail: tomb@bitheads.com

2001: To the New Millenium! The next thousand years
are MINE. 
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