Re: Close Assaullt

>Ooo. I remember a BIG discussion on that. Now, the rules as I read
them,
say you can close assault a position. E.g. a piece of geography. So you
wouldn't have to have seen the enemy, but could be given orders like
'take that patch of wood by close assault' and rush into, and through
the
trees, assaulting whomever you run into first. Of course, my opponents
disagreed vehemently.

--> what the book says is:

-->"The target of the assault must be a single defensive position or
location held by one enemy unit, though the attacking player may attempt
to
commit more than one unit..."

-->And that's it.  It never, anywhere, says that you have to have line
of
sight to declare your intention to close assault.  And in an era of
powerful space/air/land/helmet based sensors, HUDs for every trooper,
etc
etc I don't see why you should have to.  I figure that unless you are
going
to use hidden movement (a huge pain) then your side has, at the least, a
general knowledge of what the enemy is up to.  The game doesn't require
you
to plan your movement and your strategy assuming that you know nothing
about what the other guy is up to.  You don't have to "wait until first
contact" before reacting, unless the scenario says so.	So why would you
be
limited in close assaults?  Having said that, if you are playing with
hidden squads (using squad counters and dummy counters), I wouldn't let
you
assault a *counter* that you don't know is an enemy.  The rule says that
you can close assault a defensive position held by an enemy.  I think it
is
fair to say that if you don't know he's there, you can't assault him...
Line of sight isn't necessary - because if the squad has been revealed
for
some reason (ie the hidden counter turned over and the models placed on
the
table), I think it is fair (in the SG universe) to assume that knowledge
of
the squad is passed on to the entire force through their tactical data
net.
 Or whatever other PSB you use...  They wave flags at each other.  Send
smoke signals.	Whatever.  But if the figures are on the table, then I
know
they're there.	At least generally - enough that I can plan my movement
around where they are, can plan attacks, etc.

-->Some people want to add a line-of-sight limit to the game, but it
isn't
there in the rules.  At least, not that I've ever seen.

... close assault a well defined piece of geography, even if you can not
see all of it (e.g. far end of the patch of woods; the final planned
destination of the close assault move), but ARE aware of enemy
presence in those woods?

--> Yes.  We play that you have to have a reasonable chance of *getting*
there to initiate a close assault - in other words that you can't
declare a
close assault at someone across the board if you can't get there in two
combat moves just to force a confidence check, but other than that, you
don't have to see the target position.	There has to be an enemy there,
though.

... close assault a well defined piece of geography, even if you can not
see all of it (e.g. far end of the patch of woods; the final planned
destination of the close assault move), but are NOT aware of enemy
presence in those woods?

-->No.	You have to be close assaulting an *enemy* in a defended
position -
the rules say so.  If you don't know he's there, then you can't assault
him.  I think the *only* time I might allow this to be different would
be
if you were using the sniper hidden movement rules, and you close
assaulted
a sniper's hidden counter, hoping that you were getting the right spot.
But that's an unusual circumstance and needs more thought.

Adrian.

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Adrian Johnson