Re: [SG]Unit Cohesion

On Thu, 20 September 2001, Roger Books wrote:

> The one thing that occured that really bothered me, the
> Kra'Vak player broke his six guys up, sending them 5 different
> directions and then used the re-org rules to get them all
> back together.  I can't seem to find anything that says
> this is illegal, however, it doesn't feel right.  Is this
> legal?

It is legal. But...

The Kra'vak player has to detach a unit. That takes an action to form
the detached unit (one Kra'vak). To order that unit, the leader has to
make a communications roll (probably automatic) and then do a transfer
action. That would then give the single Kra'vak two actions but the unit
is now activated.

It doesn't say that it's impossible, so technically on the next
activation the main squad could detach another Kra'vak with one action,
and then transfer an action to move him. This process could be done a
total of 4 times to split off a 5 Kra'vak squad into one main squad (the
Squad Leader) and 4 detached elements.

The limitation is that the squad leader must do a transfer action in
order to activate any detached element. So, the squad leader can do two
actions himself, or do one action himself and transfer the other to a
single Kra'vak (giving that Kra'vak two actions), or he can do two
transfer actions to activate two separate Kra'vak.

Is that clear? Summarized:

1. SL does two actions, or;
2. SL does one action, and one other Kra'vak does two actions, or;
3. Two Kra'vak do two actions.

Note that points 2 and 3 will require communications rolls if the
detached elements are more than 6" away from the squad leader.

This, to me, doesn't make a lot of sense. As one squad, the Kra'vak
player can do two actions with 5 figures. Spread out, the maximum he
gets is 2 actions with 2 figures. He would never be able to fire more
than 2 Kra'vak figures.

I said that technically it's legal. It depends on what he was doing with
the Kra'vak. On page 18 of the rules, it says that a detached element
must be done for a specific purpose. It can't be done just to increase
the number of actions a squad can do. 

For instance, it would be perfectly legal to split up a squad into 5
parts in order for the squad to, say, stand at 5 different points in a
large fortress in order to spot the enemy. Or, to each place a
demolition charge at different parts of a perimeter. Or for each to
spread out in order to move across an area suspected of being a
minefield.

However, if all the player was doing was spreading out his forces to
give himself more actions, and then reorganizing, I think it fails the
"must be done for a specific purpose" rule. This rule is obviously kind
of vague, as it requires a subjective judgement.

My interpretation of the rule is that the detached elements have to be
doing something different from the main squad, even if it's moving to
the same location along a different path. If they detach but do
essentially the same thing, it's not allowed.

Nor is it all that useful, given the limitation the Kra'vak player is
under with respect to having to transfer actions to the detached
elements.

Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
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