Re: Traveller + SG2/DS2/?

The GZG Digest wrote on 4/3/2005 1:00 AM:

> Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 19:00:03 +0100
> From: Infojunky <infojunky@ceecom.net>

> Instead of a new rule why not reorganise your forces? Weapons teams
are 
> often only given gereral enguagement orders and fire on their own 
> intative. Instead of one "squad" why not Two oe Three sections? i.e. a

> main rifle team with attached SAW, then your attached weapons team.
all 
> under the same leader.

Chris (Laserlight) mentioned that the fire team issue is another that 
pops up from time-to-time.

Chris described the benefit of using fire teams. A lot of folk on the 
list have implemented them, too, usually with some simple rule that 
makes each fire team an individual squad. There are a few issues with 
this approach:

1. Fireteams exist within a squad structure. They train to mutually 
support one another. If you simply organize your units so that the 
fireteam is a unit you lose the squad level of organization completely. 
You can have the fireteam of one squad on one side of the board while 
the other fireteam of a squad is on the opposite side of the board with 
no ill effect. You really need to add rules to give players an incentive

to keep fireteams together as part of a squad.

2. SG2's morale is pretty forgiving. As written, you only have to make 
the more serious Confidence Tests when a squad has lost more than half 
of its troops in a single attack (I'm ignoring artillery and aerospace 
attacks here). Smaller squads have an advantage in that they  are 
usually down to a single man by the time they get a Broken result, if 
even then. The smaller the squad, the more likely it will be destroyed 
before it can break or rout. So, if you model your fireteams as 
essentially small squads, morale effects within the game become fairly 
diluted. Now, there's an obvious solution to this: use one Confidence 
Marker per squad, with casualties to each fireteam in a squad 
contributing to the squad's overall Confidence. However, this is a 
little bit different from simply making each fireteam a unit on its own.

As such, some rules need to be spelled out. There are other folks who 
will say, "Sorry, but no, each fireteam should have its own Confidence 
Marker." Example: one fireteam is under artillery attack and another is 
not. Should the other fireteam's morale suffer because part of the squad

is under artillery fire?

3. What purpose is served by the Squad Leader? Modern U.S. infantry 
squads consist of 9 men in two fireteams of 4, plus a squad leader. What

does this squad leader do when you have fireteams as independent units? 
Is he just a part of one fireteam with no benefit other than adding to 
the firepower die? Or should he have some sort of benefit to the squad 
as a whole?

Now, these items are fairly picky. Item #1 is often ignored if players 
don't really care, and in some cases there are good reasons for having 
fireteams split up. Some folks believe item #3 isn't an issue, that it's

a little too detailed for SG2's scale anyway. Item #2 is the big one for

game balance.

As you probably guessed, I've been working on fireteam rules, too, which

would probably address these problems. I'll post them once I get some of

the kinks out of them (such as making sure they work for the Phalons, 
and some historical units, that have more than 2 fireteams per squad).

> Beaten zone rules.... Yes, a general supression fire rule might be
nice, 
> deignate a area that you are using automatic weapons to supress.

That's a good idea, and one I've seen used in other games.

(from your other e-mail)

> A link please....

My main web page is http://www.hyperbear.com. The Beast gave you the URL

to the Phalon playtest rules (thanks, Beast!).

>>It really doesn't surprise me that a drunken Admiral is the same as a
>>drunken anybody else. *L*
> 
> Yah but he should know better being a "Instramnet of Policy"

Quite true. Mind you, alcohol abuse is quite common in military command 
circles.

> Looking at what I wrote... I reread that section. It indicates all
HWpns
>   use the D8. I say that the smal rapid fire cannons should use their
> impact die not the D8. Is a fix not a written rule. My bad, too much
> geography not enough gameing time.

That's cool. That's a workable fix, too.

> 25mm.... Ick..... 15mm much better..... (I'm a scale fan.)

I prefer playing SG2 in 15mm scale, too. When I have the room, I play it

in 15mm with 25mm scale (i.e. 1" = 10 metres). It is possible to play 
15mm in metric, though (1 cm = 10 metres).

By the way, the game seems to be more "realistic" if you assume a scale 
of 1" = 15 metres, instead.

-- 

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com