Re: [SG2} House Rules for Fire Team Units

The GZG Digest wrote on 4/6/2005 1:00 AM:
 > Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 15:02:20 -0400
 > From: "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>

 > I'm thinking of the reorg as the team leader reporting what's going 
on, the
 > SL assesssing the situation and taking over a weapon.  I'm 
considering the
 > "transfer an action" to be what he does to get them to fire more
 > effectively.

After re-reading your posts, I think I was misunderstanding what you 
were saying.

I think I understand you now:

- During a normal activation, you would activate a fire team and it 
could do two actions. The fire team would do your standard combat, 
suppression removal, and movement actions. In essence, the fire team is 
like a small SG2 squad.
- If you activate a squad leader, he can do squad leader stuff (call for

support, rally a fire team, etc.). He can also transfer actions. If he 
transfers an action to a fire team, that fire team would get an 
additional two actions.

Is that what you were talking about? You see, I got confused because in 
one of my original concepts I had squad leaders become activated and 
then transfer actions to the fire teams. This is a little different from

what I outlined above, and what I think you meant, but it's close enough

that I simply confused myself.

I like this approach of a squad leader being the squad equivalent of a 
platoon or company command unit. There is a problem with this approach, 
however. If the squad leader has to use up actions to move himself, 
you'll end up with the commander-in-the-corner problem at the squad 
level. Most players would have the squad leader sit safely under cover 
and transfer actions all game. The occasional failed communications roll

will be more than offset by not requiring the squad leader to keep up 
with the two fire teams. Since a squad leader triggers a nasty 
Confidence Test if he becomes a casualty, there is even more incentive 
to keep him under cover.

I propose another rule. The squad leader _must_ be within integrity 
range of at least one fire team. If he is not, he must spend actions 
moving toward one of his fire teams, if he's capable. If I remember 
correctly, independent characters have Confidence Markers, don't they? 
If so, it's possible for a Squad Leader to be suppressed or broken. 
Obviously in those cases he won't be able to move to his squad, so he 
would be allowed to do actions allowed when a unit is suppressed. This 
creates the odd situation where a squad leader can do transfer actions 
when he's suppressed and out of integrity range, but not if he isn't 
suppressed, but I can live with it.

I also suggest applying a modifier to Confidence and Reaction tests of 
+2/+1/+1 for Low/Medium/High motivation troops if the squad leader is 
out of integrity range. That has the dual purpose of motivating the 
squad leader to stay with his squad, and to motivate the fire teams to 
operate together as a unit.

We've had lots of discussions about integrity range in the far future, 
and whether it's valid in an environment of high speed communications, 
but I still think there will be no substitute to having a squad leader 
seeing things up close and personal, with the ability to kick a trooper 
in the behind when he's cowering, etc.

 > The squad leader is the one transferring activations, and one
transfer is
 > to one team (and of course the PL could transfer an activation to the

SL).

I can live with this, now that I think I understand your fire team idea.

I'm going to have to try this now, you realize...

Allan

-- 

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