Re: [GZG] FMA multiple activations

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recollection, and it has been a while:

If you get a small force (squad size, say) with a good leader (D10 or
D12)
and most of them are motivation 1 or 2, then that leader can often get
many
of them acting in a round. But the single die roll means numbers 4 or
less
come up quite often, usually when that is an utter disaster for your
battle
plan. Contrariwise, the D4 or D6 leader has a lot more predictability to
his
outcome - it may be a usually crappy one, but it is much less swingy.

Then compare the squad (or fireteam if you have two leaders) led by the
good
leader vs. a horde of crappy opponents. The theory of balancing them for
a
game says the larger force should get advantage from weight of numbers.
But
if you give them few and/or crappy leaders (for instance some of: green
leaders, green or yellow troops, motivations of 2 and 3 common), then
you'll
find that quite often it is possible to stress those leaders into
non-function with a few shots and then *nobody* acts.

This literally makes it a walk over for the good guys, unless of course
their activation dice suddenly develop a craving for low numbers, then
they
fail dramatically. Ultimately, good strategy is undone by terrible luck
with
activation dice and numbers either count for very little or are very
hard to
get to do anything.

The first of these two problems is not generally appropriate to good
leaders. The second may or may not be appropriate to hordes in the real
world, but if it makes the game suck because the horde side sits around
a
lot of the time, it's not very fun and tough to balance.

The issue with some rules is that, in some circumstances, they distort
or
don't operate well. This one also adds to difficulty balancing scenarios
that are asymetric and that's already a challenge with the other
variables.

I've been running SG games now for nearly 15 years. I've run huge ones
that
turned out okay and very few that have turned out 'a walk' for one side
or
the other or that didn't play out somewhat like I expected. Yet with
this
mechanic in FMAS, I'd have much more trouble gauranteeing balance.

Yes, it is a 'neat' mechanic. And with two squads of regs fighting, not
so
bad. They both have the same swingy dice for activations and thus the
same
degree of predictability (or lack thereof) and the same number (or close
to)
for troops. But when you take this into the realm of 1:2 or 1:3 battles
and
stack a bunch of dodgy leaders against one good one, you see both flaws
in
this - the larger force often does not recieve any benefit of numbers
(can
only activate 1 or 2 guys out of any fireteam) and the good force can
have a
very swingy set of dice results for activation.

The game, as Damo ran it without this sort of mechanic, is a much better
game IMO.

YMMV.

TomB

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