Nick and Al
To reply to you both. I thought about spotting idea
when contemplating the French and German motorcycle
troops that I have to paint. I thought "Rather than
paint these bloody figures, I'll just make up some
daft rule".
In fact recce troops do get benefits in the rules,
extra spotting, extra fast, perhaps a slightly longer
automatic spot range would be an easier idea. However
as Nikkos says we could end up playing "where's the
enemy" game every game.
On reflection I think that the umpire should probably
be a bit more decisive at the start of the game,
letting the attackers have a bit more information if
they have been able to recce the area effectively.
I think that there is an issue that players are too
keen to get all of their stuff on the table
immediately, when perhaps they would be better off
chucking a few light tanks or armoured cars around for
a couple of turns to see what they pick up.
In a recent game had the sherrif done just that with
his Panzer Is, even just whipping up to the bridge, he
would have picked up the 2 pounder in the pill box, as
ell as the carrier platoon near the windmill - may be
not knowing exactly was there, but at least knowing
that that was where the enemy was.
So we probably have a classic opportunity for
over-engineering that I love so much.
Perhaps an old chestnut like the "out scouted" rule in
the old WRG ancients could be more effective. With
the umpire getting the defender to put down his blin
nearest the enemy.
Cheers
Rich
Cheers
--- nick.skinner@... wrote: > I would agree
with Big Al. The spotting rules we
have are pretty good.
What you have suggested would be interesting but I
would worry that it
will slow the game up and may mean that it may not
be possible to both
brief and play the game in one evening and may mean
that games would
need advance briefing and dispositions. This is not
necessarily a bad
thing but seeing as some very inconsiderate people
often say they will
be there next week and then aren't (perhaps beacuse
their wife is going
out or some other poor excuse) then we may be left
with a problem.
The counter aspect to this though, as touched on by
Big Al, is that
forces on table need more of a reconnaissance make
up to them.
Mororcycle combinations, a/cars, that kind of thing.
Good fun but the
problem here is that you end up fighting the same,
initial recon game
each week, which would not be much fun.
IABSM put much of the emphasis on the Umpire, and
perhaps the umpire
also needs to play a more proactive role here,
either by producing more
detailed briefs to the attacker of enemy positions
(which does of course
mean that the defender gets very little option to
dictate his own
dispositions, or by raising the profile of spotting
for the attacker,
perhaps with the introduction of extra spotting
cards for advancing
troops (perhaps one per big man?). This would at
least make the attacker
think about spotting a little more. This is much
more in keeping with
the Lardy philosophy than the seemingly convoluted
system you are
proposing. Trevor would never understand it.
Alan Reynolds wrote:
RichardWhat sparked the thought?Was it the fact
that we have seen
examples of attackers being thrown off balance by
some "unexpected"
forces/dispositions, if so I might argue that
better use of existing
spotting/reconnaissance rules would have served to
eliminate the
unknown.Equally tactical reconnaissance could be
provided by an
increase in this type of force on the table, as
you said last week
providing the Germans with a couple of 222's could
have "tripped" the
defensive line of the Brits.If you are thinking
"strategic"
reconnaissance then it may well apply to both the
defender and
attacker, depending on the situation.Normally this
is taken care of in
the briefing notes but if you want to add an
additional phase of
reconnaissance, should both defender and attacker
have the chance to
benefit?Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: richardclarkerli
[mailto:richardclarkerli@...]
Sent: 05 May 2003 10:32
To: Toofatlardies@...
Subject: [Toofatlardies] Pre-battle
reconnaissance
Gents
A pre-battle reconnaissance system has just
struck me, that
would
allow for an attacker to have some prior
knowledge of what
he is
coming up against.
At the start of a game there is a facility
for each force to
dice for
how many blinds it has. This could also be
used to allocate
an
attacker a certain number of pre-deployment
spotting
attempts. This
would reflect how much prior knowledge they
have of their
opponent.
For example as this chart currently stands
good regulars
have 1D6
number blinds. Equally this could also
reflect how many
spotting
attempts they get before deciding on where to
attack.
This would need to be adjusted for
circumstances. For
example..
The force is strong in dedicated recce troops
+2
The force has dedicated aerial recce to
mission
+1
The force has faced this enemy in relatively
static
positions for a week or more.
+2
The contact is relatively unexpected
-2
The contact is entirely unexpected
-4
Let us presume we have an element of 7 Panzer
post the Meuse
crossing, so driving like hell through
northern France. The
force in
question may or may not benefit from aerial
recce, depending
on its
mission. Let's assume it doesn't as this
would apply in
most
circumstances. It does, however, have a good
recce troops
so gets a
+2 there. Whilst contact is expected
somewhere, this may
come at any
point, so becomes "relatively unexpected", a
+2, giving us a
net
result of 1D6.
On the tabletop the defender allocates troops
as usual. The
attacker
would sketch out a general plan at this
stage, however,
before
finally allocating his troops the attacker
then rolls his
D6. He
rolls a 4. He now has four "spots" on the
table before
deciding on
his plan.
For every spot the attacker rolls one dice.
If the target
area,
which would be 1 foot square (?) is within a
foot of the
point (or
any point if multiple) of attackers table
entry the spot is
automatic. If it is between 1 and 2 feet a 2
or more is
needed on a
D6; between 2 and 3 feet, a 3 or more is
required, up to
between 5
and 6 feet where a 6 is required.
For each unit "spotted" a blind is put down
on the table.
The
attacker then rolls a D6 for each of these
blinds, and on a
6 the
actual defending figures are put down. This
reflects that
the recce
forces will more generally identify where an
enemy is,
rather than
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