V4 Rules

[KirkH]

I'm a PG player from way back but haven't played in quite a few years.  When I did play I used the V3 rules exclusively.  Part of the reason I put my PG playing on hold was because I was waiting for somebody to create a version of the V4 rules showing what changed.  I'm thinking of playing again and would like to try the V4 rules, but would hate to have to reread every word and bounce them against the V3 rules to see what's changed and what hasn't.  Does anyone know if there's some sort of cheat sheet that identifies what changed?  Thanks.

[plloyd1010]

I don't think there is, or it is seriously buried. The 4th edition rules are 8 years old now. There isn't a lot different in play mechanisms. There is a distinction between move and fire actions, you will need to keep an eye on that.

Assaults are distinctly a fire action, and per John Stafford, units may not unload with a fire action. Thus units in APC's may not unload and assault or assault and unload. When the when the question was raised, that was the answer. That is a significant change from the 3rd Ed rules, and in my opinion, not an improvement.

On the other hand, sighting especially regarding elevation is a bit better defined. Mechanized moment is a little faster. (Not fast enough in my opinion.)

Watch the tables closely, there have been some changes there, good and bad.

[KirkH]

Thanks for the info.  I guess I'll just have to start reading the V4 rules and see if I can spot the changes.

It's a tad frustrating because for 30+ years I reviewed Army manuals and any time a change was proposed there were change bars in the document so the reviewer could focus on what changed.  Without the change bars trying to determine what's new and what isn't can be a real challenge.

[plloyd1010]

I've read a few army manuals, mostly with an eye toward improving my deployments. I don't think I would have liked your job. FM-71 was rather useful.

[KirkH]

Luckily, reviewing manual changes was only a small part of being an aero engineer.  Still, there's nothing more annoying than someone giving you a document and saying "I made a couple changes, can you take a look at it" only to find they didn't mark what they'd changed.

[larrymm]

It's tedious, but you can copy the text out of the V3 rules (avoid the annotations), paste it as a plain text doc in your favorite word processor, and save it. Do the same for the V4 rules. Then compare the files. You'll get change bars galore, but important text changes should show up in a discernable fashion. If you're into linux, diff can be used to good effect as well. Here's an example for paragraph 12.11, Assault/Entering a Hex:

[KirkH]

I may have to give that a try.

I've been trying to figure out how mechanized movement is faster with V4, but haven't been able to figure it out yet.  The counters haven't changed and I didn't see anything in the rules so is the difference the fact an AFV now pays 1.5MP per clear hex versus the 2 it paid in the past?

[plloyd1010]

Yes, that's it.. It makes them a little faster.

[cjsiam]

I may have to give that a try.

I've been trying to figure out how mechanized movement is faster with V4, but haven't been able to figure it out yet.  The counters haven't changed and I didn't see anything in the rules so is the difference the fact an AFV now pays 1.5MP per clear hex versus the 2 it paid in the past?

with mp of 6 points V3 -> 3 hexes
                             V4 -> 4 hexes

  4>3 ... V4 is faster....