Move & Fire optional rule

[t1M0t8yk]

Is Move & Fire a popular optional rule? Rich and I are trying it in a late war scenario. My initial impression is very favorable - it seems more realistic to me, and it also creates more interesting decisions.

I think it could be further enhanced if one could also "Move & Op Fire"; i.e., move an AFV up to 1/2 its MPs or less and you're still eligible for one Op Fire shot with the same unit. This would be similar to the way Jim Krohn handles armor in Band of Brothers. In Krohn's designer notes he argues that this is how armor actually operated in much of WWII - by slowly approaching each other and firing on the "slow move".

Then all we'll need is a way to split Efficient Fire into two activation segments and permit one Op Fire after one "Prep" Fire (to use ASL parlance), and vice-versa.

[Matt W]

Panzer Grenadier is a game that covers an immense array of technological and tactical changes with a constant rule set. The move and fire approach is not suited to early war forces and doctrines. There were certainly specific units that could pull this off (e.g. Grossdeutschland, US 2nd Armored, British Guards armored, certain Soviets Guards units, etc.) given a high level of training and better armored combat officers, especially as the war progressed. However there were plenty of units that even into 1945 were incapable of such actions and indeed the Far Eastern Forces in Korean War: Pusan Perimeter's 1950 should NOT be able to do this.

In pushing for the rule to be relegated to the optional set my comment was that it was probably a good idea to make the rule apply only to certain forces and in certain circumstances rather than as an overall rule. Its genesis seems to have been in PG:Modern where the pace of combat on the modern battlefield is much more frenetic than that found in PG. There the rule has the benefit of being widely applicable.

In testing the rule I found it to be virtually paralyzing to armored forces facing each other if they were both efficient and overly stimulating if only one armored force was efficient.

It can be a fun rule in the right circumstances I just found it to be too powerful, moving balance and play in directions that felt too removed from the early war scenarios.