Action Phase - is this sequence correct?

[Tony M]

If someone would be kind enough to let me know if I am playing action phases correctly I would be very grateful.

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Eastern Front

Scenario 61 [Odessa: Hill 101]

It's game turn 1. The Romanians are assaulting the Soviet line. The Romanians have the initiative and will get two Action Phases before the Soviets get one. Visibility is one hex.

A Romanian captain is stacked with 2 infantry platoons and 1 engineer platoon. He activates these 3 platoons plus himself.

One infantry platoon moves forward and winds up in front of a Soviet hex that contains 2 rifle platoons.

The engineer platoon moves forward and stacks with the infantry platoon in front of the Soviet-occupied hex mentioned above.

The Romanian captain and the last Romanian infantry platoon move forward and stack with the other two Romanian platoons.

The 2 Soviet rifle platoons realize that something is going on to their front, and opportunity fire at the Romanian captain and the rifle platoon he moved forward with. The result is a morale check for the rifle platoon and the captain. the captain passes, but the rifle platoon winds up demoralized. The other 2 Romanian units in the hex are not impacted. But because they moved they can do nothing else in game turn 1. The whole Romanian stack gets a Moved/Fired marker. The Soviet stack gets 2 Moved/Fired markers. If they take another Op Fire, they remove one.

This completes the Romanian player's first action. He then activates a different stack.

When he finishes the Soviet player takes his 1 action of game turn 1.

[plloyd1010]

Well... You could do it that way. It is hard to comment without knowing what is adjacent to your captain. Why didn't the captain activate adjacent units and/or locotenents or the plutonier?

Your marking the Soviet stack is correct. When the engineer platoon moved, why did the Soviet stack not fire on it? Keeping an engineer platoon out of the fight for a few turns makes things harder on the Romanians.

Tell us more about the initial Romanian position or take a picture. There is probably a more efficient advance.

[cjsiam]

Officers can activate units (and subordinate leaders) in adjacent hexes--and that can chain out from initial activation....

Units are moved INDIVIDUALLY...because enemy can (and MUST if it wants to ) interrupt the movement of a unit, as it 
enters a hex(before it leaves--you have to give opponent "opportunity" to fire...).  That roll happens immediately, with any disruption
or above stopping movement for that unit.  As it is moving personnel unit, there is generally a +1 column shift ---so you most likely WANT
to take that shot as he moves up next to you.

IF your officer moved with the unit--and he passes any MC called for, he can help modify the MC rolls.
If he was left behind, to move up later, and is more then 1 hex away---he does not get to help and your units might suffer from that...
...so staging the advance of officers with Morale mods is important.

Game on....

[joe_oppenheimer]

Only thing that looks wrong is that opportunity fire is taken as individual units move. You never really move stacks (you can for convenience if there is no chance of opportunity fire). You could wait until the Soviet activation and have them fire at the whole stack, but then you'd lose the opportunity fire column shift.

[Juiceman]

Only thing that looks wrong is that opportunity fire is taken as individual units move. You never really move stacks (you can for convenience if there is no chance of opportunity fire). You could wait until the Soviet activation and have them fire at the whole stack, but then you'd lose the opportunity fire column shift.

But you would get the +1 back for 3 units in a hex, either way it should be a +3 column shift, just depends on when you want to fire.

"The Romanian captain and the last Romanian infantry platoon move forward and stack with the other two Romanian platoons."

[Tony M]

Well... You could do it that way. It is hard to comment without knowing what is adjacent to your captain. Why didn't the captain activate adjacent units and/or locotenents or the plutonier?

Your marking the Soviet stack is correct. When the engineer platoon moved, why did the Soviet stack not fire on it? Keeping an engineer platoon out of the fight for a few turns makes things harder on the Romanians.

Tell us more about the initial Romanian position or take a picture. There is probably a more efficient advance.

I have no explanation for why the Soviet stack didn't fire on the engineer platoon when it moved. I just happened to move that platoon second. But now that I think about it, the Soviet stack could have taken one op fire at the engineers and its second op fire at the rifle platoon and leader. 

I'm still trying to familiarize myself with how PG works. It's been years since I last played. 

The initial Romanian position was one line of stacks, each of which had a leader. What I was trying to do was first  get comfortable with all of the things you have to do with a single stack. To be honest, it seems slightly "gamey" to be able to activate every stack in a row. I know that in most wargames one player can move all of his units every turn. But with a game like this, where "activation" by a leader is a central concept, it just seems a bit "gamey" to carefully place the leaders side by side so all of one's units can activate. It seems a little like most games where players search around for exactly the right number of strength points in order to get exactly the right odds. 

Does anyone out there use a house rule that limits the number of activations a side can do? 

But maybe I have just misunderstood the concept of activation. If stacks are side-by-side, and each has a leader, does activating all of those leaders and stacks count as a single action?

[plloyd1010]

The some things to keep in mind. Leaders may activate adjacent units and lower ranking adjacent leaders. I setup some units and leaders for an example. Since I don't have Romanians loaded at the moment, I used Germans.
   

1. The CAPT in hex A may activate the LT in hex B, as well as the units in his own hex. He could also activate units in hex B without activating the LT.
   
2. Assuming the CAPT activates the LT in hex B, he may then activate the SGT in hex E, but not the LT in hex C (because they are the same rank).
   
3. The units in hex D may be activated by any leader in hexes A, B or E, after that leader activates.
   
4. The unit in hex F may be activated either by the SGT or the LT in hex C, after that unit activates.
   

Keep in mind that all activations need to be declared before any action takes place. A leader with a fire activation may give move activations and vise versa.

better?

[cjsiam]

AS WELL...
Remember if you are hoping to use a morale modifier to Rally units---they can't move, or add their fire modifier to any other stack--they have
to stay in place to participate in the rally (marked as a MOVE activation) of the Disrupted/Demoralized unit.....

The Chain activation of a line of infantry makes lots of sense in and assault situation.
carefully organizing their set up is completely appropriate when having to orchestrate assault on
  a defensive position.....how you move your officers is part of that (so they can contribute to morale benefits for units 
  taking MC due to opportunity fire)
This is the infantry tactics .... Get those machine guns to disrupt the defenders Pin and Flank...

[Tony M]

The some things to keep in mind. Leaders may activate adjacent units and lower ranking adjacent leaders. I setup some units and leaders for an example. Since I don't have Romanians loaded at the moment, I used Germans.
 

1. The CAPT in hex A may activate the LT in hex B, as well as the units in his own hex. He could also activate units in hex B without activating the LT.
   
2. Assuming the CAPT activates the LT in hex B, he may then activate the SGT in hex E, but not the LT in hex C (because they are the same rank).
   
3. The units in hex D may be activated by any leader in hexes A, B or E, after that leader activates.
   
4. The unit in hex F may be activated either by the SGT or the LT in hex C, after that unit activates.
   

Keep in mind that all activations need to be declared before any action takes place. A leader with a fire activation may give move activations and vise versa.

better?

Yes. And so this entire chain of activations would then count as a SINGLE action? It would then be the case that, in your example, ALL of the German units would be marked with Fired/Moved markers and therefore would not be able to activate again in that game turn?

LOL...with the difficulty I am having with chain activations and when to either take an op fire or wait and do a direct fire, is it any wonder that I'm reluctant to play scenarios with armored vehicles? *shudder*  

I spent the last 15 years of my employment doing legal work. I don't know why I'm having trouble grasping *these* concepts. Maybe the concepts I became so familiar with in previous game systems are crowding out newer ones. For years I played The Gamers' very elegant TCS system. But the maps are just too large. Back in 2010 I was a playtester for Compass Games' Steel Wolves and had no problems understanding anything. 

Maybe now my brain is just old...

[treadasaurusrex]

Dreadnaught, it takes awhile to get a leg up on this fiddly, but interesting horse of a game. 

At our age -- or mileage -- as I prefer to think of it, learning to play PG takes a good six months to become relatively routine. Even then, keep the erratically written and poorly edited rule book handy.

As Peter diagramed it, this example is just a single activation that goes right down the chain of command and all the combat units and leaders except that one Lieutenant in (Hex C) could move at once. Then your opponent would get an activation.