4th Edition Rules - comment now or forever shut yer trap!

[Airlifter]

Can you please explain the Dave Murray rule?

I believe he's referring to the Panzer Grenadier Assault Variant.

It adds a lot of flavor to assaults, but I'd personally prefer it remain an optional rule.

Gracias. An intriguing idea. Dave claims it does not make it more complex, but it does. You have to track something using a marker. Nevertheless, intriguing. Thank you for the clarification.

[Airlifter]

Someone kindly tell me what HIP stands for?

Oh sorry ! HIP = hidden unit placement.

Excellent--thanks

[Airlifter]

As to the assault advantage system suggested by Dave Murray I would agree with Robin that this should be an optional but not required system. It rapidly provides the stroner side in an assault with an insurmountable advantage. I can't tell you how many times a games has hinged on a small but tough force hanging on in an assault. Under this system such a defense would rapidly fall as they rarely outperform their opponents on results, they merely survive the assault turn after turn. I count this as a strong point of the system. No assault should be foolproof after two or three turns.

It certainly encourages momentum, but that's what real fighting is all about--trying to get some in your favor and keep it in your favor. Lot's of military maxims there. If your small but tough force is "hanging on" I suspect you mean they don't cause many casualties, but they don't take any either as they keep passing their morale. In this case, the higher morale results would build up to give the attacker an advantage. But by my reading, the only advantage is the removal of Dug In, unless I misunderstand and the +1 or +2 is a column shift advantage, and that's a serious edge.

[Matt W]

As I read it, it said to "add" that in subsequent rounds and if you reach +2 to lose dug in status. If all it requires is the loss of dug in status I can sort of go with it, but the idea that once someone reaches +2 you should think about leaving the hex indicates that the +2 is more than just a number indicating how many times you have "won" the assault. I just had a game where a lone Japanese INF was defending against several Marines (Saipan Marines, 10-3s) and they were able to demoralize two platoons and hold out for four turns, a result that, going through the assault process would have reduced their staying power and iimpact to about two turns and maybe a disruption. The hour long delay imposed on the advance may result in a Japanese win in an otherwise quite diffiult scenario for them.

I see that performance as a rare but critical component in PG and one which would be lost under this approach.

[vince hughes]

Agree, leave assaults as is and let fate (dice) decide whether one side are valiant outnumbered heroes

[Michael Murphy]

Agree, leave assaults as is and let fate (dice) decide whether one side are valiant outnumbered heroes

Agree also. Don't mess with Assaults any more than necessary. My only suggestion is to negate First Fire if an attacker uses an ENG type against an Entrenchment or a dug in defender. Engineers are supposed to be able to work around or through fieldworks. That's part of their job.

[otto]

Well,
there is also the cold steel option from Infantry Attack. Is that realistic for WWI only?
Ottavio

[Airlifter]

Well,
there is also the cold steel option from Infantry Attack. Is that realistic for WWI only?
Ottavio

It's not that it isn't realistic. Certainly there were times in WW2 when soldiers went to the hand-to-hand level. That rule was added to IA really to give it an unusual flavor. i mean, after you've covered several hundred yards of barbed wire, moving SLOWLY cuz you're trying to stay linear, and cut up by machine guns, when you finally get tot hat opposing trench you want to really kill the bastards dishing out all that pain and mayhem you've been experiencing. So we added the rule for "flavor". I don't think PG really needs that flavor added. And frankly I've played quite a few IA games and I hardly ever use Cold Steel. Too risky. Turns any punk unit with a leader into a potential killer. We also had originally about 5 or 6 types of artillery fire, but cut that back a bit as overkill.

[otto]

I see your point and I agree that it is not needed.
However your description of the WWI assaults prompts a suggestion of a possible small change of IA rules, so sorry if I'm off topic.
If that rules exists and it is not used by players may be there is a small problem with it. If you think that it should be used more frequently then a small change could be made.
Possibly the player who opts for the cold steel rule should get a slightly higher "incentive". May be his units should get a bonus when it comes to check morale after and adverse result in the assault table.
... if you really want to kill those bastards may be your morale is temporarely higher.

[otto]

This is a proposal related to elevation lines.
I should be praised for the effort ... not necessarily for the result!