A closer look....

[larry marak]

Has anyone with a PG 4th game taken a close look at the moved fired counters? There are 32 different colored images of AFV's repeated in the counters. Before each scenario with a small complement of armor you can pick out the counters that look like a side view of your tank and use them exclusively for your units

[plloyd1010]

I know. Remember my moved/fired counters? AP seems to have adopted a lot of my ideas. Mechanized is still to slow though (the 1 to hex increase isn't all that impressive).

[vince hughes]

I know. Remember my moved/fired counters? AP seems to have adopted a lot of my ideas. Mechanized is still to slow though (the 1 to hex increase isn't all that impressive).

Peter,

I am gonna nominate you as the new US presenter of Top Gear.

Your credentials ?

The need for speed !

[plloyd1010]

I am gonna nominate you as the new US presenter of Top Gear.

Your credentials ?

The need for speed !

Actually my complaint about mechanized speed goes back to my reading of AARs of the period involving armor and my own desire for a better simulation without damaging the underlying system. The Americans & Germans were very good about talking about speed (when they did), British & Russians less so, other guys (French, Italians & Japanese) were usually very vague. Scaling reported speeds to the infantry speeds had most tanks moving 3-4 times as fast as the ground-pounders, when they were moving on their own.

Anyway the numbers work out like this. Moving across open ground, then vs. now:

Movement points	3rd Ed Speed	4th Ed Speed
3	1	2
4	2	2
5	2	3
6	3	4
7	3	4
8	4	5
9	4	6

I do have a philosophical gaming issue with the new movement rate: I don't think fractional movement costs should be part of the normal movement process.

P.S. Drew how does one align a table on the left side of the post?

[campsawyer]

Peter, I understand your concern for the vehicle movement and on a straight comparison of vehicle/foot speed you are correct. But I look at the movement not being based all on speed. I believe that the reduction in speed also models more fog of war of movement to compensate for the ability to see and know the position of the enemy. Given a double blind system, like you have created, increased speed makes sense, but given the base rules this reduction is one balance for the increased knowledge. As a second point, I also believe that the reduction helps to balance get a better simultaneous action effect in the game. By forcing them to slow, this will allow better chances for enemy actions to have an effect on them. As pointed out is some early AAR's by others it seems that vehicles now have a better chance to charge off the board than they did before.
So I am not trying to dissuade you complaint about it, as you are correct a on a comparisons of actual speeds, but I believe that the modeling for movement not only for speed, but to accommodate other factors in the game.

[Matt W]

Let's consider a couple things.

How about a reasonable foot speed of 3 mph. This is a solid walk. No running or sprinting, not even a fast walk. With this speed one would be looking at covering 4800 meters in an hour, or 24 hexes, meaning an 6 MP infantry unit. Of course, no infantryman worth a damn would stroll into contact so we would need rules about such maximum speed movement (perhaps we could permit a 12 MP sprint at times?). Oh, and going uphill would probably have to cost something if you were trying to move fast, etc...

I can see giving the vehicles a much improved MP if we take into account facing. Armor was not of uniform thickness and fast, high profile movement almost certainly would expose the vehicle to fire on its weaker sides (PG weakly takes this into account with the crossfire bonus). Of course, each armored vehicle would have different amounts of armor, different fuel tank placement, different fuel itself (see comments about gas versus diesel fuel in many places), different types of armor (welded/cast and different metal composition) and different armor slant. We would also have to take into account different AT ammo, gun muzzle velocities, etc...

Tanks in particular were very prone to mechanical issues when moving at high speed so we would have to include a breakdown component and, of course, each vehicle had a different propensity to break down. In addition, each army had a different approach to vehicle maintenance which would have to be factored in. Also, we would have to take into account the last refit for the unit during which its vehicles received major overhaul, etc...

Etc.

Etc.

When we are done we will have added enough rules to make such theoretical movement possible but, as it was, highly dangerous to the moving unit. The expense would be several tomes of rules, varying from nationality to nationality and vehicle to vehicle and, more importantly, taken the playability away from PG and made it into something else entirely. It would move towards a better simulation, I suppose, but be vastly less playable.

[plloyd1010]

Alan, I think you may partly misunderstand me. We already solved the movement issue with our own TEC, some time ago. We began developing it after having played a few games RAW and thing to ourselves, "but that's not how happened." Now our TEC doesn't quite come up with the same ratio of operational speeds as there was historically, but it has allowed mechanized forces to outmaneuver infantry in the open. I'm not sure the 4th Ed TEC will really allow that to happen.

I see the 1&½ MPs per hex as being a clunky and rather inelegant change. That is part of why I put up the table. Dan said the new TEC changed his last game a lot. I don't see how would have, but that was his perception. What i hope to see in the forums is more discussion as to the merits in the game system, rather than the acquiescence to or the defense of that pervades the discourse. I noticed that my road movement rates were taken up in the 4th ed, as well as opportunity fire and some hill rules. Only play and time will show how it all falls out.

[Matt W]

If you have played any of the Kursk, South Flank scenarios with enter and exit conditions you will see quickly how the reduced MP cost changes the game. Certainly it won't change the games that you play with the TEC that you linked with since you already have mechanized movement far beyond what was in the original TEC and it remains beyond that which is used in the 4th ed. I will say that the increase in a T-34's speed from 4 to 6 hexes in clear or perhaps more importantly a Tiger's increase from 2 to 3 hexes in clear are significant and in many cases game changing.

I'm not just saying this, I was one of the one's playtesting the 4th ed. and have replayed several scenarios so that I have both a third and fourth edition play under my belt.

This does not mean that I am pro or anti anything as 7-10 plays isn't enough to give the 4th edition it's due. I think it will save the Pacific War scenarios generally due to the changes in the assault table. On the other hand scenarios which depend heavily on exiting units will be substantially changed due to the higher mobility of the mechanized forces. As an owner of so many scenarios and a large number of plays I feel that I do have a decent understanding of the 3rd edition game and the impact of the 4th edition is not fiddling at the edges, it is a substantial change to the game system.

The good thing is that whether you like the 3rd or 4th edition, all of the games remain eminently playable under either set of rules.

[campsawyer]

Peter no miss understanding, just my opinion on the rational for the vehicle mp cost. As for the new rules, to each there own.