Five Men In Normandy – Flinch And Bail

[Kaptain Kobold]

It’s taken me a few years, but I’ve finally got around to playing Five Men In Normandy – or at least fiddling around with the mechanisms on a table.

I have a couple of questions regarding Flinch and Bail

(i) When moving as the result of a Flinch or Bail, how do obstacles affect movement? Are figures assumed to be able to cross easy obstacles in order to reach cover?

(ii) Is ‘cover’ defined as hard cover, or can a figure Flinch or Bail to the protection of a position where they simply can’t be seen? (So can I duck behind a bush so I’m out of sight?)

(iii) Is a Bail move always 12″, or does the figure stop once they reach some form of cover?

A slightly unrelated question: If a line of fire crosses a hard-cover obstacle, then only Shock dice count for firing. Can a figure with a weapon that is allowed to trade Kill dice for Shock dice still do the trade, or is the Kill dice disallowed before the swap can happen?

Thanks.

The Stronghold Rebuilt: http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com.au/

[Kaptain Kobold]

An additional question. Can figures count as ‘activated’ for the purposes of recovering from from a Bail or Knocked Down result, during a scurry or Firefight turn?

(i.e. I have a couple of figures that have Bailed, and have spent a turn hunkered down. They are now eligible to roll for recovery, but I roll a Scurry turn. Can they test to recover and move as part of the Scurry, or does it always require a dedicated action?)

The Stronghold Rebuilt: http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com.au/

[Chris Helm]

Hi Kaptain,

“It’s taken me a few years” … :-D.  As that’s only because you let actual preparation of other armies and play of other games get in the way, I don’t think you need be apologetic.

I’m not sure how helpful my experience with this will be as I play FiveCore Skirmish Evolved v 3 (5CSE), which is closely derived from Five Men in Normandy (5MiN) but may differ somewhat. I do have a copy of 5MiN, which came bundled with an earlier version of 5CSE, but I haven’t played it.

I should also add that I’ve really enjoyed and continue to enjoy playing nearly every Nordic Weasel ruleset that I have and I have quite a few.  As I said here recently, the rules are nearly all fun to play, they’re interesting and they’re innovative.  On top of that, Ivan is just a very nice and helpful guy when it comes to interactions with the community of NWG gamers.  At least, that certainly been my experience.  On the other hand, he’s a one man band with a pretty prolific rate of publication and I often find myself having to fill in a little on the proof reading and consistency checking.  But I’m happy to forgive that in Ivan’s case, particularly because he’s a great guy to deal with but also because his rules are very inexpensive by comparison with many of the hard back glossies which are often no better proofed. By all of which I mean, though some of what follows might appear critical, it isn’t meant to be harsh.

Right, with those caveats here goes nothing.

(i) When moving … how do obstacles affect movement?

I don’t think this aspect of “involuntary movement” is considered by the rules.  In my copy of 5MiN, the rule on crossing easy obstacles says “The figure stops in contact with the obstacle”.  And that’s it. I’ll come back to this at the end.  If we ever get there.

(ii) Is ‘cover’ defined as hard cover, or can a figure Flinch or Bail to the protection of a position where they simply can’t be seen? (So can I duck behind a bush so I’m out of sight?)

I think the short answer is yes.  The long answer follows.

As far as I can see, neither 5MiN nor 5CSE consider the protective difference between soft and hard cover.  In fact the term cover is not well defined.  In both games, cover is all about breaking LoS so that the figure cannot be a target of direct fire.  But indirect fire that works using blast effects, such as mortars and grenades, can be used against an unseen figure (see the section on Grenades).  In that case and as written, any type of cover appears to protect against all Kill & Shock dice effects.  Instead, figures in the blast radius but with “cover” between them and the blast Flinch automatically.

(iii) Is a Bail move always 12″, or does the figure stop once they reach some form of cover?

See my answer to (1) above.  I don’t think it’s clear unless you read the text very literally, vis: “A figure that bails is immediately moved 12” away from the threat, and towards some form of safety.”  So, the (nearest?) cover  gives you the direction and 12″ gives you the distance.  Except of course that the usual movement rule will prevent crossing an easy obstacle and prevent moving into and then out of a terrain template, which might be required to satisfy the 12″.

(iv) A slightly unrelated question: If a line of fire crosses a hard-cover obstacle, then only Shock dice count for firing. Can a figure with a weapon that is allowed to trade Kill dice for Shock dice still do the trade, or is the Kill dice disallowed before the swap can happen?

I think probably not, if I take the rule as it applies to swapping Kill dice for Shock dice when Guard firing.  This says, “Note that machine guns cannot “trade” for extra Shock dice when Guard firing”.

Your last point is an example of a very innovative and easy to use rule that would benefit from a bit more development.

For my own games of 5CSE I’ve made some amendments to the rules for cover and terrain in an attempt to clarify some of these points and harmonise the cover-related mechanisms without losing all of Ivan’s great ideas.  I’d be happy to share those if you’re interested.

I’ve now run out of time, you’re probably relieved to read, so I’ll break off for now but I’ll try to pick up on your second question later if that would be helpful.

Best regards,

Chris

[Chris Helm]

I’m baaack …

Turning to your addtional question, vis, “Can figures count as ‘activated’ for the purposes of recovering from from a Bail or Knocked Down result, during a scurry or Firefight turn?”.

That’s certainly the case in 5CSE, which explicitly makes the point in the section which describes those two types of activation.  In my case I play the widest possible interpretation of the extent of what is allowed when figures “activation” during Scurry and Firefight turns, which is that all activities are allowed except for those which are specifically prohibited.  Thus in a Scurry turn every figure may act in any permissible way except to fire weapons or deliberately enter a brawl.  The same applies in a Firefight turn except that the prohibited action is any form of movement, including changing facing.

Regards,

Chris

[Kaptain Kobold]

Thanks very much, Chris.

I’ve kind of adopted a common sense approach to the Flinch and Bail. The former is to go pinned if in cover and to seek cover and miss a turn if you’re not. You move up to 6″. The latter is to seek new cover even if you were in it, moving back up to 12″, and then to miss one turn automatically and every turn afterwards until you rally. It seems to work.

I’m still undecided on whether rallying from a bail (or recovering from being knocked down) happens on a Scurry or Firefight, but I will give it a go.

The Stronghold Rebuilt: http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com.au/

[Shaun Travers]

I am trying  to find what version of the rules it is in but fairly sure you can rally during Scurry or Firefight.  5MiN is not clear as it does not state if in Scurry or Firefight turn figures are activated or not. And only activated figures can rally.

The reason I remember reading it somewhere is that in the rules version I am trying to remember the options after rally states you could make it harder by not rallying in Scurry or Firefight turns.  For the life of me I cannot find which version!

Update: Just found it – 2nd edition of FiveCore Skirmish p9 has as an option:

Harsh rally: Figures do not roll to recover from Knock Down or Bailed status during Scurry and Fire Fight turns.

This implies rallying during Scurry/Firefight is the usual rule.

[Chris Helm]

Yes and in the current version (v3) that interpretation is made clear in the main rules about Scurry and Firefight turns, on p13 in the Turn Sequence section.

I think the issue here is that the rules as written tend to overlook the fact that the Action Die result dictates how many figures can be activated this turn and the limits of those activations but the Turn Sequence rules don’t clearly define the scope of what can be done.  However there are seventeen different actions that are described by the rules which might be applied in various combinations to an active figure.

Nevertheless I still think it’s a great set of rules and in the end I’ve managed to find or get answers to all of the questions that I’ve raised, usually directly from Ivan. I eventually found that it helped a lot to tabulate things like terrain effects, available actions and fire combat modifiers as QRSs.

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