Multiple fireteams in building

[Pete]

Hi

I just got a copy the rules this week.  I’m reading them alone and I don’t know anyone who plays these rules locally.

So far I’ve only got as far as the first scenario.  I’ve played it once, re-read the rules and now I’m trying to play it again.

First thing to say is that I like what I have read so far and the game seemed to play well.

I will no doubt have many questions.  The first is this,  if there are two fire teams in a building do they fight as a single entity.  The rules make it clear that when shot at they defend as a single group.  Do they shoot as a single group?

If not, can they both shoot in all directions from the building?

Thanks

[maggico]

One fire team is a single unit. If you fire against a fire team, only these fire team must defend. To fire to another fire team in the same action, you mut split the fire, if possible for your unit, and they defend for themselves.

[Pete]

Thank you for your reply I appreciate it.

Your answer is interesting as it is not what I understood.

What about the section on page 58 “Firing at units in a building”

I quote:
“When firing at a building containing multiple units, the
Defense of those units is pooled as if they were a single
unit. Any casualties received are randomly distributed
between all units in the building.”

I read this and understood that when shot at they defend as a single unit – i.e. defense of both units is added together to determine the number of defence dice.  Is this correct?

After my second play test I would say that the game would seem to play and flow better if the defence of two units in a building is NOT pooled as the rules seem to state.  I played it with the defense and attack pooled for multiple units in a building and it made them very strong, too strong I would say.

[Duncan Allen]

I think the two units would activate and fire individually, at least that is always how we played it (and to be honest we often forgot about the rule to combine the units of defense). I do think that the combining of the units for defending is a reasonable rule in that it makes sense that the more people there are looking out of the building the easier it is to detect incoming threats.

[Pete]

OK, thanks.

I think I’m probably ready to move on to learn about vehicles…

[maggico]

Yeah….I completely skipped/forgot these rule.

[Bob Frapples]

Pete wrote:

After my second play test I would say that the game would seem to play and flow better if the defense of two units in a building is NOT pooled as the rules seem to state. I played it with the defense and attack pooled for multiple units in a building and it made them very strong, too strong I would say.

Remember, a unit’s basic Defense is equal to the number of figures in the unit or the number of Firepower dice with which it is being attacked, whichever is less. (pg. 33)

So let’s say you have one fire team (Blue) outside the building shooting at three fire teams (Red) inside the building.  Team Blue has a basic FP of 4, +2 for support weapons and let’s give them +1 for being within Optimum range.  So that gives them 7 FP dice.

Team Blue is spraying and praying.  They aren’t thinking, ‘I’ll just shoot at those bad guys on the lower left’.  Therefore all the figures in the building are just as likely to catch a bullet as anyone else.

Team Red, with 12 figures, would normally have a basic Defense of 12, but since the rules say it is the lesser of the two, they only get 7 Defense dice.  Then they probably would get a +1 for Cover and a +1 for being In Cover for a total of 9 Defense dice.

So it isn’t really all that unbalanced and makes a kind of sense that the Defense dice are pooled.  Team Red would then return fire as individual units since you can only merge units that are at half strength or less.

 

[Jörgen Andreasson]

I actually make the exact same thing if two fire-teams share the same location or defensive terrain and at least half of the teams are overlapping in some way (close enough). As in these situations are very similar to units occupying buildings. It probably does not come up very often but it can sometimes do that and just make sense.

 

It also make sense that you can activate and move vehicles or fireteams which are close enough and move “in formation”… but that is also a house rule.

 

Although, in these cases (and buildings) I might consider counting such fire-teams as ONE unit for the purpose of initiative as they are much less flexible and limited in it’s use of firepower.

[Author]

Posts