A number of units have an ATGM on the vehicle which can be fired mounted or dismounted and carried by an infantry team. While many units can do this I suggest that it is restricted to those units who did this as doctrine, for example German Marders and Canadian M150 TOWs. I would suggest that the following rule for Seven Days to the River Rhine be used to reflect this. Dismount ATGM
The ATGM may be dismounted as if it were embarked, becoming the equivalent type of support stand and the carrier remains the same but does not generate a command point (in other words it becomes an APC with the same statistics but no ATGM attack). To remount the unit acts in the same way as a transport embarking infantry. If the mounted unit has morale markers these are duplicated on the dismounting team. If a team embarks with morale tokens then the higher of the two is used for the recombined unit.
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After some discussion last night, Tim Whitworth made an interesting point, namely that BMP2/BMD2s had a very high angle of elevation on the main weapon. The 30mm Rarden on the Scimitar/Fox had a similar function. Neither of these is represented in game terms. I think they would be pretty poor in the role but should be represented in Seven Days to the River Rhine, perhaps with an AA (8+) and AA (9+) respectively. No doubt other vehicles will need this rule. Before I start changing all my lists, what are people's thoughts on this?
I've been thinking about the degradation effect of wearing NBC suits. I'm thinking of adding some chemical warfare cards to the game (adding them to the random card deck). As a countermeasure troops can be ordered into NBC (or MOPP) suits PRIOR to the attack.
* Level 0 - no effect and have a 6+ save against chemical attacks * Level 1 - gain a 4+ save against chemical attacks but automatically count as having 1 activation before any command chits are placed. * Level 2 - as above but gain a 2+ save at the cost of having 2 activations * Shielded vehicles are treated as one level higher than they currently are. You could either track these separately or keeping it simple declare the level for the force at the start of each turn with the player who activates first declaring first. I'm thinking the chemical attack cards when played attack a random number of units (plus a smaller random number chosen by the player receiving it - this simulates drift, etc). Attacked units automatically take a morale token and unless they roll a save take a second. I've been thinking a bit about unit strengths and making them variable. It was prompted by a Facebook discussion in a Bolt Action group that discussed the best strength to make a British unit. A bit of reading showed that the official strength was 10 but that this allowed for detachments, leave, courses, injuries, etc. The battle strength was 8 and if the numbers available were above this any excess was pulled together as a reserve at platoon or company level.
Example: An early war British section has a base strength of 5 in the rules and can have 5 more added so we start with a strength of 10 (100pts). we add in a Bren at 20pts and anti tank grenades (2pts x 10 = 20pts). Total points = 140. We then roll for casualties, etc. We decide to make the unit regular and roll as follows: NCO: 4 Bren: 9 Rifles 3, 6, 7, 1, 9, 10, 3, 7 As a result we are down a the Bren and two riflemen. We can however try and replace the Bren gunner and roll a 7. As a result we can remove a rifleman instead of a Bren. Final section strength is: NCO Bren gun and loader 4 riflemen I will be looking at vehicles later as they will need costing slightly differently. Please let me know your thoughts. There's been an interesting discussion on FB recently regarding lulls in combat and how to simulate them. Most games sort of just build them into the turn sequence, averaging them out. While this is simple I got to thinking about when they occur. Generally the lulls will occur when both sides have had intense activity and now need to reorganise. I'm considering how to simulate this and part of my thinking is to give each side an aggression rating. At the start of each turn players decide how many dice to roll to gain the initiative. These are then rolled and the amount subtracted from the aggression rating. The player who rolls highest gains an advantage, perhaps extra movement or dice to hit. Once the aggression rating is reached the side has a penalty. if both sides bid low then a lull occurs and players regain some or all of their aggression. I would be interested in your thoughts.
Well I tried a test game of my new large combat rules for Twilight 2000.
Basic overview: * Units have a base move of 4" but may try and rapid move at the risk of not moving at all. * Terrain is split into area cover that slows movement to half and linear terrain that must be rolled to cross (simulating the difficulty of getting troops to move out of cover). * Units can stay stationary (no effect on shooting), move (firing at a -2 penalty) or rapid move (no firing). * Cover has two effects on firing, making it harder to hit (you need to see them) and harder to kill (it stops bullets) - these are rated differently by type. A wood gives -2/+1 while a stone wall is -1/+2. * Modifiers are by adding or removing steps on the die. For example a D10 with a -1 drops to a D8. * A roll of 6+ is a success and a roll of 10+ counts as two successes. * Firing is rated by unit with most units rolling two dice based on armament and training (usually D10). Each stand has a rate of fire rating that allows extra D6 to be added to simulate high rates of fire. * Rolling more than one 1 causes a bad effect to occur (if only a single die is rolled then a single 1 causes this). For example using extra ammo dice increases the chance of a hit but at a risk of dropping to low ammo (which if it drops again indicates out of ammo). * If hit troops roll their defence dice (usually 2D8 upped to 2D10 for body armour). Each success cancels a hit. * If hit and saved a unit is suppressed and must spend the next turn trying to recover. Leader stands give a bonus here based on distance and LOS. Conclusions from game 1: * Linear obstacles are great at messing up co-ordinated movements. * Area terrain makes you slow but safe. * Being caught in the open is deadly. * Ammo dice can really up the chance of suppression but a lot of units using this went low on ammo and one ran out just before the assault went in! * It plays fast, I completed a game of 2 platoons verses 1 in 45 minutes. * It can be heavy on dice rolling. As part of my work looking at reviewing Twilight 2000 (Alpha edition) I'm now looking at equipment. While I was looking at the weapons I had a thought regarding ATGMs. Currently they hit instantly which is a little unrealistic. My proposed rule is: ATGMs are fired as normal but no roll to hit is made. Until the same count on the next round the missile is in flight. If the missile is not fire and forget it will automatically miss if the firer becomes suppressed. If this does not happen the roll to hit is made as a slow action for the firer (borrowing from their next action if initiative has changed and they have not acted). If the firer acts before the impact they must save their full turn to use when the correct count is reached). The modifiers are based on the state of the target at the point of impact not when firing. Simple and reflects ATGMs better. Design notes: * I considered using different flight times but this felt over complicated. * Using the same count not the firer's next action stops the issue of swapping initiative to game the flight time. Feedback welcome. When I was building the S&S LAV-C2 it got me thinking about subordinate commanders in the game. Normally there is the option to have a single command unit on the table which gives a bonus of two activation tokens (with a penalty if it is destroyed). I started thinking how best to simulate extra command units (which might also help simulate NATO's ability to react faster than the Soviets). Here are my first thoughts, please feel free to comment.
* Subordinate command units cost 50% more than the base vehicle. * Each subordinate command vehicle adds one activation token at the start of the turn. Options I am considering: * The token is only added if the unit has no morale tokens on it at the start of the turn. * If the command unit is destroyed, immediately remove either one or two tokens from those not yet used. I've been thinking a bit about this. The rules under linguist give the character the ability to speak as a native. Under generation it notes that some characters may speak other languages to a limited degree.
A thought for character creation might be to allow characters to learn a language during generation. My suggested mechanism is to roll against INT at age 18. This may not be pushed. If it succeeds then the character speaks an extra language for each success. Also I plan to allow characters to have a partial language ability (clearly foreign and might stumble over words giving a -2 penalty to skills involving communication) in two languages by sacrificing the ability to speak a language fluently (and no you can't sacrifice your primary language). Thoughts? There are more and more ranges now that include journalists (I have some by Irregular and Peter Pig) and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. If you consider the effect that journalism can have on warfare (most obviously the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War), maybe we should simulate this on the tabletop. One option I'm toying with is doubling victory points gained and lost if they occur within 6" of a journalist stand and in line of sight. Another in multiplayer games is to have competing journalists with their own victory conditions. I would welcome any thoughts. Journalist figures are 15mm by Peter Pig.
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