RE: [Epic]targeting

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 10:49:30 -0500

>
>I did NOT say that troops should ignore tactical threats, I said the
>rules should not force you into shooting at a unit you don't want to
>shoot at. Let me give a "real world example" here.
>
>You are the platoon leader of a 4 tank platoon armed with M1A1 You
>have in front of you, at about 2000 meters a company of "Russian" Mech
>infantry, supported by a platoon of T-XX (latest Russian tank, assume it
>to be capable of hurting a M1A1 at this range). The tanks are at say
>2100 meters. The mech infantry is in BMP-2 (the one with no ATGM and a
>30mm Auto Cannon). You are under "weapons free" ROE (that may be an
>ADA thing, ignore if N/A to Armor). Do you
>1) shoot the tanks, which can hurt you RIGHT NOW or
>2) shoot the infantry which may give you fits in 10-15 min. when they
>get there.
>
>A good set of war game rules should let you do it either way. WH40K
>says that you shoot the mech inf. first, you have no choice.

-----> No, actually WH40K says the guys with bolters shoot the infantry
and the guy
with the lascannon shoots the tank ! It's "nearest squad OR vehicle" and
they expressly
mention this is to allow hvy weapons guys to smack tanks without forcing
the
grunts to waste shots on something they can't hurt.

Now if you have a bunch of guys with chainswords running towards you,
and some
hvy weapons troopers back behind them taking shots at you, then yes, you
do have
to shoot the assault guys before you can shoot the heavy troopers as
they are both
squads. I don't see this as unrealistic at all as I think most troopers
are going to dump
the majority of their fire on the most immedeate threat to themselves.
        Epic 2nd didn't have this limit except when charging guys into close
combat, you
couldn't run past one squad to jump another. Shooting was unrestricted
except for
command units, and I could live with a similar rule - you could not
blast
a command unit unless it was the closest unit of that size class I.e.
troop, vehicle
super-hvy, etc. This meant that if the shadowsword HQ tank led the way,
he was fair game,
but if there were 3 others between him and the enemy, mr powergamer
couldn't
deliberately target the HQ tank just to send the rest out of command, as
there is
no way in the confusion of battle that you could pick out which one was
the HQ tank.

(This ignores all those banners and wild paint jobs but it is more
*realistic* and it helps
the game also as some armies were much more vulnerable to command unit
loss than others)

I don't think this would be a bad idea for E40K , but I'm not sure it's
enough of a problem in this
game. Are people nuking commanders deliberately? Are players using
"suspect"
targeting priorities - again, if a titan is hovering on the edge of
destruction, and a whole
lotta units pump shots into it to finish it off, I don't have a problem.
Its the situations in
the various examples I'm curious about. I was under the impression the
snap-fire rule
would solve a lot of this kind of thing (with assault troops charging
unmolested, etc) but maybe not.
>
Received on Fri Sep 05 1997 - 15:49:30 UTC