Re: [Epic] Rants. Was SM/TL vs E40K unit costs

From: Chris Miller <ironstar_at_...>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 00:31:33 -0600

>My problem is not with pretty officers, at one point in my gaming career
>I did a lot of Nappy and Medieval, and the officer types in those games
>are quit nice looking models that really stand out from the mob of
>troops behind them, the thing I have problems with is that, unlike in a
>Nappy game, where loosing an officer means that you may have some
>command and control problems, in Warhammer & WH40k the "officers" ARE
>the major part of your fighting force and they are immune to fire from
>the rest of the army.

--------> they aren't immune if they're the closest target, only if there
are other bodies around them. If there's a squad at 6", you can't shoot the
one at 12" either because they assume the grunts would rather preserve their
hides than zap a target YOU say is more important and then get overrun by
those "less important" types jumping them with chainswords and bolt pistols.
It works the same with vehicles. Your guys can shoot the closest squad or
vehicle, instead of having an omniscient view of the battlefield and
shooting whatever's on the table.
>
>It is like playing a WW2 game and saying "I painted this Tiger II real
>nice, and of course it is the most dangerous thing in my army, but you
>can't shoot at it until all the Panzer III in front of it are dead,
>never mind the fact that they can't hurt your T-34 tanks." And yeah, as
>a general rule the number of Tiger II in a game should be only 1 or 2
>(assuming you are playing some thing semi close to real historical)

Historically if there's a wave of tanks approaching, you shoot the guys in
front. If you kill them or get close enough to get a visual ID that unit A
is not a threat and unit B is, then sure, you can nail the panther behind
them, but not too many tank crews are just gonna let that Pz III patoon just
zip on by into their rear unmolested. I think maybe you're assuming that
what's important & apparent to you as the player high above the battle is
the same as the grunts in the fight, and it's not. The closest thing to me
with a gun is probably my biggest concern, and he gets most of my attention.
Done with him, I'll check the next guy I see.
   The level of fire discipline you're assuming is damn high also. WW2
Russian tank crews don't see a "Pz III model J" or a "Tiger II" - they see a
"enemy tank" as opposed to "infantry" (who they might well ignore for a
while), and if they're good they see "little tank" vs "big tank" and aren't
happy about either one until they're all dead, but if they regularly ignore
certain tanks because the players know they can't hurt their units, that's
very non-historical.

Chris Miller

>
Received on Thu Mar 05 1998 - 06:31:33 UTC