Re: [Epic][E40k] Campaign Ideas

From: Erik Rutins <snowdo1_at_...>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 16:34:30 -0400

Temp:

> Just out of curiosity, what happens if you attack a territory that
would
> leave you isolated, and lose? Are you completely wiped out because
you
> can't retreat? Would troops dropped into such a situation have any
> additional morale to reflect the fact that it is a "do or die"
situation (or

Excellent suggestion, and one I had not even thought of. As stated in
the 'isolated' section, if they are isolated and lose a battle, they're
toast. We haven't come into many situations like this yet, though, so
this section of the rules is still "theory" pending more playtesting.
However, based on your idea what do you think of this?

Troops that are isolated will never retire due to army morale reaching
0. Knowing that they have nowhere to go, they will fight to the end as
long as they still hold an objective. Only if army morale has reached
zero and all objectives are held by the enemy will the isolated army
surrender/disintegrate/disperse.

> casualties)? Frex, Marines in drop pods going deep into enemy
territory
> would know their only chance to live is to fight their way to the
supply
> line that is (hopefully) trying to meet up with them. The fact is
that

This brings up another point which I failed to include. We play that
entirely dropship based attacks behind enemy lines (i.e. into positions
that will be considered isolated at the end of the turn) also result in
force destruction if the dropship based attackers are defeated.
Therefore they should also receive the above morale bonus.

So if you dropped 2 battle companies of marines behind enemy lines,
they would have to win the battle (but they would not surrender until
they were at 0 morale _and_ held no objectives). Once they were in
place, if isolated, they would be able to defend what they had taken
with the same morale bonuses.

> is no incentive for them to ever give up. Just to give an example,
during
> the Persian Gulf War the Iraqis spread propoganda that the U.S.
Marines were
> all convicted of murdering family members and they tortured their
POWs. As
> a result, when some of the soldiers found out they were surrendering
to a
> Marine unit (a friend of mine was there), they tried to start
fighting.
> Fortunately, the position the Marines had taken allowed them to
quickly
> quell the "insurrection." But my point is that desperate people can
do
> great things.

I hadn't heard of this. Fits with the Hussein propaganda engine,
though. The marines had a tough job along the coast there and (AFAIK)
they were the only american troops without the nifty new M1-A1s. Gotta
say, though, I'm still impressed at the stories about apache
helicopters taking prisoners...

Thanks for the suggestion - let me know what you think of my ideas
based on it, or give me some counter-ideas and I'll incorporate it for
play-testing.

Regards,

- Erik
Received on Thu May 08 1997 - 20:34:30 UTC