[Stuart Harrison]

The only affect of pins on close quarters is requirement for an order test (attacker) and reduced effectiveness of reaction fire (defender).

The why would require input from the author, but consider that in first edition the simple fact of getting into close quarters removed ALL pins from both sides – my guess would be the author’s intent was to reflect the adrenaline of hand-to-hand negating all other considerations. Second edition at least leaves you with the pins you carried into close quarters.

 

[Stuart Harrison]

@Eric, no, they cannot.  “Once per game, when the forward artillery observer unit receives a Fire order…” and “Once per game, when the forward air observer unit receives a Fire order…” – in both cases it’s specifically a Fire order (both also have ‘not from Ambush’ as an additional restriction).

[Stuart Harrison]

Dense terrain is purely a line of sight definition.  Normally, you’d also declare it to be rough ground for a movement effect, but not always – example, smoke is soft cover and dense terrain – it doesn’t affect movement.

There are three things to cover with terrain – Line of sight, cover, and movement.

Does it block LOS?  Does it restrict LOS? (dense terrain) Can you see through it, even if somewhat obscured? (a few bushes giving soft cover but allowing LOS), No effect on LOS and no cover

Soft Cover, Hard cover, or no cover?

Open ground, Rough Ground, Obstacle, Impassable?  Is it different for Infantry, Artillery or Vehicles?

You’re not always going to define a piece of terrain with a single term.

[Stuart Harrison]

@Mark G – “The rules state that units only score if they are totally in a sector, ” – It then goes on to add “If a unit straddles across two or more quarters, it counts as in the quarter where the majority of it’s models are (or most of the model in case of one-model units) – if in doubt, of course, roll a die for it.” p148, Playing a Game of Bolt Action, Scenario 12: Sectors, Victory, last sentence – both of your units would count as being in the quarter they had six models in.

Addition of that last sentence makes me think the author changed his mind about the ‘completely’, made provision for it to not apply, then failed to remove that word from the preceding sentences.

[Stuart Harrison]

As far as I can see, the order is lost – you have destroyed that unit to re-crew the artillery piece.  If you don’t want that, leave a man in the officer unit to keep it in the game.

As for the personal weapons, you’ve converted them to artillery crew in an artillery unit that is bound by the team weapon rules – team weapon crew cannot fire personal weapons.  Unless specific rules to counter that are provided (ie: the IJA machine gun section you cited), you’re stuck with that as a consequence of using them to recrew the gun, that would be the whole reason behind it being specifically addressed for that section.

 

[Stuart Harrison]

Dense terrain, you can see into our out of dense terrain, but you cannot see right through it.  This means a model in dense terrain can draw LOS to a model outside and shoot at them, but they can also have LOS drawn to them and be shot at in return.  Enemy shooting into the dense terrain will suffer the appropriate cover modifier unless the majority of the firing models can draw their LOS to models not in the dense cover.  Whether the unit in the dense terrain suffer a modifier shooting out will depend on how many are at the edge and not drawing their LOS through and inch or more of the cover, as per the cover text box, p57, Shooting From Cover heading.  You can’t draw LOS from a model outside the cover to an enemy model outside the cover if that LOS passes through dense terrain.

Yes.  Each firing model only needs to draw LOS to one model in the target unit to fire, but cover is assessed on the whole target unit – if you can’t draw clear LOS to at least half the target unit’s models with half your firing models they will benefit from the cover even if the models you can see are in the open.  Up side is that you’re not restricted to only being able to kill those you can see.

The majority of captured weapons are just an alternate model for the same effect – a rifle is a rifle, a SMG is an SMG etc.  The only ones you will need special rules for are weapons your nation doesn’t have access to – ie: panzerfausts for a nation without access to them in their army book – an example for US airborne is provision for the 82nd Airborne to have access to up to two panzerfausts per squad in up to 50% of their squads for scenarios from Campaign Market Garden – p51 of that campaign book.  The same section makes provision for the British 21st Independent Company to use captured MG42s (specifically without the ‘Hitler’s Buzzsaw’ special rule).
If you want to use something you can’t find guidelines/rules for, you would need to discuss it with your opponent or proxy it for something you do have provision for (ie: play an assault rifle as an SMG.

[Stuart Harrison]

Correct.  Some tanks have the recce special rule, meaning you can have multiple recce vehicles in your platoon.  An example would be a US platoon with an M8 Greyhound in the armoured car slot, and either an M3 Stuart or M24 Chaffee in the tank slot.  There are also selectors allowing you multiple armoured car slots and other ways to get multiple recce vehicles in a platoon.

[Stuart Harrison]

It’s a unit of 1 dog handler with an option to add up to 3 more handlers to that unit, so they would all have to remain in formation.  It doesn’t have a multiple selection special rule allowing you to field a number of units in a single slot (eg: US MMG team, Soviet AT teams, Japanese Suicide AT).

The extra selection provision under selectors is purely to create a slot for this unit rather than have it take an existing slot.  ‘Any reinforced platoon’ would include the generic reinforced platoon so long as you include the necessary Marine unit.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Stuart Harrison.

[Stuart Harrison]

Not having LOS as a rationale for not being able to charge from a transport is a player interpretation, not a stated part of the rule.  While the one off allowance for Tiger fear undermines the player’s mental justification for a number of rules, it doesn’t actually change any of them except Tiger Fear.

 

[Stuart Harrison]

All firing of the transport’s weapons is on the transport’s order. The passenger’s order is irrelevant, they just need to be present (though weapons fired by the passengers will be affected by their experience and pins).

[Stuart Harrison]

Artillery barrage radius is a distance not a template, and all distances for artillery are measured to/from the centre of the gun (the breech) as per p93, Artillery, Artillery and Measuring Distances.

[Stuart Harrison]

You are correct. Only the unit being assaulted can use reaction fire. The only way the other units could assist would be if they were in Ambush.

[Stuart Harrison]

The unit entry is Campaign Western Desert, p92.

The unit comes with 2 sidecar combinations and 4 men. You can add two pillion passengers that go on the existing combinations. You can also add a single man on a motorbike. You can replace one man’s rifle with a LMG – that’s the only way you get an MG sidecar in the KRADSCHÜTZEN M/CYCLE SIDECAR SQUAD. The other way to get an MG sidecar is the armoured car entry for AoG, which is treated as a vehicle rather than a squad.

[Stuart Harrison]

“And you left out a key sentence following the statement the crew sees what’s he sees. The next sentence explains the spotter is enabling the crew to see a target that is invisible to them .” The sentence you are referring to doesn’t introduce anything new to the rule, all it does is point out how you can benefit from being able to draw your LOS from a different point on the table. In what way is it a key sentence? “This can potentially enable a mortar or artillery piece to shoot at targets that lie on the other side of a hill, woods, or in some other position that is invisible to the crew itself.”

“If the spotter is pinned down by machinegun fire (for example), how can he relay coordinates and direct fire if he has a pin? So if the spotter has a pin on him (someone shot at him, hit the spotter, but didn’t kill/wound him, he receives a pin) if you use the spotter for a target that is invisible to the weapon, first you have to take an order check on the spotter if he has a pin (not talking about if the weapon/crew has a pin, we’re talking the spotter has a pin) .” Does your officer take an order test when a unit near a pinned officer uses his morale bonus to pass their order test or a morale check? No, you don’t. It is a passive ability, the same as a medic and the same as a spotter. Units take an order test when THEY are issued an order and one of the triggers applies (usually pins), not when an active unit benefits from them.

Yes, it’s counter-intuitive to have totally different rules for observers and spotters when their real-life roles were so similar, but that’s the game designer’s choice. Observers are active and have a ‘call for fire’ mechanism requiring them to receive an order to ‘do their thing’. Spotters are a passive point that an active indirect fire unit can use to draw LOS from when they fire.

[Stuart Harrison]

Because the spotter doesn’t act. The interaction for a spotter is “If an indirect fire weapon is fired by veteran or regular crew, and it has a spotter, then the crew is assumed to be able to see whatever the spotter can see.” For spotting purposes, he is literally just another point the crew of the firing weapon can see from. It is not a ‘call for fire’ mechanism like the observer units, where the observer is issued an order to call in fire from somewhere else. It’s an entirely passive ability, like benefitting from an officer within 6 or 12 inches, or from a medic.

The weapon team acts, and they will need to test if THEY have pins. If you move the spotter, He is acting and he will need to test if HE has pins. He won’t need to test if the unit he spots for has pins and he doesn’t.

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