Add your suggestions / feedback / input!

[Orcs]

Trucks

We leave the trucks on. The only time they get targeted are when the opposition thinks they are full. 

Cover.

If I remember rightly big stone buiding like Churches  are nearly as tough as purposemade bunkers.  We down grade them as while the walls are very thick the roofs are vulnerable to mortar and artillery fire.

We also have a house rule that we sometimes use that states that  infantry in houses only get soft cover to "proper artillery" firing indirect.  This represents the relatively low cover effect of a house roof and the additional shrapnel caused by the bricks etc when hit with a large shell. It also allows for the concentrated effect of a shell actually landing inside the ruined buiding your infantry are sheltering in. 

[Luddite]

Welcome Tim.  

Personally i don't want to see anything radical, but there are some things I'd like to see some attention given to:

Clarifying unit types
It could do with a bit of tightening up.  What's a 'light vehicle' for example?!?  Also, shouldn't 'tracks or wheels' interact with terrain and movement?  I'd also like to see commanders as proper units rather than the halfway house they are at the moment.  I don't see them as a 'centre of command', but rather an actual battlefield presence.  Would something around radios and their effects on issuing commands be worth exploring?
To go with that, my group uses basing for almost everything we do and we'll continue with what we use in any case.  Would 'formal' figures basing conventions in the rules be useful?

Suppressions and how they are achieved
A bit clunky.  Is there an opportunity to remove this layer of dice rolling?  Perhaps a fixed suppression threshold?

The turn sequence
The order in which things happen is a bit confusing sometimes.  I'd like to see a more formal sequence.

Recce troops
Um...room to improve and simplify?

Transports
Needs some work i think.  e.g. trucks and IFVs should operate differently.  

Off table support
Every game i've played has had us scratching our heads on this.  And off-table artillery is either ineffective or hits home with utter devastation.  That might be historical but its not much fun as a game.  Simplify and balance.  Also, could FAOs and FACs just be 'spotters', with their specific role defined by the off table asset they're assigned too?  Since its basically 'calling in off-table dice, why make the distinction?

Decluttering the army lists
They need some work i think.  Make things clearer and simpler.  I like the suggestions around buying units in 'formations'.  I'd like to see just WWII lists in.

Close assault
I think this needs a big overhaul - perhaps the only fundamental change i'd like to see in the rules.  I'm not sure why it resolves differently from shooting?  And it confuses me every time over extra dice and modifiers.  I'm not sure why there are fighting units and support units either.  It should also be more decisive.  A key WWII friction as i understand is 'fire to suppress then assault to destroy'.  I think close assault needs a new approach.  
Blue sky thinking - Could there be an argument for removing 'close assault' as a stat?  Why not just use AP/AT (with special ability modifiers for close assault units like cavalry, SMGs,flamethrowers, etc.?  Particulalry if 1 unit = a platoon, CQB is really close ranged engagements rather than 'toe to toe with a bayonet' isn't it?  So why not use the firing stat - after all units can only support if they have a shooting stat...

Flamethrowers
Should be close assault weapons only (certainly man portable ones)

Aircraft and AA fire
Seems a bit lacking.

Terrain set up and effects
Needs a bit of work.  If a unit = a platoon (50 men?) it seems weird that individual linear obstacles are represented, or indeed individual buildings.  Doesn't the terrain need 'scaling up' a bit?  I also find it a bit odd that units stop at the edges of terrain. Wouldn't 1cm moved in terrain = 2cm of movement be cleaner?  To use an extreme example, moving an infantry unit into, through and out of a 10x10cm wood currently take 3 orders!!!  Wading through treacle doesn't cover it...

Special abilities
The unit special abilities need a complete overhaul.  There's four or five abilities that relate to how units assault that all do the same thing slightly differently for example.
On that matter, i think moving things like the rules for 'transport' and 'recce' into a special unit ability makes sense to me.

Cover and protection
Sometimes it makes you harder to hit, sometimes it gives you a save.  Pick one and stay with it i reckon.

Destructible environments
To borrow a video game term...there's already some in this with tanks flattening walls etc.  But it might be fun to see rules for flattening buildings (reduce them to rubble), and making craters (certain artillery attacks perhaps?

Total rewrite
What I mean by this is not changing the rules, but changing the layout so things are simple, clear, logical, and you don't have to go hunting for the various bits of the rules scattered all over the book.

Um...yeah.  Just a bit of a brain dump really.  

[Kiwidave]

Flamethrowers
Should be close assault weapons only (certainly man portable ones)

The man-portable ones are: units with them get a Close Assault rating of 8; the armour mounted ones have a range of 10cm (from memory)

[petercooman]

The more we are talking about the rules, the more i just want to keep using this version actually 

It has been the mainstay of my gaming group for a couple of years, so they do work!

[bigjackmac]

I'm with Luddite on close assault, that stuff still confuses me.

I don't have a problem with using close assault values (rather than AP/AT firepower values) as I believe that a unit being that close is likely to be able to put more of its weapons into play, and those weapons be more effective, but CA is pretty baffling to me.  I suppose I forgot about it because I'd house-ruled it so long ago.

Other than that, despite discussions I've been involved here, I'm with Peter.  Overall there's nothing wrong with BKC.  I was actually kind of surprised to hear that it was going to be revamped.

V/R,
Jack

[madaxeman]

Welcome Tim

I see that's your first post. I could have sworn you were a member already,ir  maybe I am thinking of another site

Always enjoy your site and goad to see you here

It does seem as if I've been a member of this site for ages, but never gotten round to posting... ! Anyways, good to start with something meaty :-)

[Last Hussar]

Orcs - Sunjester and I treat houses as Soft cover in IABSM, unless they are stone.

[Orcs]

6.   Provide threshold values for weapons (one of the biggest complaints about the xKC series was always that enough 25mm AT guns would knock out a King Tiger, when the big wimp fans would claim they wouldn't even make the commander 'button up')

I do see where you are comming from here, but i would argue that these are not skirmish rules and we are talking an overall effect. The knock out simply means it has lost its combat effectiveness for the duration of the game.

A 25mm AT gun would not penetrate the armour of a King tiger. However it is quite capable of breaking a track, knocking off road wheels, damaging optics  or taking the commanders head off as the round ricochets off the armour.  All of which would effectively take the tank out of action.

If your unlucky to be hit enough times by lots of "ineffective" weaponry  to knock you out,  you are under heavy fire that alone would reduce your effectiveness and if you are unlucky enough to loose all your saving throws so you are "knocked out " i would suggest one of the above has just happened.

[sane max]

thats rather gamey, not sure he would get many games at our club  after that.

Oh, he was pointy-sticked and then mercilessly teased. It is one of the 'remember that guy' moments all clubs have, like the lad who was desperate to play Warhammer Fantasy but did not have the cash, so would turn up with Dryads (sticks in bluetak) and set out little lumps of red plastic foam carefully and announced 'those are Skaven Jezzailachis'.

Neither is a member now, I assure you. We are all lovely people now. There is one guy who always always takes the biggest cats, or the biggest US tanks the list will allow, but he is mostly harmless.

The man-portable flamethrower rule is a good example of the layout issues. I am assured the rule is in there, and that's how we play it too, but I am damned if i could find it last time I played.

Pat

[madaxeman]

Orcs - Sunjester and I treat houses as Soft cover in IABSM, unless they are stone.

I'm struggling to remember our "house" rules for, erm, houses (and trenches!) however the current rules mechanics mean you can either

- make things more difficult to hit in the first place,
- make it easier for them to save any hits that they do incur,
- make them easier to suppress.

I guess you can also vary this mix by firer (infantry, direct fire, indirect fire) as well.

It would be nice to see the various types of cover have a coherent and logical / literal way of playing with these various factors to achieve the desired end result - for example, should infantry in trenches be easy to hit with indirect fire, hard to kill, but easier to suppress (keeping heads down when bombarded by area fire) but when shot at with direct fire they become hard to hit, but each hit is harder to save and has a relatively lower chance of suppression (aimed direct fire taking out specific spotted positions) ?

[sane max]

another member of our club is firmly of the opinion that artillery is a) too random and b) too deadly. He feels it should hit the target a lot more reliably, and do a lot less killing when it hits, more supressive than killy.

Now, I disagree as IIRC were not something like 70% of wwii casualties caused by indirect type weapons? But I am just putting his opinion out there, certainly a game in which the artillery does all your fighting can be a bit dull.

(Was it not the a captured German who indignantly claimed the British Infantry 'Didn't do any fighting, they just occupied ground previously cleared by the artillery' to which I would have replied 'yes, and if you had the opportunity to do so, wouldn't you? Now shut up and start walking west, Fritz')

[Ithoriel]

Cover and protection
Sometimes it makes you harder to hit, sometimes it gives you a save.  Pick one and stay with it i reckon.

In real life a hedge makes you harder to target, a wall makes you harder to hit so I understand the BKC rationale but at the scale of the game I'd just give a boost to a unit's save personally.

[petercooman]

In real life a hedge makes you harder to target, a wall makes you harder to hit so I understand the BKC rationale but at the scale of the game I'd just give a boost to a unit's save personally.

Yes, but harder to hit also changes your chance of supression doesn't it? A boost to saves doesn't.


Now what i like as a rule mechanic (it's from the deadzone rules), is that if you are in cover, it becomes easier to suppress you. The rationale behind it, is that you will be more eager to duck if there is something to duck behind.

[Ithoriel]

Both reduce the chance of suppression by reducing the average number of hits, no?

[Orcs]

Just found the "man pack " flamethrower rule on page 34.  The flamethrower is built into the engineer stand close assault stats.

To hit a unit in cover

Soft cover - Hedges, wood Hills??? scree or water 5 or 6
Hard cover, wall building houses and bunkers 6

Saving throw
Gun Pit    6
Brick building, trenches, pill box 5
Stone /concrete building , dug out or Bunker 4

This makes a stone building (could be a cottage) but we will accept its substantial stone building just as good cover as a purpose built bunker with 8 feet thick walls and 18 feet thick roofs of reinforced concrete.

hence the house rule

Wooden buildings 6
All other buldings 5 or 6
Bunkers 4