Dash for the Duoro - a BKCIV AAR

Started by Steve J, 25 April 2019, 11:56:36 AM

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Big Insect

As always Steve - great report - interesting that your Condor Legion air strikes were so effective.

Cheers
Mark
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

Steve J


petercooman

Nice game!

Had a game of bkcIV last thursday as wwell, british airborne vs germany september 44. Great game, but the "veteran" special rule of the airborne makes them much more fragile than they used too, 50% chance of being suppressed from 1 hit.

Techno


Big Insect

And your thought on the Veteran status effect Peter?

I did debate leaving it as it was, but I have fought so many games against Veteran/Elite troops that just do nothing if you shoot 'em up.

I was looking for a way to even the odds and make the game a bit more 'chancy'. Was it too much?

We also had a lot of debate about the difference between Elite and Veteran - I argued that an Elite unit very often thought it was great, but a Veteran unit knew it was  ;D

Thoughts on the Special Characteristics are always received gratefully as there are many combinations and trialling them all was a challenge.

Thanks
Mark
PS: who won?
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

petercooman

Quote from: Big Insect on 29 April 2019, 09:54:31 PM
And your thought on the Veteran status effect Peter?

I did debate leaving it as it was, but I have fought so many games against Veteran/Elite troops that just do nothing if you shoot 'em up.

I was looking for a way to even the odds and make the game a bit more 'chancy'. Was it too much?

We also had a lot of debate about the difference between Elite and Veteran - I argued that an Elite unit very often thought it was great, but a Veteran unit knew it was  ;D

Thoughts on the Special Characteristics are always received gratefully as there are many combinations and trialling them all was a challenge.

Thanks
Mark
PS: who won?

Well honestly, i don't think i will play with my airborne a lot anymore, game was completely buggered by that rule. They will be designated glider troops for now. Was an assault on a german held town, september 44, they got suppressed the entire game by fortress troops. embarassing assault really  ;D

Doesn't take an opponent too long to figure out that he just has to opp fire with everything he can on your first activation to pin you down.

Game ended with the germans still in the town, having lost only 2 stands of infantry. My British ended the game exactly 20 cm away from the point they entered the table (except for my pack howitzers, mortars and mg's). My fellow general (it was a 4 player game) got a bit further, but only with his support weapons, he left the infantry behind because they were constantly suppressed.

So basically we fought the enemy with pack howitzers, mortars, machine guns and a jeep with a machine gun. They do not have the veteran rule so they still behave as they should!

One of our favourite scenarios used to be 'hold untill relieved'. Luckily the pegasus bridge attack was performed by glider troops who are not scared all the time  ;D ;D ;D

petercooman

I must note however, that the special rules are not my favourite part of the new edition. and i had already spoken against them in version 3.

It used to be, print army from battlegroup creator, special notes were on the printed paper, book was rarely used in game.

Now it is: flick to page with profile, read special ability, flick to special rule page, read special rule.

This is personal preference though, but i hate it. I play a lot of song of blades and heroes type games, and they do the same thing. I ended up making cards for my troops with the abilities printed on them. It was that or just stop playing, but with the money invested (i have a lot of those books and games) i opted to make the cards. I'll see about doing something similar for bkc IV, because the amount of book flicking annoyed me A LOT. if you only play one game, then that is not such a big problem because after a while you remember those few special rules, but like many of us, if you play about a dozen rulesystems it gets confusing, as mostly the special rules have the same name across different rulesets.

Again, all strictly personal preference, but my best games are games were i don't even have to touch the book. That's what made me love the bkc II+ online battlegroup creator combo!

Dr Dave

01 May 2019, 07:54:07 PM #8 Last Edit: 01 May 2019, 07:57:54 PM by Dr Dave
The veteran rule is for battle wise troops who've "seen the elephant". Never the near fanatical troops of British para brigades. Devise another rule. Visit the Onderlangs park and think about what they did there. 50% chance of being suppressed?  ;D

Dr Dave

Quote from: Dr Dave on 01 May 2019, 07:54:07 PM
The veteran rule is for battle wise troops who've "seen the elephant". Never the near fanatical troops of British para brigades. Devise another rule. Visit the Onderlangs park and think about what they did there. 50% chance of being suppressed?  ;D

It's worth reading cwc.

In there is an optional rule where suppression is a function of a unit's morale, how novel!

Veteran suppressed on a 6
Normal 5,6
Poor 4,5,6

Then you can tweak to suit.

Big Insect

01 May 2019, 09:26:26 PM #10 Last Edit: 01 May 2019, 09:30:23 PM by Big Insect
Funny enough, this is one of those "you cannot please all the people, all the time" issues. As we had the CWC suppression in an earlier review version and it was dismissed by a number of reviewers. I should have stuck to my guns.

With the Paras, the simple thing is to go back to the use of Elite as a special characteristic - it is used in FWC for units that 'think' they are fantastic.
Dr Dave your point is correct, Veterans know just how dangerous war is and dont do the daft or rash thing (well not very often).

Elite status in FWC has the following effect:
Elite: No Command Penalty for Assaulting the Enemy and deduct 1 dice when rolling for suppression/fall back
This will go into the errata and also the amended PDF lists.
Have a go with your British Paras as Elite and with the CWC suppression rule, and see how the game goes?

Your views on the Special Characteristics not being at the end of each list is an interesting one Peter. My initial reaction the the BKCIII version was not favourable either but it created a massive difference to the size of the rules book with BKCIV as the number of lists are much larger compared to CWC or FWC.
My own personal preference (& I need to discuss this with Leon) is that as we get the on-line list PDFs and the army list calculator sorted out it makes huge sense to go back to the way the Special Characteristics were in BKCII and are in CWC and FWC.

As always - feedback and insights much appreciated

Mark

'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

Steve J

I see the special abilities as a useful guide to tweak units etc as you see fit re: their historical counterparts. So for example Italian artillery units were noted for being brave and tenacious, so maybe they are sort of veteran and ignore rolling for fall back when suppressed. Works for me :).

petercooman

Quote from: Big Insect on 01 May 2019, 09:26:26 PM
Funny enough, this is one of those "you cannot please all the people, all the time" issues. As we had the CWC suppression in an earlier review version and it was dismissed by a number of reviewers. I should have stuck to my guns.

Regular suppression was fine as it was IMHO, the type of terrain has to play a part! One thing i want to try out as a houserule though, is reverse the suppression. 4+ in hard cover, 5+ in soft cover, 6 in the open. The rationale behind that is that you are more likely to get your head down when you are behind something that can actually cover you. That's a little rule from the first edition deadzone game by mantic. In that game you get a negative modifier to get suppressed when you are in cover. Simple reasoning actually, you'd rather duck behind a brick wall instead of grass and flowers as well. I just don't know if that would fit in with the 'scale' of BKC.


Quote from: Big Insect on 01 May 2019, 09:26:26 PM
With the Paras, the simple thing is to go back to the use of Elite as a special characteristic - it is used in FWC for units that 'think' they are fantastic.
Dr Dave your point is correct, Veterans know just how dangerous war is and dont do the daft or rash thing (well not very often).

Elite status in FWC has the following effect:
Elite: No Command Penalty for Assaulting the Enemy and deduct 1 dice when rolling for suppression/fall back
This will go into the errata and also the amended PDF lists.
Have a go with your British Paras as Elite and with the CWC suppression rule, and see how the game goes?


Wich is the exact same thing as the paras had in bkc II. I don't have to play that one to know how they behave, i have played them like that countless times. Maybe that's the problem, i'm used to the paras getting the job done 60% of the time. I am not used to having them repeatedly cower in a building from one shot from some volksturmers  ;D


Quote from: Big Insect on 01 May 2019, 09:26:26 PM
Your views on the Special Characteristics not being at the end of each list is an interesting one Peter. My initial reaction the the BKCIII version was not favourable either but it created a massive difference to the size of the rules book with BKCIV as the number of lists are much larger compared to CWC or FWC.
My own personal preference (& I need to discuss this with Leon) is that as we get the on-line list PDFs and the army list calculator sorted out it makes huge sense to go back to the way the Special Characteristics were in BKCII and are in CWC and FWC.

The thing that is important (for me personally), if you get the online calculator to show the special rules needed for the units chosen at the bottom of the sheet, everything is ok for me. It's the 'not everything you use right now is in the same place in the book' that bugs me. It's something that has always bothered me in games. The old army books from games workshop are a nice example of this. You get a profile in the army list, profile states the wargear, special rules, maybe army specific rules etc... the profile is there, but wargear is on page xx and army special rules are on page xx and the regular special rules are not even in this book but on the rulebook at page xx. For me that's a big no. The profile must show everything. But for that to work, you need to have short and clear special rules, to fit into that entry in the book, wich brings me to my next point:

(personal opinion again) Some of the special rules are too long. Long blockss of text are not so easy to remember completely. an example of what i mean by this, lets use veteran as an example:


veteran:

veterans are.....

they do:-this
            -and this
           -and can do this
           -and if they want can do this


in the old rules, to use elite as an example:


Elite: No Command Penalty for Assaulting the Enemy and deduct 1 dice when rolling for suppression/fall back

You are much more likely to remember that one line than the block under veteran (i know this because i had to look up veteran 4 times during our game, but only ever had to read the elite rule once to never forget it!)


Quote from: Big Insect on 01 May 2019, 09:26:26 PM

As always - feedback and insights much appreciated

Mark



Happy to have a civilised talk about this, i don't feel about shouting the rules are bad/good (not that many people are shouting, but i feel as if sometimes people forget that it still only is a book  ;) ), as i think at this stage they work great, but much of the niggles are down to personal preference or minor list mistakes. BKCII also had a very big legacy to live up to so comments and critisism were bound to happen!

But maybe we should move to another thread? Because we are hijacking Steve J's fine battlereport!  ;D ;D

petercooman

Quote from: Steve J on 01 May 2019, 10:08:40 PM
I see the special abilities as a useful guide to tweak units etc as you see fit re: their historical counterparts. So for example Italian artillery units were noted for being brave and tenacious, so maybe they are sort of veteran and ignore rolling for fall back when suppressed. Works for me :).

Yes for me that works as well. Problem is that we have very ittle time to play and come togheter, so just a quick 'we play this tonight, make an army of xxx points' is usually as far as we get. In an ideal world we could plan and adjust accordingly, but for now following the lists is our best option. as long as it gets us playing i'm fine with that.

Usually we as a group play a few games of a ruleset, and when things come up we go like: Ok this annoys us, from next game on we will play situation/troops xx with the following houserule xxx.

This is fine by me, as that means we always get to enjoy a few games of the rules 'as written' before it evolves into 'our rules'  and we can do the shenanigans with the changing profiles, and letting troops behave like we imagine they would have  ;D ;D

Ithoriel

02 May 2019, 01:43:25 AM #14 Last Edit: 02 May 2019, 01:45:27 AM by Ithoriel
Quote from: petercooman on 01 May 2019, 10:16:48 PM
Usually we as a group play a few games of a ruleset, and when things come up we go like: Ok this annoys us, from next game on we will play situation/troops xx with the following houserule xxx.

You mean there a people who don't do that??! :)
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data