Saves

Started by Leonardo, 09 June 2020, 03:39:59 PM

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Why saves?

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Leonardo

Hello,  I'm Leonardo I have a question about saves on pag. 36.
Why there are save for units in cover (buildings, walls etc.) if to hit a target in cover there are just modifier? (5-6 in hedges ,woods etc; 6 in building, walls etc.)
With the saves is quite imposible kill a unit in a building ( To hit 6 then saves with 4 5 6 and finally for suppression 6).
In the first BKC the saves was a special rule.
Regards

Big Insect

Quote from: Leonardo on 09 June 2020, 03:39:59 PM
Hello,  I'm Leonardo I have a question about saves on pag. 36.
Why there are save for units in cover (buildings, walls etc.) if to hit a target in cover there are just modifier? (5-6 in hedges ,woods etc; 6 in building, walls etc.)
With the saves is quite imposible kill a unit in a building ( To hit 6 then saves with 4 5 6 and finally for suppression 6).
In the first BKC the saves was a special rule.
Regards

Hi Leonardo

It is not impossible to impossible to hit and suppress or knock-out units in cover it is just a lot harder.  You need a lot of concentrated fire on a target in cover to do it damage or even hit it. That is realistic.
Units in cover are harder to acquire (see) due to the terrain. 
They are also given different levels of protection by the type of cover they are in. So a target in soft cover - such as a high standing corn-field might be difficult to acquire but gains no protection from the cover.

Hope that makes sense.
Mark
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fred.

Our group is with Leonardo on this.

We found infantry in buildings is pretty much un-killable. The volume of fire needed is huge. And suppressing them to allow an assault is similarly virtually impossible, I think you are more likely to kill them than suppress them.

With 6 hits on a normal infantry stand hitting on 6s and saving on 4+, that is 12 shots to cause a hit, and therefore 72 shots to kill. And that is in a single turn.

I think the 4+ save was introduced in BKC4, it doesn't really feel needed, unless the defenders are in a bunker. 
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Big Insect

It is certainly something we can look at.

One of the challenges is around weapon types - HE is great at inflicting damage on buildings and their occupants - but small arms or even solid-shot A/T are both pretty useless at the same task.
The division of weapons in BKC (& CWC - less so in FWC) being split into AP & AT not HE and non-HE doesn't help with this challenge, as AP is a mix of small arms and HE (for example). Whilst AT is like wise a mix of HE, solid shot and small arms.

But let me have a think about it as there might be away we can replicate the HE 'effect' on troops in buildings especially.
Artillery and Mortars are a case where we can adjust the factors specifically to reflect the effect of the HE munitions quite easily.

As a group we tend to mainly play 6mm games and use a lot of armour and artillery - so we've probably not come across the issue as regularly as other groups playing in 10mm, 15mm or 20mm who play with a lot more infantry.

Helpful feedback - I'll have a think and come back to you on this thread.
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.

Orcs

We found this in BKC 2 as well.  We ended up with the following

Off table HE (above 105mm) causes auto suppression on units it causes initial hits on (ie before saving throw).

Ruined buildings only count as soft cover to all plunging fire.  This is because overhead cover is either reduced or non-existent. Secondly if you hit a pile of ruble with even a small HE shell you get a lot more shrapnel.

Another option - (stolen from chain of command) is to allow HMGS (.5 cal, 12.5mm ) and auto cannon to reduce cover level by one for saving throws. So normal brick or stone buildings  become soft cover and wooden building become effectively open ground.

I believe rounds from the  British GPMG (modern I know) carried so much kinetic energy that they could chew through brick walls fairly rapidly , rendering the cover fairly ineffective. - perhaps somebody who served can confirm or deny this. 

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fred.

The most recent example we had was early war, with around 3 French infantry stands in buildings. Against them were german engineers, and a whole host of tanks. I can't recall the artillery situation. But they basically couldn't be shifted. Eventually the Germans gave up and went off and shot the French tank to pieces.
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Leonardo


toxicpixie

This was always an issue in the *Commander series, and the utterly disproportionate amount of fire needed went beyond realism and into hilarity, to a point where it became very easy to "game" the game set up - if a Defender could either buy trenches or hide in buildings they won, if not they lost.

From memory we adopted the auto-suppression from off table assets on a successful hit, and disallowed saves in close assault. Meaning you could actually hammer a defender and then winkle them out with a proper application of a combined arms assault. We might have treated all close combat as hitting on 4+ and had tweaked a fair bit of force building and scenario set up, but we mostly drifted off back to Spearhead well before BKC4 so I'm really just rambling, sorry!

I am looking forward to CWC2 though.
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Big Insect

We also play the 2 hits and auto-suppress as standard in our group - for off-table area fire across all the Commander sets of rules (except for Massives in FWC).
Extending this to on-table mortars and guns might also be a way to reduce the defensive effect of BUAs/buildings.

But I think that sending armour into a BUA against enemy infantry and you are asking for trouble!
I also believe you need a very high level of superiority to budge even a small number of enemy infantry dug-in or in hiding within a BUA/building.

However, pounding a BUA with artillery and/or mortars should allow you to drive the defenders under cover sufficiently to allow your own troops the opportunity to attack, with a degree of success.

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.

fred.

Which all makes real world sense. But in the game units generate dice. It makes no difference if they come from infantry, artillery or tanks. Each unit adds a certain number of dice to the AP pool (or AT) pool. Tanks generate a fair few dice against infantry, especially if they get within 20cm, so within the game it makes sense to use them.

It sounds like you want a calibre vs cover effect.
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fred.

The 2 hits and then auto suppress is a major change from RAW for units in cover. I can see why it would be used for units in the open as it speeds up play without changing the odds too much ( or do you roll to suppress on 1 hit? )

But it really changes the effect of cover, as now you have some chance of suppressing defenders so your assault might work.
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Big Insect

Quote from: fred. on 10 June 2020, 01:45:38 PM
The 2 hits and then auto suppress is a major change from RAW for units in cover. I can see why it would be used for units in the open as it speeds up play without changing the odds too much ( or do you roll to suppress on 1 hit? )

But it really changes the effect of cover, as now you have some chance of suppressing defenders so your assault might work.

You do still roll for suppression on 1 hit - so it's not designed as a method of increasing play speed.
However, you still need to add in special characteristic factors - such as elite or conscript etc. - as well - for the 1 hit  scenario.
The disadvantage is the issue around fall-back as multiple template strikes in the same game turn can auto-suppress in the 1st round of fire, but you then need to work out the fall-back on the 2nd. But as it is auto-suppression fall-back is based on the number of hits - not the number of unsaved suppression throws.
This replicates units being driven out of cover by intensive bombardments.

I think there is also a tendency to forget that all the Commander rules are built around a  "combined arms" principle. That can be hard to achieve in a smaller points game however.

'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.

Itinerant Hobbyist

28 September 2020, 09:13:27 PM #12 Last Edit: 28 September 2020, 09:40:36 PM by Itinerant Hobbyist
Man, reading through this, I think I was getting saves all wrong in my game last night!

Oh never mind, I was using the new save values found in the new errata and qrs