Several Rules Questions

[crazycaptain560]

Hello, everyone!

I played BK II ages ago and liked the game fairly well, but moved away from other players who wanted to give it a try. I finally got the chance among my friends to try BKC IV and we had a BLAST! One of them had only played FOW before this game, and the other is very experienced like me. By turn 3 we all agreed that it has a perfect level of chrome with the lowest rules overhead. The design goals seem to have been met! We will be adopting this and Cold War commander immediately and I am looking at FWC for a 15mm scifi project!

Anyway, some questions came up during the game that we could not solve with the rules alone.

1.0 Assaults

1.1 Opportunity Fire in Assaults- The target, along with any friendly stand within 10cm may conduct an Opportunity Fire attack against any Assaulting stand or support. If a model has already previously reacted with Opportunity Fire, can they still react defensively in this case? (I assume no, but want to be sure)

1.2 Cover and Saves 1.2- This might be silly but are saves granted from Cover (Infantry in BUA for example) applicable in Assaults?

1.3 What happens when an assaulted stand is destroyed by hits - What happens when an assault is launched against a single stand and each side has supporting stands, but both sides score the same number of hits and the defending stand is destroyed from hits. What happens to the supporting stands? The difference is technically even so no suppression or fall back since not one side has technically lost. 

1.4 Lost by Double or More - Does this apply to supporting stands? So it is possible for one defending stand to lose an assault by double or more and then every supporting stand in 10cm is destroyed? We were not sure about this because it seemed quite excessive.

1.5 Do Modifiers Apply to Supports? - Do the Modifiers apply to supports? For example, -1d6 if suppressed. Does this basically mean that +1d6 from support units is ignored if they are suppressed?

I am sure I will have more questions as we continue to play and/or I remember more. I really appreciate any help.

[Big Insect]

Hi Crazy-Captain
Good to have you onboard.

BKCIV works very differently from FoW - as I am sure you are starting to find out.
A lot of the way things work are aimed at speeding up game play, and trying to keep things reasonably simple. So some outcomes may look to be 'harsh' but it is all about trying to keep things simple and straight forward (hopefully).
But great to see your comments about 'chrome & simplicity' ... I appreciate the endorsement 

We are still in the 'post-launch' phase of Cold War Commander II - even more army lists are being drafted and errata collected/corrected. There are a few more on-line BKCIV army lists due - some of the smaller more obscure armies - such as Dutch East Indies and Thai (for example) but I need to get the CWC-II lists out of the way first.

And once we have these resolved we will be starting on FWC-II. However, FWC-I was the last in the current franchise to originally be written, so it still plays very well as it is. It needs a bit of an update around new weapon types and a host of additional army lists, but we are probably looking at least 12 if not 24 months away on an FWC-II launch 

With regar to your questions, what I've tried to do is answer each BKC-IV question in-line, in-bold below.

Hope this helps ... any questions do please shout. Also do check out the existing BKC-IV Errata and free downloads for optional rules etc. on the Forum.
I'd be interested to hear how you are getting on with your games.

Cheers
Mark

Hello, everyone!

I played BK II ages ago and liked the game fairly well, but moved away from other players who wanted to give it a try. I finally got the chance among my friends to try BKC IV and we had a BLAST! One of them had only played FOW before this game, and the other is very experienced like me. By turn 3 we all agreed that it has a perfect level of chrome with the lowest rules overhead. The design goals seem to have been met! We will be adopting this and Cold War commander immediately and I am looking at FWC for a 15mm scifi project!

Anyway, some questions came up during the game that we could not solve with the rules alone.

1.0 Assaults

1.1 Opportunity Fire in Assaults- The target, along with any friendly stand within 10cm may conduct an Opportunity Fire attack against any Assaulting stand or support. If a model has already previously reacted with Opportunity Fire, can they still react defensively in this case? (I assume no, but want to be sure)

> the attacked unit (& all supporting friendly units with LoS to the target assaulting enemy unit) will get the ability to deliver Response/Opportunity fire (unless there is an Ambush involved), if they are assaulted by an enemy unit using its Initiative.
As this action must take place in the enemies turn, the attacked (friendly) defending units wont have any Opportunity fire markers against them, as these are the Inactive players unit and these markers are removed at the end of the previous (friendly units) turn.
As all Initiative actions happen 1st - before any Active players Commanded actions - there can be no opportunity for any defending units to deliver any other Opportunity fire, ahead of an Initiative assault driven Response/Opportunity fire.
Does that make sense?

1.2 Cover and Saves 1.2- This might be silly but are saves granted from Cover (Infantry in BUA for example) applicable in Assaults?

> Cover (in an assault) works primarily by reducing visibility or by reducing the effect of shooting or combat factors (by restricting the ability to hit the target).
Units in a BUA (hard cover) can only be hit on a 6, whilst units in other cover are hit on a 5-6, and units in the Open are hit on a 4-5-6. However, units assaulting from one cover-grade into another will be be adversely effected. See Page 40 - in the initial round of assault the attacker will always count as being in the open, whilst the defender (& supporting units - if in cover as well) will count as being in cover. Infantry units don't (generally) have Save throws - but they tend to have a lot more lives than other units.
The + for the defender is that they are harder to hit. The minus is that any supporters within the cover must be within 10cm and LoS range to shoot at the assaulting unit. LoS is limited in certain terrain - and so for example a melee within a Smoke screen will be almost impossible to support. In subsequent rounds of combat, both attacker and defender will count as being in the open, due to their close proximity. But LoS range is still effected by the terrain. So support (for either side) in a BUA will be limited by the reduced LoS distance.


1.3 What happens when an assaulted stand is destroyed by hits - What happens when an assault is launched against a single stand and each side has supporting stands, but both sides score the same number of hits and the defending stand is destroyed from hits. What happens to the supporting stands? The difference is technically even so no suppression or fall back since not one side has technically lost.

> If this due to shooting - there is no effect on the supporting stands, as the assault (in effect) ceases to happen, if the target of the assault is knocked out before contact. The attacker will move up to the place where the defender was KO'd and occupy it, unless it cannot do so by the general movement proximity restrictions (not closer than 5cm to other enemy units), then it moves as far forward as it can within its normal move distance.
A fresh Commanded assault would be required for the attacker to then assault any other enemy units next turn. But it will still suffer a -1 to its Command value for having been ordered to assault previously.
If the defending unit is KO'd once both units (assaulter & assaulted) are in melee/assault - then the normal impact on supporting unit applies - see Page 40 "units that support an assault will be effected by the outcome" - see the table at the bottom of Page 41 for the effect 

1.4 Lost by Double or More - Does this apply to supporting stands? So it is possible for one defending stand to lose an assault by double or more and then every supporting stand in 10cm is destroyed? We were not sure about this because it seemed quite excessive.

> yes - I agree it is brutal, but it is designed that way, to speed up large complex ongoing melees, and also it makes you think carefully about which units you use to support units in assault and which assaulted units to support - pick your battles carefully   

1.5 Do Modifiers Apply to Supports? - Do the Modifiers apply to supports? For example, -1d6 if suppressed. Does this basically mean that +1d6 from support units is ignored if they are suppressed?

> suppressed supporting units cannot support the melee - as stated the -1d6 negates their effect. So you are better to state 'specifically' that they are not supporting the on-going melee or they will get knocked-out on a Double or more outcome.

I am sure I will have more questions as we continue to play and/or I remember more. I really appreciate any help.

[crazycaptain560]

Big Insect, thank you, good sir! That does help a lot, but I have a few more questions to bounce off of you. I should have also clarified that it is possible we were indeed playing some things wrong 

1.1 So if a unit has already done Opportunity Fire during their opponent's turn, they cannot conduct Opportunity Fire again? For example, it is my turn and I issue a move order, my opponent does opportunity fire, and then I issue an assault order: he can't opportunity fire again, so I assault unimpeded.

1.3 Our situation was that the two units in contact kept scoring the same number of hits, so they kept fighting another round of combat. This continued until the defender was KO'd due to hits, but that round of close combat was also a draw. The outcome table suggests that the assault continues, but in this case, nobody is in contact.

Oh, and here are some random pictures from the game one of the players took. All of the figures and terrain are mine

[Big Insect]

Sadly no picture made it through to the forum.
NB: I have no idea how to make uploading pictures work - not very technical that way.

I'll reply to your questions a bit later when I have some time. But in response to q2. if you have nothing to assault (as your opponent has been KO'd) you can consolidate (if you wish) but in effect that Assault ends.

I'll reply to q1.later
Cheers