Snipers in FoW - the ultimate harrassment tool?

A single shot rings out during the advance aimed to recapture a small village. The feldwebel goes down and the whole squad hits the dirt, desperately seeking cover. Nobody is now interested in what their initial objective was. They are fighting for their life against an unseen enemy.

This is a regular scene from a computer game I played a long time ago - close combat. This unseen enemy was obviously a well placed sniper that could break up an assault in a matter of seconds, especially when he was supported. But are snipers in FoW able to do the same?

First of all let us have a look at the rules:

- they are independent teams that cannot join other platoons and are always rated confident veteran.
- they are always equipped with a 16" ROF 1, FP 4+ weapon.
- you do not deploy them at the beggining of the game. Instead, you can choose to reveal them at the start of any turn in your deployment area or the no-man's land.
- once on the table, they can attempt to switch positions on a 4+. If they succeed, they go back to the sniper pool, ready to be placed somewhere else in the following turns.
- they are gtg and concealed when they shoot but cannot shoot if there is a friendly team within 4".
- they re-roll to hit.
- when they take a hit that would kill them, they still get a 4+ roll. If they succeed, they go back to your pool of snipers.
- when somebody tries to assault them, they roll a 4+. If they fail, the sniper goes back to the sniper pool.
- they cost 50 points per team.

They even get 3 warrior sniper teams I know of: Vasiliy Zaytsev, Simo Hayah and Bruno Koenig (a fictional character as far as I understand).

Vasiliy

- costs 90 pts and is F/V
- teams hit by Vasiliy re-roll successful saves

Bruno

- costs 80 pts and is F/V
- has range of 24".
- can re-roll to hit (legacy of 2nd edition - BF forgot to update).
- if for some weird reason there is an enemy sniper team in his range that fired on their turn they do not count as gtg.

Simo Hayah

- costs 65 pts and is F/V
- 3+ to switch positions instead of 4+
- when assaulted, shoots 3 dice and then the enemy rolls to capture him


With the switch from 2nd to 3rd edition, it seemed that the snipers would get substantially better. They are so great, because now they are so hard to kill.... and .... this is about it. Annoying might be the right word actually.
They would pop out to harrass advancing infantry platoons, pin artillery batteries. But all of these come with a big 'if'. Sure they have the re-roll, but first of all: the enemy still assigns the hits (so in most cases a regular guy will get hit), teams still get their saves and if dug in, the sniper still has to pass the firepower check. A lot has to go according to plan to kill just one, single team. Good thing is that no matter what happens, you get the pin with just a single hit.  And there are those cases where they would do absolutely nothing - for instance, when the enemy's company is fully made up of armored units or when you have to attack a veteran infantry company and you never roll your 6 to hit.
As they are now, snipers are a purely defensive tool with very limited capabilities. In fact, the only possible use I can see for them is to target artillery so that you can eliminate guns in a scenario where one casaulty reduces the size of the template or the AT/FP rating of a combined bombardment. If they get very lucky, they might even take out a staff team or pin an infantry platoon in a crucial moment. But this is about it.


So how would I fix them then?
There could be 2 ways actually: update their rules or reduce their cost.

Cost reduction:

As far as I am concerned I might consider actually fielding a sniper team if it would cost 20-25 points. As for the warrior teams, 30 points is the maximum.


Rules update:

There could be tons of possible updates so I will just give one example:
- increase their range to 24" (32" for Koenig)
- let them choose which teams are hit
- teams shot at by snipers never count as gtg
- teams shot at by snipers re-roll their saves (Vasiliy would ignore saves like BTG)

Whatever happens to FoW snipers in the future, I hope we will see more of them as they are the iconic weapon of war and it is a reall pity that currently, they are so useless :(

Do you have any other ideas on how to fix snipers?

Playing doubles tournament in FoW

Hello everyone. Time has come for an event that I organize every year and is quite popular with the Polish players: Achtung, Macki Wojny doubles tournament (Macki Wojny translates into "Tentacles of War" - since the club is called "Octopus" and the tournament formula is also a legacy of WHFB tournaments under the same name). The reason for this popularity is that it is unique in its format and the rules for playing in pairs are in my opinion quite robust (have been developed for several years). With this in mind, I would like to share the ruleset/format so that anyone who finds it useful can adapt it to their doubles tournament.

Format & Rules
First of all, the format that we have been using for the last 5 or 6 years remained the same throughout the tournament's history. It is 2x1000 pts Late War. I have to say that I have tried a few times to change it (period mostly) but there was so much resistance from the players that I gave up. The reason that they usually provided is that the ruleset is a non-standard one so we should go with the most popular period. At the end of the day - makes perfect sense and my advice to TOs is: use my experience and go LW.

Also, 2x1000 points is the max. Games are scheduled to last for 3 hours but every now and again still, there are tables where the game would be at turn 4-5 when the time is about to elapse. Somehow 2x computing power of a human brain does not mean 0.5x time to process but instead, 1.5x. Do not try to go over 2x1000, trust me :)

Listbuilding rules
1. You can only combine allied+allied and axis+axis.
2. You cannot use the same briefing twice.
3. You are allowed to switch up to 5% of the points between the lists, provided the total does not exceed 2k. This means that you can transfer up to 50 points to your partner's list in case you have some left over and he needs a boost.
4. (optional) No more than 1 named hero and/or higher command per alliance.
5. (optional) No more than 1 air support per alliance.

Game specific rules
1. Special rules of one company do not affect the other - under any circumstances (e.g. 2 US rosters cannot combine their bombardments using "Hit them with everything you've got").
2. Allies rules (p. 70 of the rulebook) are used to determine how to handle the separate companies: warriors, independents cannot join platoons of your partner.
3. Company morale is played according to the rules of fielding multiple companies, described on p. 176 of the rulebook. In simple terms - if one of the companies fails its morale roll, both flee and the game is over. While it might seem punishing at first, tests have proved that this can easily be avoided if one plays smart (e.g. does not place all platoons of one company occupying one of the 2 objectives to make it easy for the opponent to force a morale check).
4. For purposes of scenarios, the alliance is treated as a single company - so only 1 ambush is available normally, when you alternate placing platoons on the table in Fair Fights, you only place one per alliance, etc.
5. You cannot use fortifications of an allied company, with the exception of trenchlines.
6. When you roll for reserves, one platoon per PLAYER arrives from reserves. This prevents games where some platoons never have the chance to take active part in the battle.
7. For situations not covered above, that create a conflict in the rules, THE OPPONENTS decide the outcome. This is often used when determining who is the attacker where the pair has mixed company types. In these cases, the opponents of such an alliance define which company do they compare themselves to.

A thing that needs to be mentioned here is that in Poland we use a customized scoring format. We utilize a system which is similar to scoring in old editions of WH40k, where Victory Points of destroyed friendly/enemy units are mapped against a score between 0-20 (with objectives beeing assigned a fixed value) to determine the outcome of the game. This way, we do not have to worry about the basic nature of the BF system. Still, with some modifications, I am sure that the rules above can be also used for BF scoring.

Overall, I really like what we designed as the tournaments run without major interruptions and the players can enjoy their games in peace :)

Hope you like it and can use it in your tournaments!

Team Yankee Rules Analysis - Part 5 - Morale/Special Rules



Morale

Morale in Team Yankee, on a high level of understanding, works in a manner similar to what we have in FoW. Once your Units start taking enough casaulties they are forced to roll their morale checks. When they fail the roll, they are gone. In the end, if at a certain point of the Turn Sequence (the Starting Step), your Formation has no Units that are in still active (remember that Supporting Units do not count), it has to roll a morale check (using Commander's morale rating - so if he is gone: autofail). If the roll is failed, the Formation is gone. If all Formations are gone, you are out and all objectives are automatically captured by the opponent.

Back to the basic (Unit) level, no morale check is needed (it is called "Unit is in Good Spirits") as long as:
- no Teams in the Unit are either destroyed or bailed (the latter is only true for Units containing Tank Teams)
- at least one active (neither destroyed nor bailed) Team is within 6" of the Unit Leader. Two active Teams in case of infantry Units.
- Unit Leader is active

There are two major influences of this rule on the game:

1. Units consisting of 2 Teams will have to immediately test whenever one of the teams is gone, or in the case of tanks - bailed. It just hits ITVs so hard that even at 3 points per platoon they do not seem a valid option. Like I described before, you can mitigate this effect by Joining HQ Units or Independent Teams to these guys, but in all honesty: what is the point of protecting 2 ITVs with 2 M1 Abrams tanks or a FIST?
Same goes for fielding understrength Units of Aircraft in US Forces. Each time you take a casaulty, the other guy has to roll his morale check and possibly flee without event taking a hit. The only 2 Team Unit that does not suffer so much because of this rule is the Soviet Recce platoon of BMPs - it will do its job of extending the deployment zone anyway. After this, it is obsolete (or can be used for some harrasment). Poor rules design at this point, really.

2. Going out of command with a part of a Unit is really pushing your luck. Same goes for moving Line Abreast (not so clearly defined in the rules). If the opponent is able to kill the section containing the Unit Leader, the rest of the platoon has to test (even if you only killed 2 out of 10 tanks for instance).
Overall, Morale mechanic of Team Yankee is very similar to FoW but it is really hard to kill a Unit by forcing a morale check, unless the opponent splits it and you are able to kill the Leader.


Update & a fun fact at the same time (confirmed by Phil): if you do not put any of the Formation's Units on the table at the beginning of the game (meaning - if you only start with Support) you do not have any of the Formation's Units "In Good Spirits" as per the rules and thus you automatically loose the game :)
　
Special Rules


There are about 20-30 special rules in Team Yankee covering high-tech equipment characteristics & tactical doctrines used by the opposing forces. Most of them, add a +1 here or there or make a unit gone to ground when it moves or shoots. There is however, one rule that is really outstanding: Spearhead.

By using Spearhead, a Unit can make a pre-game move when it deploys. Once the move is complete, other Units that have not deployed so far treat anything within 8" of the Spearheading Unit as an extension of their deployment zone!
This extension of deployment zone is limited by enemy teams, deployment area or by any objective. Still, in some of the TY scenarios (like the Counterattack) you can really fast-forward your entire army to be just several inches away from an objective and get a 1st turn charge in or even capture it uncontested. This is huge and I expect it to be used very frequently, especially that in the Soviet Forces you can have more than one Spearheading Unit (each Formation can use one + your support also has the option for one).

Phew, seems I have gone through all the rules of Team Yankee - next mission is: list building :P

Team Yankee Rules Analysis - Part 4 - Shooting

Hi there and welcome to another episode of Team Yankee rules analysis. This part is all about shooting. And when I say shooting I mean: direct fire & artillery. When I read the rules, my feeling was that this is more an evolution than a revolution. BF did change how things are done, but they do have a familiar ring to them. Some of them are almost an exact copy with just a +1 here or a -1 there. In any case, switching between TY and FoW should be no problem at all.

There are some changes that influence the balance of the forces, though :)

Direct Fire

The first innovation in direct fire rules that stands out is the way you assign hits to your targets in TY. In FoW, it was the owner of the platoon shot at that would assign hits across the target platoon. In Team Yankee however, it is the owner of the shooting model that nominates an enemy Team and rolls to hit against it. This means, that potentially you are able to snipe high value targets. Fortunately, it has some limits and counters within the rules. First of all, if you target a specific Team within a platoon, only the first hit will go against the team. All other hits have to be distributed evenly to the Teams of the same type and from the same Unit, unless they would not be a legal target (because of no LoS for example).

In practice, only the first hit counts then. And even that is partly true because of the Mistaken Target rule. This rule lets the player swap hits between Teams that are a valid target for the shooting, provided he can roll a 3+. So if you have 2 (x/z) Teams which are a legal target for the shooting (same type, same unit, in range, etc.) and the opponent assigned the following hits to them: 1x/2z, you can roll a 3+ to switch to 2x/1z. This is the perfect rule to protect your valuable assets until your luck runs out :)

This combined with the rules about Independent Teams and HQ Teams being treated as valid targets provided they are within 6" of the Team being shot at practically means you can either protect your soft guys with heavy HQ tanks or add extra bodies to platoons by joining the observers and/or Mech HQ armored transports to any other unit and absorbing high AT hits. I imagine that this rule will be often used to keep the FIST in play for as long as possible.

Also, shooting at aircraft has its separate flavor. First of all, you can shoot at Aircraft either in the enemy turn (with reduced RoF) or in your own turn (at full RoF). On top of this, not everybody can shoot at Aircraft Units - there is a list of weapons/Units that are able to conduct AA fire. For Helicopters, this list seems rather long while for Strike Aircraft it is severly reduced, making them one of the most survivable Units in Team Yankee. What I am not so happy about is that Helicopters, in my opinion, will be of limited importance in this game as there is a whole lot of weapons that can hurt them and bring them down before they can do any real damage :(

Artillery (including Laser-Guided Ammo)

Artillery still has the templates, still hits the top armor, still rolls to range in and to hit. There are differences though. First big difference is that finally, you will not be bound to target an enemy Team. This is huge and combined with the new command distances makes me think that the guns will be covering more Teams per salvo. It is also much easier to range in. All you need is a flat skill check which can be modified by +1 if your spotting guy is the observer. What is more, you can utilize your Commander and join the shooting battery to substitute their skill rating with his. For US this can even mean a 2+ to range in! The heap of buffs would however not be complete without a single, but meaningful nerf :) Once you ranged in you still need to hit the teams under the template. Normally, you need roll their 'is hit on' number but this one also has modifiers. For instance, a gone to ground Team out of LoS of the shooting battery gets -2 to the roll (-1 for each of: gtg and out of LoS). The result of these modifiers is that it will be extremely difficult to hit and kill dug in infantry with artillery. If you are targetting gone to ground US infantry that is out of the battery's LoS , you end up hitting on a 6+. On top of this, the infantry get their regular save (3+) and you need to roll for your firepower (2-4+). On average then, you will be killing 1 Team for every 20 that you can get under your template. Not so good, huh?

At least, there are no more artillery bombardment restrictions when shooting from behind terrain. You can easily position your battery right in the middle of a patch of woods and deliver salvos without being seen by anything else than Aircraft Units.

Smoke bombardment is a bit better than what FoW players are used to (it comes in a line and obstructs LoS if more 6" from the target Team) but has been changed to one use only per battery. Overall I think this is a good change that makes it one of the vital resources in the game that needs to be used wisely.

The good part about US artillery is that it can fire Laser-Guided Ammo. This type of ammo has a minimum range of 16" but can fire at Teams that are visible for the FIST observer and/or are out of LoS of the battery (hooray for ninja shots from the middle of the forest)! When they do, they use normal shooting rules (using FIST for tracing LoS, etc.) and hit front armor with AT21 and HEAT+Guided special rules. If not for the fact that only the FIST can spot for Laser-Guided Ammo, this would for sure be the best weapon on the battlefield. But even with this limitation it is great. The risk of loosing your FIST can be mitigated by keeping it close to any other Tank Unit but what you get in return is a lethal weapon. Please note, that with the Guided special rule, the Ammo can also be used to bring down Helicopters! Fun! :)

There are also other types of artillery ammo available for the US player, like scatterable mines (which produce a 4" diameter round minefield per 3 firing guns) or bomblets (which enable firing salvo templates with reduced AT/FP values) but they are not nearly as good as Laser-Guided Ammo.

All in all, I like what BF did with shooting. Do you?

Team Yankee Rules Analysis - Part 3 - Movement

WARNING!! Some of my understanding might stil be wrong as I only read the rules a couple of times so far. If I talk nonsense, please feel free to correct me in the comments section. I want this article to be as accurate as possible in the end. Thank you!

Movement

Movement in Team Yankee is very quick compared to Flames of War. Generally speaking, Dash (TY for Double Time) speed has increased all across the board. Moreover, going over Terrain either hinders your movement very slightly (when Dashing) or not at all (when moving at Tactical).

Also, basic movement distance for Tanks is increased to 14" while for infantry to 8". On the other hand, Tactical speed for light armored vehicles has dropped to 10'. This overall movement speed increase is coupled with easier unbogging. You no longer have to roll a skill test to unbog. This simply happens automatically at the end of the turn in which your tank got stuck.
A completely new thing is Aircraft Unit movement which has no range limit or can take the Aircraft Unit off the table to come back during one of the following turns (Loitering Off Table - p. 30).

Command Distance is now 6" (or 16" if you are forming a line and are in LoS of the Unit Leader) for every type of Unit while penalties for breaking Command Distance have decreased. The isolated part can go about on its own using Tactical speed and only suffer a +1 to hit. If they decide to stay in one place, the penalty is not applied. I doubt, however that anybody would be using this rule to divide their platoon into two parts and operate independently or go Line Abreast as Morale checks are based on what Teams are around the Unit Leader (the more Teams you have, the safer the platoon is).

All this combined, means that Teams in TY can cover a considerable distance in short periods of time, while staying relatively close to one another. I really cannot make my mind if this is a good or a bad thing. What I am sure of though, is that tables will suddenly become very small and artillery more effective :)

The biggest change that the designers created is the introduction of Movement Orders. Movement Orders can be used by a Unit Leader (in case the Unit lost their Leader- they obviously cannot use them) to make the Unit perform certain activities on the battlefield. let's have a look on what is possible:

Blitz Move (p. 34)

The Order lets the Unit move up to 4" upon a successful skill check. At the same time, it does not count as having performed a Move. This has major influence on the game. All of a sudden, your move or fire weapons can pop out from behind a LoS blocker and shoot their weapons. It will  be the modus operandi of ITV vehicles or Soviet BMPs, provided you can succeed with your skill check. If you fail the roll however, you will suffer a +1 to hit penalty and will not be able to Dash.

What is more interesting is that this rule can be used to bring your Units out of reserves (confirmed by Phil) and IN MY OPINION, BASED ON RAW even return your Loitering Aircraft Units onto the table (p. 30 - as it can be used 'instead of moving'). In both cases, you could for instance use it to bring Cobras onto the table and shoot their move or fire rockets.
In the previous article, I mentioned that joining Commanders to Aircraft Units can be beneficial to them in some cases. This is one of them: if you join your pretty much useless Mech Commander to a Cobra Unit left in the Reserves, you can improve their skill check from 4+ to 3+ to Blitz onto the table and use their rockets. Not a big bonus, but can make all the difference.

Follow Me! (p. 34)

The Order enables the Unit Leader to move forward 4 extra inches (even after making a dash move) and roll a courage check. If successful, teams from the same Unit, within 6" and visible to the Unit Leader may move up to 4".  Whether the Movement Order was carried out or not, the Unit is not able to shoot in the subsequent shooting step. This is not a game changer to be honest and I expect it will be used mainly as a way of getting into assault quicker. Also, it can be used once in a while to gain some additional ground while dashing and maybe in 1/100 games to increase the Tactical speed of a Unit to do a last minute objective grab or a contest.

Shoot and Scoot (p. 35)

This one is essentially a limited copy of German Stormtrooper move that we know from FoW. It enables a Unit that did not Move in the Movement Step to roll a skill check in the Assault Step and move 4" if successful. This is obviously a good way to limit the return fire of enemy Units and will be often used by vulnerable Units such as ITV vehicles, Artillery and AA.

Cross Here (p. 35)

As we already know, bogged down vehicles unbog at the end of the player's turn in TY. To make bogging down even less annoying, BF decided to introduce this new Movement Order. It improves your Cross ability by 1, provided your Unit Leader successfuly crosses an obstacle and you forfeit your chance to Shoot or Assault this turn. The bad part is that you only declare it BEFORE the Unit Moves. This means that you will almost never use it anyway as it costs you the Shooting and Assault Steps and you are not even guaranteed to have the improved cross check.

Dig In (p. 35)

Dig In only changed a tiny bit between TY and FoW. The two differences are: you need a Unit Leader to do this and you cannot fire bombardments after digging in. What might be the hint for the future releases is that currently, there are no Infantry Units able to deliver bombardments :) This rule, combined with the Blitz Move also have a small gap in it. By RAW, when you are Blitzing, you do not count as having moved your Unit. The Dig In order lets you use Foxholes until you move. These two rules combined mean that by RAW, your Dug In infantry can Blitz around the table in their Foxholes. Fun.


Overall, I like what BF did by introducing Movement Orders. It took away some of the nationality flavor that we know from FoW (everybody knows German Stormtrooper :) ) but introduced so many new possibilities!

Team Yankee Rules Analysis - Part 2 (Commanders)

WARNING!! Some of my understanding might stil be wrong as I only read the rules a couple of times so far. If I talk nonsense, please feel free to correct me in the comments section. I want this article to be as accurate as possible in the end. Thank you!

Your Commander (p. 25)

This is where the rules get interesting. Maybe not the rules themselves but interpretations and implementations of the rules for sure. At first glance, this seems like only a slightly different wording for what we know about Warrior Teams from FoW. Do not be fooled however, these changes go far beyond that.

First of all, 2iCs are gone. If you have more than one HQ Team in your HQ Unit, you can select any of non-transport Teams to be your Commander. The Commander, along with any other Teams from the HQ Unit operate together on the battlefield, following rules for regular platoons (in this case, HQ transports are not an Attachment and will suffer out of command penalties if they wander too far away from the Commander).

The funny part specific to TY is that when you decide to Join a Unit with your Commander, the whole HQ joins it as well. This can easily be used to bolster the survivability of fragile platoons such as AA Units or ITVs with more than one extra body.

Furthermore, the Commander can join ANY Unit of his Formation or supporting it. This has big consequences, described a few paragraphs below.

In order to Join a Unit, the Commander must be within 6" AND in line of sight of the Unit's Leader. So if you want to make sure that a Commander cannot Join a unit (to soak in some shots for example), all you have to do is to drop a small smoke barrier between himself and the Unit's Leader.

What is a small smoke barrier, you ask? :) Well, this is where we approach the madness section of the command rules. TY rulebook says that if your tank Commander gets killed or bogged down, he can jump to another Tank Team. We have 2 main cases here:

1. If he is killed, he can jump to another HQ Tank Team within 6". If there are no other HQ Tank Teams available, you roll a 3+. If successful, he jumps to another Tank Team from the same Formation. If you fail the roll, he dies.
2. If he bogs down, you do the same procedure like for point 1 with the exception that he does not need to go to a HQ Tank Unit.

The implications of this are massive. You can intentionally bog your Commander down right next to an Artillery Unit and then take over one of its Teams. This way, you can split your artillery into two separate Units, gaining an additional Smoke Bombardment option (or extra Bomblets for example). What is also possible with the current rules is that you can now join this artillery Commander tank to an Aircraft Unit. If this happens, you can potentially have a situation where you fire your template rockets with Aircraft and at the same time have your Commander deliver his. How to resolve such a situation is not described in the rules.
Other nonsense plays include the Commander taking over observer tanks and anti-aircraft Teams.
Also, it is nowhere described what happens if he takes over a Unit Leader Team. Does that mean a new one is nominated immediately or does he have to do it, following the rules on page 49? If he has to do it, does the Unit loose its 'In Good Spirits' status because it has no Leader?

All in all this section needs a big improvement in my opinion. Hope this gets resolved by a FAQ at some point.

Team Yankee Rules Analysis - Part 1 (Unit Types and Turn Sequence)

Hello and a happy new year! :)

I am starting with a brand new series dedicated to the Team Yankee game. My intention is to cover the whole set of rules and dive deeper than the average blog by doing a close analysis of how TY plays, what are the main differences to FoW and what are the possible influences on the game.

Now, I was wondering how to approach this... I thought I would go in parts covering a section or several sections of the rules in one go (e.g. movement & command) but I could not get the proper formula for this article. This is why I decided to simply go page by page and pick out the most interesting stuff and do a writeup on exact paragraphs after a short intro into the whole section. I will also skip the items that did not change so much or are not interesting - I do not want to waste anybody's time by stating the obvious. Especially my own. Hope this works :)

WARNING!! Some of my understanding might stil be wrong as I only read the rules a couple of times so far. If I talk nonsense, please feel free to correct me in the comments section. I want this article to be as accurate as possible in the end. Thank you!

Teams and Units

The section's name is pretty self-explaining - it gives some basic game definitions. Not much has changed here apart from the introduction of the Formation concept. Formations are an extension to the already existing method of fielding your FoW armies. They mean that you can basically take one or more companies and use them in a game assisted by battalion level or division level support.

Also, this section introduces 2 interesting new unit types: Helicopter Aircraft Units and Attachments.

Aircraft Teams (p. 18)

This section describes what does BF mean by Aircraft. The issue I have with this description is that:
1. It does not explicitly says what do they mean by Aircraft Units. There is only a vague expression added: everything that flies, including Helis and Strike Aircraft. My understanding of an Aircraft Unit is any Unit that has it clearly stated on its corresponding card entry.
2. Across other sections of the book, the term Aircraft Unit is often substituted with "aircraft", which can cause confusion as to the real intention behind a rule (do they mean all aircraft or maybe a specific type of flyers?).

Attachments (p. 19)

This is a big change to FoW rules in my opinion. Now we have platoon transports that form a completely separate Unit with their own Leader that can go around the table causing all kinds of trouble on its own. For example, this can mean that if I mount my Dragon launchers on M113s I can use them as an extra tank platoon (although not so useful because with the exception of a Blitz Move, they can only move or fire). I can also leave my infantry behind and form an AA screen with the transports placed in the middle of the table. What is very important about this is since they form their own Unit, they are not "Out of Command"!
Another interesting point abouth Attachments (including Transport Attachments) is that they are allowed to capture and contest objectives. Hurray for feeding the objective with M113s or BMPs!

Now to bolster the darkside a bit, there are also some downsides to spoil this useful rule ;)
1. This rule does not apply to Transports of HQ Units - as per page 25.
2. If your core infantry unit runs, it goes with its Transport Attachments (wherever they are) - as per page 64.

Independent Units (p. 19)

Independent Units are a big laugh. The main reason for it is Morale (I am jumping ahead but do not want to forget this part as it is a really funny one). If you go by RAW, an Independent Unit team like the FIST is also the Unit's Leader. This means that if the FIST is bailed, it has to pass the Unit's Morale test or flee (according to rules on page 64). Fortunately, this does not apply to HQ Units, as they never have to test their Morale and will never run (more on that later).

Turn Sequence

Not much has changed here. It is a well known concept of move, shoot, assault so popular in modern wargames.
There is one point however, that needs to be mentioned:

The Starting Step (p. 24)

If you look at the sequence, you will notice that the 'Roll for Strike Aircraft' step is right before the reserve roll. This means that if you place your Strike Aircraft in Reserves, you WILL NOT roll for it on the turn it arrives from Reserves. This, in my opinion, has a big influence on the game, making Strike Aircraft an attack-oriented tool. On the defensive, you really have to choose lesser of the two evils:
1. You start with the Aircraft Unit available on turn 1, thus pushing one regular Unit back to Reserves. You are still not guaranteed to acquire air support.
2. You move your Aircraft Unit to Reserves. If you do this, you still need to roll a 5+ with whatever number of dice you are rolling to extract the Aircraft Unit from Reserves and then, only IN THE FOLLOWING TURN you can start rolling for your Strike Aircraft (single 4+ to receive air support).


This concludes part 1 of my analysis. Hope you like the formula. If you don't - please let me know what are your improvement ideas. Thanks! :)