Some Questions after a first game

[dflament]

thanks Agis & Seldon for all the fast respones, we had our 2nd game yesterday and the rules are growing on us. I noticed for example that a well placed and setup MG42 eats infantry...
Some quick question to see if we played it right;

1) You automatically gain a suppression from every type of shooting action (rifles, AT-gun, mortar...) even if no hits are registered?
2) Concentrate fire also works for tanks with a gun with the Blast/1 or Blast/2 ability like the Panzer IV?
3) If the above is true you can go for the re-roll to critical even if you scored a regular hit with the first roll?
4) 6" from an objective is the rule; my opponent could hide in a building @ 5" from the objective with me unable to see/do anything about it (too far of to assault and almost end game). We changed this that you needed to be in LoS of the objective so he had to stand at a window. It didn't make much sense to us to stand on the second floor, behind 2 walls with the objective outside on the street, it was a little too gamey if you understand what i mean
5) Medic doesn't need to roll anything to 'save' a guy, he just needs to be within his leadership range?
6) You can hide after a shoot action? tbh we found this a little too OP; Opponent had 6pdr. Moved to gun behind hard cover, shot at tank and then hide (rinse repeat). We are thinking of changing this to not able to hide after a shooting action as the shooting would give away his position...

apologies for the many questions :-) we are still learning and hope to have everything ready for june when we are 'promoting' your game on our gaming convention in Belgium 

[Agis]

1 - Yes, see P.17 "Place Suppression Marker: The targeted enemy unit automatically receives a Suppression Marker as long as at least one attacking model can shoot at the unit."

2 - Yes, the action can be taken, see P.32 10.2 Vehicle Actions and the limitation of 6.3 / 10.2.2 Concentrate Fire.

3 - Yes, see 6.3 Concentrate Fire "any or all Damage Dice of the next Shoot Action may be re-rolled", you still risk to not hit on the second roll.

4 - About what rule are you talking here? Can you point me to the page or the game situation?

5 - Just as 7.13 Medic says... keep in mind that only the first failed save is ignored.

6 - What is "too OP"? Otherwise change whatever you dislike! It is your game after all. Personally - I am very happy how hiding and spotting works!

[dflament]

Thanks again for the quick responses!

about #4

pag 52 15.3 Objectives. need to be 6" marked from center of objective to the unit leader.

game situation : please see picture below For our game we added to this rule that LoS was needed to claim the objective. it looked a little 'gamey' claming an objective from behind 2 walls inside a building

[Agis]

Ahem, I do not really see a problem - or the need for a house rule - there.
1st - You can assault the mini in the house earlier, if you let him sneak up there for some rounds, do not blame the game system if he punishes you... 
2nd - The opponent can easily move one of his units into range of the objective and contest the objective.
Keep also in mind that you and your opponent are placing the objectives.

So no "gamey" situation at all.

I would strongly suggest to play some more games and then decide if you want any house rules!

[seldon]

Regarding 6), although the house rule seems interesting, I rationalize the effect a bit different.

Granted, if the gun has fired it should be easy to spot it and that is a particular case is not taken into account, but if you leave that aside, then I take it as an AT-gun firing from a hiding position that a tank would have to spot to eliminate. Because hiding requires an action you need to give the option to hide, in a different system a tank might always be required to observe the gun before firing ( ie hiding is implied, for example in Disposable Heroes or in Battelgroup  Kursk ), and might be a bit easier if it fired.

It really depends on how you take the abstraction, also because once someone spots the gun everyone sees it then it is convenient to have some infantry spot for your tank as they will find the guns easier than the tanks would. So the abstraction favors the use of combined arms, which I enjoy.

One could put a different house rule where once hidden it stays hidden till spotted and if it fires it is a +1 to spot for the tank, but then the changes are too dramatic, so the current "abstraction" of the hide order works in particular for my taste.

This really is an issue for guns because the gun is only 1 use per turn, others of course have to decide about the trade off, one more shoot action vs hide and maybe cancel shoot actions for the enemy.

Just food for thought as you consider the house rule...  We actually discussed this and we decided to keep it as is to maintain this idea of the AT firing from a hidden position that make it tough for the tanks .... 

just my 2 cents.

Francisco

[dflament]

coming from 15mm Battlegroup Kursk (in which you are easier to spot after shooting) it seemed to make more sense to us that after a shooting action you're easier to spot. You apparently cannot stay hidden while shooting but you can hide directly after.

Maybe 'unable to hide' is a bit too much as a houserule, I like the '-1 to spot modifier when fired in same turn'. We'll try that for our next game and see where it goes. We'll leave the objective thing as described by Agis

I also was a bit surprised to see that the "recon" ability doesn't give any modifiers to spot.

[Agis]

...
One could put a different house rule where once hidden it stays hidden till spotted and if it fires it is a +1 to spot for the tank, but then the changes are too dramatic, so the current "abstraction" of the hide order works in particular for my taste.

LOL!
Funny thing: During the initial playtest we had exactly this rule and some more.
In the end we often forgot the many modifiers and boiled it down to the current list.

So of you really need a houserule, go with this one... 

[seldon]

To me Victory Decision shows signs of careful playtesting, I can see house rules such as the one above that can be implemented and I can see how the current version of the rules resulted as the optimal compromise between playability and factors to be represented by the team that tested the rules.

That combined with Agis updating of the rules make it a great system to play with an extended group without having to agree on house rules, if your group is more homogenous then it is easy to include your own quirks like the +1 to spot after target fired or +1 to recon...

Still the core mechanics are strong so that will hardly break the system I think.. Hopefully you can report on any house rules that you try...

Francisco

[dflament]

actually it's just me and a buddy of mine so as you said, house-ruling shouldn't be the problem here. The rest of my gaming guys (about 6-7 dudes) are having a case of 40K 2nd edition nostalgia atm . Still trying to pull some of them over to the dark side but as i'm the only "WW2-geek" in there it's hard... very hard 

[seldon]

There is a path do a game of 40k with the Victory Decision Sci Fi rules ( choose scensrio 3, seek out, hold destroy etc, the long title ).

Once they've tried it maybe they'll like it and theeen ... would you like fomfry the WWII version of the rules ? ....

[Agis]

Sounds like a good plan!

I can't provide stats for 40K (for very obvious (C) reasons), but whoever needs input on some units ...
Just post them here.