You're pinned... Now what?

[Remington]

Going through this section of the LAF today, I remembered that in our last games we've been having two questions regarding being pinned crop up quite often.

According to the rules, after a unit has reached a pinned status, it cannot do anything but move 3 inches or use a recover order. Now, maybe that unit was on the way to your enemy and now it stands there, trying to avoid being shot at as well as it can. If it is the closest target for an enemy unit, does it still count as their main target that they can only ignore if they pass a morale check? In a rather static game a pinned unit could become quite an effective "fire-block" for an enemy one.
And what happens if they shoot at your unit and it gathers more suppression markers? Obviously the unit cannot be pinned again, but do the new suppression markers have any effect on that unit at all? We've since decided as a house rule that pinned units receiving further suppression markers have to flee, but we are wondering how this is meant to be settled "officially".

I've had a search through the topics here, but I couldn't see anything to answer our questions. Should I've been wrong, accept my apology and be so kind to point in the right direction.  

[Remington]

Now I am getting worried I might have asked extremely stupid questions... 

[Driscoles]

Nope...I just havent seen the post earlier. 

Forget the picture of a pinned unit standing there confused in disorder running up and down or stay static in the line of fire like the little tin soldiers we play with.

When I wrote the rule I had the following in mind. A unit received lots of fire, maybe has some casualties and is forced to keep it s head down. They are still intact but can not go forward because the morale has suffered a little bit the fire is too heavy to attack. But this means they are still there, they are probably not visible but the enemy shoots at them because if he does not they can shoot back once they have the chance to reorganize  their guts.

You don t have to pile more suppression markers once they are pinned and there is no extra effect. Just follow the instructions in the rule set 

We...usually try to recover as fast as possible.

Any house rules you do are appreciated. In this case I don t know if soldiers flee once they realized they receive more fire. They probably keep the heads down instead of running or search for better shelter or a comrade tries to rally the group...anyway morale is an interesting topic in wargaming and I can tell you we are currently play testing more easier and maybe better morale rules for T+T...but...the main idea ( see above ) will not be changed.

Cheers
Björn

[Remington]

Thank you, Björn! The house rules were born out of confusion really and the necessity to find an ad-hoc solution while we were playing. We had this impression that something must happen afterwards but we were unsure what it was. I am more than happy with how you intended this this be and your explanation and it certainly clarifies things for our next game.

[James Morris]

After a little initial head-scratching, we now play exactly as Bjoern has suggested and it works very well.  I don't mind that the Pinned unit becomes a bit of a 'fire block' for the enemy - we find that Raw troops carry on blasting away at it...

Ignoring extra suppressions is great for not having too many counters on one unit.  The minute the unit gets pinned, we whip off all the suppressions and replace it with a pinned counter - much more satisfying!

[MarkSieber]

Björn wrote:

In this case I don t know if soldiers flee once they realized they receive more fire. They probably keep the heads down instead of running or search for better shelter or a comrade tries to rally the group...anyway morale is an interesting topic in wargaming and I can tell you we are currently play testing more easier and maybe better morale rules for T+T...but...the main idea ( see above ) will not be changed.

I'm wondering how the playtesting is coming along for the morale rules.

In the meantime, we've been playing that if a pinned unit fails its recover test, it runs into nearest cover  out of harms way (or if none, towards the nearest friendly board edge.)

Units recover fairly easily, especially Veterans and better with leaders. This led to some discussion about whether units are too resilient--they keep coming back. So we also had decided to have a unit lose a figure for each failed recovery test once it is broken, but everyone has recovered so this hasn't actually happened yet!

Any thoughts?

Mark S.

PS Thanks for all the great support from this forum! Love the game.

[AzSteven]

I do like Mark's house rule on losing a figure for each failed recovery!

In our group, if a Pinned unit received more suppressions from fire, we have it immediately make a morale test, with a failure causing it to take a full move to cover, as long as it does not move closer to an enemy.  If it is unable to reach cover in that full move, the unit disintegrates and is removed from play.  If the unit was already in cover, the suppressions have no effect.

Sometimes that seems a little over-powered, but it seems to have worked OK and has certainly encouraged players to get their pinned units under cover and/or recovered as quickly as possible.

[Driscoles]

We found out that we like the morale rules. I don t think we change them on the whole. What I should do is write a more clear morale chapter.

In the recent played games we noticed that close combat can slow down the game a bit. This is no problem if you know the rules, but new players can easily forget the SM or negative close combat modifier resulting from suppression.

A good friend of mine has changed the close combat slightly. Close combat stops after two rounds and the loosing side ( if not destroyed ) is pushed back 1 inch !

Anyway...I am really open for every suggestions you guys make and  I do like your house rules.

Cheers
Björn