I just tried another variant for Suppression and Pinning

[Driscoles]

Hi,

a German T&T player from the Sweetwater Forum named Curaitis sent me an interesting variant for suppression and pinning.

Here is his email  in German :

Pinning erfolgt nach dem jede Figur der Einheit einen Marker bekommt, also bei 100%. Wie wäre es wenn die Einheit dann bei 50% Marker einen Malus für Surpression erhält, also die ganze Einheit mit allen Modellen dann mit +1 belegt wird, statt die "Buchhaltung" für den Wurf individuell mit einem Marker belegten Modelle zu modifizieren.

Das würde das Spielgeschehen nach meiner Meinung erheblich beschleunigen und eine "übliche" Fehlerquelle des Vergessens von Markern beseitigen.

Translation in short :

If 50 % of the unit has received suppression marker the whole unit receives - 1 modifier for shooting and close combat. 
Automatic pinning when every model in a unit has received a suppression marker.

I played this variant yesterday and I thought it worked pretty good.

What do you guys think ?

Björn

[Doomhippie]

Gee, you're the boss. The only thing is that surpresseion markers become even more dangerous. You know my luck when it comes to rolling dice. A -1 modifier is a hard blow for me...

[Remington]

I quite like it. It reduces book-keeping, even if book-keeping has never been a large factor with T&T. And the fact that suppression is even more dangerous is not necessarily a negative. Might make large native units a bit more interesting as well.

Lets see if our group here is willing to go for it next time we meet.

[Westfalia Chris]

I think it would be a good way to streamline the procedure. Obviously, it reduces the impact of markers below 50% of unit strength, and increases their impact above that threshold, so it should even out.

I am not sure how the automatic pinning would impact gameplay. Basically, I think that the benefit gained from streamlining and speeding up this part is quite beneficial, and additionally, you get a bit more predictability in that you KNOW that you will be pinned after receiving a certain number of markers; this might, however, slow down the overall gameflow as people might be more likely to play a recover action before the 100% treshold is reached.

Maybe it could be slightly modified by allowing the highest-quality units (i.e. definitely Elites, rare as they are, and potentially Veterans) to still be able to perform a score check to avoid getting pinned, but then requiring them to roll once whenever activated until they complete a "Recover" action.

Coincidentally, I had a long talk with James Morris today at Partizan, and his thoughts on the rules mirrored this, in that some areas might benefit from some streamlining. I wonder if this new interpretation of the Suppression mechanism could improve things enough, as firing, for example, is already reduced to a to-hit roll and a damage roll - obviously more than the minimum, but anything less would probably be too abstract for the level of play we want to depict, and would possibly require adding new stats (e.g. "resilience" or something) and involve more calculations.

[NurgleHH]

Sounds good. SHould be replace the existing rule

[Plynkes]

I'm happy with how suppression works. Personally I think the thing that needs streamlining most is melee, particularly in colonial games with big units. In our games the losers just keep not breaking, and the whole game grinds to a halt and everyone has to wait while the melee goes on and on.

We're thinking of experimenting with a rule where if a melee isn't decided after two (or maybe more) bouts of fighting it carries over into the next game turn, so that at least the other folks playing can do stuff in between. Needs thinking about to integrate it into the turn sequence, though.

[Westfalia Chris]

I'm happy with how suppression works. Personally I think the thing that needs streamlining most is melee, particularly in colonial games with big units. In our games the losers just keep not breaking, and the whole game grinds to a halt and everyone has to wait while the melee goes on and on.

We're thinking of experimenting with a rule where if a melee isn't decided after two (or maybe more) bouts of fighting it carries over into the next game turn, so that at least the other folks playing can do stuff in between. Needs thinking about to integrate it into the turn sequence, though.

That was another of the issues James told me about (melees dragging on and on). I admit to be a bit baffled by it, as most melees I have experienced were over in a maximum of two rounds of fighting, but have heard from several players now that they can drag on interminably. Statistical effect, I guess, but it should probably be addressed.

I wonder if we should think about making the "activation bounds" (i.e., every instance the players turn over a unit card from their stack) a stronger fixture of the game turn. If so, we could integrate the melee rounds as follows:

In a given activation bound, the attacker initiates the melee by playing a Charge/Melee order. A first round of combat is fought (all within the normal initative sequence). Necessary tests are performed. If the melee continues, its next round is NOT fought immediately, but at the end of the next activation bound, i.e. after the next cards have been turned over and the respective units have acted.

Alternatively, should the unit which was charged in the previous bound happen to be activated in the current activation bound, the melee could be fought in sequence.

[Driscoles]

Hi !

I also fought many close combats that had a quick result. But on this years Tactica I can recall that we fought on and on. So Plynkes is right on this. On my last game with Grimnir last weekend Grimnir almost lost every close combat with his British but he was clever to withdraw instead of fighting on. We played close combat with a rules clarification that you can not charge again in the next round if you just fought a close combat. However when T+T was designed we didnt have in mind larger battles so I guess it needs some modification on close combat and morale. Please feel free and open a close combat thread while we continue the discussion on morale on this thread. I personally like the morale rule how it is now but I see the point. Placing markers counting them and calculate the modifiers can slow the game down and it causes bookkeeping and I always wanted to reduce bookkeeping to a minimum.
When we played the rule as Curaitis suggested I had the feeling it was working well.
I think it could be modified that Raw troops are immediately pinned and trained and better troops can check morale. Casualties, Leaders and Heroes can modify the result too...well we will see.
Many thanks for your posts, ideas and contributions. We need your experience. please carry on !
Cheers
Björn