Design questions...

[Pronto232409]

We have organised our first game of ViDe for this week and as the bloke introducing these rules to the group I know I am going to be bombarded with design questions, so I thought I might try to get ahead of the curve here and ask a few questions that I think might arise when I show off the rules.

1.  Why do the LW US and LW Germans have the same leadership scores and the LW Brits and LW Russians share the same the same values.

2.  Why do the Section MG's ie Brens and BAR's share the same number of Firepower dice as the Vickers and 30cal MG's

Thanks

[Agis]

Just some reasons...

1 - US - confidence, good Support lines etc.
Germans - Desperation, the sheer German stubbornness not to give up, the fear what the Soviets will do to the German Civilians...
British - Younger and younger recruits, nobody wants to be the last men to die in WWII etc.
Soviets - Overall bad Training etc.

In addition I am always looking up other WWII game Systems, like BA, DH or FoW to get a bit of coherence across game Systems. So even if I read  a historical text about well  trained Soviet Units but the Overall gaming Consensus are badly trained Units, I tend to give also less exalted gaming stats.

2 - I am afraid I do not really get your question…
M1919A6 .30 Cal HMG   3   48”   2xD6+1   Set Up/2, Suppression
M1918 BAR   3   36”   3xD6   Suppression
Bren LMG   3   36”   2xD6   Set Up/2, Suppression
Vickers HMG   3   48”   2xD6+1   Set Up/2, Suppression

Looks different to me, can you explain it a bit more?

[Pronto232409]

It is my mistake concerning the weapon features - I had not read the rules correctly.

So the Leadership value is not a function of a commanders ability to command on the battlefield but more a reflection of logistics and other off table effects.

Perhaps calling it something else might have been better. A Leadership value would indicate to me the combat commanders ability to motivate his troopers to achieve his combat mission.

With this in mind I have no troubles seeing the Germans as rated at 7 (I will refer to Platoon Commanders only as the values seem to be consistent throughout) with the US and Brits rated as 6 with the Russians coming in at a 5.

The US filtered their replacements into units and even their wounded would not necessarily be returned to the unit in which they had previously served. The Brits and Germans seemed to have at least returned their wounded to the units in which they had served prior to being wounded. There are examples of the more experienced members of a US squad not even bothering to learn the names of the new guys until they had seen a bit of combat just in case they became casualties.

Now I am only referring to the standard infantry units in this post - not the more elite units like Paras etc.

What function is there within the points system to reduce leadership values - apart from the battle worn ability.

[Agis]

I am honestly not really getting your Point...
 
Quote from the rulebook:
Leadership (Ld) – This statistic reflects the leadership, training, alertness, bravery or level of tactical insight.
It is used in many, many places all over game, starting how it effects movement (Ld Distance), to Command Actions and all the rest.
 

[Pronto232409]

My point is I find it hard to believe that the US are rated the same as the Germans and the Brits the same as the Russians.

I am fairly certain no US or German soldier wanted to be killed with the war coming to an end either.

Is there a way to change these values as some lists do not have the 'Battle Worn' points reduction???

[Agis]

There is no "official" way.

If your opponent agrees try the following:
If you want to bump your Ld up one point take 10% off the points value you can use for the battle.
So in a 1000 pts battle were all your infantry benefits from a Ld +1 you can only field units worth 900 points.
No cherry picking, every infantry unit is one dot better, vehicles stay the same.

That goes also the other way. If you think your forces are too good you can lower the Ld by1 and can use 10% more units.

This is a very rough way but should work!

[Pronto232409]

Ok I will put that to the group.

We played out our first game last week and these were just some of the questions that were put to me that were design choices and I wanted to give my group answers from the designer, not a "well this is probably what he was trying to achieve" type answer.

I like the rules as written, although the leadership values had me scratching my head when it was raised during the post game debrief.

We have our second game planned for this week.

[Agis]

Have fun!

[Pronto232409]

Hope so, if I remember I will post a debrief....

[mav0604]

I am playing my first game of ViDe with Pronto this week.

US Airborne vs Waffen SS. If my dice do the usual thing, I will get my backside kicked as usual. I have fun anyway.

Cheers