"Move then Shoot actions: Why that order?" Topic

Many games have a fixed order for the phases of each turn and Movement followed by Shooting seems to be very common. Is there any rationale or history behind this?
Of course there are many rules sets that allow you to choose the order of actions but I was wondering why Move then Shoot. Personally, I'd prefer to suppress my enemy before I advance toward them.

Fire then move can create a situation where the attacker cannot fire at the beginning of his turn so skips fire and then moves. Defender then takes his turn. First he fires and then moves behind different cover or out of range.

Repeat over and over, attacker never gets a shot off.

Some games are the reverse. I have no problem with that.

In operational and strategic level games it makes sense that a unit needs to move in order to attack.

For tactical games fire then move is more common, but usually a unit can't do both. This allows the attacker to soften and pin the target and then assault with units that have not fired.

Rapid Fire allows you to shoot, or move then shoot with a movement penalty.

The history is that is what Don Featherstone and Charles Grant did in their rules. OTOH, Panzerblitz had the much more sensible, for modern tactical combat, shoot then move sequence.

To me the most engaging thing about Lasalle is you shoot first then move. It really makes you think quite a bit about where your fellows will end up after a move!

Wait, fire, and reposition is a common tactic.

As John the OFM mentions, "shoot lock" can happen both ways in both systems. But it only happens if both sides let it happen, i.e., the side being locked out has to keep repositioning himself so that they won't get a shot.

Some times you let that happen to you once (or twice!) in order to achieve a better position from which you can force your hand.

My skirmish system, QILS, lets you move-shoot or shoot-move (but not move some, shoot, and finish your move or the other way around). This gives lots of options when you think even two or three turns ahead.

There is an interesting effect of shoot-move in my Troll Ball game. If a figure is adjacent to the ball, it can defend the ball from an opponent's kick. So you can "shoot" (kick the ball), then move up to its position to defend it during the next players' turns.

(Of course, you have to have ended your last turn adjacent to the ball to do that … or an opponent's shot has to have landed it adjacent to your troll.)

"Shoot lock" with fire and move, is a feature, not a bug, and reflects the reality of defenders seeing moving attackers first, firing, and relocating. With move-shoot, you get the common situation of an attacker moving round a corner into sight and then firing – totally unrealistic. Fire-move also does away with the need for complex overwatch rules.

If you think that shoot lock is an issue, you could always make it that on a particular shoot result, the attacking unit is unable to move.

Maybe because the first games were all MSM mechanics (Move-Shoot-Morale)?

It's not a bad representation of an OODA loop or some other decision cycle.

The shoot after move might be for several reasons.

1. If you don't shoot after movement you may have given away your tactical intentions (assuming the move distance is generous) without being able to get a shot in too.
2. If you "punish" troops that have moved it might force a player to give up a move in return for an advantageous shot.
3.Because shooting after movement is an advantage I often force movement to be in a straight direction with formation and direction changes before movement. Thus I can go past your flank with my straight move but not turn and fall upon it, if you start the turn to my front.

Just thoughts, no insults intended.

martin

It depends if the rules allow you to move AND shoot, or if you have to choose.

If the characters or units must choose between moving and shooting (and cannot do both), the exact order is only for game convenience: the beginning of the game turn happens almost at the same moment that the end of the previous game turn, so there is no difference between shooting at the end of the previous game turn or at the beginning of this game turn (the target had no time to move). That's why some rules don't allow you to change this order (to prevent players from shooting twice in a few seconds altough in different game turns).

So you can't compare it with a tactical choice: in fact your real tactical choice is separated between two game turns (should I shoot in turn A and then move in turn B, or should I move in turn A and then shoot in turn B?) instead of having this choice in two periods of only one game turn; but that's exactly the same choice.

The history is that is what Don Featherstone and Charles Grant did in their rules. OTOH, Panzerblitz had the much more sensible, for modern tactical combat, shoot then move sequence.

To clarify, Don Featherstones rules had both sides move, both sides shoot and then both sides melee.

Units that did not move shot first followed by units that did move. Shooting was simultaneous by order. So non moving units shot and then casualties were assessed. Then moving units shot and then casualties were assessed. It's actually a really simple system that keeps "gameyness" to a minimum.

Habit.

I tried it the other way. Had players fire first in a simultaneous fire phase. Then movement. The idea was that the fire would have a great effect on the troops fired on which would set the conditions of what they could do in the movement and subsequent fire terms.

The gamers detested it. I was greeted with shrieks of horror "But I didn't get my fire!" I told them, you did, you both got it together at the start of the turn!. Now you've moved and done your move, and now in the new turn you get the combat phase at the start of the turn1"

The looked aside crestfallen and said "Oh… WELL WHAT ABOUT MY MELEE!!" they cried.

"That was in the combat phase along with the fire!" I told them..

"Oh…. you mean I don't get a fire fase?" "Yes, you do, you both got it, at the start of the turn. " "Oh…"

Next turn same thing.

Three months of playtesting later I just gave up and took the combat phase (with both fire and melee in it) and put it as the LAST phase of the turn, (and it made absolutely no difference to the rules) and everyone was happy.

Habit…

I have no problem with move and fire systems. If you have ever played WarEngine they use a move and/or fire system. You can fire before/during/after the movement. It works fine and does it make it kind of deadly.

But if you're gonna fire on the move then I think there should be a penalty of some kind. Maybe a -1 to hit or what ever would work for your system. If your system allows ,say , a 6" move and a 12" run or extended move. Then firing on the run should get an even bigger penalty.

Then there are the enemy troops who are on overwatch (excuse the GW term). If you are going to do a move and fire then they should get a "+" modifier to account for that moment of hesitation where you stopped or slowed down to fire.

Does this sound reasonable?

8)

I have a move and shoot system where a unit and do both in a turn with cumulative deductions for movement, smoke, distance, and cover. Since I wargame in black powder ere, it allows a unite to mass its fire power and makes the casualties accumulate within a more realistic number range.

I experimented with shoot and move for my ww2 rules, but the "shoot lock" (nice term) turned out to be a deal breaker for me.

In a defensive/offensive game, on a table with plenty of terrain, the attacker never gets to fire. The defender fires and moves backwards into new cover.

This may be realistic (I don't believe it is) but it makes a terrible game.

Reminds me of the Panzerbush discussions in board gaming…

Basically you play to the game designer's "insights' into how it really went down.
Nothing says that he is right or wrong, except by how much he agrees with YOUR insights.

Just designer preference, and to make up for the lack of a decent overwatch/opportunity fire mechanism.

I generally prefer rules where you have the option to do it either way round, and with overwatch/op fire.

With move-shoot, you get the common situation of an attacker moving round a corner into sight and then firing – totally unrealistic.

Or in one set of rules I played, cavalry riding up across open ground to artillery and shooting the crew dead with pistols before they could return fire. (It wasn't a unfortunate event that happens from time to time -- the way the rules were written, cavalry was the best way to remove artillery!) Once changed to shoot then move, and that tactic disappeared.

Just designer preference, and to make up for the lack of a decent overwatch/opportunity fire mechanism.

I generally prefer rules where you have the option to do it either way round, and with overwatch/op fire.

Thereby adding a whole extra level of complexity in the rules?

My preference, on the contrary, is for rules to be as simple as possible. If you can get the effect of overwatch and ambush without having to write in special rules, that is just perfect.

You can also usually do away with fire in response to a charge, which is yet another clip-on rule that clogs up rulebooks.

If you can get the effect of overwatch and ambush without having to write in special rules, that is just perfect.

This is part of the reason I went with either/or for QILS. You can get an opportunity fire situation if you can position your forces where the enemy has to transit an area without cover for more than one round. Whether or not this tactic is available then becomes a function of the situation (terrain, objectives, conditions), rather than the rules. I think that makes a lot more sense …

Didn't WRG 1950-75 use shoot-move? Can any players say how that worked out in their games?

Move then shoot. You can start the game out of range and move into range so you can shoot.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I like the move then fire option, but I'll admit that is more from habit and convention.

@etotheipi, if you have fired, does that limit the type of movement you are allowed immediately after? Do you have a shoot, then move-shoot mechanism?

if you have fired, does that limit the type of movement you are allowed immediately after? Do you have a shoot, then move-shoot mechanism?

Yes. All the units are assigned dice. All units have a basic move of four units (usually inches for 28mm games). During your move phase you can "use" a die to add two units to your movement. That die is then not available for the attack phase.

So (attack-move) with a two-die unit, if I attack with one die, I have one die left over to add to my later move. If I use both dice (better odds for the attack), then I have only my basic move left.

Same thing in reverse. If I (move-attack) move my full move plus both bonuses, I have no dice left for an attack. Or if I only use one die for movement, then I have one die left for the attack. Only moving my base rate leaves me a better attack, but probably farther away (and with a potentially greater range penalty).

The QILS rules are free, short (two, two-sided pages) and come with a page of scenarios and sample units.

Sorry, I missed the second half of the question …

Do you have a shoot, then move-shoot mechanism?

No. But … kind of. QILS has an ability called "tricked out". A figure that is tricked out can choose one rule that has the word "can't" in it and substitute "can". So while figures can't move-shoot-move or shoot-move-shoot, a tricked out figure (which is obviously of higher caliber than a non-tricked out figure) can.

I spent a lot of time going over the rules and picking the specific wording to support that.

(If you are the inclusive type rather than the exclusive type, a tricked out figure could apply that to scenario specific rules, as well.)

For battles, move and shoot is the best way if you are interested in producing realistic results.
The reason is that a turn usually represents a slice of time, perhaps 1 minute. In a minute a unit can advance a long way, perhaps 100 yards for infantry.
In a minute a shooting unit can fire several shots or volleys – as the target moves. Shooting in reality occurs concurrently with movement. Therefore rules need to allow for this.
And as the effectiveness of a shot is determined by the position of the target, movement has to come first.

For example, a trained musket unit could fire 2 to 4 times in a minute. But the key variable in determining casualties is the distance at which the volley occurs. Does the unit start shooting at 100 yards or does it wait until the attacker is 20 yards away?
This decision is more often than not the key decision in musket combat because the first volley is the most effective one. Often it was saved until the enemy was at close range.
Once fired, the defender then counter charged.
The only way this can be resolved correctly is if the attacker moves first (or the turn length is short e.g. 15 seconds).

Good rules have elegant mechanisms for working this out.
Dud rules will assume the mover is at the same position for the whole turn, usually the ending position. Or they assume that only one shot occurs in the turn.

But there are many kinds of problems in tabletop rules. Which ones are important? It comes down to personal choice.

For example, battle rules often forget that a vehicle model might represent several real vehicles e.g. a section of 4 tanks. The shooter might be just one a/t gun e.g. an emplaced 75 defending a beach landing. It may be impossible for the gun to knock out all tanks in a turn, as the gun cannot be reloaded and re-aimed 4 times in the time a turn takes. Ditto for hand-operated turrets. The penetration of the gun might good, but its rate of fire will be slow if the targets are spread out, but fast if the targets are bumper to bumper on a road.

Thanks, Etotheipi

In IABSM you have three actions. Each action gets you one die of movement, one of firing, or if you are spotting blinds 1 action spots, subsequent actions add 1 to the 2d6. Most units have three actions.

So you can Fire 3d6
Spot, +1 to the roll, then fire 1d6
Move 1d6, fire 2d6
Fire 1d6, move 1d6, "Go to Ground"
Move 1d6, fire 1d6, move 1d6
Reserve 3d6 to fire as Opportunity fire
Move 1d6, reserve 2d6
etc

Regardless of the actual mechanisms, any game, whether board or tabletop has to establish in what order things happen. It is the backbone of any system. IGO/UGO Move-shoot, or Shoot-move systems are certainly the simplest,or perhaps the grossest methods for dividing up time/events, but any 'simultaneous' system has the very same core issues.

As others have said here, how you parse the actions or scale time the actions represent depends entirely on what you want the system to do for the player. There really aren't any inherently 'wrong' methods. It all depend on what decisions you want the players to have and what you want to represent with the mechanics.

Having said that, there certainly can be mismatches. There are some mechanics that simply can't produce some play experiences or meaningfully mimic particular aspects of combat and history…

In a defensive/offensive game, on a table with plenty of terrain, the attacker never gets to fire. The defender fires and moves backwards into new cover.

To break this shoot lock, allow a unit that doesn't move to pick the point in the others sides movement it wants to fire. So if the other side decides to move backwards the unit not moving can choose the closest range it is at. See if that backward moving unit survives enough to get to its backward point.

In a defensive/offensive game, on a table with plenty of terrain, the attacker never gets to fire. The defender fires and moves backwards into new cover.

This only happens on a board with infinite space. Otherwise, they get cornered or retreat off the board. But, yes, it is difficult for infantry to root out an entrenched enemy without armour, artillery, or air support.

For skirmishing, supposedly it's a lot easier to move troops into a firing position and laying down fire than it is for the same troops to fire while retreating,

I prefer Player A moves, Player B Fires, Player A Fires. Player B Moves, Player A Fires, Player B fires.

This allows for the opposition to ambush fire as you get into range, but you can then engage them back. This prevents "shoot lock"

That's an interesting solution. I wonder what consideration would have to be made to the fact that each player gets two rounds of shooting in per turn, rather than one. Simply reducing effectiveness by half, or something more specific?

Wow… I guess for me it all depends upon the type of game being played…. and scale.

For skirmish games 1:1, I really enjoy the type that have 2 phases or "pulses"…. move-shoot, move-move, shoot-move or shoot-shoot… (which translates into supressive fire).

Using a very short time scale, I won't get into mods for fire combat… full clip, aimed, etc… the 2 phase system really works well in skirmish games…

So, in a sense, I use both systems in one. move-shoot & shoot-move… there is a time for each situation.. including move-move.. when you don't want to be caught out in the open.

Another I like is move or shoot… with a modifier for moving and shooting… it all comes down to time per turn and scale.. what can you realistically do in that amount of time.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this is usually done simotaneously… and since you can do either action each time, there is no book keeping to worry about.

I've played ww2 tank games where you decided to do a short move or full move or none. You then shot.
You couldn't shoot after a full move and you had significant penalties after a short move.
Plusses for a second + shot at same target.

I have played with rules where in each turn, Side A moves, then there is a simultaneous Fire phase in which any or all eligible units on both sides can fire; then Side B moves, followed by a similar Fire phase. The trick here is that each unit only gets to fire ONCE in a turn. So there is a decision to be made as to whether to fire at the first opportunity or to hold fire until the second Fire phase. Simple but effective.