"Testing Hail of Fire (Beta) - Part Two" Topic

I finished my game of Hail of Fire (Beta) and it was a great ending. link

I explored a lot of rules and came up with a few of my own. I made a few mistakes, but hope I rectified them all by the end.

I hope you enjoy the conclusion.

Dale

Fantastic and thorough report! Great pics and rules analysis too. Top notch. Im glad to see the blog in action again.

Clarifications: The big one… AT Fire. When your instincts told you AT rules seemed over complicated and out of place, they were right. RFP resolution is delayed, Pen and Ping rolls are not. After to-hit rolls are made and allocated, Pen and Ping dice are rolled immediately. Any RFPs generated are assigned and resolved later as normal, and a destroyed result would of course mean destroyed.

The thought behind this is that, unlike firing at infantry where the only way to tell the effectiveness of the fire is to either go in and check, or see them firing back or moving, if the turret of the tank blows off, everyone can tell immediately. No need for delayed resolution there. The RFPs generated can still roll a "Killed" result later when activated, which represents either the crew deciding to abandon the vehicle (which might not be obvious to everyone down range immediately) or the tank taking a minute or two before visibly brewing up. Also, there's obviously the practical benefits of this approach as its easy to play and doesn't require any additional markers not already being used. Let me know if that makes sense.

About suppressing the AT guns; Like everything else, this may need rebalancing/reconsideration, however I can share that the theory behind it is that yes they are probably shut down for a turn (there's always the possibility of rolling that 6!!! But yeah not likely) but they attempt to rally with every order given.So if they don't rally with the first fire order given, they're likely to with the second one (especially if there's an unsuppressed leader close by). This becomes a choice of where to allocate those order points. Spend multiple points to unsuppress and fire the guns, or move in the StugS. That's the thought behind it anyway. Also of note is that you deployed the guns all clumped up together, which allowed the possibility of suppressing every team with a single order, instead of requiring multiple orders to silence every gun (and potentially allowing return fire orders from the remaining gun in reaction).

Opportunity fire isn't only eligible the first opportunity the enemy comes into LoS. If they move in LoS, an opportunity fire order can be given. I notice that I use the language, "Opportunity Fire on a Unit that just moved within their Line of Sight (LoS)" which could be confusing, so I'll try to address that.

Lastly, I believe you ended the game very early. If I'm counting right, there are 11 units in this game so 10 plus 2 points per unit would be 33 points to break. I think maybe the confusion is you making 2 different "Break Points" (good name) for each force by only adding up all units on a side rather than ALL units in the game.

You can be sure I'll look through the post again when I get home and will let you know if I see anything else. Thank you again for the help!

Please point me to the rule that says all AT fire is resolved immediately. I can see that I played the AT gun fire at the Shermans wrong, as the former fired in reaction to the latter moving, so the following statement would apply: "Teams fired upon when moving in the open resolve their Received Fire Checks immediately." But when the StuGs fired at the Shermans, they were not moving, so that rule would not apply. Clearly I have missed the rule that says they always resolve immediately. Also, note all tanks do not "brew up" and tankers were known to pump additional rounds in after it was dead.

So, the RFP result for AT fire produces what? A single die to roll on their next activation? And which table would it go on, the Ping or Penetration? Or do you have to remember which it came from?

Regarding the AT gun suppression: I am not quibbling with the suppression rules or the rally rules, but the chance that they are suppressed in the first place. Because these units are small and the leader gets a hit after all of the guns get hit, you are pretty much going to lose the fire of one gun for every hit received. With the number of dice thrown (8 with 2 Shermans, 12 with 3) and 2/3rds of those causing hits, the platoon is down immediately. Yes I realize that they have a chance of shrugging it off; it is the same chance that they are dead, however!

The clumping comment is interesting, because you are implying that the guns should have had greater than 6" separation, which is a considerable distance. Anything less would have produced the same result. Realize that it was also a half-size platoon, which would put the frontage of a full platoon at something like 27"! Wow!

Yeah, if OpFire can be at any moving unit, you need to rewrite the rule. As you can see, I am a literalist. (When I read the rule correctly, that is!)

There were four units on the American side and six for the German, not counting company command assets, which I was not counting as 'units' per my opening statement in Part One. If I had counted them as full units, even more of the defenders would have had to come on as reinforcements. It sounds like you are saying you count units for BOTH sides and they both have the same score to reach before the game ends. I reread the rule and it does say "Units in the game" and not "Units on your side", so I misread that. And yes, that would make for a longer game. I did feel it came to a very short end. I think had I known the total was 30, I would not have made an unsupported attack so quickly. But I am satisfied with the result.

What I think a lot of this points out is the need for a judicious amount of examples. If that last section had said: "So if one side has four units and the other six units, the Break Point for both sides would be 30." That causes the reader to immediately check their assumptions. Same sort of thing with the Ping/Penetration example (which you need to proof, by the way).

The clarification on the AT fire and Break Point makes me feel better, but I think AT guns need some balancing, or, as with Flames of War, they will be an asset rarely hitting the table. And maybe that is historically correct?

Dale Sez…

Please point me to the rule that says all AT fire is resolved immediately.

Answer:
Page 4, 2nd paragraph…

When Firing at Armored Teams, allocate hits as
you would RFPs for non-Vehicle Teams (though they may be
hit more than 2 times from a single Fire Order), then roll a
number of dice equal to the Anti-Tank (AT) of the firing
weapon.

Page 4, 4th paragraph…

Any Destroyed result is resolved immediately. Any RFP
results are assigned to the hit Vehicle, and resolved when
next activated as normal.

regarding AT fire: RFPs are resolved when the unit next activates. Pen and Ping dice are part of the Anti tank fire process. So roll to hit, allocate hits, roll pen and ping dice for each vehicle hit. The result of those dice can be either nothing, Destroyed, or a number of RFP generated on the vehicle. RFPs meaning this tank has no immediately visible sign of incapacitation, but we know that rounds hit it. We won't know until it next activates if it's still operational, or if the crew decide to abandon it or smoke starts to eventually fill sky. Until that's revealed, its up the the enemy to decide whether they want to keep throwing lead on it (which again can result in an immediate explosion or additional RFPs to resolve later)or focus elsewhere.

Noted about tanks suppressing guns, something for me to pay more attention to moving forward. I'm also curious if the way the AT rules were played caused the guns to be less effective as a consequence. Potentially destroying or suppressing a sherman before they had the chance to fire back, significantly reducing their total dice thrown. It's hard for me to tell in my first read through and is perhaps irrelevant, but interesting to consider none the less.

Agreed its difficult to put 6" inches between every team, but even splitting a unit in 2, with 6" in between, is usually not difficult (though sometimes it can be) and often improves their survivability significantly. Also just want to throw out there thats theres no reason that teams from the same unit need to be deployed near each other at all, or even all at once. There have been times I've deployed one AT gun from a unit all by itself to get shots off at advancing tanks, and then when they engage that gun, reveal another one across a field to try and get flank shots. The consequence is that this can sometimes make teams in the same unit hard to coordinate actions (as they may not all have LoS to their leader) but sometimes its worth it and makes sense. Its very flexible in that way and with no additional rules overhead.

One of legacy issues I'm struggling with which is not immediately apparent is that the original genesis for this game was "Flames of War in 3 pages". But as time went on I discovered cool ideas here or there that made it a far more interesting game, and now its obviously to the point where its unrecognizable to that original concept and yet the writing in still mostly done in that, "No unnecessary words! No examples! As short as physics will allow!" mentality, which is no longer necessary. Slowly but surely, and with your much appreciated help, the rules are becoming more clear. Thanks again!

But you did not answer the question about how to resolve the RFP results. The Ping table generates an RFP on a '6'. The Penetration table results in a Destroy on a '6', so knowing which table to roll on helps. It sounds like all subsequent RFPs roll on the Penetration table, otherwise it could never produce a real result. Which I am fine with, but think it should be stated explicitly.

The AT versus Sherman result would not have changed. Whether I resolve immediately (during the AT fire) or just before firing in reaction is the same net result. The tanks have to check in between the AT fire and the Sherman fire. That is why there were only 8 dice firing at the AT guns and not 12.

@John: thanks for the spot.

Ah, I see what you're asking. RFPs are always resolved on the Received Fire Checks table. The same one as infantry. RFPs are RFPs. And as noted in the first sentence in the Armor section, all vehicle resolve RFPs as in Hard Cover.

Wait, what?!? So now vehicles can be suppressed? Wow! I got that one wrong by a mile. I wondered about that statement, but took it to cover small arms shooting at soft-skins.

I think you need to move the Armor section between the Firing section and the Received Fire Checks section. It would flow better that way.

Regarding the rule that AT fire is resolved immediately, the kicker was the statement: "When firing at Armored Teams, allocate hits as you would RFPs…". This brings to mind that it is the same general process of RFPs and RFCs. Also, that is exactly how it works for Soft-Skins.

Maybe instead of an Armor section it needs to be split into two sections: the first (Vehicles) explaining the different types, Armor and Soft-Skinned, with a brief statement that the former resolve fire under the AT Fire section and the latter use the Firing section, as normal. Then the Ping and Penetration charts, along with those associated rules, get placed in an AT Fire section, with a clear statement that Pings and Penetrations are resolved immediately. Both sections still need to go before Rally.

Just my two cents.

Dale

Yeah. RFPs trigger the pre-activation morale check which I am all for. Suppressed means the unit is not interested in firing right now. Stunned for vehicle crews and scared for infantry/soft targets. It kinda works. So long as you are moving away from the enemy, you can move.

It is more than that though. It means small arms fire can suppress a tank, rather easily.

Small arms can't fire at tanks: "Vehicle Teams may be either Armored (Tanks, Half Tracks, Self Propelled Artillery) or Soft Skinned (Trucks, Jeeps). Armored Teams may only be harmed by Teams firing AT weapons."

Yeah. You need an AT weapon. I gathered that from my readings…or at least my interpretations.

Well fortunately I never tried firing at a tank with small arms fire, but the HMG should have an AT rating in order to engage Half-Tracks, which are also Armored Vehicle teams, unless you don't think they rate as such.

I'd rate half tracks as immune to small arms, if only for simplicity. I can understand the argument made for heavy machine guns like .50 etc as an AT weapon, though the issue is the interaction between the extremes of low AT weapons vs high Armor targets. For example, I'd rate a .50 team something like RoF 2, AT 1, this would mean it would roll 2 pen dice against the flank of a pzIV, or 2 ping dice against anything heavier. This makes sense for most things, but when you start getting into super heavy stuff like TigerII, jadgpanther etc, it still rolls 2 ping dice. I'm not sure I see this as a huge issue in practice, but I can understand why someone might. What's your feeling?

You could easily add an Open Top (OT) attribute and say that small arms/HMGs only get their AT value against open top vehicles. Would affect Wirblewinds, Marders, M10s, etc. but not Panzer IVs, Shermans, Tigers, etc.

It's a good idea. I'll squeeze something like that into the next update.