"Hail of Fire (Beta): Questions Thread" Topic

The author suggested creating a single thread for asking all questions related to this game. So here goes.

1. What is the purpose of hiding the Hero die from your opponent?

2. What is the purpose of using a second die to count up on Hero points used, rather than counting down on the Hero die?

3. If the German player spends, say, five Hero points on orders and subsequently both players tie on their orders roll, this rule states that the players re-roll their Hero die. The German player rolls a '4'. Do they get four more Hero points to spend or, because they have already spent more than four they have none to spend? Put another way, is the only way for them to get more hero points to roll a '6', at which point they would have one point remaining to spend?

4. Can small arms put RFPs on Armored Vehicle teams? Or is the only way to accumulate RFPs on them to receive them from the Ping and Penetrate tables?

Thanks in advance.

Dale

You use 1 die to show how many command points you have left. You use a second die to track your hero points. The points remain hidden so your opponent can't count how many points you have in total. But as a trade off, your points are only re-rolled at unpredictable times.

Hero Dice section.

Any time the Playersroll a tie on their Order Dice, both Players reveal and re-roll their Hero Die, generating a new pool of Hero Points, replacing whatever was remaining in their previous pool.

It is not specified but common sense dictates that small arms can only affect soft skin and open top vehicles. The latter would almost certainly be counted as hard cover. That last bit is a guess.

@John: I asked the purpose, not the mechanism. Counting down on the die produces the same result as counting up on a second die depending upon the answer to #3. If the generation of a new pool simply replaces your MAX total, rather than ADDING to your total, then the counting up die makes sense.

Half-tracks are open-topped and Armored Vehicle teams, which is why I asked here. Look at FoW and the number of 1-0-0 vehicles. All of those should be affected by, say, an HMG with an AT of 2. The HMG in HoF has no AT, so by the rule you cited in the other thread, the half-track and other open-topped armored vehicles are immune. Which is why I am asking.

1. Hero points are hidden so that your opponent doesn't have complete information about your capability to perform actions. He may want to move a vehicle through an open field within LoS of a high powered AT gun, and knows for sure that you've used all your order points generated for that turn, but he can't know for sure (usually) if you're out of hero points or still have some left. Similarly with the chit draws, you would normally keep it secret so that your opponent can't confirm how close you are to breaking. He can see how many chits you have, but not the total.

Neither of these are crucial, but they're simple ideas that add a lot of fog of war, which I personally enjoy.

2. Using another die to count up allows for a polite way to prove you weren't cheating. When Hero points are rerolled you reveal the secret die and can compare it to the open die. If the rolled hero die was 3 and your open die is 4 or more, you can see you spent more points than you should have.

3. When you roll new hero dice, you lose whatever points you had remaining, and gain the number rolled. If at the beginning of the game you rolled a nice 6 points, but didn't use them, you lose all of them and gain whatever new number is rolled. Of course is you use all of then turn 1, you might possibly never get more.

4. Small arms can't effect Armored Vehicles. The HMG question is a valid one. From my post in the other thread: 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?

Okay, so the hidden information part is really about extending the Fog of War, while the 'count up' die is to keep you honest.

So in answer to three, not only does the Hero die get re-rolled, but the 'count up' die gets reset to '0', correct?

I answered about HMGs and half-tracks on the other thread. At some point you are going to have to deal with open-topped vehicles. If the call is to treat them as fully armored, for simplicity, I am okay with that. But I would rather see a rule for open-topped vehicles.

Also, please seriously consider my suggestion (on the blog) to come up with a guide on how to convert Flames of War stats to Hail of Fire stats, unless you see that as your way of making money. :^)

BTW Dale, these questions are really good to test the rules clarity. It is a good challenge to see if the answer can actually be found with the rules as written. So far, only one answer (small arms vs armored vehicles) was not answered all that well.

@Dale: correct, it resets the count-up die too.

About half tracks, I suspect the direction I'll try will be something like giving HMGs AT 1, but specifying in their notes that they only count as AT against Armor 1 or 0.

As for stats, well first of all, making money is definitely not the goal (though those that have thrown in a tip are very appreciated!), but also the AT and Armor stats were originally converted from FoW. I forget the conversion but it was SUPER simple. The big issue there is that FoW's point system account for all kinds of stuff that HoF doesn't and probably never will, so the points costs will never really work across games. That said having a basic guide on how to convert stats just to easily give people more toys to throw on the table definitely couldn't hurt!

Couple of questions sprinkled throughout my HoF battle report. link

"There is still a glitch in the rules that says if you tie in orders the high roller goes first. There is no "high roller" on a tie and the result would be 0 orders for both."

- A glitch indeed. When order dice roll the same number (unmodified), hero dice are revealed and then rerolled, and the ORDER DICE are rerolled as well. I will correct this in the next update!

"The Germans order the grenadiers to "Go To Ground", which allows them to resolve hits and "ignore all killed results". Now it does not say "convert to Suppressed" but "ignore", so I am counting it as no result."

-"Killed" results should be read as Suppressed. Correcting!

"…given that failing a morale check results in the unit being destroyed, does the side draw another two chits? I think not, as I believe that situation is for a unit that is wiped out by means other than morale. It should probably say that though."

Correct. Whether you take and fail a moral check or are destroyed to a man by fire or assault, the penalty is 2 chits pulled. I'll try to make the language more specific.

Thanks! :D