"Playing Better: the Flank, full squads, and leader teams" Topic

I'm going on about this to hear more of what other people think, and disagreeing with me is fine, I might learn something.

This is a pretty simple concept, what is the flank? In BA a squad can shoot in any direction, through its own members so attacking it from the side (90 degrees from its previous direction of movement?) or rear doesn't benefit you, so what is 'protecting your flank?'

Think of your squads as a formation, if you are attacked from a point where your squad blocks return fire from friendly squads to the enemy squad attacking you, that squad has 'Flanked' you. Try to avoid nice straight lines, and use light forces to help 'protect' your flanks.

Full squad advantage. Stretching your points by creating smaller squads and getting more dice in the bag is credible strategy but… Your squads are not as powerful and have less endurance in a firefight. They do also take up less room and can be grouped closer. 3/4 squads can work if your tactic is to make a quick hard punch into the enemy, hopefully being able to delay his reaction with distance and support units. You can always use a mix, a couple of full squads with a half squad to cover a flank. The one advantage of a full undamaged squad is to reroll a Fubar roll, but that doesn't come up too often in a game so the risk is minor.

Leader team. taking a two man leader team give it the small target advantage, vs a tradeoff of the ablative third man to soak up casualties. However, the men are armed as the figure represents. Nothing says the leader and his staff can't be armed with assault rifles or submachine guns. This can make them a pretty potent force if you get into a tight spot, even having a chance at survival in getting jumped by a full squad in hand to hand. Your leadership team primary purpose is to rally and coordinate group movement, but its value as a combat force should not be ignored. Even if they were armed with just two riflemen and a pistol armed officer, they can still put a pin and maybe a kill on an enemy squad.

Smaller squads are too 'brittle'. A couple of hits and they are worthless. There is a reason for 9 to 12 man squads. They are reasonably effective even after a couple of casualties. There are some games that have a squad broken down into a fire team and an assault team, but B.A. is up a level from that. Also, you might want to think the there is really a minimum size for a combat unit to be effective. Think of the ACW where commanders combined smaller regiments or the Napoleonic period where 2 or more battalions were combined to form an effective firing line or square.
Keep your officer staff small: just one buddy.
The other night my 8th Army Brits were racing some DAK to occupy some buildings in the middle of the board. His Germans came up just short. My captain and his buddy entered the building and SMG'd the DAK in the open, causing 1 casualty and a pin. He then ordered a nearby squad to follow him into the building and that gang shot up the Germans again (2 or 3 casualties and another pin). The captain then ordered his second squad into the adjacent building and they finished up the poor German squad. Broke the German commander's morale (and his heart). The lesson here is that the officers are too important to make them targets by adding just that 1 additional guy. A minus 1 on a 6 sided die is big. Also, I think that SMG's are the best armament. Rifles have too few dice and the SMG can help them get out of trouble if assaulted. If your officers have rifles, you'll want to put them with fields of fire, which means they can be shot at. With short range weapons, you hide them and actually use them to command troops.
Regards flanks: there are 2 types in B.A. There is the off board kind which we don't use, so it's hard for me to comment on that maneuver. Then there is the 'go way around on the table' type. You're correct that a squad can fire full at 360 degrees, but by going way around you can maybe negate a wall cover, be out of range of many weapons, cause a HMG to pivot (HMG's and other heavies do have a facing) or even get a flank shot on an armored vehicle.
There are only two avenues of approach: straight on or around the flanks. Straight on, all of the enemy can fire. On a flank, maybe half can fire.
Regards getting more dice in the bag. Buy more specialty units. Snipers are great and really off your opponent. I sometimes like to get a mortar. They're annoying to shoot (first you need a 6, then you need a 5), but if your opponent 'camps out' in a position, watch his face as each shot gets closer and closer. Heck, you might even hit!
That's it for now. Wore my brain out…