BW 2010 feedback

[stubby]

I admit the forming action was stupid

Look at this, first you're all "there's no reason to change squads" and "squads work intuitively" until I say they're not so great and then you're all "yeah some parts were pretty stupid."  Such a toady!

Yeah I know, blah blah blah been playing without that rule blah blah forgot it was in there blah.

I'm thinking the Officer will instead get something like Specialty: Formation Drilling that raises everyone in the squad to 1d8 Skill for any combined action.  That'll work as an alternate incentive to get everybody organized into Squads.

[IVhorseman]

It was stupid, but not to the point where I felt that squads needed to be changed up that much. The justifying text for it taking up an action in order to keep the game moving was enough for me. I play by plenty of stupid rules, including ones that cause my guys to sprint face-first into a wall and explode.

To me, squads are just big, organized ways to use combined fire and combined actions.

[Robot Monkey]

Maybe comissars could execute a minifig to give that squad a bennie?

This.

[Rev. Sylvanus]

Specialty: Formation Drilling that raises everyone in the squad to 1d8 Skill for any combined action.  That'll work as an alternate incentive to get everybody organized into Squads.

I like this option; seems simple and elegant enough to be useful.  Definitely appreciate such an ability on a Cavalry charge.

The major issue my friends and I ran into with squads was intuiting how to distribute damage.  For a while, because we didn't understand it, damage was treated as a giant total from which minifig armor values would subtract themselves - and squad combat was quick and brutal!  Then we tried what was in the rulebook, i.e. each hit is allocated to a single fig - and squad combats began to take several turns.  Long story short, clarity on squad damage would be useful.

[IVhorseman]

Once the attack is rolled, yes you assign individual attacks to individual figs. So if all your guys attack with swords at 1d6+2 and five hit, roll your dice and place each one among whichever five units of the other squad you want dead. If someone in your squad had a polearm, then pick two of the dice that you rolled and place them next to whoever you want to take damage.

Simply putting dice next to minifigs actually works pretty handily at keeping track of things like grinding damage, fire size, and figuring out who exactly in which squads took how much damage.

[*CRAZYHORSE*]

If someone in your squad had a polearm, then pick two of the dice that you rolled and place them next to whoever you want to take damage.

ಠ_ಠ...... I can't believe you just fixed ALL of my problems with squads with this simple sentence. I feel so stupid for not figuring this out my self, it's so simple.
The reason I was alway so confused is because I thought that the rulebook said that you should assign damage from highest DICE to lowest so I always got confused when I had to combine a lot of 2d6's and 1d6+1's.
All this time I should just have to assigned highest damage roll to lowest.
IV thank so much. An uptoke for you!

[IVhorseman]

Protip: Minifigs have 4 hitpoints that can be ground away at, if you're determined to use a hitpoint system and place a d4 next to a guy for how many times he's been wounded (matched but not exceeded armor). Of course, number of severed limbs is often a much more effective counting system.

[*CRAZYHORSE*]

Of course, number of severed limbs is often a much more effective counting system.

And the process of attaching them again at the end of the game is always properly postponed.

[Keldoclock]

Maybe comissars could execute a minifig to give that squad a bennie?

This.

They should use a power drill to do so- the Squad Drilling ability is (in-universe) named for the tool of horrible, clinical, un-violent death that awaits every minifigure that dares defy the Sergeant.

hand drills for pre-industrial armies

[stubby]

They should use a power drill to do so- the Squad Drilling ability is (in-universe) named for the tool of horrible, clinical, un-violent death that awaits every minifigure that dares defy the Sergeant.

hand drills for pre-industrial armies

I lol'd.  This is definitely going in, in some form.

If someone in your squad had a polearm, then pick two of the dice that you rolled and place them next to whoever you want to take damage.

ಠ_ಠ...... I can't believe you just fixed ALL of my problems with squads with this simple sentence. I feel so stupid for not figuring this out my self, it's so simple.
The reason I was alway so confused is because I thought that the rulebook said that you should assign damage from highest DICE to lowest so I always got confused when I had to combine a lot of 2d6's and 1d6+1's.
All this time I should just have to assigned highest damage roll to lowest.
IV thank so much. An uptoke for you!

Squads have always suffered from a lack of clarifying example boxes, I really have to work harder to prioritize getting stuff like this into the text.

[Gungnir]

You could add a stat card for...

Drill Sergents.

[Ben-Jammin]

R. Lee Ermey?

[Falk]

I have a question about squads: How is it in CC? Is the whole squad in range if only a little part of the base plate is touching? Or do all the squad members have to touch their target? Same goes for ranged. If one fig is in range, are all of them? Or just the one that's in range?

[Rev. Sylvanus]

In the 2005 edition, I believe the answer to your question revolves around the squad base plate.  As long as the squad plate was touching/within striking distance of the target (be that another squad or a giant, or a lone fig) then hypothetically anyone in the squad could attack.  Keep in mind that gang-up rules still apply.

For ranged combat, it was recommended that each squad have a standard or a symbol or something roughly in the center of the plate from which all measurements for ranges were made.  If the "standard" was in range, the squad was in range; if the standard was out of range but the front rank was in...then the squad was still out of range (though you could probably give the front guys independent actions to shoot anyway).

At least I think that's how things worked...

[IVhorseman]

Yes that's pretty much how that worked...


Hey, so what's the deal with "Heavy Infantry?" It's among the different specialists to be introduced in a later chapter, and while most of those are pretty obvious (assassin, sniper, kamikaze etc.), I'm a bit puzzled here. Is he more armored? Does he have any special abilities? Is it just a fat guy who's self-conscious about his body-image?