Laertes wrote:I'd like to disagree with that, on the ground that if that was true then armies would consist of every dude carrying an LMG. Modern British fireteams have one LMG per four guys; the army are professionals and I am not, so I assume that they've tested this and found that one in four is the optimal ratio and any more LMGs would actually be less useful. Possibly it's to do with ammunition carrying capacity, possibly cost, whatever. The point is, real fireteams are not "the machinegunner and his three mates", they're "those four guys who, between them, have the correct ratio of machine guns to guys."
Good point, though most military doctrine at the fireteam level is based on the squad support weapon being the key casualty causer, the the other three men's basic role being to protect, help serve ammo and scout out enemies for the support weapon. Basically everyone copied German WW2 infantry doctrine.
What could be an interesting game mechanic would be the separation of factions based on fire team or squad based tactics, sort of like what we have now, with NATO troops operating in fire teams and most other armies relying upon squads, mostly thanks to lack of NCO's, amongst other things. The increased flexibility of fire teams vs the resiliency of squads and the trade off within. Especially if we are working at platoon level, you can definitely have this effect a measurable change.
What I'd aim for is more of an rpg style system where officer point buys make up the major part of list building. Most armies work on a pretty standardized framework at anything below battalion level, so a 40k style weapon buy system would be a little strange. Instead, you could make officer and nco traits and levels be a core part of the game. That way, you balance fire teams vs squads by having the increased expense of skilled NCO's and the need for more really good leaders at lower levels. This helps minimize list building for materiel (you can't do shit because you didn't remember a lascannon and thus got fucked by the meta) while maximizing list building choices tactics wise (and allowing you to redesign your army without having to buy new models).
I'd like to include transport vehicles, because that gives the game a cool dynamic. As you point out, they can cross the field of play in the time it takes to empty a magazine, which means it allows extremely fast-flowing battlefield-taxi style tactics. Full on AFVs, maybe less so.
As you point out though, we need to decide this, and decide it now.
The only thing is that troops can already cross the gameboard in a turn. Battle taxis mostly work to 1- protect troops on the way there and 2- move them quickly on a strategic level. 2 is irrelevant in a platoon level game and 1 basically means that anti armor weapons become necessary in list building. In game, battle taxis tend to be there because movement is artificially slow and you need it to speed them up. You could have a system of platoon assets for heavy weapons. These could be a pool of items that you chose from before deployment. You could create your list and then set aside any portion of points that you like for these assets. That way you have to balance known's (your list) vs preparing for the unknown. A player could bring armor to force his opponent to invest in anti-tank, therefore sacrificing artillery. You could balance this with a recon mechanic. Before deployment you roll on recon and depending on how you do, you get a selection of things. For example, you could spend some recon points on questions (do you have armor, IFV's, ect?) or you could spend it on giving your troops movement benefits, or preferential terrain placement.
So, the flow chart would be:
(at home): build list, buy fire teams and squads at set lists, choices in leaders and heavy weapons at platoon level. Decide on how much you want to spend on company and battalion level assets.
(game)
Deploy terrain
Determine recon points: (ask questions, shift terrain ect)
Choose high level assets
Deploy troops
If we're including vehicles at all, we need to design them in from the get-go. Incrementalism is bad with things this fundamental.
Agreed.
