Covering fire

@d142:

yeah, that make’s it easier to understand, if i’m 2 hex’es away the target has cover. another question come’s to mind, are there any restriction’s for line of sight when firing past friendly or enemy units.
is the expert rulebook worth getting or is everything covered in the advanced rulebook,
i have only played a few games of miniatures.

Money is better spent on boosters to make complete armies.  This is the last thing to buy.

It kinda sucked.  Made very poorly in black and white and hard to read the illustrations.  Basically same as the advanced rulebook + some extra confusing rules (Overwatch, Enfilade Fire, Grazing Fire) that are ok but too complicated.  Maps were good.  Formations (platoon card) can be downloaded.  Couple of scenarios.

To answer your question, it wasn’t worth the money but I feel it’s a must have if your into the game.  You just can’t pass up on the maps and someday the expanded rules may spice up the games if they’re getting boring.  Like I said, make this the last priority of things to buy for this game.

Yes!

Its that same as if an adjacent soldiers trys to enter your soldiers hex.  You can take your DF shpt at him in his starting hex or his dest hex.  Same is true of a tank…

Dismounting into the same hex as the vehicles will not trigger DF, and you covered why in your descussion very well.

@Half-Track:

Mot no mention of anything useful on the back of the checklist.

If there is no special treatment of these units in the rules then they are not affected by Disruption in any additional ways beyond the effects it has on all units.

Mot

@Rikolus:

That’s funny Grim, because our group has also been playing that the attacker has to roll 4+ afterwards to destroy the transported unit.  However, if it survives, we do put an immediate face-up Disruption marker on that unit (which gets removed of course at end of the turn if he’s still around…)    But we were not aware of the HHR you mention.
    Is it one composite set of suggested optional rules?    If so, could you post where the HHR would be found?

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

@Rikolus:

1)  Hidden Deployment.  After agreeing on the map and Objective hex, we put a divider through the middle and set up forces having no idea what the opponent will select or where he’ll deploy.

We used to do that for Warhammer and Flames of War, but now we use pennies we painted white and marked with the name of the unit underneath. This is so that we can play with a Fog of War sometimes as well, since we can move them around the board and the enemy still not know what’s there until LoS is determined. It’s cool for night battles too (or a good ol’ fashioned “dawn raid”).

@Rikolus:

2)  Four Hexes In, instead of Five.  Seems rather small and innocuous, but after a couple plays, everyone agrees that the advance into combat is more strategic and interesting with that two extra hex separation.  To make up for it, we play you can win on Turn 7, but game ends after T 11 (instead of 10).

We play on 8 maps (I bought a second starter just for more maps) and up to 3 hexes in. The tactical maneuvers before any shots are fired are way more complex than the 5 hexes on 4 map pieces. Blegh.

@Rikolus:

3)  Paratroopers cannot land in Forest Hexes.

We play with a rule that a Paratrooper must “target” a hex. On a 4+ he lands in the hex he wanted to land in. On a 1-6 he lands in an adjacent hex (it’s a hex and the game uses a d6, so it’s easy to determine where he lands). If he lands in a forest he lands disrupted. If he lands in a lake he’s removed from the game.

-=Grim=-

@General:

But you must remember the hexes are 100 meters from side to side, so even if an infantry squad approaches a tank “from the front” there is a lot of room to maneuver in the hex itself, so your infantry can ostensibly be approaching from the side, around trees and hills, in the FOG OF WAR as bullets are flying and the tank is preoccupied with other things.

Which is the point I was about to make. I’d also like to add to it that though the hex might be a clear, grassy field as far as game mechanics, you gotta keep in mind that the grass is usually very high, has some scrub and trees scattered about, rocks, gullies, maybe even a cottage or two… they’re not flat and empty. So at 100 meters and having some clutter (but not enough to warrant making cover rolls) and such it isn’t unrealistic for infantry to be able to avoid defensive fire from a tank. It’s only when the infantry gets close to the tank (ie: in combat) that the tanks machine guns defend it. Otherwise the infantry isn’t visible to the tank regardless of how many peepholes it has.

-=Grim=-

Here is the rule as reinforced by Avalon Hill.

The Tiger immediately disrupts a soldier unit upon entering the hex (face-up counter).  This happens before defensive force occurs in that hex.  Units with face-up disrupted counters cannot perform defensive fire.

So, in order to stop the Tiger tank from using its special ability (remember- special abilities trump the rules, as explained at the back of the starter set rule book), a soldier unit must employ its defensive fire while the Tiger is in the adjacent hex.  Most soldier units don’t have enough attack dice to equal the Tiger’s frontal defense of 7, so the Tiger will have no problem moving into the hex.