Operation IRON FIST

[Syrtaras]

Xay: Rather dead than red, eh? ;-)

[Xayun Erinos]

Syrt: Almost :P

[Markus Redd]

Sounds cool to me. I still wonder why you never did this for us. :(

[LGN_Antillies]

I believe I already addressed that. :P

Maybe Falcon can cook something up. :)

[Evix Jhredmo]

I'd like to get involved with this and see where it goes.

[LGN_Antillies]

You may find and dowload the first version of the rulebook here: http://www.1brg.empirereborn.net/Army%2 ... 20FIST.pdf.

Please read over it, although it is somewhat substancial. This should give you a better idea whether or not you would like to participate.

[LC La Forge]

Also, neither AT-ATs nor AT-STs may receive any defensive bonuses from terrain.

You should subtract defense for AT-PTs in forest. We all remember the horror that was Endor.... :P

[LGN_Antillies]

I don't believe there were any AT-PTs on Endor at the time, but I am working under the assumption that AT-PTs are small enough and manuverable enough to do well within forest terrain, unlike their other armored counterparts :P

[Mike Mar]

AT-ATs do go "within" the forests. They go *ON* the forests. :p

[Laithlis]

Ok, here's some thoughts I had...

-Hills should, in my opinion, slow down movement cost, and most definitely give a defensive bonus. Higher ground is a huge advantage, since it not only provides cover for the defender, also wears down the attacker. Considering we're dealing with largely infantry forces in here. I suggest 1-1 changed to 2-2.
-Again, regarding terrain: Forest movement cost appears absurdly high, especially since you weren't planning on letting the big toys enter in the first place. Currently mountains and forests have the same movement cost. Mountains take a lot of time and effort to cross, however, forests do not. Infantry is at home in the woods, and is not significantly slowed down by it. I suggest movement cost reduced to 2. Further, perhaps AT-ST could be given access to forests but with a higher movement cost - 3 sounds about right here. If so, a penalty in defense in the woods is definitely in order.
-At a quick glance, scout troopers seem very fast, with both high movement and ability to ignore terrain movement cost. I'd say one or the other: 4-5 movement and ignore terrain cost (5 might still be a bit too much, but it'd be nice if they could still go a bit faster on level ground - then again, that's what AT-STs are for), or possibly up to 7 movement but won't ignore terrain cost. My best suggestion would be 4 movement, ignore terrain cost. With their higher LOS, they don't need to move that much faster. The higher LOS is a good way to indicate that a scouting company really doesn't move as one big bunch anyway, but instead sends scouting parties to take a look at things.
-I like the Shoick Trooper special attack ability - after all, those guys should be the ones to take down heavily fortified positions.

All in all, it appeared well thought of and definitely worth putting to the test. However, I found it weird that, as far as I could see, unit strength only matters when determining casualties, not in actually determining the attack. Now, it could be I missed something here, but that doesn't sound right, at all. If only numbers count in the attack, I personally would only attack whenever I could get 3-to-1 situations, unless feeling desperate - and any defender worth the pips on their shoulders should know how to counter that. I would suggest comparing attacker's and defender's strength values to get a modifier for the die roll. In this event, multiple attackers shouldn't all get their full strength value added, but instead you'd determine one unit the primary attacker and the others supporting, each supporting company adding one or two points to the attacker's strength, depending on their type.

Furthermore, forcing attacking every time a unit is in enemy contact is weird - and a death sentence for scouts. There should be exchange of fire with a chance for casualties on both sides, but in my opinion an attack should always be a conscious choice. After all, you never assaults a fortified position just because you happened to run into it :P

Now, some of the things I suggested may add a little complication to the rules, but I tried to keep it to a minimum - and would only suggest things I've seen work in hex games with relatively simple rules before. All in all, it definitely holds promise - keep up the good work :P

Btw, have you thought about the scale? How large each hex makes the difference between whether a company needs facing or not. Though I definitely don't mind if we skip facing here ;)

[Vortagh]

I agree with Laith on the Hill issue.

In regards to the Forest issues, these are my views:
We have to split this, preferably into heavy, normal and light woods. Then we have to differentiate between infantry, vehicle and walker movement. Infantry should not get any movement penalty at all in light woods, a minor penalty in normal woods (walking through a wood sucks, even for infantry :P) and a medium penalty in heavy woods. I leave the values to you. :P
Light walkers like the AT-ST and -PT should definitely be able to walk through woods and something like an AT-AT should have no problem at all to walk through all but the heaviest woods. If todays tanks can go through woods, these things can definitely do it. :P

[LGN_Antillies]

Thank you for your thoughts.

Looking back over it, I agree that all armored types should be able to traverse through forested area. For simplicity's sake, I'll just keep one category of forest, which all armored types may enter. I agree with the modification of movement costs, the hill issue, and with the removal of forcing units to attack. I still want casualties to be dealt for as long as a unit is next to another but I will not force them to engage.

As for incorporating attack and defense values in the outcome of combat, I did develop a formula to deal with that, but I thought the particular method in the rule book was easier to understand. If you have any suggestions as to what might be better, please voice them.

And as to facing, I think this is nearing its max complexity without people losing it so I think we will forgo that for this particular exercise :P

[thot ghor]

404 not found. Can you check the link?

[LGN_Antillies]

Version 1.1 of Operation IRON FIST Rulebook has been uploaded.
Changes:
- Hill defense bonus and movement cost is increased to 2.
- Forest movement cost is decreased to 2.
- Scout Trooper movement decreased to 4.
- Restriction on AT-ATs and AT-STs entering forest hexes has been removed. Additionally, AT-ATs and AT-STs only receive a defense bonus of 1 while in forest hexes.
- Section 5.2 regarding city income has been incorporated into Section 5.1, which was expanded to include guidelines for capturing cities and city control.

It can be found here: http://www.1brg.empirereborn.net/Army_W ... T_V1.1.pdf

Ghor: That was my bad. I hate those "%20" in the file name so I changed it with "_" :P

[LGN_Antillies]

Okay, so as of right now, the people who are interested are:

-Army-
Ghor
Longstreet
Viper
Dekari
Glendon
Jhredmo

-RG-
Mike Mar
Munro Burton
Jagged Fel

-RES-
Laithlis

That's a total of ten people and ideally I'd like to have twelve or thirteen. If anyone else is interested, please post in this thread. First come, first serve so post quickly!

I will throw this open to the navy if the remaining spots are not filled in a day or so.