Flame tanks

[griffen127]

So the Germans flamingo. Talk about way OP. Flame tanks need a major overhaul. Other topic that need fixing line of sight in trees. Troops in buildings.

[old coast]

Well the main thing with them is the range, when a PIAT has a 12" range when it had a effective range of 300 feet and and SMG's have a 12" range when a Thompson had an effective range of 160 feet and an MP40 almost double that, so it makes it a head scratching abstraction that vehicles have an 18" inch range with a flamethrower. That would be ok if it was a mounted Flamethrower in 2014, in 1941 when the Flamingo was in action on the Russian Front getting blown up all over the place because it was a rolling gas tank, those Flamethrowers were for close infantry defense and had roughly a 75 foot range. I understand the need to differentiate them from "man portable" but in order to follow BA abstractions there range should still be 6 inches -even if vehicle mounted...if we have to differentiate between man portable and vehicle- then make it 8-10" maximum...there is no way in hell a guy in a Flamingo should be able out range my PIAT team, with a flamethrower its just not realistic. I think if the range was corrected they would play one hell of a lot differently. Also they were extremely rare...they should be 0-1 regardless of how many platoons you are running. unless more are available via some special force selection choice.

Whats up with buildings? I have actually grown to like you have "Run" to enter them as its good abstraction of having to get all the squad in and set yourself up and get good cover . If it was just advance you could daisy chain yourself moving from building to building shooting every turn, which is fun but not realistic, if you want the cover you need earn it is the way I have grown to look at it in the big picture of the game. the shooting into rules...havent really irked me yet...I like the way they do the mortars per floor.

what's the line of sight with trees issue?..should just be soft cover..unless it's plain ridiculous then we make it hard cover, but even its one tree in the LoS path its -1...

[BrentS]

what's the line of sight with trees issue?..should just be soft cover..unless it's plain ridiculous then we make it hard cover, but even its one tree in the LoS path its -1...

I think the main issue I've heard is that Trees or forests/groves should include some sort of line of site blocking. If I recall correctly the Wisconsin crew uses a house rule that you can't shoot into our out of a forest unless the models are within an inch or two of the forest edge.

[griffen127]

My problem with trees is this. I played on jungle table with massive amounts of tree bases. It was a beautiful table. However, the person I was playing had a large tank. He was able to shoot about 90 inches to my squad. thought no less than 13 bases of trees. Yes he could see this squad. A couple of figs, hands and heads. this only gave a +1 light cover?! I read in a book some place that the greatest thing in fighting Vietnam was that we could shoot the enemy at over 10 miles though the jungle that’s is why we could win so easily. O what. Buildings, so you have a building with a large foot print and several floors and rooms. You enter the front door and 16 inches away on the third floor is the enemy, we are now in combat??? it is impossible to make the 16 inch move and go up 3 floors (another 6-8 inches). I thought we can only move 12 inches. The game is good. The rules are good. They just need some fixes IMO.

[BostonNazgul]

Begin LOS/Area Terrain/tree issue:

Bullet points to make it less drawn out.

1. Bolt Action is a True LOS game.
2. Everyone in the world is in agreement that a base with trees on it is difficult terrain for movement purposes.
3. People generally take trees as soft cover and rocky stuff as hard.
4. the rules state: When you want to benefit from the cover of trees you must have your squad 1 inch from the edge of the base. If you are not, then your guys are thus shooting through cover at a penalty.


- Most tree terrain is sparse, 3-4 trees, yet we call a forest because if it actually had all the stuff a forest had you could not fit models in there. Thus the area terrain ruling for movement.
- We then take our true LOS rule and through that imaginary idea of a dense forest base out the window, because some tank commander or sniper can see more than 1/2 of a dude in a squad.

It hypocritical to say that you can see through all those trees but then cant move openly because of all the dense foliage. Soldiers throughout history have used terrain to screen movements or cover advancement.

House Rule Proposal 1: Since no pre-measuring, this is another calculated risk in taking a 1/million shot.

If you draw line of sight through more than (6? 8?) inches of combined tree terrain, the enemy is using cover to they're advantage and you cannot pin down they're movements. The action fails as if you had missed the shot. Including snipers.

Example. USA Sherman chooses to fire at German squad #1. He places a fire order down. Then he measures distance, it is within long range. Then sherman measures how many tree bases are in the way. The shot will cross through 3 different tree bases, 1.5 inches + 3 inches + 5 inches. 9.5 total inches of tree terrain, that exceeds the allotment and the sherman has no shot. He forfeits his action exactly if he had tried shooting at a recce and then was out of range.

House Rule Proposal 2: This is a little more simplified.

If a proposed fire/advance action draws line of sight through more than 1 tree terrain base, the firing player hits on super 6s regardless of any other hit modifiers or range, including snipers. (6 followed by another 6)

[BostonNazgul]

Flame vehicles.

Some tournaments just outlaw them.

Other solutions or suggestions were to cut down the range to 9 inches or 12 inches. I think both range reductions would be acceptable.

When you add in the advance order for the model, you have an 18 inch threat zone if you cut the range to 9. Added risk of running into range of piats and bazooka teams.

As it is right now, you have a 27 inch threat range from the model...