Fog of war

[kyryian]

Hello,

I have a question to the veterans here. Whenever I play SST i always play scenerio games (not point based victories)

I am now working on a new scenerio MI vs Skinnies. What I want to do is add a fog of war since the scenerio will call for limited visibility due to strong Magnetic storm (no radar as well)

has anyone ever played with limited visibiity in SST? Any Rules suggestions?

Thanks

kyryian

 

[MI_trooper]

i have the sst box set but i havent played a game yet but if its actual fog you want then you could expand cotton balls so there frzzy clouds and lay em on the board :wink: ive plyd a scenareo for lotr that battle at night its prob kinda like fog of war scince there was limited visibility i checked the rules and it said " The dark of night.- due to the reduced visibility models may not shoot at models that are more than 12"/28cm away. however, because it is harder to avoid a shot in the dark, all the shooting attacks receive a +1 bonus on the roll to wound" i hope this helps you good luck

 

[Goldwyrm]

That sounds like a fun scenario. I think SST could benefit from an alien geography sourcebook but home rules are also fun and easily put together.

I haven't used exactly what you're planning in SST but I do use spotting mechanics for my own WWII rules. I've used either a number of d6 dice that equal the number in inches or a success number on each die for 12" and the total distance rolled is the sighting distance. Dice are subtracted for cover, snipers, the spotting unit moving, a buttoned tank, etc.

In your application of a swirling and changing magnetic storm that I assume affects both sides, you could do the following (just as an example using a die success as 12" instead of more dice and a totalled range):

Each unit picks a target unit and rolls 3d6 to spot the target unit. Every 4+ is 12" of sighting distance. A unit rolling a 2, 4, 5 would spot the target if it is 24" or less away. Pathfinders add one die. Targets in cover subtract 1 die. If the unit is spotted it may be shot at. If it is not spotted the active unit may attempt to spot another unit but this second spot is not free and costs a ready action.

Models on Alert Status can have a reaction per the above as long as at least 1 die rolled is a 4+.

Optionally the storm can affect Psychic Talents as well.

 

[kyryian]

Hi there,

thanks for your reply.

The problem I see is the actual movement of units without the other player seeing them. One possibility is to use scaled grapj paper and move on Paper until spot checks are successfull.

I think moving units in the open and telling players they cannot see them yet would not really help. The use of graph paper will really cause the surprise once the enemy emerges on the table. This will call for some intresting tactics.

Kyryian

 

[Makoto]

For the fog of war there are 2 possible approaches:

1. Judge and 2 tables.
Play on identical 2 tables, with 2 sets of minis. Each player has his full army on his table, while a third party (judge) places and moves what units his opponent has in the viev. Obviously it's an extremely demanding and time consuming option, basically it works only with smallest scenarios.

2. Counters.
Prepare as many counters as you wish. Each of them represents an enemy unit picked up on scanners/heard/so on (much like the tunneling markers), with actuall models placed only when entering LoS. Decide on range of sight in the weather (around 40" for clear weather works quite good), decide how limiting the terrain is (ie. low shrub makes units count as being 10% further than they are for spotting purposes). A good addition is to add "false", empty counters, we found that 15 pts/counter work well enough for SST.
When deploying minis treat counter's position as squad leader.
As for the indirect fire option - allow units to fire on "unseen" counters only if anybody in the army has the target within half the spotting range (ie. 20" if agreed range is 40") to act as spotters.