lots of hiding and shooting, not much moving!

[AlphaStrike]

Has anyone else found that lots of games involve getting into cover and shooting but not a great deal of moving after that?

This seems especially true of EFTF and USMC troops. If the enemy has a decent amount of armour, they can't damage them and spend lots of time hiding away.

I've been using as much terrain as I can lay my hands on, bu tanks still resemble timid wee beasties rather than the hulking behemoths I thought they would be. One or two lucky kill results and the battle can be over.

 

[tneva82]

I've been using as much terrain as I can lay my hands on, bu tanks still resemble timid wee beasties rather than the hulking behemoths I thought they would be. One or two lucky kill results and the battle can be over.

Tanks in modern age do have habit of getting shot to pieces if they expose themselves...Modern warheads have bad habit of turning expensive tank into scrap metal...

Add in ATGM missiles and even softer vechiles are credible threat to tanks(BMP-3's are particulary problematic for tank commanders...).

Problem with 28mm scale is that good way to fix this(more tanks. Less impact by few lucky rolls) gets more and more inefficient(board space for one thing...).

Which is why I prefer 6mm :lol:

 

[Mr Evil]

this is the tactic our USMC and EFT players are using.

hide infantry in middle of building maybe towards back so they cano be shot at.

eliminate enemy anti tank ability ie tanks or fast moving vehicles. and take out larg chunks of infantry from a good distance.

if tanks are destroyed and ifnatry allive move infantry to windows and set up minimis and mow anything stupid enough to shoot you or come close.

game over.

pla and mea are having real trouble here as you have to exspose yourself to advance on enemy to do enough damage to brek them and as long as a corner is touching for the us and brit tanks there pretty much immune to being hurt without killing you back, ie machine guns, and next tuen big gun and machin guns again.

all pla and mea do is become pinned ot have inferour stuff unable to harm the yanks or brits due to cover or no los to infantry.

see my cover and concealment post this readresses the ballance issue in many way.

 

[Paladin]

Have one unit suppress the enemy and then move another to flank and deny cover.

Mr. E: I think the PLA/MEA will balance out soon as more units release.

 

[Mr Evil]

hope so, the strongest players in our group are using mea and pla, while the weak players who cant evan manage draw let alone a win some games are running amock with above tactic.

 

[Elvis in Combat]

Different game systems can have a higher learning curve for some players, good or great or bad.

I know a guy who kicks A$$ in Flames of War but only recently started winning regularly in Warmachine/Hordes. And he started with Warmachine before Flames of War. I can see where the abstract aspect of this game (to accomodate the "Platoon style" of play vs. the "Squad" style of play) will cause some "good" players to have difficulty.

But...Having played the PLA I can see them being difficult to play for anyone until more units are released. That makes it fun for me as I concentrate on terrain and it's use more than I would with a crutch force like my EFTF. :lol:

I'm playing larger games now too. 1200 points.

PLA 1200 points
2x PLA Infantry Squad
1x PLA Infantry Squad - Drop teams 2 & 3
2 PLA Type 99 Tanks

It is still tough to play. However, if the USMC player wants two tanks, they have to drop a fireteam and have nothing to make the points back up to 1200. It's a shockingly low shatterpoint:

1x USMC Squad
1x USMC Squad drop fireteam 2, or add fireteam to Squad 1.
2x Abrams

15 models USMC vs 26 PLA models.

I haven't faced this 1200 point USMC squad yet:

4x USMC Squad
1x Abrams

Now that will be a tough force to beat right now.

 

[MrCrazy]

Are any of u guys using structural damage rules when u play your games? Maybe this could prevent USMC from hiding out in the back of buildings. You cant hide in a building thats tubbling down on you. This issue has come up playing our games, but we havent applied anything yet. If memory serves me right, SST had structural damage rules. maybe they can be applied to Bfe?

 

[lastbesthope]

BF:E will get structural rules in the Advanced rule book from what I've seen

LBH

 

[Iorwerth]

I have also found that there seems to be little movement in the games I have played. Being out of cover is a death sentence for infantry. While this may be realistic it has tended to result in stalemates, with both sides moving in to the nearest cover and waiting for the other side to come to them. I have had two games where both sides refused to move in on the other because of this.

It seems to me that this is the case because there is no background for the fight. In a real combat, both sides would have some form of objective, be it defend the territiory, flush out enemies, escape from a concerted attack etc. Maybe with the advanced rules this may be the case. Hopefully! Without such objectives there is no real reason to move out of cover and take the fight to the enemy, apart from it is a boring, pointless way of spending a couple of hours if both sides just dig in.

 

[Rabidchild]

The best games I've seen and played in have had a lot of terrain on the board, way more than used in other games. The more terrain on the board, the more movement I've seen in the games.

I recommend 50-75% of the board covered in terrain, that way when the bad guys set up shop in a superior position, there's always a way to get around and hit them from another direction. City terrain seems to work well for this, as does heavy forest.

One of the things I like about this game is that real world tactics can be used and come naturally. Flanking, suppression, fire and maneuver. The tactics Evil is talking about will work for now, but as more units come out that can kill the tanks they will learn to love their infantry friends.

 

[lastbesthope]

Yes, more terrain encourages movement. Course you can have a board full of terrain and still fight to a stalemate, happened to us at the Open Day. I was playing with Jim as PLA vs USMC, recreating oneof the recent battle reports from S&P. Both sides lost tanks and troops that remained were in cover. We were both so close to shatter point that a failed assault would lose the game, a natural impasse.

LBH

 

[Jellicoe]

Has anyone else found that lots of games involve getting into cover and shooting but not a great deal of moving after that?

Isn't that what a lot of combat is about? And using other assets to route out the opposition. Currently in Afghanistan is appears that CAS is being used to over come opposition by even very small formations.

 

[Paladin]

Oddly enough this simulates modern combat. Much of urban combat has turned to ammo burns over the risk of life. You pour everything you've got into a building until the shooting stops and the bodies pile up. Then you advance and clean up any stragglers.

 

[Jellicoe]

Oddly enough this simulates modern combat. Much of urban combat has turned to ammo burns over the risk of life. You pour everything you've got into a building until the shooting stops and the bodies pile up. Then you advance and clean up any stragglers.

Oddly enough there were a few examples of this quite recently ....

 

[Rabidchild]

Now that I've thought about this a bit, I see much more movement in BF:Evo than in say 40k. A slugging match is a bad idea in BF:Evo where you can lose an entire unit to one or two shoot actions whereas Space Marines can stand in the open for several turns and count on being tough.

I would say a majority of the shoot actions have those being shot reacting by moving, something I wish could happen in other games. Reminds me of a quote I saw in a signature around here: "When the enemy advances, we retreat; when he camps, we harass him; if he tires, we attack; when he retreats, we pursue."
Mao Tse-tung