suppression quirk?

[AmanAgain]

OK, so suppression is applied when you assign damage dice. If they equal the number of figures in the unit, it is suppressed and loses an action. Seems pretty simple.

then there's figures not in unit cohesion, which seems to be taken care of - if they're not in cohesion, you only need to assign damage dice to those that are to suppress the whole unit, including those not in cohesion, presumably.

Then there's figures not in LOS. The WAW fix is to say that you can assign dice to them for the purposes of suppression. Otherwise, you'd have people leaving one figure out of LOS (this would be most common in a town fight, of course) to beat the suppression rules.

And then there's figures not in the fire zone. If you're fire zone doesn't cover the unit b/c it is not centered on the unit (maybe you're at the end of your range, maybe terrain obstructs you from putting it on the middle of the unit) it is impossible to suppress the unit.

Am I getting this right?

It seems like it would be easiest to handle these three circumstances by saying that if you shoot as many damage dice (that do not roll 1's) at a unit as there are figures in it that are in cohesion and the fire zone, whether or not they are in LOS or not, then the unit is suppressed.

Obviously the awkwardness of it is that you are trying to make a rule for a unit but you are using individual figures to manage the rule. Since the designers don't want to just suppress figures and have units partially suppressed, it becomes hard to work it out.

What are people's gaming experience of this anyway? I don't have any with the suppression rule yet.

 

[SgtHulka]

It seems like it would be easiest to handle these three circumstances by saying that if you shoot as many damage dice (that do not roll 1's) at a unit as there are figures in it that are in cohesion and the fire zone, whether or not they are in LOS or not, then the unit is suppressed.

That's essentially the original Battlefield Evolution rule. I think it might have been even more tightly worded...I think "1's" weren't technically even dice since they were removed, so they didn't have to make 1's an exception, and I don't think they gave out-of-firezone immunity...i.e. you could fire at one dude with 12 dice and suppress his entire unit. I'm not absolutely sure, though.

The new, official rule (WAW and MC), is that you can hide your squad leader or anyone else you want to and you are immune to suppression. There's a long thread on this board somewhere that debates the pros and cons of this change.

AD Publishing's add-on rules uses the old version that you describe above, but words it a bit differently.

 

[SgtHulka]

Oh, as for my own experience, I've only played with the new, official rule since I haven't had a chance to play a game since Agis came out with the AD Publishing rules add-on.

My experience with the official rule is that it takes the teeth out of suppression. I can't think of a single instance where I've had a squad suppressed before its been reduced to "out of command" by losing its commanders and over half its memebers. Squad leaders and assistant leaders, for the most part, are armed with submachineguns. Unless you're assaulting a position they're out of range, anyway. So there's absolutely no reason to keep them within line of sight of the enemy. As a result, they are usually back a few inches from the edge of the cover and out of line of sight, providing convenient suppression immunity.

In the instances where the units haven't been in cover...i.e. they've been rushing to cross a street or something and got caught with their pants down...they've pretty much been ripped to non-combat-effectiveness anyway, so suppression became irrelevant. The exception I can think of is a unit strafed by a FW 190, and its 4 dice weren't enough to suppress the unit, but its kills did force the unit a couple of inches back.

Next time I play I intend to try the add-on rules.

 

[Agis]

Oh, as for my own experience, I've only played with the new, official rule since I haven't had a chance to play a game since Agis came out with the AD Publishing rules add-on.

My experience with the official rule is that it takes the teeth out of suppression.

That was exactly the reasoning behind my AD Publishing rules add-on.
Try the official one and the A.D. one and decide by yourself what you like better for your games. :wink: