close combat and balance in general

[pfaghe]

after some games seems that the close combat is little too useless in FL or simply very difficult that it could be so definitive like for example in MDRG

at the end now I think the game is little too shooty, is very very good for historical but little too much for a more heroic sci-fi setting where I like a close combat more important

this one because you can have different and unbalanced forces: one more shooty and another one more close combat oriented

think for example at a good elite force most Q3 C3 against a more tribal force mostly Q4 C2 with few guns C2 but more pistol C1 and cc weapons...actually seems little hard get the second in cc combat ... a Q3 C3 can aim a lot of shots very easy. and if you have to charge or move more than the others it's easy enough stay in open ground.
and if you reach the opponent in cc you have also the help of the gun in close combat...and with a Q3 is easy and very lethal in defence (C3+2weapon) !!!

what do you think?

and if I will remove in a sci-fi setting the fire weapons combat bonus in close combat?

FL (but in general all ganesha system games) works very well with 2 opposite squads very similar in Q - C and weapons (WWII for example) , but is very easy to break the balance changing for example all one squad/weapons better than the other. In this scale few pieces can wipe out a bigger squad of less powerful pieces, so yes you pay more you have less pieces but seems is not enough to win.

my opinion after 5 games tring some new sci-fi army lists

what do you think?

thanks

[richjones]

We have quite a bit of hand to hand in most of our games ... in fact it is the way a lot of better characters are finished off. Remember even a Q3 C3 character will only be shooting once unless you give them combat fiend or the enemy is stupid enough to bunch up!

You do not automatically add the C+ of the weapon in close combat either - I have killed many a good quality figure by ganging up a charge at them

FL is a shooty game ... hand to hand is a last resort in most games.

In 600 point games 4 man armies are hard to play as a lucky shot can take them out ... we play 1200-1500 points mainly and then a 8 man army can usually finish off 14-18 man forces of lesser quality etc.

In our sci fi stuff, good hth models (with chainsaws attached etc), also have hard body armour so they are very difficult to stop on the way in!

[pfaghe]

ok

repeat my impression is only after 5 games, 600 points 90x90 table with a lot of cover BUT a lot of visibility (so cover -1 but very difficult to go out of view) and this one is a possible important reason

it's rare that we shoot with the 3-4 range penalty (useless most of the time) so is not the case to limit the shooty range

we try more games with some more terrain area that limit the view on the board and after that we can try to remove the shooting phase in close combat for the defender

PS: just to know, we want also make our games little bigger, for example 1200 pts without any vehicles for now, what table do you use? 120cmx120cm? is important for us and for the Morale rule so I think a lot of players want to know some different proportion of point games/table size
and what about at the third dimension on the tabletop? a style like Necromunda game so with 3-4 floors linked with aerial passage and so on...

thanks again for your effort here
Paolo

[richjones]

Increasing the points value doesn't often result in that many more characters so we play on a 3x3 or for bigger 1200points plus on a 4x3 with the player baselines being the 4' length so forces are still likely to run off the table with morale checks ... there are added climbing and 'level' rules and guidlines in the yahoo group files I think. On the whole we use longer sticks with firing ranges on and use the actual distance to determine stuff for height etc.

Having terrain which blocks LOS is important for getting hth troops in close ... overwatch becomes important then too.

We played a Necromunda type mini campaign last night ... was a lot of fun.

Rich