Ouestions and/or Frustrations

[Yogi the Great]

I do like this but it is certainly filled with frustrations and questions.

Isn't it fun when your stack of 3 or 4 all becomes shaken and then a single enemy unit pops over from a few hexes away and removes all your not jst shaken but apparently helpless units?

VICTORY? After frustrations of learning I finally did well and waited for my victory screen to find the Soviet was declared the winner. I had taken control of the map, killed all his vehicles and all his units except as it turns out one shaken unit hiding in the woods. so QUESTION how does this game determine victory? There were no victory hexes and the enemy was badly beaten but who knows?
edit: The scenario was Nighty-Nite

Another one, fun not being able to fire after moving and/or forgetting to hit the assault movement button. QUESTION what does determine if a unit can or can't use assault movement, is it how many movement points they have? or something else?

[tyrion22]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

I do like this but it is certainly filled with frustrations and questions.

Isn't it fun when your stack of 3 or 4 all becomes shaken and then a single enemy unit pops over from a few hexes away and removes all your not jst shaken but apparently helpless units?

VICTORY? After frustrations of learning I finally did well and waited for my victory screen to find the Soviet was declared the winner. I had taken control of the map, killed all his vehicles and all his units except as it turns out one shaken unit hiding in the woods. so QUESTION how does this game determine victory? There were no victory hexes and the enemy was badly beaten but who knows?
edit: The scenario was Nighty-Nite

Another one, fun not being able to fire after moving and/or forgetting to hit the assault movement button. QUESTION what does determine if a unit can or can't use assault movement, is it how many movement points they have? or something else?

I like the fact that shaken units are helpless, since it leads to the 'shake and take' tactic, which is a lot like 'find, fix, flank, finish', the regular infantry tactic. In other games it is often more advantageous to fire at units you've already hit, to score a second hit and remove them, instead of firing at fresh units. You just have to make sure your stacks can cover each other. A lone stack is always vulnerable if the opponent is lucky.

I have a small window with victory conditions in the upper right corner, maybe you have turned this off? You often have to satisfy all victory conditions to win. Sometimes you have conditions like making certain a named leader survives.

An infantry unit can only assault move if they have a red background on their movement allowance. Tanks can always assault move, I think.

[Barthheart]

Oivind22 is correct on all counts.

[Yogi the Great]

Thanks for the info, here is another frustration question, although I see now that "making smoke" is on a die role for the unit involved but I have been surprised that success is no better than about 50% and I have several times had all three units in a stack fail to succeed. Seems a bit tough but perhaps this is realistic results in some way?

[Barthheart]

Yes smoke is hard to make and Mark, the designer, made it this was because:
Smoke grenades were not all that common, it was hard to get it right because even small breezes could scatter it, and his research showed that it wasn't used very much by the average soldier.

[ioticus]

I remember from playing the board game a few times that you should always try to keep a reserve of fresh troops behind your main assault force to prevent the enemy from just walking in and killing any front line troops that become shaken. Easier said than done, I know.

[madDdog67]

I actually house rule the board game on the shaken units. They get to roll 2 dice, and on snake eyes they can reduce an enemy squad. This is about the only niggle I have with LnL, and easy enough to house rule. This way, there is a chance you could pay *some* penalty for going into melee with shaken units.

As for the OP, I wanted to punch myself in the head a couple of times during the first game I played of the computer game...kept forgetting to hit the Assault Movement button, and even more important, the Button Up button . I was so happy to see the game after all those years I couldn't remember that.

[markhwalker]

I actually house rule the board game on the shaken units. They get to roll 2 dice, and on snake eyes they can reduce an enemy squad. This is about the only niggle I have with LnL, and easy enough to house rule. This way, there is a chance you could pay *some* penalty for going into melee with shaken units.

Shaken SS WILL attempt to rally when you enter their hex. Maddog... that isn't a ba house rule at all.

Someone, somewhere, suggested smoke canisters, which I think is a good idea. Units would most often need to roll for smoke, but each side might have 1-2 smoke canisters which would guarantee placement. I asked David J, to draw them, but the crickets chirp on. Maybe in the next build.

On their use. I have two friends who served in Mogadishu. They claim smoke makes everything too confusing.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great



Isn't it fun when your stack of 3 or 4 all becomes shaken and then a single enemy unit pops over from a few hexes away and removes all your not jst shaken but apparently helpless units?

Hadn't thought of this. AT present you could have say four full squads shaken and a leader and they be taken out by a squad who can move assault...not keen. Even shaken units should have some chance of retaliation in close combat. Maybe a Chance for a hero to be made and with it some sort of odds that the units in hex become unshaken, or say a 10% chance they become unshaken once attacked in close combat and if a leader is there it goes upto 20%?.

I get the fix,'find, fix, flank, finish', but this current mechanic seems abit to harsh in certain circumstances.

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: wodin


.... AT present you could have say four full squads shaken and a leader ....

Can only have 3 squads in a hex.... [;)]

It's a tactic that has been used for years in the boardgame. It's also taken into consideration in the balance of all the scenarios.
Hard to change now I would think....

[zouave]

Just think of Sgt. York, rounding up all those Germans. I know, wrong war, but....

[Yogi the Great]

Slowly getting better at the game and I do like it. I still think the units get shaken too easily and the auto elim talked about above is too much, but as mentioned I now look to jump on shaken units myself in the if you have to live with it you might as well use it yourself mode. I do think it would be better to change it however.

Being old fashioned my hard copy of the game arrived yesterday. As mentioned in another thread I haven't seen a game manual that nice in quite a few years. THANK YOU!

It does seem that you have to sort of figure out gimmicks for lack of a better term to play the game well. Move one poor unit into heavy fire to try and get the enemy to shoot at it so that you can then move other units to adjacent hexes to assault. This also takes a way a bit the problem of all units in a stack getting shaken.

The having to press assault move or button up still giving me a lot of problems this old grognard just keeps forgetting and the consequences aren't good.

[markhwalker]

auto elim talked about above is too much

The better you get, the less you'll see it happen. You have to cover yourself.

[stormbringer3]

I just finished the German Campaign. What an excellent game! My frustration was the ending narative. Was it an accurate possibility? Absolutely. Was it satisifying for me? Definitely not.

[markhwalker]

Glad you enjoyed the campaign. Sorry the ending narrative didn't work for you.