We also present a product review of Le Franc Tireur #12 (revisited) and a first look at LFT issue #10, which is all about the Spanish Blue Division. Fantastic stuff!
If you don't know much about smoke rules, you'll want to immerse yourself in this one. Just don't inhale.
SHOW GUIDE
(2:30) - Letters
(16:30) - What’s In The Box?
(29:00) - Smoke Part 1
(1:07:00) - First-hand Smoke (a tutorial)
Total running time 1:31:00
SHOW LINKS
St. Louis ASL Tournament 2010
Naval Wargaming near Milwaukee, WI
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Tutorial Photos
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Posts
I found your episode about smoke interesting and informative....good stuff guys!
ReplyDeleteRegarding future episode on the subject of Campaign games, I think it would be great if you could get an interview with Tom Morin. He is the designer of Valor of the Guards CG module. I'm sure Tom has a lot to say since he spent more than 10 years working on his Stalingrad module.
Peter
Good episode. Maybe a little more example of how you can be shot at while placing smoke, but otherwise very complete.
ReplyDeleteWhy can you get shot at placing smoke? Easy. A hex represents approximately 40 meters. Taken as a square thats roughly 1600 square meters. BIG area. If a squad of 8-10 men occupy that area you have a dipersal of one man per 160-200 square meters. That said, lets look at the next hex. Again its also 40 meters. The game system has to extroplate to some extent. We are dealing with vague numbers and placement within a hex when it comes to individual soldiers. Say you make your smoke dr. What does that represent in terms of the game system? It means only that at that time, one or more soldiers actually were issued, or retained for that combat operation smoke grenades. Now which soldier in the hex has them? Maybe its the soldiers in the rear of the hex. Again, extrapolation. Can that guy hurl a grenade 40 meters much less with any accurately? Taking the adjacent hex into account, 80 meters? Under fire? With accuracy? I say no on both accounts but... Now how many grenades would it take to fill that 1600 square meters with enough smoke to "realistically" provide enough smoke to cause visual empairement? The game system only allows you to see effective causes and actions. It does not take into full account the actions of individuals per se. When a squad gets KIA'd, truly in real life there is a chance that one or two guys are still alive and capable of return fire. The game system takes this into account by saying those two soldiers fire is an ineffective amount to cause action on the game level. I digress but back to the smoke. This is where the game system takes into account that during those two minutes that the turn represents, the individual soldiers have moved forward under fire, (up to 39 meters) and thrown enough grenades (exposing themselves) with enough accuracy (up to 40 meters) to be effective. Once again, let me digress. In the game system, when a unit fires, it represents two minutes of accurate sustained fire at a specific target/area. Does that help?
ReplyDeleteChrisF CA
Contact Chris at pz_vg@yahoo.com for comments. He left the above comment. Dave and Jeff
ReplyDeletegood show men...1 thing...infantry and a few vehicles use Movement Factors (MFs) and not Movement Points (MPs)...Most vehicles use Movement Points (MPs). You said you expend Movement Points for using smoke grenades...that's not correct for you newbies out there...you should have said Movement Factors (MFs).
ReplyDeleteThe dr of the smoke placement, does not represent if they have grenades, as you guys mentioned in the podcast. It represent if the placement is succesfull, that the grenades land where they should, with the right spacing between them, to cover the whole hex. The reason that you spend 2 MF and get shot at while doing this, is that maybe 2 or 3 guys are running around throwing these grenades. Someone perhaps runs out of the building to get into better range to throw that fourth grenade. These guys can get shoot at, and that's what you Defensive Fire shoots at....not that the grenade catches fires in some guys pocket.
ReplyDeleteThanks for these interesting comments, gentlemen. We will read some of these and discuss on Episode 34, which will include part 2 of Smoke. Thanks for listening.
ReplyDeleteGuys, it's Jean Luc...pronounced ZJOHN LUC. As in Jean Luc PICARD!!! You no the bald guy in Star Trek. :->
ReplyDeleteGuys as always, the show was informative, and funny. It has a flavor of a few guys sitting around talking about the games; they just finished playing and hanging out. I've found this is one of the best things about ASL. - Next to playing.
ReplyDeleteDenis