Avanti questions

[Lord Hanaur]

1 hour ago, barca said:

Seems like another effort to remove tricks from the gameplay, or just to simplify things.

Since you don't need the Formation Commander or HQ unit to be on the table, or even to be alive anymore (or operational vs bailed out), then Formation Last Stand is always a simple test, not complicated by where your Formation Commander is nor by what state they are in.

I liked it better when the General mattered honestly.  that just makes sense to me and it didn't seem to complicate matters much.  As it is losing 3 units is catastrophic in the game anyways.

 

[Brother Glacius]

Yeah, I liked that too. You should be protecting your company commander. And it did effect morale if he was dead. I also own several 75mm howie batteries for my Italians and yes, it sucks that they are completely gone. Booooo.

[Lord Hanaur]

What are Battle Plans and Fog of War about?

[barca]

1 hour ago, Lord Hanaur said:

What are Battle Plans and Fog of War about?

Battle Plans: A different way of selecting missions, based on both player's play style or preference.

Quoted below from p. 2 of "Flames of War Missions" online PDF https://www.flamesofwar.com/Portals/0/Documents/Missions/MoreMissions.pdf

"The Battle Plans mission selector allows players to bid for the type of mission they want to play, with the combination of the two players’ plans determining the type of mission.  Before the game, both sides pick their battle plans. They then compare their plans on the Battle Plans table below then roll a die to see what mission they will play."

 

Fog Of War Objective Cards (FW007O) - Flames Of War https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=5619

"The Fog of War Objective deck adds a new mission to the game, creating an ever-changing game state where you may not know your opponent's plans right away. It allows you to play missions with objectives that vary from game to game, and can even change during the game..."

[Lord Hanaur]

So we played some Flames of War tonight.  This time I tried the old Italians, or should I say helped a new guy play the Italians.  I learned a lot doing that.  More stuff i hadn't thought about came up.  

Main thing was....How does AA .50 cal's work?  Do they reduce to one shot when firing as AA?  Another thing:  2 fighters.  I only have one.  Does it matter?  Do they fire two artillery templates?  We assumed one.  I tried to reference it in the middle of the game but I just could not quickly find that.

Flame Throwers:  definitely needed to understand those better.  We went with our best guess.  Dunno if I got it right.

Anywho the Italians took an awful beating, but managed to get a Draw.  ALMOST managed to kill off a Sherman unit with the good old Falco.  Had two bailed and one active...  But they made their bail ins.  Still, had that happened, the game was won because enemy Stuarts went after a bait unit we threw out for them to kill and then got wrecked (FINALLY) by the unit of three 47mm guns that had been trying to get into position and to that point had gotten little luck in killing them.  The guy I was helping (to the best of my ability) had fun.  Game went really long though.  Lots of things to learn in a first game. 

I think that the Italians ABSOLUTELY need those Howitzers but its a lot more points than the Falco which means losing something significant.  It would have been a nice direct fire threat if they had trucks.  Some form of tank killing just needed to happen.  The Italians had no tanks at all, and the enemy was an American Tank division so it was tough sledding.  Twas SUCH a costly Tie!  

 

 

[barca]

On 5/6/2018 at 10:27 PM, Lord Hanaur said:

Third Question:  

The Features for the units are listed in Avanti, without much explanation.  So...  am I just being dense and missing something?  For example, 100mm Howitzer Battery says it has the Feature "Emergency Anti-Tank".  This just seems like fluff.  Does this refer to a rule or something?

No. "Emergency Anti-Tank".  ...is fluff - a "Feature" (or in Battlefront-speak "flavour text"). This is not a "Special Rule".

The "Features" are a way of explaining the stats, but do not bestow any special abilities.

[barca]

5 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

Main thing was....How does AA .50 cal's work?  Do they reduce to one shot when firing as AA?

 

.50 cal's have special rule "Self-defence AA". See p. 93 of RB. One shot per gun when shooting at aircraft.

[barca]

5 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

Flame Throwers:  definitely needed to understand those better.  We went with our best guess.  Dunno if I got it right.

 

Flame Throwers: Special rule on p. 3 of AVANTI!. Not in the rule book (RB). Exactly as it says in AVANTI. Nothing more.

Flamethrower rule is simplified / or "streamlined" when compared to earlier versions of the rules. FT are now less powerful against tanks than they were in v3.

[barca]

5 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

I think that the Italians ABSOLUTELY need those Howitzers but its a lot more points than the Falco which means losing something significant.  It would have been a nice direct fire threat if they had trucks.  Some form of tank killing just needed to happen.  The Italians had no tanks at all, and the enemy was an American Tank division so it was tough sledding.  Twas SUCH a costly Tie!  

 

 

Agreed. Italian AT guns and tank guns have AT 6, which will only scratch the paint of a Sherman. 100mm howitzers OK in AT role, but direct fire range of 16 is too short (unless a command card for softskin transport is "bought"). Hence the feature "Emergency anti-tank".

An Italian has a several choices in list building when facing Allied tanks with front armor 5 or better:

1. Passive: Infantry with AT guns and howitzers. Let the tanks get in close - to short range (100mm howitzers), or defend in assault and hit side armor during defensive fire.
2. Semi-Active: If Howitzers have softskin transport, maybe they can be deployed forward. If that is the plan, build one or more spearhead units to grab that forward deployment area and then the spearhead unit(s) screen the move of the howitzers.
3. Passive: Better AT guns: 88mm or 90mm
4. Active: Semovente (AT8, direct fire range 20")
5. Active or Passive: German allies. Tanks or PaK 38 (a.k.a. "5cm Tank Hunter") platoon is available.
6. Active: aircraft - Falco (unit card) or Stuka (Command Card)

Italian pioneers might be able to do something against tanks in difficult terrain, but I have not run the numbers.

[barca]

6 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

Another thing:  2 fighters.  I only have one.  Does it matter?  Do they fire two artillery templates?  We assumed one.  I tried to reference it in the middle of the game but I just could not quickly find that.

Will check on this at lunchtime...

[Lord Hanaur]

Well cr is p i thought those rules werein the Mrb.  Didnt even think to l9ok in avanti for flamer rules.  Hehe

[barca]

On 5/10/2018 at 8:16 AM, barca said:

Will check on this at lunchtime...

The aircraft template for bombs we treat as one template and range-in per aircraft. This seems to be implicit. We did not find a clarification in FAQ nor in rule book.

If someone wants to ask it on the facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/BattlefrontMiniatures - an answer there would make is quasi-official, until the FAQ is updated.

[Lord Hanaur]

okay wow so those planes are better than i thought!  firing down two of those is pretty sweet.

[Lord Hanaur]

We played another game of Flames of War.  This time I faced a mixed group.  A Sherman group, an M3 Lee group, two very large American infantry squads decked out in weapons and the Company HQ Sherman and Infantry one.  

I used the new info I learned and also changed my list to allow me a little better chance against armor.  The italians fielded their three Heavy Weapons squads to the flanks to eventually set up side shots on the Americans who had their tanks in the middle facing my objective dead on.  Heavy Machine gun section got in a building and prepared to move upfield.  there was a nice row of buildings and the plan wa to go from cover to cover in them and eventually reach the American Infantry.

Joining the "Heavy" Weapons Formation were a unit of M14's, and Semoventis plus the M14 command group.  The Command group and Semoventis were aligned on my extreme left flank while the M14's were on my right flank.  

The Americans seized the initiative and surged their tanks at top cross country speed into the middle, hoping to quickly make the Italion Falco flights irrelevant through proximity and with the knowledge that their armor was superior to the anti-tank guns arrayed against them.

As the game progressed, The Semoventis and Commmand M14's drove cover to cover up the left flank, stopping at one point to rain fire down on the American Infantry and then proceeding towards the forest the American infantry took cover behind.  On my right the M14's trundled forward to deal wit hthe infantry there.

the pivotal moment when things started to tilt was when the M14's and heavy Machine guns were able to absolutely wash the Americans with loads of Heavy Machinegun fire.  The Americans came out of their fox holes and tried to bring their Bazookas to bear o nthe light M14 chassis but in so doing, left themselves faer too exposed.  7 entire teams paid the price with their lives.  

With no other choice, the Shermans were forced to divert to the right flank in order to keep the Italians from getting to the objective, and by this time the Lee's had pressed their advantage but the Italians created a kill box through skillful moving, which ultimately began to take its toll on the M3 Lee's.  Now with 5 47mm guns that could hit their side armor but with the objective so close, the Lee's took their chances and fired into the Italians, holding their ground and hoping to eliminate the threats.  Their Commander however was not bold enough to charge the 47m guns as he probably should have which allowed them to whittle slightly and eventually kill a Lee while bailing another from the right flank group of guns.  Down to two Lee's, they finally made their way to the other side of the kill box and to relative safety where they could start blazing away again.

At this time the Semoventi's careful advance on the left ended at the forest and the Americans, again full of vim and vigore decided to try and advance on the lightly armored Assault guns to kill them with their Bazookas.  They had been mauled by aircraft and by Semoventi artillery fire and were quite tired of being pinned down and losing men slowly but surely.  This, again ended badly for them as the M14's repelled them and then in the following turn the collective fire finished them to a man.  At this stage we called it.  He simply had no way to get back to his objective and no way to resist the firepower to their sides if the M3's and Shermans were to try.  My last M14 had slid onto the otherobjective and although it would have been easily dispatched, there just wasn't time to save the day.

Italian victory.  

I think he learned that infantry in the open are not a good idea against the M14's.  While they are not stellar tanks, there is almost no chance you will ever make a charge against them with Infantry save perhaps the Russians?  In both attempts, he was repelled and sent to an early grave.  I think he will value his foxholes far more in the future.

The M3's and Shermans were very much more than a match for the Italians and i think his reticence to charge them into my heavy Weapons Squads came from knowing i would hit on the side but I think it was a risjk he needed to take,  Him not being able to charge into buildings was also impactful as i had a unitthat essentially could sit in the building all day and weather his shots, so he needs to probably think about objective placement more against infantry heavy armies.  Had he placed it somewhere NOT near a building i could hide in...  It might have been tougher on me.

My take aways were that I definitely do need to respect the need for cover and my choice of board side is really important.  Getting to choose that, for my army is going to matter.  It always matters, but in particular for me it does.

I also think that the Falco is pretty cool but that more traditional Artillery are probably going to serve me better for all kinds of reasons.  I really need to get the Order cards for Avanti though because I feel as if there would definitely be some cool stuff in there for me and I had 3 points to spare that could have been used for that.