[Diaspora] Platoon Combat Confusion

[Brad Murray]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:18 PM, Sam Friedman <safriedman at gmail.com> wrote:

> - representation on the map: If I am fielding the sample t3 Marine Platoon
> (p. 196), how many markers do I need?  One for the whole platoon?  One per
> team?  One per unit on each team?
>

You should have seen the text BEFORE the edits. :D A platoon is composed of
multiple teams. A team is a single entity on the map. A unit usually refers
to the miniature used to represent the team on the map.


> - action: Each unit takes an action, right?  So a single marine (unit)
> could split off from his pals (team) to engage his arch rival (unit)
> one-on-one.  A team could move away from the other teams in its platoon to
> execute a pincer maneuver.  Right?  As long as they're within range of their
> Platoon Leader's communication, they'd be able to use any of the available
> actions?
>

Teams can move away from the platoon (subject to the platoon membership
rules of course) and do as they please, yeah. A single guy is not
(generally) functional at this scale, though I would totally zoom in on a PC
vs Arch-Villain combat and use the personal combat rules.


>
> 3.  Movement
> - "If your movement places you in (or passes through) the same zone as an
> enemy unit ... the moving unit ceases movement."  This is different than the
> every zone you move through has the potential for a compel, right?
>

Yes.


>
> 4.  Platoon consequences
> -  Typical Unit Stress Tracks, p.187, says "All units have a single stress
> track, Morale.  A platoon may expend consequences to mitigate hits ... A
> platoon has three Consequences to allocate and each can mitigate two
> shifts."
> -  But in Damage on p. 192, "A platoon can have a maximum of three
> consequences ..." mild [reduce by 1], medium [reduce by 2], and sever
> [reduce by 4].
>

Ugh I thought we found all those. Either way works. We went to two-per to
simplify bookeeping, but we found we were reflexively using the more
complicated but familiar form in real play. I recommend p.192 as canonical.


> -  So if a unit in a platoon would take that deadly hit, its owning platoon
> can "give" one of its consequences to that unit?  Is this consequence
> free-taggable on the unit or the platoon?  Does it "occupy" one of the
> platoon's otherwise-available consequences?
>

Consequences are all on the platoon and never on the unit. The text might
refer to the unit, but it's the platoon where all the record-keeping stays.


>
> 5.  Artillery
> - Any suggestions on how to narrate the fact that my artillery card is off
> the map?  I have a sinking feeling my war-gaming friends would say "well
> hey, that should be somewhere on the map.  I'd like to capture your
> artillery cannons and use them against you."  Is there a way to model this
> (I'm thinking a small-scale concession of some sort?).
>

I think that fighting for control of the artillery itself is a scenario in
itself, in which the cannons are props and don't do anything. Not sure how
to help you with this -- they are just way off the field of battle such that
if that's where the fight was, it'd be a different fight. If you want to
model artillery that's close (like anti-tank guns, light artillery, and
mortars) use platoons (armor or infantry) with the Indirect Fire ability and
put them right on the map. Part of the reason artillery behaves as it does
is because it's distant and inaccessible.



>
> Any help is appreciated.
>

Hope you got some Sam! Let me know how it goes.

-- 
Brad Murray (halfjack)
VSCA Publishing
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