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Night fighting

 Post subject: Night fighting
PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:13 pm 
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Greetings fellow generals,

have you ever thought on night fighting rules for EA? Certainly there are lots of opportunities and necessities to fight under night-like conditions - real night cycle of worlds, dark planets like Mordia, ... just be creative!

In my opinion range should not be limited during night. Even if the ground infantry does not have night fighting equipment, they still could illuminate the battlefield by flares or something. Vehicles would have searchlights or night vision gear and war engines like titans surely have powerful sensor equipment.

My idea would be to simply modify the initiative roll by -1. This could simulate the difficulties in keeping unit coherency, organizing the formation under unclear conditions. Battles would probably evolve slower or less organized, but fights still would be deadly.

What do you think? Should there be some kind of extra blast marker under some conditions?
I am keen to read of your ideas!

Regards,
Khorgor

ps: These rule suggestion has not yet been tested!

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:43 pm 
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There's several ideas that have been thrown out over the years on the board.
-Chroma in the Total War scenarios book(s) had options in several ideas of Night Fighting or reduced visibility environments. I don't have the specific ones in my memory but give them a read.
-Dooglebug had wayyyyy back suggested the following
Quote:
normal LOS limited to 30cm except for units with night vision (eg. all SM units, flyers and Titans/Gargants) it could also be available as an upgrade to certain units (eg. stromtroopers, armoured companies).

normal units units with night vision
0-30cm -1 to hit normal shooting
30cm+ no shooting -1 to hit

This does not apply to shooting against warmachines as they would be a bit hard to miss still.

Bombardments and other indirect fire are unafected. Illumination parachute flares could be fired instead of a bombardment or dropped by flyers to allow other units to shoot at one enemy formation as normal the effect lasting for the rest of the turn.

I would also suggest some sort of morale effect. Additional -1 to initiative for units regrouping/rallying in the end phase unless there is a freindly unbroken formation within 30cm?

-IIRC, Black Legion had some ideas about environmental conditions on th battlefield. Homie was anything if not prolfic so digging through the 600 pages of posts isn't in the cards at the moment.
-I've produced some rules for Epic: Battle Tactics that I'm happy to share with you. They use the name, "fighting at night" but only as being representative of reduced visibility rules, irrespective of actual cause (a very Epic abstraction).
Quote:
4.2 Fighting at Night
Not all battles occur during broad daylight in the middle of the day (some estimations account for more than 1/3rd of battles fought occurred during less than full visibility). The Night Fighting rules account for any scenario where visibility is not clear and LOS affecting conditions exist, not just night conditions (perhaps the world is shrouded in thick volcanic clouds obscuring daylight, or a forgeworld / hive world during an ash storm).
Units maintain their usual ZoC though in all cases FF range will be reduced to 10cm representing the ability of units to close under the adverse conditions before engaging the enemy. Shooting attacks by weapons with less than 10cm range are unaffected. Weapons up to 15cm or less are reduced to 10cm. All other weapons reduced by at least 25% range or 30cm, whichever value is less.

I'm stealing your idea about WE however! ;D

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Last edited by jimmyzimms on Thu Jul 03, 2014 5:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 5:03 pm 
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Even with high tech, basically what all you posted there is generally good ... K.I.S.S ... :-* 8) In my youth as an Infantry Officer, we did a lot of night ops, and my predilection was a dismounted night attack ...

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 5:34 pm 
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Thank you both for your comments.

Simplicity: that's why I tend to the simple -1 initiative. Restricting range seemed a bit strange for me...

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:10 pm 
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Range limitations would be based on Tech level ... for example ... An SM in PA would have Night Vision, so would Eldar and Tau ... but probably most IG would not ... nor would Orks ... again, just for examples ...

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 10:24 pm 
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If marines had good night vision, they would not need lamps in their terminator armour, when fighting those genestealers on spacehulks, wouldn't they? Just kidding, I do know this is just for setting the claustrophobic and horror mood.
Anyway I do not believe in strikt tech levels in 40k - Scout marines definitely use NV, imperial stormtroopers would use them. Eldar Guardians on the other hand are just militia troops, aren't they? Would they receive this devices?

Just some comments to your comments^^. Thanks for your contribution!

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 11:07 pm 
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Yeah this is where rule of cool and theme come into conflict with realism.
"we've conquered the nontrivial task of interstellar travel crossing the cosmos in ships the size of cities, each with the power to level entire continents but we choose to fight attritional wars with chainsaws and lack night vision goggles, a technology mastered 38millenia ago" ::)

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:20 am 
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khorgor wrote:
If marines had good night vision, they would not need lamps in their terminator armour, when fighting those genestealers on spacehulks, wouldn't they? Just kidding, I do know this is just for setting the claustrophobic and horror mood.
Anyway I do not believe in strikt tech levels in 40k - Scout marines definitely use NV, imperial stormtroopers would use them. Eldar Guardians on the other hand are just militia troops, aren't they? Would they receive this devices?

Just some comments to your comments^^. Thanks for your contribution!

Well, my Mech Infantry Co. back in the late '80s was authorized 34 NVD for the 112 troops authorized ... So as mentioned, in 40K with a tech level where huge spacecraft can cross the Galaxy using Warp Tech. But yet some troops are armed with chainswords ... So the short answer is then ... do what works for you when you game ... not neccessarily me ... :whistle

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:07 am 
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Hi,

Instead of night fighting, call it limited visibility. There are Lots of reasons, not just darkness, such as:

Dust storms - blocks scanning equipment, damages lenses on sensitive surveillance kit etc...
Ash clouds - Impenetrable clouds of ash, gets everywhere and clogs kit...
Blizzard and snow storms, could affect night vision and surveillance devices...
Alien planets! Possible radiation or electromagnetic pulses that effect equipment and render them useless...

Steve


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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:01 pm 
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That is true as well ... have run into sand/dust storms and blizzards as well ... for simplicity they are basically the same ... "Can't see #$%$&* !! " ;D

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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:55 pm 
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I have a set of "Hostile Worlds" environmental conditions; The Night Fighting one looks like this:

Night Fighting
Sometimes, the battle is fought at an inconvenient time.
Roll D6 to determine which turns are affected by darkness:
1-2: Entire game
2-3: Turns 1 and 2
4-5: Turns 3 and 4
During darkness gameturns, the following effects apply:
All Shooting attacks suffer a -2 penalty
All Firefight attacks suffer a -1 penalty

You don't want to meet Tyranids at night...


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 Post subject: Re: Night fighting
PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 8:19 pm 
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That could work ...

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