Barking Monkey
Senior Member
Just want to see if others agree with this rules interpretation with boats and panic. I've got German infantry beached and on assault boats having a mix of morale '7' and '8' troops. S13.61 says FRIENDLY units in boats in water are not subject to panic - unfortunately vague wording the full effects of which we'll get to shortly.
1. Since beached units are not 'in' water I'm thinking that they are still subject to Panic. If an assault boat has both morale '7' and '8' troops loaded and the panic roll is '8' I assume that means the whole assault boat is prevented from unbeaching since either (a) the inherent driver of the boat is morale 7 and thus panics OR (b) some of the passengers are panicked and since an assault boat cannot 'divide' the panicked troops' status prevails. I'm not 100% sure if case (a) or case (b) is the determining rule but I'm leaning toward (b) since they are still beached. [For arguments sake, if the units were on small rafts I'd think the raft counter would just 'split' with the '8' guys unbeaching on a 7pp raft counter and the panicked '7' guys would remain beached on another such counter.]
2. Somewhat more trickily, once in the water it seems like a strict interpretation of S13.61 would suggest that units on assault boats - which have an inherent driver - would still be subject to panic b/c it's the inherent driver that would be taking a panic test (same as if the MMC were in a truck on land,) not the FRIENDLY units that are embarked in the boats (and which are immune to panic.) So you'd have to check panic for such craft, with an '8+' result meaning the boat couldn't move (apart from drift) but the units in the boat could still, for example, fire since they aren't subject to panic. This is where the vague wording I was talking about above comes in. This seems weird and I choose to disregard it in favor of treating assault boats the same as other boats once in the water as immune to panic, inherent crew be damned. And possibly I'm missing something and that's how it should be applied anyway?
1. Since beached units are not 'in' water I'm thinking that they are still subject to Panic. If an assault boat has both morale '7' and '8' troops loaded and the panic roll is '8' I assume that means the whole assault boat is prevented from unbeaching since either (a) the inherent driver of the boat is morale 7 and thus panics OR (b) some of the passengers are panicked and since an assault boat cannot 'divide' the panicked troops' status prevails. I'm not 100% sure if case (a) or case (b) is the determining rule but I'm leaning toward (b) since they are still beached. [For arguments sake, if the units were on small rafts I'd think the raft counter would just 'split' with the '8' guys unbeaching on a 7pp raft counter and the panicked '7' guys would remain beached on another such counter.]
2. Somewhat more trickily, once in the water it seems like a strict interpretation of S13.61 would suggest that units on assault boats - which have an inherent driver - would still be subject to panic b/c it's the inherent driver that would be taking a panic test (same as if the MMC were in a truck on land,) not the FRIENDLY units that are embarked in the boats (and which are immune to panic.) So you'd have to check panic for such craft, with an '8+' result meaning the boat couldn't move (apart from drift) but the units in the boat could still, for example, fire since they aren't subject to panic. This is where the vague wording I was talking about above comes in. This seems weird and I choose to disregard it in favor of treating assault boats the same as other boats once in the water as immune to panic, inherent crew be damned. And possibly I'm missing something and that's how it should be applied anyway?