Assault movement and Non-Assault movement in same stack?

[Jwil2020]

Amazing to have questions as basic as these arise in a mature game system.

I must confess the same thought crossed my mind. I guess the good news is that eventually (hopefully) we will get an official ruling, and Klas can add it to his 144-page Q&A document.

 

[Crender]

I feel like I inadvertently blundered into a minefield! Speaking of which, the rules say….

 

[Jwil2020]

I feel like I inadvertently blundered into a minefield!

Ah, it's probably a dummy minefield anyway

 

[Eagle4ty]

Ah, it's probably a dummy minefield anyway

Or dummies in a minefield.

 

[Philippe D.]

I submitted a series of questions to Perry mostly related to the topic of this thread; I will of course share his reply when it comes (here, and in the "perry sez" section).

So, resurrecting the thread I got Perry's answers and they seem to make things pretty clear.

A copy of the questions and answers is here (Perry Sez thread)

What this seems to boil down to:

* in a moving stack, some units can be using Assault Movement while others are not (possibly because they don't have the same MF, or possibly because some intend to expend more than others)

* in a moving, concealed stack, if some units perform a Concealment Loss activity, only these will lose Concealment (think "smoke grenades" or "DC placement")

* some units can leave the stack voluntarily

* if a unit in a stack rolls a 6 on a smoke placement dr, others can keep moving.

* if a unit leaves the stack, it doesn't mean its movement is over, it can resume moving after the rest of the stack ends its movement. Of course if the stack contains a leader that remains with the stack, later movement will be without the leader bonus.

This seems to make a lot of nice tricks possible, some of them involving moving next to the opponent under concealment, laying smoke (either in own hex or on the opponent), then a leader placing a DC under cover of the smoke - but without revealing the DC before the smoke is actually placed.

 

[Tuomo]

This seems to make a lot of nice tricks possible...

I dunno about that? The simultaneous movement expenditure means that a single First Fire can affect all of the moving units. Which is why one would do these moves serially, forcing a defender to First Fire, SFF, FPF, etc. Or am I missing an example where it'd make sense?

 

[Doug Leslie]

I dunno about that? The simultaneous movement expenditure means that a single First Fire can affect all of the moving units. Which is why one would do these moves serially, forcing a defender to First Fire, SFF, FPF, etc. Or am I missing an example where it'd make sense?

How about this situation?



The Russians have to knock out the German HMG position, come what may. They could use one assault engineer to roll for smoke in Z2 but there are two problems with this. Firstly, the attempt is uphill which means that it only has a 25% chance of success. Secondly, if the attempt does succeed, it now costs 4 MF to enter Z2 and makes it impossible to use assault movement when placing the DC. Instead, why not spend two MF to assault move the stack into Z2 and keep concealment? If the 467 holds fire or the stack survives defensive first fire, one assault engineer can now roll for smoke for one MF while the other squad and leader retain concealment. If all goes well and the attempt is successful, the squad and leader will then have smoke protection when they lose concealment to expend 2 MF to place the DC. The smoke also protects against any residual fire left from a defensive first fire attack.

 

[EagleIV]

How about this situation?

View attachment 21836

The Russians have to knock out the German HMG position, come what may. They could use one assault engineer to roll for smoke in Z2 but there are two problems with this. Firstly, the attempt is uphill which means that it only has a 25% chance of success. Secondly, if the attempt does succeed, it now costs 4 MF to enter Z2 and makes it impossible to use assault movement when placing the DC. Instead, why not spend two MF to assault move the stack into Z2 and keep concealment? If the 467 holds fire or the stack survives defensive first fire, one assault engineer can now roll for smoke for one MF while the other squad and leader retain concealment. If all goes well and the attempt is successful, the squad and leader will then have smoke protection when they lose concealment to expend 2 MF to place the DC. The smoke also protects against any residual fire left from a defensive first fire attack.

Actually in this situation when the squad and leader go to place the DC only the squad would lose concealment. The leader is not placing the the DC, only expending 2 MF (doing nothing) at that time while using AM.
In your example you should make clear that (I think you mean) for the first squad to split off from the rest of the stack to place the Smoke on its third MF so that the other squad and leader don't take fire on that MF expenditure so they are no longer part of the stack that is moving at that moment.

 

[Philippe D.]

In your example you should make clear that (I think you mean) for the first squad to split off from the rest of the stack to place the Smoke on its third MF so that the other squad and leader don't take fire on that MF expenditure so they are no longer part of the stack that is moving at that moment.

That's one good example of the kind of trick I had in mind, though it would look better with German Assault Engineers who have a much better chance of smoke grenades