Does the current sniper implementation actually improve the game?

RandyT0001

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Agreed. I've been tinkering with a scenario where the situation has some sporadic mortar/artillery fire coming from both sides. Rather than simulate it with OBA, I'm giving each side high SANs (probably 4 and 4, maybe 5 and 5).
SAN number for random OBA strike time intervals given two minute turns
2 - 72 minutes
3 - 36 minutes
4 - 24 minutes
5 - 18 minutes
6 - 14/15 minutes
7 - 12 minutes
 

ecz

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I guess we are stuck with it, but I wonder if designers might consider just going with a zero SAN in the future.

Everyone has their opinion, but to me:

1) SAN slows things down
2) SAN makes scenarios dicy-er (for little benefit I think)
3) It really doesn't seem the way snipers would influence the battlefield (while admitting never being on one)
4) In some cases it makes sense to put a half-squad in the open or low TEM areas. Hardly good tactics.
my opinions:
1) Every thing, rule, or event slows things a bit. Also MC due to attacks or vehicles with many MPs slow the game. Besides I think it avoids an huge number of attacks rolled just because you could get a PTC rolling 1,1 or 1,2.
2) I can hardly imagine a scenario "dicey" just because the sniper. If it is dicey it is because it is poorly designed in general.
3) never joined a WWII battle, so I do not have an opinion. For what I have seen and read I think that it is fairly realistic or, putting it in another way, there are things in ASL that influence the battlefield in a wrong direction muc much more (first of all the lack of fog of war) .
4) I love this "countermisure". I see the HS sent in the open not like a target to absorb bullets, but as a team with the specific task to neutralize the enemy snipers.

and in general:
-Sniper management is one of the camps where easily better players gain an edge over inexperienced players, of course statistically and in a long run, then it should be welcome;
-an higher SAN usually makes scenarios more exciting;
- I have playested a scenario where SAN (reduction) become a tactical objective, since the attacker can/could divert units to seize the rooftops of a factory to drop permanently the enemy SAN from 5 to 2 adding a very interesting dimension to the scenario. Creative use of the SAN can make the difference in scenario design.

All in all it is one of my favorite rules and the change that impressed me more during the transition from SL/CoI to ASL.
 

Eagle4ty

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Agreed. I've been tinkering with a scenario where the situation has some sporadic mortar/artillery fire coming from both sides. Rather than simulate it with OBA, I'm giving each side high SANs (probably 4 and 4, maybe 5 and 5).
OH NO, not ANOTHER barker!:D:p:eek:
 

Sparafucil3

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The near total lack of control over a SAN event is one of the most realistic simulations in the game itself.
I can't control the Sniper nor it's activation, but if I am playing on top of my game, I can do a pretty good job of controlling the potential damage it can inflict. Dummies and half-squads around my kill stack in lower TEM, making sure my most important units are not on the "spines" of the SAN attack DR, etc. IMO, it just makes the game a little more "gamier" but it is a game so that's to be expected. Read Nixon's Hyper Sniper article for more details. -- jim
 

wrongway149

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Agreed. I've been tinkering with a scenario where the situation has some sporadic mortar/artillery fire coming from both sides. Rather than simulate it with OBA, I'm giving each side high SANs (probably 4 and 4, maybe 5 and 5).
Or keep it at '4' But a '3' on the result will PIN everyone in the target hex.
 

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I think SAN improves the game, yes. As many have typed before me, it adds cool randomness to the game. I think it adds to the "story" of the scenario as its being played out.

We have all had games won and lost by a SAN.

I think its cool.

Peace

Roger
 

Rooster2k

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Snipers just add a bit of mystery. I seen many games turn on the 1 random sniper taking out a key leader or something . It adds reality to a game. we can't plan everything.
 

aiabx

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I'm also on the list of people who believes that random s*** adds to the fun (and maybe even the realism) of the game. One of the great things about the game is my opinion is the friction - the difference between the orders you issue and what happens on the board. That tank that can't decide if it wants to move, the conscripts who cower when they should be shooting, that magnificent leader who poops his pants and demoralizes his men.. and the sniper. I like trying to compensate for the things I just can't control.
 

von Marwitz

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I'm also on the list of people who believes that random s*** adds to the fun (and maybe even the realism) of the game. One of the great things about the game is my opinion is the friction - the difference between the orders you issue and what happens on the board. That tank that can't decide if it wants to move, the conscripts who cower when they should be shooting, that magnificent leader who poops his pants and demoralizes his men.. and the sniper. I like trying to compensate for the things I just can't control.
This.

I like the Sniper rules as they are.

Sure, regular players may have experienced a scenario being decided by a Sniper Activation followed by grievous results (or merely a Pin...). But on the other hand, they also have seen scenarios equally decided by things such as Mechanical Reliability failure, MA malfunction, TC failure for Platoon Movement, ESB failure/success, Heat of Battle, LLMC/LLTC, ROF. The list goes on and on.

Would we like ASL to zap all these? Surely not.
The Sniper rules are just one of those that limit 'control' in the game. Such rules give ASL its special flavor.
Each of us probably especially likes/dislikes one of these rules, but that does not necessarily mean that they are broken.

von Marwitz
 
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Vinnie

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I can onkybrecall one scenario I plsyed being ruined by a sniper. Turn 2 and I prep fire a unit and get an M.C. Sniper goes off and whacks his leader and the mmc squad fail a llmc. Next shot, two SAN both of which break units close to the mmg. One final attack and you guessed it, the sole remaining squad in the area gets whacked by the sniper. All this happening a half board away from the shooting.
A bizarre series of events which left the centre section of the board completely uncovered and my units, which might have fired, could just charge up and capture everyone. A third of the defenders eliminated for no cost. We just chucked it and started again.

But then thsts one out of the hundreds of scenarios I've played. Sure, it was annoying but the chances of it happening are so very very slim. It needed not only the right activations but the exact RS movement to send the sniper to the right targets.
 

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Just a question of storytelling.
Absolutely. A long time ago on a mailing list far, far away, somebody bemoaned that for all of its chrome ASL has no rules for, e.g., a jeep suddenly getting a flat tire. I replied that sure it does -- it's called the Sniper. Equally it could be a drive belt snapping, a hole in the radiator or the transmission suddenly breaking (all things most of us have no doubt seen or experienced just driving around in our daily lives). If you persist in thinking that the Sniper represents a man holding a rifle and nothing else, that's a failure of your imagination, not a failure in the game's rules.
 

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I'd prefer the WTF? counter.
Works for me, have probably thought or said it enough times! Never had a scenario ruined by a Sniper activation, but have certainly made some memorable! In BFP's Preliminary Moves I had a squad on the board edge ready to exit during the last APh for my last 2 EVP to give me the win. I can't remember what series of events transpired to during the DFPh to bring the Sniper almost the entire board length to a position where only one direction would result in a strike on that unit, but during the AFPh I took a totally worthless shot, giving no thought to the enemy Sniper. Needless to say the shot resulted in a Sniper activation and the resultant distance & direction was a maximum "drift" in the one and only direction that could have mattered (only 16+% of that for Pete's sake!!); Pinned my guy on the board edge bigger than snake snot! That dang-gummed Curtis Brooks reminds me of that every time I have a shot to make and he has a Sniper with the only chance of harming me when things get a little tense in a scenario.
 
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