North Korean SMC, Russian Counters, & "?"

[Chas Argent]

I don't know if any VASL dude can rectify this, but combined stacks of North Korean SMC and Russian counters do not Conceal as stacks; that is, if you Conceal a NorK leader atop a Russian squad, only the leader becomes Concealed. The same is true in reverse, i.e., for the squad of on top of the leader, Concealing the squad doesn't also Conceal the leader. This may be the case with all North Korean counters; I have not checked every permutation. Thanks.

 

[DougRim]

I don't know if any VASL dude can rectify this, but combined stacks of North Korean SMC and Russian counters do not Conceal as stacks; that is, if you Conceal a NorK leader atop a Russian squad, only the leader becomes Concealed. The same is true in reverse, i.e., for the squad of on top of the leader, Concealing the squad doesn't also Conceal the leader. This may be the case with all North Korean counters; I have not checked every permutation. Thanks.

It appears that this is more widespread:



My question would be: what do we want to happen when we mix nationalities under ? counters? And do want all nationality combinations to be treated the same or should there be distinctions and if so, what would they be?

 

[Chas Argent]

Well, for Korea, you use Russians to represent North Koreans, with a few "new" Russian-colored counters (SMC, an ATR, etc) that are unique to Korea. So the Russians pull double-duty as two nationalities. I certainly don't understand how the coding works, but it seems perhaps the North Korean counters require the same attributes as Russian counters to allow them to Conceal as the same nationality.

 

[DougRim]

There are actually NK squad and hs counters under the NK tab along with the SMC. They don't conceal when you conceal an NK leader on top of them. That is a problem. In response to your first post, I literally used squads and hs from the Russian tab. So I was mixing nationalities as I did with my other examples.

What you are rightlyworried about is that counters of the same nationality (NK) don't conceal as they should. This is a bug and I will mark it so. I suspect we missed something when creating those NK counters.

 

[Chas Argent]

Thanks for your time.

 

[asloser]

You'd need to check following combinations:

Hungarian - German
Chinese - Partisan- Russian
Vichy French - German
OUNC-South Korea - US

At least these should mix.

 

[von Marwitz]

My question would be: what do we want to happen when we mix nationalities under ? counters? And do want all nationality combinations to be treated the same or should there be distinctions and if so, what would they be?

This is a quite difficult question.

Probably, a good way to catch this would be an option to be set in the Preferences: Conceal ALL Allies/Axis in a stack or don't.

Or maybe a checkbox-system with which you could specifiy which nationalities to be considered Allies or Axis for Concealment purposes with one option to switch the settings back to 'standard'.

von Marwitz

 

[BigAl737]

You'd need to check following combinations:

Hungarian - German
Chinese - Partisan- Russian
Vichy French - German
OUNC-South Korea - US

At least these should mix.

This is a helpful list. I’ll add NK - Russian to it.

There was a debate about the Vichy French. It makes sense to conceal 1/2” counters as Germans but what do you do with 5/8” counters in a Vichy French OOB? There’s no German blue bordered Vichy French guns and vehicle counters. And I recall there’s one scenario where the Vichy French are fighting the Germans. How do you handle that? Someone tell me what to do here.

Vichy French not with standing, I can make the above happen fairly easily I believe.

However, there may be ramifications to games in progress. Users will most probably need to replace their counters with the new ones to see the changes. VASL is a fickle mistress...there may be other ramifications as well.

I’m willing to take this on, though I’ll let it simmer a bit and see what the community says.

 

[BigAl737]

This is a quite difficult question.

Probably, a good way to catch this would be an option to be set in the Preferences: Conceal ALL Allies/Axis in a stack or don't.

Or maybe a checkbox-system with which you could specifiy which nationalities to be considered Allies or Axis for Concealment purposes with one option to switch the settings back to 'standard'.

von Marwitz

Not a bad idea at first glance. It involves coding that is above my capabilities however.

 

[asloser]

There was a debate about the Vichy French. It makes sense to conceal 1/2” counters as Germans but what do you do with 5/8” counters in a Vichy French OOB? There’s no German blue bordered Vichy French guns and vehicle counters. And I recall there’s one scenario where the Vichy French are fighting the Germans. How do you handle that? Someone tell me what to do here.

Vichy French not with standing, I can make the above happen fairly easily I believe.

As it is with real counters there are no ? counters for Vichy - so they are supposed to use German concealmen anyway, and that is why I put them there. And that is why I store Vichy and Hungarians together along with bunch of spare German ? counters so I can play both nationalities easy.

However I have not used them in VASL so I do not actually know how they behave there.

 

[asloser]

And I recall there’s one scenario where the Vichy French are fighting the Germans. How do you handle that? Someone tell me what to do here.

Then you can use regular French to represent Vichy- the unit values are not different at all. ie how it was done the last 28 years with old GdC countermix.

 

[BigAl737]

This has simmered long enough. A fix is forth coming. My plan is to have:

North Korean conceal with Russian
Vichy French 1/2" counters conceal with German (there aren't any Vichy French 5/8" counters but see below for more on this)

As for the others on the list:
Hungarian - German; already does.
Chinese - Partisan- Russian; Partisans already do. Chinese I won't change as they have their own cardboard ? concealment counters.
OUNC-South Korea - US; won't change as OUNC and SK have their own cardboard ? counters.

More on the Vichy French...

Vichy French use French 5/8" counters thus also use French 5/8" concealment counters. I don't know if that's a problem but VASL will provide this work around: Use the counter with a text note defining the unit. This counter uses the German counter.

 

[bprobst]

OUNC-South Korea - US; won't change as OUNC and SK have their own cardboard ? counters.

Inexplicably, but that's a separate discussion.