Tomorrow's War - Rules Questions

[sigur]

Hey, I just finished my second game of Tomorrow's war (went straight for the Tigers by the Tail scenario, i.e. the one at the end of the Mechanized Combat section) and due to the fact that this scenario deals with Stealthy vehicle units I was wondering if anything stopped them from Ambushing most of the time as long as they're not in LOS. Like say a stealth tank sits hull down behind a few rocks at the end of the turn and killed the only vehicle in LOS. That means he's hidden again as far as I understood the rules. Next turn he has initiative, decides to move around the corner to ambush another enemy unit (let's say he's out of detection range of the enemy unit and has no problem ambushing them).

Essentialy my question boils down to: Can you activate a hidden unit, move up to an enemy and use your shooting attack to ambush him?


Another question concerning vehicles: I couldn't find anything on turning a vehicle or driving in reverse gear. For the game's sake I ruled for myself that it may move at up to tactical speed in reverse. Did I miss the bit on reverse driving and/or turning as part of the move?

...and another one! I couldn't find anything on vehicl ewrecks. I know that this question and the one above goes too far into tournament playing realm that requires everything to be stated and pointed out very clearly, I'm just curious if I missed anything.

Thanks!

[VERITAS/AEQUITAS]

Essentialy my question boils down to: Can you activate a hidden unit, move up to an enemy and use your shooting attack to ambush him?

As long as the unit springing an ambush has not been spotted, it may continue to do so with every activation. Stealthy units remain hidden until spotted.

Another question concerning vehicles: I couldn't find anything on turning a vehicle or driving in reverse gear. For the game's sake I ruled for myself that it may move at up to tactical speed in reverse. Did I miss the bit on reverse driving and/or turning as part of the move?

If you consider the default movement rate to high for resembling reverse driving, make a house rule. Otherwise a vehicles' facing is only of concern when you determine what side is hit from incoming fire. TW doesn't need rules for turning as you can move your unit in any way you want up to the max. movement distance. All possible driving maneuvers are already "built in" to the "tactical movement" distance.

Concerning wrecks: yes, its kinda cool to have a burning wreck on the table. I always place little fire markers on top of the knocked out vehicles. You can also remove them if you want. It doesn't matter games-wise but surely looks more real and better if kept in game as a wreck.

[sigur]

Thanks for the reply, VERITAS/AEQUITAS.

Alright, thanks for the clarification on reverse driving. It really doesn't matter all that much, I was just playing the Tigers by the Tail scenario which has a road section that is too narrow to have tanks turn around in so in this very special situation it was interesting to know, otherwise it really isn't important enough to warrant a rule.

As for wrecks, I decided to keep them on the table because it looks prettier, as you mentioned already and added cotton for smoke and fire. I decided to have Brew Up results block LOS for some turns due to thick smoke. Just writing up an After Action Report.

[Pokpoko]

I might as well ask...anyone actually understands how multiple reactions are supposed to work? in case of 1 vs 1 it's easy..whoever wins the test completes his action first.
But with multis, it asks you to roll tests, and then resolve the reactions where Reactive unit failed...then the ones that they won, and finally to complete the active model's activation...sooo...active model acts last? even if it won? However I try to play it, I fail to grasp the idea behind it, and while situations where more than 2 untis have LOS to active are fairly rare, it's still a fundamental concept. Apart from that I find the rules very nice, so I'd really want to know what I miss in this case.

[sigur]

I don't get it myself completely but I think that if you follow the instructions on pg.43/44 one step at a time you should be fine I think.

.) Roll reaction checks starting with the closest reacting unit
.) Work out reactions the non-initiative units lost
.) Work out reactions the non-initiative units won

Then finish the initiative unit's activation as declared (if they're still alive/not pinned/etc.). All as you said. And I also get confused at the point you get confused as well.

Here's a quick example:


Yellow is the only active unit and declares that they want to move around the obstacle (grey) to get out of this obviously iffy situation.

Red, Blue and Green react to the activation by shooting. Let's say Green and Blue win the reaction check, Red loses. According to the rules the reaction that the active unit (yellow) won is carried out first. It seems a bit weird that they may carry out their action (moving around the obstacle) unharmed now but this is what the rules would indicate unless I got them completely wrong.

edit: The system works in case the active unit is attempting to fire though (and maybe move afterwards). In this case, Yellow declares to shoot at blue (because it's the complimentary colour and therefor the archnemesis). Same reaction rolls, Green and Blue win, Red loses. This means that Red won't shoot until Yellow has shot, Green starts shooting at yellow , then blue shoots at yellow and then, if they're still alive, yellow may shoot at blue followed by red shooting at yellow?


edit2: Alright, I gave it a good read again and I think the key is to differenciate between an Activation and a Round of Fire. Let's say Yellow is activated and says they just want to run around the corner as quickly as possible. Red, Blue and Green declare reaction - fire, thus a Round of Fire starts. The activation stops for this Round of Fire and only continues once that Round of Fire is over. A crucial thing I just learned by reading a blog is that in Force on Force, which TW is based off of, any unit that is being fired upon may return fire .


.) This means that in our example above let's say Yellow activates, declares that they want to move around the corner, Red, Blue and Green react by shooting.

.) They roll reaction checks, Green and Blue win the reaction checks, Red fails. Now Yellow may Return Fire at Red (even if they haven't fired a shot yet but they did fail their reaction check). Then Red fires at Yellow. So much for the reaction checks the initiative unit won.

.) Now, starting with Green because they are closest, the reactions the non-initiative units won are rolled out. First Green fires at Yellow, then Yellow Returns Fire at Green. After that Blue may fire at Yellow and then Yellow returns fire at Blue.

After all of that the Round of Fire ends and Yellow, if anything's left of them, may finish their activation by moving around the obstalcle.

I think I got it now but feel free to correct me.

[VERITAS/AEQUITAS]

edit2: Alright, I gave it a good read again and I think the key is to differenciate between an Activation and a Round of Fire. Let's say Yellow is activated and says they just want to run around the corner as quickly as possible. Red, Blue and Green declare reaction - fire, thus a Round of Fire starts. The activation stops for this Round of Fire and only continues once that Round of Fire is over. A crucial thing I just learned by reading a blog is that in Force on Force, which TW is based off of, any unit that is being fired upon may return fire .


.) This means that in our example above let's say Yellow activates, declares that they want to move around the corner, Red, Blue and Green react by shooting.

.) They roll reaction checks, Green and Blue win the reaction checks, Red fails. Now Yellow may Return Fire at Red (even if they haven't fired a shot yet but they did fail their reaction check). Then Red fires at Yellow. So much for the reaction checks the initiative unit won.

.) Now, starting with Green because they are closest, the reactions the non-initiative units won are rolled out. First Green fires at Yellow, then Yellow Returns Fire at Green. After that Blue may fire at Yellow and then Yellow returns fire at Blue.

After all of that the Round of Fire ends and Yellow, if anything's left of them, may finish their activation by moving around the obstalcle.

I think I got it now but feel free to correct me.

I took you two re-reads but this sounds correct. Don't forget that the non-initiative units have to declare WHERE exactly they want to shoot at when the Yellow unit moves. This is important as factors like Optimum Range might have an influence on FirePower.

[sigur]

Thanks, VERITAS/AEQUITAS. I guess I could have just deleted the first version of the post as well as the first edit but anyway.

I think that the crucial thing really is a.) to understand that the complete Round of Fire interrupts the Initiative Unit's activation and that b.) any unit that is being shot at may return fire. And indeed, they may choose at what point they shoot at the initiative unit and so on.... which leads me to another question!

Here's the same situation as above, just with unit Black (also a non-initiative unit) added.




Green and Black have Yellow, the unit they want to fire at, at optimum range at different times. Yellow activates, declares moving around the corner, all other units scream "reaction - fire". Green, Blue and Red shoot immediately while Black want to wait until Yellow is in optimum range. Is Black's reaction to the activation or is checked for along with all the others in one big Round of Fire?

[VERITAS/AEQUITAS]

Blacks' reaction is checked as soon as Yellow crosses the point in its moving path that Black aimes at.

[Pokpoko]

Hmm..I thiiink I got it. So essentially just treat each reaction separately, but go through them in order. In Sigur's example..
Yellow declares move, and also shoot at the Blue.
Everyone else declares shoot. Red fails reaction, green wins reaction, blue wins reaction. Red won't shoot because the yellow will scoot first since red now goes dead last. Green is closes, so they get to fire first, yellow sits there like mook and eats bullets. Then 3rd reaction, the blue one..again, blue fires first, and then whatever is left of Yellow finally fires. Then they move, and Red is still scratching heads as to what happens, yes?

[Pokpoko]

I hate to drag this topic out again, but it's nowhere in the damn book that I can find.

Do I roll 1 die for each unit and then simply see who rolled higher (Active unit, Non-Active A, B C, Active rolls 6, NA A rolls 4, B rolls 2, C rolls 7, so first you resolve B, then A then C and if any actions remain complete Active units' actions) or do I treat each interaction as separate roll ( Active unit rolls separately against A, B and C, for example 6 vs 4, 2 vs 7 and 4 vs 4)? The latter would actually make more sense...

[precinctomega]

The latter is correct. It's one of the reasons why having lots of terrain and/or a limited number of units is important. Otherwise you can spend forever scribbling down the order of actions/reactions.

R.

[Pokpoko]

Hooray, my sanity is preserved! So in example: Unit Active declares move and shoot, shooting at unit B. unit A declares reaction move, B and C declare shoot.
Active unit rolls separately against A, B and C, for example 6 vs 4, 2 vs 7 and 4 vs 4

it'd mean that you first resolve 6 VS 4 as the nonactive unit failed the roll. Unit A declared move, and since there's no round of fire here, it just means it will move now.
then, unit C had 4 vs 4, a draw, so initiative unit won. it didn't declare fire on that unit, but since it's Round of Fire, I can shoot anyway, yes? So I'd roll, say, initial FP 4 vs Defense 3 and apply results, then the enemy would shoot back. Let's assume we both didn't hit a damn thing...now we move to the reactions where Non-initiative won. Unit B rolled 7 vs 2 of initiative unit, so it gets to fire first, then I get to fire back, but with FP of 3 (-1 for each consecutive shooting action in activation). I guess this also completes my own declared action to shoot unit B, and then I finally get to move, yes?

[precinctomega]

My brain hurts!

But that sounds right. It is by quite a long way the least comprehensible part of the rulebook. I might have to go back and read it again this evening.

R.

[Pokpoko]

Ha...pg. 71 has overwatch example, and finally the example has more than 2 units, and pretty much confirms what you said, in a roundabout way