Over watch query

[Mr Scratch & Sniff]

Hi

Quick question,


Let’s say a squad of five marines goes into overwatch ready to shot in the opponents then.

A mob of 5 orks currently out of view from the overwatching marines decides to brave the waiting marines and run across no mans land to a nearby piece of Terrain.

The ork player moves his ork mob one at a time acros the open terrain. The overwatching marine player can now shoot but. He wants to shot the entire ork mob as it moves acros the open terrain.

My question is this.

Would the squad fire all its shots at the first ork thus leaving the remaining orks to move acros safety or would they showtime at a time as the orks present themselves. Or would you just say “ that ork mob is moving so all my squads shots will hit them so I can effectively target 5 models with my overwatching instead of just 1 model”

Can’t work this out. Seems a bit silly that a whole squad would waste all of its shots, shooting at one model as the opponent slowly moves each of his squads models across the open terrain gap.

Just curious, many thanks

[WLBjork]

As I remember, you move as a unit, so the entire mob would be shot at.

[coldsteel]

Is this for Kill Team?

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Part of the fun of miniatures is watching people trying to micro-game the system.

Yes, units move as a whole, not as a group of individual figures. That means they also have to maintain cohesion. So while we may move one model at a time, that's just because skirmish-style formations don't lend themselves to movement trays, it's not a realistic depiction of what is happening on the battlefield.

But even if that was the case, the argument for the individual move falls apart because if you send one guy out at a time to see if he gets shot, that's effectively your turn. Turns aren't just set amounts of time, they're a representation of how combat moves in an action-reaction-counteraction cycle.

So the first ork runs out and gets cut down. Then the next one has a go, same result. At this point, maybe the third one isn't so keen on stepping out.

You'd basically be breaking up the turn into individual model moves. Because it takes a lot less effort to pull a trigger than it does to run over open ground, there's no question that the overwatching troops would be capable of covering the area. Look up World War I if you don't believe me.

[TKerrygan]

What is this all about?
You can't shoot to models out of view.

[Mr Scratch & Sniff]

no probs,

the idea just spawned after watching a scene in the 'platoon' movie,

the squad pops smoke, then runs across no mans land one at a time. And the sniper picks one of them off!

its not a serious debate, just a query. I'm sure a gaming clubs 'house rules' would settle this, just wondered what the general consensus is.

I think its squad vs squad shooting personally so the whole unit gets hit, but if I heard the first guy in my squad get shot then I probably wouldn't want to keep running, at least the same way he did.

thanks for the discussion.

[Commissar von Toussaint]

no probs,

the idea just spawned after watching a scene in the 'platoon' movie,

the squad pops smoke, then runs across no mans land one at a time. And the sniper picks one of them off!

its not a serious debate, just a query. I'm sure a gaming clubs 'house rules' would settle this, just wondered what the general consensus is.

I think its squad vs squad shooting personally so the whole unit gets hit, but if I heard the first guy in my squad get shot then I probably wouldn't want to keep running, at least the same way he did.

thanks for the discussion.

Movie tactics are almost always stupid.

How you advance over open ground depends on the circumstance. The idea of sending one guy at a time is that the rest of the squad is providing cover fire. Once the lead guy gets into position, he then covers the rest.

Thus the enemy always has the majority of the squad firing at them, which forces them to keep their heads down.

I don't remember the exact scene, but if everyone needs to get out, everyone goes and tries to present hard targets. I remember a drill called "I'm up, he sees me, I'm down" that made it hard for the enemy to draw a bead on you. If a group is moving in this way, they stagger their movement, so the observer is faced with a continuously-changing bunch of figures moving and falling, making it hard to pick one of them out.

In terms of rules, one can assume all troop movement factors that into the shooting tables.