The Unplanned Assault Conundrum

[Jeff Conner]

Gentlefolk

I recently had the experience of moving four T-70 tanks into what I thought was an empty hex. Alas, it was not. The engine, however, gave me an opportunity to cancel my unplanned (and unwise) assault by informing me of the upcoming assault and telling me the odds were unknown. I could have used the Cancel Assault command to back out of a bad situation. In Squad Battles, with which I am much more familiar, this option is not available. The engine would calculate the casualties for the assault and it would be a done deal.

I am curious as to the consensus here. Is it acceptable to back out of an unplanned assault? How about to move up additional units to add to the assault to make it more palatable? And what are you supposed to do when you have less than 2/3s of your movement allowance and you try to occupy an already occupied hex? You are told that you can't enter an occupied hex, kind of a reconnaissance by blundering.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Jeff

[Compass Rose]

I am guessing that this is a PBEM game.

From my POV it would be one thing to have the units move into a hex that you didn't plan for them to enter however, if you were planing on entering a "empty" hex and you "got the surprise of your life", I don't feel that you should be able to back out of it. My reason is that now you know the enemy is at that location, and if your opponent had been holding an ambush for you, they don't technically hold the element of surprise anymore, if you back out of it.

So I would chalk it up to a learning experience of what can possibly happen in this new series.

[Mr Grumpy]

The "cancel assault" feature has been carried over from the Panzer Campaigns series where it is used in situations where for example you plan to assault with three units but two are disrupted by defensive fire (and hence cannot assault) leaving you with horrendous odds against you, in that situation you can cancel the assault and wait for a better opportunity.

I know this example is a planned assault and is not the same PB unplanned assault situation that you describe, but I wonder if this is a feature carried over from PzC (where you cannot have an unplanned assault) with unintended consequences?

[Hog of War]

If you do not trigger op fire having bumped an unseen unit what does that mean? Are they asleep, did they misfire, would you even see them if you drove right through the hex (are they trying to hide)? In terms of game play weak or command units wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves with op fire on the other hand some units best chance of causing casualities would be to invite an assault by unexpected enemy units. It will be interesting to see which way the wind blows with this rule. I think I lean towards the SqB way rather than be able to pull out of it. The battlefield is no place to be tooling around blindly especially since we have a patrolling function with our recon.

[Strela]

Hi all,

This is a very conscious included feature.

During testing Dog Soldier wrote to me with exactly the same concerns. 'Its not right you can recon by assault', he said.

My rationale is as follows;

A unit goes to move into an 'empty' hex and begins to receive fire from it. This is the point you get the assault warning. The player can either then press the assault, but it's against an unknown enemy with potentially serious consequences. If the player cancels the assault, he only takes away the knowledge that there is something there and he will have to stop, recon spot or some other preparation before proceeding.

The net impact is that this is another way to recon the enemy but in a very limited manner. Your scouts have identified an enemy position and you as the commander have to decide whether to pause or charge in.

The difference to SqB makes sense because of the higher hex scale and longer time period. I view the current iteration as a good compromise between the two systems.

David

[Compass Rose]

Disregard my 1st post as I misread the original post. I was thinking that you were wanting to "redo" the turn. Canceling an assault is OK in my book especially if you have attacking units going from OK to disrupted status after receiving enemy fire.

[76mm]

So is the defender spotted if the assault is cancelled?

[Tide1]

So is the defender spotted if the assault is cancelled?

No unless the hidden unit fires . Like David said you can back away and send in recon.

I have canceled dozens of assaults beta testing. I don't think it should be considered gamey if you cancel an assault.....Just good sense

[Strela]

And as further clarity, the phasing player either has to use precious assets such as recon etc to work out what is there or take his licks. I think this need to use further resources is the 'hit' the attacking player has to take in this case and balances out the 'extra intelligence'

David

[ComradeP]

I wouldn't like it if my opponent did so against unspotted enemies, it removes a large part of the usefulness of the new hidden mechanic. Both sides have some small units that are not worth much in an attack, so they can use them as pseudo-recon units, cancelling assaults all the time.

It goes against the spirit of having FOW and ambush rules if you can simply cancel assaults unless the odds drop dramatically. If you can't undo moves, you shouldn't be able to cancel assaults at your leisure either in my opinion. There should be a cost.

If the defenders fire and the attacker takes losses that would make an assault too costly, that's one thing and I'm fine with the assault being cancelled as long as the unit had a reasonable chance to actually hold the hex.