Getting to know your Optional Rules

[TheBigRedOne]

This is a rule that doesn't get a lot of play, I'd imagine, especially in the more conventional warfare style games. I think it would work well with some scenarios in SAW, but in a WWII title, probably not so much.

I recall when it came out, discussions focused on its use in more guerrilla style warfare (like the Mujahideen in SAW), as well as to counter that 'last man standing' scenario that we have all come up against where one lone soldier holds out against a fully armed squad(s). We've all been there.

The problem with AFD was that it made individual leaders in a hex very, very vulnerable. If you were to read the Grunt School tutorial over on Task Force Echo 4 (and you should), you'd find that having a platoon formation with the leader in a hex behind the MLR was a standard practice. It would allow any pinned squads to 'fall back' towards the leader to be rallied, and it kept the leader away from the heaviest fire. With AFD, if you did that, mostly what you'd get would be a quickly dead officer. Now, in combat it is the officer corps that usually takes a pretty good brunt of the casualties, so perhaps the rule isn't that far off of mark in what it's trying to accomplish. Thoughts?

Density Effect (general)

Except when Sniper weapons are used, a Density Effect applies to the fire value. For a given target unit, the Density Effect is calculated as:
• For Leader target units, the fire value is multiplied by 0.10.
• For Team target units, the fire value is multiplied by S / 10 where S is the strength of the unit.
• For Vehicles, there is no Density Effect.

When the Alternate Fire Density optional rule is used, then the density factor is never taken to be less then 0.5. For example, for a Team consisting of a single man, the fire value is multiplied by 0.5 rather than 0.1 as it would be normally.