Alternate Fire Resolution Rules

[Mr Grumpy]

Thanks for your test results that demonstrate how using the Alt fire rules can considerably alter the fire results, I agree that using these rules can skew a scenario towards one side or the other and this is why I keep warning players to be careful when selecting non default optional rules if they a not aware of their effects.

The Alt fire rules are on by default in only a few PzC titles and it just so happens these are not titles that I played, so when I moved on to the WW1 series (where these rules are on by default in all the titles) I had to unlearn a lot of tactics that used in PzC because if you abuse the stacking limits in the WW1 titles you will suffer horrendous casualties. 

I had never been 100% comfortable with the tactic in PzC where you could max out the stacking limits while next to enemy units without suffering any penalty, also being able to select individual units from a defending stack for direct or indirect fire seemed (to me) to be too precise for WW2 combat, so I am much happier with the fire rules in the WW1 titles where this is not possible.

Coming back to your comments about combining units or breaking them down into their separate components I wanted to highlight that as well as losses in casualties you have to consider accumulated fatigue as well, a combined battalion suffers far less fatigue than individual company's, so having the unit combined not only masks its strength it also minimises fatigue although I realise that this is not always possible when you need a battalion to cover a wider area than one hex.