Tuesday 9 August 2016

Nuts! Big Battles – Sneak Peek #3 : Shooting

Following on from Sneak Peek #2, the American Platoon has won the In Sight Test and and are ready to open fire on the overconfident Germans.

As with the In Sight Test, the Shooting Test starts at 2d6 vs Rep, but the number of dice may be modified by Circumstance bonuses or penalties, such as having having additional Squads in the firing unit (known as Numbers, +1d6 for each additional squad), being Disordered (-1d6) or in Fall Back status (-2d6).

Our US Platoon is the same size as its German opponent, so they get no Numbers bonus. However, the Americans do have an attached Machine Gun team, which grants them a +1d6 bonus, so they'll be rolling 3d6 in total vs their Rep of 4.

The GIs unleash a hailstorm of lead

The Americans pass 2d6 - we now consult the Shooting Result table, which cleverly incorporates damage, the effects of cover, and the enemy's ability to return fire, all into the one table. The table shows that passing 2d6 when shooting at an enemy in the open results in him losing one stand as casualties, and also requires him to take a Crisis Test.

The Germans have an attached Machine Gun team, so they need to roll 1d6 to determine if the MG was the casualty (on a 1). They roll a 5 (phew - the MG is still up), so they remove an Infantry stand from the rear of the Platoon instead.

Next, they roll their Crisis Test - 2d6 vs their Rep of 4.

A German Squad goes down, and the Platoon takes a Crisis Test


When taking a Crisis Test, passing 2d6 results in no change to the Current Status, passing 1d6 results in the unit's Status deteriorating by one level, and passing 0d6 results in a drop of two levels (remember: the Status order is Carry On - Disordered - Fall Back - Break). The Germans pass 1d6, and so they become Disordered (indicated by separating the bases by 1/4").

The German Platoon is now Disordered

In a Crisis Tests, units take a -1d6 penalty for each squad that they've lost, so next time the Germans will only roll 1d6 - they'd better hope they get a chance to Rally and recover to Carry On Status before taking any more fire, or they could be in real trouble...

You can probably see the pattern forming: most Tests in NBB are 2d6 vs Target Number (usually Rep), with +/- d6 modifiers for Circumstances. Everything is so straightforward and intuitive that you'll find that, once you get a few games under your belt, you'll hardly need to consult the tables at all.


Here's more Part 3.5


No comments:

Post a Comment