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Domfluff
Guest
Most quick battles begin with players discussing house-rules to set expectations. This is always a good idea, since a CM battle can involve a large investment in time.
My current opinion is that, aside from the QB settings ("Infantry Only" etc. and Rarity, mainly), the only rules that make sense are to prevent pre-planned artillery into setup zones in Meeting Engagements, and in the Attacker's set up zone.
This does mean that attacking barrages are fine (so, fortifications are pretty important for defending against assaults, since some of your setup areas will be marked with contact markers)
This also means that heavy tanks are fair game. The result of this is that if a player takes a Tiger or Tiger-II in a small battle, it's going to dominate the battle. The entire battle is going to be about the tank, and will be split into before and after it's (hopeful?) destruction. This also means that an allied player has to have a plan to deal with potential heavy armour, but also not commit too strongly, since heavy armour might not exist.
At the moment, my opinion is that the above is just a defining characteristic of CMBN, it's as unbalancing or thematic as bocage. It's true that Americans didn't encounter Tigers until later on (certainly the Bulge, maybe earlier?) but the Commonwealth armies certainly did.
I can understand that players may not *want* to play a battle that's so imbalanced by something like a Tiger-II running around, but at the moment I do think that restricting this might be best served by changing the rarity and force type, rather than establishing a set of rules like "1/3 armour", which runs into problems of what precisely counts as armour (Is an M10 equivalent to a Sherman? They have vastly different roles and capabilities)
But... I'm happy to be convinced otherwise. Are there good arguments for playing with more restrictive house rules? Interested to hear your thoughts.
My current opinion is that, aside from the QB settings ("Infantry Only" etc. and Rarity, mainly), the only rules that make sense are to prevent pre-planned artillery into setup zones in Meeting Engagements, and in the Attacker's set up zone.
This does mean that attacking barrages are fine (so, fortifications are pretty important for defending against assaults, since some of your setup areas will be marked with contact markers)
This also means that heavy tanks are fair game. The result of this is that if a player takes a Tiger or Tiger-II in a small battle, it's going to dominate the battle. The entire battle is going to be about the tank, and will be split into before and after it's (hopeful?) destruction. This also means that an allied player has to have a plan to deal with potential heavy armour, but also not commit too strongly, since heavy armour might not exist.
At the moment, my opinion is that the above is just a defining characteristic of CMBN, it's as unbalancing or thematic as bocage. It's true that Americans didn't encounter Tigers until later on (certainly the Bulge, maybe earlier?) but the Commonwealth armies certainly did.
I can understand that players may not *want* to play a battle that's so imbalanced by something like a Tiger-II running around, but at the moment I do think that restricting this might be best served by changing the rarity and force type, rather than establishing a set of rules like "1/3 armour", which runs into problems of what precisely counts as armour (Is an M10 equivalent to a Sherman? They have vastly different roles and capabilities)
But... I'm happy to be convinced otherwise. Are there good arguments for playing with more restrictive house rules? Interested to hear your thoughts.
