How does ACS Combat Work?

[Death by Lasers]

  I'm confused how combat works in the ACS.  Particularly the unit levels at which certain actions are performed.  So first I understand that their are three levels of play in ACS, Formation -> Combat Unit -> Combat Team.  In the beginning of the ACS portion of INT-OPS it says that all combat rolls take place at the Combat Unit level but then the text describes rolls made the Formation level.  I just can't figure out at what levels that to-hit rolls are calculated and where damage is applied.

Attack Declaration: Formations declare against other formations.

Combat Tactics: Formations choose combat tactics.

Step 1:  Determine Range: Formation Level Tactics Roll.

Step 2:  Determine to To-Hit Number (Per Combat Unit? For the whole Formation?).  This is where things start to get odd.  The wording suggests the Formation has a single To-Hit number against the opposing Formations but ACS Formations do not have a TMM to calculate a To-Hit Number with.  Is this done at the Combat Unit level?

Step 3:  Roll To-Hit per each combat Unit.  From the wording it sounds like their is one Formation wide singular "To-Hit number" for all your Combat Unit's rolls.  Again the lack of a Formation TMM number makes this impossible though.  Does each Combat Unit choose and target an enemy Combat Unit? 

Step 4:  Roll to apply damage per SBF rules.  At this point things have broken down.  Do I apply the Combat Unit's damage value to another another Combat Unit decided in the damage application phase even though I have already chosen a Combat Unit to target (since you cannot target Formations which lack TMMs)?  Do I apply the full Combat Unit's damage to a single Combat Team in the enemy Combat Unit?  Is the Combat Unit's damage value just a place holder and I apply the Combat Unit's Combat Team's damage values to the enemy Combat Unit's component Combat Teams?

[Death by Lasers]

  I just noticed something else confusing: the Combat Tactics phase.  At first I thought you just choose the appropriate tactics and then this decides what a successful or failed to-hit roll results in.  For example with standard tactics if a Combat Unit succeeds in its to hit roll it does normal damage but if it fails it does .8 normal damage.

   However, looking at the wording again seems to suggest that you make some kind of Formation wide roll that gives these net effects to all the Combat Units of the Formation without actually saying what kind of roll this is.  Is it a flat Tactics Roll? 

[The Purist]

Number of attacks: Page 316; Combat Phase; Types of Attacks; Number of attacks - states each Formation gets one standard attack per Combat Unit. So if a Formation has four CUs then it will make four attacks.

Attack Declaration: Yes, if both sides in the hex have a Formation(s) then they declare attacks by the Formation. Since two Formations can be in an ACS hex there are options, especially if AS are also in the hex.

Combat Tactics: Yes, formations declare their chosen tactic. The rule is very badly written as it seems to imply an attack that misses still does damage. We had to decide what we thought was the *intent* of the rule. Not sure our solution was right but it makes sense to us (see below).

1. Determine Range: should be self explanatory,.... resolve one formation at a time as per SBF (page 239). Make your manoeuvre roll. For our purposes lets assume Side A wins with a MoS of 2 over side B and choses medium range. Side B also was successful so is not out manoeuvered. If you want a bit more detail do the manoeuvre rolls by CU.

2. Determine to hit number: done by CU as different battalions may have different experience levels or TMMs that effect final hit numbers. (see below)

3. Roll to hit: again it is CUs who do the shooting (we choose targets by CU) or withhold fire from some CUs to improve to hit chances of other CUs. Refer to page 240 in SBF rule section but use the to hit modifiers from pages 308-311 and 316. See page 317 step 3: Roll to Hit rule where it states CU do the shooting. (see below)

4. Roll to apply damage: if you go by the "tactics check" rules the hits scored by CUs are applied by the winner of that dr up to the limit of two hits per CU per turn. It slows play a lot. If you bypass the 'tac check' rule damage is applied randomly, again with the two hit limit per CU. In our games since we are choosing who to engage the damage is applied to that target. This speeds play along as we do not need tac checks or time to make the random die rolls. (see below).

Taken altogether here is a simple example between two Formations each of three CUs. Side A is a LC medium mech regiment of 3 battalions. Side B is a FWL medium mech regiment. Both sides are regular/reliable. The LC regiment contains 1 light, 1 med, and 1 heavy battalion. The FWL regiment has 2 medium battalions and 1 heavy battalion. The formation is in open country.

Attack Declaration: keeping it simple they attack each other in the same hex.

Combat Tactics: let's bypass this for later and assume the rule is not used

Determine Range: as per page 239 manoeuvre rolls we will assume the FWL wins the roll with an MoS of 2 and that the LC also succeeded in passing the DR. Noting the make up of the LC Formation the Marik player choses long range

Determine To Hit: referring to pages 308-311 and 316 the players have the following DR modifiers. Common sense needed here as the +/- numbers can seem backwards. Go with presumed "intent":

LC: -1 for regular, +1 for flawed doctrine, +4 for long range, +TMM
FWL: -1 for regular, +4 for long range, +TMM

The TMMs are what convinced us to choose a target. If done randomly or by 'tactics check' you may not know if you hit until the target is determined. It slows play down. We will assume players chose targets.

LC CU 1 (lt battalion) is out of range so no attack
LC CU 2 (med battalion) attacks FWL CU 1 (medium, +4 TMM): base 4, +4 long range, +4 TMM, -1 regular - final TH# is 11. The roll is a 12 so it is a hit.
LC CU 3 (hvy battalion) attacks FWL CU 3 (hvy, +3 TMM): base 4, +4 long range, +3 TMM, -1 regular - final TH# is a 10. The roll is a 7 so the attack misses.

The FWL CUs shoot back. Knowing the LC light battalion is out for this round due to range he attacks the hvy battalion twice and the medium once.

FWL CU 1 (med battalion) attacks LC CU 2 (medium, +4 TMM): base 4, +4 long range, +4 TMM, -1 regular, +1 flawed doctrine - final TH# is a 12. The roll is a 10 so its a miss.
FWL CU 2 attacks LC CU 3 (hvy battalion, +2 TMM): base 4; +4 long range, +2 TMM, -1 regular, +1 flawed doctrine - final TH# is 10. The roll is an 11 so the attack hits
FWL CU 3 also attacks LC CU 3 (hvy battalion, +2 TMM): base 4; +4 long range, +2 TMM, -1 regular, +1 flawed doctrine - final TH# is 10. The roll is a 3 so the attack misses.

Determine and Apply Damage: if using the written rule you now roll tactics checks or random dr to see who gets hit or not. The hits in our case are FWL 2 hits LC CU 3 at long range LC CU 3 take 3 points of damage. LC CU 2 hits FWL CU 1 at long range so FWL CU 1 takes 2 points of damage. Determine critical hits .

Now,..... about that bit regarding tactics that we did not use here. Our solution was thus:

Assume aggressive tactic chosen by a player for +2 to the TH# for an extra 0.2 damage. We will assume a final TH# of 7 becomes a 9 for the extra damage

- if the player hits with the +2 there is no issue. His theoretical 10 point damage from the attack becomes 12.
- if the player rolls a 7, he misses the number for the additional 0.2 damage but still hits for the base TH and will be penalized and his damage is multiplied by -0.2. In our case 10 points become 8 points of damage.
- if the player rolls a 6 or less he simply misses.

Had the opponent chosen defensive tactics for a -0.1 and succeeded (hit) then the damge inflicted by the above attack would have been reduced by a further -0.1 for a total of 7 points.

That's the way we've gone. However, because we are dealing with the 3rd SW numbers of CCs we have dispensed with a lot of the tactics bits to speed play and reserved them for special cases and player's personal units.

Cheers.

[Death by Lasers]

  It seems like I'm not the only one having trouble interpreting the rules.  Still, it looks like you've adapted a pretty elegant solution.  Out of curiosity what do you do about standard tactics since they don't modify the TO-Hit roll?

  Anyway, I think I'm going to post an as best I can verbatim interpretation of the rules to the rules forum to see where I'm going wrong.

  Resolving the attacks of Formation A (CUs A1,A2,A3) vs Formation B (CUs B1,B2,B2).  All of the Combat Units of Formation A are skill 4 and Formation B has TMMs as follows:

Formation B:
   CU B1: TMM2
   CU B2: TMM5
   CU B3: TMM5

Attack Declaration:  Formation A declares an attack against Formation B.
Combat Tactics:  Formation A chooses Standard Tactics.
Resolving Attacks:
     Determine Range:  It is determined that Formation A engages Formation B at medium range.
     Determine TO-HIT Number:  Each CU in Formation A targets CU B1 with its TMM of 2 to get the best TO-HIT number. 
     Roll TO-HIT  CUs A1 and A2 succeed while A4 fails their TO-HIT rolls against B1.
     Determine and Apply Damage: 
          Determining Damage:Per the rules Standard Tactics both A1 and A2 deal full damage and A3, who failed his TO-HIT roll, deals .8 damage.  However, only successful TO-HIT rolls are applied so A3's .8 damage is left unapplied and discarded.
          Applying Damage:  Per SBF rules for Applying Damage (pg. 240) a Tactics Roll is made.  Formation A winds a decides to Apply both both A1 and A2's successful attacks to B3.  Formation A chose B3 so that it will have B1 with its TMM of 2 to target in subsequent rounds for better TO-HIT numbers.

[The Purist]

To be honest we almost never use tactics because the rules as written are so strange. When we do, standard is just base damage.

In your example you have three CUs attacking one CU which isn't allowed unless all CUs are attacked twice.

I also note in your example that you choose to apply the +2 TMM for shooting at B1 but apply the damage to B3 based on the tactics rule. I am not sure this is correct but I may be wrong. This would appear to be "gaming the system" and make high TMM units almost pointless in a Formation that that could potentially have 8 CUs (battalions). This would especially so in ISaW where a single Combat Command can form most of four complete ACS formations.

I can't see how "failed" attacks can still do 80% damage. Under the Roll to Hit section in ACS and SBF a DR that is below the final modified TH# is said to have "failed".

[Death by Lasers]

  Yeah, part of the reason for my writing this scenario out was to confront the oddities and contradictions in the system if interpreted verbatim as it appears.  For example we have the oddity of A3 dealing .8 damage because it failed its TO-HIT roll but being unable to apply this damage because only successful TO-HIT rolls apply damage.  I can't imagine this is what the author intended but the rules are written in such a way that I can't suss out what exactly he means.

  I've decided to post this scenario up in the rules forum.  I thought I might have missed something obvious in the wording but it looks like the rules are just genuinely hard to decipher.

  If I were to play a game right now I would have to make a couple of changes to make the game playable.  These wouldn't be because the rules are broken but because I honestly can't figure out how they are supposed to work.  To make it viable for now I would A) Have a Formation Tactics Roll to determine if the chosen Tactics are successfully applied (offensive, defensive, standard) and B) Give an averaged Formation wide TMM.  Instead of attacking Combat Units you attack the Formation then use the Tactics Roll to determine which CUs you hit inside the Formation in the same way it works with SBF Formations.

   

[The Purist]

That is one solution but I wouldn't go that route. One advantage of high movement units (and thus high TMM) units is how they affect the tactics numbers for engagement rolls. It is not unheard of in our games so far for light Mech/CV or AS Units to tie up more cumbersome opponents in engagements and, by virtue of lower tactics numbers, keep the range open to avoid being hit and avoid damage. We've seen entire CTs and CUs (Scaled SBF and ACS ) destroyed because they could not break off from one engagement to go help another Formation that is in trouble. In order to preserve units we have had to surrender (honours of war/ransom), if accepted by the opponent.

We have also learned that just because an ACS formation can hold 8 CUs it does not mean they must. The stacking limit is 16 friendly CUs per hex so this could mean 8 Formations 2 CUs, or 2 Formations of 8 CUs, or a combination of the above. Formations tend to sift themselves out into 'regiments' of like TMM CUs to fill Recon and Combat roles but also "Pinning" missions. If the high TMM Formation has a long range value of 1 it become a very annoying unit to try and shake off if it can use "forcing the engagement".

Just something to think about.

[Death by Lasers]

  *thinks about it for a minute*  Actually that sounds a lot better then what I was proposing.  I like it O0