Following a game last night with a friend, I noticed the Heal ability of the Medic specialization to be quite vastly unused, given its limited use :

- needs an action to be used

- requires 4+ to be in effect

- brings back one regular infantryman

I thought about a way to make it a bit more interesting (I'm not trying to make it overly powerful !), and came to the conclusion that removing the die check would do the job without disbalancing the game too much (this ability would only be made more reliable).

What do you guys think ? What are your house rules regarding medics ? Fell free to share ! :-)

breversa said:

I agree that historically bringng back the dead has been vastly underused. Of course, this is not the case cinematically, so you have to ask yourself the question what kind of game do you want to play.

The best use for a medic unit is the extra cover die units get. The heal action is best saved for when they have nothing else to do.

I think it's just the fact that it needs an entire action to use the ability. I have yet to play a game where a single instance came up where it'd be worth it to use the medic heal ability. If you're the attacker then you need to keep MOVE MOVE MOVE and as the defender if you have enough breathing room to start healing then the attacker isn't doing his job. If both sides are racing to the middle then not being able to waste time goes double.

If you could use it once per turn without fatiguing the squad then it'd be used a lot more. I don't think it would be abused simply because most games don't last over 6-8 turns, with only 2-6 of those turns having that many casualties.

The 'ressurection' ability becomes more usefull as the medics take casualties. A lone medic is often better used adding cover And helping assault squads or heavies remain at full strength.

GrooveChamp said:

I thought about this as well, but thinking more thouroughly, I came to the conclusion it'd make the medic too powerful.

What's more, no other unit can do anything "for free", that is, in ADDITION to another action. Or maybe allowing to move one hex ? I don't know...

breversa said:

I don't think it'd be too powerful. Most games only go about 4-7 turns from the first significant casualties. That translates to an average of 3 resurrected regular infantry per game. When you compare that to what a flamethrower or anti-tank squad can do, it's hardly overly powerful.

Right now you pretty much need both squads to be standing still for a turn or more. 95% of the time the squad(s) taking casualties will be in one of these situations:

-Getting slaughtered, need to move away/towards enemy slaughtering them

-Fight is over and has moved on. As attacker you need to move up. As defender it means the attacker has lost.

-Involved in firefight where the medic squad's extra firepower is much more useful than taking a 50/50 shot at restoring one regular infantry.

But if the 3 ressurections are in the MG-squad guarding the pillbox - the opponent would scream bloody murder.

If the medic squad can heal AND fight, yes !