Hey there, hope some are still around to read this.

My groups sometimes use chameleoline cloaks for stealth, which they work very well for, +20 stealth for what is essentially a cloaking device. However, the -30 for stationary targets wearing one seems way over the top. After all, -30 is the modifier of attacking a target you can't see at all. This would make this rare item the most potent sort of defensive item you can think of. A squad of soldiers wearing these (and IG squads sometimes get them for stealth jobs) standing still and shooting makes them almost impossible to hit for most enemies of the same caliber. Ork shootas have negative chance to hit them unless firing single shots at close range (orks like dakka), other human soldiers will are fairly certain to miss too.

Another issue is, what kinds of stationary? Simply lying motionless and hiding? In that case the -30 seems fine as you're not doing anything or moving at all. Does it count when shooting? The weapon can't be covered by the cloak when shooting, so most of it will be sticking out and fairly visible, thus it should be fairly easy to figure out where the shooter is and where to aim.

So if you agree that having -30 for enemies to hit you simply because you did not take move actions that turn is too good, how to fix it?

Idea 1: Strictly limit to penalty to when you are lying still hiding or taking total defense action.

idea 2: Nerf the cloak penalty to -10% when attacking.

Idea 3: Only allow the penalty to single shots, with decreasing penalty for semi-auto (-20), full auto (-10) and suppressive fire (0). This to show that the more you rely on luck and volume of fire the less does the cloak do.

Thoughts?

Well military tactics would stat that if taking fire from a general area, but you can not see your target, but you clearly know some one is there, one should uses indirect fire from mortars or Artillery fire. this combined with counter snipers and observers with binoculars which give you a +10 I believe , basically makes cancels out the cloaks.

Since the Mortars are aiming at a grid reference not using line of sight. General you would use "Walking fire" So start the bombardment about 50 to 100 meters away, and walk it in 10 or 25 meter installments. Supressive fire from machine guns would also help.

If your players argue you can make your npcs roll awareness to see where the shots are coming from, If passed the enemy will call in supporting mortar fire.

The issue is not your rules, it's your tactics.

In regards to orks, they would most likely fire on full auto, suppressing the area, while running in . The players would be less likely to open fire if an Ork is standing next to them.

My suggestion would be to study up on military tactics.

Even orks have tactics, no matter how crude they are.

In Summary.

Suppressive five , Indirect fire, Infantry charge while covered by these two elements.

Also Las guns while Very good in a number of regards, stealth is not one, during low light engagements you would be able to see the laser bolts fly through the air.

Well military tactics would stat that if taking fire from a general area, but you can not see your target, but you clearly know some one is there, one should uses indirect fire from mortars or Artillery fire. this combined with counter snipers and observers with binoculars which give you a +10 I believe , basically makes cancels out the cloaks.

Since the Mortars are aiming at a grid reference not using line of sight. General you would use "Walking fire" So start the bombardment about 50 to 100 meters away, and walk it in 10 or 25 meter installments. Supressive fire from machine guns would also help.

If your players argue you can make your npcs roll awareness to see where the shots are coming from, If passed the enemy will call in supporting mortar fire.

The issue is not your rules, it's your tactics.

In regards to orks, they would most likely fire on full auto, suppressing the area, while running in . The players would be less likely to open fire if an Ork is standing next to them.

My suggestion would be to study up on military tactics.

Even orks have tactics, no matter how crude they are.

In Summary.

Suppressive five , Indirect fire, Infantry charge while covered by these two elements.

Also Las guns while Very good in a number of regards, stealth is not one, during low light engagements you would be able to see the laser bolts fly through the air.

Tactics is not really the issue. I'm not concerned with ambushes using these, I'm talking about normal firefights in enclosed spaces.

In the last fight the squad was underground fighting in tunnels with little cover. The enemy was only 50 meters away, so binoculars would not be much point, and mortar fire impossible. A (small) sniper using a Long Las and otherwise remaining stationary had a total of -40% to hit him. The enemy with BS 46 (really good) had almost no chance to hit with their weapons (+10 short range, -10 full auto) meant only 6% hit chance. The enemy, despite being relatively intelligent and exceptionally skilled marksmen, had little chance. Even with single shot and aim, you're looking at 36% chance, which will probably be dodged anyway. In theory they could have run at him, leaving their own excellent cover and then next round fight in melee where the cloak is pointless, but that sounds very strange for a ranged-focused trooper to do, and would also leave them vulnerable to the rest of the Squad. I'm not sure if suppression fire -20% is a added modifier or the final one, assuming the former than means you simply miss when firing at one with C cloak.

So the issue lies in the amazing penalty at virtually no cost, no more rare than Carapace armor and easier to get than a Heavy Bolter.

I agree Las and such would often reveal location, but the issue is not the hit&run sniper using stealth+ C cloak against a unit, that's a headache for another day.

Grenade launchers do the same thing as mortars in closer confined spaces. Flamers too. Supressivng fire to throw off there aim and force them to take only a half action, and a flamer to move up and burn them out. Frag grenades are also good at making them move. I would say as a gm a "Dodge " action classes as movement, as you have to move out of the way .

Though you did not state the type of combat your guardsmen were in but regardless you can use area of effect weapons once your npcs realize which way the red bolts are coming from. I remember reading an artical in a respect national newspaper that it took in the Iraq war and afgan wars around 250,000 rounds to kill one insurgent. This is not suprising when in combat it's often very hard to see your target. When you get passed the static warfare of the early 20th and 19th century and combat becomes more mobile you find soldiers find them self's with shadows and muzzle flashes rather then a man with a rifle walking towards you over no mans land.

Regardless if your guardsmen can or can not be seen, any combatant, with a notion of intelligence, after the first shock of seeing his buddy go down ,he is going to A jump for cover. You say your in Tunnels , so i am assuming pipe work, stone works. So theres 8AP. Next thing he or she is going to do is Find out where the fire is coming from. He might not be able to see the target, but dark tunnels = Muzzle flash ( also firing anything bigger then a lasgun in those conditions would most likely leave you with serious hearing loss with out ear protection of course. ) Once he or she has an Idea of where the fire is coming from they are going to shoot back. Which would be supressive fire, as they can not see the target, they are just shooting back in the hopes that what ever is shooting them will take off, or at least there fire will let up. Next is they are going to report the position in which the fire is coming from. So Unless you are at a junction in tunnels ( again assuming) you only really have a few directions it could be coming from. Next step would be to engage the targets, suppressing fire is done, this will be kept up, now for grenades , launchers , flamers , AOE weapons.

Now your NPC has a choose , every press the attack and close the distance , so with an average of 32 Agility esh for a human, you could run flat out and get there in two turns from 50 meters, so a squad of 10 with suppressing fire, you might have 6 -8 charging . Or If your Npcs feels that the situation is fool hardy, they will disengage, most likely by popping smoke and bound back in fire squads, giving supportive suppressing fire, again as you stated they are in a tunnel system ,so supressing through smoke is unlikely to hit anything, but that not the point in it. They would then pull back to a ambush point and wait, or lay traps and head back to friendly lines.

But at the end of the day these guardsmen are good at there job, and it sounds like you are frustrated at that. As a gm we tell a story, it's not about killing your players or them be overly good. If you are worried you are not giving them a challenge you need to change tactics and the situations they are in. But at the end of the day, your players now have equipment that makes them effective at what they want to do. What you were doing before is clearly not working, thus you must adapt.

orks would most likely charge right in and overwhelm them in close quarters.

While Cultists are insane in there making they are not stupid. In alot of the books the cultists use tactics, but there goals are different from what would be standard military goals.

Take my advise if you want, but thats just my point of view. If you are dead set on doing this then It's not my place to stop you.

Grenade launchers do the same thing as mortars in closer confined spaces. Flamers too. Supressivng fire to throw off there aim and force them to take only a half action, and a flamer to move up and burn them out. Frag grenades are also good at making them move. I would say as a gm a "Dodge " action classes as movement, as you have to move out of the way .

Though you did not state the type of combat your guardsmen were in but regardless you can use area of effect weapons once your npcs realize which way the red bolts are coming from. I remember reading an artical in a respect national newspaper that it took in the Iraq war and afgan wars around 250,000 rounds to kill one insurgent. This is not suprising when in combat it's often very hard to see your target. When you get passed the static warfare of the early 20th and 19th century and combat becomes more mobile you find soldiers find them self's with shadows and muzzle flashes rather then a man with a rifle walking towards you over no mans land.

Regardless if your guardsmen can or can not be seen, any combatant, with a notion of intelligence, after the first shock of seeing his buddy go down ,he is going to A jump for cover. You say your in Tunnels , so i am assuming pipe work, stone works. So theres 8AP. Next thing he or she is going to do is Find out where the fire is coming from. He might not be able to see the target, but dark tunnels = Muzzle flash ( also firing anything bigger then a lasgun in those conditions would most likely leave you with serious hearing loss with out ear protection of course. ) Once he or she has an Idea of where the fire is coming from they are going to shoot back. Which would be supressive fire, as they can not see the target, they are just shooting back in the hopes that what ever is shooting them will take off, or at least there fire will let up. Next is they are going to report the position in which the fire is coming from. So Unless you are at a junction in tunnels ( again assuming) you only really have a few directions it could be coming from. Next step would be to engage the targets, suppressing fire is done, this will be kept up, now for grenades , launchers , flamers , AOE weapons.

Now your NPC has a choose , every press the attack and close the distance , so with an average of 32 Agility esh for a human, you could run flat out and get there in two turns from 50 meters, so a squad of 10 with suppressing fire, you might have 6 -8 charging . Or If your Npcs feels that the situation is fool hardy, they will disengage, most likely by popping smoke and bound back in fire squads, giving supportive suppressing fire, again as you stated they are in a tunnel system ,so supressing through smoke is unlikely to hit anything, but that not the point in it. They would then pull back to a ambush point and wait, or lay traps and head back to friendly lines.

But at the end of the day these guardsmen are good at there job, and it sounds like you are frustrated at that. As a gm we tell a story, it's not about killing your players or them be overly good. If you are worried you are not giving them a challenge you need to change tactics and the situations they are in. But at the end of the day, your players now have equipment that makes them effective at what they want to do. What you were doing before is clearly not working, thus you must adapt.

orks would most likely charge right in and overwhelm them in close quarters.

While Cultists are insane in there making they are not stupid. In alot of the books the cultists use tactics, but there goals are different from what would be standard military goals.

Take my advise if you want, but thats just my point of view. If you are dead set on doing this then It's not my place to stop you.

I take it you mean to say "Chameleoline cloaks are fine", here are some ways their effect can be ignored".

Well, it's not about whether I can introduce enemies and equipment that ignores C cloak, I know I can. The issue is if the -30 is too good to have as a defensive bonus essentially all the time. Even some of my players were arguing that you should not getting the bonus if you attack yourself.

And I don't have a problem challenging them, the same day the group got charged in melee by 4 Wyches and almost killed them all. One had to burn FP, and only a quick thinking Hallucinogenic grenade in their midst saved the party from this. The C cloak was absolutely worthless in this situation, as was the Ratling as he did not carry a secondary weapon due to weight issues.

In most combats though, the enemy will not always have flamers, grenade launchers or crazy wyches with 90% effective Stealth skills (with their own C cloaks). And I don't really want to see the heavy gunner start using this cloak getting -30 to all attacks against him while he hipfires a heavy weapon killing everyone. Anyone except close-combat characters can benefit from this cloak as it is, even if they never attempt to use stealth. I believe that this was not intended for the item in the first place. In your examples

The group is indeed good at what they do, and they tend to take out far tougher opposition than i think they can, but in the end they are fairly squishy glass-cannons that even normal lasguns can take down.

In my example encounter there was no doubt where the shots were coming from, as the long las shots took out a gunner and driver coming from only 40 meters to the front, in a 6 meter wide hallways almost devoid of features and cover. The ratling was simply in the open and would be automatically visible unless wearing the cloak. In hindsight the enemy could and should have used suppressive fire, but both myself and my players tend to forget that option, which often leads to more dynamic and quicker combats anyway.

In your examples you mentioned it is common to not see the enemy fully, but only fire at muzzles flashes and smoke. And in some cases, these stray bullets do hit, even if it takes a lot more ammunition than this game system is designed for. However the -20 modifier from SF action, if added to other circumstantial modifiers generally means that the chance to hit quickly reaches 0. If you could simply take the -20% as a final modifier and ignore other penalties and bonuses for shooting, that would be a fairly effective way of negating the C cloak modifier. As it is the rules are fuzzy about this, for example I've yet to see anyone take -30% for shooting a heavy bolter suppressive fire at normal range (-20 for SF, -10 for full auto).

Thanks for your input anyway, and I would love to have some more chime in as well, even if it's just to say they think the C cloak is balanced as it is if you interpret the -30 applying whenever you take no Movement type actions. Will check with my players what they think as well, as they are the ones to be affected by this. And if they want to keep it as it is, well I sure can throw a lot of Severan Dominate commandos with the cloak at them if I want.

I don't believe they are OP. Strong, yes. But not OP.

Personally I don't think you are giving your enemies a chance to spot them. The -30 for standing still only applies if the firer cannot see them. The -30 is identical to the Darkness penalty for being totally concealed.

Coincidences don't exist.

So, if someone is staring down a hallway and they have the cloak then sure, -30. But after that person starts firing the enemy needs to make another Awareness test (with a bonus unless the weapon is silent and produces no muzzle flash) to spot them again. If they succeed, they have pinpointed the target and they lose the -30.

Also, when firing at an enemy, dodging =//= stationary. If they dodge they instantly lose that. Evasion tests have the Movement subtype.

I don't think you need a houserule. I just don't think you are using the rules properly.

Honestly, Commissar Williams has already covered pretty much every reason as to why the chameleoline cloaks aren't as OP as they look at first glance. Yes, you might get a few good sniper shots off, and the enemy might not know exactly where you are, but things like grenades, grenade launchers, mortars, flamers, etc. were made for these exact situations.

One thing I would like to cover is that the fact that you are not having the enemy suppress your players is definitely contributing to the fact that the NPCs feel weak. At the most basic level infantry combat relies on the simple pattern of fix and flank. Usually, a squad will be broken up into to fireteams of 4-6 men each; one of these will suppress the enemy while the other moves forwards, and they will continue to do this, switching who is suppressing and who is moving until they have managed to fix the enemy in position and eliminate them, either through rifle and machine gun fire, explosives, or any number of other things.

In a tunnel like your example, with minimal to no cover, a few guys are going to go prone and just start shooting down the tunnel without really aiming. As they are doing that, a couple more friends of theirs will probably kneel in place and lend their weapons to the suppressing fire as well. At this point your players will be pinned down or they are going to get absolutely cheesed by the sheer amount of rounds coming downrange at them (at this point I would also test everyone in the tunnel against toughness for temporary hearing loss as well, but that's just me). With the players pinned, the enemy will either fall back to a better position, lob a couple of grenades down the tunnel if possible, or simple fix bayonets and charge. What exactly the enemy does depends on their equipment, morale, training, and a bunch of other stuff, but it has to be one of those three things.

Lastly, Commissar Williams anecdote about 250,000 rounds per kill in Irag and Afghanistan was also true for Vietnam, but doesn't tell the whole story. Almost all of the rounds fired in combat are not fired at a person, or at least a specific target. They are fired into a target area to keep the enemy's head down while you move around, i.e. as suppressing fire. It's true that this system doesn't quite represent that amount of ammo expenditure, but my players have taken to carrying quite a bit of spare ammo in their games now that they have learned the value of suppressing fire. In our last session they went through almost 40 las packs and 15 150-round belts for their machine gun, and that was only a 4 player squad.

TL;DR: The Cloak isn't OP, as long as the enemy reacts the right way to it.

I don't believe they are OP. Strong, yes. But not OP.

Personally I don't think you are giving your enemies a chance to spot them. The -30 for standing still only applies if the firer cannot see them. The -30 is identical to the Darkness penalty for being totally concealed.

Coincidences don't exist.

So, if someone is staring down a hallway and they have the cloak then sure, -30. But after that person starts firing the enemy needs to make another Awareness test (with a bonus unless the weapon is silent and produces no muzzle flash) to spot them again. If they succeed, they have pinpointed the target and they lose the -30.

Also, when firing at an enemy, dodging =//= stationary. If they dodge they instantly lose that. Evasion tests have the Movement subtype.

I don't think you need a houserule. I just don't think you are using the rules properly.

If you are right that fixes the problem for sure, but it seems no-one else was interpreting the rules like that. Your interpretation is essentially the same as my first nerf house-rule. Dodging breaking the -30 is ok, but if you can find any source

that says if the enemy spots you there is no -30 let me know. Normally. if the enemy can't see or hear you at all he can't target you at all, and would have to guess the location of any enemy to even attack with -.30.

Honestly, Commissar Williams has already covered pretty much every reason as to why the chameleoline cloaks aren't as OP as they look at first glance. Yes, you might get a few good sniper shots off, and the enemy might not know exactly where you are, but things like grenades, grenade launchers, mortars, flamers, etc. were made for these exact situations.

One thing I would like to cover is that the fact that you are not having the enemy suppress your players is definitely contributing to the fact that the NPCs feel weak. At the most basic level infantry combat relies on the simple pattern of fix and flank. Usually, a squad will be broken up into to fireteams of 4-6 men each; one of these will suppress the enemy while the other moves forwards, and they will continue to do this, switching who is suppressing and who is moving until they have managed to fix the enemy in position and eliminate them, either through rifle and machine gun fire, explosives, or any number of other things.

In a tunnel like your example, with minimal to no cover, a few guys are going to go prone and just start shooting down the tunnel without really aiming. As they are doing that, a couple more friends of theirs will probably kneel in place and lend their weapons to the suppressing fire as well. At this point your players will be pinned down or they are going to get absolutely cheesed by the sheer amount of rounds coming downrange at them (at this point I would also test everyone in the tunnel against toughness for temporary hearing loss as well, but that's just me). With the players pinned, the enemy will either fall back to a better position, lob a couple of grenades down the tunnel if possible, or simple fix bayonets and charge. What exactly the enemy does depends on their equipment, morale, training, and a bunch of other stuff, but it has to be one of those three things.

Lastly, Commissar Williams anecdote about 250,000 rounds per kill in Irag and Afghanistan was also true for Vietnam, but doesn't tell the whole story. Almost all of the rounds fired in combat are not fired at a person, or at least a specific target. They are fired into a target area to keep the enemy's head down while you move around, i.e. as suppressing fire. It's true that this system doesn't quite represent that amount of ammo expenditure, but my players have taken to carrying quite a bit of spare ammo in their games now that they have learned the value of suppressing fire. In our last session they went through almost 40 las packs and 15 150-round belts for their machine gun, and that was only a 4 player squad.

TL;DR: The Cloak isn't OP, as long as the enemy reacts the right way to it.

So I need to make sure all my enemies have area of effect weapons and use it against the sniper every time they think he's a threat (which basically means the first headshot-one kill). And I do need to use SF action more often, but frankly so does my players. So far I've only used it for human enemies, not orks, as they might not have the coordination to carry out such tactics. On the other hand, "more dakka" could be translated as suppressing fire.

I'm not sure if I want this to be the case (always having to use AoE), as IMO grenades etc. should be used against enemies in cover, not as a standard attack. Will consult with the players to see what they think.

I guess I don't have an exact place but Chameleoline cloak's description.

Chameleoline material is made up of mimic fibres that
blend the coloration of the wearer into their surroundings
and are the garb of choice for snipers.

It's obvious to me that the -30 is coming from the fact that the enemy cannot see them considering that the blind penalty is -30 as well.

Then on page 113 under Modifying a Skill Test

Quite often circumstances make a Skill Test either harder or
easier, increasing or decreasing the character’s chances for
success. In these instances, the GM applies modifiers to the
Skill Test to represent the difficulty or ease of the task, such
as a bonus when trying to detect a large and obvious threat
with Awareness or...

So watching down a hallway for a muzzle flash would be in my opinion, easy, especially if you are actively hunting for it because you are under fire. Obviously if there is no muzzle flash that's another problem for your villains but firing at a muzzle flash's location is not difficult.

Honestly, if your player's fight you after all that evidence they are just in it for the combat and being OP and you should just let them. Obviously it's important that they kick butt and not that the fights are challenging. Some logic should play into it.

I ruled that the 'stationary' penalty only applies if you're literally holding stock still - it's meant to be like the elven cloaks in LotR. Now, one could make the argument that you could poke a las barrel out, since las weapons don't have recoil, and fire, but you're literally only going to be able to do one shot that way - moving the barrel around would make the cloak move and cause the 'tell-tale shimmer' to be visible. Still, lining one up and then holding stock still might work, but snipers are generally better off repositioning anyway.

So I need to make sure all my enemies have area of effect weapons and use it against the sniper every time they think he's a threat (which basically means the first headshot-one kill). And I do need to use SF action more often, but frankly so does my players. So far I've only used it for human enemies, not orks, as they might not have the coordination to carry out such tactics. On the other hand, "more dakka" could be translated as suppressing fire.

I'm not sure if I want this to be the case (always having to use AoE), as IMO grenades etc. should be used against enemies in cover, not as a standard attack. Will consult with the players to see what they think.

So going back to tactics we need to understand the make up of a squad, up until the first world war, you did not really have what we consider the modern day squad , you had a bunch of guys with muskets and then later rifles, or Rifled muskets , the first world war we start to see squads with specialists in them, light machine gun crews, sub-machine guns , engineers ect. This is more notably seen in the later part of the war with germany's , Sturmtruppen ( storm troopers).

by the time of the second world war, we see squads that are more versatile in the approach to war, and have more flexibility in combat , you now have a squad of around 10 to 12 men, if we go with a 10 man squad depending on what type of squad and nation it belongs too, for this example we are going with the US the army to be precise as the marine core generally packed more of a punch in there squad make up, you will have a squad leader and a assistant squad leader, armed with a sub-machine gun ( Thompson or grease gun ) or a PDW such as the M1 Carbine . You will have several riflemen, one will most likely be the "scout" depending on the squad and type of unit, this may be a trained specialist, or just a riflemen that has proven his ability in stealth and recon , Or you know that guy the sergeant picks, just because,at last one riflemen might be carrying the rifle grenades, you will have a automatic rifle men most likely a Bar though in some cases a johnson light machine gun, an assistant gunner for the AR , then you will have the ammo boy, who gets to lug around more ammo for every one though most like the light machine gun.

Now the reason I am choosing the second world war make up of a squad is because In my opinion the tactics used during the second world war, in large part, are still used today, in terms of squad based infantry combat, while the make up of squads change depending on technology.

Now if we translate that into a 40k squad make up you have 10 soldiers, which break down into two five man fire teams, a Squad leader armed with a pistol and close combat weapon, or a Las rifle or carbine , assistant squad leader armed with a lasrifle , a vox operator armed with a las rifle or carbine ( most likely a carbine due to carry around a heavy vox set ) , two specialists most likely a grenade launcher and flamer, but you could change the specialists for a Heavy bolter team, or stubber team, you could also substitute them for a sniper and demolitions specialist. the rest will be rifle men, all would carry grenades, generally I would say , two frag, one krak and one smoke. Though most guard regiments will cross train every one in every one's job, because at some point you are going to have your machine gunner team taken out and you need a replacement. Note that even by the second world war soldiers were crossed trained when they could be on different weapons systems. Though generally with the British army this was not always the case due to shortages of ammunition due to the U- Boat raids.

So in a platoon you have five -6 squads, one being the command squad, with the platoons officer, most likely a lieutenant or your regiments equivalent rank, and a heavy weapons squad, though it should be noted that a Regiment my organize there platoons as all rifle squads, and provide per company one platoon as a heavy weapons platoon, and section out soldiers from that platoon to others on a mission by mission bases.

So it's not that you need to make sure, it's just that most armies will have squads built around this system. So when you say

I'm not sure if I want this to be the case (always having to use AoE), as IMO grenades etc. should be used against enemies in cover, not as a standard attack. Will consult with the players to see what they think.

The standard should be, lay down fire , break into two fire teams, and kill the enemy , or lay down fire break into two fire teams, and GTFO , with each fire team laying down supporting fire. Using all weapons at hand.

So what about Chaos forces you say! well , generally most cultists are lead by intelligent leaders, and are not all mindless drones, so similar to what you have above, maybe put some Chaos things in there for flavor , and have there tactics more extreme ( For example khrone soldiers would most likely carry more close combat weapons ) .

orks? Well if you have a shoota boy squad you would have one Nob- and between 10-30 boys, armed with shootas, and a few support weapons, if you had a choppa squad, you would have the same, just with big knifes and pistols.

Tau, a leader with a pulse carbine, and 9 with pulse rifles with two drones .

Elder... erm not a elder player do not know...

Dark elder ... Just alot of pain... so much pain.

Necron , not sure why they are in your game, as one could take them all out, but they all generally have the same weapons...

I appriciate your knowledge of RL warfare, but remember that 40k tactics are often anachronistic. My impression os that ww1 strategy form the basics (mass wave attacks, trench warfare), while ww2 organization is common. Elite regiments often use ww2 squad tactics, and sometimes Vietnam style mobile warfare.

In my game, Severan Dominate forces usesquad based tactics, but so far they have been defeated through superior arms and vehicles.

Back to the cloak: one of my players notified me of the DH errata for it that didn't follow over to OW: cloak makes you count as one range bracket further away. So if at long range penalty increases from -10 to -30, and on shorter ranges it's most often -10 worse.

This seems a lot more balanced. My players mostly agreed it was too good for its intended purpose, so this fix should fix that. And I can even let the sniper retain the bonus when shooting, yet obvious movement breaks it. Im not certain i I should let melee attacking break it, by RAW it does not (not a move type action), but it makes sense the cloak would flap about when fighting, but Im also ok with the cloak effect making the melee combatant a bit harder to hit with ranged.

I had this issue with a combat just recently between my group against Orks.

They all have Chameleoline cloaks, which they stole, but that's another story... But I was concerned since they are a Recce group, that of course they wanted to use smart sniping tactics and that the bonus was gonna be too high, especially against Ork Ballistic Skill. Now it was about 4 players and 4 comrades (+1 NPC Comrade) vs 12 Orks, 6 Gretchin and an Ork BW. With Orks BS on it's own against a non moving target at a good range with said cloaks and my players dug in with jungle cover, the Orks chances to hit were in the negatives. My players were playing it smart, and I rewarded them for it. But I also wanted to have the element of such amass amount of fire coming back at them (After some of the Orks needing to Per check for them...) to actually have an effect. So I made it that 0-5 was gonna hit. And I felt it worked. The amount of Dakka was crazy, and It missed A LOT. But with such mass I was still able to get the occasional 0-5, which took out 3 Comrades and critically wounded 2 players. They felt that if they didn't use said tactics they would have died. None of them died, but it still brought the brutality and dangers of conflict and making them realize how dangerous it is in combat, with almost half of their comrades dying around them, which made them really enjoy the game more. They still have another combat to go before being able to treat the wounded so it will prove very interesting how they get through it, if they do.

TL;DR Give a chance to hit like 0-5 for enemies, I made it on the fly to make things interesting and worked for us.

I figure that if the PCs are making intelligent use of Camo Cloaks, but the enemies know roughly where they are, the Suppressive Fire action is the right choice. It forces Pinning Tests with an outside chance of a lucky shot hitting.