Hi everybody, I'm a really new ToI player and I'm trying to fully understand this awesome game. I've recently played with a friend of mine the standard scenario called "Silence the Gun" (I'm not sure the name is right... I mean the scenario in which americans have to capture a german bunker on top of a great mountain), and I found quite frustrating to use hidden units. Maybe I've not used them right, so I would be glad if you could give me some explanations about it.

My "trouble situation" is the one that follows:

I played Germans. Using standard rules, I've hidden all my anti-tank units in order to come close to enemy tanks and blast them without taking fire during the approach. All worked fine, but during the game I realised a bad thing: my firend simply saw my hidden units in the wood waiting to ambush his tanks, so he chose to stop his tanks and advance with assault units. With them, he revealed my hidden units and made them run back behind the front line.

During that time, my friend rigthly said: "hey, but look at this: if I hadn't known about your hidden units, I would have advanced with my tanks and you could have hambushed them. But here, I see them on the board even if they're hidden, so I would never come close to a hidden unit with my tank, expecially knowing it is an anti-tank unit.

We talked a while about some rules you also explained in other threads, but even removing the unit from the board and assigning a number to it, it's quite easy to understand that hidden units have anti-tank if none of them is visible on the field.

Could you explain to us a way to hambush tanks without being irrealistically revealed? Or, at least, is it possible to do in ToI? And finally: how do you usually play with hidden units?

Thank you a lot!

I don't see any problem with the way your scenario played out. Your opponent simply did what any prudent commander would do. He sent out advance scouts to root out any units waiting to ambush his more valuable units. Of course, this action cost him time, delaying the advance of the tanks. He could just as easily chosen to charge ahead and take the consequences.

My point is that hidden units may not always ambush enemy units, but even if they don't they will certainly slow them down. The choice you give your opponent when you deploy hidden units is the same choice a real-life commander would face. He can either charge ahead and hope everything turns out OK, or take the slower and safer path. Either way, you've gained something.

That's an interesting point, thank you very much for the explanation!

Ideas, only ideas....

1. CONCEALED SQUAD. You can also leave a numbered token on the board instead squad with his concealed token. Off the board you have a litle plastic cup with the same number of your concealed squad token, and under the plastic cup is your concealed squad. Your enemy does not see which squad is concealed until it is revealed. Write in a paper would be ideal, but ...

2. TRANPORTING SQUADS. I think you can apply this idea in transported squads. The transported squads is hidden under the litle plastic cup, without your enemy know who is in transport.

3. FOG OF WAR. And I thought further. Early in the game all units start hidden and are revealed as you enter in the line of sight of any enemy unit.
Then there would be several numbered tokens on the board (representing the units) and tokens with the corresponding number in the player's play area, where the units are hidden. Whenever a unit come out of the line of sight of a enemy unit it return to stay hidden.

4. CONCEALED AND INVISIBLE: We can apply the system of coordinates, as in chess. A1, A2, B2, C3, D4 ... When a unit moves, the player writes on a paper the coordinate that the unit is. This annotation is very simple and does not make the game harder.

Imagine you move toward the enemy territory, when faced with a lot of woods in your front. Scary to get close knowing that there are hidden units somewhere and that any time you may get shot, not knowing where.

Yes. fog of war is something which is difficult to add with a simple rule. I do agree that a better system could be needed in some situations, but I think hidden units are simple and fair.

But what you can do is copple the hidde units with visible MG positions. Even at long range, a singe MG in op-fire mode can be deadly, killing one squad per 6 you roll. With MG guns covering the region, moving troops forward is more problematic. Ofcourse, what any attacker will do, is to silence the MG guns first, then start moving, but taking out MG guns also takes time. And time is on the german side. (disclaimer, I dont remember how many MG guns the german has in this scenerio)

Fog of war can be done but what TOI has right now works fine. a different system can devised, likein the old Squad Leader series you had question counters which made hiding your units a little easier. so it's something that can be acomplished it just needs some work on some rules and playtesting.

BJaffe01

You can set up all squads with just regular infantry units, assign each squad a number, and write on a sheet of paper by each number what the actual composition the squad is and what its actual support weapon is. Once one of the squads is revealed, add the weapon token to base, and if MG or elite, replace appropriate number of reg. infantry figures with the elite/or MG figure.

This prevents the moving player from knowing exactly what type of squad and weapon he is facing at first. He will know where all the enemy squads are, but not know which ones are armed with AT weapons, which have elite units, nor which ones have a MG, until they fire or he has moved adjacent, which will reveal exactly the composition. I think this could work similar to my previous spotting suggestion, but works better with the hidden and concealed rules better.

I saw that some ideas can be applied in two situations:

- Only to Concealed Squads : in this case the rules for Concealed Squads are applied normally (move by terrain with cover, not being attacked when is n the , etc.).

- To all squads : in this case the squad is not Concealed and is revealed as soon as they enter in LOS of some enemy unit.

VanCamper said:

I like your idea, is similar to my "1. Concealed Squad", just substitute tokens by regular squads, but the idea is the same and applying to all squads.

I think option "4. Concealed and Invisible" can apply when to use Concealed Squads in the game, using coordinates system as in chess and writing on the paper the unit localization. This system is used in Coflict of Heroes and can be used in TOI.
Of course, the player must be honest in their moves and when have to reveal his squad.

to save time i think the number idea is best. Makes setup alot quicker. But only works if its not obvious what you are hiding. Hmm scenraio calls for enemy to have 2 AT squads. And he sees none on the field. Guess the ? are AT

but even in current state its okay. Ya i hid my AT crew in the trees too and in a rough area. He had to advance the tanks but was wasting time trying to get near the hidden units to expose them with his inf.