No interest (or comments at least) on the Geek yet, so I'll post the link here (this forum doesn't seem to allow copy-paste) as well to reach a broader audience.

My rules are intended to bring greater detail and realism to the game while trying to retain the fun and simplicity of the ToI ruleset. It's not just realism for realism's sake though, but an attempt to broaden the gameplay and better support historical tactics, as well as fix some of the pet peeves some of the community have with the rules (with regards to suppressive vs killing fire, for example).

Comment here or on the Geek as you prefer.

boardgamegeek.com/thread/724135/advanced-rules-variant-v2

Interesting at first glance, but squads should not have a facing except for MG and mortar squads.

After all, these units are not massed lines or columns.

Squads actually did have an orientation in practise, and enfilade / lines of fire were a big concern. Most other hex-based rulesets do include a facing, but I guess in the end it's about game design philosophy.

OK, you can argue that a squad has an orientation, a field of fire. But I would not charge it one MP to change facing during movement.

What about an area movement version of TOI? Rather than hexes, the map is divided up into areas, and each area has a maximum number of units that can be in that area. Infantry squads(non transported) would could move 1 area per turn, while vehicles and transported infantry, would move 2 to 3 areas,or attempt to move 2 areas by rolling a speed roll. Its basically a concept like in the old Victory in the Pacific game from Avalon Hill.

I could see a larger map of Operation Citadel, divided up into a lot of areas, and in each area, combat could be resolved in a simplistic way, so the whole campaign is played in a couple of hours, or if the player want, each area is linked to a scenario, and the TOI boards can be set up for a more detailed resolution using standard TOI rules.

Did you fully understand the rules for infantry movement? Units can move into any of their 3 front hexes without changing facing at no extra cost, AND can change facing by one hexside after every hex moved. This is directly robbed from Conflict of Heroes, I think it works well.

Also, changing to any facing costs them only 1 movement point. So it's not a big deal for Infantry.

VolksCamper said:

Sounds good, I wanted to do something like that some time ago, using the Axis & Allies games on Normandy and The Bulge as campaign maps with decisive battles fought in ToI. I never got around to doing it, though.

You need rules for force conversion from the operational level to the tactical level and back, some decision on how to handle casualty and straggler recovery and a map-generation system based on the campaign map areas.

Sami K said:

But what does this cost of 1 movement point represent or model?

The sergeant saying "Go this way to your rear!" instead of "Go this way forward!"?

The troops physically turning around to face the other way?

One movement point represents a quarter of a unit's time in a turn, so I think it is a big deal. How many movement points do squads have in Conflict of Heroes? What is the time and ground scale used in CoH? I still do not have that game, although I have heard many good things about it.

Even ASL, which is THE most over-regulated tactical boardgame I have ever seen, does not use facing for rifle squads.

Infantry with small arms should have all-round facing, except in games that model very individual combat with tuns only lasting seconds and units being indivdual soldiers. And even then, I would not charge them MPs for turning. No game I know does that for modern combat simulation. For periods like the Napoleonic era, this is more appropriate.

Exactly the opposite. Individual soldiers would not have facings.

But fine, I didn't come here to argue about these rules really, they're just posted here for the community's benefit.

If it matters so much, I'll move the infantry facing rules to the Optional rules wasteland.

Vehicle and Entrenchment flanking rules remain, however.

TOI level of complexity is about right relative to the average number of units in the scenarios included. If I were to use the more detailed rules, I probably would only go with small no. of units on each side., and probably reduce the units movement points to 2 pts for squads, and a range of 3 to 5 pts for vehicles and tanks.

In part, its the tempo of the game that is affected by more detailed rules. It slows down the perception of "progress" that units are making, so the results, being much more incremental, make it seem like a slow motion observation, and with no action really causing much of a dynamic effect. So that is why I hesitate to change TOI rules too much, because there is a level of dynamic that creates a kind of intensity when moving the units, which is pretty good IMO. The variations of actions such as Op fire vs Fire and Move, or a unit can risk full movement and make a dash for an objective, keeps the game challenging without slowing it down too much.

While this is very interesting and valid from your perspective, I fail to see how it adds to the discussion of these rules other than "don't use advanced rules", which is hardly constructive now, is it?

As I said, Tide of Iron something different to everyone and to me it isn't enough on its own. I'm not trying to change how you play the game, I'm merely presenting the fruits of my labour available for others to see and try out. Therefore I'm not on a quest to convert people from standard ToI playing unless they're already unsatisfied with how it plays.

One could easily just say "abandon Tide of Iron and just buy Conflict of Heroes, but I feel that as a product and a basis for these rules, Tide of Iron has merit of its own to make me not want to go through the hassle and additional monetary expense.