ok,maybe i'm missing something obvious, but instead of beating my head against the wall i thought i'd ask instead.

1) what are the skull icons in the lower left corner of the hero and vehicle cards for? i understand the crosses, but there are like 10-15 little skulls? i figured it was for cumulative damage marking, but in the rules for the ap incendiary blast it states that one target symbol rolled destroys the vehicle or hero outright...so why so many of them?

2) why do heroes not get cover saves when on their own? they are a human sized model just like other human sized models, and as such should get the ability to find cover and utilize it. does it become unbalanced somehow?

3) during a close combat the attacker can first fire all of it's weapons and then declare that any remaining targets will be attacked with close combat weapons. the defender can then counter-attack with close combat weapons. my question here is; after the defender has countered, can they then fire and close combat in their turn ( assuming they haven't yet activated ) ? my experience with miniature games is that once units have been assaulted in close combat they are then locked in battle using close combat weapons only. the rules here are not quite clear on the details of close combat after the initial assault.

4) why is it that cover elements should only be placed in the middle section of the map? ( as per pg. 19 of the rules ). we played a game ignoring this rule,and afterwards could not see a logical reason why this would be stated as a rule?

i know...lots of questions, but any answers would be most appreciated and will help speed up our next battle sessions immeasurably!

thanks all O/

- wetdigestive.

1) Those skulls mean nothing. They are just there to fill the space not occupied by the crosses.

2) The justification is that heroes don't hide. But it's really just a game mechanic, an extra incentive to keep the hero attached to a squad as long as possible.

3) Each attack is independent from the other. If the axis engaged the allies in Close Combat during their activation, there's nothing forcing the allies to attack in Close Combat as well when it's their activation.

4) The placement of the cover elements is not always just at the center of the map. Each scenario determines a specific area, marked with black diagonal stripes, where cover can be placed. Some scenarios state that cover can be placed anywhere, with the only restriction being that tank traps can't be placed inside buildings or on bridges.

Any rule can be rewritten if the group you play in all agree (or a majority does). We voted out the hero cannot use cover rule after two sessios.

Plus, helicopters with real firepower can't be far behind. We've only seen a troop carrier so far, a full-blown attack chopper must be on the works.

Loophole Master said:

Uh, that didn't work properly?? What I said was that helicopters of the era were mainly experimental spindly things, so it will be interesting to see what DT thinks the new technology will have on them. They've already done the SSU one with a transport capability, when they were mainly used in recce roles - a full blown gun-ship would be cool!

yeah,with the cover elements point i was mainly curious as to the part in the book that says " if players are designing their own battle, they should place all of the cover elements in the
central area of the battlefield." I wasn't sure what the reasoning behind this was? if it doesn't really matter then that's great...it just read as a fairly firm recommendation.

Oh, you're talking about custom scenarios. I think that's just because in a simple deathmatch, most of the conflict tends to happen in the center of the board.

Well the chopper hes been said to have quad MGs...