Misc. Battle Map Questions

Topic One: Line of Sight (LoS)

The rules state: After a successful Observe you may then use the Direct fire or Suppressive Fire action.

The issue: Can (and should) the Battle Map be drawn with specific LoS
corridors, if appropriate?

Example: Last night’s firefight took place inside of ship. From our reading of the rules, 2 fire teams on opposite sides of the ship could take DF or SF actions against the other fire team.

Topic Two: Non-covered actions
The rules give examples of the various maneuvers and actions that you can take. But what if someone wants to do something “non-standard.”

Example: The group is fighting inside of ship and that ship submerges. One of the fire teams is in the cargo hold. What if I want my fire team to override the system and open the cargo hold, thus flooding the area?

Would this just be a specialist action with stakes agreed to by the players/GM?

Topic Three: No-Man’s Land and Positions

Do no-man’s land need to defined as “being adjacent” to specific positions?
Does each position need to be defined as “being adjacent” to other positions?

Topic Four: Internal Firefight Objectives

Firefight has its own set of victory conditions, in terms of disposition and then success is negotiated based on disposition loss at the end.

What about setting objectives internal to the firefight?
One team wants to advance to the Med bay to destroy the evidence and the other fire team needs to either stop them (disposition loss) or to advance to the Med bay and secure the evidence.

I know its a lot, but I want to understand both the intent of the system and mechanics of the system so that I can fully enjoy it.

Thanks.

  1. Does the Firefight chapter mention anything at all about line of sight? There are no line of sight rules in Burning Empires.

  2. Yes, a specialist Security action, I would think. Or maybe Ship Management, because that’s cool.

  3. Draw two positions on the map, say a wall and a hill. The hill is 2P, 1C, the wall is 1P, 1C. The hill on the left and the wall on the right. Draw a field in between. The field is no man’s land and the positions are adjacent to one and another.

  4. I’m not sure I understand your last question. You described two FF objectives – take the med bay and destroy the evidence vs secure the evidence in the med bay.

-L

That last question was rushed. Let me flesh it out further.
Lets say that I want to create a firefight with Primary and Secondary Objectives. However, I want those objectives to be accomplished within the framework of the firefight rather than being part of the stakes for the firefight as a whole.
[b]
Using the Example Above

Fireteam A [/b]needs to Advance to the Medbay Position. Then once there they can use a Demolitions Specialist action to destroy the Medbay Position (evidence). Then they will try to escape the facility via the Exit Position.
Fireteam B wants to secure the Evidence. To do this, they either have to reduce Fireteam A’s disposition to 0 (winning the FF) or they can try to stop Fireteam A another way. Maybe they are able Advance to the Medbay position and use a Sensors Specialist Action to acquire the Evidence and then escape via the Exit Position.

Now this could just be done with a straight up firefight (or several smaller ones) where we move our dudes “around the board” scripting volleys until one of us hits 0 disposition. At that point we see how much disposition was lost and negotiate victory from there.

Or we could setup Objectives that give each side something to “play” for.

Why? Well if there are actual objectives within the Battlespace then it allows greater depth to my strategy. From my POV, one FF is, mechanically, going to look rather like another as the sole goal of the FF is to either kill/break all of the other guy’s dudes or reduce their disposition to 0. The system is very meaty, but it only seems to go so far.

This may be my 40K experience talking, but I know that after a while, I knew exactly how my Space Wolves (or my Nids or my tooled up Sisters Army) would perform depending on the blessings of my dice. Unless there were actual victory conditions that had nothing to do with me killing the other guy, I was going to go straight for the throat in the way my dudes(nids, women) did … every time. Needless to say, I don’t play much 40K anymore.