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CalgarsPimpHand wrote:Keep it simple. Make it work as close to vehicle smoke launchers as possible.

A squad equipped with smoke grenades can "pop smoke" in the shooting phase instead of shooting. They can still run, but they cannot charge. Gives a 4+ cover save to the squad until the start of their next turn, but they do not count as in cover for the purpose of HtH.

If equipped with smoke, an IG mortar squad at full strength (3 mortars) or a griffon can fire a smoke mission. This is represented as a single 48" ordnance template barrage, no damage. Any unit with half or more of its models under the template, or any vehicle more than 50% covered by the template, gets a 4+ cover save until the start of their next turn. As above, does not count as in cover in HtH. Units that have already shot this turn cannot receive a cover save from smoke rounds (this keeps you from firing your big guns, then hiding them).

That sounds like a great idea!
Though they should also get cover if they have 50% behind the template.

I'm not sure that is more simple.
I think it should be fired between movement and shooting and just be a barrier to line of sight.
Doesn't stop templates or close combat. S+d6 is a great idea for range.
We used to use a kid's rubber ball, cut in half, to represent vortex grenades. You could do the same for smoke.

That's fine if you want to keep markers on the board as temporary terrain, but it could get messy if the rounds land on part of a building, or halfway on a unit, or anywhere else where placing a template would be awkward. I know it's a bit of an abstraction to do it the way I suggested, but the bookkeeping is easy and the effect is roughly what we're going for (you can protect your units while they cross open ground). It definitely limits the effectiveness of the smoke round, which is a good thing IMO. You don't want a situation where your one smoke round shuts down all shooting from half your enemy's army, even if that might make sense in real life. I think it would be too easily abused.

Also, as a veteran of 2nd edition, you do NOT want to go back to individual infantry throwing grenades around. It's a nightmare to keep track of. Just let an infantry unit pop smoke on itself, like vehicle smoke launchers, and call it a day.

Yeah, that was a nightmare.
V2 rules were fun if you had OCD and Asperger's syndrome though *cough*.


No I just meant to check for line of sight.
You could also use a blast template that is cut in half to check for LOS in the vertical plane.

Or a semicircle of cotton wool.

So I think we're in agreement that smoke grenades are kind of a non-starter, since it's way easier and more effective to just borrow the vehicle smoke launcher rules.

I guess my main objection to using mortar/artillery smoke markers and half-circle templates or cotton wool or whatever, aside from the increased difficulty of checking LOS and keeping track of the markers, is that the attempt at extra realism will only encourage people to use the smoke in unrealistic ways.

I'm going for a WWII-ish feel, using a curtain of smoke to screen your own advance. Because of the limits of our battle sizes, I think using actual markers actually makes this harder. You'll only have a small number of blast templates to work with in a given turn, and you probably have many units you'd like to screen. Placement becomes critical. The farther a template is from your enemy, the smaller a portion of their firing arc you are covering, and the more likely it is that your smoke round won't cover anything very well, especially once the template scatters.

The closer you place the marker to the enemy, the more of their firing arc you block, with the logical extension that you want to put smoke right in front/on top of the enemy's most dangerous unit(s). Now you're potentially protecting your entire army from whatever heavy hitter with one well-placed smoke round. So instead of trying to make a curtain of smoke, you're just dropping individual rounds right on the enemy's heavy support.

Another technique would be to land smoke rounds directly in front/on top of your most important units (to ensure that they're protected), which is what my suggestion more or less does, just more abstractly.

Basically, I want this to feel like dropping smoke to cover your own units. I don't want to encourage smoke-round sniping to shut down the enemy firepower at the source. That's why I think it's better to encourage aiming the smoke at your own troops rather than the enemy. It's a matter of opinion though.

Good points all.

I'll apply some thought to it.