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This is currently being discussed on the official forums, which is where I spotted it.

Apparently the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated reveals that Red Bear, the LW Eastern Front compilation book for the Soviets and Romanians (with lists from the three Bagration books and Stalin's Europe) will have a change to Hen and Chicks. The current Hen and Chicks rule is that if any tank in a platoon moves more than 6", no tanks in the platoon are allowed to fire. The change will be that if any tank in the platoon moves at all, then the entire platoon will fire with a +1 penalty to hit. Or in other words, you'll now be able to move the tanks in your platoon more than 6" and still shoot, but you'll be penalized if you move at all. It's a trade off.

Current speculation is also that there will be a points cost increase associated with this, though it's still just speculation until the 17th of next month (when the book comes out; Soviet tanks are currently heavily discounted points-wise due to Hen and Chicks).

I don't play with/against Soviets personally, so I can't critique the change, but it does sound interesting. It sounds as if the new version of the rule is an improvement over the old - getting a chance to fire, even with a 6+, is a much better chance than, say, not getting to fire at all.

A price increase to soviet tanks?... Makes sense to me.

It's been needing a change for a while, it's always seemed silly. However, I understand the need for it in the first place, to make it so that Soviet armor can be taken en mass as it was historically without unbalancing the game.

The same goes for the one man turret or awkward layout stuff. Because this game focuses on mobility, these rules hurt the affected nations and vehicles.

It also makes smoke bombardments way too effective at times.

I hope this is accompanied by a significant points increase -- the Soviet armour is REALLY tough already.

Eumerin wrote:This is currently being discussed on the official forums, which is where I spotted it.

Apparently the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated reveals that Red Bear, the LW Eastern Front compilation book for the Soviets and Romanians (with lists from the three Bagration books and Stalin's Europe) will have a change to Hen and Chicks. The current Hen and Chicks rule is that if any tank in a platoon moves more than 6", no tanks in the platoon are allowed to fire. The change will be that if any tank in the platoon moves at all, then the entire platoon will fire with a +1 penalty to hit. Or in other words, you'll now be able to move the tanks in your platoon more than 6" and still shoot, but you'll be penalized if you move at all. It's a trade off.

Current speculation is also that there will be a points cost increase associated with this, though it's still just speculation until the 17th of next month (when the book comes out; Soviet tanks are currently heavily discounted points-wise due to Hen and Chicks).

If this change gets made I hope for a serious increase in soviet tank point costs, though. Hens and chicks and the mobility limitations it imposes is one of the few things that balances out the massive numbers of tanks that russian armies can get a hold of. A simple +1 penalty to hit isn't that big a penalty in my book. Personally would rather see it change to: +1 to hit if moved under 6" and still no shoting at all if moving more than 6". Of course midwar confident trained british armor just wouldn' fare well against massed russian armor with only a +1 to hit if they move...so my opinion is VERY biased.

Skriker

DirtyJon wrote:I hope this is accompanied by a significant points increase -- the Soviet armour is REALLY tough already.

I guess Steven would have a tough time getting all of those T-34's out on the table after such a change, eh?

infinite_array wrote:

DirtyJon wrote:I hope this is accompanied by a significant points increase -- the Soviet armour is REALLY tough already.

I guess Steven would have a tough time getting all of those T-34's out on the table after such a change, eh?

My Grenadiers sure hope so!

According to the WI article, tanks with RoF 2 will have their points increased. Tanks with RoF 1 will have their points decreased (the new H&C penalty stacks with the +1 that RoF1 guns get while moving and shooting simultaneously). Unfortunately, I don't know how much their changing up or down.

BF does its website update every Thursday, and one of the members of the staff has admitted that they screwed up with the news of this. They knew that the new issue of WI came out on Saturday, but forgot that some people get it a few days early. They've got an article planned for next Thursday talking about the changes in more detail, but belatedly realized that they should have had finished and posted yesterday instead.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
That didn't take long. There are already people complaining about how this new version of H&C supposedly screws over the Soviets.

>.<

Technically, it will only apply to any lists in the Red Bear book.

The points values for everything else will be the same.

Vertrucio wrote:Technically, it will only apply to any lists in the Red Bear book.

The points values for everything else will be the same.

Yeah, though I expect it to gradually turn up in more and more places, such as Barbarossa next Summer. In a couple of years, using old H&C will likely be somewhat similar to running a list from Festung Europa - except for perhaps in Mid-War. The lists in the Bagration books (which will be appearing in Red Bear) are pretty good replacements for the lists in Fortress Europe, with the only thing notably absent being the light tanks.

There's also some suspicion that FoW V3 is on the way soon (Battlefront hasn't said anything, but the rumor keeps turning up on the official forums). And while it probably won't be a complete GW-style rules redirection, there will be some changes whenever it appears. And you can bet that this new H&C will be a part of it.

There is a discussion of this on the FoW mainpage.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=2990