Losing the Squad Leader

[Greg]

The rulebook says if a squad loses its nco it takes a permanent -1 to its morale value. One fellow player says that only affects morale checks. Another says that this would take a veteran squad down to regular and a regular squad down to inexperienced!!!! That seems overly harsh. The troops wouldn’t immediately forget their basic skills and could still shoot & defend themselves as trained. Have other groups dealt with this?

[Stuart Harrison]

It is a permanent -1 to morale so would affect any morale based test.

It has no effect on the actual quality of the squad for any non morale based effect such as roll to damage, whether it takes a -1 to hit for inexperience etc.

[TheEldarGuy]

This is why the Germans have the Special Rule. The troops were highly trained, however, forces like the US, would rely heavily on the Veteran Sergeant to bring the squad up. Therefore, losing the Squad Leader causes a massive morale hit to the squad.

In WW1, this was quite a problem as the Vets would hang around together (knowing the attrition rate), but they would die together instead of passing their knowledge along to the section.

[Slyde Klewlis]

An exception would be if you are using a Rally order just roll base morale for the unit and no loss of NCO modifier applies in that case.

[Stuart Harrison]

“An exception would be if you are using a Rally order just roll base morale for the unit and no loss of NCO modifier applies in that case.”

I believe this is incorrect – loss of the NCO is a permanent reduction in the unit’s morale, not a pin marker. Rally specifically ignores “all negative modifiers from pin markers”, not a reduced morale value.

[Charles McKellar]

This came up today in game but the German squad went down to 2 LMG teams and the player said it wouldn’t have any effect for anything except moral tests. Was he wrong?

[Stuart Harrison]

I’d say he was wrong.

Rally allows you to ignore negatives from pin markers. Loss of NCO is not a pin marker.

A rule specifically allowing you to ignore one does not allow you to ignore the other – it does not tell you you take it at full morale, just that you ignore negatives from pin markers.

[Charles McKellar]

@ Stuart, Thanks for your response. To clarify..I engaged a 7 man Grenadier squad and inflicted 3 casualties but was not able to specify the SL. The other player selected the SL and 2 riflemen leaving the 2 LMGs. I asked why and he said it didn’t matter except for morale tests. My point to him was it would effect other actions and he called the TO for clarification and the TO agreed with him.

The INITIATIVE TRAINING rule says I would have to roll a 1 to remove the SL but he voluntarily removed it to keep the LMGs whole. And since the SL can’t be a loader he should have removed an LMG and gained 1 rifleman. This looks like something to go into the FAQ.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Charles McKellar.

[Stuart Harrison]

It doesn’t change who he can or must remove, but choosing to remove the NCO carries consequences. Specifically, a -1 penalty to the morale value with no riders about that negative only applying in some circumstances.

He could also have chosen to remove one of the loaders, resulting in one LMG suffering a -1 to hit for lacking it’s loader.

[Nat]

To put it another way… a Regular squad is Ld 9, if you lose the squad leader by any reason (and they are not replaced by a special rule such as the German national trait) then that squad is now Ld8.

This is the base leadership you use for working out all tests (so applying -1 per pin, -1 for lose of gun crew, +X for officer in range etc etc)

[Charles McKellar]

Thanks, is there any other force that has a special rule like the Germans?

[Nat]

I dont have every rule book so cant say one way or another sorry.

[Greg]

German trained Nationalist Chinese.

[Author]

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