Rules Questions

[Gerry Brawley]

You also have to allow for long range but get it back for point blank range. Small vehicle Flamethower only do d6 damage.

[Stuart Harrison]

@Sparkr

“Thank you! I was going to resort to a single D6 roll but then just wondered why the rule changed. Regardless, thanks again.”

The rules changed because of a wide perception that FTs were overpowered in first edition – to the extent that some events banned them (automatic hit followed by automatic morale check with multiple pins affecting that morale check).

[Fred Brannan]

The printout from BoltAction.EasyArmy shows a +1 on the damage roll for flamethrowers vs vehicles. Is that actually somewhere in the rules book?

[Greg]

I think that’s a misprint in Easy Army. It should read “When rolling to damage a vehicle equipped with flamerthrower, add +1 to damage effects chart.” Page 86 in rulebook says “When rolling on the damage effects chart against a vehicle equipped with flamethrowers, add an extra +1 to the roll to represent the increased risk from carrying around so much volatile fuel…”.

[Fred Brannan]

The problem with that assumption is that the comment in question also comes up on a list with an infantry flamethrower but no vehicles. I’m going to continue to ignore the +1 on the damage table but it would be interesting to know what EasyArmy is thinking.

[Stuart Harrison]

Flamethrowers always hit the top armour of vehicles (p67, Weapons, Weapon Special Rules, Flamethrower, third para, first sentence) – this would give a +1 vs armoured vehicles.

Easy army is a tool that tries to give reminders about all relevant special rules. It can never replace access to/knowledge of the whole rule.

[Papa]

Few weeks ago I played with my German Fallschirmjaegers at a local BA tournament. In my second game my Panzerwerfer 42 (counts as 7+ Armored Car) was hit in the front by a Panzer IV heavy anti tank gun, which has +6 Pen. When rolling to damage my opponent rolled a 1. My interpretation of the rules is, that a damage roll of 1 always fails to damage, regardless of PEN, but my opponent insisted, that 6+1 was enough to do minor damage to my Panzerwerfer. We asked the tournament organisators for rule clarification and they agreed to the ruling of my opponent. Funnily in my third game I had exactly the same situation: Another Panzer IV hitting my Panzerwerfer with his heavy AT gun (in both situations shot was not in long range). After rolling the damage dice and a one came up, my opponent immediately told me that no damage was caused, because 1 always fails! As I will visit another tournament in November, I would like to know which ruling is correct. Thanks in advance for Your answers.

[Master Chief]

Page 56 of the second edition rulebook:

ROLL TO DAMAGE
Pick all of the dice that scored a hit and roll them again to see if the target suffers damage and takes casualties. The score needed to inflict a casualty depends on the damage value of the target, as shown in the table overleaf. We have included damage values for vehicles including tanks to give an idea of relative values. Heavy weapons add a modifier to the damage roll, allowing for a score of greater than 6. This is described in detail in the section on weapons, page 60. Regardless of any modifiers that apply, a roll of a 1 is always a failure.

[Richard]

Yep, roll of one to hit or to Pen is always a failure regardless.

(Note the roll of 1 to hit being a fail is an addition from V1)

[Papa]

Thanks Master Chief and Richard for the clarification! What annoys me the most, is that the tournament organisators ruled for my opponent.

[Teafloy]

Quick question about the Soviet M-30 and heavy Katyusha.

It states that they fire HE (3d6) rather than HE (2d6).
Does that mean they also hit with a 4” template and +4 pen?

[Stuart Harrison]

Rob Lemay, yes, as per the para below the HE chart, p70.

Unless stated otherwise, the old xDx numbers for HE convert directly across to second edition with the line corresponding to the last column of the chart.

[Teafloy]

Thanks Stuart.
Viscous little thing then, but only 3 shots a game

[John]

Campaign Market Garden Book, Scenario 7- Setting up the Eureka and ID Panels there is no info on when you can start to do them and no info on where they should be placed. We played that you cold not start till turn 2 to begin and had to roll your morale to start, to complete the task we rolled a dice odds complete even not complete. The Eureka we played that it had to be set up 12in. from the woods and the panels had to be roughly in the centre of the field spread out. So if anyone can clarify on how to better work this scenario send info. The Germans won because I did not get the Eureka set up only 1 panel the other 2 were captured by the Germans.

[Mark Stanoch]

Here’s a question regarding Direct Fire HE weapons. Second Edition page 60 for HE weapons states “When firing an HE weapon, pick a target unit and roll to hit in the same way as for a normal shot.” On page 71, under Howitzer, the rules state that “This weapon can either shoot directly at a target drawing its line of fire ‘over open sights’ in the normal way…”. So just to be clear, when firing a Howitzer using direct fire one would roll a normal 3+ to hit, correct?

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