Forums of the Megaverse®

I'm reading and re-reading close formation shooting, and I'm just not putting things together. Feel kinda dumb.

1. Do they all fire at a single target?

2. If not, how do you resolve all the attacks "simultaneously"? Is it: roll all dice to strike at once, then choose/roll all dodges and rolls for impact, then assign all damage?

3. The example on page 19. If that figure was to scale, would Valkyries A and B also get the +1 for close formation, provided they were GN1 (such as if it was the second pilots' shot from VF-1D's)?

Rules take a bit of reading to figure out how this works correctly.

If the same squadron was in Close Formation all of the attacks would be considered simultaneous and are declared and then rolled at the same time. For Example: The acting player activates a squadron of Valkyries, moves, and then fires on a squadron of Regults during the combat step. If all of the Valkyries are in Close Formation than the players declares the attacks for each Valkyrie before making any attack rolls, any resulting losses among the Regults are NOT taken off the board immediately as they are destroyed but after all the Valkyries have resolved their attack rolls.

So you get a bonus to attack and can shield each other BUT fire is simultaneous so you cannot blow up one pod with one VT in close formation to another and THEN use the next one in the formation to kill the Glaug behind.

If you split a squadron with or without support units into 2 or more groups in close formation then you can fire each group that is in close formation in turn. So if I have a VT squadron of 4 VT's and 2 support cards of 2 VT's I can split them into 2 groups of 4, unleash hell from the first group and use the second to capitalize on the hole made.

Hope that helps.

Mike1975 wrote:Rules take a bit of reading to figure out how this works correctly.

If the same squadron was in Close Formation all of the attacks would be considered simultaneous and are declared and then rolled at the same time. For Example: The acting player activates a squadron of Valkyries, moves, and then fires on a squadron of Regults during the combat step. If all of the Valkyries are in Close Formation than the players declares the attacks for each Valkyrie before making any attack rolls, any resulting losses among the Regults are NOT taken off the board immediately as they are destroyed but after all the Valkyries have resolved their attack rolls.

So you get a bonus to attack and can shield each other BUT fire is simultaneous so you cannot blow up one pod with one VT in close formation to another and THEN use the next one in the formation to kill the Glaug behind.

If you split a squadron with or without support units into 2 or more groups in close formation then you can fire each group that is in close formation in turn. So if I have a VT squadron of 4 VT's and 2 support cards of 2 VT's I can split them into 2 groups of 4, unleash hell from the first group and use the second to capitalize on the hole made.

Hope that helps.

The rules state that each attack requires a command point to dodge. I would also argue, although this is not official, that units firing simultaneously at a single target means that target only needs to make one Dodge roll and spend one command point since in a way he is dodging one simultaneous attack from several units.

That's how I figured it; so, do I resolve it like this:

I have a squadron of 4 VF-1A's in fighter mode, and they want to fire their guns and nose lasers. So, I choose 4 different Regults, one for each gun, and 2 more different Regults for the lasers, two on each.

I roll my lasers among the targets to see what's hit. I also roll my guns among the other targets to see what's hit. Let's say they all hit because of that sweet-as-candy +1 bonus.

He defends himself. He sucks and fails.

Now we resolve damage. 4 Regults are destroyed, one by each gun. 2 Regults take 2 damage.

Does that sound right? Does to me.

So in essence you are targeting 6 Regults, 4 with one GU-11 on each, plus 2 Lasers on each of the other two. Nose Lasers do 2 each. So if everything hits you kill 4 Regults, one each with the GU-11 and do 2 Shots doing 2 Damage each at one pod and the same on another for a total of 4 damage on each of the other 2 Pods.

I'm pretty sure the Nose Lasers do 2 more damage each.....your example has 2 hits on each Regult with the lasers at 1 MD each or you forgot the third and fourth nose laser shot.....

Sorry, I'm thinking head lasers at 1 MD.

Otherwise, spot on. And, the difference between formation shooting and single shooting is you can't wait and see what you do before moving on. Not bad, and I'm sure it will help speed up big games.

Sounds about like how reading it sounded to me. The squadron in close formation all declare attacks at once and then roll and do any defensive things they chose. Remove nothing till the whole thing is resolved. Get awesome bonus but can't use removal for targetting. Glad to see that I'm not the only one interpreting things and hoping I'm right. I like this community. I am so happy to be in this game and want to play so bad.

I would agree with the above interpretations.

Thanks!

Mike1975 wrote:

Mike1975 wrote:Rules take a bit of reading to figure out how this works correctly.

If the same squadron was in Close Formation all of the attacks would be considered simultaneous and are declared and then rolled at the same time. For Example: The acting player activates a squadron of Valkyries, moves, and then fires on a squadron of Regults during the combat step. If all of the Valkyries are in Close Formation than the players declares the attacks for each Valkyrie before making any attack rolls, any resulting losses among the Regults are NOT taken off the board immediately as they are destroyed but after all the Valkyries have resolved their attack rolls.

So you get a bonus to attack and can shield each other BUT fire is simultaneous so you cannot blow up one pod with one VT in close formation to another and THEN use the next one in the formation to kill the Glaug behind.

If you split a squadron with or without support units into 2 or more groups in close formation then you can fire each group that is in close formation in turn. So if I have a VT squadron of 4 VT's and 2 support cards of 2 VT's I can split them into 2 groups of 4, unleash hell from the first group and use the second to capitalize on the hole made.

Hope that helps.

The rules state that each attack requires a command point to dodge. I would also argue, although this is not official, that units firing simultaneously at a single target means that target only needs to make one Dodge roll and spend one command point since in a way he is dodging one simultaneous attack from several units.

I get what your Saying two units shooting at one target if he successfully dives out of the way once he should be home free.

In practice however I dont really like this because 2 Units shooting means 2 sperate "to hit" rolls which potentially means 2 differant target numbers to dodge.

Now may a fun houserule could be to compare the dodge roll to all of the incoming attacks and see what misses and what hits, My fear though is that this would make the dodge rule a bit overpowered and give certain already hard to kill mecha way to much of an advantage.

I think the only thing I disagree with is that the simultaneous rules state the Mecha in close formation resolve the ranged attack steps together, which means that although they do have to declare all shots at multiple target Mecha, they still resolve their shots one mecha at a time (roll to strike, dodge, roll with impact, apply damage, etc) before moving on to the next declared target. That is how ranged combat works when one Mecha fires at multiple targets, so you just expand it to include multiple shooters.

The best way to think about it is all the other Mecha in close formation are simply additional weapons that one Mecha fires. You declare every shot at every target, but fully resolve one target at a time.

Thanks,