Part 77: Assault/Opportunity Fire

Rules: Assault/Opportunity Fire

Units within the game can either use an Action to fire, or, if they are next to an opponent, can elect to Assault. Assaults are much more risky, since you are giving the defender a chance to fire back, and they get to fire first. The Assaulting unit(s) first have to pass a Bravery Check, with is a Troop Quality check with some modifiers:

Troop Quality + Enemy Defence Rating(including terrain) - Assaulting Unit Defence Rating

The reason why you add the enemy and subtract your own rating is that negative is better, so a negative defence rating from the opponent lowers the value, while a negative defence rating for your unit increases it. As an example:

Standard Fallschirmjager TQ (7) + 0 Defence NZ Company in an Orchard with an IP (-2) - Standard Defence of a Fallschirmjager (-1)

So you would have to roll a 6 or lower in order to pass the Bravery check. If you fail, nothing happens, but you lose your action. You can't use Command Points to auto-succeed this either: your troops are on their own in terms of leadership.

if at least one of your units passes, the assault is on, but first the defenders get to see if they can Opportunity Fire.

Opportunity Fire is how you make Fire Zones "sticky" in this game. If you attempt to move a unit away from a Fire Zone, units that exert that Fire Zone have a chance to fire, if they pass a Troop Quality check. Again, no Command Point expenditure can allow you to pass this check. Opportunity fire has some modifiers depending on if the unit is moving from Fire Zone to Fire Zone (+2), or out (-1), but it is otherwise treated like a normal fire mission.

Opportunity Fire during an Assault can only be done by the defending units being assaulted, and they still have to pass a Troop Quality check to do so.

The defenders can now elect to retreat or hold their ground. if they retreat, units can Opportunity fire at them with a bonus.

Once that is done, the Assaulting units have one of two options: either they Assault Fire, or they Charge. Assault Fire means that first, the defenders fire at the attackers using their Fire Rating and Assault Rating (or, if the assault rating is red, twice with their Assault Rating instead). The Attackers then get to do the same, and then can either withdraw, charge, or assault fire again, with the latter two leading to a second round of assault, after which the assault is over. If at any point the attackers get suppressed, the attack is over immediately as well.

Charge is a little bit different, in that the attackers have to immediately roll a Troop Quality Check. If they fail, they surrender immediately. You can spend Command Points on this check. This means that if you see that your opponent is low on CPs, you want to charge in order to lower their total and then force them do a roll. If a unit has Cohesion hits, barrages and is suppressed, passing the Troop Quality check is also quite difficult. On the other hand, if they do pass the Troop Quality check, they get to fire against the charging units with a bonus, and the attackers do not get to fire back. After the charge is resolved, the assault is also over, even if it was the first round.

One thing that I failed to mention is that when firing, if your unit has 2 steps and is not doing opportunity fire, you get to do a Company Check. This is a standard Troop Quality check, and if you pass it, you get to add +2 to your Fire Rating. During assaults, this gets added to both dice rolls, which is why I have been aggressively assaulting with the Germans, since they can get assault ratings up to 8 if they pass the Company Check, which is quite deadly.