Fields Of Fire Quick Start Guide V 1.2 Fields Of Fire Quick Start Guide........................................................................................1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................2 What To Do First............................................................................................................2 Terrain.............................................................................................................................3 LOS.................................................................................................................................3 Elevation.........................................................................................................................4 Preparing Your Armies...................................................................................................5 Unit VOF, Ammo, and Range........................................................................................5 Command Structure........................................................................................................7 Pyrotechnics....................................................................................................................9 The Game Turn.................................................................................................................10 Friendly Higher HQ Event Phase.................................................................................10 Friendly Command Phase Summary............................................................................10 What Is Activation?..................................................................................................10 Phones/Radios/Networks/Communication Range....................................................11 Activation Segment...................................................................................................13 Initiative Segment.....................................................................................................14 Engaging The Enemy................................................................................................15 Enemy Activity Phase...................................................................................................17 Mutual Combat Phase:..................................................................................................17 Update Fire Missions................................................................................................17 Evaluate Potential Contact Markers..........................................................................17 Combat Effects Segment...........................................................................................18 Exposed.....................................................................................................................19 Summary...........................................................................................................................20 Turn Example....................................................................................................................20 Introduction This Fields Of Fire Quick Start Guide is for owners of Fields Of Fire (FoF) that have just opened the box, scanned the rules, and find themselves lost as to how to start. It goes over how to set up for a mission, what the basic concepts of the game are, and how to play a turn. Rather than read the rules from start to finish, readers should read this Quick Start Guide in conjunction with the rules, following along as directed. Once a player has finished with this Quick Start Guide, reading the rules should make a lot more sense. This Quick Start Guide is not meant to be a rules substitute. In fact, it only briefly touches on many rules. It is designed to be a quick overview of FoF to facilitate your initial understanding of the game such that reading the rules afterwards makes a lot more sense. Hopefully, you can be on your way playing the first missions as soon as possible! I also recommend you download and follow along with the provided “Examples of Play” from the GMT Games web site. These are very helpful. What To Do First Go ahead. Open the box! I recommend you become familiar with the counters, and your armies. First, separate the 3 armies into separate storage areas. There are gray counters that represent Germans armies, and then there are dark-red counters, which represent armies for the Korean and Vietnam missions. US armies are represented by green counters. For the opening missions, you do not need the Korean or Vietnamese armies, so put them away for later. Next separate the blue counters into another pile. The blue counters represent Cover, Ammo, Tactical Control Markers, Visibility, Activation, Potential Contacts (PC Markers), and more. I recommend you divide the blue counters into 2 piles, one for Potential Contacts, and one for everything else (PC Markers need to be drawn frequently, and sometimes randomly from the available counters, and therefore should be separate from the rest of the blue counters). Next, separate the brown counters. These represent cover fortifications, such as bunkers, foxholes, trenches, and pillboxes. Lastly, separate the red combat counters. These are PDFs, VOFs, Pinned, Exposed, Incoming, etc… You’ll need these counters a lot! If you have extra storage containers and time, you can divide up any of the above- mentioned piles into even further piles as needed. The initial separations I described should be adequate for most game situations, however. But we want to play, and don’t need to keep separating counters at this time. Find what works best for you! Terrain Let’s start by looking at Mission 1. Lay out the terrain cards in a 4 column by 3 row grid as indicated by the Briefing Booklet, Page 3. Missions Details specify columns and rows, and whether terrain cards are face up or face down. If a card says “Hill”, it means you must draw another terrain card to lie on top of it, thereby raising the Elevation Level (discussed below). Mission 1 also requires that you put down Tactical Control Markers, which is a fancy way of describing the “objectives” and “the edges of the map”. You need Left Boundary, Right Boundary, Line of Departure, and Line of Advance markers. These represent the box you play in, and are needed because enemies can spawn in off-map locations, extending the map in all directions. These extended locations cannot be moved into under normal conditions, but the enemies must be dealt with nonetheless. You may also see Phase Line markers, which can be used to control specific advances of your forces when the time comes (for example, when you see the red flare, advance to Phase Line 1). Other Tactical Control Markers are Landing Zones (for Helicopters), Casualty Collection Points, Evacuation Zones, etc… For now, just use the initial 4 tactical control boundary markers, and place them at each side of your 4x3 grid. Mission 1 also tells you to place PC Markers on all the cards, C’s on Row 1, A’s on Row 2, and B’s on Row 3. Depending on the mission, you will also have to designate objectives. In Mission 1, you have to designate a Primary and a Secondary Objective on Row 3, and you must place an Attack Point as well on Row 2. In most cases, these have no significance other than being locations you need to capture to succeed in the mission, and don’t offer you any other benefits. But you do have latitude as to where to place them, so you’ll want to place them where you think your troops have the best chance of succeeding in the mission. LOS LOS stands for Line Of Sight. LOS represents what your units can see. Units have LOS to all cards adjacent to them, including diagonally. Therefore, a card has LOS to the 8 adjacent cards. Additionally, units have LOS to any card beyond the adjacent cards if the card they are seeing through has white borders on both sides in the direction of the LOS. The target card, however, does not need any white borders at all to see into. Once the intervening card is passed (because it has two white borders), the next card is visible in LOS no matter what color borders it has. The different color borders play a role in the Cover and Concealment value, however. You’ll notice that some Terrain cards have two Cover and Concealment values. The bigger number (the better one) is used when enemy fire crosses into that card over a black border. The lower number (the weaker one) is used when the enemy fire crosses into the card via a white border. Therefore, the black border may not stop LOS into the card (because the card is adjacent to the enemy or because the intervening card between the target card and the enemy’s card has two white borders), but it will allow the friendly force in the card to use the higher cover number when fired at from the black border’s direction. Smoke, Incoming fire, and other modifiers can also block LOS. Please see the rules for explanations of these points. For example: • Unit’s Card (cid:1) Black Bordered Woods (Unit has LOS into the Woods because the Woods are adjacent no matter what color the Wood’s borders are) • Unit’s Card (cid:1) Black Bordered Woods (cid:1) Open Fields (Unit does NOT have LOS into the Open Fields because it can’t see through the Black Bordered Woods) • Unit’s Card (cid:1) Open Fields (cid:1) Black Bordered Woods (Unit has LOS into the Black Bordered Woods because the intervening card has white borders on both sides in the LOS from the Unit’s Card) • Unit’s Card (cid:1) Open Fields (cid:1) White Bordered Woods (Unit HAS LOS into the Woods because it can see through Open Fields) • Unit’s Card (cid:1) Open Fields (cid:1) Black/White Bordered Gulley (Unit HAS LOS into the Gulley because the intervening Open Fields have white borders on both sides; but any attacks across the black side of the gulley will allow the defender to use the higher cover and concealment value found on the card, whereas attacks across the white border cause the lower cover value to be used) Elevation All terrain is at level 1 elevation by default. A Hill raises a card’s elevation level by 1 for each Hill card. Additionally, multi-level structures can add an additional elevation level on top of the card they are on. Units have LOS over any intervening terrain card that is at a lower level (even if that card has a multi-level structure on it that allows units to see from a higher elevation level). So a unit at level 2 can see over a level 1 card to another level 1 card. However, that a unit cannot see from level 2 to a level 1 card if there is an intervening level 2 card. All LOS is reciprocal. If you can see the enemy, they can see you! The only exception is with Smoke… please see rules for more information. See Rulebook Pages 2, 3, 19, and 20 for more detailed LOS and Elevation examples. Preparing Your Armies Next, prepare your armies. Open the Briefing Booklet to page 1. This lists the forces that are available for the entire Normandy Campaign. There is a single counter in your army for each item listed on this page. For Mission 1, you must make a choice of whether to have a 3-Step Mortar Squad or 3 1-Step Mortar teams. In cases where units are of the same type, there are designations on each that give each a unique squad or team identification (e.g. 1/Wp, 2/Wp, 1/1 Plt, 3/2 Plt, 1/LMG, 3/LMG). There will not be duplicates of these tokens, although there are duplicates of all of the lesser versions of tokens such as generic Fire Teams and Assault Teams. You may also receive additional armies on a per mission basis. In this case, turn to Page 4 of the Briefing Booklet, and look at the Attachments section. This gives you an additional unit you can assign to Staff or HQ’s for this mission. Other missions give you other units to use as well. Additionally, pull out counters for all of the Equipment and Ammunition listed on Page 2 of the Briefing Booklet. The only exception is that LMG, HMG, Rocket, Mortar, and Tank ammo is tracked on the log sheet, rather than using counters, and therefore there are not any counters for them (any ammo counters in the box are used for ammo that is transported around the map; there is not enough to track actual ammo on a per-unit basis). For my first mission, however, I placed unused red-army counters underneath my units to represent ammo instead so I could reduce record keeping and focus on the on-map action. When tracking on the log, the unique names assigned to each team should help you keep ammunition straight. Now that you’ve pulled out your armies and equipment, I recommend you keep these separate from the rest of the US Army counters during storage. Why? Because you’ll use these counters every time you play Mission 1, which you will probably play a couple of times. Unit VOF, Ammo, and Range What kind of ammo do you have? Well, it depends on what kind of unit you have. Look at the counters you’ve pulled out. Counters will have a Volume Of Fire (VOF) rating on them in the lower left corner (see Rules, Pg. 4), which basically means they can shoot things. Ratings are S for Small Arms Fire, A for Automatic Weapons, G! for Grenade, Rocket and Mortar Attacks, H for heavy weapons such as HMGs, A/G for teams that can fire both grenades and machine guns, and S! for Snipers. If the VOF rating has a yellow arrow over it, it means it is Tripod mounted and special rules apply (tripods and certain mounted weapons can fire through and over cards, and can’t fire the same turn they’ve moved). If there is no VOF rating, the unit can’t attack at all (it is a non-combat unit, such as a runner or spotter). The VOF rating will translate to a better chance to hit the enemy when we get to combat effects later on. For now, just note that the VOF ratings correspond to ammo types and combat modifiers during the combat phase. If a unit does not have a VOF rating on it, it cannot engage in combat without turning into a Fire Team first (which basically means it has abandoned its responsibilities, has picked up some weapons, and has become a small fighting force). Small Arms Fire ammo is not tracked during the game. However, A, G!, and H ammo is. Small arms ammo supply is modeled by the fact that you fail a mission if you can’t complete it within a certain number of turns (representing a loss of small arms ammo, among other things). The amount of ammo each of the other units starts with is listed in the Briefing Booklet either in the Equipment and Ammunition listing (Page 2) or in the enemy ammo section (Page 5, Ammo). Also, some units have 1-shot ammo which is represented by counters, such as Rifle Grenades. These counters are disposed of after first use. Therefore, in Mission 1, friendly LMG’s start with 4 units of ammo. Note also that units have a Range value, which is P for Point Blank (same card), C for Close (adjacent), L for Long (2 cards), and V for Very Long (3 cards). See Rules, Pg. 4. For example, a unit may have S-L on its counter, which means it is a Small Arms Fire unit that fires up to Long Range as long as it has LOS to the target. The actual LOS may be lower than the maximum range for a unit in bad weather or limited visibility conditions. In Mission 1, however, the visibility level is broad daylight, which allows for visibility up to 3 cards. Other factors, such as blocking terrain and smoke, however, can restrict LOS range even further. Now it’s time to set up the forces. But first, we need to understand chain of command. Command Structure In Mission 1, there are 4 HQ’s to be aware of. There is the Company HQ (CO HQ), then 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Platoon HQ’s. There are also 2 Staff Members, CO XO and CO 1ST SGT, that work for the CO HQ, and function similarly to the other HQ’s because they will have their own units assigned to them and can be activated when needed. When we assign our initial forces and equipment, we are assigning them to one of the 6 HQ’s or Staff available for Mission 1. Your default assignments for Mission 1 are as follows: 1. CO HQ 2. CO XO 3. CO 1ST SGT 4. 1ST PLT HQ • 1/1ST SQUAD • 2/1ST SQUAD • 3/1ST SQUAD 5. 2ND PLT HQ • 1/2ND SQUAD • 2/2ND SQUAD • 3/2ND SQUAD 6. 3RD PLT HQ • 1/3RD SQUAD • 2/3RD SQUAD • 3/3RD SQUAD These initial forces need to be placed in the Staging Area to start the game. Staging areas are off-map areas that your units start on. Units can move freely between these areas for 1 standard Movement Action. All Units in the Staging Area have LOS to each other (weather permitting). They have Radio Contact and Telephone Contact in the Staging Area as well. Units cannot fire from the Staging Area to the map, nor be fired upon. At this point, you need to assign the other units (including the Arty FO Spotter we were assigned on Briefing Booklet, Pg. 4), the Jeep, and all of the Equipment, Assets, and Pyrotechnics. Place each of the Units you assign (in this case, the 60mm Mortar Section (s), Bazooka Sections, LMG Sections, 1/.50 Cal HMG Team, the Jeep, and the Runners) with any HQ or Staff SGT you desire, and place all of the Units in the Staging Areas for your first mission. Unlike the living units, the Assets, Equipment, and Pyrotechnics are generally placed on the Command Display to save space (although this is not required). Keep in mind, however, that items in the command display are attached only to the Unit on the map that is listed in the box the items are placed. So a Pyrotechnic in the 1st PLT HQ Command Display slot can only be used by the 1ST PLT HQ during the game, and not by any other member of the 1st PLT. It acts just as if the Pyrotechnic was stored with the 1ST PLT HQ counter, under it. The Command Display essentially is saving you space on the actual terrain map. In the Final Example Of Play on GMT’s web site, you’ll notice that the Arty Spotter you are assigned has a Field Phone underneath his counter, whereas the other units have their phones stored on the Command Display. This phone goes under him only because there isn’t a Command Display place for him that can hold his assets (feel free to create one). As I said, you could technically place all the phones and pyrotechnics under each counter in the staging area, but that would be a pretty big stack under the HQs! There is generally no restriction on which units gets which Attachments or Pyrotechnics. As a general rule, you want to assign some Attachments and Pyrotechnics to the Staff (XO and 1ST SGT) so that they can be commanded by leaders other than the PLT HQ’S (which generally are moving into battle). You can even assign items to the platoon squads themselves (e.g. not the platoon HQ’s), but this makes them hard to use later on. The choice of where to assign these items comes down to flexibility, redundancy, and communication conditions. You have limited radios and/or phones, and you have terrain that brings units out of communication. So if you expect your PLT HQ to run off into the woods, you are probably better off leaving some assets and teams to the Staff XO or 1ST SGT so that they can use them should the need arise. Give all the Staff and HQ’s CO Tac Net phones (or radios), so they can all be activated by the CO HQ. If they do not have a phone, and move out of visual or radio/phone contact, you will not be able to activate them from the CO HQ, and will have to rely on the Initiative Phase to give them commands (you’ll receive less in this phase than if they were activated as normal). It is to be expected that some units will move out of range from the HQ controlling them during the battle (this is what happens in war), and that they will have to rely on Initiative commands to take actions, but phones and radios can reduce the number of times this has to happen. Lastly, it is worth mentioning that although you assign squads and items to units for control, you may place these units anywhere in the Staging Area you want. 3rd PLT HQ could be on the Staging Area #4, and its squads could be on Staging Area #1. Of course, since the squads don’t have radios, they couldn’t communicate with their leader to receive actions, so this wouldn’t be a good setup. But the point is that units can be placed wherever you want to start the game (within the Staging Area, of course), so long as you consider communication, coordination, and movement as part of your placement. It makes the most sense to put all 3rd PLT Squads in the same area as their leader so they can receive initial orders, but this is not a rule or requirement. Placement of squads, units, and attachments is all up to you! Using the log sheet, you should be able to know which units are attached to which HQs and Staff Members, so your initial placement can be anything you want. Pyrotechnics I’m adding a separate section for Pyrotechnics. Why? Because these seem to confuse a lot of people. Pyrotechnics are nothing more than items used to signal troops that can’t see you, or used to mark targets for fire missions (artillery, mortars, and air strikes). For example, let’s say you send your entire 1st Platoon into the woods. They come under heavy fire. CO HQ wants to pull them back, but they can’t hear it because you didn’t send 1st PLT HQ into the woods with them. Had 1st PLT HQ been in the woods, CO HQ could have phoned in the order to retreat because 1st PLT HQ is probably carrying a phone or radio. And 1st PLT HQ, who is on the same card as his squads, could have verbally or visually given them all orders to retreat. But we didn’t plan ahead, and now the entire platoon is out of contact range. We could hope for enough initiative commands that allow them all to move, but we have 5 units in the woods (3 squads and 2 weapons teams we foolishly assigned to the platoon). The chances are we won’t receive 5 initiative commands to use to tell all of them to retreat, and therefore some would be stuck. And even if we do receive 5 commands, we don’t want to waste them all evacuating the troops that are stuck if we don’t have to. This is where Pyrotechnics come into play. We can tell the HQ or Staff that is carrying the Pyrotechnic to fire it in the air to signal all the troops. We can assign a “Retreat” order for the 1st Platoon to the Red Parachute or the Green Smoke. 2nd Platoon may have a different Pyrotechnic it is watching for, such as Yellow Smoke. Or, we can have signals that tell the entire 9th Infantry Brigade to retreat. Using 1 command, we can signal the entire platoon, saving extra commands and time (time needed to move the HQ out into the woods to establish contact with the other troops, during which time the troops could be killed). The Pyrotechnics are easy, right? But of course, the units you are signaling must be able to see the Pyrotechnic to receive the order, so if they are over a hill, you’ll have to move that Pyrotechnic somewhere they can see! Time to send the CO XO into the woods too! He must reach the top of the hill to send the signal, or your platoon will be MIA! Of course, if your troop is over the hill, and out of contact, they’ll probably realize this and just pack up and run for it rather than waiting for the XO to reach the hill. You’ll only receive enough initiative commands to save a few of them, however, so you’ll have to make the gut-wrenching decision of which units to leave behind… at least YOU can stop playing and go out for dinner, unlike your squads… Good luck!. For your first Mission, you might not want to bother mapping Pyrotechnics at all. First of all, you have no idea what orders you want to assign, and you don’t know how the game plays. If you want to give yourself some training latitude, I recommend just assigning the pyrotechnic assets to different units, and then figuring out what orders you want to use them for once you are in the game and actually need them. This will get you in the game faster. When your units are in trouble, you can decide what the green smoke means at that point, and deploy it. Once you get comfortable with the system, you can better assign orders to Pyrotechnics in future missions. The Game Turn Friendly Higher HQ Event Phase This phase is where special events may occur that benefit your troops. You draw an Action Card, and if a HQ icon is on it, an HQ Event occurs. You draw another Action Card, look at the Random # for 10, and then look at the event in the Briefing Book corresponding to your number to see what happens (Briefing Book Page 4). This phase does not happen on Turn 1. Friendly Command Phase Summary What Is Activation? When a unit is activated, it draws for commands, meaning it draws from the top card of the Action Deck, looks at the top left corner for the command number, and receives that many commands to use to order troops (see Rulebook, Page 3). You’ll have to modify the command number based on modifiers found in the Charts & Tables (inside, top left of the charts). When a unit receives commands, it can activate a subordinate HQ or Staff (if it is the CO HQ), or it can issue commands directly to itself or to units it controls. For Mission 1, the only unit that can activate subordinate HQ’s or Staff is the CO HQ. For example: In Mission 1, since the BN HQ is not on the map, we start by activating CO HQ. CO HQ draws a card, and receives the larger of the two command numbers on the top left corner of the card (See Rulebook, Page 3). Let’s say the number is 4. We check the modifier chart in the Charts & Tables to see if we get an extra command (or lose a command). At the beginning of the game, because the contact level is “No Contact”, we receive +1 commands, but since the CO HQ is Green to start the game (Briefing Booklet, Page 2), we also suffer a -1. So CO HQ has 4 commands it can use. It can use these to give itself 4 orders, or give direct orders to any unit on the map it is in contact with, or to Activate any subordinate HQ or Staff it is in contact with. To be in contact with a unit, a unit must be in visual or verbal communication (same card), or in contact via phone or radio. Therefore, CO HQ could order itself to move to an adjacent card, then to find cover, or to deploy a flare. It can also order other units within contact to do the same. However, because a CO HQ is supposed to lead, it is best used not giving orders directly to subordinates, but instead Activating HQ’s and Staff.