"At first glance, Soldat seems to have a lot of charts. We play ATS (the WWII
board games from Critical Hit), so it's not like we're strangers to charts. But
for a miniatures game that many charts seemed excessive. However, the game play
was quick and the charts and modifiers were easy to memorize, at least for the
situations we were using. Also, once we started playing, many of the rules that
seemed complicated were suddenly intuitive. We don't have periscopes or laser
pointers, yet, so we used the basic spotting/visibility rules along with some
common sense and the Mark 1 Eyeball. They worked fine."

Yeah, the Mark 1 eyeball works, but for those who are on the Mark 2…

We also play ATS, although we were late comers, and just started picking them up
last year. Have you played Omaha yet? It is a pretty impressive map, but we
haven't even gotten around to punching the chits yet…



Questions/Observations:


The visibility table for the "basic" visibility rules does not give ranges for
"open" terrain. For example, tall grass is provided with a visibility range,
but what about "short" grass, or desert sand. Yes, the rules explain using the
1/2 visibility modifier for desert during the day time, but what is the normal
visibility range for sand? We just used the "tall grass" range, because it was
the longest, and then applied the 1/2 modifier for desert. Maybe this was
intended.

Tim's Response: Poor logic on my part. Normal visibility is unlimited, so ˝ of
unlimited is what? Use the unmodified tall grass value.

If the Hit number for suppression fire is 12, and I roll a 15, does that mean I
scored 4 suppression hits? Or only one suppression hit?
I think the rules are describing the former. That is, for a suppression fire
roll, a result equal to or greater than the Hit number causes that many
suppression fire hits. If this is not the case, then it seems to me that
suppression fire needs some sort of bonus factor or else it is very difficult to
Pin an enemy unit (at least using non-MG small arms fire).

Tim's Response: In the case given the result is a single suppression hit.
Suppressive fire ignores or significantly reduces all to hit modifiers. This is
its bonus factor. In reality, pinning a unit down, as opposed to reducing their
firepower, is extremely difficult without automatic weapons. In the UK and US
forces the main reason for having automatic weapons at the squad level is for
suppressive fire. The riflemen are the maneuver element. German doctrine did not
really depend on suppressive fire as much as forcing the enemy to move through a
killing zone.

Andy: You do still count the hits as you would normal hits, so if you needed a
12, and rolled a 17, you would get one hit on the 12, and one on the 17, for two
points of suppression. This would then modify the targets shooting in the next
fire phase.


When using leadership points to boost morale or aggressiveness checks, what is
the resulting modifier? Is it only +1? Or is it an automatic success?

Tim's Response: It is +1.


Minor typos:
1) On page 41 under the Light Wound description. The rules state that a
light-wounded figure uses the "Suppressed" fire modifier. I think this is
supposed to be the "Subdued" fire modifier.

Tim's Response: Correct

2) In the rules, a morale check is based on seeing a friendly unit retreat or be
destroyed within 30 inches. In the reference charts in the back this distance
is listed as 24 inches.

Tim's Response: Noted. 24 is correct.