Questions, Comments, Suggestions and Answers

[Steve Overton]

The RALLY Tactical Event Card!!!! Oh, YES!!!!

One of the most powerful cards in the deck. Because Tactical Event Cards can be played ANYTIME this card can save your game for you.

Right after an infantry firepower attack breaks every single unit you have in the victory location but before he fires with another group at them you can play this rally card.

When you are broken and you got your last impulse for the turn and low and behold, not a single unit rallied when you gave them a Rally Order.

Really? What are you guys thinking??? You see that RPD on the other side of the road? You think they are going to get sweat in their eyes and not fire at you? Okay. So, then let's try this again BEFORE that gun ruins your day. I'll play this Rally Card before he opens fire on you again!

If you refuse to rally this time I can't help you.



Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

The RAPID FIRE Tactical Event Card is a way of having a unit use sustained automatic fire. Most assault rifles today don't fire on automatic. The reason is the expenditure of ammunition is so great a unit can literally run itself out of ammo in a matter of minutes.

That's all great and wonderful except there are times when I don't care about that. I want maximum firepower on that location and I want it NOW!!

Well, FINE!!! Then we'll fire like you want us too. The consequences are all yours if things break through!! And if Murphy is awake and paying attention they will break...right when you can least afford it.



Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

A REACTION is related to the HEAVY PATROLLING card. They are not so distant cousins.

A REACTION Tactical Event Card allows you to give an order whenever you want. Whether you have any Command Point chits left to be drawn this turn or not. Whether any actions for this turn have taken place or not.

YOU, the Almighty Commander, through force of your own will, are going to give an order and they better darn well obey it!!

And hopefully they will!




Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

The REINFORCEMENT Tactical Event Card came about because of the Volksturm in WW2. The Tactical Event Deck has been influenced by events over a 79 year period so far. The first event in the game series is 7 July 1937. Any event that occurred regularly in tactical situations from that time to now has been analyzed and if I found it occurring often enough or as a common tactical event it made it's way to the Tactical Event Deck.

REINFORCEMENTS are for situations where a force of generally lower quality is sending in more troops to help plug the gaps. Usually a situation where there are 10 holes in the dike and 7 fingers. Green Rifle Squads may get changed to Green infantry units if I find this moves beyond a WW2 setting.



Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

In my opinion, smoke is a greatly under represented phenomenon in most tactical wargames. There are literally tens of thousands of photographs taken in WW2 alone that show fires on the battlefield. KN has a lot of it because there is a great potential to set things on fire in the game. Each attack rolls 3 die. A white, black and red. Depending on the attacking color depends on how many of them are used to resolve the attack. In KN, if there was an explosive attack made then there is a chance for a fire. "If the Red Die is Higher - There is a Fire!"

That's all great and wonderful but that's not what this card is about. The SMOKE Tactical Event Card is my answer to smoke grenades. Not every leader on the battlefield has the ability to generate smoke. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Depends on a lot things. One of the biggest issues is that rarely is the time frame modeled in a tactical scenario, for any game system not just KN, an isolated incident that has a start and stop time within the confines of the scenario time track. In other words, things happen before, after, to the left and to the right of the scenario taking place. With that in mind a unit could have just gotten resupplied with ammo, etc...or just as likely be almost out of ammo from the fire fight it was in an hour ago.

With this card at least 2 leaders on your side are carrying smoke grenades and can use them.




Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

Remember that MORALE WAVERS card? Well, here is it's opposite. STRENGTHEN MORALE is just the opposite. For some reason these guys have decided that they have a much stiffer backbone over the past few minutes.

Why?

Do I care?

Not really, I'm just glad they decided to step up at the right moment!!! I'll take them wanting to up the ante in their fight!




Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

There have been times and places where taking prisoners was important. If you have one of the military organizations that was/is true for you may well see the TAKE PRISONERS Tactical Event Card. Taking prisoners sounds like a great idea. If you make it work it can be very profitable for you. It's not all that easy to accomplish in the heat of battle, as this card shows.





Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

TIME ON TARGET is a United States Army invention from WW2. It adds any other artillery unit in range of the target when this mission in fired. Since that time most nations fire Time on Target missions.


In game terms that means a +5 to an artillery attack. Artillery attacks are about as welcome as the plague to those getting hit with them so adding 5 to the attack value is not a good thing.

The card states that you may make an immediate attack with one of the artillery missions available in the battle. What happens if you don't have an artillery mission assigned to this scenario or you don't have any left unused? The game series allows for random artillery attacks if you don't have any assigned. That would apply to this card as well. This would not be good with an 80mm size mortar attack, it would be potentially devastating if the attack is 155mm or larger.





Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

The WEAPONS CACHE Tactical Event Card is a card that is very specific to actions against guerrilla forces. Those that are hunting the guerrilla forces are also hunting their ability to wage war. This card is all about the Easter Egg hunt kind of operations that occur against these types of forces.

The card only has value if you have an Objective Location. At some point in the game I would expect that you would take one of them. If you don't then you get no added value from this card.






Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

So, there you have my take on the Tactical Event Cards. The game is designed to be played either with or without them, gamer's choice.

What they do is three fold:

1. They add an element of uncertainty to game play. You are never certain just what the other player can do to you.
2. They are organization specific so they add to the flavor of fighting a particular organization without the gamer having to learn all about how that organization fought in actual battlefield conditions.
3. They add to the intensity and depth of the battle being modeled.

I would not have added them to the game if they hadn't done all 3 of those things. I think the experience of KN is much richer for the addition of these few cards.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

The start of the Tactical Event Card Decks were the creation of the cards. That was just the first step in setting up the decks, not the end result.

The series was first developed during the Vietnam War time period. I started there for 2 reason. First, it's an infantry centric war. That meant that while I could add vehicles I didn't need to concentrate on them like I would other places outside the Falklands.(Which is also an area I've got researched.) Second, it is an extreme interest of mine, having served during the time period but missing the combat theater.

It took more than a year before I got what I was looking for in the system. I played a lot, and I do mean A LOT of Combat Commander during that time while I was writing, and rewriting my rules. Each subsequent version of the rules was more streamlined than the last. To the point where I have a ruleset that is less than 30 pages covering 70+ years of tactical combat. It wasn't just the rules but the Tactical Event Cards that evolved.

The evolution of the Tactical Event Deck, while starting in Vietnam, soon had to leave home and become a time traveler. Because, while Vietnam is an infantry centric combat theater many others aren't. I figured out that I had to go to both extremes and the middle would take care of itself. Modern era is easy, we are living in it and my design work for the On Target Simulation computer game Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm, set in West Germany in 1989 seemed a good place to set that modern end. The other end was a bit more difficult. When was the first combat in that I was going to feel comfortable modeling in the mid 1900's? Finally, after a lot of research I chose the start of the Second World War. On 7 July 1937 the Japanese and Chinese had their incident at the Marco Polo Bridge.

While the series can cover more time than that I believe that time span from 1937 to 2 decades into the future should keep me and the rest of you busy enough creating scenarios.

With the time frame well in hand it was time to read, read, READ!!! What happened on a routine basis? What happened in a not so routine basis? What was a common denominator through the decades. What are the common traits of small unit engagements.

The infantry fighting is pretty universal over time. Armored and helicopter combat has changed substantially. The Tactical Event Cards were written in such a way as to have them be applicable to all the force types in the game. Infantry, vehicle and helicopter activation, movement and fire can all be accomplished with most of the cards. Once they were set it was time to start creating the decks themselves.

Good Hunting.

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Hi Steve,
It's great to read your notes about the creation of these cards.
We've discussed the cards earlier but I'm still a bit curious about some things. I'm all for making a games foot print smaller rather than my real estate larger
You say that each military organisation will have their own deck of cards. This still raises some questions.
For example, are the USMC going to have a specific 'Nam deck as well as a 80's WWIII deck?

My (modest) suggestions/ideas is to ship the base game with enough of each cards so that any mil.org could be pitted against each other. Then each expansion would only consist of the counters, scenarios, maps and most importantly; a list of what cards – and to what amount – that particular mil.org would consist of in this particular expansion.
This way, prior to any game, during setup each player will build their respective deck.
Sure, this way the customers would have to buy the base game in order to get the cards but I can't see how selling a stand alone deck would be a problem. That would leave the customers with a choice: buy the base game (that they may or may not want) as well as the expansion (say about Vietnam), OR buy just the expansion and a stand alone deck to get all of the cards.

This method has at least these benefits:

1. Fewer cards. That means cheaper production and players won't end up with a gazillion cards (as the game is successful and 200 exps are produced) to keep track of.
2. No need to produce 2-3 different varieties of the same force (as mentioned in the USMC example above) that would just seem redundant. Another example: say you create a scenario where some SOF are fighting drug cartels in south america I guess you'd like those Weapons Cache cards in your deck. In a later scenario the same SOF are on a whole different type of mission elsewhere on the planet, wouldn't the deck look different if your mission was to capture prisoners or eliminate VIPs?
3. If by any chance you'd come up with a new card (such as Drone Attacks perhaps) it would be dead simple to just add those cards in the relevant expansion (or as a stand alone product) and just update the previously mentioned lists.

Anyway, thank you for the card rundown, much appreciated!

 

[Steve Overton]

My short answer to these questions is that each game should be complete. If I give you 300 cards in each game that is more cards not less.

The number of cards is not finite per nationality. In fact in WW2 there are two sets of cards for the Allies and Axis military. From 1937 through mid 1943 the Axis was on the attack and from mid 43 to the end of the war they were on the defensive. The same is true of the Allies not counting the US. In the early part of the war they were on defense and in the later part were on offense. These decks are not the same.

Good Hunting.

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Yes, you being the designer I guess you're already on top of things. That's the second time I've nagged about this topic, I should give it a rest and let things run its course.

It's just a shame you all had to start over with the graphics...

 

[Albert Campisto]

Håkan, you're not alone following these threads .

Thank you, Steve, for all this information you've given about the design process and the Tactical Cards. I think that the concept of the cards (or the decks themselves) is one of the main reasons to be interested in playing this system, along with the command & control concept.

Eagerly waiting for more info to come.

regards
Albert

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

I've read on CSW that the Japanese units will have higher morale values than the rest of the units, is this still true?
I thought that you wouldn't use nationality traits other than the deck of tactical cards. Couldn't this trait also then be applicable to (religious) fundamentalists and similar groups as well, seeing they are often fighting with a higher resolve than others with suicide bombings and whatnot?

My best

 

[Steve Overton]

I've read on CSW that the Japanese units will have higher morale values than the rest of the units, is this still true?

Yes, this is still true. They have normal morale levels until they are broken then their morale goes to 12. You have to double break them to take them out and that gets to be a tough ordeal to make happen.

I thought that you wouldn't use nationality traits other than the deck of tactical cards.

Nationality traits are modeled in different ways. Some are military organization traits. For instance, the Japanese did human wave attacks until they were shown by the US Army that those were a bad idea. They had the last participant of WW2 to surrender long after the war was over. He surrendered in the Philippines in 1974. No other nationality I know of shows that kind of dedication.

All the other nationalities generally have a morale state that is applied to them. Not just the Japanese.

Couldn't this trait also then be applicable to (religious) fundamentalists and similar groups as well, seeing they are often fighting with a higher resolve than others with suicide bombings and whatnot?

My best

As a national trait? Probably not, but anything is possible.

Good Hunting.

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Steve,
What new games did you play and what features did they have (other than CC:E's cards) that influenced the Kontakt Now design?
Also, I'm curious as to how you'd rate each games' authenticity when it comes to real tactics?

Have a good day

 

[Steve Overton]

I was looking for specific changes made to the tactical systems that came out since Fire Team was originally released by West End Games and some of the tactical games that were out at that time that I hadn't obtained.

Series like Conflict of Heroes, Lock 'n' Load, Band of Brothers, MBT, Combat Commander, etc.

Authenticity was never an item on my list of interest from these games. I was providing my own authenticity by designing the weapons criteria for the entire range of weaponry from 1937 though the near future. There was no existing system that did that. What I was looking for was system mechanics that I felt were both game enhancing and simplified the way a game would play.

I was also looking to see the level of game play advancement that had taken place in the 25+ years I'd been gone from the board gaming part hobby. I was surprised at what I found for me personally. More than 20 years ago they were doing random chit draw for lower level tactical games. Something that is a must for me. "You take a turn, I take a turn" ("YTT,ITT") just doesn't work for me at lower tactical level games. Tactical combat is much more unpredictable than that. I've had gamers tell me all about how their favorite tactical level game isn't "YTT,ITT" but if it comes down to one side moving all their units at once and firing all their units at once, for me personally that counts as "YTT,ITT". Some of them wanted to take little bites of "YTT,ITT" with each side alternating the activation sequence. That's better but still too regimented for me. I want random events. Just like happen in real life.

Combat Commander came the closest by far to achieving that for me. So close in fact I bought all the games and modules. Chad and Kai Jensen did a tremendous job with that system. In the end, it was a bit too abstract for me. I don't want to be doing hand management when I'm trying to fight a battle. To have to do nothing but discard those cards from my hand that I can't use and do nothing else for multiple rounds eventually lost me. I have never been a card driven gamer in wargames. CC was as close as I'll ever come to that. So, while I didn't end up being a CC gamer, I did take note of how Chad and Kai used the cards in the game to bring random events into play. I liked that system and modified it to use in my own series.

The 3 biggest positive influences for the game series ended up being SL/ASL, Fire Team, and Combat Commander.

The authenticity and ending system are all mine. Good, bad and indifferent.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

A little known fact, to wargame designers, seems to be that the modern armies of the world use a lot of explosives. While they seem to look for Hollywood results in their games they are missing one of Hollywood's biggest dramatic effects....FIRE!!!

Most games downplay the creation of fire in their systems. KN has the potential for a fire to start in circumstances where there is a fuel source and an explosion. There are 3 dice rolled for each action if during the right circumstances the red die is higher the explosion creates a fire.




Good Hunting.