Questions, Comments, Suggestions and Answers

[Steve Overton]

You're at the right place if you have a question about either the Kontact Now series or the Fire Team: Red Eclipse game in particular.

Questions, Comments, Suggestions, and Answers can be had here.

If your inquiring mind wants to know ask away.

 

[Steve Overton]

Here is an example of the values found on the infantry counters in the game. The values are set in the same place on the various types of counters. Some of the counters have a special function. Leaders have a Leadership Bonus they can add to various activities. Medics may raise the morale level of any friendly unit within LOS of them. Snipers fire at enemy targets with no terrain modifiers.






Again, note that these are playtest graphics only!!!

 

[Steve Overton]

There are three different levels of interaction in Kontact Now.

White numbers use only a single white die to resolve. These generally represent bolt action rifles.
Black numbers which use both a white and black die to resolve. These generally represent assault weapons.
Red numbers which use a white, black and red die to resolve. These generally represent high impact or explosive type weapons.



There are three different sized infantry units in the game.
Squad - 3 Person graphics.
Fire Team and Crew - 2 Person graphics.
Single Person - 1 Person graphics.

 

[Steve Overton]

The game series started back when Fire Team was released by West End games. The game was designed by Jon Southard, one of the best game designers in the community IMO. I bought the game and was immediately struck by how much simpler the system was compared to ASL. I could get the same gaming experience but without the huge ruleset that went with it. I could also get modern combat and since I had served in West Germany with the 3rd Armored Division that was a plus for me.

After playing with it for a short time I did what I always do. I tinkered with it. I created the UK, West German and Warsaw Pact forces to go with the US and Soviet forces Jon had put in the original. Then I contacted West End to see if they were interested in the expansion. They were so off went the game expansion. My first to a publisher!! YES!! I also had a couple games I was working on for GDW at the time but this was the first submission. It didn't get any better than that. At least it didn't for about a month when I got the expansion back with a note from West End games that explained that they no longer sold wargames. Followed in rapid succession with SPI, AH and GDW all going out of business.

Wow. What's a game designer to do now? I filled my time making scenarios for computer games. TOAW and Combat Mission were two of the series I did work for. Then along came the offer to join a development group and we created a couple of computer games.

In the mean time, board games were making a come back. It had been 25+ years since I'd been doing board game designs. One day my Grandson asked me about a game that was sitting on the game shelf. I pulled it out and showed it to him. Then I got out Fire Team and we played it. He liked it and I made a comment to a friend of mine about how he liked it and we talked about the game. He recommended I get back to board games because Vassal had changed things and board games were back.

I went to the Fire Team page on BGG and made some comments. Ralph Ferrari of LnL Tactical design fame here at LnLP started pushing me to do a revised version of Fire Team along with my other friend. From there to now has been a ton of developmental work. I had to revisit board gaming and I got at least one game of all the tactical game systems since I had been gone. I analyzed the systems and what I thought would enhance the basic Fire Team game system I added. What I thought made the Fire Team game system overly complicated or unnecessary I took out.

The end result is a system that was basically rebuilt from the ground up using Fire Team as the basic foundation. One thing I swore would never be in any of my games were cards. I don't want a wargame where I have to manage a hand of cards before I can do anything. They are actually one of the better more influential improvements to the original game.

The orders matrix was an evolution over a long period of time. Probably 15 years. Because while I didn't play the game all that often it took trips down off the shelf every once in awhile. The OODA Loop entered into the thought process and how to show organizational differences. My initial game was set on Vietnam. I was about half way through with it when I realized I needed to do the entire system from beginning to end before seeking a publisher. That way there would be no expanding rule book like ASL. There would be no bolt on expansions like other series. Where a set of rules works one one in the first games of the series and another way in later games.

The one key thing I had learned in my wargaming experiences over the decades is that you have to -

PLAYTEST!!

So, it was slow and easy. Create the formula for rifles, assault rifles, machineguns. Then use that formula for all of them so they can be compared if gamers want to. Create the formula for explosives so that the size of the round has the same impact in 1937 as it does in 2017. Create the helicopters with the same formula so that all their speeds are representative. Create the formula for optics and fire control systems for guns and missiles so that as the technology increases you see it happen. Create the information system for the counters. I HATE BUSY COUNTERS!! Enter data cards for the vehicles. Don't clutter the counter with all this crazy data. Put it on a card so it can be easily accessed. Create horse units, both cavalry and draft animals. Research all the data for every weapons type and incorporate that into the formulas. Create all the maps and counters so the game can actually be played. Create the Vassal modules so it can be played and tested by anyone I add as a tester. Create the set of Tactical Event Cards and fine tune them in testing. Make sure it all works as intended. Get all this information under the hood. Then create the maps, counters, cards and Vassal modules so I can once again -

PLAYTEST!!

All these things have gone before what you see as the Kontact Now game series.

Each game will showcase a particular theater, time or event. Many of the counters, vehicles and scenarios are done for many of the different games that will come in the series. That's an advantage when you take the time to create and test the product before you market it.

At the end of the day we are all here to enjoy our games. I was once told if I didn't like this particular designers game to go and create my own. Good advice. This is my third published game and if the Lord is willing there will be several more to come.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

Luck is an integral part of warfare. The history of warfare is replete with instances of luck. How two men are standing side by side and one of them is killed and the other is not. How an attack starts 5 minutes before the enemy attack. How a bullet hits a part of an aircraft engine that stops it instead of simply damaging it. How a tank shell explodes and kills/wounds several people standing in a group and does nothing to others.

Over and over we find luck, karma, Mr. Murphy in warfare. We find it in KN as well. Forget this notion that we can replace die roll randomness with a deck of cards that has 2 sets of die rolls in them, that it can be done with any other means that takes the luck out of it. What ends up happening is the results become more regimented. Warfare isn't regimented. It's chaotic.

So, what will you find in KN for die rolls?

The game uses a 3 dice system. There are 3 colored dice in the game. A white die, a black die and a red die.



The system used throughout KN is:

• white numbers require a white die to resolve the action.
• black numbers require a white die and a black die to resolve the action.
• red numbers require a white die, a black die and a red die to resolve the action.

In all cases all three dice are rolled. This is to see if a triple is the result. Triples, all three dice reading the same number, give a different result from the normal result rolled. It can be either better or worse than the person rolling for the resolution was hoping for. Fate, luck, karma, doesn't really take sides. Neither do my results.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

The core of the KN series is small unit infantry combat. To me that boils down to leadership. The series has individual leaders represented in it.

The most important thing leaders do is to issue the orders that makes an army move or fight.

In KN, each turn is broken down into a series of impulses. Those impulses are determined by the number of orders that side has. The number of orders a side gets is determined universally.

Each side receives:

• 3 default orders each turn. No matter what other situations are in effect, each side will get no less than 3 orders. The game will not have a player go through a turn and not be able to move or fire because he doesn't hold a particular card in his hand. The game will not have a player go through each and every turn and move and fire all of the units on that side unless they have the leadership to do that with.
• 1 order for every infantry leader on the map. This is regardless of the condition the leader is in. They can be broken, disrupted or in good order. They all generate a single order.

• 2 orders for every armor leader. Broken or not they always add 2 orders.

• 1 order for every point of leadership value. Each leader is rated for their value from 0 through 2. Any value greater than zero adds that equivalent number of orders to the impulses this turn. Broken leaders have a leader value of 0. So, it pays to keep your leaders in good order. Armor leaders don't have leadership values and so do not add any for this criteria.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

Once you calculate the number of orders available to you each side then checks to see the number and size of the Command Points they get.

Command Points are the operational application of the orders you have. It's not as simple as a single order is given in each impulse. That's an extremely fluid situation with very little planning and very much a knee jerk reaction.

Command Points reflect the level of training and the type of tactics a military organization uses. Each organization is different and has a different orders allocation in Command Points. The more flexible the application to the situation the unit is the smaller the size of the Command Point allocations in general.

What does that mean exactly? Let's take the Communist forces in the Warsaw Pact. Nobody has done more studying of WW2 than the Soviet military after it was finished. With good reason; no other country had the losses to life or came so close to being conquered and survive as the Soviet Union. What the Soviets found out is interesting. In a war across Western Germany and Northwestern Europe most actions would be meeting engagements. What are referred to as "ME's". During WW2 the Soviet tactical doctrine was very rigid. This was mostly do to, an early in the war, lack of radios. From that lack of radios orders had to be given that would not have to be adjusted later.

"Take Hill A by 1300 hours."
"Take the schoolhouse in 2 hours."
"Advance and capture the bridge."

Simple orders with little flexibility. They learned how to make that work. It does if you have the manpower to support the system. They did this by having officers mainly lead their small tactical units.

Why then would they keep that system in a more modern setting where they have radios in the same concentration as their opponents? Several reason. Radio intelligence, jamming, simplicity. For a myriad of reasons they have not changed from their WW2 tactical doctrine all that much.

All of which applies to the Soviet Army units. The Soviet recon and special forces are extremely fluid in their tactical doctrine. At least as much as any Western powers military.

Then what about NATO? NATO is a much different beast. Each nation and military organization follows it's own tactical doctrine. Here I'll discuss the US Army only. Since WW2 the US Army has evolved a tactical doctrine of very fluid response with great flexibility at the lower leadership levels. What the US Army has evolved into is a combination of what it was in WW2 and what the German Army was in WW2. The reasons why the German Army didn't collapse during the last 2 years of the war but fought bitterly to the last days was studied in great detail.

What you have now is an overlay of the US system of command and control with the German Army system of small unit tactics. To date this has shown to be an extremely effective tactical doctrine.

As you can see by the two examples below, even when both sides have the same number of orders to give in a turn, the number of Command Points they have and the impulses those generate can differ greatly.




The Soviet Player has 5 orders to give. He will receive a single 2 Command Point chit and a single 3 Command Point chit. That will give him two Command Point chits to be drawn during the turn. It will mean that two of the impulses during the coming turn will be for him to spend his orders.




The US Player also has 5 orders. He will receive a single 1 Command Point chit and two 2 Command Point chits. That will give him three Command Point chits to be drawn during the turn. It will mean that three of the impulses during the coming turn will be for him to spend his orders.

The entire turn will be composed of 5 impulses. 2 for the Soviet Player and 3 for the US Player.

 

[Steve Overton]

The game series has data cards for every military organization from 7 July 1937 through the near future.

These data cards give artillery information for any artillery mission that is called during the game.

The Artillery Data Cards are time sensitive. Each artillery card denotes the time frame it is designed to represent.






The size and availability of the artillery available is calculated from an infantry type divisional size formation. The availability is viewed from a company level access. In other words, if a company commander were to call for support what are chances that he would get the range of artillery support available to the infantry division he's assigned to.

An artillery mission assigned to a scenario will give the size of the artillery available. It also notes if smoke missions can be called for.



You will always have a high explosive mission available to you.

With an Artillery Mission triggered by an 'Artillery Mission' Tactical Event Card you will roll on the card to see what size artillery responds to your call for support. Again, you will always have a high explosive mission available to you, however, if you roll the Availability number for smoke that mission may also be available. You must choose which mission you want at the time you fire the mission. Before you place a Spotting Round on the map.


Example: We have a Tactical Event Card for an Artillery Mission but there was none assigned on the Scenario Card. We roll a 9 (6+3) Which gives us a mission of 152mm that is capable of firing smoke. Because a smoke mission would require an even number the mission must be a Fire For Effect with an attack strength of 15 RED.

 

[Steve Overton]

There are different types of data cards besides the Artillery data cards there are Support Weapon and Vehicle Data cards.




The top half of the vehicle data card shows the name of the vehicle and year it became operational. The main gun and if it is mounted in a turret or not. The range bands out to 60 hexes, which is 3000 meters or actual terrain. The Armor Penetration Factors in the appropriate range bands. The 'To Hit' modifiers for the different range bands. What the Infantry Firepower for the vehicle main gun is. What the values for the vehicles MG's are and where they are located. If the vehicle has night sights and if it can fire canister ammunition or not.





The bottom half the Vehicle Data card shows the Turret Armor values on the top row for the Front/Side/Rear of the turret. If the vehicle is open top or not. Hull Armor values on the next row for the Front/Side/Rear of the hull. If the Vehicle is equipped with smoke candles or can create smoke by a fuel injection system. If it has additional armor protection vs Shaped Charge weapons (Anti-tank Missiles). If the vehicle can fire ATGM's. What size it is and what modifier applies to the 'To Hit' process. Finally what the vehicles Movement Point Allowance is, what transportation mode it is and if the vehicle is amphibious or not.

 

[Steve Overton]

Tactical Event Cards show the special abilities of each military organization. Each military organization in the game series has it's own deck of 50 Tactical Event Cards. These are specific to that organization.

The best example of this I can give are Communist forces during the Vietnam War.

There are three different Communist organizations during the Vietnam War.

North Vietnamese Army - the legendary NVA. The regular army soldiers of North Vietnam.
Main Force(MF) Viet Cong - the professional full time guerrilla's,
Local Force(LF) Viet Cong - the farmers that most people think of when they think of the Viet Cong.





The NVA and MF VC both have an 8% chance of getting an ambush card, while the LF VC have a 14% chance of getting one.
The NVA can expect to double time 4% of the time, the MF VC 8% of the time and LF VC 14% of the time.

Great!!

What exactly does that mean to the player of Communist forces in the Vietnam War? It means the NVA and MF VC will ambush you roughly 10% of the time. While the LF VC will ambush you close to 15% of the time. Surprise!!!! The Local Force Viet Cong will ambush you more often!! To add insult to injury a 'Heat Exhaustion' card negates any kind of movement order and the VC have a hand full of those too. So, while they double time away from the ambush they set for you they may also stop you from moving after them.

Then to move rapidly to or from an ambush site the NVA are slower than either of the VC elements. But again, the Local Force Viet Cong will move more rapidly than either of the other two forces. I would imagine that's because they live in the area and know where all the trails are.

The NVA and the MF VC will stand and fight as well as doing assaults. The Local Farmers have no interest in that. Instead they will blend in with the civilian population with Confusion cards.

In contrast here are the US Army and USMC regular forces Tactical Event Cards.





One of the first things you will notice is that the US forces have Close Air Support, they don't do Ambush or Double Time very often, but they do have Command Coordination. The Communist's don't take prisoners, don't find weapons cache's, and are capable of doing Human Wave attacks.

Each Tactical Event Deck is different.

 

[Steve Overton]

The KN series is loaded with historical background and technical data. Most of that is where you won't notice it. It's what's known as under the hood. I did the work. Put that in a few values or a rule here and there and you simply play the game.

KN is all about infantry combat. That's the focus of the game. I believe that armored vehicles were created to support the infantry however. To me leaving them out of the game series would leave about 33% of the actions we can model with the series on the table. No reason to do that when, with a very few rules, we can add them in. If you have buildings of any sort, movement values for units and weapons with ranges on them you already have all three systems that makes vehicles unique.

Vehicle data cards were created because I when I started creating counters there was just too much information that needed to be put on a counter. I'm not doing the front/back loading. Where you have to physically pick a counter up and turn it over to see more information about it. So, the data cards were created.

To keep the game simple and a reasonable Fog of War, I only put on the vehicle counters what the enemy would know and the movement point values.


These graphics are Playtest Graphics. Used for illustration purposes only!!!









The name in a green box in yellow letters gives the name of the equipment and gives notice there is a data card coinciding with this counter.
In the upper right corner is the symbol of whether the vehicle has a turret - the symbol is round, if it has no turret - the symbol is square, if it's open top - the inside of the symbol is white, if it's close topped - the inside the symbol is black, if it's an AAA or SAM - the vehicle has a blue ring around it, the size modifier, the movement point value, the mode of transportation - T= tracked/HT=halftracked/W=Wheeled, if the vehicle is amphibious - if the movement point value and mode are in blue.

Otherwise, what do you see. A vehicle that is large or small, open top or not. Just what the leader on the ground would see.

To give you an idea of how it is common across the series here is the Panzer IIC used in Poland in 1939 as a comparison to the later decades vehicles.




In the upper left hand corner in a yellow box or red box is the ATGM ready number.

 

[Steve Overton]

Cheerleaders!!!



Oh, sorry. Not those kind of cheerleaders.

Although, in most tactical games this is what you get. While you don't get the pretty girls or sharp looking outfits, you get guys running around the map cheering everyone else on.

Which has worked since the dawn of leader counters added to tactical level games.

For me personally, something else was missing here though. What about the chain of command? Leaders don't normally run all over the place grabbing anybody that happens to be in arms reach. They can but normally they don't. Does this series cry out for a Chain of Command?!!

I created one in the beginning. It had a chart where everyone was assigned to it. In the end though it didn't add anything but complexity to the system. So, back we went to the cheerleaders. Still didn't care for that totally, but by now the system was evolving. It now had experience levels impacting game play. It now had Tactical Event Cards that impacted game play.

After a lot of trial and error the Cheerleaders were toned down some. As many of the Tactical Event Cards as possible rely on leader activation to show their other uses, skills, besides cheer leading.

So, after a couple of decades the look and outfits have pretty much stayed the same. I've increased their abilities beyond what you are used to.

The one thing I didn't do was add ranks. I've been asked about this multiple times. Because most of the scenario work I do is based on historical events, not in WW3 of course, I may well depict a really good leader at any possible rank. Or a very high ranked person as a poor leader for a given event. To keep that consistent I didn't put rank on the counters or the leaders themselves.

 

[Steve Overton]

Why don't the leaders have ranks on the counters?

Because most of my scenarios will be historically based when possible, the scenario will be based on an actual battle, the leaders need to be rated according to their abilities instead of their ranks.

What I've seen in most games that rank leaders is the higher the rank the better the leadership values. I've personally seen that to be false as many times as it's been true.

Many times NCO's are as good or better small unit tacticians as officers are.

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Each military organization in the game series has it's own deck of 50 Tactical Event Cards.

I'm curious as to the reason why you'd have one deck per organization? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to just have one combined deck to build your organization from. Then if you added other armies you'd just have to add the few cards that are unique to that special organization. Sure, the initial deck would probably be larger than 100 cards (for two orgs.) but not by alot. And in the end when you have purchased a few expansions and is sitting on 7-8 different armies you'd have maybe 130-150 (depending on how many special cards there will be) instead of 350-400 cards.
Well, that's just my sponateous thought. I look forward to seeing how this game develops. It's on my very-potential-buy-list!

 

[Steve Overton]

I'll give you an example.

The Vietnam war had 3 different Communist military organizations.

The Local Forces Viet Cong (LFVC) are the ones that people think about when they think of the VC. The farmers. As such they don't stand and fight very often. They know the local terrain and live where they fight. So, they have 7 double time cards. Because they know the terrain. They also have 7 ambush cards because they know the terrain. They will move quickly and ambush you often. That's 14 move fast and ambush cards out of 50. They also have 5 Confusion cards they can play to stop a Free World attack. They also have 5 Heat Exhaustion cards that can stop a Free World unit from moving. They have 4 Booby Trap cards as well. So, half the cards in their deck are very light infantry oriented. The LFVC aren't into sustained combat so they only do grenade attacks with 2 cards.

The Main Force Viet Cong (MFVC) are regular soldiers but still guerrillas. They have 4 Ambush and Double Time cards, as well as 2 Confusion and and 3 Heat Exhaustion. They get 3 Booby Trap cards. The MFVC are more of a stand up fighting unit and they have 3 grenade attacks in their deck.

The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) are some of the toughest light infantry in the world. They have 4 Ambush and 2 Double Time cards, as well as no Confusion and 2 Heat Exhaustion. They will do bayonet attacks and they get 2 Booby Trap cards. The NVA are a determined infantry force and they have 4 grenade attacks in their deck.

I know the differences between their organizations. With the Tactical Event cards you don't need to. You can use their special training and tactics simply by applying the Tactical Event Cards to the scenario you are playing. It allows me to move you around historical periods and theaters without your having to know what kind of tactics were used by the organization. When you couple the Tactical event cards with the Orders matrix you get the type of training and organization and you will just play the units you have on map in a realistic way without it being a question of who trained to do what. It's already built into the game.

The reasoning behind each deck is that you don't have to preown any game in the series to be able to play each one. You wouldn't need the Red Eclipse game to play Vietnam or WW2 Eastern Front for instance.

Hope that helps.

Good Hunting.

MR

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Hi Steve,
I'm in no way saying you should skip the tactical cards. I guess at the start I felt like you did, that cards didn't have a justified place in a war game. After reading your posts I find the cards to be a very smart addition that allows for differentiation between the organizations.

I just thought that it might be saving some space as well as production cost to have one pool of cards that you built your specific army from. If you want to play the FMVC you just look at a supplied list of cards, pick all of those cards and in that way build your tactical cards deck. The USMC player would build his deck in the same way.

Wouldn't it save both cost as well as storage space if you could build your deck from a base set of cards. If you need more ambush cards for a coming expansion organization you just supply those extra cards with the expansion. That way there wouldn't be a need to ship 50 new cards with each expansion easily saving production cost, shipping fees would be lower as well as a smaller foot print in the players shelf.

Looking forward to the map and counter art!

Thanks

 

[Steve Overton]

I would normally agree with you. Except in this case if we simply built a Tactical Event deck and had you pick and choose then which games would get the full deck and which would get the extra cards?

To put this in a bit more perspective, there are multiple games already in the works. They include but are not limited to:

Vietnam 1965-1975 US Army, US Marines, VCLF, VCMF, NVA, Australian, South Korean.
WWII Allied Minors, Axis Minors, Nationalist Chinese, Communist Chinese, France 1940/1944, Germany Army/Falschrimjager/SS (1939-1942 and 1943-1945), Italy, Japanese Army/SNLF, Poland 1939, Russia Army/Guards/Naval/NKVD (1939 - 1943 and 1943 - 1945), UK Army/Airborne/Gurka (1940 - 1942 and 1943 - 1945), US Army/Airborne/Marines (1941-1942 and 1943 - 1945)
India/Pakistan
Angola
Arab/Israeli Wars
Falklands

So, then in which of these games would you put full Tactical Event Decks and which of them would you just do the odd variety of cards? That's the problem with only doing them one time.

We'll discuss it and see what we can come with. All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Good Hunting.

 

[Håkan Lundgren]

Hi again,

I think you misunderstand me. English isn't my first language as you might have noticed. I'll try to be more clear.
Lets say the game comes with the US Army, USMC and the three Vietnamese factions. If each organization has 50 cards per deck that's a total of 250 cards in the base game.

If I add the number correctly I find that, for instance, there are 19 Ambush cards. Since only two organisations would fight at the same time there would need to be, at most, 11 Ambush cards (for the sake of simplicity I add the two factions with the highest number of Ambush cards together, the MF VC + LF VC).

To me it just seem to be a lot of redundant cards. I've gone through the five decks and found that you could get away with just 158 cards instead of 250.
Then just provide the players with lists that tells them which 50 cards to take from that base deck.
Then if you add more armies that would need more of any card (or new cards for that matter) then just provide those specific cards in the expansion.

So instead of starting out with 250 (5 x 50) cards you start with 158 base cards. Then when adding a sixth army (let's say the china) they would build their deck from the same base cards but maybe even introduce three new type of cards. That way the China expansion might just come with 3 x 4 = 12 cards instead of 50. The sum total would then be 170 cards as opposed to 300. That would save some money AND storage space!

I hope I make myself clear or maybe it is me that has misunderstood your answers the whole time. I had made an Excel table that showed all of this a lot easier but it seemed I couldn't add pictures to the post.

Thanks

 

[Steve Overton]

I see your point. You are talking about per game box. Not for the entire series.

I can see doing that per game box. I can't see not having the minimum number of cards in the game to play that game. Again, there needs to be enough cards in the box to play the game when you buy it. That means you have to have at least enough cards in each game box to do no less than the two sides. Which would be at least 100 cards. We'll just have to see how that all goes when we get to that point.

Thanks for bringing up the issue though as it's a legitimate one.

Good Hunting.

 

[Steve Overton]

A comment, or update if you will, from me.

The graphics are being created and this takes some time. Especially when you include everything in a game box that I'm trying to stuff in there.

Samples of game art should be forthcoming soon.

Good Hunting.