1939 French Commander

Sharpe · 1939 French Commander

Sous-Lieutenant

(0-1) 7/ (2) 4
(0-1) 1

Speed 1
Defense 4/6
Cover 5

Initiative -1
L'ETRANGE DEFAIT--Adjacent soldiers must roll 3+ to remove a Demoralized marker entirely. A unit may only roll once per Casualty phase.

Date 7/36
Cost 3

RAEVSKI

do u use a french dictionary for those? Smile

Sharpe

It's a famous book by Marc Bloch.

Sieur Joseph

L'étrange défaite Wink

I do not understand the interest of this unit : an initiative penalty and a poor commander effect. (I may have misunderstood but for me it is a bad unit, even if cheap)

We fought courageously during WW2 and abnegation was the main caracteristic of our officers ( I mean at least our "officiers subalternes" (Sous-Lieutenants, Lieutenans, Capitaines) because the GHQ's strategy was questionable...)

Sharpe

I'm not trying to dump on the French by any means. I agree with you that the French fought valiantly and with Bloch that the fault lay with the GHQ. My problem is how to translate that into a tactical situation. With the present AAM, the French have too big an advantage.

I'm not trying to depict an incompetent French officer, but rather an officer handicapped by an archaic system. The officer isn't bad, but the institutional encumbrances keep him from doing his duty.

Please note:
1. His value lies in the interaction with the French infantry.
2. This will only be part of a spectrum of French officers.
3. The main failing of the French army was at the top, but I can't put them in a tactical battle. Ergo, the brave soldiers and junior officers of the French Army have to bear the stigma for which they are not responsible.

RAEVSKI

give the french and some other nationalities a penalty for inintiatve. i.e -2 for the nation but make the commanders +'s to help conteract that.
that way it does offend some sensibilities

Zeus

I think that bad high-level leadership is not really noticeable at the tactical level - just like vehicles that were known to often break down on their way to the front shouldn't all have negative abilities. The strategic level leadership might cause a battle to be fought with too little gasoline, or in a place that's unsuited for a good defense etc, but the battle itself should be about the units in that battle.

You COULD introduce some sort of "national abilities" to represent the quality of high level leadership, doctrine etc. Just an example:

-- A German player always gets +1 Initiative (separate from any commander bonuses) to represent the fact that German unit commanders were taught and expected to make tactical decisions much more than their contemporaries

-- A French player could be forbidden to have two tanks adjacent to each other, to represent the fact that in general they didn't use tanks en masse

Another way could be to have commander abilities that are not especially negative, but that do force a player to play a certain way to benefit from it.

In the above example, you could say that a German player gets a free +1 initiative bonus, but this doesn't apply if German commanders are present, so the player has to choose between having a free bonus, using the commander's points for another unit, OR get a better Initiative bonus but loose the extra +1. The French player could have a commander give a bonus (maybe a cover roll) to adjacent infantry that are in the same hex as a tank, thereby forcing him to keep his tanks spread out amongst his men rather than massing them in any way.

NeuralDream

I didn't realise that we already have so many officer units to review. Do you know if AoD will make the cards?

Sharpe

I'm not sure. He was getting a wee bit burned out after the infantry.

NeuralDream

I'll try to make these cards.

NeuralDream

I don't know what photos to pick for each commander, e.g. how do I find a Sous-Lieutenant from ww2? If someone could help, that would be great.

Angel of Death

Hiya,

I'm on a project building a website at the moment. And I am painting my 40k army for a tourny Smile

Etc. Lots of things going on so I'm busy.

Anyways, for finding pictures, it's not always possible to find what you actually want. So (I try to) find the next best thing : something that looks like what you are trying to find.
Vehicles are not too hard to find but individual infantry units can be. On the internet.

Here's a french officer in 1940 (copy whole link) :
http://pro.corbis.com/images/HU030846.jpg?size=67&uid={4ca842ef-4c79-4a7c-95cb-51ce7c88c018}

HHRgamer

A minus on initiative seems a reasonable measure within the established rules. If ANH were to encompass a rule on command radius, one could also give the French officer a smaller command radius.

I am against a rule preventing the French from ever having two tanks adjacent to one another. The 4th DCR fought actions with armored formations at Montcornet, Laon, and Abbevillie in May 1940. I believe the French also used armored formations at Gembloux. The usual practice of using tanks for infantry support can be reflected in scenario-specific rules rather than inherent unit abilities.

Sieur Joseph

An artillery lieutenant

NeuralDream

Any chance for a sous-lieutenant of the army?

Sieur Joseph

poor quality

NeuralDream

Thank you! I'll see if I can fix the photo.