The Commander Series Forum

In a recent game I had 5 Panther facing a force of 7 T34/76. The way I have read the rules and have been playing, is if I give an order to a group of units to fire at the enemy the enemy can opportunity fire back if not destroyed or suppressed. So with my example I ordered the Panthers to fire 3 panthers fired at a T34 destroying it the other 6xT34 then fired back before my next 2 Panthers fired.
Could I have declared all 5 Panthers firing at different targets hoping to supress all of them so only 2 T34 could fire back. The way I read the rules as soon as the 1st one fires the T34's can fire back at him.
Tactically it changes the way you fight at the moment I tend to concentrate all fire on one target destroying it then the enemy fires back destroying one of mine, then if get second order hit another target and so on. But if I do all my firing before the enemy gets to opp fire, I am more likely to spread my shots over several targets hoping to suppress and then kill with a second order.
How do other players play this?

If you ordered all five panthers to fire as one 'group of units' (regardless of their targets) then the T34's could only return fire AFTER all 5 panthers had fired.

Is that correct the way the rules seems to say if one fires/moves the T34's can fire before the others fire or move at different targets.
I prefer what you are saying

It's on a unit by unit basis, otherwise you will need to start moving units back to where the opp fire took place if it's in response to movement - this can happen if units move in and out of LoS as part of a move action.

Doing it this way allows both players to choose to concentrate their fire or to spread it out amongst the opposing units.

Shit

U mean I have been playing it wrong for four years...

"...I have been playing it wrong..."

Ditto.

It doesn't matter, guys - I've probably done the same

I play it this way:

When giving a fire order the commander says: "Feuer frei!" and when the 5 panthers would open fire at the same time at some targets. After that the surving enemy units could return fire.
When giving a move order the commander would say: "Panzer marsch!" and when I move one panther after the other and opponent could say: "Stop I want to shoot at this tank!"

Cheers Kalle

I have just bought BKC and FWC (both look great).

How many times can a unit opportunity fire in the command phase - once in the phase or once each time an enemy unit moves/fires within LOS? The rule say "once at an enemy unit that ..."

The way i figure if you play it right as a panzer commander the 7 t-34's should not get the chance to oppertunity fire at you because your 5 panthers would destroy all 7 t34s in one single round of shooting.

We have always played it as Panzer-Kalle says (as have a lot of people it would appear!).
That certainly seems to make more sense. Otherwise on the order to fire, 3 Panthers fire, the other 2 have their shells pause half-way down the barrel to wait and see if the Russians get to hit them!

Graham

Hi Tony - welcome to the forum.

Each of your units may perform opportunity fire once in your opponent's command phase (as per this thread: http://www.coldwar-commander.com/Content/Forum/....

I remember now, the active player does fire with all his units before any opp fire - it's only movement that you have to be careful with

Phew, that's a relief

Thanks stu_dew - I thought that would be the case otherwise defenders would be rather strong. I didn't think to read the other forums for rule interpretations but I will from now on. We will be playing FWC on Friday night so I might be posting on its forum Saturday

Pete said "I remember now, the active player does fire with all his units before any opp fire - it's only movement that you have to be careful with". So even the guy who's written the rules gets them wrong sometimes! As an old maths teacher once told me many, many years ago - "We all make mistakes - that's why they put rubbers on the tops of pencils!"

Cbaxter said "The way i figure if you play it right as a panzer commander the 7 t-34's should not get the chance to oppertunity fire at you because your 5 panthers would destroy all 7 t34s in one single round of shooting." You haven't seen my dice rolls lately!

The problem is how could 5 Panthers fire at 7 T-34 in one phase?
Do you split the attacks of one vehicle between 2 targets? If I remember wright this is not allowed! So did Pete say some time ago....

No, that is not allowed!

i was joking about taking out 7 t34 with 5 panthers in one phase

you actually only need 3 panthers the other two can kill all the russian infantry.