ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Mortar crews can also fire into hexes they cannot see. I'd explain how that works if anyone is interested.
Yes, I am.
Been real busy these past couple days Sniper. Sorry I couldn't post this earlier.
Take a look at this screen and you'll see a German Mortar Crew (in the red oval I added) that has the opportunity to fire on the Soviet troops during his phase of the turn. You know this by referring to the Action Point (AP) value located inside the white oval in the Unit Info Panel. The German Mortar Crew currently have 7 AP's. Units spend these AP's to perform various actions during the course of a turn such as Move, Change Facing, create a Hasty Defense, Fire etc. Each action cost a set amount of AP's to perform and are deducted from the unit's total. Units receive their full amount of AP's again at the beginning of the next Game Turn and AP's may not be saved from turn to turn.
Looking at the map you can see that the German Mortar Crew has spotted an enemy Mortar Crew located in the Black square at the top of the screen. That unit is in the German Mortar Crew's Line Of Sight (LOS) as highlighted by the lighter green hexes. The German Mortar Crew can fire on that hex at a cost of 3 AP's as shown by the value in the purple oval. That is the cost to fire at enemy's within the Mortar Crews LOS.
Units can also fire at enemy units NOT within their LOS, but which are within the LOS of their spotter. A spotter is not an actual piece on the board, but rather is assumed to occupy any of the adjacent hexes of the indirect firing unit. Only units that have a number in parenthesis for their firing cost may indirect fire, usually at a higher cost. (4 instead of 3 in this case) Eligible units are any such located in a hex highlighted in red. In the screenshot below that would include the two units in the blue square.
That means in this turn the German Mortar Crew can fire twice at the unit within its LOS for 6 AP's or once each for 7 AP's.
Additionally, if you look at the upper left of the screenshot you'll see a brown rectangle. These are the PLAYERS (not individual units) Command Action Points (CAP's). A player may convert as many CAP's as he chooses to add AP's to the selected unit at a rate of 1:1. These AP's can then be used as normal.
For our example, the German Mortar Crew could actually indirect fire for 4 AP's, leaving 3, then convert a CAP to gain an AP and indirect fire again. CAP's also have several other uses. More on that later I am sure.
Keep this in mind when setting up your units at the beginning of battle.
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