Tactical Reserves

[TOCarroll]

Recently I was informed that non-artillery unit placed on tactical reserve suffer a severe penalty when the reenforce adjacent units. The penalty is because, since they are moving 1 square to provide reenforcements, they suffer the benalty for being "mobile".

I understand the concept, but, this being the case, what the hell good is the tactical or mobile reserve status (except for artillery). There have been scores of articles, posts, and tips over the years touting using tactical reserve as a fire brigade. Apparantly it isnt much good for that.

Quite a few of the articles either date back before the Matrix Edition of TAOW3, but I believe there are a lot of gamers out there that are using tactical reserves to back up a line. They deserve to be told that unless the units are artillery, that it is a bad idea.

Comments?

[freeboy]

do tac res have a move limit? it would be a nice upgrade to make it a perrcentage and actually make them a fire brigade

[Monkeys Brain]

units on tac reserve move 1 hex toward attack... loc reserve tries to moves all movement allowance that's why almost nobody is using it.

arty is put on tac reserve DURING YOUR TURN to support sometimes all attack in range. ON THE LAST PHASE or by your feeling dig in your arty behind your lines so to avoid situation to arty directly goes into combat.

tac support is sometimes good to set up a trap for enemy and defend hex that is very important and you know that it will be attacked. but see what is good to be used for tac support. units. by my feeling that make density in defense hex goes toward orange red are not good because then his arty will be more efective in creating "killing zone". you will learn all this in time.


TOAW professor Monkey Brain

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: TOCarroll

Recently I was informed that non-artillery unit placed on tactical reserve suffer a severe penalty when the reenforce adjacent units. The penalty is because, since they are moving 1 square to provide reenforcements, they suffer the benalty for being "mobile".

It's not a penalty, it's a lack of the bonus for being entrenched. Since terrain bonuses (including entrenchment) in TOAW aren't cumulative, you can get more use out of tactical reserve in naturally defensive terrain. Units on reserve will still move one hex even if entering that hex costs many MPs.

Tactical reserve can be used with care. But on the whole I'd rather use the units myself for counterattack or to double the depth of my line in vital areas.

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

"Officially" it is not a penalty, but game experience teaches you that in fact mobile units are treated at a disadvantage. I have made experiments with identical units, and in mobile status the defending unit suffers almost always more casualties than the attacking one. IMO mobile status in TOAW is something like "units in march column" vs defended "Units deployed for battle"

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Iñaki Harrizabalagatar

"Officially" it is not a penalty, but game experience teaches you that in fact mobile units are treated at a disadvantage. I have made experiments with identical units, and in mobile status the defending unit suffers almost always more casualties than the attacking one.

That would be a bonus for being an attacker. Not a penalty for being in "mobile" status.

[wwiiguy]

I've noticed in the unit reports that there is a rating for Mobile Defense. If you are going to use a unit in a Tactical defense type of role would you be better off having a unit that has a higher Movile defense rating? The units that seem to have a higher rating in mobile defense seem to be the armored units vs. the infantry units so to me it would seem to make sense that Armor would be better suited for this role. Does that make sense or not?

[wwiiguy]

BTW this is under special capabilities. Not sure if it is relevant or not to whether a unit is good at Tactical reserve roles.

[wwiiguy]

OK. I looked at this a little more closely and think I was misinterpreting a couple of things. Please disregard my prior to posts to this thread I was off base.