Another progress report about my Portable Belle Époque Wargame rules (1)

I have been making somewhat slower progress on my Portable Belle Époque Wargame rules than I expected ... but I'm gradually getting there!

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the significant changes I am making to THE GATLING'S JAMMED rules from THE PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME book are as follows:

• Machine guns a treated like artillery and have their own fire phase.
• The number of units a general can activate each turn is subject to a degree of randomness that depends upon their ability.
• A timescale has been introduced.

The section that deals with the first of these currently reads as follows:

Machine gun fire phase

• Machine gun fire definitions
• If an enemy unit can be seen by a machine gun unit (i.e. there is a direct line-of-sight between the target and the machine gun unit firing at it), the machine gun unit may fire at it.
• Machine gun units can fire over other units that are in front of them if they are on a hill that is higher than the target.
• General machine gun fire rules
• Machine guns fire within an arc-of-fire that is forward of the direction in which it is facing.
• Machine gun ranges are measured through the edges and not the corners of the grid areas.
• Machine gun units can only fire once each turn.
• Machine gun units that fire cannot move during the same turn.
• Machine gun fire can destroy any type of ground unit.
• Machine gun units can fire into woods, built-up areas, and fortifications.
• Machine gun units can fire out of woods, built-up areas, and fortifications if they are in a grid area that is on the edge of the woods, built-up areas, or fortifications (i.e. the adjacent grid area in the direction they are firing does not contain woods, built-up areas or fortifications).
• Machine gun fire rules
• The target grid area is identified.
• Roll three D6 dice for the machine gun unit firing at the target grid area and add or subtract any relevant modifiers:
• Increase the D6 die roll score by 1 if the machine gun unit has fired at the same stationary target during the previous turn.
• Increase the D6 die roll score by 1 if a friendly general is in a grid area that is adjacent to the machine gun unit.
• Reduce the D6 die roll score by 1 if the target is in cover or fortifications.
• Results:
• Modified D6 die roll score = 5 or more: Machine gun fire lands on the target grid area.
• Modified D6 die roll score = 4 or less: Machine gun fire has been totally ineffective.
• If the machine gun fire has been effective, any unit that is in the grid area in which the machine gun fire lands is hit, and a D6 die is rolled to determine the effectiveness of the artillery fire upon the target unit. (See the Resolving hits on units section of the rules.)