Ehya,
Thanks for playing the Regiment and thanks for your feedback.
1) John is probably the best person to answer; but, I’ll take a shot at it. The GM2 sheet is a cookbook and the battle plans we give you are recipes. At the most fundamental level, they are guidelines you can follow, edit, extend, or ignore to shape a mission in the fiction.
If the players are running the show and they want to do a thing, show them the sheet and ask them which one of these plans they are trying to execute. If you are the GM, introduce the battle plan by giving orders : “listen up maggots, see that bunker over there, alpha team will lay suppressing fire from the ridge while bravo team maneuvers behind the bunker and sets explosive charges.” Use the battle plan as a checklist to narrate who’s involved and how the goal is supposed to be accomplished.
As with a cooking recipe, you can do it by the book or you can improvise. In general, you should follow it reasonably close, because the methods summarize the textbook approach. That said, any method that accomplishes the goal in the fiction, satisfies the battle plan.
This is a framework you can use to build a mission in the fiction. Like the GM moves, the goal is to give you storytelling tools that lead you to our intended method of play. If you have another way of doing it that works and want to keep doing it, keep doing it. Use this as a cheat sheet.
Dissecting the pieces of battle plan….
GOAL is the thing you are trying to accomplish with the battle plan. As with a move, if you are doing a thing, this is the general plan or if this is your general plan, this is the thing you’re doing. If you’re desired goal isn’t on the sheet, find something close and modify it or create a new plan.
METHODS describe the typical tactics, techniques, and procedures used to complete that goal. These aren’t the only ways to complete the goal and following these methods does not guarantee that the goal will be accomplished. Per the workspace rules, if you are successful in applying the listed methods, you should achieve your goal. However, also per workspace, if in following through on the methods you create new complications, you may have to deal with those consequences first.
This is critical, the flow of battle is fluid and the enemy are real, thinking adversaries. This means that the enemy also has a battle plan that they are trying to accomplish that is at odds with what the players are trying to accomplish. Just as the players can be successful in accomplish their goals through the described methods, so too can the enemy. This means that the enemy can (and should, now and again) derail the players’ attempt to achieve their goal.
In the course of the engagement, the initial goal of the mission might be accomplished, it might be overcome by events (made impossible or irrelevant), or it might be out-prioritized by a new issue or opportunity.
CONSIDERATIONS
These are advantages, usually in the form of intel or a comprehensive understanding of the situation. These are mitigating factors that, if exploited, should materially improve the players’ odds of success in accomplishing their goals. As with methods, these aren’t the only ways to gain advantage, nor does having these advantages guarantee success. The way considerations improves their chances is by allowing the players to apply their unit’s resources more effectively, concentrating their strength where the enemy is weak. This is a fictional bonus, not a mechanical bonus (e.g. +1 forward); however, GM could conceivably grant a forward bonus to your Op when making the engagement move.
2) Attack the enemy is now specifically the act of shooting. Since the GM has the ability to throw harm at the players when it is established in the fiction, Attack now gives the players the same ability to throw harm at NPCs in the same way. First, let me cover the basics of the three fighting moves.
ATTACK – You shoot someone or are shot yourself.
ASSAULT – you seize ground or some other tactical advantage by force.
COVERING FIRE – you suppress / pin the enemy to enable friendly movement.
Assault and Covering Fire both change the general tactical situation, Attack does not. This is key. So, if it feels like there should be a roll, check one of these moves first.
In Assault, taking ground is pretty straight forward. If you are trying to push the enemy back, whether you’re moving on them or they are moving on you, the roll determines the degree to which you succeed and then you roll damage. Tactical advantage is meant to cover a wide range of possibilities. If you are trying to decide whether to use Attack or Assault, consider what is at stake: if the stakes are limited to the combatants immediately involved and there is no clear advantage to be had that influences the broader, tactical picture (apart from the fact you still could be alive to influence it), you’re probably making the Attack move. If you are shooting the machine gunner before he shreds your unit, the radio operator before he gets a warning out, the squad leader before he leads the charge, etc., then you are attempting to gain a tactical advantage and you are making the Assault move.
I think the line between Covering Fire and Attack is clearer: if you are helping your unit Maneuver (when making that move or when it is established in the fiction), that is advance, retreat, or relocate under enemy fire by using your weapon to suppress or pin the enemy, then you are making the Covering Fire move. The difference between Covering Fire and Assault is that, with Covering Fire, you’re giving someone else an advantage (in the form of the suppress / pinned conditions applied to the enemy and/or freedom of movement); whereas, with Assault, you are the one turning the tide of battle.
Attack covers the act of inflicting violence that is not concerned with Assault or Covering Fire. Again, since “tactical advantage” in Assault is a broad and general thing, you should look to Assault first. With Attack, the stakes can be life or death; but, the ramifications of those stakes are generally limited to those who are immediately involved in the struggle.
Why no +battle roll? Because in the Regiment, you roll for fire you don’t just take harm like in AW. When you establish that there is shooting, GM determines what the VOF (volume of fire) is, based on the situation as established, and then dice are rolled. If the VOF is incidental, then it’s possible to inflict neither stress nor wounds, which could be thought of as a “miss.” Describing VOF and how to apply it is another long discussion, so I won’t cover it here. Suffice to say, the GM uses VOF to establish whether the shooting is haphazard and possibly ineffective (incidental), on target (direct), or brutally effective (concentrated). The player rolls dice to determine how much stress and wounds are caused and that informs the fictional outcome of the move.
To summarize the whole discussion: you are a soldier; you are a trained marksman; when you have the enemy in your sights and pull the trigger, you roll damage dice.
3) You’re right, that’s nowhere to be found on the sheets… yet. See my blog post here for a discussion on session wrap-up XP (see "Letters Home"):
http://enigmamachinations.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/the-regiment-ap-operation-market-garden-session-1/4) I assume you mean, “how do you use bonds to interfere?” You don’t.
Bond is a positive, uniting force; whereas, Hx in AW works both ways. If you are interfering with another player, you can either use one of your basic or playbook moves or establish circumstances in the fiction that require them to use one of theirs. If you’re being direct about it, you can use Impose your Will or Attack, Assault, or Covering Fire. If you’re being indirect about it, you can Help someone else oppose them or Petition up the Chain of Command to get a superior on your side. You can also do something that causes them to have to make the Push Yourself move.
5) It’s a description of where or what you’re fighting. It could be a place, like “Afghanistan” or “Vietnam” or it could be a campaign like, “Market Garden” or “Torch.” It’s just a place on your sheet to sum up what the war is, for your character.