To Hit

The same mechanic is used in Shooting, Firefight and Melee.

Roll a number of dice equal to the Rate of Fire or Rate of Attacks for each model.

The basic number needed to hit is 4+.

Attacker and defender compare relative skill.  If the Attacker is greater, reduce the difficulty by 1 per level of skill difference.  If the Defender is better, increase the difficulty by 1 per level of skill difference.

Modifiers apply in Shooting and Firefight:

• If the target is Concealed, increase the difficulty by 1.
• If the target is Cowering, increase the difficulty by 1.   
• Models that are Cowering or Suppressed will suffer a penalty to hit of -2.
• Models that moved in the previous Movement phase suffer a to hit penalty of -1 with their small arms.  Certain heavy weapons may suffer a -2 penalty or be unable to fire at all.

Geek Notes

These are pretty standard rules, more or less like other war-games in the beer-and-pretzels tradition.

As in Flames of War, the skill of the target unit matters for ranged fire. More experienced troops will be better at moving about, utilizing terrain, and avoiding dangerous situations, so they will be harder to hit.  But unlike in Flames of War, which uses an invariant system; here it's the relative difference in skill that matters.  I assume that a clever shooting unit can counter the skill of a clever target unit: it only makes a difference if the shooting unit is noticeably better- (or worse-)trained than the target.

Suppressed or moving troops do not usually reduce their Rate of Fire -- they just reduce the likely-hood they will hit any damn thing.  (Here I will admit inspiration from Warhammer 40k's new Snapfire system.)  I find that it's generally just more satisfying to roll more dice.  The number of dice hitting the table evokes the flurry of bullets flying wildly through the air.

The double-ones and double-sixes rule grants me a greater range of flexibility than a system that says "sixes always hit" or "ones always miss."