So I've got a stash of terrain (Hexagon and Platformer, now sold as Urban War) in the mail with a some forces coming in via em4miniatures, too. You can follow the progress here if you'd like -
http://thestrategon.blogspot.com/ I've often thought about how FWC and the WM engine could be used in skirmish. Aside from the high tech comm equipment seen in prior posts, at skirmish level I feel two issues arise
A. most communication by your run-of-the-mill fighters will still be done by means of good old fashioned "Get over to that crate!" shouting
B. units that do have comm equipment and/or telepathy or other hive mind gimmicks pay for that at individual model level. In the case of my two trial forces the Urban Sprawl Patrol has this, the Ruggeds don't. So the USPs are independent (+20pt) while the Ruggeds scream orders to one another and are affected by the CV penalties
My tests will also assume the following
A. each CV roll allows units under command to carry out two actions, not one.
The CVs will be on the lower end of the scale = prob 7 or 8.
B. the actions would be your stock move, fire, take cover, rise a level etc...all those in other words highlighted in FWC skirmish plus any other as the game demands which probably means there'll be another "ACTION" stat added (encompassing Dexterity, Strength etc...)
Where opportunity fire is carried out, instead of the unit being harder to order they'd only carry one action in their turn.
The command range is increased for skirmish to 12 inches (ie approx 30cm) for the Ruggeds while of course the Independent characteristic of the USP means they're not affected by distance. Consecutive orders remains as a modifier but the terrain modifier is removed (-1 for ordering through terrain - when you see the table I've in mind you'll understand there'll be few chances and far between to order ANYTHING without any intervening terrain)
So as I see it the units come on and they can move up to 4 inches per action. They want to run? Use both actions. Move once, spot an enemy, the enemy takes opportunity fire and wounds but doesn't suppress him. The first model uses his remaining action which was interrupted by the opp fire and roll for command again - successful. The unit under command can now take two shots (or shoot a shotgun and reload) or take a shot then move 4in to cover. Or take two shots, roll for command again, then another shot (we'll assume he's killed his enemy by now!) and take cover.
Some weapons which for example need to carry out a deploy action do so as move-deploy and NEXT order they can fire.
All in all the two actions per command I feel gives a faster sense of skirmish. The way I envision it the CV8 means the units should, effectively, get a single round in each turn apiece. That's two actions so still very fast paced and dynamic (when you include opp fire, as well). A single action per unit in my trials has meant it just didn't flow as well as I might have liked. I'll test this out on the blog and return you guys some info, k?
Thanks for reading and comments welcome, as always
S.