We have just posted the playtest rules for mass battles on Planet Mongoose. As always, we are eager for your comments!
http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/?p=724
http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/?p=724
Mercenary Second Edition Playtest - Mass Battles
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
MISCELLANEOUS ACTIONS
* How (or will you) is leadership defined in a unit? In all military units there is a chain of command. Will units have a breakdown of what leadership skill levels are present? And how will rank be factored in. Rank trumps leadership for control, at least in reality. You could have a rank-5 with leadership-1 and a rank 2 with leadership-3. So, in theory at least, the leadership check for the unit would be done using a leadership-1 DM. The same would go for tactics.
* Since we are talking about mass battles, assuming you have multiple sections (infantry, artillery, assault, etc), will the individual units take into account specific skills that are related to their actions. For example, you have a company that has three mortar platoons attached to it. Platoon #1 is standard platoon (so maybe no DM's?), but Platoon #2 is veteran, and Platoon #3 is elite. The leader of the company (Leadership-1) gives a fire mission command to all three platoons. Would you have individual DM's attached for the different skill levels of the platoon's? Or would their skill levels not matter? At what level do you split this out?
ATTACKS
* As I mentioned in a previous post, a unit at 50% casualty rate (dead or just wounded), does not operate at 50% capability in the real world. Unless they were fighting for their lives they would cease to be seen as an effective unit and would be pulled out of the fighting. The could conceivably operate at 50% effectiveness on defense, but certainly not offense.
OUTMATCHING
* Will you be including defensive bonuses here? If a defender is entrenched or has fortifications, they enjoy a force multiplier of their own. Which is why attackers, who enjoy a bonus initially since they get to set the pace and target, always have to outnumber defenders, or at least out-power them, if they expect to have a chance at victory. Also, some units (infantry) excel at defense, and others (armor, artillery) have high offensive values but very low defensive ones. Will these be taken into account? Perhaps when building the unit they would get these numbers attached to them based upon their unit structure? Building up larger units (BN, Brig, Div) would also have their capabilities dependent upon their sub-units, which should somehow be reflected in their unit build strengths/DM's.
* How will you take into account highly mobile (grav) units vs. ones that aren't? A grav unit on the defense can easily outmaneuver a much larger unit of say tracked or wheeled vehicles.
MORALE
* Unit morale should also be accounted for (recruits, veteran, elite, etc). This is, or should be, the single most deciding factor for morale checks. Elite units can exert a far more powerful presence than say a unit made up mostly of recruits.
* How (or will you) is leadership defined in a unit? In all military units there is a chain of command. Will units have a breakdown of what leadership skill levels are present? And how will rank be factored in. Rank trumps leadership for control, at least in reality. You could have a rank-5 with leadership-1 and a rank 2 with leadership-3. So, in theory at least, the leadership check for the unit would be done using a leadership-1 DM. The same would go for tactics.
* Since we are talking about mass battles, assuming you have multiple sections (infantry, artillery, assault, etc), will the individual units take into account specific skills that are related to their actions. For example, you have a company that has three mortar platoons attached to it. Platoon #1 is standard platoon (so maybe no DM's?), but Platoon #2 is veteran, and Platoon #3 is elite. The leader of the company (Leadership-1) gives a fire mission command to all three platoons. Would you have individual DM's attached for the different skill levels of the platoon's? Or would their skill levels not matter? At what level do you split this out?
ATTACKS
* As I mentioned in a previous post, a unit at 50% casualty rate (dead or just wounded), does not operate at 50% capability in the real world. Unless they were fighting for their lives they would cease to be seen as an effective unit and would be pulled out of the fighting. The could conceivably operate at 50% effectiveness on defense, but certainly not offense.
OUTMATCHING
* Will you be including defensive bonuses here? If a defender is entrenched or has fortifications, they enjoy a force multiplier of their own. Which is why attackers, who enjoy a bonus initially since they get to set the pace and target, always have to outnumber defenders, or at least out-power them, if they expect to have a chance at victory. Also, some units (infantry) excel at defense, and others (armor, artillery) have high offensive values but very low defensive ones. Will these be taken into account? Perhaps when building the unit they would get these numbers attached to them based upon their unit structure? Building up larger units (BN, Brig, Div) would also have their capabilities dependent upon their sub-units, which should somehow be reflected in their unit build strengths/DM's.
* How will you take into account highly mobile (grav) units vs. ones that aren't? A grav unit on the defense can easily outmaneuver a much larger unit of say tracked or wheeled vehicles.
MORALE
* Unit morale should also be accounted for (recruits, veteran, elite, etc). This is, or should be, the single most deciding factor for morale checks. Elite units can exert a far more powerful presence than say a unit made up mostly of recruits.
I like this a lot. Using what are essentially the same combat rules for individual combats, with bonuses for 'tons of dudes' means you don't have to learn another system.
It also makes it easily adaptable if you want to play "man in artillery battledress plays king kong in the middle of a TL8 army".
Varying leadership is certainly true, but - unless you're dealing with the PC's own unit (where you can just pull their stats off their character sheets), you're going to want to simplify to get through combat in a reasonable time. Assuming Leadership/0 for militia, Leadership/1 or /2 for professional soldiers and so on as an average is reasonable. Besides which, you're building the units out of 'generic building block NPC's from the previous blog posts; you know what levels of tactics and leadership you've given them.
One comment - looking back at that chapter - obviously officers should have Leadership and Tactics, but I'm not sure which is more important for an NCO to have if they only have one. I might argue that leadership is more important for people holding a squad together under fire.
Variable unit skills are described in the 'force organisation' blog post. If you've got meaningfully different skills and armaments in your platoons, either you can split them out and use three platoon sized forces against the enemy company, or else play as a company and model the snipers/assault weapons/etc with traits.
50% casualty comment - true enough for large scale minute/hour battles, but disengaging a squad in a real-time battle is not always possible. More importantly, that 50% morale check will destroy most units - realistically most average 'grunt' units have a morale of:
2 [Highest Leadership Skill] + 0 [Normal salary] + 0 [Highest Unit Skill 1] = 2
That's a DM-2 on all morale checks - which means the unit will in practical terms explode the moment it's forced to make such a check unless dug into cover. A unit which is going to reliably stand and fight past 50% casualties is going to need a DM+2 at least, which is night impossible to achieve without situational modifiers like 'winning side' bonuses. Morale for elite units is already included, though. Comparing above, some putative 'guards' unit would have a morale of:
3 [Highest Leadership Skill] + 4 [Elites with double salary/training] + 2 [Special forces with unit skill 3] = 9
That's a DM+1 - or slightly under 2/3 chance of holding your ground in the face of 50% casualties.
Mobility of grav units is just the same as standard scale combat - if a turn is a minute, your infantry company's move action covers 50m, whilst your grav company will be a kilometre or more, and hence a regiment made up from grav companies will be able to concentrate and disperse as required to pick apart an infantry regiment company by company.
All in all, I think this is a good system. May I suggest we try a couple of Million Credit Units to give it a try through?
It also makes it easily adaptable if you want to play "man in artillery battledress plays king kong in the middle of a TL8 army".
Varying leadership is certainly true, but - unless you're dealing with the PC's own unit (where you can just pull their stats off their character sheets), you're going to want to simplify to get through combat in a reasonable time. Assuming Leadership/0 for militia, Leadership/1 or /2 for professional soldiers and so on as an average is reasonable. Besides which, you're building the units out of 'generic building block NPC's from the previous blog posts; you know what levels of tactics and leadership you've given them.
One comment - looking back at that chapter - obviously officers should have Leadership and Tactics, but I'm not sure which is more important for an NCO to have if they only have one. I might argue that leadership is more important for people holding a squad together under fire.
Variable unit skills are described in the 'force organisation' blog post. If you've got meaningfully different skills and armaments in your platoons, either you can split them out and use three platoon sized forces against the enemy company, or else play as a company and model the snipers/assault weapons/etc with traits.
50% casualty comment - true enough for large scale minute/hour battles, but disengaging a squad in a real-time battle is not always possible. More importantly, that 50% morale check will destroy most units - realistically most average 'grunt' units have a morale of:
2 [Highest Leadership Skill] + 0 [Normal salary] + 0 [Highest Unit Skill 1] = 2
That's a DM-2 on all morale checks - which means the unit will in practical terms explode the moment it's forced to make such a check unless dug into cover. A unit which is going to reliably stand and fight past 50% casualties is going to need a DM+2 at least, which is night impossible to achieve without situational modifiers like 'winning side' bonuses. Morale for elite units is already included, though. Comparing above, some putative 'guards' unit would have a morale of:
3 [Highest Leadership Skill] + 4 [Elites with double salary/training] + 2 [Special forces with unit skill 3] = 9
That's a DM+1 - or slightly under 2/3 chance of holding your ground in the face of 50% casualties.
Mobility of grav units is just the same as standard scale combat - if a turn is a minute, your infantry company's move action covers 50m, whilst your grav company will be a kilometre or more, and hence a regiment made up from grav companies will be able to concentrate and disperse as required to pick apart an infantry regiment company by company.
All in all, I think this is a good system. May I suggest we try a couple of Million Credit Units to give it a try through?
* How (or will you) is leadership defined in a unit? In all military units there is a chain of command. Will units have a breakdown of what leadership skill levels are present? And how will rank be factored in. Rank trumps leadership for control, at least in reality. You could have a rank-5 with leadership-1 and a rank 2 with leadership-3. So, in theory at least, the leadership check for the unit would be done using a leadership-1 DM. The same would go for tactics.
Leadership is covered under the Force Organisation preview - basically, every unit (of whatever size) gets appointed a leader, even if it is Joe Bloggs Rifleman (we recommend it is not).
* Since we are talking about mass battles, assuming you have multiple sections (infantry, artillery, assault, etc), will the individual units take into account specific skills that are related to their actions. For example, you have a company that has three mortar platoons attached to it. Platoon #1 is standard platoon (so maybe no DM's?), but Platoon #2 is veteran, and Platoon #3 is elite. The leader of the company (Leadership-1) gives a fire mission command to all three platoons. Would you have individual DM's attached for the different skill levels of the platoon's? Or would their skill levels not matter? At what level do you split this out?
Up to you, the level of detail you want in the batle, and the wishes of your players. In the above example, you could combine all platoons, taking the majority for skill level and adding the mortar platoon as the Support trait if there are sufficient numbers (see Force Organisation again). This could work if you just wanted to quickly resolve a battle 'off-screen' as it were. Alternatively, if the battle was the focus of play, split the company down into individual platoons - there are only four of them and it will be no more work to play out the combat than if there were just four guys on one side in a nral firefight...
* As I mentioned in a previous post, a unit at 50% casualty rate (dead or just wounded), does not operate at 50% capability in the real world. Unless they were fighting for their lives they would cease to be seen as an effective unit and would be pulled out of the fighting. The could conceivably operate at 50% effectiveness on defense, but certainly not offense.
Morale checks have to be made as the unit takes casualties and as for effectiveness, this is covered by outmatching. A regiment sustaining 50% casualties will not likely retreat before a single squad, but will be shifted by another regiment that is fresh. Remember casualties are not automatically deaths - see the recovery rules.
* Will you be including defensive bonuses here? If a defender is entrenched or has fortifications, they enjoy a force multiplier of their own. Which is why attackers, who enjoy a bonus initially since they get to set the pace and target, always have to outnumber defenders, or at least out-power them, if they expect to have a chance at victory. Also, some units (infantry) excel at defense, and others (armor, artillery) have high offensive values but very low defensive ones. Will these be taken into account? Perhaps when building the unit they would get these numbers attached to them based upon their unit structure? Building up larger units (BN, Brig, Div) would also have their capabilities dependent upon their sub-units, which should somehow be reflected in their unit build strengths/DM's.
Some of these might be worth a look, but many of them are already built into the rules. Troops in defensive positions will already be gaining the benefit of cover (ad morale bonus, for that matter), and so will have those advantages in combat anyway. Armour and artillery (and vehicles in general) have not been added to the rules yet, but you can imagine them acting in much the same way, grouped into units of a single vehicle, squadron, company, etc, as appropriate. Artillery should not be anywhere near the front line, but if it gets caught out, its existing stats will take its deficiencies into account.
That is the key here - use as many existing rules as possible.
* How will you take into account highly mobile (grav) units vs. ones that aren't? A grav unit on the defense can easily outmaneuver a much larger unit of say tracked or wheeled vehicles.
Again, as has already been pointed out, it can dash anywhere it wants to on the battlefield whereas, in comparison, tracked vehicles will be effectively immobile.
* Unit morale should also be accounted for (recruits, veteran, elite, etc). This is, or should be, the single most deciding factor for morale checks. Elite units can exert a far more powerful presence than say a unit made up mostly of recruits.
Again covered by the Force Organisation rules (also on Planet Mongoose).
Leadership is covered under the Force Organisation preview - basically, every unit (of whatever size) gets appointed a leader, even if it is Joe Bloggs Rifleman (we recommend it is not).
* Since we are talking about mass battles, assuming you have multiple sections (infantry, artillery, assault, etc), will the individual units take into account specific skills that are related to their actions. For example, you have a company that has three mortar platoons attached to it. Platoon #1 is standard platoon (so maybe no DM's?), but Platoon #2 is veteran, and Platoon #3 is elite. The leader of the company (Leadership-1) gives a fire mission command to all three platoons. Would you have individual DM's attached for the different skill levels of the platoon's? Or would their skill levels not matter? At what level do you split this out?
Up to you, the level of detail you want in the batle, and the wishes of your players. In the above example, you could combine all platoons, taking the majority for skill level and adding the mortar platoon as the Support trait if there are sufficient numbers (see Force Organisation again). This could work if you just wanted to quickly resolve a battle 'off-screen' as it were. Alternatively, if the battle was the focus of play, split the company down into individual platoons - there are only four of them and it will be no more work to play out the combat than if there were just four guys on one side in a nral firefight...
* As I mentioned in a previous post, a unit at 50% casualty rate (dead or just wounded), does not operate at 50% capability in the real world. Unless they were fighting for their lives they would cease to be seen as an effective unit and would be pulled out of the fighting. The could conceivably operate at 50% effectiveness on defense, but certainly not offense.
Morale checks have to be made as the unit takes casualties and as for effectiveness, this is covered by outmatching. A regiment sustaining 50% casualties will not likely retreat before a single squad, but will be shifted by another regiment that is fresh. Remember casualties are not automatically deaths - see the recovery rules.
* Will you be including defensive bonuses here? If a defender is entrenched or has fortifications, they enjoy a force multiplier of their own. Which is why attackers, who enjoy a bonus initially since they get to set the pace and target, always have to outnumber defenders, or at least out-power them, if they expect to have a chance at victory. Also, some units (infantry) excel at defense, and others (armor, artillery) have high offensive values but very low defensive ones. Will these be taken into account? Perhaps when building the unit they would get these numbers attached to them based upon their unit structure? Building up larger units (BN, Brig, Div) would also have their capabilities dependent upon their sub-units, which should somehow be reflected in their unit build strengths/DM's.
Some of these might be worth a look, but many of them are already built into the rules. Troops in defensive positions will already be gaining the benefit of cover (ad morale bonus, for that matter), and so will have those advantages in combat anyway. Armour and artillery (and vehicles in general) have not been added to the rules yet, but you can imagine them acting in much the same way, grouped into units of a single vehicle, squadron, company, etc, as appropriate. Artillery should not be anywhere near the front line, but if it gets caught out, its existing stats will take its deficiencies into account.
That is the key here - use as many existing rules as possible.
* How will you take into account highly mobile (grav) units vs. ones that aren't? A grav unit on the defense can easily outmaneuver a much larger unit of say tracked or wheeled vehicles.
Again, as has already been pointed out, it can dash anywhere it wants to on the battlefield whereas, in comparison, tracked vehicles will be effectively immobile.
* Unit morale should also be accounted for (recruits, veteran, elite, etc). This is, or should be, the single most deciding factor for morale checks. Elite units can exert a far more powerful presence than say a unit made up mostly of recruits.
Again covered by the Force Organisation rules (also on Planet Mongoose).
locarno24 said:
Slight tweak here - or, rather, I have just made a change that emphasises what I _meant_ happen here
Basically, all units have a Morale score of 7 (average). The modifiers you cite above are applied to that, so the militia, with Leadership 2 (generous!) will have Morale 9, all else being equal.
DickTurpin
Banded Mongoose
I added columns for skills and recruitment DM to the NCO and Officers table to help when assigning those characteristics to unit leaders. The Tactics and Leadership scores are a bit low for low rank officers but I tried to keep them in line with the rank progression in the Army career. You end up taking a bit of a hit when you assign a Lieutenant to run a unit instead of a Sergeant, but there is a reason they tell brand new Lieutenants to listen to the more experienced Sergeants in their unit after all. . .
Rank_________Salary Increase (Cr.)_____Additional Skills_______________Recruiting DM
Corporal______________+500____________Tactics 0, Recon 2________________-1
Sergeant____________+1,000_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 1___-1
Gunnery Sergeant____+1,500_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 2___-2
Sergeant Major_______+2,000_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 2___-2
Lieutenant__________+2,000_____________Tactics 0, Leadership 1___________+0
Captain_____________+3,000_____________Tactics 1, Leadership 1, Admin 0___-1
Major_______________+4,000_____________Tactics 2, Leadership 2, Admin 0___-2
Lieutenant Colonel____+6,000____________Tactics 3, Leadership 2, Admin 1___-4
Colonel______________+8,000____________Tactics 3, Leadership 3, Admin 2___-6
Both the skills and the recruitment DM stack with whatever type of soldier the leader was, Special Forces Colonels are hard to find, but a Militiaman Captain is pretty easy to get.
Rank_________Salary Increase (Cr.)_____Additional Skills_______________Recruiting DM
Corporal______________+500____________Tactics 0, Recon 2________________-1
Sergeant____________+1,000_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 1___-1
Gunnery Sergeant____+1,500_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 2___-2
Sergeant Major_______+2,000_____________Tactics 1, Recon 2, Leadership 2___-2
Lieutenant__________+2,000_____________Tactics 0, Leadership 1___________+0
Captain_____________+3,000_____________Tactics 1, Leadership 1, Admin 0___-1
Major_______________+4,000_____________Tactics 2, Leadership 2, Admin 0___-2
Lieutenant Colonel____+6,000____________Tactics 3, Leadership 2, Admin 1___-4
Colonel______________+8,000____________Tactics 3, Leadership 3, Admin 2___-6
Both the skills and the recruitment DM stack with whatever type of soldier the leader was, Special Forces Colonels are hard to find, but a Militiaman Captain is pretty easy to get.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Environmental factors, such as time of day, climate, weather, terrain certainly could favour one side or the other, and ameliorating factors such as camouflage, night vision, snow shoes could effect the die roll.
Then you can add in the force multipliers such as artillery support, transport, armoured vehicles, eye in the sky, supplies and so on.
Then you can add in the force multipliers such as artillery support, transport, armoured vehicles, eye in the sky, supplies and so on.
Condottiere said:
All of these things are already in the Traveller rules and, thus, are already in mass combat. Remember, unless otherwise stated (and there are really not too many conditins) if it is in 'normal' Traveller combat, it is also in mass combat.
* As I mentioned in a previous post, a unit at 50% casualty rate (dead or just wounded), does not operate at 50% capability in the real world. Unless they were fighting for their lives they would cease to be seen as an effective unit and would be pulled out of the fighting. The could conceivably operate at 50% effectiveness on defense, but certainly not offense.
Morale checks have to be made as the unit takes casualties and as for effectiveness, this is covered by outmatching. A regiment sustaining 50% casualties will not likely retreat before a single squad, but will be shifted by another regiment that is fresh. Remember casualties are not automatically deaths - see the recovery rules.
No, a regiment won't retreat for a single squad. That's too egregious of an example. But a company reduced to 50% effectives on the offensive will pause to attack an entrenched unit half it's size that has not suffered casualties. That's the point I was making.
As for effectiveness, it's going to be far different if the unit was reduced via casualties vs. starting out with fewer personnel.
Morale checks have to be made as the unit takes casualties and as for effectiveness, this is covered by outmatching. A regiment sustaining 50% casualties will not likely retreat before a single squad, but will be shifted by another regiment that is fresh. Remember casualties are not automatically deaths - see the recovery rules.
No, a regiment won't retreat for a single squad. That's too egregious of an example. But a company reduced to 50% effectives on the offensive will pause to attack an entrenched unit half it's size that has not suffered casualties. That's the point I was making.
As for effectiveness, it's going to be far different if the unit was reduced via casualties vs. starting out with fewer personnel.
msprange said:
The only thing I can think of which needs including is how you track damage to, or generate an endurance score for, vehicle units. I'm assuming in massed battles you wouldn't want to track damage to individual vehicles (any more than you want to track lost turrets in a broadside fight between two dreadnoughts).
I guess you can model a tank as [Crew Number] personnel with the armour of the tank, but you've also got the issue of varying weapons, in numbers which don't match the size of the unit (maybe you can reflect it with support weapons?).
Or you can track endurance as [Number of Vehicles] but that's going to leave them massively vulnerable to the damage bonus from outmatching when fielding a Mammoth Tank, AT-AT or Ogre against several hundred infantry. A limit on outmatching might be justified, because no amount of concentrated flintlock fire will even annoy an M1A2 main battle tank.
Equally, you have the limitation of really high-damage weapons which can't kill multiple targets. What I mean by this is that a Magrail Minigun, or a 150mm cannon with both AT and HE shells, don't really care if they're shooting into a crowd of dudes or a single tank. An ARMP or high-powered Antitank Laser, on the other hand, can only kill one dude. It doesn't care if said dude is inside a tank, but it can't engage crowds effectively.
It might be worth an "anti-tank" trait, which multiplies up or adds bonus damage dice when engaging vehicle units.
Oh - one other thing: blasts and flame.
Autofire works perfectly well - a unit armed with gauss rifles can choose to make an attack using the normal rules for an Auto 4 weapon, and will score the appropriately increased number of hits.
However, lobbing a number of grenades into a mob should score increased damage somehow proportionate to the size of the blast. Essentially, we need a multiplier that my 1.5 metre plasma grenade blast does X times the damage rolled or inflicts Y hits (assuming it's landed in a suitable group of enemies).
Autofire works perfectly well - a unit armed with gauss rifles can choose to make an attack using the normal rules for an Auto 4 weapon, and will score the appropriately increased number of hits.
However, lobbing a number of grenades into a mob should score increased damage somehow proportionate to the size of the blast. Essentially, we need a multiplier that my 1.5 metre plasma grenade blast does X times the damage rolled or inflicts Y hits (assuming it's landed in a suitable group of enemies).
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