DS2: Sauron Conversion

Ok, I've had time to come up with a few thoughts about treating the Sauron (of
the Sauron War period) in DS2:

Regular Sauron infantry units in the books use generic assault rifles, rocket
launchers, grenades, etc. and do not wear powered armor. So in terms of their
equipment and its effectiveness, Sauron infantry are just standard line
infantry elements in DS2 terms (as are their normal human opponents).

The advantages of the Sauron's genetic engineering and
from-birth training/indoctrination in the military arts
might be represented in several ways:

(1) Morale. The Soldiers are engineered and trained to be completely rational
in all situations, so they don't suffer much from emotions like fear. In game
terms,
this should be represented by morale benefits - a simple
possibility would be to treat all Sauron units as Veteran. Based on the books,
it wouldn't be out of the question to exempt Sauron units from Reaction tests
entirely.

Also, toward the end of the war, the humans' hatred of the Sauron becomes so
intense that some human units pretty much go "berserk" and become willing to
sacrifice themselves if it means that more Sauron die. This could be
represented
by throwing in a few new morale states/benefits for the
regular human troops.

(2) Since the Soldiers think like battle computers (faster and more logically
than humans) and they have better speed, strength, and coordination than
humans in addition to lifelong training for war, consider giving them a bonus
for their small arms fire effectiveness rolls and an additional chit draw in
close combat. Human units facing a close assault by Sauron infantry might face
a reaction test penalty. The books abound with impressive descriptions of
Sauron marksmanship, close combat prowess, and coolness under fire.

(3) Endurance. Not only are the Soldiers stronger, faster, and hardier than
humans, they can also conciously suppress pain, close off broken blood vessels
(using special muscles), etc. thus making themselves quite hard to kill. This
could be represented by increasing the number of valid damage points required
to kill a Sauron infantry element, although I would lean away from this. Their
endurance advantage is probably best represented in campaign
terms rather than in one-off combats.  You might give them
a higher rate of recovery for "destroyed" elements between
engagements and/or more rapid recovery from fatigue and
disorganization if you play with such things.

Let's see, what else? Powered infantry formations do exist
but they are not common - they usually seem to serve as
ship's troops (love those Sauron EVA Commandos). Again, their capabilities are
fairly well represented by the
standard DS2 powered element and (1)-(3) above can be used to give the
Sauron an edge.  The Sauron also have Cyborgs (super-engineered
individuals who are to regular Soldiers what Soldiers are to humans) who
usually seem to fight in powered armor. They're
rare though, so you don't necessarily need to worry about them -
the regular Soldiers are bad enough.

As with all of Pournelle's future history books, the emphasis in ground combat
is on infantry formations supported by artillery. Armored fighting vehicles
are fairly rare. Those that do show up
generally seem to be tracked with shell-firing main guns.  In any
case, they seem to fit in pretty well with standard DS2 designs.

Well, that's it for now. It's pretty general, but I hope you find it helpful.