From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@y...>
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 13:54:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [SG] And you thought I was warped before
Less offensive than comparing cultures, more friendly than nuclear weapons... I've been playing around with a reprinted copy of Space: 1889, and a borrowed copy of the old Soldier's Companion. So then it hit me that what the world really needs right now is a colonial warfare conversion of Stargrunt. Well, I was drunk at the time. What can I say? Don thought it was funny. But that says more about our sense of humor than whether it's necessarily a Good Idea. This isn't even a beta release. It's not even a prerelease of the beta release. This is "I'm bored and I've got a bunch of books with me, so I'm going to Do Something." Havn't added in cavalry, artillery, Martians, landships, tripods, or anything else cool yet. So without further ado, I present: Full Metal Assegai, Or How To Conquer The World With Less Than 200,000 Troops While Maintaing it is For Their Own Good. Quality: Units have two qualities. One is normal quality, the other is Fieldcraft Quality, which is rolled to go In Position or move without removing In Position marker. Some units have really good morale and training, but couldn't fight as skirmishers and use cover to save their lives (Coldstream Guards, fer instance). Other units are crap in a standup fight but a sneaky little bastards (Serbian militia). This allows them to move from cover to cover better. Plus there's another modifier, Sharpshooter. These guys shoot better (duh). That's covered in the fire combat section. Examples of Sharpshooters include the King's Royal Rifle Corps and the 3rd Finnish Lifeguard Rifles in the Russian Army. Unit Integrity and Formations: It's 1889. Many armies, especially on colonial service, still take up linear formations. British are notorious. Plus many irregulars (especially those depending on close combat, such as Mahdist forces) tend to bunch up in masses. The available formations are Line, Column, Square, Mass, Open Order, and Disorganized. Line Column, Square, and Mass are referred to as "formed". Disorganized is not a formation anyone goes into voluntarily. Line is 1-2 men deep, all bases touching. Column is 2-4 men wide, more figures deep than wide. All bases touching. Square is 4 lines forming hollow box and facing outward. Mass is as wide as it is deep and all bases touching. Open Order is as per normal rules, but no more than 1" between troops. Disorganized is anything else. Troops in 1 formation are treated as 1 unit for purposes of activation. If they are part of the same unit, then they take morale as 1 unit as long as they are in the same formation and that unit's commander (or senior surviving officer) is present. If a formation is created from multiple sections of differing morale, the formation as a whole uses the lowest morale state of its consituent subunits. Units of less than 6 men may not form formations other than open order. Communication: Requires troops to be in voice range. Suggestions as to max range of voice communications on a battlefield of this time period are welcome. Except if there's a musician to relay commands? Supression: Formed troops may ignore suppression placed on them by fire if they are confident. However, this converts all minor hits to major hits. Example: A section of Coldstream Guards is being shot at by some Sudanese ansars. The Dervishes roll quality (d6) and firepower (10 rifle-muskets, FP 5, so d4). They roll a 4 and a 1. The Coldstream Guards player confidently picks up his d10 (3 range bands away) and rolls... a 2. So the Sudanese adds it up to 5, doubles for firing at formed troops (see below) to get 10. So he inflicts 1 casualty. Some nameless private drops dead, but the Guards don't miss a beat (pass their confidence check), and calmly return fire by volley, which means the Sudanese player is about to have a bad day. Armor: Only a handful of primitives wear any armor. Metal armor of any kind is treated as d6. All other armor is ignored. Shields only affect close combat and fire from bows. Weapons: Firepower Impact Notes Bolt Action Rifle 2 d10 Bolt Action Carbine 2 d8 Lever Action Rifle 2 d8 Lever Action Carbine 2 d6 Breech Loading Rifle 1 d10 Breech Loading Carbine 1 d8 Rifle Musket .5 d10 1 Rifled Carbine .5 d8 1,2 Smoothbore Musket .5 d10 1,2,3 Smoothbore Carbine .5 d8 1,2,3 Shotgun 3 d8 2 Bow .5 d4 1,2 Revolver 2 d6 2,3 1 May not fire from prone (oversimplification, but a firing action is presumed to be multiple shots over a period of time and this is not possible from the prone with these weapons). 2 Close Range Band Only 3 Targets are treated as being 1 range band further away. Machine Guns FP Impact .5" Gatling d8(d10) d10 Mitrailleuse d8 d10 Nordenfelt 1-B d6 d10 Nordenfelt 3-B d8 d10 Nordenfelt 5-B d10 d10 Gardner d6(d8) d10 Maxim d12 d10 FP in parens indicates a higher rate of fire which can be achieved at the cost of potential jam. If using the higher number, roll a crew quality dice. On a 3 or less, it jams. It requires a reorganize to clear a jam. This needs a reaction check at TV +0. If there are no friendly troops between the machine gun crew and the enemy, then this becomes a confidence check. Range band modifiers: Dice rolled by defender is a d4 at close range in the open. This is modified up or down die sizes as follows. All are cumulative. Per range band away +1 For In Position +1 In Soft Cover +1 Hard Cover +1 Target is formed troops -1 Target is in Column, Mass, Enfiladed Line -1 Target is being fired at with bows and has shields +1 Sharpshooters have their range bands increased by 50% if fighting in open order. (Yes, that means that the Rifle Brigade has 18" range bands. Deal with it.) A formed unit may use volley fire. Volley fire or machine gun fire directed against a formed unit causes double casualties, ie: Double the number in Step #2 of the summary on p36 of the SGII Rules. In Line formation, all soldier may fire to the front of the formation. Only the soldiers on the end may fire to that flank. In column, only the 2 lead ranks may fire forward. Only the soldiers on the edge may fire to that flank. In mass, only the soldiers in the front 2 rows may fire and only forwards. In Open Order, all soldiers may fire in direction. In disorder, half the troops in the front rank may fire forwards. (Summary of firing rules: It SUCKS to be in a formed unit exchanging volleys with another formed unit.) Movement: Formed Troops move at 6" rate. Squares move at 3" and may not charge (the square may break up and the lines charge in their directions, but not the formation as a whole). Columns move at 12". Open Order or Mass fomrations move at 8". Disorganized units move at 8". Encumbered units (carrying wounded, ammo, etc) reduce movement by 2" (4" in column). Line: May move forward or obliquely at no greater than a 45 degree angle. May wheel, cost movement as per the farthest moving element. Clear: Open, Light Scrub, Gentle slope Poor: Cultivated Difficult: Rough (depends on your rough. Boulder fields are impassable), Fords Impassable: Open Water, All woods, swamp, Mass: Straight line forward. Reorganize action to change facing. Disorder: Straight line, cannot move toward enemy. New Movement Type: Formed Infantry Clear: Open, Light Scrub, Gentle slope Poor: Cultivated Difficult: Rough (depends on your rough. Boulder fields are impassable), Fords Impassable: Open Water, All woods, swamp, Melee: Move formed units into contact until each mini in the front rank makes contact with the charged unit if that is possible without breaking formation. (Badly worded, but basically I'm saying use the rules on page 16 of the Soldier's Companion). Between open order units, handled as per SGII. Between Formed units: On first round, front 2 ranks, only those troops in contact and those directly to their left and right actually fight. Between formed and unformed units: the formed unit moves into contact with as much of the unformed unit and only those in the front two ranks directly in contact or to their left/right actually fight, and ony against those soldiers in contact. If contacted on the flank, only 1 rank of troops on that flank may fight. Close Combat Values: Rifle with Bayonet, Spear: - Shotgun: +2 Revolver +2 Sabre/Sword: +1 These four are not cumulative, only the best one applies. Those following are cumulative. Officer/Chieftan/Senior NCO (Above rank of Sergeant) +1 British in Square +1 Higher Ground +1 Behind Cover +1 Defending from Flank -1 Defending from Rear -2 If both units pass their confidence checks at the end of the first round, then they are both considered disordered. They may expand their formation by up to 50% to get more troops into combat, and open order units may move their troops in to fight. However, only the front ranks may fight in second and subsequent rounds. Confidence Checks Situation L M H First Time Unit Takes Fire 2 1 / Takes Casualties 2 1 / Takes more casualties than survivours 4 3 1 Unit leader killed 4 3 2 Modifiers: Under Artillery Fire +2 +1 +0 Untreated Casualty +1 +0 NTR Abandoned Wounded +3 +2 +1 Colours advancing in sight -1 -2 -2 Modifiers and situations that require checks (ie, if this is the only situation, then use the TVs below. If this is combined with another situation that causes confidence checks, use these as modifiers) Fired at by volley fire +1 +0 / Fired at by Friendly +2 +1 +0 Colours retiring in sight +2 +1 +0 Colours have fallen +4 +3 +2 Special Confidence Checks: If a shaken or broken unit witnesses an enemy unit falling back due to failed morale, they may rally on their own. Roll a confidence check at TV +2/+1/+0. If they pass, they become Steady. If a regular d8 or better unit wins in melee and passes it's confidence check, roll another at TV +0/+1/+3. If it passes, it becomes Confident. If it fails, it becomes Frenzied. Irregular unit and regular d4/d6 units automatically frenzy. Frenzied must pursue a retreating enemy unit or charge the closest enemy unit. Well... Questions, Comments, or Concerns?