Time for a few cents worth of comment:
How about these suggestions for races which ignore suppression.
1. Minor hit: only the high dice counts for casualties, not all the die.
Major hit: as normal. Morale check is taken as normal. 2. Minor hit: 'Remove
Suppression' roll at x1 Ld to avoid a suppression marker. Major hit: 'Remove
Suppression' roll at x2 Ld to avoid a suppression marker. Suppressions are
then removed as normal. 3. If fired on, a minor or major hit will
automatically inflict 1 kill result as they don't know when it's a better idea
to hug the ground (and wear a sign that says "Shoot Me, I'm Alien") 4. These
races cannot go "In Position". 5. If they "Close Assault", the defender
automatically get "Final Defensive Fire" unless they have failed their morale
& retreated. 6. The only races to ignore suppression are those with no ranged
personal weapons (Aliens, Genestealers, Heinlen Warrior Bugs, etc), as this
allows them to reach close combat quickly.
'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
*****
They seek him here, they seek him there; Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive, Pimpernel.
- 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', Baroness Emma Orkzy
[quoted original message omitted]
> Robertson, Brendan wrote:
> 6. The only races to ignore suppression are those with no ranged
Correction: Heinlein warrior bugs had ranged weapons. Lots of them, if less
effective than a cap trooper's. You mean SST:The Movie Warrior Bugs.
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> Correction: Heinlein warrior bugs had ranged weapons. Lots of them,
Uncorrection: Though the Heinlen bugs had ranged weapons, they're tactics were
still to close within very close range for overrun attacks. There was never
any mention in the book of them using fire and manuever at all. In virtually
every encounter they were on the move to grapple with the troopers even if
they used ranged weapons in conjunction with the attack.
> Los wrote:
Recorrection. There was very little mention of HTH combat. There was a lot of
mention of the Bug Warrior's "beam weapon, that could slice
through your armor like a hard-boiled egg" (which incidentally, the
humans seemed to have no equivalent for). Bug Warriors were fast, canny (if
not actually intelligent) and made excellent use of the terrain, including the
'terrain' of Bug Workers for cover. Underground movement
was used to concentrate forces without worrying about air/surface
interdiction, and to achieve local numerical superiority. The only mention of
HTH is when MI were being carried off as prisoners.
Now, if you want to talk about John Steakley's ARMOR, that's a whole different
kettle of fish (HTH & Ant wave attacks galore!)
> Los wrote:
This
> seems to be a matter of, there's a limited amount of warriors per
Actually, it was even worse, since often the Workers didn't react even when
you were killing them. However, a lot of games do not require suppression or
reaction tests for robots which are under remote control. Heinlein hints that
the Brain bugs are remotely directing the Warriors telepathically (thus the
mention of the Esper Corps, which was presumably attempting to eavesdrop on or
jam the enemy).
Maybe Bug Warrior morale would be dependent on the terms of the scenario. You
could use normal suppression and morale rules for Warriors operating in
independent groups on raids, or far from the
nearest nest/city, or if the controlling Brain has been neutralized
somehow. However, Warriors acting under a Brain's direction in a
nest/city defense would be immune to all such effects. Then it's just a
question of whether the controlling Brain is bright enough to know when
to cut its losses (same question for the AI's in Planetstorm/LOS).
> Jonathan Jarrard wrote:
> Recorrection. There was very little mention of HTH combat. There was
OK I stand recorrected of my uncorrection of the original correction: Still,
in SST, It's mentioned time and again the willingness of the arachnids to
sacrifice untold numbers of bugs, workers warriors or otherwise, in their wave
attacks. (where they close to close range, ranged weapons or not, unless as a
warrior bug you're ging to burn through a hundred workers with your beam to
kill the trooper assuming you could see him in the masses.)
Which gets back to the original question of Morale rules for bugs. This seems
to be a matter of, there's a limited amount of warriors per workers, and the
SST's could usually only tell them apart by not being killed by them. So how
to handle suppression in a race like this? I say let natural selection deal
with it. If the player looses all his warriors by rash moves, he will loose
the match. If they take a few close calls, and he wisely moves them to cover,
then you get your supression result albeit temporarily.
Perhaps a good way to see this is find a pile of ants (preferably on the
march). As a whole they will march to oblivion if necessary to attain whatever
hive imperative has sent them on their way in the first place, but individulay
if you screw with one of them, they will dodge and avoid death if possible,
even run away if necessary. SO the key is to incorporate thes etwo models as
ONE type of Morale rules for some alien races. yes? No?