BattleBlog - Strategic Operations: Part 2 24.11.2008

[DeJaVu]

I know I just posted the first blog two days ago, so this is pretty quick for part 2. However, I'm more of a Monday morning-type blogger; get the cobwebs out from the weekend and start the gray matter churning. Additionally, with Thanksgiving this coming weekend, I seriously doubt I'll get to the blog later this week. As such, thought I'd get right on this so I didn't miss this week and that'll set me up for hitting early each week with the blog from now on.

I believe I'm just going to dive in at the front and for the first few blogs dissect a given section of the book. So let's start with the General Rules. Since that section is buried in the depths of TO, some may find it a little disconcerting to find it right at the front of SO. I didn't originally plan on it being there, but that's how it turned out. So much of the material in the General Rules deals directly with ground combat and how to fold aerospace elements into the ground game. As each of these books stages up from the previous book, I felt having that section first would feel appropriately. Players coming from TO and all its ground play rules to SO and its General Rules that still deals with many ground applications, but then starts building up towards space and all the fun that implies.

I'm not going to touch on every rules subset in this section as that would generate a giant blog even by my standards. But I'd like to hit what I think are the most exciting and potentially useful sub sections.

The Abstract Aerospace System was originally published in AeroTech 2. It uses a single-sheet "Radar Map" to quickly and easily integrate aerospace movement across a battlefield, resolve dog fights and allow for the all important attacks against ground targets. While the rules have been expanded and fleshed out to fill in the holes that were spotted over the years, anyone who has previously used the system will instantly recognize it. And for those that have not used it before and have always wanted to include aerospace in their game but were intimidated to pull out an entire aerospace mapsheet and the full rules, this rules subset is for you.

Outside of moving construction rules out of Total Warfare, the three rules subsets originally found in the previous rulebook (BattleTech Master Rules) but not included in Total Warfare most desired by fans over the last two years are: Artillery, Dropping Troops and Salvage and Repair. Artillery finally was 'brought back' with the publication of Tactical Operations, and Strategic Operations brings both the last two rules subsets back, fully updated to our current quality of rules presentation. Though not as extensively modified as Artillery, Dropping Troops has still been expanded significantly to deal with all possible situations of deployment from space to the ground. The following preview provides a solid look at some of the new options and depth of clarifications.

Morale and fatigue have always been one of the easiest ways to bring more 'realism' to any game. Tactical Operations provides rules for both during game play. However, the sapping of morale and the burden of fatigue go well beyond the battlefield and can be far more insidious between battles. Building off of the rules originally from Combat Operations, these rules show how to determine a force's quality and loyalty rating (if it is unknown) and then how such ratings effect morale and fatigue, including the chances for desertion and even mutiny if both factors sink too low. To wrap this section up appropriately, rules are provided for how these "outside of game play" rules interact with the "during game play rules" found in Tactical Operations.

Moving cargo isn't as sexy as the rules above, as it's most often not directly applicable to a scenario. However, anyone playing in a campaign knows how important it can be to know how long it takes to load cargo; gotta get your re-supplies before the next game if you're not going to be fighting low on ammo and with holes still in your armor. And how many novels have described the desperate move to load withdrawing troops on a DropShip before the enemy can arrive? Now that type of scenario can be played. A fully expanded cargo transport table and rules cover just about every situation possible, from a battery of heavy cargo platforms on a sunny day at a major DropPort, to a handful of animals and exoskeletons during a lightning storm on a backwater world. How long it takes to unload and load units outside of game play, as well as loading units and personnel into cargo bays (as opposed to dedicated transport bays) is also covered.

The Linked Scenarios rules from Combat Operations was one of the better received sections of that book. They provide a simplified and easy-to-use framework for building a campaign used in conjunction with the Creating Scenarios section of Total Warfare. They've been included here, as ever updated and expanded as appropriate. A hot of additional Random Assignment Tables are provided, including 'Mech RATs for the factions mentioned in Tactical Operations and Strategic Operations but with no RATs included in Total Warfare, as well as aerospace RATs for all these factions.

Okay, let's wrap it up talking about a pure aerospace section: fighter squadrons. Without hesitation I can say that this rules subset was the most difficult set of rules to wrangle of the entire Strategic Operations...bar none. Heck, I could almost consider it one of the single most difficult rules subsets I've ever dealt with. The key problem lay at the heart of the problem of aerospace rules vs. fiction for long years. The Star League built WarShip navies that practically could blot out the sun over a world...and the current factions over the last decade and more have been building ships quickly as well. Yet in most instances when aerospace fighters meet WarShips the fighters are going to win. So if you create a set of rules for how to quickly resolve larger scale battles by folding multiple fighters into a single unit that moves and attacks together...the swing against WarShips is even worse. So how do you create a set of rules that allow you to more easily deal with the "swarms" of fighters that can occur in a large battle involving multiple WarShips, while ensuring they're not too over-powered, yet still powerful enough to put the scare into a WarShip not properly escorted and/or armed? And while we're at it, could we make the rules so that it would be relatively easy to combine and split squadrons with pre-existing damage without a host of random rolls and trying to figure out what "fighter squadron" damage is applied where and how to "standard fighters."

We may have topped a dozen iterations of various ways to handle it, each time taking a step in the right direction but often requiring us to rework significant sections. In fact, in the last set of small tweaks I handed over last week before it was uploaded for print, that section included two last niggles. Interestingly enough, it was this type of extensive playtesting and work that brought to light several other problems of fighter to Large Craft interaction that resulted in several brand new rules that I'll talk about in later blogs. Now, with all of that said...I believe we have achieved all the goals described above. Ultimately it'll be the community that bashes on this and decides if we managed it...but I'm confident of the rules set and its coming pounding. Here's a page from that section as a preview.

Okay, I think that about covers General Rules...obviously you can see from the TOC there's plenty more goodies in this section, but this, I hope, provides enough info for you to get excited about what's coming and realize that while Strategic Operations is obviously canted towards the aerospace aspects of the BattleTech universe, there's a host of applications directly into ground play.

Everyone (if you're celebrating) have a good Thanksgiving and see you next week!

Randall