Author Topic: Infantry Strike!  (Read 1769 times)

Dissolv

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Infantry Strike!
« on: 12 July 2022, 21:12:53 »
    This is a game of Infantry combat in the Battletech universe using Alpha Strike rules as the base. 

    The Alpha Strike rule mechanics work surprisingly well for this, and while we use 28mm figures, I would not change anything if you are using 15mm figures.  Everything is abstract anyway, so just keep with the 6"/24"/42" combat ranges.

    The core concepts are:
    1) Infantry don't get much in the way of TMM, so how they use cover is more important. 
    2) Infantry don't have ablative armor plating, so critical hits are used to simulate the "nasty, brutish, and short" nature of infantry combat.
    3) Each model has its own record sheet

    Core Concept #1:
    These are the new to-hit modifiers:

    Target: Elemental Jumping +1
    Target: Jump Infantry Jumping +2
    Elemental in Cover +1
    Infantry in Cover +2
    Defensive Infantry in Cover +3
    Self: Jumped this turn  +2 shooting/+4 melee
    Target is Defensive Infantry who did not move +1
    Target: Large Vehicle  -2[/li]


The "in cover" modifiers are not cumulative.  You only get one based on your troop characteristics.   Vehicles don't get any cover modifiers in this game system, as they are effectively in close assault with infantry.  We are gaming super close range combat here, and infantry has the upper hand at these ranges.  In cover modifiers also only count against shooting, not close assault (hand to hand).

You might notice right away that Defensive Infantry in cover is pretty much the only way to get infantry that is consistently hard to hit.  They are either +3 to hit when moving into cover, and also have their 1 TMM, or they are stationary and "dug in" for a total of +4 to hit.  These are intended to be the majority of trained infantry.  Infantry without this trait are militia, conscripts, or have an aggressive, attacking doctrine that teaches them to be on the move for one reason or another.  Solahma, Elementals, and Jump Infantry lack the Defensive trait, for instance.  Probably all power armor should, a consequence of being that extra large compared to a normal infantryman.


Core Concept #2

Critical hits are made much more common against the relatively unprotected infantryman.  While a mech has tons of ablative armor, most infantry isn't even fully armored!  So stuff happens.   The less protective gear that your infantry has, the more chance that they will be killed by a smaller amount of incoming fire. 

We use the pilot die system, and it is important to use here for the mechanics.  In this method of play you roll one die a different color than the rest, which is your "pilot die".  You also roll as many dice as you have attack dice.  So an LMG gunner with 3 damage value will roll 4 dice to hit, and one of them must be clearly understood to be the pilot die by the opponent.  (We tend to use the kickstarter dice for the pilot dice).  The pilot die is added to each attack die and the hit is determined for each.  For example if you needed an "8" to hit, and you rolled a pilot die of "3", and your attack dice are "1, 4, 6", then the 3+1 and 3+4 combinations are misses.  But the 3+6 is a hit, so your target takes 1 damage. 

Any time the pilot die and the attack die are DOUBLES, and the dice combination is a hit, then also score a critical hit.  (Can be multiple crits per attack, like if you roll four 6's)
Any melee attack hit from a Power armor unit also scores a critical hit (just one, even if does multiple points of damage)
Any SRM attack that hits will cause a critical hit on any infantry unit within 6 inches of the target model, even if it scores no damage (welcome to concussive blast effects!)
Any hit that is in "structure" will cause a critical, like normal
Infantry using improvised explosive devices against tanks or power armor will cause a critical hit to the target if they hit, and a critical hit to themselves, no matter what

Critical Chart:
Elemental/Power Armor    Jump Infantry/armored     Militia/no real attempt at protection
2        KIA                                  KIA                            KIA
3        Stunned                           KIA                            KIA
4        No effect                          Jump Pack Destroyed   KIA
5        Harjel breach                    Stunned                      Stunned
6        No effect                          No effect                     Stunned
7        No effect                          No effect                     No effect
8        No effect                          No effect                     Stunned
9        Harjel breach                    Stunned                      Stunned
10      Jump Pack Destroyed         Jump Pack Destroyed   KIA
11      Stunned                           KIA                             KIA
12      KIA                                  KIA                             KIA

Harjel breach = Something knocked loose on Power armor, +1 to all future critical rolls, including this turn.  Cumulative. 
Stunned = lose moving and shooting next turn.  No TMM
Jump Pack Destroyed = if you have one.  Otherwise the contents of your backpack are destroyed.  Likely only matters in a campaign situation.

SRM attack:  Resolve as a direct fire weapon.  Attack uses a single die + pilot die.  If it is a miss, nothing further happens.  If the target is hit, however, damage must be resolved. Vehicles take damage from direct hits only.  They take 1 point of damage to their Alpha Strike profile, and a roll is made on the Mobility crit table just like in Alpha Strike.  Infantry takes 2 potential damage if within 6 inches and not fully out of line of sight from the blast.  Roll a new pilot die and 2 attack dice against each infantry target.  Resolve any critical hits that may come up due to doubles AND every infantry that was a legitimate target for the blast (not out of line of sight) also takes a further critical hit for the concussive blast effect.

Melee attack:  Resolve as per normal Alpha Strike rules.  All infantry is size 1.  All mechs are size 4.  Vehicles cannot make melee attacks, just like Alpha Strike.
Elementals/Power Armor have 3 attack dice in melee
Infantry armed with Improvised Explosives may use them against mechs, tanks, and power armor, for a 2 dice attack, and will always generate a critical hit on themselves AND their target, in addition to other critical hits, or mobility crits, that may occur. 
Infantry roll 1 die for regular melee with their bayonet/kukri/rifle butt.


Core Concept #3

Unit stats.   I use the Master Unit List Custom Card Generator to make the stat sheets.
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Tools/CardGenerator

Weapon profiles are balanced around:
2 dice for a typical rifle.  Some weapons can reach to long range, some cannot, some have a reduced damage profile at long.
2/2/2 = battle rifle  OR small laser from a mech/tank
2/2/1 = fairly standard rifle profile
2/2/0 = short ranged weapon, carbine or high powered SMG.  I use this for the Jump Infantry profile mainly
3/2/1 = Very rapid firing close ranged weapon.  I use this for clan Solahma small arms
3/3/3 = SAW or LMG type weapon.  Also a ".30 cal" type vehicle mounted weapon
4/4/4 = A ".50 caliber" type weapon  Not man portable, although power armor might have this.  Yikes.
For vehicles I have gone as far up as 6/6/6 for a Rifleman C using LB 5-X ACs with Cluster munition.

Vehicle versus vehicle shooting is simply resolved as an Alpha Strike attack with modified range bands.  0-24" is short range, 24-42" range is medium range, and 42" and beyond is long range.  All normal Alpha Strike modifiers apply, including cover.  Retain the original TMMs from Alpha Strike, no matter the modified movement values for Infantry Strike rules.

Some examples are listed as attachments.   I gave LMG's and squad level Grenade launchers the option to use Suppressive fire.   This is a 2" diameter template from a chosen point within LoS.  Attack all models within that template with a 1 point attack, all models in that zone are also suffer a +2 to hit penalty when shooting next turn, and move at half speed next turn.

The Elementals are beasts.  Low skill, incredible armor, great movement, great anti personnel weaponry, anti-mech melee attacks (they cause a critical), and a rack of the deadly SRMs. 

Vehicles and mechs are actually super easy.  Use their Alpha Strike cards like normal, except reduce the movement by half.  If they shoot at infantry, you will need to use the Infantry Strike profile, but record the damage that they take like normal.  I commonly use off table objectives and opponents for the on-table vehicles.  Essentially they are fighting in a much larger battle, while also having to content with the up close and personal threats.  One game an Uller was off map maneuvering to get a shot an Urban mech, which kept trying to hide from the Uller's side of the table, while also drawing a bead on the incoming Elementals, yet not get scragged by getting hit by too many SRM's from the Elementals all at once.  This takes some creativity, but that sort of thing is far better than introducing mechs and vehicles and giving them nothing to contend with or do except what is on the table. 

Some photos of games we have run so far:

A hetzer hides from a Rifleman, and is covered by an SRM armed Infantryman.


A scorpion has no better luck than the Hetzer


Solahma overrun a FedCom position


The Fuzz roll out to defend their turf in the Clan Invasion era Battle of Waldorf.


An "Urban mech" is covered by close infantry support as it moves around it's natural habitat






« Last Edit: 13 July 2022, 06:08:17 by Dissolv »

CVB

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #1 on: 12 July 2022, 21:31:27 »
Tagged
"Wars result when one side either misjudges its chances or wishes to commit suicide; and not even Masada began as a suicide attempt. In general, both warring parties expect to win. In the event, they are wrong more than half the time."
- David Drake

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but I'm not willing to hang it by the neck until it's dead, dead, dead!

Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #2 on: 12 July 2022, 21:45:10 »
Doh.  I posed an older Elemental that still had the 2/2/2 attack profile.  It should be 3/3/3, or even 4/4/4 depending on the load out.  The 12mm MG is a different thing than the later Heavy Machine gun.

Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #3 on: 13 July 2022, 00:58:58 »
Edit: Thanks for the write up! End Edit

Was it intentional to keep the BM Type stats on the Card?

They don't seem to match the Criticals that are available.

For the example of the Elemental (with the updated shooting stats), if you change the TP to BA it gets something like the attached Result.

Edit: Thanks again for the write up!
« Last Edit: 13 July 2022, 01:25:33 by Charistoph »
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Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #4 on: 13 July 2022, 06:00:34 »
I would say that the BM value was more a case that I had to fill in *something* to be allowed to complete the card.  BA does make more sense for the Elemental, but as I don't really refer to that item in play, it just got filled in to allow me to move on.  :-[

The same goes for Role, which is basically a description with no impact on game play, and PV is not backed by a formula, or even any experience.  It is just a WAG that has had no further attempt to properly sort out.

I kept the skills within a tight range generally (3 for highly skilled, 4 for well trained, 5 for not-so-hot) for most games so far.  As the figure collection has grown, our games can now tolerate things like skill 2 Elementals much better, just because we have enough opposition models to put up a fight!  We don't have enough painted yet to really portray say, a Capellan wave attack with many skill 6 Militia types being pushed forward by their ruthless overlords.  You would need a ton of them to make up for their truly horrendous performance.

Experimenting with the weapon stats has shown that the values posted work best given that the Infantry are portrayed as quite fragile (2 armor 2 structure is a GOOD stat line).  So more powerful weapons are on a curve where they need to be REALLY more lethal to bump up an attack die in Infantry strike.  Even vehicle mounted weapons I generally run around 3/3/3 at most.  This is because the pilot die method increases both accuracy and lethality when you add another attack die.  A .50 cal may do a ton more damage than a .30 cal, but it shouldn't be more accurate at these ranges.  6 attack dice for the LB-X 5AC was a death sentence regardless of any game conditions for its target, which was more or less what I was going for, but that definitely is the maximum anti-infantry value that I would ever include.

Flamers should be murder as well.  We haven't run them yet, but I was going to give them a -2 bonus to hit, 3 dice damage, and also an automatic critical roll whenever damage is scored, which I think overall is actually just as lethal to anyone not in power armor, while allowing the power armor types to "soak" up the heat for a turn or two, unless the critical hits get them.

Vehicle MGs so far have been kept in check, generally capping at 3/3/3, and this has been a good thing for game play.  Otherwise the tanks simply magically spot and pick off every anti-tank weapon the board and then roam around freely.  For tanks with multiple MGs I just add an extra attack die, which again, is more lethal on a curve so it is important not to overdo it.  A buttoned up vehicle with a single MG is exactly as deadly as an LMG gunner currently, and that works very well.  I also give the buttoned up vehicles a 4 or 5 skill generally, but portray mechs with better skill values, thanks to their neuro helmeted synchronization with the mech, so 2 or 3 skill for quality pilots, and 4 for the low quality pilots.  This makes mech opponents immediately and noticeably more dangerous right out of the gate in the up close world of Infantry Strike. A good Locust pilot is a terror.  I portray tanks as disadvantaged at this combat distance versus infantry, while the mechs are advanced enough, and nimble enough to cope. 

Vehicles (and especially mechs) with powerful anti infantry capabilities need to be balanced out by opposing vehicles/off map gunnery in many cases.  Two Firestarters versus some dug in infantry in this system is indeed gaming out a war crime!  Vulcans also sudden start to look extremely appealing.
« Last Edit: 13 July 2022, 06:03:22 by Dissolv »

Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #5 on: 13 July 2022, 13:24:14 »
I would say that the BM value was more a case that I had to fill in *something* to be allowed to complete the card.  BA does make more sense for the Elemental, but as I don't really refer to that item in play, it just got filled in to allow me to move on.  :-[

Fair enough.  I was just making sure that there wasn't something I missed in your write up. 

For other's reference, CI is the one for Conventional Infantry.  It also removes the Crit results as well.

Still, I can see a reason to keep it to mark when a Jump Pack is damaged, HarJel breached, or the unit is stunned.

Vehicles (and especially mechs) with powerful anti infantry capabilities need to be balanced out by opposing vehicles/off map gunnery in many cases.  Two Firestarters versus some dug in infantry in this system is indeed gaming out a war crime!  Vulcans also sudden start to look extremely appealing.

I know you said that CVs and Mechs were just transferred over directly, but that seems to be a huge nerf.  If I bring on a Locust, it is basically as easy to kill as a regular CI, having 2 Armor and 2 Structure.  If they are brought in, they should be considered far tougher than an Elemental in most cases.

Also, there may be consideration for using things like a "MG #/#/#" or "FLAM #/#/#" rules for CVs and BMs to indicate when they have anti-infantry weaponry, then otherwise add a +2 or +4 for everything else they fire to indicate heavy weapons trying to hit individual Infantry.
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Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #6 on: 13 July 2022, 18:06:10 »
Quote
I know you said that CVs and Mechs were just transferred over directly, but that seems to be a huge nerf.  If I bring on a Locust, it is basically as easy to kill as a regular CI, having 2 Armor and 2 Structure.  If they are brought in, they should be considered far tougher than an Elemental in most cases.

Oh, maybe I need to make it explicit in the write up.  Infantry small arms cannot harm armor or mechs.

As it stands (until I figure out how to handle laser rifle volley fire), Infantry can only harm a mech -- in shooting --by firing an SRM to score a point of damage against the Locust.    Since Infantry cannot have both a rifle and an SRM launcher, there is a pretty severe tradeoff in a game about infantry.   Elementals generally have up to 4 SRMs, if they have not fired any before the fight started, so can score a total of 20 points of damage if they start with full ammo, and everyone hits.  That's a ton.  But most infantry have 1 AT weapon per section, or about 1 out of 5 infantry -- at least in the scenarios that I have run so far.  Battletroopers I have seen and there are some far out formations in there.  Even if you do have lots of ammo, there is always the temptation (or necessity) to cork off those SRMs against infantry targets. 

We have played with unlimited ammo and it works "okay", as the SRM troopers tend to picked on heavily, not just by the mechs, but also by the infantry supporting the mechs.  This is the problem with players having omni-vision, so a couple of rules are designed to keep mechs and vehicles from being too powerful.  These are mainly that they are easy to hit, and don't kick out massive amounts of damage all at once.  After all the time scale is more or less one turn in Alpha Strike, so you are basically playing out a close assault or an attack within 2" regular scale, in other words.  The time scale changes too, and it takes all game to get to the same result that you might do in a single dice throw in Alpha Strike.  Or so the idea goes. 

I have given the players limited ammo for their weapons, as these aren't normally forces that are meeting suddenly after fully equipping and marching through a field, but units that are engaged in combat for some significant length of time, and are well past exchanging fire at long range.  Basically, if you wind up in Infantry Strike you should have been firing your weapons before you got to this point!  So those Elementals with the 4 SRM racks?  Typically I give them -1d3 at the start of the scenario.  The footslogger who has been fighting for three weeks straight?  2 SRMs.  But his loader buddy has 2 more.  That kind of thing.   Since all infantry as AM attacks in Alpha Strike, they all have at least Improvised Explosives to try.   There are also some crew served weapons we have played around with.  Still testing.

There is a bit of an art of scenario balance doing this sort of thing, but it has all worked out pretty well so far.  The main thing is to keep vehicles rate of killing down, so that one Scorpion can't just clean up 20 infantry after the SRM Infantry all happen to catch a case of lead poisoning first, automatically destroying the tube and ammo because the model has been removed. 

I need to go back over this paint job, but here is a Kurita SRM team.  One man with the launcher, and the other guy schlepping the ammo.  Welcome to the Mobile Infantry!


Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #7 on: 14 July 2022, 13:26:28 »
Oh, maybe I need to make it explicit in the write up.  Infantry small arms cannot harm armor or mechs.

As it stands (until I figure out how to handle laser rifle volley fire), Infantry can only harm a mech -- in shooting --by firing an SRM to score a point of damage against the Locust.    Since Infantry cannot have both a rifle and an SRM launcher, there is a pretty severe tradeoff in a game about infantry.   Elementals generally have up to 4 SRMs, if they have not fired any before the fight started, so can score a total of 20 points of damage if they start with full ammo, and everyone hits.  That's a ton.  But most infantry have 1 AT weapon per section, or about 1 out of 5 infantry -- at least in the scenarios that I have run so far.  Battletroopers I have seen and there are some far out formations in there.  Even if you do have lots of ammo, there is always the temptation (or necessity) to cork off those SRMs against infantry targets. 

Think about that for a second, though, 1 Elemental would be able to take down a Locust by itself without relying on Crits (provided they all hit).

So off hand, either the SRM needs to be treated as either 0* for CV/Mech Damage, they need to see a proper multiplier in Armor and Structure, or not be processed in the game at all.  I don't like the last, and I think maybe the first is still too strong (though testing will bear that out better).
Are you a Wolf, a Sheep, or a Hound?
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Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #8 on: 14 July 2022, 18:19:45 »
Quote
Think about that for a second, though, 1 Elemental would be able to take down a Locust by itself without relying on Crits (provided they all hit).

So off hand, either the SRM needs to be treated as either 0* for CV/Mech Damage, they need to see a proper multiplier in Armor and Structure, or not be processed in the game at all.  I don't like the last, and I think maybe the first is still too strong (though testing will bear that out better).


I see what you are getting at here -- it doesn't seem to match up with the amount of damage that an SRM is defined as being able to do, especially thinking in CBT terms.  And we went down some these rabbit holes too...


Here is what has been learned by playing the game while hacking out the rules so far:

1) A straight up scaling of stats is disaster for the game.

For example-- our first run with a hovertank used the logic that infantry walk at 2" in Alpha Strike, and they walk at 6" in Infantry Strike.  So clearly we should triple the movement of vehicles by 2-3 times, right?  It. was. a. disaster.    We had a scimitar that didn't move.  It teleported.  Where ever it wanted to be, it just went there.  Because of the way that Alpha Strike turn order is done, it was trivial for it to minimize the amount of potential attacks against it, while lining up advantageous shots every turn.  It could even just drive by/through/over multiple infantry armed with AT weapons, let alone "Anti-Mech" close combat weaponry.   If you also allow leaving the board and re-entering on a later turn (a feature I am trying to implement), then any vehicle, no matter how slow, can never really be killed.  Many of them can never even be attacked!  So suddenly the infantry, which could engage the armor at off-map ranges (medium range in Alpha Strike), suddenly were massively disadvantaged at the ultra-close range combat where they should be kings.  Epic fail, and a low point in the design of this game variant. 

The solution was to assume that the vehicles were moving much more slowly specifically because of the presence of hostile infantry.  This put the onus on the friendly infantry to properly screen their armor, and made the game work again.  This is when I (belatedly) realized that we weren't just shrinking the ground scale, we were chopping up the time scale as well.  This was a major factor in me being okay with vehicles doing apparently low damage.  They do kill the whole platoon, it just takes them more than three turns to do so like in some rules sets.

2) I don't have a problem with an Elemental being a lethal threat at this range.  They are supposed to be extremely dangerous to mechs, but have you ever seen one catch a mech in Alpha Strike?  Okay, I have.  But normally they don't.  Because they can't.  They exert a serious danger zone that the mechs just don't enter, and only scenario based meta conditions consistently get them into actual Anti Mech range (2").  However Infantry Strike IS that exact combat range.  So why are the SRMs more deadly?  I have to assume that they are better directed at weak areas, such as the cockpit, joints, weapon ports, or other hard to armor areas, and this is what we are seeing with the "Anti Mech" ability, not just a literal planting of charges on a mech that runs along at 129.6 kph.  Infantry will never catch that thing, so what is the Anti-Mech ability?  It has to be more serious damage at the 2" and under combat range.

Now the final story on these rules hasn't been written.  But my early attempts were things like giving an Atlas 50 points of armor and the like -- you couldn't see the dots on the custom cards to fill them in!  Then I started scaling the vehicle cards to have more reasonable numbers, and assigning an AT value for weapons that matched.   Then I realized that I was just multiplying out the Alpha Strike card (more or less), and it would be simpler just to use an Alpha Strike stat line, declare mechs and tanks immune to regular small arms, and make every AT weapon do 1 point of damage.  This has actually worked rather well, to the point that we need something to show it can be better on the table.   

I do want lore friendly, but not at the cost of having to put a full platoon (28 soldiers!) on the table to equal half the fire power of a Locust.  Those rules are very armor-centric, and this is flipping the script.   The lore has this being exactly the wrong conditions for the mechs to be in against the infantry, and the game rules should reflect that in some way. Close combat capability in Infantry Strike just doesn't cut it, and since I don't want to add rules (overwatch, zones of control, and the like) to keep the game streamlined, allowing the AT weapons to be more effective "at this range" seems to work pretty well, and has the virtue of being the simplest option.  It also makes resolving mech on mech actions a snap.

3) It is supposed to be a game about Battletech infantry, where infantry and mechs are the guest stars for once.
This may sound "gamey", but it is the point of this game.  One way to make infantry more dangerous would be to make them more durable, but that works directly against the whole "fast and deadly" that we are looking for.   Otherwise we would do ASL as the base set of rules to modify.


Anyway, good thoughts.  Keep them coming, and by all means get a game or two in.  There is a lot we are still working on -- like how many laser hits should it take to score 1 point of Alpha Strike damage? But it's working out so far. :-)

Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #9 on: 14 July 2022, 18:43:57 »
1) A straight up scaling of stats is disaster for the game.

I had no complaints about the Movement factor.  In fact, I find it refreshing and rather agree with them.  Human beings are more mobile and capable of easily reacting than the machines they drive.  It's the firepower to survivability ratio I find disconcerting and off-center.

2) I don't have a problem with an Elemental being a lethal threat at this range.  They are supposed to be extremely dangerous to mechs, but have you ever seen one catch a mech in Alpha Strike?  Okay, I have.  But normally they don't.  Because they can't.  They exert a serious danger zone that the mechs just don't enter, and only scenario based meta conditions consistently get them into actual Anti Mech range (2").  However Infantry Strike IS that exact combat range.  So why are the SRMs more deadly?  I have to assume that they are better directed at weak areas, such as the cockpit, joints, weapon ports, or other hard to armor areas, and this is what we are seeing with the "Anti Mech" ability, not just a literal planting of charges on a mech that runs along at 129.6 kph.  Infantry will never catch that thing, so what is the Anti-Mech ability?  It has to be more serious damage at the 2" and under combat range.

I can understand that, but that's one of the reasons I suggested even having the SRMs be 0* to represent them hitting critical spots on the unit that, otherwise, their damage isn't going to really hurt.  It could be more like just scaring it off as those Critical Hits start to mount rather than a danger of the unit collapsing in on themselves.  Like the Armor and Structure is their "Forced Withdrawal" limit rather than their true structural capacity.

Elementals are beasts to ConvInf, but one on one, they really aren't a match against a Mech, or even many ComVecs.  That's why they operate as Squads, after all.

Now the final story on these rules hasn't been written.  But my early attempts were things like giving an Atlas 50 points of armor and the like -- you couldn't see the dots on the custom cards to fill them in!  Then I started scaling the vehicle cards to have more reasonable numbers, and assigning an AT value for weapons that matched.   Then I realized that I was just multiplying out the Alpha Strike card (more or less), and it would be simpler just to use an Alpha Strike stat line, declare mechs and tanks immune to regular small arms, and make every AT weapon do 1 point of damage.  This has actually worked rather well, to the point that we need something to show it can be better on the table.   

I do want lore friendly, but not at the cost of having to put a full platoon (28 soldiers!) on the table to equal half the fire power of a Locust.  Those rules are very armor-centric, and this is flipping the script.   The lore has this being exactly the wrong conditions for the mechs to be in against the infantry, and the game rules should reflect that in some way. Close combat capability in Infantry Strike just doesn't cut it, and since I don't want to add rules (overwatch, zones of control, and the like) to keep the game streamlined, allowing the AT weapons to be more effective "at this range" seems to work pretty well, and has the virtue of being the simplest option.  It also makes resolving mech on mech actions a snap.

Honestly, if someone is bringing an Atlas, it better be a story-mode and it should be devilishly hard for either to seriously damage each other in a quick manner.  The heaviest Mech one should see on the field and expecting to interact with the Troops regularly would be a Vulcan, and that would literally be the only thing the guy is bringing to the table.

3) It is supposed to be a game about Battletech infantry, where infantry and mechs are the guest stars for once.
This may sound "gamey", but it is the point of this game.  One way to make infantry more dangerous would be to make them more durable, but that works directly against the whole "fast and deadly" that we are looking for.   Otherwise we would do ASL as the base set of rules to modify.

Hey, I agree, I'm just noting a specific imbalance.  Mechs should be monsters, though, but if someone wants to bring one, that should be the only thing they bring, and it's going to be facing some severe handicaps unless it's brought dedicated firepower.

One thought is look up the rules for Monsters with Age of Sigmar Warcry.  That's what a Mech should be in Infantry Strike.  Tough as nails, but still limited in actions, and I would say even more limited in capacities.
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Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #10 on: 15 July 2022, 16:20:23 »
Quote
It's the firepower to survivability ratio I find disconcerting and off-center.

Maybe.  This is a deliberate design decision.  After all the idea is to be a game about infantry.  The introduction of tanks, and mechs I wasn't sure how it would go, honestly.

But.....



The Elemental versus the Banshee is the game that is being played, in concept.  The Banshee is a beast, certainly, vastly superior to the unit of Elementals.  However in this photo, the Elemental has just jumped into melee against an undamaged Assault mech, rolled its AM crit, and killed it.  Boom.  Just like that.  Lucky?  Absolutely.  But this is an expected potential outcome in Infantry Strike.

Using your earlier example:



versus:




In Alpha Strike, I would expect the Locust to zip around and take pot shots from 20" out, well out of close range, and basically trade point for point of damage.  In this case, assuming that there are no misses, Alpha Strike says that they mutually kill each other on turn 4. 

Again in Alpha Strike, if the combat starts at close range, and for some reason stays at close range (6 inches) then the Locust dies in 2 turns, leaving the Elementals with 2 points of Structure left.

If the combat takes place within 2", then the Locust is still decisively defeated in two turns, but the Elementals might also roll a critical hit that further disadvantages or even outright kills the Locust.   This is the expected scale of Infantry Strike.

So I see the Locust as a model that should be very concerned indeed in a game of Infantry Strike.  It is heavily disadvantaged in Alpha Strike, and my main concern has actually been to be careful not to give it advantages that it should not possess, especially at this ultra-zoomed scale.    Now a solid medium, like a Wolverine, or a Centurion, yes.  Those might....or might not....be something to look at for durability. 

For the one-on-one part, well sure, but how many Elementals of the 5 man point actually are involved in the fighting against said Locust?  Do they have to expend their SRM racks to get those types of kills at point blank range?  If the answer is "no, they are much more effective up close than at medium range", then no problems.  I do get that CBT has SRMs at 2 points all day, every day, but if you used CBT as the base set of rules for an infantry skirmish game, you would likely see a MUCH more pronounced mech-bias.   So my answer was that at extremely close range it doesn't take a full volley from all Elementals emptying their racks to take down a light mech.  At medium range (outside of Infantry Strike scale), it does. 

Once you move away from Elementals, and down to ordinary infantry, it becomes a question of how much infantry AT is really being represented?  Do all 28 squad members have an SRM Launcher?  How do they hump all that??  Or do we give 1 in 5 or so an AT weapon and spread some ammo around the rest of the section?   If we do the latter, how does that impact that model's ability to fight other infantry, and what stops the gamey situation of just picking on the limited number of AT weapons until the mech is free to just win the rest of the game every time?  Keeping the mechs fragile does work as a solution, and as I pointed out above, I expect a Locust to die against a unit of five Elementals in this game, just like in Alpha Strike.  How that is modeled does have implications on a lot of things!  In my case, I have opted for the "fragile armor" option, which lets me keep the AT figure count low, yet still keep the mechs and tank honest.   Hitting weak points more accurately and having more penetration at point blank range is a real world thing, so it hasn't bothered anyone playing the game so far.  But we have also only run a few mechs and tanks, and they have always had some other thing to worry about than the infantry (enemy armor, off board mechs taking PPC shots at them, victory conditions tied to how many hits can be rolled at off board mechs, etc.)

Right now a "normal" number of Defensive Infantry at 4 skill is just 10 models.  Add in a tank and that's the whole force.  Skill 5 Solahma can be double that, but that's still not a full platoon from Alpha Strike.  If you want to model 30+ infantry per side, you certainly can, but that's just being extremely literal in a way that doesn't really make the game any better.

The way that mech versus infantry combat has actually gone so far for us has been the mech gets into a series of duels against sections -- using terrain superior mobility to take on one at a time -- guns down the AT trooper, then cleans up or moves on.  After 2 or 3 such duels, the mech is basically in the clear to just mop up.  Even a five armor point mech or tank is extremely likely to kill every AT weapon on the board this way.   For this reason, the mechs are either lightweights (the Locust 1V would work fine), or they have bigger problems to worry about than the SRM armed troopers.  Even the way that we are portraying mechs as "weak" -- they are plenty strong in practice. 

Anyway, I would encourage you to play out a couple of games with any sort of modification you prefer.  We started with just infantry, and then scaled up.  This is for fun, after all.  You might prefer a "strong mech" Infantry skirmish game, but ours have not shaken out that way so far.

But excellent discussion, and I will think on your points.   



Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #11 on: 16 July 2022, 01:34:28 »
But.....

Using your earlier example:



versus:



In Alpha Strike, I would expect the Locust to zip around and take pot shots from 20" out, well out of close range, and basically trade point for point of damage.  In this case, assuming that there are no misses, Alpha Strike says that they mutually kill each other on turn 4. 

Again in Alpha Strike, if the combat starts at close range, and for some reason stays at close range (6 inches) then the Locust dies in 2 turns, leaving the Elementals with 2 points of Structure left.

If the combat takes place within 2", then the Locust is still decisively defeated in two turns, but the Elementals might also roll a critical hit that further disadvantages or even outright kills the Locust.   This is the expected scale of Infantry Strike.

So I see the Locust as a model that should be very concerned indeed in a game of Infantry Strike.  It is heavily disadvantaged in Alpha Strike, and my main concern has actually been to be careful not to give it advantages that it should not possess, especially at this ultra-zoomed scale.    Now a solid medium, like a Wolverine, or a Centurion, yes.  Those might....or might not....be something to look at for durability. 

For the one-on-one part, well sure, but how many Elementals of the 5 man point actually are involved in the fighting against said Locust?  Do they have to expend their SRM racks to get those types of kills at point blank range?  If the answer is "no, they are much more effective up close than at medium range", then no problems.  I do get that CBT has SRMs at 2 points all day, every day, but if you used CBT as the base set of rules for an infantry skirmish game, you would likely see a MUCH more pronounced mech-bias.   So my answer was that at extremely close range it doesn't take a full volley from all Elementals emptying their racks to take down a light mech.  At medium range (outside of Infantry Strike scale), it does.   
...
But excellent discussion, and I will think on your points.   

Unless you're playing with Multiple Attack Dice and doing Split Fire, I'm going to assume that the full squad is participating on a focused attack.

To put it simply, you're looking at each Elemental doing 0.2 Damage at Medium Range and 0.4 at Short Range.

I understand Crits can happen, which is why I suggested having that "Crit" mechanic utilize the 0* option to be that middle ground where you didn't have to rebuild the AS card's Armor and Structure.

I don't know when I'll get a chance to try it out, either way, any time soon.  I can bring it up to my group and see how much they'd like to look in to it.

Edit: Sometimes math is hard, depending on the time of day.
« Last Edit: 16 July 2022, 21:31:54 by Charistoph »
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Failure16

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #12 on: 16 July 2022, 13:27:55 »

Close combat capability in Infantry Strike just doesn't cut it, and since I don't want to add rules (overwatch, zones of control, and the like) to keep the game streamlined, allowing the AT weapons to be more effective "at this range" seems to work pretty well, and has the virtue of being the simplest option. 


I appreciate and approve of what you are trying to do here, but it might be in your best interest to search out a copy of the original BattleTroops and see how 'Mechs and AFVs were handled there.

My problem is that if you do not factor in overwatch, zones-of-control, or reaction fire to an infantry skirmish game, you are missing out on just about everything an infantry-based game should include.

Infantry doesn't act without overwatch; at least, no competent military has made a point of it in the last one hundred years. It also encompasses sectors of fire: troopers hunkered down behind their gunsights, waiting for an enemy to appear. This is how most people get killed by small arms in anything other than a room-clearing operation.

Zones of control is often a gaming-convention, but a useful one because it represents situational awareness and the distances within which a unit will be expected to react because it controls that area by observation and presence if not physical residence. This is vital for a game like this because it is precisely how the BattleMechs and AFVs will be at a disadvantage in the close-confines of the action being portrayed. Give the almighty BattleMechs a decent dead-zone where they cannot engage the infantry and you will see that they try to open the range to stay alive. Then give the infantry good mods based on range and cover and it becomes harder to hit them; people are Real Good at finding cover and concealment when someone is shooting at them, believe you me.

Reaction fire ties it all together. As mentioned before, people are quicker to react than any machine they control. A squad of troopers will be able to react more quickly than a BattleMech or a passing AFV in a knife-fight like this; this is borne out by the standard rules and the ability of a platoon to make an anti-'Mech attack. But this is how people get killed by small arms in the real-world, too. Imagine a squad runs across a linear danger area like a road. Some insurgent bastard steps out of a doorway and tries to shoot them down; luckily his marksmanship is crap, and he misses, but the squad fires him up on the run and down he goes. In a "regular" game, it might be that the squad is moving and cannot return fire; but it is even more likely that the insurgent never even gets the opportunity to fire because the squad would have made its way across the street in one bound anyway and the opportunity would have never arisen. Neither is palatable to me for a game such as this.

As a slight aside, if you incorporated all of the above, you could have tactical and operational movement for 'Mechs and AFVs: the ones where they can zip right through a battlefield but run the risk of Bad Things happening to them, and the ones where they stick around and go slow--just like real tanks on a real battlefield today--because they know they are in harm's way. Your battles are probably a couple-three hexes of a BattleTech map, and thus are portraying a conflict reminiscent of what SJG's Battlesuit is to Ogre/G.E.V.. It may be notable to note that that game didn't include cybertanks because they would have been murder on treads. But the original BattleTroops did it and such notable games such as StarGrunt and Fast-And-Dirty do too. And what is the BTU without 'Mechs? A million words of fiction that never would have been written.
Thought I might get a rocket ride when I was a child.          We are the wild youth,                                And through villages of ether
But it was a lie, that I told myself                                          Chasing visions of our futures.                   Oh, my crucifixion comes
When I needed something good.                                         One day we'll reveal the truth,                    Will you sing my hallelujah?
At 17, I had a better dream; now I'm 33, and it isn't me.      That one will die before he gets there.       Will you tell me when it's done?
But I'd think of something better if I could
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Dissolv

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #13 on: 16 July 2022, 17:42:03 »
Quote
Unless you're playing with Multiple Attack Dice and doing Split Fire, I'm going to assume that the full squad is participating on a focused attack.

To put it simply, you're looking at each Elemental doing 0.2 Damage at Medium Range and 0.25 at Short Range.

For the purposes of the discussion, I assume that you meant .4 damage at short range.  (2 damage / 5 Elementals = .4 each)  Also worth noting that going to 6 Elementals gets you 3 damage at short range, so they are on cusp of .5ish each)

The thing here is, you are assuming that all the squad has to focus fire every time to get its damage output.  I am assuming that they do not have to (and probably can't, under combat conditions).

The requirement for the squad to all focus fire to keep pace with its expected Alpha Strike damage output is a HUGE disadvantage when you scale down.  Instead of one relatively easy "to hit" roll, now you require each individual Elemental to have LoS and also successfully hit the Locust.  Given that the Locust is still a lot faster than the Elementals, and we expect other infantry on the field, this just isn't going to happen. We had a game (Waldorf PD. vs. Jade Falcons) where the Elementals struggled to get ONE shot on an Urbanmech.  Which missed.  So the actual damage output in play of the Elementals is dramatically lower, making the infantry paradoxically weak compared to how they behave in Alpha Strike.  I need them to output those 2 points of Alpha Strike damage as expected, in the same time it roughly takes the Locust to score the 2 points.  The way it currently plays out is that the Locust does 4 dice damage using its twin MG's, or quite a ton (TBD, but now would be the time) with its medium laser, and has to move around to limit the number of Elementals that can easily shoot at it, while picking on one until he goes down.  Rinse and repeat.     Based on Lore I would expect that the Toads require two hits from the medium laser to kill, on average.  No idea how many MG bursts.

Currently, as the rules are stated in the post above (which do need some missing bits added!), the Locust is disadvantaged in Infantry Strike, yes.  But not by so much that moving the SRM attacks to just 1/3rd of a point of damage would "balance" (which is what I think you mean by 0*).  In that scenario I can see the Locust, let alone a Centurion or such, just tanking the Elementals down, moving only to keep from being attacked in close combat or to avoid being truly brazen.  In short it would not fear them.


Hi Failure16!  Welcome to Infantry Strike.

Quote
My problem is that if you do not factor in overwatch, zones-of-control, or reaction fire to an infantry skirmish game, you are missing out on just about everything an infantry-based game should include.

That's.....kind of an opinion.  There are plenty of games, including super popular mass market ones that don't have rules for those things.   That doesn't mean that they aren't abstracted somewhere in there though.  I've talked a couple of times in this thread how the lack of these rules in Alpha Strike really colors how things wound up being designed for this mod.

However, if you prefer to model those sorts of things in your infantry games, Alpha Strike is just a terrible base game for it.  I can tell you with certainty....because we actually play this...that these rules produce fun, interesting games.  They are super abstract.  So is Alpha Strike.  But we have a game store that closes at 9pm sharp, and we have a very hard limit on how much time we have to play, which is a major reason why we play Alpha Strike instead of CBT in the first place. 

If I tried to introduce a complex infantry game in my club, it would never get played, just because we would never have time to finish a game!  So, yes, I see what you are saying, but it is a requirement for my club to finish even a the largest game in just 3 hours.  So far 5 Elementals, 10 Fed Com Infantry (plus 2 tanks), and 20 Solahma (plus mech) are the largest forces that we have run.  I am going to put 10 Elementals on the table the next time we run this, and we'll see how many infantry and/or mechs it takes to deal with them. 

The more we play the more we understand about how things "actually" work on the table top, and with luck, we'll have more 28mm mechs and tanks to play around with as people get to work painting  /stares at Kibitsu.

Since these are home brew rules, everything is up for review -- except I can't make it complex, and the closer I can stick with Alpha Strike as the core, the better off I am, since we've been playing that for years now. 
 

Failure16

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #14 on: 16 July 2022, 18:30:03 »
Of course it's an opinion. But that doesn't mean those games (what, Flames of War?) shouldn't have included them.

Having said that, this is your game. I'm glad it works, and I'm glad you and yours are having fun playing it.

But none of those three things I have mentioned would add considerably to a game because they would be part of the fabric of the system:

OVERWATCH: An Element may enter Overwatch by being designated as such by the controlling player. This nomination may be made at the conclusion of their movement (in which case they can only participate in Reaction Fire [see below] or at the beginning of the turn if they decide not to move. Their sector of observation and fire is a 180-degree cone to their nominal front. OPTIONAL RULE: Units on Overwatch for longer than 1 full turn may gain a -#THM bonus to represent their waiting at the ready for a target to appear.

ZONE-OF-CONTROL: All Infantry Elements have a ZOC equal to (whatever you deem reasonable). Any opposing Elements that enter this ZOC can be subject to immediate Reaction Fire (see below) if the controlling player desires. BattleMech and Vehicular Elements have a ZOC equal to (whatever you deem reasonable); however, in this case this is an area to which they cannot adequately respond because of their inherent dead-spaces. Only physical attacks may be conducted within a 'Mech or Vehicular Element's ZOC, and these are at a +#THM.

REACTION FIRE: Any unit that is attacked and has fired during their portion of the turn may immediately return fire on the unit attacking them at a +#THM penalty. Any Element that is in Overwatch status may use reaction Fire to attack any opposing Element at any point in the turn if they enter their sector of fire. This type of fire may only be used twice in a Turn: once during their own Movement Phase that is not taken, and once during their own Firing Phase.


That is just off-the-cuff stuff right there, but none of that will slow down the game (it may speed it up because of the increased lethality or slow it down because the players are forced to act more tactically, but that is not a detriment to me). But it will make it feel like an infantry game and not little 'Mechs on two legs. This is in no way meant to besmirch your hard work and fun times had so far. But it is a constructive criticism based on a certain amount of experience.

Cheers. I'll leave it alone after this.
Thought I might get a rocket ride when I was a child.          We are the wild youth,                                And through villages of ether
But it was a lie, that I told myself                                          Chasing visions of our futures.                   Oh, my crucifixion comes
When I needed something good.                                         One day we'll reveal the truth,                    Will you sing my hallelujah?
At 17, I had a better dream; now I'm 33, and it isn't me.      That one will die before he gets there.       Will you tell me when it's done?
But I'd think of something better if I could
                           --E. Tonra                                                      --C. Love
--A. Duritz

Charistoph

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Re: Infantry Strike!
« Reply #15 on: 16 July 2022, 22:59:38 »
For the purposes of the discussion, I assume that you meant .4 damage at short range.  (2 damage / 5 Elementals = .4 each)  Also worth noting that going to 6 Elementals gets you 3 damage at short range, so they are on cusp of .5ish each)

Doh.  Fixed. 

Still, Medium-ranged fire with MG/SL/FL/MiL Elementals is with its SRMs.  Only the AP Gauss Elementals do more damage in Medium Range, and AP Gauss range is pretty close to Clan SRM range.

Since my point was about SRMs, being the primary Anti-BM/CV weapon, I was focusing on that.  When you get in to Short Range, there is something other than SRMs will be employed.

Also remember that a lot of Alpha Strike damage is VERY abstracted.  Such things as weapons that use the Cluster Chart aren't considered doing their best damage, just like Aerotech.  That not all of them hit is taken in to account in the final number.

The thing here is, you are assuming that all the squad has to focus fire every time to get its damage output.  I am assuming that they do not have to (and probably can't, under combat conditions).

It would be accurate to assume such since BA Squads cannot split up in Alpha Strike like Protomechs do.  Even then, they can only split fire when they have more than one Attack.

The requirement for the squad to all focus fire to keep pace with its expected Alpha Strike damage output is a HUGE disadvantage when you scale down.  Instead of one relatively easy "to hit" roll, now you require each individual Elemental to have LoS and also successfully hit the Locust.  Given that the Locust is still a lot faster than the Elementals, and we expect other infantry on the field, this just isn't going to happen. We had a game (Waldorf PD. vs. Jade Falcons) where the Elementals struggled to get ONE shot on an Urbanmech.  Which missed.  So the actual damage output in play of the Elementals is dramatically lower, making the infantry paradoxically weak compared to how they behave in Alpha Strike.  I need them to output those 2 points of Alpha Strike damage as expected, in the same time it roughly takes the Locust to score the 2 points.  The way it currently plays out is that the Locust does 4 dice damage using its twin MG's, or quite a ton (TBD, but now would be the time) with its medium laser, and has to move around to limit the number of Elementals that can easily shoot at it, while picking on one until he goes down.  Rinse and repeat.     Based on Lore I would expect that the Toads require two hits from the medium laser to kill, on average.  No idea how many MG bursts.

MG Bursts would be about 6 (3 with 2 MGs, obviously), and the Medium Laser alone would be 3 (The Armor's gone in two, but the BA doesn't become combat inefective till the last point is gone).  Armor is 10 then the Pilot himself, so 11 total damage.  Medium Lasers do 5 damage to them, and Machine Guns (with normal rules) do 2.  That's PER Elemental, so there's usually 4 more of them to kill.  Quite often the damage from a base Locust would be mixed around so that killing one alone quickly will be a problem.

Currently, as the rules are stated in the post above (which do need some missing bits added!), the Locust is disadvantaged in Infantry Strike, yes.  But not by so much that moving the SRM attacks to just 1/3rd of a point of damage would "balance" (which is what I think you mean by 0*).  In that scenario I can see the Locust, let alone a Centurion or such, just tanking the Elementals down, moving only to keep from being attacked in close combat or to avoid being truly brazen.  In short it would not fear them.

1/2 chance of causing 1 point of damage (it's a 4+) for a 0* attack.

And why should the Locust fear a single BA that's far away?  That's why they run in squads.  Where the terror lies is when they get close so they can do Anti-Mech Mech attacks with their SL/MG/Flamer.  Yeah, a BM (or even most CVs) will be pretty tanky when compared to a BA.  It's not like a 2-ton Max BA is supposed to be tromping around with more armor than a Locust which carries more armor than the BA even weighs.  Even a Stinger carries 3 times the Armor than an Elemental weighs in as.  That's like saying a Sherman tank is tankier than a Jeep or an Infantryman.  That's the point of them!

But also, keep in mind what I said earlier, if you're going to be bringing in something so heavy, it should probably be the only thing you're bringing in, like when doing Monster Fights in Warcry.  A whole bunch of smaller dudes fighting against a huge beast. 

Situations where a Mech or CV isn't carrying Anti-Infantry weapons like a MG or Flamer, their attacks should be, AT BEST, be 1/1/1 (assuming more +To-Hits are added), and 0*/0*/0* at worst.  Conversely, there could be a special rule that is like "AMECH 2/3/1" which reflects weaponry that would target a Mech or CV effectively.  While the Locust would probably normally be 6/6/6 (2 Machine Guns) in this game, but then have a Special Rule of "AMECH 2/2/1" to reflect it's Medium Laser and Machine Guns targeting another Mech or Vehicle.

Of course, it should be just a position that the only Vehicles on the board are either for Motorized and Mechanized Infantry in the initial rules, at most.  And work on Combat Vehicles, ProtoMechs, and BattleMechs later when the Conventional Infantry and Battle Armor rules are down pretty effectively.
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