The problem is, it never defines X%. X% of what? My number of units? Tonnage? BV? Do skills factor into it and if using any metric other than BV...how? What percentage of the OPFOR should be mechs, and what percentage should be other units? Other stuff I don't remember offhand?
Having run a
LOT of Chaos Campaign missions over the past few years, it is best to balance based on final Battle Value.
For the OpFor, they are usually spelled out along the line of:
The Force is equal to x% of the Players Deployed Force.
Example (
TOTAL CHAOS pg 168
Cloud of Despair):
Attacker
The Attacker consists of elements from the Word of Blake’s Forty-seventh Shadow Division and is 100% of the Defender’s deployed force. The Fort-seventh has Veteran skills and uses any Word of Blake or Shadow Division RAT.
Defender (Player)
The Defender consists of elements from the First Sword of Light, supported by the player’s force. The Sworders are 75% of
the player’s deployed force, have Veteran skills, and uses any Combine RAT. The player uses up to 50% of their total force.
So, using the above, let us assume the player(s) have two lances in their forces. The first thing to look at is, the Player uses 50% of their total forces. They can choose to take 50% of the Total BV (with skills calculated in), or bring 1 of the two lances. Doesn't matter much, but either way the player needs to calculate out their BV for their part of the Force.
let us assume for simple math, the players
deployed force is therefore 3000 BV.
The next step is the players are supporting a Force of Sword of Light that is 75% of their value. Therefore the Sworders have a BV of 3000 * 0.75 = or 2250. They are also Veteran Skill, so that needs to calculated into their BV. Be it a Single Assault mech, or a couple of mediums/lights, whatever. Again, we are just using example numbers here.
Finally we add these two BV together 2250 + 3000 to get a total of 5250. This is how much the Word of Blake forces has to work with, again accounting for the fact that the Word of Blake forces are all veteran Skill. As to what type of unit, both sides are free to bring whatever they wish.
Compare that with the following from
Gorst Marcsh in
TOTAL CHAOS page 204:
Attacker
The Attacker is a TerraSec guerilla force. They equal 75% of the Defender’s deployed force, use any Militia RAT, and have Regular skills. The Attacker’s force may only consist of ’Mechs, ground vehicles, and infantry. Deploy half of the force as Hidden Units (see p. 259, TW) anywhere on the battlefield. The remainder enters from the Attacker’s home edge at the beginning of the track.
Defender (Player)
The player may use up to 50% of their total force. For every combat unit deployed by the Defender, add two Iveco Burro trucks (see p. 24, TRVA). The Defender’s entire force begins the track on the edge opposite the Attacker’s home edge.
In this case the calculations are pretty much the same, but for the TerraSec forces, they cannot bring Aerospace, WiGe or VTOLs, and for the Player's the Trucks do not count for their forces BV.
And again, for a further example
Friend fo the Devil, page 218-219
TOTAL CHAOS:
Attacker (Player)
The Attacker may use up to 100% of the player’s total force. Additionally, add elements from the Stone’s Lament which equal 100% of the player’s deployed force, have Elite skills, and use any Inner Sphere RAT.
[cut portion dealing with setup etc]
Defender
The Defender consists of elements of the Word of Blake and TerraSec forces remaining on North America. The force equals 150% of the Attacker’s deployed force. At least half of the Defender’s forces have Veteran skills, 25% have Elite skills, and the remainder has Regular skills. They use a mix of any Word of Blake, Free Worlds League, Lyran, Mercenary, and Militia RATs.
The Defender adds one Omega Superheavy BattleMech (see p. 151, JFR) to their force for every eight units fielded by the Attacker (round down to a minimum of one). They may also add one Revenant Drone BattleMech (see p. 153, JFR) for every six units fielded by the Attacker (round down to a minimum of one). These units count towards the Defender’s total deployed force.
So, in this case, the player has their force (say both lance from the original example), with a total BV of 8000. They are aided by Stone's Lament which also totals 8000 for a total BV of 16,000.
The OpFor in this case is 150% of that, so the WoB forces have 24,000 BV, but from that the must account for the Omega's BV and the Revenant (if they chose to bring) from that 24,000 BV.
