A swing at infantry house rules and an invitation for suggestions on same

[beachhead1985]

Before I begin; I'm not sure why I'm doing this. Clearing an old project off my backlog, I suppose?

True; I was vaugely-okay with how infantry were handled prior to the Total Warfare-series books, in that while they were incredibly abstract, they were sort-of the okayest option compared to not using infantry. I don't recall seeing any construction rules for infantry from before The TW books, either. You just kinda...got the occasional new platoon type...I dunno, maybe I'm wrong?

Anyways; sure, I'm doing this, so it goes without saying that I don't like the current system...it's overly complex, but offers nothing over the abstract platoons and it has that funny thing where the same weapon works differently on battle armour than it does for infantry. I haven't read Ghosts of Oberdee, either, but you can't help be aware of it if you crack the rules.

I think there is also something about multiplying base damage for crew? I have no idea. It's just a mess. So if it's already a mess, may as well make my own mess, I suppose.

But, I also never play anymore. Anything. I got tired of losing, really. Wargames, RPGs, anything. Dice hate me. So I don't think I'll ever actually *play* a game of battletech...or anything else again, ever. I'm just tired of it. So in terms of these rules mattering, even to me? Meh. I guess I just like some consistancy in how I enjoy the game in writing about my own little AU and doing other things. Maybe someday I'll advance my idea of Battletech, without die rolls, where you just compare numbers, but probably not. I don't think I'd enjoy that either.

Anyway; that's my intro done, here is what I've come up with.

***

“Infantry” units in battletech* are those formed of simple and not-so-simple people; soft, squishy human beings and their non-human (animal and robotic) allies.
 
Other units; Mechs, tanks, ect., might call them “Crunchies”, “Legs”, “PBIs” or any of a dozen other derisive names. But they have their uses.
 
“Infantry” units encompass many different types of soldiers, specialists and irregulars; not just real or “true” infantry.

The main advantages of Infantry units are:
-Low cost, relative to other unit types in most respects (but not food, housing or medical expenses)
-flexibility, and;
-“trickiness”, compared to the direct nature of most other unit types

The first thing to decide is what your infantry unit will be for; what their mission or purpose will be.

***

After that comes the size or the unit.
 
In BattleTech*, the basic unit size for infantry is called a “Platoon” at this stage for simplicity’s sake, but you can give yours whatever name you like. For our purposes; a platoon is made up of squads, sections or some other kind of sub-unit and the platoon itself forms a sub-unit of the company. The platoon is the rough equivalent in organization and military responsibility to a lance of tanks, mechs or aerofighters.
 
How big your “Platoon” is, is up to you, but above a certain size; you’ll probably find you may as well call it a “Company” instead and break it down into other platoons. In Canon, the Marians have the largest “Platoons” in their infantry centuries of up to 100 troops in ten squads of ten. But this plays in two “sub-platoons” of 50. You might also think of any group of 2 or more squads or sections (or “Contubernia”, in this case) as a platoon.
 

[beachhead1985]

Your unit can be any size, but will be played as separate units of 50 or less. These sub-platoons should be as close to the same size as possible for ease of play, but need not be if you so insist.
 
   Once you have this basic number, determine how many, if any “sub-platoons” you will need. This determines your “frontage”, or the number of hexes your platoon occupies or controls when arrayed in battle. An infantry platoon or sub-platoon may choose or not choose to allow another unit to share the same hex with them, so long as they are at least 20 in number. They can even attempt to over-run other units, including other infantry units in close-quarter combat and force them out of a given hex, if they are capable of movement.

***

This is all for right now, but if you have any feedback, let me know.

I'm experimenting with the visual aids and perhaps some others will get something out of the layouts of the various infantry units common to the game.

Additionally...yeah...I use or used to use, or rather; "headcanon" a 100m hex. I found that it really fixed a lot of my personal agony over ranges in BT. I used the same thing with my big artillery article for Der Tag, but I find that it also really shines with the infantry stuff.

My turns don't have a value in second attached to them either, but 30m was already too far to move an infantry unit every 6-10 seconds anyways, so no biggee there for me.

More next time and bye for now.

[Failure16]

If you are going to redo the infantry rules, make the squad the basic element, with the ability to stack four in a hex as desired.

Give them the standard +2THM and keep the movement rules as-is with the original Foot, Jump, Motorized modes (eradicating Mechanized, natch). Give infantry a threshold mechanic like the new Battlefield Support rules, with preference given to AP weapons as they presently exist. Allow them to Take Cover vice movement for a turn for an additional +1 or 2 THM. And Dig-in for an additional+1THM/6 Turns. Keep the infantry-in-the-open damage penalty with allowances for the new thresholding paradigm.

Boil down the basic weaponry to a set number with slight modifiers departing from the baseline Ballistic Rifle:  SMG (which now will encompass your short-ranged weaponry), Laser Rifle, Gyrojet, etc. Add in a Support Weapon (limited to a light machine gun or squad automatic weapon here) which will have an anti-armor and anti-personnel value, with an additional modifier for underbarrel-grenade launchers, etc. These are your Rifle Squads. The range of a pure Rifle Team will be the range of the Rifle; the inclusion of a SW will give the RT a range of the Rifle and SW divided by two.

Heavy Weapons Teams will get the heavier, crew-served weapons that have a BattleTech stat-line, as they did in the original TRO 3026 (and still do, I imagine, in TW or wherever infantry is covered in its basic form). If desired, give them a +3THM because they are only 2-3 personnel. They move as a Rifle Team for game purposes, and function as a mobile BT weapon. If you want to keep extra rules to a minimum, just treat them like a Called Shot.

Special Teams will be medics, platoon headquarters, FOs, etc. You want your infantry to do things like call for fire, they need a ST/HQ. You want them to spot for SG LRMs or Arrow IV, bring an ST/FO. Want to have a chance to resurrect a "destroyed" team, get a ST/Medic to them and roll a 10+ on 2D6--or double their chances in a campaign of returning to duty post-game. Want to pick your way through a minefield, bring an ST/CE.

Use boarding rules for CQB. Maybe keep the Anti-'Mech rules as-is without the penalty since we have shifted the numbers-paradigm (i.e. keep the as-is platoon numbers for the now-squad) but leave it there since we are no longer tracking individual infantrymen.

As an optional rule, have an infantry-element that has taken fire (sustained even a non-damaging attack) in the previous turn be unable to move without a roll from a ST/HQ.

[AlphaMirage]

My proposal would be similar to failures' with slight differences. I'm going to use TacOps to the fullest

Always Option
A 'Hustle' or double move option will be available to all 'un-encumbered' (that is without Heavy Armor or a pair of heavy weapons) foot/motorized troops at the cost of their attack for the turn.

Main Focus
Heavy Weapon Teams are the name of the game on the battlefield. Standard and TacOps rules apply for squad deployment (from 5-10 Troopers) with appropriate modifiers for digging in, heavy armor (which halves damage but eliminates the 'hustle' double move option and imposes penalties on climbing/swarm attacks), and being a small target.

For the Support Weapons. If you have 1 your squad (Medium Infantry) can move and shoot. If you have 2 (Heavy Infantry) you must choose one and maintain enough crew for those heavy weapons or be dropped down to Medium Infantry. Infantry Missile Launchers may select ANY LRM, Mech Mortar (yes I am boosting the Heavy Mortar to a MM/1 equivalent), or SRM ammo type but need to mark it (like Bombs).

There is also an option for a support weapon free ('Light Infantry') squad equipped with rifles. These Light Infantry can choose either a pair of grenades (choose types, similar effect to VGL), or an OS Weapon [Dragonsbane analog (DCL or Disposable Chemical Laser), MANPADS, and LAW-equivalent.] You get one (DCL/LAW/MANPADS), or two (Grenade) salvos (choose and roll on Clusters) then you're out. This keeps them pretty balanced with enough firepower to hurt a heavy adversary (or Mechanized Team) but not enough to probably overwhelm it.


Motorized Troops move slightly faster than foot troops, can go into and through buildings, cannot swarm (unless they dismount) but follow other foot trooper rules.


Mechanized Troops can move and shoot all the time (even with two support weapons), move faster than motorized. They do not gain a benefit from heavy armor because they take damage like vehicles and thus immune to AP fire but cannot swarm or go into buildings (unless they dismount).

Additionally Mech-Inf may sacrifice their support weaponry to instead represent Field Guns or MLRS. All of these types suffer a half-speed mobility penalty, are limited to 1 ton/squaddie and only have a half ton of ammo. Hovers max out at 5 squaddies so they are limited to 5 tons. Setting up these weapons requires a turn without a move during which and while in operation they are regarded as immobile targets, without infantry mods. Since squads top out at 10 this would limit them to the AC/5s variants or nothing larger than an MRM-30 (which would be terrifying) while Hovers can deploy LRM-10s.


Jump Infantry cannot use heavy armor and may only use AP grade weapons and disposables, but can jump, go through and into buildings, and get a bonus to swarm.


Everyone beside the Weapon Operator (Typically the Squad Leader) is also an ammo carrier/rifleman with basic weapons that have AP stat-lines and rules. Each trooper carries 2 reloads for the squad's support weapon type, or a disposable weapon/pair of grenades.

This would add a lot more options to the infantry squads as everything has some kind of trade-off which makes them dynamic enough to pose a threat but eliminates a lot of the weird fractional accounting and rounding in Tech Manual built troops. It also gives each infantry 'type' a distinct identity and role to perform on the battlefield.

[Daryk]

One tweak (to start) F16: five squads, not four can be stacked in a hex.  You'd break some ComStar and all clanner units if you limited it to four.

[AlphaMirage]

We could just abstract that away with <=10 man squads. 36 and 25 can be included in 4x10.

[DevianID]

I am a huge fan of the battle droids infantry squad as the basic element.  This meshes with squads of battlearmor being the basic element.  For motorized, they have a jeep squad, which works very well as any number of barely armored vees infantry fight in at the expense of entering dense terrain.  They are squads with either a MGUN or SRM2, get a +2 bonus to avoid being hit (+1 for jeep), but any hit to the squad takes them out of the fight (5 damage needed for jeep).  No need for any record keeping or anything, you either hit the squad weapon, wounded enough of them, broke their morale, or killed them all.  Advanced rules for 'destroyed/injured versus dead', just like normal, would apply for campaign purposes. 

One big thing is that infantry use mech weapons, not odd abstract weapons.  ATOW does a terrible job converting damage from infantry scale to mech scale... the explosives and to a lesser extent burst fire are just ridiculously damaging in a BAR versus AP system, as raw damage trumps armor.  Like a rapid fire gun, 1 bullet is completely stopped, but 10 bullets hitting (MOS is high), and you can punch right through the most powerful armor in the game.

The other really good way to do infantry is to ignore all infantry combat/construction rules, and just build them exactly like battle armor.  Except each point of armor is a soldier.  This works really well, as you roll randomly to hit which squad, and damage doesnt carry over from 1 squad to another.  Infantry platoons used in this way also scale well, as you can more easily get 36 total bubble platoons (comstar) or 100 bubble platoons, all by emulating battle armor, all the way down to 5 man PA(L) equivalent troops.  This does mean infantry are 'just' battle armor with a very high body count/attrition, but isnt that supposed to be the case?  The battle armor rules are pretty solid and fair for most gameplay purposes too, so if you dont want the really stripped down Battledroids style abstract infantry, the battle armor rules are a good bet to make functional combat infantry that works in battletech scale.

[Daryk]

The AToW Companion formula does a better job of abstracting burst fire, in my opinion.

[beachhead1985]

This can be approached in one of two ways; you can lay out the number of troops and attachments first, or you can decide on the physical space and mass this unit will take up when transported and work backwards from there.
 
   Either way; you need to know the basic transport mass for moving this unit for short distances and periods of time (transporting over long distances, requiring living quarters will be handled later), and you need to know your infantry unit’s “frontage”, or how many hexes it will control.
 
Find this worked out here, with the fractions for single soldiers easy enough to work out.
 
Up to 10 Troops/Ton as foot infantry
7/Ton for Jump
3/Ton for generalized Motorized
1/ton for Mechanized

General Information
 
Infantry units may be formatted on the map “Concentrated” with up to 50 members in a single hex, or as few as seven troops “Dispersed” across multiple, adjoining hexes. Dispersed units gain an additional +1 to be hit by hostiles (increasing to +2, if fewer than 5 soldiers in a hex and +3 if a single soldier), but below 20 troops in a hex, cannot exercise control over it in terms of sharing it with hostile units; those units can simply move through the hex as per normal, or attempt to, if an infantry unit-type.
 
Members of a unit may additionally be detached and moved separately from the rest of the unit as a sub-unit, but when this is done; their effective infantry skill is one less than it should be. They are also more vulnerable and much weaker, because there are fewer of them. Detached units gain the same additional +1 to-hit penalty as if they were dispersed.
 
A detached sub-unit may be attached to another unit and when this is done, they adopt the infantry skill of the gaining unit and act as a part of that unit unless/until detached again.
 
Units, which, though casualties drop below seven soldiers in a hex, take a +1 penalty to their infantry skill, as if they had been detached, because they are too dispersed to support each other effectively. Just as if they had been detached. Staying above seven models spread across a 100m-wide hex prevents this.
 
Units detached or through casualties, which are below three troops in a hex lose half their infantry skill, unless they are a special type, like Snipers; who are trained to operate in small units or alone.
 
Infantry units use their normal movement profile to concentrate, disperse or attach, as needed. A unit gaining a detached sub-unit can only move so far in their movement as their attachment has left in movement points, without them becoming detached again.
 
Units of different movement types may join each other and act as one, but they move at the rate of their slowest members and do not spread any special abilities to the gaining unit. But the attachments may still act independently within the gaining unit as they could previously. A detachment jump troop unit can jump to the top of a building, while their gaining unit occupies it, or clears it from the bottom-up, for instance. Or a medic could treat casualties, or a Mechanized attachment would still benefit from the protection and firepower of their vehicle(s), ect.
 
The Infantry Skill of a unit is determined by averaging the unmodified skills of the two components by the number of total soldiers in the force and rounding as appropriate.
 
Infantry, including their heavy and support weapons have no “Facing” as other types of units do.
Infantry units may freely engage as many targets as they have without additional penalty for additional attacks, so long as they have 1-point groups of damage to potentially allocate, with support weapons allocated separately.
 
Damage from Infantry units is allocated separately for support weapons; by the weapon, in other words, but all other damage is allocated in 1, 2 or 5-pt groups as appropriate and agreed upon by the players. But hits are rolled for 1 point of damage at a time. The flexibility in allocation is an aide to speed of play, but a major advantage of infantry is their individual marksmanship, modeled by dispersed hit allocation. So, hits are rolled one point at a time, but locations allocated in groups of 1,2 or 5 points as agreed upon by the players to speed play.

[beachhead1985]

Basic Infantry Abilities:

May move and shoot or attempt an anti-mech attack/swarm every turn.
 
Basic foot movement is 1 hex/turn

[beachhead1985]

Infantry are hard to hit:
 
An individual +2 roll is made to hit each soldier you then wound/kill (does not apply to anti-infantry weapons or area of effect weapons)
 
This increases to +3 if they are moving on foot (+1 w. anti-infantry weapon special ability). +4 if conducting an anti-mech attack/swarm on you, or +3 if swarming/making an anti-mech attack on another unit (no help from anti-infantry special ability here). In the latter case, missed attacks strike the other unit. Blast/burst attacks (AC, MG, Flamers, Missiles, ect) affect both if either target is hit.

Infantry are more difficult to detect:+2 to your basic sensor rolls for foot infantry or jump infantry moving on foot, increasing to +3 while stationary. +1 for Motorized troops while static.

Mechanized, Motorized, Jump and other special types of infantry have other special rules, discussed below.

[beachhead1985]

Infantry have their own “Infantry Skill” used for all rolls, unless otherwise stated.

Infantry are particularly vulnerable to “Splash Damage” weapons. These do not have to detect them to hit them, they skip the roll to-hit and go directly to rolling to hit individual soldiers.
 
Range and attacks are calculated based on the hex from which the attack comes. As a single infantry unit can occupy multiple contiguous or non-contiguous hexes, this provides various options, but does mean that only weapons located with their operators in a given hex can make an attack, forcing the user to recalculate attack values based on the soldiers in a given hex. You can place all your support weapons in a given hex or decide where a given weapon is located in the platoon, but these will then be uniquely vulnerable to attack and damage from where they are located.
 
Normally, it is assumed that support weapons are distributed appropriately with their squads through the hexes they occupy. When a detached squad, or all the troops in a given hex are wiped out, unless the rest of the unit moves into that hex, their weapons; particularly the support weapons are considered lost with their users.

***

Encumbrance
 
Infantry are considered encumbered, when their unit has weapons, equipment or conditions, which reduce their mobility or tactical options.
 
An Encumbered unit can either move or shoot if they are foot infantry and cannot perform Anti-Mech/Swarm attacks
 
Very Encumbered units can only move every-other turn, at most and cannot perform swarm or anti-mech attacks.
 
If one member of a unit is encumbered, then they all are, unless those members that are encumbered are detached, allowed to straggle behind, in other words and keep up as best they can.

***

Infantry Long Arms
 
The basic weapon of an infantry unit are it’s Long Arms: ranged, non-support weapons, for our purposes like rifles, sub-machineguns and shotguns.
 
Long Arm attacks are determined not by whether they hit or miss, but by whether the fire is effective or not.
 
If you want to, you can give each and every member of the unit a different type of Long Arm weapon.
 
They will be grouped for game purposes into attacks based on their range brackets and special abilities.
 
After we’ve determined all the effective/ineffective fire, then we add the damage up and round it. It is then distributed in 1pt groups on the target. Long Arm damage is often highly fractional until it is rounded. You cannot save rounded-off damage to apply on subsequent attacks or at a later time. This works for allocating damage in point-groups.
 
Long Arm attacks are broken down, for simplicity into range/damage groups of like-range and effects.
 
Long Arm ammunition is not normally tracked.

***

Sidearms
 
Infantry may likewise be equipped with sidearms.
 
These are shooting weapons, only able to engage adjacent targets or targets in the same hex. They may be employed twice a turn; in the shooting phase and the close-quarter battle phase.
 
Some soldiers might only have a sidearm, if you so wish. Sidearms can be fired on the move, in confined spaces and at close quarters.
 
Only effective and significant sidearms need to be mentioned. Given the chance, all soldiers will generally choose to pack some kind of backup pistol or similar weapon. Sidearm ammo is not tracked.
Sidearms are grouped for damage purposes much like Long Arms.
 
Troops with both a sidearm and another weapon may choose to attack with the sidearm in the close-quarter battle phase.

***

Support Weapons
 
Support weapons are those designed to support the efforts of the unit in battle. They often form the bulk of the unit’s firepower and may be fired in the same turn a unit moves.
 
There is no real limit besides cost for the number of support weapons a unit may have. However; members of the unit equipped with support weapons may not conduct anti-mech or swarm attacks.
 
Note that as a practical matter; some Long Arm weapons act as support weapons within the unit, in a tactical sense, while not meeting the standard for a support weapon in game-terms.
 
Many support weapons are “Crew-Served” meaning they require a primary operator and a given number of assistants assigned to function. The crew may have other weapons that are not crew-served. No member of an infantry unit may serve simultaneously on two or more weapon crews, but they may conduct anti-mech and swarm attacks, so long as they are not the primary weapons/equipment operator. Support weapons can be operated without enough crew, but when they are; they cannot be moved and fired every turn. This can be alleviated by simply assigning another crew-member from the same or an attached unit.

Some support weapons are encumbering; these cannot be fired on a turn the unit moved. Support weapons crews can employ their other weapons within limitations. They can all use their sidearms in CQB, but the gunner may not use a long arm on any turn they fire the support weapon. This does mean they can use their long arms on turns they move, but can’t fire the support weapon when that weapon is encumbering.
 
Support weapon ammo is not normally tracked and they may or may not be tracked for range and damage purposes like Long Arm weapons are, handled on a case-by-case basis.

***

Heavy Weapons
 
Heavy Weapons form the bulk of most professional infantry unit’s hitting power. Their static nature when firing makes them more difficult to employ, tactically than most other types of weapons.
Heavy weapons cannot be moved and fired in the same turn. Members of heavy weapons crews equipped with weapons other than side-arms automatically count as encumbered.
 
Members of heavy weapons crews (all of them), may conduct anti-mech and swarm attacks, but not in the same turn the weapon is used. Losing Heavy Weapons crew-members is rough. If additional crew cannot be found and re-assigned as with a support weapon, then the heavy weapon cannot be moved and will be lost or abandoned, if the unit needs to move.
 
As a static piece, heavy weapons can be operated by single crew, but at a penalty to the unit infantry skill equal to the number of crew-members they are short, or who have been lost in action.
 
Heavy weapons ammo may be tracked in some circumstances, but it is an exception.
 
The heavy weapons in a given unit are normally handled as separate attacks for each weapon.
 
The rules for long arms and sidearms in a heavy weapons crew are the same as for support weapons.

***

Auxiliary Weapons
 
Some weapons incorporate a secondary weapon, usually of a different kind. Members of the unit so equipped can use both in a turn, but heavy and support weapons so equipped do not gain the game-advantages of being able to conduct anti-mech or swarm attacks.
 
Auxiliary weapon ammunition is not normally tracked, but they are tracked for range and damage, otherwise as Long Arm.

***

Grenades
 
Units equipped with grenades may use them if they are adjacent or share space with an enemy unit or objective they wish to attack. They may do this offensively or defensively in addition to attacks which are not anti-mech or swarm attacks.
 
A grenade attack is either made or not made based on the idea of a significant number of a given unit so equipped being willing and able to use them. They are not normally broken up, per member, but instead handled like a single missile-type attack, with varied damage.
 
A unit may normally make only one effective grenade attack in a turn.
 
A Unit may only make a given number of grenade attacks. This is handed as grenades having limited ammunition. It may be assumed that grenades are being used for less-coordinated attacks when appropriate and that most infantry units intending to fight have them. Grenade attacks are for units making massed attacks and supplied amply with such tools.
 
Grenades are not handled in as detailed a fashion as other infantry weapons in BattleTech*.

***

Disposables
 
These are limited-use additional weapons or equipment carried by units. They constitute a special attack, tracked as a form of ammunition, which may or may not be encumbering at some level.
 
Using Disposables replaces the use of other weapons for a number of unit members so -equipped. A controlling player may normally choose to use some, all or none of his disposables at any given opportunity in the shooting or CQB phase, as laid out in the weapon’s description.
 
Some disposables; such as demolition charges may be added to other attacks, but they are normally an either-or proposition.
 
Disposables are each handled as separate attacks or uses, like heavy and support weapons.
 
***

Hand to hand weapons/attacks
 
Hand to hand weapons provide an additional attack value which may be used in CQB, against and between units fighting in hand to hand with other infantry-type units. This includes battlearmour and all other infantry-types.
 
Hand to hand attacks are handled as one attack, but rolled as an opposed roll comparing infantry skill ratings and the damage determined on the missile-hits table. There is a table provided for the number of troops left in a platoon and the base hand to hand damage they can do. All Infantry have some degree of hand to hand damage they can deal.
 
Hand-to-hand attacks, however work both ways and depending on the opposed skill check, both units may or likely; *will* take damage.
 
There is a difference between hand-to-hand attacks and hand-to-hand defence. A given unit may only make one hand-to-hand attack per turn, but will make as many hand-to-hand defence checks as they receive in attacks. However, each check they fail results in a +1 penalty to their next opposed skill check unit the end of the turn.

Hand to hand weapons cannot normally be used against non-infantry units, but certain kinds of weapons or tools may have a textual or fluff application in anti-mech attacks, boarding actions, urban warfare, ect.
 
For these purposes; battlearmour and protomechs count as infantry and can attack and be attacked in this way.

***


 

[beachhead1985]

Field Guns and Field Artillery
 
These are vehicle-scale weapons in a form which can be manually-operated by infantry units to a greater or lesser extent.
 
Field Guns and Field Artillery differ mainly in how they are meant to be employed; field guns are direct-fired, while field-artillery may be direct-fired at nearby targets, but are mainly meant for “Indirect” employment against targets more than one map away.
 
Units equipped with these kinds of weapons are effectively immobile if they are not provided with transportation in some way. These may be from units equipped with mechanized or motorized capabilities, or larger vehicles capable of towing the weapons at-issue and transporting the crews.
 
At their simplest; Field Guns and artillery are larger ballistic and artillery weapons (Not things like machineguns, in other words) able to be operated and handled in the field by infantry soldiers. These soldiers may be equipped with other weapon types (and they should be!), but manning the big guns requires (at heart), one unit member, per ton of weapon. Field Gun and Field Artillery units are considered “Special Infantry” and thus have a normal infantry skill and their “Big Guns” skill.
 
So, an AC/5 Field Gun requires a basic crew of eight members. This crew receives a bonus ton of ammunition (20 shots in this case; special ammo bay limits do not apply, but caseless bonuses do).
 
A Thumper Field Artillery Piece needs a crew of 15 to function. Almost twice what the AC/5 does. They still get the basic ton-allotment of ammunition as well; another 20 shots in this case.
 
Artillery “Cannon” count as field guns for our purposes.
 
As-is, neither is mobile on the tabletop. Both have the ability for their crews to chose to man the gun or fight as infantry. They can even have extra crew members (if they have them), fight as infantry, simultaneously to firing the gun. Even if they are heavy or support weapons operators, and even if they do not have enough spare crew. An exception to the crew-served weapons rules above that applies only to field guns and field artillery. Field gun and field artillery crews may also engage in hand-to-hand defence, as normal infantry, but lose the ability to fire the gun on the turn they do, unless they have already fired.
 
Both can vary their ammo-load by the shot, whereas another unit like a mech or tank would need to do it by the ammo-lot. So, the Thumper might have ten-rounds of High Explosive (The standard artillery ammunition), five of smoke, four of incendiary and one copperhead round. The only difference between the two crews at this point is that the range for the Thumper is in Maps and the range for the AC/5 is in hexes. The normal rules for direct-fire of artillery still apply here.
 
Additional ammo may be dropped, or may have been dropped by supporting units on the gun position and this may be used and must be accounted for as well, but absent vehicles; it cannot be moved, in-game. Units that can move can take the basic single-ton-equivalent lot with them, so long as they have it, but can only load one additional ton per turn and only take as much as they have cargo space for. The rest must be abandoned when they move off the gun position.
 
In both cases, these weapons are dedicated field guns/field artillery. The AC/5 does not really weigh 8 tons, nor the Thumper fifteen. Capturing either gun, gets you a field gun or artillery, not a weapon you can slap in to replace a weapon on a vehicle. However, you can use them to repair damaged vehicle weapons. Instead; much of the mass and equipment is missing or modified to be replaced or operated by the gun crew.
 
Unlike other “Infantry” types, Field Guns and Field Artillery do have a “Facing” that need to be considered and can only change it by one hex-side a turn. In-action, the facing gives an arc of fire like a fixed (non-turreted) vehicle weapon. This does not apply to the unit’s infantry weaponry, however.
 
A single gun and crew may be a unit on their own. They are handled, otherwise as immobile infantry. They can and maybe should have extra members; if they lose a crew-member, they lose the ability to fire the gun every turn. At up to 50% casualties in the gun crew, this means firing the gun that is their purpose every-other turn. From 49-25%, it’s every 3rd turn and below 25%, the gun is effectively inoperative.  So extra crew-members in the unit can be very useful. They can do more than act as ablative armour, however; although no amount of extra crew-member can make the gun shoot faster than once a turn.
 
Field guns and artillery can be made “Auxiliary”-propelled, granting the unit a movement of 1, but this requires an extra crew-member for every 10 tons of mass of the weapon in question, increases cost by 30% and the tech base/complexity/availability by one step. Auxiliary-propelled Field Guns and Artillery can change facings by up to two hex-sides a turn, but weigh 20% more for every ten tons of the base weapon for towing purposes.
 
If it matters; the engines powering Aux-propelled guns and artillery are very small, just powerful enough to manage a modest hill or help drag the gun up a big one. They often require fuel and when they do; the tank is very small and they aren’t always meant to be run all the time. In-position, they usually run on batteries or act as generators themselves. The effective driving range is typically between 50 and 100km under normal conditions.
 
Auxiliary-propelled guns move as small wheeled vehicles up to 15 tons of mass of the original gun; allowing them to move through light woods and similar terrain. Above 15 tons, they are treated as wheeled vehicles for movement purposes.
 
Normally, Field Guns and Artillery are incapable of engaging airborne targets; they simply aren’t made for it, they are not as responsive as the weapons mounted on mechs and vehicles. But for the cost of an additional crew-member per five-tons (round) of what the gun would weigh if it were a mech or vehicle-weapon, a given field gun or artillery can be fielded as a “Dual-threat” gun, capable of engaging air and ground targets.
 
Such weapons count as heavier for towing purposes at the rate of 20%, but they also return to not needing set facings like more common infantry. Cost, however increases by 50% over the base weapon and complexity/tech-base by one and availability by two-steps. Field Guns and artillery can be had as auxiliary-propelled dual-threat guns as well, but this is rare as the additional cost (+75% total) makes their acquisition often uneconomical. They are also more complex at two steps, require higher technology (one step) and much less common (three steps). For towing purposes, they are 50% heavier than they would be as normal field guns.
 
A much more easily realized use for that extra crew member is additional ammunition. Additional crew members allocated for this purpose provide an extra 20% more ammunition, above the basic ton, each. However, they may not be assigned as Support Weapon or Heavy Weapon Gunners. These crew members bring this extra ammo with them when the gun moves (if it can), so long as the ammo lasts.
 
Individual guns and crews are normally grouped into gun-sections (for smaller weapons) and firing-platoons (for larger ones). These are in-turn grouped into batteries. Larger organizations for such weapons have names based on their traditions. Individual guns and crews may freely be detached without loss of their “infantry” skill, or their “Artillery” skill. What they cannot do is benefit from the dispersed deployment posture of normal infantry.
 
They also lose the infantry bonus penalties for detection and hiding and have only a +1 un-modified to-hit.
 
Gun-Crews who have shamefully abandoned their weapons or lost them in action, are treated in all ways as normal infantry, including dispersion, detachment and returning to their +2 to-hit penalty.
The gun, itself is handled through game-balance in a counter-intuitive manner. Normally in BattleTech, what feels right here is a chance to damage or destroy the gun, through luck or a targeted attack.
 
While you have that chance through a “Critical Hit”, in which case the gun is lost in one fell swoop, normally, the weapon is only removed from action when abandoned, out of ammunition or the crew is taken out. In the latter case, the weapon is always handled for salvage purposes as if it were damaged to 25% and in need of repair, as per a damaged mech of vehicle weapon of the same class.
 
So, your guns are harder to hit, but also more vulnerable in other ways. Can we do anything about this? Yes; build your guns as gun-trailers and remove the infantry-aspect altogether.
 
To close off here, we’ll cover an obvious question; can you have Gauss Field Guns?
 
Yes, you can. But they must be purchased as Auxiliary-Propelled guns. Since the Gauss technology requires a power source, it only makes sense to provide one that can also move this rather expensive asset. The range on the fuel tank would be better, if not a fusion or similar system; 250km. Stats are different though; +35% for cost, but same Tech, availability and complexity as for mech and vehicle-mounted gauss weapons. For towing purposes, Gauss Field guns are 30% heavier. Gauss rifles become unwieldy in the extreme as dual-threat guns (+60%) and their cost is uneconomic (double), they are two steps more complex and three steps less common.

[beachhead1985]

Special Equipment, skills and abilities
 
Various add-ons exist to enhance an infantry unit’s capabilities; training, equipment, skills, ect. These usually increase the cost and may have other effects/trade-offs in addition to their primary benefit.

***

Armour
 
Infantry units measure their health and capabilities in terms of operational, able-bodied members. Confirmed hits reduce these members to an inoperative state (killed or wounded).
 
You can think of it in terms of a 28-man/person/whatever platoon (unit) having 28 “Hit points”, each representing one functional (for certain uses of the term), healthy (ditto) soldier (or something).
 
So, one 1pt hit confirmed on the platoon, removes one member of the controlling player’s choice.
 
Armour can make this harder to do.
 
Armour comes in two forms for the vast array of protection available in the BTU.
 
These are “Soak” and “Class”
 
“Soak” protection increases the effective “Chewiness” of each individual soldier. So, instead of each soldier representing 1 “Hit Point”, it is more. Usually 1.5, 2 or maybe even 3 in extreme cases. This effectively multiplies the hit points of an infantry unit by the soak value. Now, when you take damage, you only remove a unit member for every 1.5, 2 or 3 points of damage. This does not reset.
 
For reset, you need armour “Class”. Class functions as a flat “NO” to weapons that just don’t do enough damage on a hit; allowing individual soldiers to shrug them off.
 
Armour “Class” values are lower, 2 or less and apply mainly to infantry scale damage; 0.05, 0.14, ect. So individual infantry weapons that don’t do enough damage cannot inflict casualties, even when you add up the whole. Needlers have special properties for dealing extra damage if they overcome a target’s armour class.
 
It’s important to remember that infantry do not take damage the same way mechs or tanks do; they are smaller targets, normally glimpsed and engaged only briefly. They are simply not affected by vehicle-scale weapons the same way.
 
A few weapons ignore armour class; these are mech-scale missiles, autocannon and artillery.
Better protection is usually encumbering.
 
The biggest advantage of powered-armour being that it lets you take that protection with you more easily, you can have more of it and carry better weapons too. “Legs” just have to make do.
 
 ***

Special Case Rules: Jump Infantry
 
Jump infantry have heavy and bulky “Jump Packs” that give them increased mobility in the form of an optional jump movement of 3.
 
Different jump packs may be encumbering or incorporate weapons of their own.
 
Under-water-capable “Frog” Packs and water-dedicated surface “Swimmer-packs” also exist. Basic Jump-packs can be used in space and different atmospheres.
 
Rarer kinds have limited uses or differing range.
 
Jump infantry cannot otherwise employ any crew-served weapons or equipment requiring a crew of more than two. And even that’s tricky.

***

Special Case Rules: Desant Infantry
 
Desant or “Armoured” infantry are those operating from larger, hopefully and normally *armoured* vehicles.
 
Most modern combat vehicles are simply too large for infantrymen and women to climb or ride on top of and then jump off without injury, especially while carrying a combat load, so instead; they de-bus the vehicle through doors and hatches designed for the purpose.
 
A vehicle and it’s infantry can mount or dismount once in a turn, but the vehicle needs to not move in that turn’s movement phase; spend a turn not moving in other words. Jump infantry are an exception to this rule and can deploy from moving aircraft.
 
The infantry can unload into any hex-facing around the vehicle, but a vehicle can only unload a number of separate infantry units equal to the hex-facings it has; so, a super-heavy unit can do more. Any vehicle designed to carry infantry is designed to unload them quickly and under fire. So, while they can be carried as cargo; infantry being moved in cargo bays can only unload one unit at a time. Units afflicted with the negative “Cramped” quirk are affected the same way, despite having dedicated infantry bays.
 
These infantry may dismount in a dispersed posture; they may dismount into close-combat or to attack. They cannot otherwise move the turn they dismount.
 
Field Gun/Artillery troops can also be carried this way, but if carried as cargo (as opposed to towed); a field gun or Field Artillery Piece takes (charitably) one turn to load or unload *each piece*.
 
Trailer hitches for these weapons, along with the bay fittings for different kinds of troops; motorized, mechanized, even battle armour are assumed to be available as needed. Although the standard rules for towing apply to field guns and artillery.

***

Transport Rates (or tons per troop)
 
   Compartment/Bay
 
Compartments are simple furnished cargo bays for transporting infantry; they have some form of seating, stowage space for personal field gear and some amount of food, perhaps medical supplies, extra ammo or water.
 
Infantry bays are what you find on space ships and are intended for semi-long-term habitation. They have more storage, essential life support facilities, sleeping arrangements, ect.
 
Both can be assigned fractionally to support larger or smaller units.
 
In a pinch; all kinds of infantry can use the basic foot infantry accommodations, with their heavier and larger equipment stored as cargo. This is less convenient and lacks real maintenance and training facilities for the equipment, but it your troops can make it work.
 
Infantry Bays can also serve for true cattle-car accommodations for paying (or non-paying) passengers.
 
Foot infantry Compartments come at the rate of a tenth of a ton or 0.1 tons, per trooper. Bays come out a bit heavier at 0.17 tons.
 
The standard foot platoon is 28 troops packed into a 3-ton compartment, with two spare seats, because those come in handy. Whereas a 7-man squad has three spare seats in a 1-ton compartment.
 
Jump Infantry require a heftier 0.13 per soldier in a jump infantry compartment due to the added space and weight of their equipment. Most vehicles designed to carry jump infantry, specifically are capable of using the compartment as a kind of launch-bay, or offer a suitable platform for the jump-troopers to launch or jump from (The latter om the case of VTOLs, for instance). A more long-term bay, requires 0.2 tons per trooper to accommodate their bulky packs.
 
Motorized infantry can generally make do with 0.2 tons per trooper in what ends up being a very clean and simplistic compartment and only 0.23 tons for long-term habitation.
 
Mechanized infantry are generally allocated by the “Car”, “Track”, “truck” or what-have you. These generally weigh five tons or less. Space allocation for Mech Inf units is one of those things that all come out in the wash. Not all mech infantry use a five-man squad. But if you allocate the commonly accepted 5 tons for 5 troops, it will all work out for your mechanized platoon. Long-term bays are handled the same way; per five troops, but are allocated eight tons at a time and not five.

[beachhead1985]

If you are going to redo the infantry rules, make the squad the basic element, with the ability to stack four in a hex as desired.

Never considered this, but I did work in the ability for you to split a platoon. I figure that a platoon is the smallest unit of infantry a mech unit might have attached to them, so it made sense to seat the rules there for me.

Give them the standard +2THM and keep the movement rules as-is with the original Foot, Jump, Motorized modes (eradicating Mechanized, natch). Give infantry a threshold mechanic like the new Battlefield Support rules, with preference given to AP weapons as they presently exist. Allow them to Take Cover vice movement for a turn for an additional +1 or 2 THM. And Dig-in for an additional+1THM/6 Turns. Keep the infantry-in-the-open damage penalty with allowances for the new thresholding paradigm.

I've been struggling with the Moto/mech thing. I find them generally confusing, but I have a few ideas I'd like to float here in a few days when I have time to let them percolate a bit more. But yeah...I'm with you in that as-written, they don't make a lot of sense to have the two types. I am not tracking the battlefield support rules. What book are they in?

Cover is a good mechanic, but I think I'd have it add to their "armour" and capacity to hide and not be a to-hit. Heavy weapons have a way of turning cover into concealment when they're applied to them.

One thing I always hated was the idea of doing things like digging in, building a bridge or clearing mines or laying them by hand in a turn. I'm ditching that. Stuff like that you do between games, unless you have something like a vehicle-mounted item that makes it kinda work if you look sideways and chant "It's just a game!" three times.

Boil down the basic weaponry to a set number with slight modifiers departing from the baseline Ballistic Rifle:  SMG (which now will encompass your short-ranged weaponry), Laser Rifle, Gyrojet, etc. Add in a Support Weapon (limited to a light machine gun or squad automatic weapon here) which will have an anti-armor and anti-personnel value, with an additional modifier for underbarrel-grenade launchers, etc. These are your Rifle Squads. The range of a pure Rifle Team will be the range of the Rifle; the inclusion of a SW will give the RT a range of the Rifle and SW divided by two.

I liked the idea behind how TPB handled small arms, but not how it was executed. There seems to have been no real consistency behind how weapons were converted. Years ago, pre-Shrapnel, I spreadsheeted all the infantry weapons with their stats across multiple rulesets to compare them. I never did anything more with it, but always wanted to. This is part of me doing something with it.

Heavy Weapons Teams will get the heavier, crew-served weapons that have a BattleTech stat-line, as they did in the original TRO 3026 (and still do, I imagine, in TW or wherever infantry is covered in its basic form). If desired, give them a +3THM because they are only 2-3 personnel. They move as a Rifle Team for game purposes, and function as a mobile BT weapon. If you want to keep extra rules to a minimum, just treat them like a Called Shot.

My goal with heavy weapons is unified stats across infantry, BA and mechscale, with a few exceptions. Mortars need to change, for instance. They are a dumb joke atm.

Special Teams will be medics, platoon headquarters, FOs, etc. You want your infantry to do things like call for fire, they need a ST/HQ. You want them to spot for SG LRMs or Arrow IV, bring an ST/FO. Want to have a chance to resurrect a "destroyed" team, get a ST/Medic to them and roll a 10+ on 2D6--or double their chances in a campaign of returning to duty post-game. Want to pick your way through a minefield, bring an ST/CE.

This is a great suggestion. I had struggled with how to model medics and I love the idea of getting an ability for a small additional cost in unit value.

Use boarding rules for CQB. Maybe keep the Anti-'Mech rules as-is without the penalty since we have shifted the numbers-paradigm (i.e. keep the as-is platoon numbers for the now-squad) but leave it there since we are no longer tracking individual infantrymen.

This is great too. I was just going to model CQB as extra damage.

As an optional rule, have an infantry-element that has taken fire (sustained even a non-damaging attack) in the previous turn be unable to move without a roll from a ST/HQ.

This is cool too!

[beachhead1985]

My proposal would be similar to failures' with slight differences. I'm going to use TacOps to the fullest

Always Option
A 'Hustle' or double move option will be available to all 'un-encumbered' (that is without Heavy Armor or a pair of heavy weapons) foot/motorized troops at the cost of their attack for the turn.

I gotta say 'no' for me on this one. My hexes are already 100m for other reasons, making it a stretch that you can get infantry to cross that even "non-tactically" every "turn". And figure on those troops moving with battlefield kit every turn too. It's wild already. 200m in a turn is motorized infantry territory for me.

Main Focus
Heavy Weapon Teams are the name of the game on the battlefield. Standard and TacOps rules apply for squad deployment (from 5-10 Troopers) with appropriate modifiers for digging in, heavy armor (which halves damage but eliminates the 'hustle' double move option and imposes penalties on climbing/swarm attacks), and being a small target.

*this* in some sense I agree with; I think that anti-mech and swarm attacks are the wild-hair crazy move of the entire setting. An infantry unit intended to fight is a life support system for it's heavy and support weapons and that should be a way better/wiser option than trying to catch and climb a set of mech-legs to jam explosives in the joints.

Leave that to the elite, plot-armoured commandos. I'd rather hang back and try again with my SRM launcher that works like an SRM launcher.

For the Support Weapons. If you have 1 your squad (Medium Infantry) can move and shoot. If you have 2 (Heavy Infantry) you must choose one and maintain enough crew for those heavy weapons or be dropped down to Medium Infantry. Infantry Missile Launchers may select ANY LRM, Mech Mortar (yes I am boosting the Heavy Mortar to a MM/1 equivalent), or SRM ammo type but need to mark it (like Bombs).

I mean...if you want to pay for a unit of heavy weapons crews, why not? You're no slower with three LMGs in a squad than one or two. For bigger stuff; I encumber them.

I'm straight-up making infantry mortars into artillery weapons. I already did a thread on it and it's some of my better work. I just head-canon BA mortars as hopped-up grenade launchers...mech mortars? Are really weird, really big auto-loading grenade launchers. I love em and hate em...but you can't pretend they aren't unique. I mean, who else does that?

There is also an option for a support weapon free ('Light Infantry') squad equipped with rifles. These Light Infantry can choose either a pair of grenades (choose types, similar effect to VGL), or an OS Weapon [Dragonsbane analog (DCL or Disposable Chemical Laser), MANPADS, and LAW-equivalent.] You get one (DCL/LAW/MANPADS), or two (Grenade) salvos (choose and roll on Clusters) then you're out. This keeps them pretty balanced with enough firepower to hurt a heavy adversary (or Mechanized Team) but not enough to probably overwhelm it.

I think you'll like how I handled disposables and grenades, below.

Motorized Troops move slightly faster than foot troops, can go into and through buildings, cannot swarm (unless they dismount) but follow other foot trooper rules.

What I'm toying with is that they can dismount to regain their infantry abilities, but they move faster mounted.

No extra protection, no field guns and their range gets cut if they move mounted and fire in the same turn.

Mechanized Troops can move and shoot all the time (even with two support weapons), move faster than motorized. They do not gain a benefit from heavy armor because they take damage like vehicles and thus immune to AP fire but cannot swarm or go into buildings (unless they dismount).

I like the immune to AP fire idea. I was going to give these guys extra protection, they keep their range and weapons but don't move as fast.

Still no field guns. Towing/cargo rules in BT are strict and to keep from being breaking they have to be bent gently, if at all.

Additionally Mech-Inf may sacrifice their support weaponry to instead represent Field Guns or MLRS. All of these types suffer a half-speed mobility penalty, are limited to 1 ton/squaddie and only have a half ton of ammo. Hovers max out at 5 squaddies so they are limited to 5 tons. Setting up these weapons requires a turn without a move during which and while in operation they are regarded as immobile targets, without infantry mods. Since squads top out at 10 this would limit them to the AC/5s variants or nothing larger than an MRM-30 (which would be terrifying) while Hovers can deploy LRM-10s.

No dice, it's too silly for me. Max vehicle weight for mech inf in canon is what? 4,999kg? I buy that. It's a good mechanic. But almost all field gun weapons weight much more than that and the towing rules being what they are, it's just too much for me. Respect though, you're very engaging.

Jump Infantry cannot use heavy armor and may only use AP grade weapons and disposables, but can jump, go through and into buildings, and get a bonus to swarm.

The swarm-thing here never occured to me and it makes sense. Thank you.

Everyone beside the Weapon Operator (Typically the Squad Leader) is also an ammo carrier/rifleman with basic weapons that have AP stat-lines and rules. Each trooper carries 2 reloads for the squad's support weapon type, or a disposable weapon/pair of grenades.

I really want to minimize tracking ammo for when i absolutely have to and I am not sure where that benchmark should be.

This would add a lot more options to the infantry squads as everything has some kind of trade-off which makes them dynamic enough to pose a threat but eliminates a lot of the weird fractional accounting and rounding in Tech Manual built troops. It also gives each infantry 'type' a distinct identity and role to perform on the battlefield.

I feel like that system (TW) started well, but went off the rails. I want to rework the weapon stats before I pass judgement.

[beachhead1985]

I am a huge fan of the battle droids infantry squad as the basic element.  This meshes with squads of battlearmor being the basic element.  For motorized, they have a jeep squad, which works very well as any number of barely armored vees infantry fight in at the expense of entering dense terrain.  They are squads with either a MGUN or SRM2, get a +2 bonus to avoid being hit (+1 for jeep), but any hit to the squad takes them out of the fight (5 damage needed for jeep).  No need for any record keeping or anything, you either hit the squad weapon, wounded enough of them, broke their morale, or killed them all.  Advanced rules for 'destroyed/injured versus dead', just like normal, would apply for campaign purposes. 

I really like something like this idea for my Mech Inf, with the armour of the vehicle averaged over front, right/left and rear giving you a stat like the BD jeep needing a 5pt hit to kill it (and the crew?), but the BAR rating giving you a chance to bypass and go right to eliminating the crew.

[AlphaMirage]

My thoughts on MechInf are basically to remove the basic 10 ton APCs (preferably with all vehicles under 10 becoming support vehicles) with MechInf equivalent units scaled appropriately for that mass. At 1 ton per MechTrooper there is plenty of mass to add AP proof armor and some engine (4/6/8 speeds) For the superheavy weapons you're basically carrying external cargo on board that needs to be readied and stabilized before firing. I do like the ammo choice thing, much like Protomechs.

The ammo carrying thing is basically to limit an infantry units ability to affect the battlefield in an organic way. I think its not more complicated than Elementals keeping tracking of their 2 shot SRMs and Protomechs their ATM Fusillades (which would be good for foot infantry missile launchers, kinda Javelin like).

[Daryk]

That's a LOT of rules (and some very helpful illustrations)... ;)

[idea weenie]

Very interesting rules there.

I'd want to make it where squads can be of any size, but there would be advantages and disadvantages for both small and large sizes.  (i.e. large squad allows more meat shields per special weapon, but small squads allow more special weapons per platoon)

If you have an oversize platoon in a single hex (or the total amount of infantry in that hex is over the limit), then an AI weapon does more AI damage (+1 pt per 10 extra, FRU?).  So if the limit is 30 and there are a total of 61 infantry in that hex, (1 platoon at 25, and two platoons totaling 36 engaging the single platoon) then the hex is 31 over the limit and a basic 1-pt AI weapon will do a total of 5 pts of AI damage.  Not sure how to make it divide up the damage nicely.  (If a Mech tries to help the melee by firing AI weapons, chances are both platoons will turn on the Mech no matter whose side it is on)

Is there a way to allow the Canopian squads that have a medic in each?

[AlphaMirage]

I feel like the presence of medics is a tricky thing to model in game rules. Their operation is more of a RP or Campaign level inclusion, best modeled after the battle has been conducted, just like S&R and Salvage.

Like S&R, CASEVAC and Combat Medicine should have an effect, but most BT scenarios last less than 10 minutes in 'real time' so there isn't much a medic can do to 'heal' a trooper hit in that time. Their presence can ensure that more 'injured but combat ineffective' troops survive to fight again. Now LSSU (Life Support Sustaining Units, the Clan's super medipak) or equivalent SLDF units, those might be worth modeling and make those Infantry extra tough to kill.

[beachhead1985]

That's a LOT of rules (and some very helpful illustrations)... ;)

Are they? I really wondered. I've been exposed to this idea of having a picture on every page, even if you can't make it a value-added explanatory diagram, make it something interesting to look at, with a caption and that helps people get into what you're writing.

I was raised on DENSE tomes for everything from mythology to history, so I'm not so sure myself. But I wanted to try a swing at it.

And yeah...the basics are easy...and I tried to make it flow, but field guns are complex and I fear moto/mech will be moreso.

[beachhead1985]

Very interesting rules there.

I'd want to make it where squads can be of any size, but there would be advantages and disadvantages for both small and large sizes.  (i.e. large squad allows more meat shields per special weapon, but small squads allow more special weapons per platoon)

If you have an oversize platoon in a single hex (or the total amount of infantry in that hex is over the limit), then an AI weapon does more AI damage (+1 pt per 10 extra, FRU?).  So if the limit is 30 and there are a total of 61 infantry in that hex, (1 platoon at 25, and two platoons totaling 36 engaging the single platoon) then the hex is 31 over the limit and a basic 1-pt AI weapon will do a total of 5 pts of AI damage.  Not sure how to make it divide up the damage nicely.  (If a Mech tries to help the melee by firing AI weapons, chances are both platoons will turn on the Mech no matter whose side it is on)

Is there a way to allow the Canopian squads that have a medic in each?

I was trying to figure out a way to actualize the law of sole ninja primacy as a rule...

In the law of sole ninja primacy when there is an army of ninjas: they die like flies, despite decades of training from birth, they are just mooks. But a small team of ninjas is a major threat and the sole survivor of a ninja clan or a lone assassin is practically invincible.

I wanted to try and figure out a rule for where the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit, but also harder to just *over-run*. As far as I got was the idea where at the point you had more than 50 dudesmen in one hex, you practically couldn't miss. All that survived of that was the split rate.

But if I was using the canon 30m hexes and not my 100m ones, I would have kept to the canon limit of 30.

As for the medics, in my mind, it's just one person with a special job. They don't even *have* to forgo a weapon. You just need to may more per platoon for it and source the skills if you are playing a really detailed merc game.

[beachhead1985]

I feel like the presence of medics is a tricky thing to model in game rules. Their operation is more of a RP or Campaign level inclusion, best modeled after the battle has been conducted, just like S&R and Salvage.

Like S&R, CASEVAC and Combat Medicine should have an effect, but most BT scenarios last less than 10 minutes in 'real time' so there isn't much a medic can do to 'heal' a trooper hit in that time. Their presence can ensure that more 'injured but combat ineffective' troops survive to fight again. Now LSSU (Life Support Sustaining Units, the Clan's super medipak) or equivalent SLDF units, those might be worth modeling and make those Infantry extra tough to kill.

I agree, but I also place a lot of value on those kind of between-fights, campaign rules. For me the sweet spot of BT is either in the major-level fluff of massive armies where things like having medics could help in the long run and the small, plucky band of mercs, for whom having a medic could literally be a matter of life and death.

The LSSU and the SL Med pack are both good ideas that I had forgotten about. I might model that as extra armour soak.

[Daryk]

In RAW, medics are covered on pages 152-153 of TO:AUE, in case you want to compare. :)

[Failure16]

One tweak (to start) F16: five squads, not four can be stacked in a hex.  You'd break some ComStar and all clanner units if you limited it to four.

Not if the "squad elements" can be up to eleven (or even thirteen! for you dirty jarheads) troopers. Then I could have my cake and eat it too.

Beachhead, all of those rules I mentioned have been play-tested heavily as part of my internal rule-set. Though there are BattleTech-specific aspects insofar as the game engine is concerned, they should work since they simply leverage or repurpose existing rules. The key is minimizing the extra rules for players to reference or memorize.

The morale-adjacent "movement under fire" or "pinning" rules are a straight-addition...but they could just as easily work for every other unit-type, maybe with a less-stringent target.

[Daryk]

You can have bigger squads if you also have a limit on maximum number of troopers... ;)

[paladin2019]

A couple of things I've seen skimming. (Sorry, it's late, I don't have the bandwidth to grok more at the moment.)

Squad Composition. If you have access to it, BattleTroops has some good info about what each trooper in a given platoon type might carry. Note it is written for FASA versions of Mechwarrior, specifically 1e, where lasers are better weapons than slugthrowers in all areas. (Until I understood this, current BT rifle damage frustrated me to no end. Now I know what to blame. )

Mechanized Infantry. If the squad is to be the basis of infantry units. remove mechanized infantry from the game. The troop type exists to simulate infantry squads with APCs/IFVs mounting the 1 ton transport bays that CityTech's new platoons couldn't use after they got cargo tonnage equivalents in Battletech Companion (and possibly Battletech Manual). They are no longer needed as a separate unit type when foot infantry can mount APCs.

Infantry Rating. Automatically giving all infantry the same Gunnery and Anti-Mech skill ratings breaks a narrative tenet of the setting. Only some troops are crazy enough to get skilled at this tactic. But otherwise, other tasks are perfectly valid to cluster under a Gunnery/Infantry skill.

Reduced hit chances with casualties. If the infantry are losing damage due to fewer shooters, it's really unnecessary to make shooting harder, too.

100m hexes. No infantry is going to cover 100m in a 10 second BT turn. If you go to 100m hexes, all infantry will become move or fire and encumbered infantry (I didn't get what defines this) should have to declare movement then test to make it to the next hex.

Detachments. Too fiddly in the 10 second turn paradigm of BT, even before a shift to 100m hexes. Squads stay together.

100m hexes. These make things extremely fast unless you also propose increasing the duration of a turn.

[maxcarrion]

My 2 cents - I would make the basic infantry unit a person.  Equip every soldier and split them however you see fit, soldiers may move from unit to unit in the same hex on their activation.  Infantry initiative will be a big balance factor, so lets try Infantry receive a number of Initiative activations equal to soldiers/50 rounded up, each initiative activation the player may activate up to 50 soldiers activating them unit by unit.  If soldiers move between units both units must be activated during the same activation with restrictions on movement and actions (e.g. the soldiers changing unit still must adhere to their MP and actions), any unit that fails to do this loses their activation.  If you have used all your infantry activations, any un-activated infantry units lose their activation.

Every soldier has a carry rate of 3 combat equipment- maybe they could carry more with encumbrance rules.
Example Gear - obviously subject to play testing and just made up off the top of my head.
Auto Rifle - allows an attack at range 1,2,3  doing cluster damage at 0.5xauto rifles fired (e.g. cluster 5 firing 10 rifles) - always round down for infantry weapons, for cluster 1 attacks roll on the cluster 2 table and minus 1 from result
Laser rifle - allows an attack at range 2,4,6 doing cluster damage at 0.3xlaser rifles (e.g. cluster 3 firing 10 laser rifles)
SRM Launcher - 2 slots - fires SRMs - no ammo - crew 2 (loader/firer) (2 soldiers must spend their action to fire this weapon)
SRM - 1 ammo for SRM launcher
LMG - 2 slots, attack at range 1,2,3 doing cluster 1xweapons fired, cannot fire if the unit moved this turn. - weapons in the same range bracket can add fire together, e.g. LMG and Auto Rifle
FO Kit - (range finders etc. to act effectively as forward observer)
Entrenching Gear - allows up to 10 soldiers to "improve" their cover
Comms  - allows tactical coordination - e.g. spotting units in double blind
Medic Kit - substantially improves the chance to recover lost soldiers at the end of battle.
Jump Pack - grants the soldier 3 jump MP but increases bulk for bays/compartments by 20%
Assault Infantry Armour - when receiving anti infantry (burst) or AOE damage soldiers with body armour count as 1.5 casualties (round down)

Example 10 man SRM squad

Soldier 1 - Auto Rifle, SRM Launcher
Soldier 2 - Auto Rifle, SRM Launcher
Soldier 3-8 - Auto Rifle, 2 SRMs
Soldier 9 - Auto Rifle, FO kit, Entrenching Gear
Soldier 10 - Auto Rifle, Medic Kit, Comms

When a unit receives casualties roll 2d6, if you roll over the number of friendly infantry in the Hex the unit disperses and exits the battle
When a unit is only 1 soldier it may only move and hustle until it joins another unit, it may take no other actions
Up to 50 infantry may share a hex
Burst/AOE Casualties are removed from the hex rather than the unit, TN is against the easiest unit to hit
The infantry owner chooses which soldiers are lost.
Each soldier may move and take 1 action each turn (Hustle, Dig in, Fire weapon, Swarm attack, embark on vehicle, call in fire,  etc.)
Vehicles are purchased separately, for example a motorized platoon might consist of 30 soldiers and 30 wheeled transport seats which the infantry can embark/disembark from. 
Embarking on vehicles is an action - embarked infantry have numerous rules adjustments such as movement speed, receiving damage, firing, entering buildings and digging in.  This will vary based on what they embark on.

There'd be loads more details to cover but that's a bit of it.

[Failure16]

I won't lie: We are talking about BattleTech, which is "A Game of Armored Combat", right? So far, most of the rules have simply made things more difficult to use infantry on the gameboard, not easier. And they are not adding anything to the experience. There are now thousands of pages of rules for the BTU and I am willing to bet that the most common ones in use can be found in the box rules going back to Second Edition and CityTech (spiritually, at least).

I understand that this thread will not result in official rules, but as a design exercise, one should at least be realistic in their approach. And there needs to be a focus on what level of combat the game is replicating. In this case, we are playing a platoon-to-company-scale game. The playable sub-elements should be at most squads or teams given the "two-steps down" paradigm of game design. This means about a quarter of platoon-element with special elements being smaller. It also means that the playable elements should be uniform across element-types: one 'Mech, one AFV, one infantry squad/team...

Suffice it to say that the doughty infantry holds a very special place in my heart. But this game is not about them; they are a supportive element for the stars. Keep the rules simple and effective. Leverage and describe the rules using existing main-line rules for other units. Keep the exception to that to a minimum, and only to really reinforce the difference that infantry exhibit.

[beachhead1985]

In RAW, medics are covered on pages 152-153 of TO:AUE, in case you want to compare. :)

Thank you!

[beachhead1985]

Beachhead, all of those rules I mentioned have been play-tested heavily as part of my internal rule-set. Though there are BattleTech-specific aspects insofar as the game engine is concerned, they should work since they simply leverage or repurpose existing rules. The key is minimizing the extra rules for players to reference or memorize.

The morale-adjacent "movement under fire" or "pinning" rules are a straight-addition...but they could just as easily work for every other unit-type, maybe with a less-stringent target.

Most of that is just stuff I added like more BT rules; as options. You don't need the rules of Melee weapons, if you never use them, for instance, or the rule for extreme environments, ect.

I'm a fan of morale as a factor in wargames.

[beachhead1985]

A couple of things I've seen skimming. (Sorry, it's late, I don't have the bandwidth to grok more at the moment.)

Squad Composition. If you have access to it, BattleTroops has some good info about what each trooper in a given platoon type might carry. Note it is written for FASA versions of Mechwarrior, specifically 1e, where lasers are better weapons than slugthrowers in all areas. (Until I understood this, current BT rifle damage frustrated me to no end. Now I know what to blame. )

I have access to BattleTroops, their organization was interesting and I like that it mixed weapon types more, but that was all I got out of it.

I don't mind lasers being better, or else why have them?

Mechanized Infantry. If the squad is to be the basis of infantry units. remove mechanized infantry from the game. The troop type exists to simulate infantry squads with APCs/IFVs mounting the 1 ton transport bays that CityTech's new platoons couldn't use after they got cargo tonnage equivalents in Battletech Companion (and possibly Battletech Manual). They are no longer needed as a separate unit type when foot infantry can mount APCs.

I admit that the Moto/Mech rules throw me for a loop too. I added the "Desant" infantry as a means to lay out how it should work, without the mess. But Moto/Mech are baked into the game now through a couple of dropships and other areas, so I have to address them somehow and I have a few ideas. They're going to be less grounded in reality than my other ideas though.

Infantry Rating. Automatically giving all infantry the same Gunnery and Anti-Mech skill ratings breaks a narrative tenet of the setting. Only some troops are crazy enough to get skilled at this tactic. But otherwise, other tasks are perfectly valid to cluster under a Gunnery/Infantry skill.

So you'd suggest having a default null (cannot attempt) skill that units with Anti-Mech training could improve alongside their general skill? I'm not against that, honestly; I never considered it. Rather that a unit either could make anti-mech attacks or not and that their skill at doing so would closely conform to their other capabilities.

Reduced hit chances with casualties. If the infantry are losing damage due to fewer shooters, it's really unnecessary to make shooting harder, too. 

It is unnecessary, but it makes sense if you consider the aspect of effective fire control in target engagement. It's compensated for by them being harder to hit.

100m hexes. No infantry is going to cover 100m in a 10 second BT turn. If you go to 100m hexes, all infantry will become move or fire and encumbered infantry (I didn't get what defines this) should have to declare movement then test to make it to the next hex.

100m hexes. These make things extremely fast unless you also propose increasing the duration of a turn.

Encumberment is tied to encumbering equipment; some weapons, armour or gear is listed as encumbering in the RAW and I like the idea. Turns them into move-or-shoot and they can't do Anti-Mech attacks. Gives you a good incentive against heavily equipped soldiers.

I propose eliminating the duration of the turn.

100m hexes are also breaking on basic unit movement, which is calculated based on the 6-10 second turn and the 30m hex. And makes turns longer breaks weapon reloads.

So I just take time out of the turn and make it an abstraction. A turn is just a turn.

What you get back in range brackets that make sense is worth it to me. If it doesn't work for you, just ignore that part.

Detachments. Too fiddly in the 10 second turn paradigm of BT, even before a shift to 100m hexes. Squads stay together.

Valuable where you only have a few infantry with special capabilities. Demo troops or spotters mainly, but special weapons too. I thought it up to take advantage of certain tactical options. You can leave encumbering weapons behind with their operators to provide fire support, while you do anti-mech attacks in another example.

[beachhead1985]

My 2 cents - I would make the basic infantry unit a person.  Equip every soldier and split them however you see fit, soldiers may move from unit to unit in the same hex on their activation.  Infantry initiative will be a big balance factor, so lets try Infantry receive a number of Initiative activations equal to soldiers/50 rounded up, each initiative activation the player may activate up to 50 soldiers activating them unit by unit.  If soldiers move between units both units must be activated during the same activation with restrictions on movement and actions (e.g. the soldiers changing unit still must adhere to their MP and actions), any unit that fails to do this loses their activation.  If you have used all your infantry activations, any un-activated infantry units lose their activation.

Every soldier has a carry rate of 3 combat equipment- maybe they could carry more with encumbrance rules.
Example Gear - obviously subject to play testing and just made up off the top of my head.
Auto Rifle - allows an attack at range 1,2,3  doing cluster damage at 0.5xauto rifles fired (e.g. cluster 5 firing 10 rifles) - always round down for infantry weapons, for cluster 1 attacks roll on the cluster 2 table and minus 1 from result
Laser rifle - allows an attack at range 2,4,6 doing cluster damage at 0.3xlaser rifles (e.g. cluster 3 firing 10 laser rifles)
SRM Launcher - 2 slots - fires SRMs - no ammo - crew 2 (loader/firer) (2 soldiers must spend their action to fire this weapon)
SRM - 1 ammo for SRM launcher
LMG - 2 slots, attack at range 1,2,3 doing cluster 1xweapons fired, cannot fire if the unit moved this turn. - weapons in the same range bracket can add fire together, e.g. LMG and Auto Rifle
FO Kit - (range finders etc. to act effectively as forward observer)
Entrenching Gear - allows up to 10 soldiers to "improve" their cover
Comms  - allows tactical coordination - e.g. spotting units in double blind
Medic Kit - substantially improves the chance to recover lost soldiers at the end of battle.
Jump Pack - grants the soldier 3 jump MP but increases bulk for bays/compartments by 20%
Assault Infantry Armour - when receiving anti infantry (burst) or AOE damage soldiers with body armour count as 1.5 casualties (round down)

Example 10 man SRM squad

Soldier 1 - Auto Rifle, SRM Launcher
Soldier 2 - Auto Rifle, SRM Launcher
Soldier 3-8 - Auto Rifle, 2 SRMs
Soldier 9 - Auto Rifle, FO kit, Entrenching Gear
Soldier 10 - Auto Rifle, Medic Kit, Comms

When a unit receives casualties roll 2d6, if you roll over the number of friendly infantry in the Hex the unit disperses and exits the battle
When a unit is only 1 soldier it may only move and hustle until it joins another unit, it may take no other actions
Up to 50 infantry may share a hex
Burst/AOE Casualties are removed from the hex rather than the unit, TN is against the easiest unit to hit
The infantry owner chooses which soldiers are lost.
Each soldier may move and take 1 action each turn (Hustle, Dig in, Fire weapon, Swarm attack, embark on vehicle, call in fire,  etc.)
Vehicles are purchased separately, for example a motorized platoon might consist of 30 soldiers and 30 wheeled transport seats which the infantry can embark/disembark from. 
Embarking on vehicles is an action - embarked infantry have numerous rules adjustments such as movement speed, receiving damage, firing, entering buildings and digging in.  This will vary based on what they embark on.

There'd be loads more details to cover but that's a bit of it.

That's impressive and inventive, but more granular than I want to get.

[paladin2019]

I don't mind lasers being better, or else why have them?

The point is, sometime after FASA closed, one of the new IP users changed them. They are not in all ways better now.

So you'd suggest having a default null (cannot attempt) skill that units with Anti-Mech training could improve alongside their general skill? I'm not against that, honestly; I never considered it. Rather that a unit either could make anti-mech attacks or not and that their skill at doing so would closely conform to their other capabilities.

An on/off qualifier works fine without requiring another skill. It just has to be clear that only AM infantry can use their infantry skill to do it.

It is unnecessary, but it makes sense if you consider the aspect of effective fire control in target engagement. It's compensated for by them being harder to hit.

So I just take time out of the turn and make it an abstraction. A turn is just a turn.

This is the problem with games like WH. It makes it extremely difficult to extrapolate things the rules don't cover. Diegetic stats we already have break down. When a mech or combat vehicle's real speed is listed in the TRO, a turn's duration can be easily extrapolated. If infantry move too fast then immersion breaks. If you want undefined time, range is undefined, too.

Valuable where you only have a few infantry with special capabilities. Demo troops or spotters mainly, but special weapons too. I thought it up to take advantage of certain tactical options. You can leave encumbering weapons behind with their operators to provide fire support, while you do anti-mech attacks in another example.

Except that that's not done. Squads don't split up like that. Fire teams don't operate more than 100m apart from the other one in their squad and they don't split off their primary weapon from it's security. What you want is separate "squads" with smaller numbers of personnel. But your system means to eliminate a hard standard on the duration of a turn so the time it takes to reorganize a squad to do <censored> might work.

[Failure16]

The Anti-'Mech skill has always been binomial check-box, going back to 1987's The Rules of Warfare (where it was claimed that "a ratio of Anti-"Mech platoon to twenty normal platoons is normal" [FASA 1626, p. 47]). I shall presume that has changed, then? If so, well, I am firmly with paladin in that it should not be a universal skill.

I have always viewed an AM attack as the platoon splitting up, with the support weapons providing a base of fire while the specially equipped riflemen go for the close assault. In game terms, they are operating within a hex-plus, but not all 28 troopers are firing grapnels and going for a ride in a literal sense.

Motorized troops make sense for me--albeit as squads and not platoons--but the present mech-inf rules break it for me, since we have rules for AFVs of all sizes*. There only needed to be rules for Mounted vice Dismounted (i.e. normal) fire and movement and the issue would have never occurred. We had the APCs since the start. 


*Let's be fair, here: BattleTech (okay, BattleDroids) was originally heavily influenced by Dougram, and they showed infantry aboard jeeps and motorcycles at times. And I have worked with scouts on dirt bikes, which saw their origination in the US military in the 1980s, so I get it, just not as entire platoons at once, but even then, it's not a dealbreaker. And sure, nowadays, "motorized" means mounted on trucks but fighting as light infantry; my own rules use "Mounted" as the descriptor for troopers on dirt bikes, ultralights, animals, etc., with an inability to use support (especially anti-armor) weapons while mounted.

[DevianID]

Yeah I'm with Failure.  The jeep squad from battledroids is the largest vehicle type id like to see for infantry before going to vehicle APC and dismounted troops.  The battledroids jeep is a fine stand in for the unorthodox troop squads like atv teams or even a toyota hilux.  The 40 ton mech infantry squads we have now are just silly levels of abstraction for a platoon.

[AlphaMirage]

I actually rather disagree I'd rather Mechanized Infantry or a similar abstraction replace the vehicle APCs and preferably all <=15 combat vehicles (that are not helicopters) including yes the Savannah Master (heresy I know). These would all be built as support vehicles instead. I do this because all of these lightweight vehicles are either 1: APC-adjacent, 2: Scouts (a role that can be fulfilled by motorized or mechanized troops) or 3: total cheese by being hyper-fast.

A Mechanized Squad and their light vehicles by contrast is about as tough or sometimes tougher, slower, and more balanced with other vehicles for its tech level. Infantry Heavy Weapons are capable of a decent punch at close range and if you use the field gun/my MLRS rules adequate for area denial while not being an OP gun trailer made of slabs of armor and gauss rifles/missiles with obscene ammo.

[Daryk]

I'm on the other side of that issue.  Mechanized Infantry is less consistent with the rest of the system, especially now that Small Support Vehicles exist.

[beachhead1985]

A lot of good points here regarding the moto/mech troops. Still not sure what I am going to do there.

One interesting point @Alphamirage is that I also consider the Savannah Master a kind of ultimate take on motorized/mechanized infantry.

Another thought I had was modelling them somewhat like Battle Armour in giving them armour and mobility, but a significant squish factor. One idea I had for the armour was a BAR-factor/armour value where the armour value is the average of the four main armour locations or even the base armour number divided by four for simplicity sake.

While they are a little weird, I think it is useful to abstract sub 5-ton vehicles, but still give them their other stats to reward players who want to use the rules to make their own.

At 5-tons though, I'd be handling those on ship with an infantry bay and house rule multiple small vehicles (<20tons) in vehicle bays and play them as separate vehicles on the board and just "Call" them a mechanized/motorized infantry unit.

***

I'll leave off on that point for the moment and address re-jigging the basic weapon stats...

So I have this spreadsheet...and I made it years before Shrapnel came out, but prior to that, it had all the infantry weapons I could find with all the stats side by side for contrast purposes. And...there appear to have been a number of abstractions. Such that it's hard to extrapolate what a given weapon's stats might be if converted and harder to find some consistency across the board.

I cannot, for instance say how a given weapon should perform under TW/TM-rules based exclusively on it's stats, even across multiple-versions of the roleplaying games.

Coupled to this are a few weapons that seem to have been statted-out to make the old even more-abstract infantry platoons make sense in context of the new system. IE/ why use anything but an autorifle? (With the attendant collorary speculation of just *what* an "autorifle" might be?)

Given as I plan to rationalize the support weapons in-line with their mech/BA-scale equivalents (An SRM launcher will do 2 damage per hit), this leaves me wondering where to start in terms of a benchmark for statting out these other weapons, given as I begin with the premise that many of these weapons have been wrongly-modeled.

[Daryk]

I took a swing a transport bays here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,73980.0.html

And you really should take a look at the Shrapnel weapons.  They change the whole paradigm, especially the Sniper Rifles and Laser Rifles.

[idea weenie]

I was trying to figure out a way to actualize the law of sole ninja primacy as a rule...

In the law of sole ninja primacy when there is an army of ninjas: they die like flies, despite decades of training from birth, they are just mooks. But a small team of ninjas is a major threat and the sole survivor of a ninja clan or a lone assassin is practically invincible.

I wanted to try and figure out a rule for where the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit, but also harder to just *over-run*. As far as I got was the idea where at the point you had more than 50 dudesmen in one hex, you practically couldn't miss. All that survived of that was the split rate.

Um, is that supposed to be 'easier'?

For me the easy method would be AI weapons doing more AI damage if there are more people in a hex.  Lets you handle riots and combat with the same rule. (+1 AI damage per 10 people or fraction thereof, to make the math easy?  So 30 people = no benefit, 31-40 = +1 AI damage vs that hex, etc.)

Assuming a 3-meter wide lane, a 4-lane road, that is 12 meters wide, and 30 meters long for that part of the riot.  Assuming each rioter gets 1 square meter that is 360 people in the hex.  With a 30-person 'safe limit' that means every AI weapon will do +33 AI damage (360-30, divided by 10 to make .

That might be a bit much, maybe +1 AI damage up to doubling or tripling the original damage?  (So a weapon that does 2 pts AI damage would do 4-6 AI damage against that riot, but a 20-pt AI weapon will do 40-53 pts AI damage.  This bonus gets adjusted based on new total people persent.)

But if I was using the canon 30m hexes and not my 100m ones, I would have kept to the canon limit of 30.

As for the medics, in my mind, it's just one person with a special job. They don't even *have* to forgo a weapon. You just need to may more per platoon for it and source the skills if you are playing a really detailed merc game.

If the safe limit is 30 people per 30-meter hex, then a 100 meter hex will have a safe limit of ~333 people (100mwide/30mwide * 100mlong/30mlong * 30 people).

Medics might be set up to do zero damage during a fight, but they provide more rolls to recover troops after the fight.  Make the fancy rules for design and after combat, during combat you need to make it as easy as possible.

I took a swing a transport bays here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,73980.0.html

And you really should take a look at the Shrapnel weapons.  They change the whole paradigm, especially the Sniper Rifles and Laser Rifles.

That is the 'fun' part.  Wish those Shrapnel weapons were noted as being for AI damage only, and not able to affect any other weapon ranges/damage/etc.  So if you have a Sniper rifle with a range of 20 hexes, it does not affect the range of the man-carried SRMs.

I'd like to make it where there is only one special weapon per squad, but you can put many squads together (i.e. two 'squads' of 4 people each are a listed as a pair of fire teams).  So one force might have a special weapon needing 3 people and make squads of 4 people each, but as soon as a squad has taken 2 casualties then the special weapon is out of action.  Another force might have that same special weapon needing 3 people and put them in a squad of 7 people.  That larger squad needs to take 5 casualties to take the special weapon out of action.  The force with the smaller squads can put 7 of those special weapon squads in a 21-person platoon giving them an impressive amount of firepower, while the force with the larger squads only gets 3 of those special weapons, but is more resistant to losing firepower.

For anti-Mech squads you'd also need to set up how many reloads are available for the anti-Mech weapons.  I.e. a 3-person squad with 1 man-portable SRM launcher would only have 2 people available to carry the reloads, giving a 21-person squad the ability to simulate an SRM-7 with 2 shots.  A 7-person squad with 1 man-portable SRM launcher and 6 people able to carry reloads could simulate an SRM-3 with 6 reloads.  You wouldn't track all the SRMs, just mark down how many SRM shots the platoon has.  For Satchel Charges you might say that all the offensive troopers have a satchel charge (except for medics, anti-infantry personnel, the platoon leaders, etc), so maybe the last five people don't have Satchel Charges.  So when doing an anti-Mech swarm attack you take the current platoon's strength, subtract 5, and that is how many troopers you roll on the Swarm attack table.

Similarly you could have a leadership squad that provides bonuses to other squads attached to it, or at least reduces their penalties (i.e. the platoon leader with various specialists is better able to organize the platoon, instead of each squad randomly selecting a nearby target).

[Daryk]

I converted the Shrapnel weapons to TW scale with the exact same procedure TPTB used for all the TM weapons.

[DevianID]

So what about the system that 'legions imperialis' uses.  In a nutshell, you track a platoon by moving a bunch of squads together at the same time.  Each squad, like in battle droids, doesnt track HP or anything, any clean hit on them drops 1 squad/base (but you get that bonus to be hit still for being a squad).  I would mount these squads on something like a penny, 2 to a hex, so a platoon organically is 'spread out', but when you go to fight or shoot or whatever you shoot the whole platoon together.

So clan infantry would be 5 bases of 5 troopers, taking up 5 hexes max or 3 hexes min.  You check range and LOS normally to a base of troopers.  If the troopers are in terrain, you give them a 4+ save.  This is instead of doubling the damage to troops out of terrain.  So if you have that example clan squad, with 2 troops in cover and 3 out, when you fire on the platoon and hit with 3 weapons, the 3 out of cover get mowed down.  The next time you shoot you have to shoot at troops in cover, taking the terrain penalty to hit as well, and hits would only remove a trooper in terrain on a roll of 4+, on a roll of 1,2,3 you hit the terrain, kinda like partial cover.

Mguns and other weapons that roll multiple d6, still roll multiple d6, but this is to check if they hit a troop in cover.  So an mgun rolls 2d6, and if either is a 4+ you hit that squad.  A flamer, supreme at rooting out infantry in cover, rolls 4d6, and gets a hit/removes a single base if any of the 4d6 is a 4+.  So flamers and mguns are still better then medium lasers and such for dealing with infantry, and still use the listed xd6 to keep rules continuity, but we get the simplicity of battle droids squad tracking.

Edit: As an aside, anti-mech, the skill used to attack vehicles in close assault, should probably be re-named "close assault" or CQB.  You would use CQB when making attacks at targets in the same hex as you, not just versus mechs and vehicles.  So that anti-tank field gun platoon with anti-mech skill 8, would hit on 8s if enemy infantry attacked them at point blank range, as they are unable to defend themselves compared to normal troops.  Likewise in a building, attacking floor to floor, would be CQB, or the anti-mech skill, as you blow holes in the building with charges rainbow 6 style, rappel down ropes, climb up remote access areas in the floor, ect.  We really should incorporate the 'piloting' skill of infantry more, as too often its a dump stat used to lower the troops BV by a silly amount.  In all the RPGs and such, infantry always need a hand-to-hand skill, as its usually the two sides comparing margin of success.  So if there was a separate CQB use outside of the very limiting anti-mech attacks, then the 'ninja' with a high CQB score would rightfully murder enemy troops in a building.  Also, its pretty easy to make the 'satchel' charges that enable leg attacks an explicit equipment (it is now, but its buryed in the construction rules) so that you can have a DCMS troop with rifle and sword still have a CQB/anti-mech skill, without them carrying satchel charges.

[Daryk]

1d6 hit/miss mechanics sound an awful like that other game... ::)

[DevianID]

Yeah, but I really wanted the xd6 that burst fire weapons use to have a value, without resorting to more damage tracking.  So since mguns roll 2d6 as an extra step already, its a way to use that part.  It also works well with how infantry weapons at .6+ damage have burst now, so we dont need yet another mechwarrior rewrite haha.  Im loathe to put in 'ignores cover' like they tried to do with flamers in tac ops.  The xd6 system emulates that just fine.

Edit: Since infantry are the only thing in the game that doesnt have a hit location, this d6 roll would probably be billed as a 'hit location table' for infantry.  Thus using the 'damage strikes cover' from existing partial cover would explain mechanically what is happening in battletech terms.

[Daryk]

But it also drops the damage down significantly...

[DevianID]

Well the baseline is 1 hit kills a squad.  So with a 4+ save, an average of 2 hits kill a squad.

That puts 1 "hit" at around 3-4 damage in TW stats, which when doubled for troops in the open is enough to wipe a squad.  A 7 avg TW damage machine gun versus infantry in cover would have a 75% chance to remove a squad with the 2d6 versus 4+ cover.  That is like rolling a 5 or less on a 2d6 mgun damage roll.  The math maps out pretty closely to current squad survivability values, as in both systems troops in cover take about half the damage of troops out of cover.

[beachhead1985]

I took a swing a transport bays here: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,73980.0.html

And you really should take a look at the Shrapnel weapons.  They change the whole paradigm, especially the Sniper Rifles and Laser Rifles.

That's a really interesting take on the vehicle bays and I like the idea of lighter bays for less function. I think the Excalibur was like that. But I want to avoid anything where I need to edit every canon dropship for their bays. Even when I think what you're arguing for makes sense (and I do).

I'd rather head-canon my way around the nonsense where I have to and it's so easy to model moto/mech troops as being moved in foot infantry bays and their vehicles in vehicle or cargo bays. Then it's just like the moto/mech bays are a very specialized thing and that's why they don't show up as much in the canon designs until recently.

Oh, I've seen Shrapnel. Valiant effort on the shotguns, in particular. I don't have the last few issues though and I have access to none of them right now. So I haven't updated the spreadsheet. Looking at it, it seems like I was working from someone else's original work as well, as they'd added stats for Star Wars blasters, which was novel. But everything seems consistent to the RAW.

[beachhead1985]

Um, is that supposed to be 'easier'?

Sure is. And I think I just figured out how.

Remember the infantry record sheet and how damage reduces based on casualties? And I hardly need to say more, do I?

Simple, basic infantry rules column for the number of troops in a hex. Fewer the troops, the higher the TH penalty. 1-50.

For me the easy method would be AI weapons doing more AI damage if there are more people in a hex.  Lets you handle riots and combat with the same rule. (+1 AI damage per 10 people or fraction thereof, to make the math easy?  So 30 people = no benefit, 31-40 = +1 AI damage vs that hex, etc.)

Assuming a 3-meter wide lane, a 4-lane road, that is 12 meters wide, and 30 meters long for that part of the riot.  Assuming each rioter gets 1 square meter that is 360 people in the hex.  With a 30-person 'safe limit' that means every AI weapon will do +33 AI damage (360-30, divided by 10 to make .

That might be a bit much, maybe +1 AI damage up to doubling or tripling the original damage?  (So a weapon that does 2 pts AI damage would do 4-6 AI damage against that riot, but a 20-pt AI weapon will do 40-53 pts AI damage.  This bonus gets adjusted based on new total people persent.)

If the safe limit is 30 people per 30-meter hex, then a 100 meter hex will have a safe limit of ~333 people (100mwide/30mwide * 100mlong/30mlong * 30 people).

Now that is a very interesting idea. Particularly if we stick to a basic sliding scale for additional D6s of damage/per people in the hex. But we're also sliding towards a mass murder simulator now with riots and I don't know if we need extra rules for that. I'll think about this more though.

Medics might be set up to do zero damage during a fight, but they provide more rolls to recover troops after the fight.  Make the fancy rules for design and after combat, during combat you need to make it as easy as possible.

I think I already said there is a lot I don't see happening during  game turns. I'm cool with medics working between games. We're not "That other game"---love that we all know who we're talking about. Yeah; no "Saved wounds" here.

That is the 'fun' part.  Wish those Shrapnel weapons were noted as being for AI damage only, and not able to affect any other weapon ranges/damage/etc.  So if you have a Sniper rifle with a range of 20 hexes, it does not affect the range of the man-carried SRMs.

If I get what you're talking about here, you mean that particular shade of weirdness where under RAW the support weapons dictate the range of the personal weapons? Sorry, I can't go there with you. That was immersion-breaking for me. I'm just happy they erratted that it worked with hand to hand weapons.

I'd like to make it where there is only one special weapon per squad, but you can put many squads together (i.e. two 'squads' of 4 people each are a listed as a pair of fire teams).  So one force might have a special weapon needing 3 people and make squads of 4 people each, but as soon as a squad has taken 2 casualties then the special weapon is out of action.  Another force might have that same special weapon needing 3 people and put them in a squad of 7 people.  That larger squad needs to take 5 casualties to take the special weapon out of action.  The force with the smaller squads can put 7 of those special weapon squads in a 21-person platoon giving them an impressive amount of firepower, while the force with the larger squads only gets 3 of those special weapons, but is more resistant to losing firepower.

For anti-Mech squads you'd also need to set up how many reloads are available for the anti-Mech weapons.  I.e. a 3-person squad with 1 man-portable SRM launcher would only have 2 people available to carry the reloads, giving a 21-person squad the ability to simulate an SRM-7 with 2 shots.  A 7-person squad with 1 man-portable SRM launcher and 6 people able to carry reloads could simulate an SRM-3 with 6 reloads.  You wouldn't track all the SRMs, just mark down how many SRM shots the platoon has.  For Satchel Charges you might say that all the offensive troopers have a satchel charge (except for medics, anti-infantry personnel, the platoon leaders, etc), so maybe the last five people don't have Satchel Charges.  So when doing an anti-Mech swarm attack you take the current platoon's strength, subtract 5, and that is how many troopers you roll on the Swarm attack table.

I'm not particularly worried about limiting it that way, because even with two-man teams for many support weapons, half your people still have small arms, as a minimum. It's only weird for me if you have some contrivance where there is an immobile support laser platoon where everyone is gunner for a laser and it just doesn't move. That's just an edge case it's easier to just say "You can't do that, it's too silly". Even fortress troops need ammo bearers.

Ah, okay. That makes a degree of sense of SRMs and similar, but how would I handle things like support lasers? Semi-Portable Autocannon? Grenade Launchers?

Satchel charges I got you covered on. They are "Disposables". Marked off as used, same as LAWs. And your odds are likely better spamming a target with LAWs than doing an AM attach anyways.

Similarly you could have a leadership squad that provides bonuses to other squads attached to it, or at least reduces their penalties (i.e. the platoon leader with various specialists is better able to organize the platoon, instead of each squad randomly selecting a nearby target).

Already assumed and built into the dispersal rules. I figure each platoon has a commander. The farther you are from them, or the more telephone-tag you have to play; the more difficulty you have coordinating and passing information. Even personal radios only have limited value if your visual reference is different enough.

[beachhead1985]

I converted the Shrapnel weapons to TW scale with the exact same procedure TPTB used for all the TM weapons.

Could you share that? Is it found somewhere? I'd love to see that.

I've already wondered if it was a mathematical process or more of a philosophical one.

[beachhead1985]

Edit: As an aside, anti-mech, the skill used to attack vehicles in close assault, should probably be re-named "close assault" or CQB.  You would use CQB when making attacks at targets in the same hex as you, not just versus mechs and vehicles.  So that anti-tank field gun platoon with anti-mech skill 8, would hit on 8s if enemy infantry attacked them at point blank range, as they are unable to defend themselves compared to normal troops.  Likewise in a building, attacking floor to floor, would be CQB, or the anti-mech skill, as you blow holes in the building with charges rainbow 6 style, rappel down ropes, climb up remote access areas in the floor, ect.  We really should incorporate the 'piloting' skill of infantry more, as too often its a dump stat used to lower the troops BV by a silly amount.  In all the RPGs and such, infantry always need a hand-to-hand skill, as its usually the two sides comparing margin of success.  So if there was a separate CQB use outside of the very limiting anti-mech attacks, then the 'ninja' with a high CQB score would rightfully murder enemy troops in a building.  Also, its pretty easy to make the 'satchel' charges that enable leg attacks an explicit equipment (it is now, but its buryed in the construction rules) so that you can have a DCMS troop with rifle and sword still have a CQB/anti-mech skill, without them carrying satchel charges.

This is a good point. Skill, or not; the anti-mech *capability* requires at least the explosives or what have you to get the job done...

Until they do a Gray Death Legion story where someone disables a mech with a big rock shoved in the knee joint...

[beachhead1985]

A few more ruminations on the "Auto-Rifle".

It does show up in a book once; carried by dropship crewmen in "By Blood Betrayed" IIRC.

And the Rock Rover has them as mounted weapons.

My own two cents tells me to go with the suggestive title of Dave Drake's eponymous "The Automatic Rifleman" for a clue: While automatic rifles are a vague concept, militarily speaking they aren't unknown; particularly in the American Military. So I think we're looking at something roughly analogous to a fully-automatic battle rifle. A rifle with some traits of a machinegun. Although going with the "Browning Automatic Rifle" was tempting.

So we can pull out a few assumptions there; while a "Battle Rifle" isn't necessarily an automatic weapon, an Autorifle probably is. Also likely meant to be full-calibre (not an intermediate round) and also controllable. You can find this in some versions of the G3 and FN FAL. And then there is the original CETME if you really want accurate full-auto from a full-bore rifle out to a few hundred meters.

The designer of the Rock Rover might have been looking for an effective LMG and found the superior AutoRifle and read it as something more akin to a SAW; a squad automatic rifle. But I think we can discount most of that if we want something more easily envisioned as a personal weapon for everyone.

My own head-canon has BT mech and vehicle armour as small, ablative scales that are individually weak, but can turn or blunt almost any kind of high-velocity penetrator like a DU rod or a HEAT/EFP effect in number and layers. The downside is that small-calibre weapons can smash single scales or plates, rather than bouncing off with no hard done. This gives you protection from today's one-shot kills, but allows us to imagine a setting where massed small arms fire can do small amounts of damage. But what it also does is gives us a preference to larger bullets, which explains some of the heavier guns and smaller magazines we see in MW. The TK is a cool gun, but it's the odd one out with the Imperator; an artifact of leftover 70s gun-tech that never went anywhere in real life.

The complicated part is that the gun itself exists as-stats to justify the old abstract rifle platoon. So the question then becomes; does *that* make sense as-written?

[Daryk]

Could you share that? Is it found somewhere? I'd love to see that.

I've already wondered if it was a mathematical process or more of a philosophical one.

It's all available in my sig block (I finally gave up and fixed all the links after the demise of "pretty links"), but here are the most relevant links to your request:
Shrapnel Issue #1 Sniper Rifles in TW
Shrapnel Issue #3 Pistols in TW
Shrapnel Issue #5 Sub-Machine Guns in TW
Shrapnel Issue #7 Combat Shotguns in TW
Shrapnel Issue #9 Laser Pistols in TW
Shrapnel Issue #9 Laser Rifles in TW

Where to get the various issues of Shrapnel:
Shrapnel Links on DriveThruRPG

A discussion on Small Arms Ammunition:
Small Arms Ammunition (getting from 2/3 to 4/4 damage)

And finally, a spreadsheet to help you with converting AToW weapons to TW scale:
Conversion Table for AToW Scale Weapons to TW Damage

[idea weenie]

Sure is. And I think I just figured out how.

Remember the infantry record sheet and how damage reduces based on casualties? And I hardly need to say more, do I?

Simple, basic infantry rules column for the number of troops in a hex. Fewer the troops, the higher the TH penalty. 1-50.

Sorry, I meant that your original quote here had the comment "I wanted to try and figure out a rule for where the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit,"

I figured you meant that the more troops there were in the hex the easier it would be to hit, and wanted to confirm.

Now that is a very interesting idea. Particularly if we stick to a basic sliding scale for additional D6s of damage/per people in the hex. But we're also sliding towards a mass murder simulator now with riots and I don't know if we need extra rules for that. I'll think about this more though.

To me it isn't really extra rules, just more damage if you have more people present in a hex.  You can design an 80-person platoon with eight 10-person squads, but you can also expect to take lots of casualties when those platoons are hit.  The limit of 30 is from existing rules, and the +1 per 10 is because I wanted easy math.

I think I already said there is a lot I don't see happening during  game turns. I'm cool with medics working between games. We're not "That other game"---love that we all know who we're talking about. Yeah; no "Saved wounds" here.

Ah, gotcha.  I wanted to make sure the option was open for multiple medics in a platoon, not just the one.

If I get what you're talking about here, you mean that particular shade of weirdness where under RAW the support weapons dictate the range of the personal weapons? Sorry, I can't go there with you. That was immersion-breaking for me. I'm just happy they erratted that it worked with hand to hand weapons.

I wanted it where weapons had their own range, so you can't grab a few long-range weapons and use those to boost the existing short-range high-damage weapons.

But it sounds like you already separated them, so that is good.

I'm not particularly worried about limiting it that way, because even with two-man teams for many support weapons, half your people still have small arms, as a minimum. It's only weird for me if you have some contrivance where there is an immobile support laser platoon where everyone is gunner for a laser and it just doesn't move. That's just an edge case it's easier to just say "You can't do that, it's too silly". Even fortress troops need ammo bearers.

Ah, okay. That makes a degree of sense of SRMs and similar, but how would I handle things like support lasers? Semi-Portable Autocannon? Grenade Launchers?

Satchel charges I got you covered on. They are "Disposables". Marked off as used, same as LAWs. And your odds are likely better spamming a target with LAWs than doing an AM attach anyways.

For support Weapon troops, they would likely be carrying a sidearm rather than an assault rifle.  So they have the special weapon they can fire at targets, but if they get flanked or run out of Support Weapon ammo then they would only be using Pistols/SMG vs the opposing troopers using Sniper Rifles and assault rifles.

For weapons too heavy for a single person to carry, you'd divide up the weapon into as few parts that people can carry, and use the extra mass available for extra ammunition.

I.e. imagine a Support laser that masses 26 kg.  The troopers can only carry 10 kg beyond their current loadout so the Support laser is split between 3 troopers.  3 Troopers can carry 30 kg total, so there is 4 kg remaining.  Those 4 remaining kg are used to carry the ammunition for the Support Laser.  If each shot of the Support Laser requires a 1 kg battery, then the Support Laser would look something like:
Support Laser + 4 shots:
3 troopers per squad to carry
Each extra trooper per squad allocated to carry ammo for the Support Laser provides +10 shots

So you could have a 3-person squad with a Support Laser that only has 4 shots, but adding a 4th trooper changes that to 14 shots.
So a 24-person squad with eight 3-person squads would be rolling on the '8' column of the Cluster table and have 4 volleys.
A 24-person squad with six 4-person squads would be rolling on the '6' column of the Cluster table and have 14 volleys.

Semi-portable Autocannon if it is too heavy for the troopers to move would almost be a light building with the autocannon installed in it.

Grenade Launchers would be the troopers each mounting a grenade launcher under their rifles and carrying a few extra grenades.  Each grenade does not do a lot to a Mech, but enough of them 'might' do some damage.  Or the grenades might get the Mechwarrior's attention.

[beachhead1985]

It's all available in my sig block (I finally gave up and fixed all the links after the demise of "pretty links"), but here are the most relevant links to your request:
Shrapnel Issue #1 Sniper Rifles in TW
Shrapnel Issue #3 Pistols in TW
Shrapnel Issue #5 Sub-Machine Guns in TW
Shrapnel Issue #7 Combat Shotguns in TW
Shrapnel Issue #9 Laser Pistols in TW
Shrapnel Issue #9 Laser Rifles in TW

Where to get the various issues of Shrapnel:
Shrapnel Links on DriveThruRPG

A discussion on Small Arms Ammunition:
Small Arms Ammunition (getting from 2/3 to 4/4 damage)

And finally, a spreadsheet to help you with converting AToW weapons to TW scale:
Conversion Table for AToW Scale Weapons to TW Damage

Wow, that's really impressive and helpful with the shrapnel weapons too.

I'm not quite sure whats going on in that table, I'll have to study it more to figure it out.

[beachhead1985]

Sorry, I meant that your original quote here had the comment "I wanted to try and figure out a rule for where the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit,"

I figured you meant that the more troops there were in the hex the easier it would be to hit, and wanted to confirm.

No; I definitely meant the opposite; fewer troops: harder to hit.

To me it isn't really extra rules, just more damage if you have more people present in a hex.  You can design an 80-person platoon with eight 10-person squads, but you can also expect to take lots of casualties when those platoons are hit.  The limit of 30 is from existing rules, and the +1 per 10 is because I wanted easy math.

I get where you're coming from, but I'm happier with the harder/easier to hit thing.

I wanted it where weapons had their own range, so you can't grab a few long-range weapons and use those to boost the existing short-range high-damage weapons.

But it sounds like you already separated them, so that is good.

Right there with you. I HATE that rule. I figure range and special capabilities should be enough to divide weapons. I want to do up a Kurita security platoon based on the mooks you encounter in Crescent Hawk's inception as an example. Random bullies, basically with whatever weapons they feel like hauling around to terrorize the locals with, so a real hodge-podge broken down into a few discrete attacks.

For support Weapon troops, they would likely be carrying a sidearm rather than an assault rifle.  So they have the special weapon they can fire at targets, but if they get flanked or run out of Support Weapon ammo then they would only be using Pistols/SMG vs the opposing troopers using Sniper Rifles and assault rifles.

Depends on so many factors. The Imperial Army of Japan used to have guys go literally unarmed as part of MG crews. I think it was like the gunner, who fired the gun and had nothing else: two assistant gunners with nothing, two more guys with rifles and an officer/NCO with a pistol and a sword.

Then there's the clag I used to run with who, if you had a GPMG, made SURE you---the GUNNER---were also carrying your assault rifle and possibly also an underbarrel grenade launcher.

A saner medium would be most modern armies, who give everyone in a weapons team an assault rifle or carbine.

For weapons too heavy for a single person to carry, you'd divide up the weapon into as few parts that people can carry, and use the extra mass available for extra ammunition.

I.e. imagine a Support laser that masses 26 kg.  The troopers can only carry 10 kg beyond their current loadout so the Support laser is split between 3 troopers.  3 Troopers can carry 30 kg total, so there is 4 kg remaining.  Those 4 remaining kg are used to carry the ammunition for the Support Laser.  If each shot of the Support Laser requires a 1 kg battery, then the Support Laser would look something like:
Support Laser + 4 shots:
3 troopers per squad to carry
Each extra trooper per squad allocated to carry ammo for the Support Laser provides +10 shots

So you could have a 3-person squad with a Support Laser that only has 4 shots, but adding a 4th trooper changes that to 14 shots.
So a 24-person squad with eight 3-person squads would be rolling on the '8' column of the Cluster table and have 4 volleys.
A 24-person squad with six 4-person squads would be rolling on the '6' column of the Cluster table and have 14 volleys.

Semi-portable Autocannon if it is too heavy for the troopers to move would almost be a light building with the autocannon installed in it.

I'm impressed you have a mechanic figured out for that, but I'd rather not be tracking basic loads for the guys along with everything else.

Grenade Launchers would be the troopers each mounting a grenade launcher under their rifles and carrying a few extra grenades.  Each grenade does not do a lot to a Mech, but enough of them 'might' do some damage.  Or the grenades might get the Mechwarrior's attention.

I dunno; UBGLs seem to add considerably to the firepower of the rifle in the TW stats.

[Daryk]

I've asked about underbarrel grenade launchers before... the answer was they straight add to damage, and don't decrease the range.  It sounds crazy, but that's what it is.

[Charistoph]

If I might present a few thoughts...

Motorized Infantry are more or less fine as they are.  They are in the fuzzy area where trying to justify making Support Vehicles work just really doesn't.  So it works for the abstraction of the game.  They could be a little faster, depending on type (and the MechInf types should be represented here), but I like what they represent as is.

It is the Mechanized Infantry that are a problem.  For all intents and purposes, as a name, MechInf should disappear as a unit type.  Mechanized Battle Armor is already a rule, so this is just confusing.  All what is currently MechInf should just be either Heavy Motorized Infantry or Armored Motorized Infantry, and be done with it from there.

I think the Squad question should answer the idea of the difficulty to be hit question.  I like the idea that a squad of ConvInf in a hex all alone should be harder to hit than a squad of Battle Armor.  The problem comes with Stacking and how that works when 2 or more Squads of the same Platoon are in the same Hex.  One needs to plan on 3-5 Squads (Clan format) to be in a Platoon's organization in the Hex, and have degredations based on that.  However, different groups have different sized Squads, so that needs to be taken in to account as well.  And since it's starting to get late, it's giving me a headache.  Hopefully that helps get some juices flowing.

[DevianID]

I agree with charistoph.  Mech infantry with 30 tons of 'vehicles' that are not 3 10 ton APCs, but instead some un named not purchasable vehicle need to go away.

As for a squad, well I still push for the +2 to hit a squad of infantry with no further option to get harder to hit/dig in, like in battledroids.  I think only 2 squads per 30 meter hex as a stack limit means we dont need a rule for crowds.  Im not sure we need rules for 10 squads of 10 soldiers in a single 30 meter hex... as thats not a real thing, right?  100 soldiers dont ever fight like that spartan shield wall rank and file any more, not sure we need to complicate rules to add this that amount to 'dont do this'.  Making a rule that allows you to put 100 people in a platoon in 1 hex just to nuke them a second later feels like rules bloat.

If you want to play a platoon, we have rules for protomechs that say 'activate all subunits as a single activation'.  Same should apply to a platoon.  A platoon of 4 rifle squads, an attached mortar squad, and a machine gun team, would just all activate at the same time, moving each squad as a little sub unit so as to not ruin initiative. 

Im a gameplay first person, and the big thing I prioritize is getting infantry into a playable place.  Currently a dozen infantry units of any size slow the game down, cost nothing, are just unfun to remove, and if the infantry are dealing damage its probably in a very unbalanced way, like an ambush or city fight where an expensive mech just gets demolished over a turn or 3 without having any input, in a very unfun exchange.

[Charistoph]

To be fair, there is a limit of 120 ConvInf in a Hex per Level, 2 30-man groups per side, assuming none have taken damage prior to this point.  Still that is pretty crowded in 780 square meters.

With normal House/Merc ConvInf Squads, you're looking at 8 Squads of 7 (56).  With Clanners that's 10 Squads of 5 (50).  With Blakists that's 6 Squads of 6 (36).  So outside of some wacky conventions like the Marions, we're looking at even fewer people in a hex then that high end expectation. 

The number of 2 Blakist units running in to a hex with 2 Clan units would only number about 86 men in 16 sub-groups.  It's more likely to see 2 House/Merc units doing that so we're at 106 with 18 sub-groups, though.

I disagree with there being that 2 Squad limit for ConvInf like there is for Battle Armor.  It doesn't really allow them to bring a weight of fire to bear.  But with Squad sizes running from 5 to 25, it can hard to define it.

Maybe have Squads also defined as "Light" (5-9 men), "Medium" (10-17), and "Heavy" (18-30). 

"Light" Squads get a +2 To-Hit when they are the only Squad from their Platoon in a Hex. 

2 "Light" Squads from the same Platoon or 1 "Medium" Squad" have a +1 To-Hit. 

3+ "Light" Squads from the same Platoon in the same Hex, or 2 "Medium" Squads from the same Platoon in the same Hex, or a single "Heavy" Squad get no bonus at all.  I feel this penalizes Clan PBI squads a little, but it could also represent the Solahma "Kill me know" spirit.

[paladin2019]

I disagree with there being that 2 Squad limit for ConvInf like there is for Battle Armor.  It doesn't really allow them to bring a weight of fire to bear.  But with Squad sizes running from 5 to 25, it can hard to define it.

Modern infantry don't do this.

WWI taught the world not to do this, to the extent that mock graves with epitaphs like "THESE MEN BUNCHED" adorned training grounds.

Maybe have Squads also defined as "Light" (5-9 men), "Medium" (10-17), and "Heavy" (18-30). 

Is this scheme a modifier to hit the infantry or their modifier to attack?

I still don't agree with the latter. The loss of damage is more than enough penalty for smaller units that are harder to hit. And it's easier to coordinate the fire of a squad than a platoon, anyway.

[Charistoph]

Modern infantry don't do this.

WWI taught the world not to do this, to the extent that mock graves with epitaphs like "THESE MEN BUNCHED" adorned training grounds.
Is this scheme a modifier to hit the infantry or their modifier to attack?

We aren't dealing with "Modern Infantry".  We're dealing with Infantry who don't have to deal with the killing fields of WWI or even the early Age of War.  They deal with mechanical kaiju.

The modifier I mentioned was to hit them, like Battle Armor Squads get.  Just take the basic +1 they get and add an additional +1 for small PBI that don't have loud electronic and armor packages announcing their presence to the right sensors.

I still don't agree with the latter. The loss of damage is more than enough penalty for smaller units that are harder to hit. And it's easier to coordinate the fire of a squad than a platoon, anyway.

The latter what?  The "Heavy" Squad?  What you quoted doesn't seem to match what you're responding to...

So, which is the bad part here, bunching up as you stated first, or being unable to concentrate fire?

[Daryk]

The RAW allow squads to be down to two troopers... do they get an "Ultralight" designation? ???

[paladin2019]

We aren't dealing with "Modern Infantry".  We're dealing with Infantry who don't have to deal with the killing fields of WWI or even the early Age of War.  They deal with mechanical kaiju.

Right. So, the same thing, basically. "You bunch up like "laxidaisical" [sic] longhairs diddyboppin' down the street with yer <censored> hands in yer <censored> pockets, yer gonna gets yuhselfs deded by that robot kaiju."

The latter what?  The "Heavy" Squad?  What you quoted doesn't seem to match what you're responding to...

So, which is the bad part here, bunching up as you stated first, or being unable to concentrate fire?

The latter option of my question, that smaller infantry units have a penalty to their attacks. You obviously aren't endorsing that either.

[Charistoph]

The RAW allow squads to be down to two troopers... do they get an "Ultralight" designation? ???

Do single people have a huge To-Hit defense for them?

Right. So, the same thing, basically. "You bunch up like "laxidaisical" [sic] longhairs diddyboppin' down the street with yer <censored> hands in yer <censored> pockets, yer gonna gets yuhselfs deded by that robot kaiju."

There's a reason why they take double damage if they are out in the open.  Still, the standard is that a Platoon can be fielded in a hex the same as a Combat Vehicle, so rules for that have to be addressed.

Still, standardizing the rules that allow Squads to split and join in to Platoons as needed/desired is still the best answer.  Sure, they can mob up to provide a better concentration of firepower, but they have a better chance at being mowed down in mass.

It also allows for considerations like mobs or hordes of conscripts.

The latter option of my question, that smaller infantry units have a penalty to their attacks. You obviously aren't endorsing that either.

Ah, due to how the quote system works, the question was mushed in with statement before the Quote split, so I was confused by it.

Yeah, there's no sense in having a unit get easier to hit as it gets smaller.  It's usually the other way around.

[idea weenie]

No; I definitely meant the opposite; fewer troops: harder to hit.

I think we're talking past each other. 

Your original post had it where you said "the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit".
Here you are saying: "fewer troops: harder to hit".

My assumption is that your original post was wrong and you meant to write: "the more troops you had in the hex, they easier they were to hit".

I get where you're coming from, but I'm happier with the harder/easier to hit thing.

A mix?  More troops = easier to hit, and AI weapons do more damage?

For every 20 troops over 20 (FRN but .5 rounds down) you get +1 to be hit, so if you have 31-40 troops you get +1 to be hit, at 41-60 you get +2 to be hit, 61-80 you get +3 to be hit, aso.
For every 20 troops over 30 (FRU) you get +1 AI damage (so 31-50, 51-70, 71-90, aso get +1, +2, +3, aso AI damage)

A combination of the above means that for every 10 extra troopers over 30 in a hex the people shooting at it will find it easier to hit and do more damage, and instead of breakpoints every 20 troopers the breakpoints will occur every 10 troopers.

Mobs of different sizes:
30 troopers = (no extra AI damage) & 10/20 = .5, but round .5 down = +0 to be hit
31 troopers = 30 + 1 = +1 AI damage (1/20 = .05, FRU -> 1) & +1 to be hit (11/20 = .55, FRN = +1 to be hit)
355 people = 30+325 = +17 AI damage (325/20 = 16.25, FRU -> 17) & +16 to be hit (325/20 = 16.25, FRN -> 16)

Relatively simple calculations:
Bonus to-hit: Take the excess number of troopers, add 10 to that, divide by 20, and round up
Bonus AI damage: Take the excess number of troopers, divide that by 20, and round up

Right there with you. I HATE that rule. I figure range and special capabilities should be enough to divide weapons. I want to do up a Kurita security platoon based on the mooks you encounter in Crescent Hawk's inception as an example. Random bullies, basically with whatever weapons they feel like hauling around to terrorize the locals with, so a real hodge-podge broken down into a few discrete attacks.

I'd just grab the AToW 'club' and use that as the average damage.  For armor, I'd use Flak Armor and just say it represents the hodge-podge armor they found and strapped into place (i.e. tire pieces).  If I am needing to identify who has what weapon in a platoon, then that should be RPG scale rather than Battlemech scale.

Depends on so many factors. The Imperial Army of Japan used to have guys go literally unarmed as part of MG crews. I think it was like the gunner, who fired the gun and had nothing else: two assistant gunners with nothing, two more guys with rifles and an officer/NCO with a pistol and a sword.

Then there's the clag I used to run with who, if you had a GPMG, made SURE you---the GUNNER---were also carrying your assault rifle and possibly also an underbarrel grenade launcher.

A saner medium would be most modern armies, who give everyone in a weapons team an assault rifle or carbine.

Unarmed = more ammo for the support weapons and less gear carried by the troops, allows having smaller/weaker troops
fully-armed = less ammo for the support weapons per trooper, or just requires hiring troops that serve as splatters rather than bouncers.

Then you get the fun of accepting weaker troops to increase your potential manpower but they can't carry as much.  Or only wanting near-Elementals for your troops so they can carry a lot but your infantry costs are higher.  You select the average STR and BOD for the squad (or platoon) and that is your available mass budget.  Armor for each trooper, base loadout for each trooper, all sorts of things can make that available mass drop really quickly.

As an example, using the Battletech AToW Core Book, pages 339-340, you have two loadout options for troops.  One requires a Strength of 3 to carry, the other requires a Strength of 6 to carry (and the Special Forces Operative needs a STR of 7).  If all you need is the Strength of 3, then you have a much wider pool for potential recruits than if you select the loadout that needs a Strength of 6.  This would be reflected in either a lower cost per platoon (not just less equipment per trooper, but less work to find those troopers) or a higher cost per platoon (far fewer potential recruits, more PR needed, and more gear).

I'm impressed you have a mechanic figured out for that, but I'd rather not be tracking basic loads for the guys along with everything else.

I'd prefer using the various mechanics during the design phase, and keep it simple during the combat phase:
* You don't recalculate armor after the platoon has been designed, it is a fixed number.
* You don't try to change shots during combat, you just have X shots per Special Weapon.
* You don't keep track of regular bullets, you just require that each trooper has at least X number of shots for their regular infantry weapon (pistol, rifle, shotgun, etc).  If they don't have a weapon, then they don't have to carry ammo for it.
* Special Weapons are tracked, not regular weapons

I.e. if you are required to have 20 shots per trooper then one squad might have single-shot rifles and carry 20 bullets, another squad might have assault rifles firing 3-round bursts and need 60 rounds, and another squad might go with long bursts of 10 rounds and need to carry 200 rounds.  All you care is that you are carrying at least 20 turns of ammo, you then plug in the adjusted weapon damages to the platoon damage row, and put it in place.  You might have the single-shot rifle platoon lose 2/3 of their troopers on the first turn meaning they could fire 3* per turn now, but changing that during a game gets far too complex for me.