The Black Campbell

A couple of comments on a few of the Battlestar Galactica related posts brought up an “issue” with the Cortex system — that the Cortex system is not really set up for simulation-style combat. I see this as a feature of the more story-oriented focus of the Serenity and BSG settings, but it is certainly a legitimate complaint if you are looking for a lot more viper on raider action, rather than talking about our feelings action.

So I thought I’d expand on some of my “fast and dirty” fleet-scale rules.

ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE

The Battlestar Galactica game lends itself naturally to mass combat — be it fights between hundreds of fighters, multiple capital ships banging away on each other, or large numbers of resistance fighters battling the toasters on the Twelve Colonies after the Fall. (It would equally well for doing some flashbacks of the Unification War, if you are playing Serenity…)

These large set pieces can be settled several ways to lend that element of randomness that can lead to surprises in your game.

THE EASY WAY…

The leadership of the combat groups can run a straight test against each other to see if they meet a specific goal, like “capture the high ground”, “push the Cylons back to liberate the Farm”, or “destroy or rout the resistance group.”

In this case, you could have the respective commanders roll a test like ALERTNESS or INTELLIGENCE+PERCEPTION/TACTICS versus each other to succeed and hand wave the number of losses. This removes the tendency for GM fiat, and can give the players some kind of input on how things play out.

However, if your players aren’t in the upper echelons of command, you might want to give them a bit more influence on events…

Zoom In, Zoom Out

One way to address the various scales of combat is to focus on a select mission or task that is essential to the goal. Maybe you’re a rifle team on Omaha Beach and you need to hit that machinegun emplacement to allow the rest of the Allied landing parties to get ashore in one piece. You play out that mission, then any success might give bonus shifts for the overall conflict.

Say your group is fighting to clear an area of a basestar group over a planet. You might have the initial TACTICS test to by the commander of your battle group set up initiative and give a bonus for the first actions.

You zoom into the squadron or player-level fight between the vipers and raiders to see how they are doing in their goals. Then you zoom into a particular dogfight, or maybe it’s an electronic warfare mission by raptors to jam Cylon transmissions. You play out those low-echelon character’s actions, then if they succeed/fail, have some kind of consequence. Maybe the EW mission jams the Cylon missiles (use as the defense test for the battlestar against being hit); maybe the vipers were flanked and get to launch an attack on your battlestar.

Then zoom back out as the fight unfolds and apply shifts to the actions of the characters to the TACTICs or other tests of the leadership.

Cortex uses “scales” to address the differences between a player character, or a vehicle, or a massive spacecraft. These scales are PERSONAL, LARGE (Planetcraft in BSG), and MASSIVE (Spacecraft in BSG). Each represents a 10x difference in power. For example, a character attacks a raider with personal scale weaponry. Only with a damage of 10 would they have any effect, and that would be a 1 to the raider.

For mass combat, these also apply in time. In MASSIVE scale combat between capital ships, each round is about 10 minutes. For planetcraft, it’s about a minute/round. For personal, it’s roughly 6 seconds. This may seem short, but many modern naval battles between fleets have taken place in the space of an hour.

You can zoom in and out of the fight from capital level, into a personal dogfight or task, then back out to the squadrons duking it out. There are roughly 10 actions for the character in each squadron-level fight, 10 in each capital ship fight. (I typically truncate squadron to capital fights to three rounds for the fighters to each round of big ship action.

ADDING “CRUNCH”

Gaining Initiative

The commanders of both sides roll an ALERTNESS or INTELLIGENCE+PERCEPTION/TACTICS contest to determine initiative. With a successful test, they can lend a die shift up for one of their subordinate units’ test — a gunnery shot, a squadron/group conflict between fighters; on the ground, this could be given to an artillery battery, or a tank platoon, or even an individual character.

Size Matters…Zoom Out, Stay Out

One issue with a large-scale fight is that addressing every single fighter would take a sizable number of sessions to play out, and would lose the dramatic impact. (Think about the fights in Battlestar Galactica, they don’t show a whole battle — usually, the dramatic highlights are shown and the fight is over in a matter of minutes.)

To get around this problem, there are a few things you can do.

Option 1: Have the CAG or leader of the fighter flight/squadron/group test against a Cylon raider — AGILITY+PILOT vs. the Raider’s stats and use that as an overall indication of how well the fighters are doing. It also, by extension, give you an idea of how good the player character is doing.

The number they succeed by is the number of raiders that have been damaged/splashed by the vipers. The raiders, then get their chance to hit the vipers, same roll, same effect. It gets you a quick and dirty idea of how things are going in the fight without knowing it was poor Jo-Jo that caught a packet. The downside is it does not take into account disparate numbers of force. I like this for quick fights of small, relatively evenly matched groups.

Our vipers are usually up against anywhere from 3-1 to 6-1 odds against them…this first suggestion tends to favor the small group, especially if they are led by a PC who can throw plot points around.

Option 2: Enter scale again. A planetcraft/large-scale vehicle like a viper can attack a basestar, but they need to score 10W to do any real damage. Let’s assume that to achieve that kind of hit would take several vipers, so let’s assume (and admittedly, we’re rounding down heavily) that a flight of vipers could probably hit with the equivalent of a d2W in spacecraft or massive scale.

So using that as a baseline, let’s break down the size of various units for a quick and dirty idea of what kind of damage they can dole out, and what they can take (using the 10x scaling, a viper can take 1.4 points of damage. We’ll round that down if you want to play this dark and gritty, or 2/bird if you are playing more cinematic-style.)

For the sake of simplicity, you can assume that a unit retains it’s abilities until 1/2 their life points are taken, then they have the usual two step down presented in the rules. At 0 life points, the unit is rendered ineffective or destroyed (depending on the style of play.)

Typical unit sizes follow (based roughly on US Naval standards and what we’ve seen in the show.)

One reason for using the spacecraft scale is to allow planetcraft to assault large targets and vice versa, and also brings the time and damage scales of fighters in line with the capital ships.

Example: A wing of raiders is lunched from the basestar and quickly aproach Galactica, the raiders break into several groups to attack the vipers screen — a groups’ worth (100), with three other groups going after respectively, 1) the civilian ships, 2) Galactica, and 3) acting as a defensive shield for the basestar.

Galactica is banging away on the basestar, but also has their point defense system firing on the raiders and their missiles. The PDS can be used as a defensive roll against the raiders’ attack roll, or they can attempt to destroy any raiders that breach it. (Due to the planetcraft scale, and the large number of PDS batteries, you don’t get a damage die, but you hit them at spacecraft scale with all Basic damage translated to Wound.)

Galactica’s weak air group (40) vs the raiders have equivalent life points and STR, and resolve the fight from the CAG’s tests (or the PC, if they aren’t the CAG…why? Because you’re in the credits.)

Now, if you want to give the PCs a bigger slice of the action, you could zoom in and break it down into the squadron they command, or even a single dogflight.

Remember that at 1/2LP, the unit loses -2 shifts to their strength (at d0W, they can only do 1W of damage to their target, no matter their success.)

MEANWHILE, ON THE SURFACE…

These rules can be applied to the surface, as well.

Infantry vs. Armor

One issue to content with is scale, again…infantry or characters are personal scale, but can gain access to planetcraft/large scale weapons like shoulder-fired missiles, satchel charges and IEDs, or anti-materiel rifles.

While you should resolve character actions by zooming in on their efforts, the general scale of the battle is set by the scale of the units involved.

Echelons

Echelon refers to a formation or the level (scale) of troops involved in a fight. Personal level fights are conducted by the PCs and perhaps up to a half dozen NPC. Anything larger than that is

But really large battles, need a bigger scale:

Massed artillery exchanges with vehicle or personnel should be conducted at the Massive scale, due to the amount of firepower being talked about.

Low echeon battles take place over the space of minutes to an hour — each round of combat is the equivalent of 10 personal scale action rounds, or about a minute. High echelon rounds take place about 10 minutes/round. Keep in mind that high echeon battles have frequent periods of maneuvering or regrouping, that can be added into the overall length of the battle.

DAMAGE REPORT

The original rules were not designed to address how damage could effect the performance of a vessel. To give players a bit more “crunch” and provide more flavor here is an alternate, expanded system for damage and repairs.  There’s nothing that says the GM has to roll on these tables or use the ideas, but they can provide some guidance for how damage could be handled in a space battle.

Instead of suffering effects at 1/2 the life points of the craft, damage begins to pick away at a ship or vehicle at 1/4 the damage, 1/2, 3/4, full damage, and greater than that damage.

Up to a quarter the total life points (round up), the vessel takes nothing more than cosmetic damage: scratched paint, dents, small holes to hulls or windows…nothing that is immediately harmful.

Between a quarter and half the total life points, the vessel is damaged badly enough that some systems could be effected — fuel lines could be holed, valves blasted open, power lines or hydraulics cut.  The effects are felt, but not seriously enough to stop operation of the craft.  Check to see what system is hit each time the vehicle take damage in this range to see what systems could be compromised.  Check the vessel’s ENDURANCE at Easy (3) and if it fails, apply a -1 die step to the appropriate attribute.

Between half and 3/4 of the life points, the damage is now serious enough to effect two systems at -2 die steps.  Check to see which systems are hit, and apply the modifiers.

Over 3/4s but less than full damage, the systems are seriously compromised enough that the vehicle now suffers -2 die step to all attributes, and an ENDURANCE test at Average (7) is made to see if the effected systems fail.  This can mean a loss of important function, like propulsion, or simply the loss of something like communications.

Once damage exceeds the total life points, the craft is on borrowed time, and the vehicle is coming apart around the pilot or crew’s ears…the ENDURANCE test Hard (11), but the results of failure are much more severe — the craft will start to come apart around them. The craft is dead and can take no actions.  They have one chance to “punch out” in something like a car or a fighter; in a capital ship, the craft takes 2W/round until the craft reached double it’s Life Points, then it has come apart, sank, or otherwise ceased to be a viable transport.

Here are some ways to determine systems that are damaged:

Stun damage is assumed to be minor — blown circuit breakers,  crashed computers,  cut electrical lines or hydraulic hoses — stuff that can be fixed quickly (in a matter of a round or two) or with jury rigging, if the system can be gotten to.

Wound damage is much more serious, and might not be reparable without significant time (longer than a battle, for instance…)

Not crunchy enough..? Here’s a tighter breakdown for you…

Repairing damage is as in the book — you run a repair test against the total number of damage the ship has taken.

These are still a bit rough, but if anyone runs them, or improves on them, let me know how they’re working.

I’m combining two weeks of the game here, partly because I’ve been swamped with work and school, and patly because — while things happened — thematically, I thought these would work well together.

The Pegasus side-plot has been going well, and is racing toward its conclusion. The small, embattled task force under Admiral Cain has been doing hit-and-run and recon missions for a few weeks (actual and game time) and finally had made contact with the more coherent resistance movements on Aquaria and Libran — the planets least destroyed by the Cylon attacks with an eye to establishing a beachhead.

Two operations were envisioned, with the PC — Commander Oscari late of Hecate, and now CO of Aegis, making good changes to their tactical operations, from having raptors launch prior to staging an attack, and jumping in with the capital ships to provide more immediate electronic warfare support, to pushing a series of preemptive strikes on the Cylon’s quickly dwindling capital resources before attempting to free the two Colonies.

His suggestions lead to OPERATION SUCKER PUNCH — where  two pronged attack on Cylon basestars is planned and executed as a lead in to OPERATION RETURN. This mission picked two basestars providing CAP over Sagittaron and Persephone — a dwarf planet on the outskirts of Cyrannus “Helios Alpha” that is home to military bases and tylium mines the Cylons have been using.

The Colonial intelligence shows that the Cylons have half a dozen basestars left in the Colonies, and two battlestars they had taken during the conflict. Everything else is MIA or was confirmed destroyed in the Civil War with the humanoid Cylons (or “Seraph” as the Blaze called them.) Much of their CAPs over the Colonies are composed of hordes of older-style raiders — easier and quicker to make, and specifically created for anti-ship missile use, which makes them less efficacious against the Viper MK VII. There are thousands of these things over most of the planets, but they are also an older design without jump capability. The ultimate strategy is to wipe out their capital ships and then pick off the lighter craft as they can, while coordinating the ground resistance movements into a coherent force.

SUCKER PUNCH goes off with a massive battle over Sagittaron. A couple of lucky first hits by the Cylons were negated with judicious plot point use, and Aegis came away relatively unscathed, while Hecate was hit hard, but remained operational. They were able to kill the basestar, and the fighter groups rolled remarkably well, dropping raiders handily and only losing a dozen or so of their air wing…however, with 8-1 odds, they did not destroy the fighter screen for the planet, and were unable to conduct orbital bombardment on Cylon industrial sites on the planet.

After returning to Ragnar Anchorage, where the task force has been taking refuge, they learn Pegasus and her air group were successful in destroying their basestar and hitting the mines and bases on the surface of Persephone.

SUCKER PUNCH was a massive success and the task force now is balanced against their foes…the Cylons have four basestars and two battlestars; the Colonials have finally repaired Ares, a post-First Cylon War Columbia-class battlestar and Cain impresses the civilians from their support ships to help run it. With Ares and Pegasus as their heavies, Aegis and Hecate as light battlestars, the players and NPCs felt confident enough to queue OPERATION RETURN.

The mission in broad strokes was to have the southern and northern resistance cells — each about batallion to brigade-sized attack Heim and Kyros, the two cites the toasters are based in, after orbital bombardment by the light battlestars (the heavies are providing high orbit overwatch, in case the basestars show up…) After bombing their infrastructure, select squadrons with provide air support for the resistance, which will go in, clean up the Cylon menace, grab any ordinance, fighters, etc. they can and secure any operational manufactories.

Worried that the lower-ranked, inexperienced officers might not be up to the task of coordinating such an operation, Cain assigns Oscari to the ground mission (mostly so we could see some of this action…) He finds the resistance with 6000 fighters at the ready, complete with snowmobiles, tracked trucks, some heavy weapons they’ve recovered from the Aquarian militia and Colonial Marines, as well as home-made anti-personnel mines and mortars. After tightening the plans, the GO order is given and the troops start to move toward their targets…

Off-screen, the liberation of Libran, which is lightly defended with Cylons mostly operating in two cities, is depending on the Libran resistance — which has a large contingent of Colonial Marines, and the Libran Sea Service (their coast guard) in their ranks and is led by one of the higher ranking officers of the LSS. The commander of Hecate had crafted a plan — a Carossian Lure — based on a historical battle. (Sort of our equivalent of the Trojan Horse.)

The Carossian Lure was a strategy from the Battle of Caros, between the forces of King Darius IV of Leonis and the upstart kingdom of Caros, under King Taro Vespar. (A distant ancestor of one of the senior officers, Colonel Vespasian.) Caros was the capital of the island of Cirrus — a famed resort for centuries. Darius launched a massive attack on Cirrus and besieged Caros for weeks, before finally the city was raided. What they didn’t know was Taro had evacuated the city through ancient catacombs over the space of the fighting, and a small force was left behind to draw in the Darian forces. With the town in their hands, they were shocked to find themselves suddenly surrounded by Cirran forces, and key portions of the city near the gates were set alight. At that point (and this was a period in Leonine history where gunpowder and artillery, and explosives were still relatively new) the catacombs were blown by sappers, destroying much the city and Darius’ force.

In this version, the Colonials are using their armed tender Demosthenes and a lightly armed exploration vessel, Striker, both under skeleton crews, to lure in the Cylons, get as many of their raiders as close as possible (and inside their jump effect bubble) and let them board the vessels, then jump the whole show right on top of the main Cylon bases on the surface of the world. Hopefully, they kill tens to hundreds of raiders, destroy their bases and infrastructure, and decimate (or worse) the Cylon forces, leaving the Librans to wipe out the remaining toasters at their leisure.

If they can pull this off — they’ve got two beachheads in one day, and lose two ships they had marginal use for. With the loss of the two basestars from SUCKER PUNCH, they are hoping to shift the initiative and balance of power to the Colonials.

Next week — the battle of Aquaria.