What Features should be added to Mass Combat?

[Peter Knutsen]

This thread is about unit Features that should be added to Mass Combat, and everything else that has to do with Features.


One thing that bothers me is that all low-TL infantry units are equally fast:

Fast (cost varies)
Cost depends on unit type.
For Light Infantry and Light Cavalry, and similar units that the GM agrees can be classified as "light", +40% to raise and +20% to maintain.
For Medium Infantry and Medium Cavalry, and similar units, +60% to raise and +30% to maintain.
For Heavy Infantry and Cavalry, and similar units, +80% to raise and +40% to mainain.
The effect is to add 5 miles per day to movement speed. This is 5 mpd to both cavalry and infantry, because cavalry is already fast, and there's not much you can do to make it faster.

Very Fast(+100% to raise and +50% to mainain)
Light Infantry only. +10 miles per day travel speed. A unit can't have both Fast and Very Fast.
edit: And other foot units which the GM agrees can be classified as "light".

Self-Sufficient (+50% to raise)
Prerequisite: At least one Terrain type.
When the unit is in one of its favoured Terrain types, maintenance cost is reduced by 25%.


Also something that bothers me is that most Feature costs seem to use increments of 20%, whereas Counter uses 25%. That strikes me as odd and pointless. It would be much cleaner to use Feature costs divisible by 20, or at least by 10 (as I have done above). Or alternatively have all Feature costs divisible by 25.

A case can probably also be made why Counter should be +40% instead of +25%, for instance the Pikeman example.

[Peter Knutsen]

One more, although this is GM-dependent since the RAW doesn't appear to take the issue seriously.

Ranger (+40% raise, +20% maintain for infantry, both doubled for cavalry)
Prerequisite: At least one Terrain.
Normally when a unit travels through difficult Terrain, such as woods or deserts or mountains, travel speed is reduced. For the sake of simplicity, say that in any bad terrain, travel speed is halved. Units with the Ranger Feature are immune to this slow-down effect, but only when they travel through a favoured Terrain type.

[Peter Knutsen]

There's no very strong reason not to allow Plains or Urban as Terrain Features; it just has to cost more than the regular Terrain Features.

Terrain (Plains) +80% to raise
Works just like all the other Terrain Features, it just costs more, but note that if the GM is using house rules for how bad terrain slows down unit travel, this is unlikely to occur with Plains.

Terrain (Urban) +60% to raise
Works just like all the other Terrain Features, it just costs more. It applies to active cities and towns, and to ruined cities and towns.


Hey... why not do Underground too?

Terrain (Underground) (+40% to raise)
Works just like the other Terrain Features. The reason it costs more is that there's probably some reason why David Pulver omitted it from the list of Features in the GURPS Mass Combat core PDF, so I'm erring on the site of caution in terms of pricing.

(Alternatively, Underground could cost +50% but include a version of Night that only applies underground, not outside.)

Terrain (All Core) (+120% to raise)
This is not a new rule, but simply a shorthand to designate that the unit has the Terrain feature for all the six Terrain types listed in the core PDF: Arctic, Desert, Jungle, Mountain, Swampland, Woodlands.
To indicate all core Terrain types except one or two, one can write up: Terrain (All Core except Arctic) or Terrain (All Core except Desert). Cost is 120% to raise, -20% to raise for each omitted Terrain type.
Unofficial or otherwise house ruled Terrain types must be indicated separately.

[balzacq]

Currently the system starts at a defined troop type and allows for adding "extra" features. I'd like to see a set of charts that has "raw recruit" as the base unit and adds features like "heavy infantry", "pikes", "fire", etc., so that it's possible to create Light Cavalry that has Fire capability and Neutralize Air, or Fast MBTs, or whatever weird nonstandard set of capabilities I want (and pay the price for).

[Jürgen Hubert]

Granted, I don't have the mass combat rules yet, but...

Are there some advantages that allow a character to directly influence mass combat beyond mere skill bonuses? That would be useful for my GURPS Exalted conversion...

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Granted, I don't have the mass combat rules yet, but...

Are there some advantages that allow a character to directly influence mass combat beyond mere skill bonuses? That would be useful for my GURPS Exalted conversion...

The PDF doesn't touch upon character creation at all. There are no new skills, no new techniques, no new advantages, disadvantages, enhancements, limitations, spells or magic item echantments.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Granted, I don't have the mass combat rules yet, but...

Are there some advantages that allow a character to directly influence mass combat beyond mere skill bonuses? That would be useful for my GURPS Exalted conversion...

Well, if Exalted represent characters with extremely potent powers and stuff, you can treat each PC as an individual unit element ("Hero" element in the rules), with a TS all its own. So the PC represented as a mass combat unit is certainly possible, and might be a better way to represent characters that can take on whole armies.

You can also use individual heroic actions with a certain amount of GM Fiat, replacing or supplementing contests of reconnaissance as one example.