| From: | Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.UMICH.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | SWAT-style tactics |
| Date: | Tue, 4 Jul 1995 23:17:23 -0400 |
figure I might as well post these for all to peruse. It's actually two
separate messages, but they deal with pretty much the same ideas. I
know this is a long message, but do yourself a favor and give it a read.
Have at it and feel free to comment.
*******************************************************************
As a matter of fact, I do. I also have stuff on military-style small
unit tactics. Generally, you want things like interlocking fields of
fire (which allow more than one operative to engage a single target
from different directions), overwatch (use the rules for held action
in SRII, i.e. sammi comes around the corner into the waiting caress
of a hail of 7.62mm FMJ), suppressive fire (see the rules for
suppressive fire in Fields of Fire), and other nasty stuff. Actually,
you have quite a bit of it already if you are using duckback sighting
and cover. Those are extremely important.
Also don't deprive your goons of the abilities of communications and
sensory detection. For example, instead of having two goons blast
around a corner and hose, have one goon use 1 simple action to look
around the corner and make a perception test (to spot all possible
targets if there are more than one and to determine the placement
and threat assessment of those targets. that goon then uses his
other simple action to duck back into full cover (totally out of the
players' line of sight) and use his free action to convey the
information obtained in either word or gesture (i.e. a one
word/gesture way of pointing out the most significant threat). Then
goon 2 (whose action is held till this point) ducks out around the
corner and takes a single shot/burst at the target designated by the
first. Goon 2 then ducks back into full cover, or stays out and
covers the hall, depending on the result of his shot.
Also, you might want to allow the holding of simple actions, i.e. you
can jump out, fire a burst, then hold your other simple action in
case someone else comes into the hall. If something happens and you
decide to use that held action, it can only be something that could
be accomplished in a simple action. It works wonders.
As far as sensory detection goes, thermographic vision is the shit.
It doesn't take long for someone's heat signature to bleed through a
wall or door, probably only about two combat rounds. So if a player
stays put for any length of time, assume the guards know where he or
she is, and they can act accordingly (like hose through the door or
wall). Better still, this is not blind fire since you can see the
target, although you may want to apply a small (+2 ?) modifier for
the fuzziness of the bleed-through signature.
***************************************************
Further suggestions:
1. Don't go into combat alone. Nobody likes to be outnumbered,
especially the bad guys. Unless your operatives are extremely
competent badasses, they will come in twos and threes. SWAT teams
like to have something like, one guy break down the door and get the
hell out of the way, while the three guys behind him quickly enter
and take up overwatch positions, engaging and neutralising hostiles
as necessary. In two or three man teams, you have all the benefits
of combined firepower, multi-directional line-of-sight, and bounding
overwatch capability (I'll get to this later), without having to
take headcounts to see if anybody is missing. If you can look
around and see two other guys, you know you're in the clear.
2. Communicate. Don't underestimate the power of the forward
observer. The information age has shown us that knowledge is power.
Use it. By sending in a drone, the operatives may know the
position of any hostiles, hostages, or innocent civvies caught in
the fray. By having that sniper-spotter also carry a laser
microphone, he can not only spot a target but he can listen to what
that target is saying. If the party is dumb enough to make plans on
site, use that against them and have people waiting for them in
ambush. If one operative knows some crucial bit of intelligence,
he'll pass it along to his buddies. So assume that if one of them
can see you, they all know where you are (roughly at the very
least).
3. Plan ahead. If a situation has developed, SWAT/Military deckers
will have downloaded stuff like building plans, etc. so they may
know the most likely places the party may be. They will also know
the layout of the building, And may be able to exploit service
access, crawl-spaces, maintenance tunnels, etc. They will also know
which ways NOT to come in. Stepping down to the "security goon"
level, it is entirely possible that the security personnel may have
"secret doors" leading between critical areas to speed up deployment
and add an element of surprise. It is also possible that these
security tunnels may not appear on any building plan the players
will ever get hold of. Talk about goons coming outta the walls...
4. Do your homework. Once on site, some hotshot recon weenie will
get a picture/voice print/DNA sample of the perpetrator(s) (again,
the little drones are wonderful for this). From this, those same
SWAT/military deckers may be able to determine the ID of the
perp(s). They will use this to the best of their advantage; for
example, say the SWAT team finds out that Bad-Ass George, the
notorious samurai, has holed up inside a building with his team of
runners. Say poor George has a criminal record. Uh, oh. Say this
record tells the coppers that ol'Bad-Ass has a cybernetic inhaled
filtration system and Wired-3. Wow. So maybe instead of tossing in
just those Neurostun canisters, they'll throw in some EMP grenades
too, just special for George (BTW, an EMP [E-lectro M-agnetic
P-ulse] grenade is a CP 2020 thing, but perfectly plausible in
today's day and age, and appropriate for Shadowrun. It's pretty
much death to cyberware). And even if that doesn't work perfectly,
they know who their primary target is, right? Also keep in mind that
the identities may be determined before the cops even arrive (like
from the footage of various security cameras, etc.) Forewarned is
forearmed. This is not even taking into account the possibility of
obtaining a material link (drop of blood, piece of hair or skin),
which is a whole different ball of wax.
5. Cover your ass. Don't have your operative step out into the
open, especially when he or she doesn't know what's out there.
Partial cover, movement modifiers, etc. can all play significant
roles. Especially now that the revised rules for cover are out (in
Fields of Fire) there is more than just the basic +4 modifier.
Optimise your position and maximise your cover.
6. Cover your buddy's ass (not like that, you perverts!).
Suppression fire is your friend. It allows you to keep your
opponents' heads down while you do something else. And if the
cretin is dumb enough to step out into the line of fire, he gets
hit. Many times, its easier to hit with suppressive fire than it is
with regular fire. You generally hit with fewer rounds, however.
Makes sense. Also, overwatch is important. Control your field of
fire. scan it, and if anything moves, vape it. This works well in
Shadowrun because held actions are already written into the rules.
Also, use bounding overwatch. This is a combination between
principles 1. and 6. Basically, it's this. When you have multiple
operatives, one or more take up overwatch while the rest move
forward. Once they get forward, they in turn take up overwatch
while the ones who were on overwatch before move past the new
overwatchers into a position even farther to the front, and the
process is repeated. Somewhat slow, but at least you have a better
chance of being alive once you get to where you're going. The
principles of overwatch and suppressive fire go well together. For
example, operative A maintains suppressive fire on a doorway (behind
which hides a cretinous shadowrunning slimebag) while operative B
gets in position unmolested and takes up overwatch on said doorway.
Then operative A drops the suppressive fire and gets into cover
(also, op A could fire his weapon empty, so that satisfying "tink"
of the empty magazine lulls the runner into complacency). At this
point cretinous shadowrunning slimebag thinks to self "Ha! Goon is
sans ammo! Now is the time to make my move!" Wrongo, >dead<
cretinous shadowrunning slimebag. Keep in mind that since the
runner's head was pinned down, he may not have seen op B move up (the
ideal situation) and may be taken totally by surprise (ouch, no
dodge). You may want to just take the shot and allow the runner to
dodge as a surprise test may not go favourably for the goon. It's
up to you.
7. And speaking of surprise... Ambush is a good thing. Even your
typical corp goon with Reaction 4 and Threat Rating 2 rolls 6 dice,
target number 2 (as they are laying in wait), for an average of 5
successes. The chromed street monster with wired-3, yielding
reaction of, oh, say 12 rolling at T# 4 is only going to get 6
successes on average. So even a wimpy corp goon can give a Sammi a
run for his money under the right circumstances. Imagine what a
SWAT trooper with Reaction 6 Threat Rating 3 would be like. And
even if the Sammi beats some of them, he may not beat them all. Also,
the bonuses to Reaction from BattleTac are added to the dice rolled for
surprise tests, so this can get ugly when facing well-equipped foes.
8. Throw in all the other stuff from various sources as well. In
the Lone Star Sourcebook it talks about Astral backup whose sole
purpose is to hose enemy mages by forcing them to turn off
locks/foci/etc., banishing or controlling their spirits or
elementals, and killing their spells before they reach their
targets. Fields of Fire has stuff on tactical computers, target
designators, etc. that can make any runner's day quite unpleasant.
******************************************************************
I think I'll add a few new things to this list as well...
9. Concerning cover. A useful rule for both PC and foe is to allow
inadvertant hits through cover. The way I run this is as follows: Say
your target number to hit someone with your Ares Predator is a 6 without
cover. Say the target is hiding behind partial cover, for a total target
number of 10. If the shooter rolls no successes at the high target
number, but would have hit without the cover, the shot still hits, but
the target has the benefit of the cover as armor from the hit. In some
cases (where the barrier rating of the cover is higher than the power
level of the shooter's weapon), the shot would be considered a miss. Say
in the above example, the target foolishly takes cover behind a bunch of
empty 55-gallon barrels (cover of maybe 4). The shooter rolls a
2,2,3,5,8, and 8. None hit the target alone, but the two 8's would hit
otherwise. Thus, they actually do hit, but the power level that the
target would resist is only a 5 *before* the target's armor due to his
cover. This kind of situation is realistic and makes people think about
what they are using for cover. It's especially useful for suppressive
fire. You will rapidly see players taking more care in what they hide
behind.
10. Limit your opponents' visibility. Smoke and flash grenades are
wonderful for giving you an extra little edge, especially when trying to
move into a better position. Under cover of smoke, operatives may be
able to move totally unmolested into positions that offer far better
tactical advantages.
11. Position. Optimize it, as I said before. When working in
conjunction with others, try to get the targets into a cross-fire
situation. To clarify, cover is often only uni-directional, meaning that
if you were to shoot from the side, say, instead of from the front, the
target may have less, or even *no* cover. And in this situation, with
multiple opponents shooting at you with less cover mods, you will
eventually run out of combat pool and get hit. Also, cover that actually
*is* omni-directional often limits your abilities to escape. If the
shadowrunner decides that his position has become untenable and tries to
retreat, he may need to go over or through his omni-directional cover,
which will probably be considered difficult ground, thus making it harder
to dodge effectively.
12. Stay out of trouble. Once the shadowrunners enter someplace where
they are likely to meet opposition, that opposition should be smart.
Instead of charging in and trying to hose them down, have them wait, send
a few guards around in behind the runners, lure them into areas that
*you* have control over, that limit their escape options. Herd them
into natural cross-fire areas. Control them and trap them.
13. Speaking of traps...Never underestimate the value of an
anti-personnel mine. If the SWAT or security forces know that the party
is coming or have the time to deploy them, traps work well, especially
when used in psych-ploys (attack the runners, leaving a moderately
obvious avenue of escape that is booby-trapped like all get-out). Even
in improvised situations, a grenade and a length of wire can be a
moderately effective trap, especially when deployed to cover a retreat
that may be followed up.
14. Divide and conquer. To keep from getting flanked into a crossfire
situation, exploit every opportunity to separate the opponents' forces
into smaller groups that are more easily dealt with.
*****************************************************************
Finally, I would like to make a comment on the applicability of
these guidelines within the Shadowrun game system. It has been said that
tactics are useless because of the rapidity with which SR firefights take
place. I'm sorry, but I don't remember the last firefight that lasted
less than five complete turns, and that was against a vastly outnumbered
foe. Generally combats take much longer, with engagements running into
the minutes. Surprisingly, this doesn't significantly add to the amount
of time it takes to run combats since much of the time is spent moving an
jockeying for better position rather than rolling gobs of dice. This in
and of itself adds a dimension of realism to the game.
Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, modifiers are
the life-blood of the Shadowrun game system. If the only modifier you
remember is the -2 smartlink mod, it's no wonder combat is over so
quickly. Even just cover, movement, range, and visibility can totally
screw a target number and push it into the double-digits. In combat, you
tend to spray a horde of rounds in your opponents' general direction with
little or no effect. The exceptions to this are ambushes and combats
that take place at incredibly short range in open terrain. In the long
run, you'll probably roll less because you won't have to roll the NPC's
body-resistance and knockdown so much :)
The final thing that you need to take into account is what you
ultimately want out of your game. If you want cinematic, by all means go
with the quick-and-dirty option. But this has its disadvantages as
well. Generally, normal and even buff goons will be meat for the
runners. Your players will probably go through your NPC's like
papiere-mache, a situation which often leads to PC vs GM power escalations
that rapidly get out of hand. On the other hand, if you play your goons
smart, remember your modifiers, and go with a higher level of realism,
even weak goons can give experienced runners a hassle in certain
situations. Then, the runners have to rely on planning and coordination
rather than brute-force to succeed, which I always imagined was the point
behind running in the first place. The trade-off here is more stuff to
remember or keep track of. With practice, though, this gets easier with
time. In the abstract, one system is no better than the other, it's
just a question of gaming style. I pride myself on the level or
relative realism (barring the initial suspension of disbelief required
to even play the game) that can be achieved. I think it makes the game
enjoyable on a more reasonable level.
If for no other reason, give some of the subjects mentioned
herein a try just to see the looks on your players' faces when they are
vastly outclassed by weaker foes with a little bit of tactical know-how.
Above all, enjoy and feel free to comment or request
elaboration/clarification on whatever.
Marc
