Hello! In these gloomy times between a national lockdown and another, I started working on a small project of mine. Recently this project started taking a tiiiiiny form, and I decided to share it to the community, in order to gather some feedback. What is about? "Infinity: Mercenaries" is a rpg-oriented campaign framework for Infinity the Game, based on the harsh world of the smaller mercenary companies that populate the Human Sphere. Your task is to form and manage a new mercenary company, navigating it through contracts and trying to survive until your group will be strong enough to seize a permanent spot in the world of sanctioned fights. I think the main inspiration I took while writing this game can be easily guessed (and so its '90 feeling will be self-evident), while others can be less obvious. As you can see the document is still heavily in beta (the layout is truly bad, some sections are still under construction and the values overall are not really balanced), but should be already playable enough to provide some feedback, if you would like to :) I'm currently working on the contracts section (but ITS missions could be used instead), and waiting for the spec-ops rule will be out for N4. Hope you enjoy! ----------------------------- Download the 1.2 version here! Download the Contract Annex here! ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADS Company Sheet - Fillable spreadshet usable to track company's progresses through the game: Company Sheet.xlsx - Google Drive Company Sheet (digital version) - a more digital-friendly Company sheet, for computer use: Company Sheet - Digital Version Post Game sequence - a recap of the various tables present in the manual (courtesy of Perzan): Infinity Mercenaries Post Game Sequence
Version 0.4 Added introduction paragraph, about Balance in the game Added reroll rule in the Personal Development table (a skill cannot be chosen twice) Added rules and clarification for Company creation (welcome Tohaa, JSA, and Spiral!) Captain generation: updated the rule reflecting N4 spec-ops release Equipment: lowered the cost of Panzerfaust, and changed to Secondary weapon (so it can be bought together with another weapon) Improved a bit the layout: changed the font, fixed the tables Added General Rules section to Contracts chapter (to increase hype!) 09/12/2020: Version 0.5 Added CivEvac skill New Chapter focused on Campaign Squad Creation: added the clarification about AVA for shared units (if two sectorials share the same unit, the greater AVA between the two is considered for unit purchases) Personal Development: added clarification about the roll on the table Booty: added clarification (the skill maintain its effect even if the unit possessing it goes in NULL state during the game) Cover Fire: reworked the skill a bit, to add some balance and sense in it Equipment: a bought equipment can now be discarded (to make place for another equipment with the same Label) Added a Table of Contents and page numbers Unit Strength: added clarification for Captains (the spec-ops points spent are counted toward the final Unit strength) New Contracts: added Backstab!, The Heist, The Mole 16/02/2021: Version 0.6 Page 4, Creating a Company: reworked the mechanics of Captain/Squad generation Page 6, the Units: added rules for Peripherals Page 7, Lowered the cost of CCW weapons (AP, DA, and E/M) from 3 to 2 RP Page 8, Personal Development Table: changed roll mechanics. Now the player rolls 2 dice and choose which goes as column and which as row, granting a bit of flexibility to the system Page 8, Experience: minor changes to the mechanic. Now the bar doesn't reset, and the rank gain is incremental Page 13, New rules: changed the Regeneration skill Page 16, Contracts: added Insurance Token rule Page 21, The Mole: only a single mole can be discovered in a match Page 22, The Mole: fixed the mechanics for the Twist "We Got Company!" 15/04/2021: THE BIG FAT UPDATE (version 0.7) Highlighted the changes from the previous version, for an easier reference (thanks WiT? !) Reworked Injuries mechanics Replaced Post-Battle rewards with a new Downtime Events mechanic Added Praxis Rampage to the list of the available contracts Small changes to XP: now there are few more ways to gain XP, and the total xp needed for level up was decreased a bit New rules: Holomask and Peripherals The SWC now are consistently gained at the end of each contract (+0.5 SWC per match) Renamed "Unit Strength" to Renown few minor changes all over the document 20/09/2021: Version 0.8 The captain is now a specialist Units with Immunity (Total) cannot be bought anymore from the army roster Raised the purchasing cost of E/M CCW Minor change in the Personal Development Table: Removed Martial Arts 1 (redundant) and replaced it with NCO Services Table: reduced a bit the cost of Advanced Therapy (from 10 to 8 RP) and added a new option for completely healing a unit from all the injuries received Few changes to the Retreat! rule Added Journalist special skill Resources Points on contract. Changed a bit the gaining mechanic. Now the winning player doesn't gain anymore the 5 bonus RP, but they're given to the player with less renown deployed on the field. This is balanced by increasing the RP gained for each objective point from 2 to 3. Backstab! : Added advanced deployment rules, and changed a little the mechanic of the extra irregular order. The Heist: Added advanced deployment rules The Mole: adjusted the mission a bit (the hvts cannot be analysed on turn 1, and tuned the twists to be more impactful on the game) Praxis Rampage: added 360° visor to the Experiment Omega and Sixth Sense to the experiments Alpha. Now they're scary! Additionally the suppressed weapons now use PARA amunition instead than STUN Fixed bye gains for the campaign 25/10/2021: Version 1.0! Removed Xp gain from units that achieve an objective point All the contracts are removed from the main document and added to the Contract Annex Integrated all the community contracts to the main game Added "Gladiatoria" contract Fixed the general layouts to give a more polished look 26/01/2022: Infinity: Mercenaries v1.1 Additional Rules (page 4) Removed "Alien Mistrust" rule. Now alien sectorial armies can join the game without human presence! The Squad (page 4) Removed Immunity (Total) ban The Units (page 6) Removed Immunity (Total) ban Equipment (page 7) Removed Super Heavy Armor choice Added Stun Pistol (normal equipment, secondary, 5 RP) Added Adhesive Launcher (special equipment, secondary, 7 RP + 0.5 SWC) Added Contender (normal equipment, primary, 5 RP) Personal Development (page 8) "multi-level" skills were merged in a single choice, with a little changed on how the gain works. Added Immunity (Critical) and BS Attack (+1 Damage) to the table Renown (page 9) the spec-ops points spent for the Captain don't add anymore to the Captain total renown Injuries (page 9) Now a killed unit must perform a PH-3 roll at the end of a contract to save from an injury. As a consequence, the "No effect" result was removed from the Injury table and replaced with a new "Battle Fury" injury Services (page 10) Reduced Advanced Therapy cost from 8 to 4 RP Reduced Cellular Reconstruction cost from 15 to 8 RP Reduced Forced Retraining cost from 20 to 15 RP Retreat (page 11) Replaced the line "At start of each round" with "At the start of the active player's turn" Removed mention to Victory points as it generates confusion New Rules (page 12) Immunity (Total): non-lethal weaponry (stun, para, e/m) now are able to ignore this immunity level. Experience (page 14) Clarified that a unit gains XP only to bring an opponent from non-Null to Null state Downtime events (page 15) Clarified that mercenaries rolled in a downtime event counts in the deployed renown when calculating underdog bonus during a match. NEW RULE - Support Staff (page 16) Putting units in reserve (in roster but not deployed in the current match) now grants various bonuses depending on their role and their Renown. Odd participant (page 18) A bye allows the player to write off an injury from a single unit in his/her roster 26/01/2022 - Contract Annex v1.1 Secure the Data (page 15) clarified that Data Pieces dropped on the ground can be taken by any unit with a short skill The Heist (page 17) specified that a unit can grab multiple valuables, without limits specified that a unit with a valuable cannot go in any marker state The Mole (page 19) Small fix in a wording (removed a "CivEvac action" reference, replaced by "was put in CivEvac state") Praxis Rampage (page 22) An Additional OP is granted if the same number of experiment alpha than the adversary are brought in NULL state 31/01/2022 - Infinity: Mercenaries v1.1.1 Changed the RP value for gained objective points. Now they grant 4 RP instead that 3 Removed a duplicate "BS attack (+1 Damage)" from the Personal Development table and replaced with "Technical Weapons (+1 B)" 16/08/2022 - Infinity: Mercenaries v1.2 Added a "Special Thanks" section, to be extended in the future :p Page 4, "Creating a company" Reworked a bit the company creation. Now the limitations are removed (so a only-Alien or a NA2 company are now allowed) with a tweak to the initial selection. Thanks IGL for the idea Page 4, "The Captain" Increased captain points from 12 to 18 Put an hard cap on BTS, to avoid the pesky BTS+Bioimmunity combo Page 4, "The Squad" Increased points from 60 to 70 Impersonation troops can no longer be bought Page 7, "Example of Company creation" updated the example to reflect the changes Page 8, "The Units" Impersonation troops can no longer be bought Page 9, "Armor List" Increased Heavy Armor BTS from to 6 Page 11, "Renown" Equipment no longer grant Renown to troops Changed Renown gain on XP: now the total XP gain is added to the troop renown, with a bonus for ranks obtained Page 11, "Additional Skills" Removed "Cover Fire" skills Page 15, "Journalist" skill Increased Renown bonus from 1 to 2 Page 17, "Rewards" Now OP gained during the contracts are added in the company sheet, and provide additional renown when calculating the victory points Page 17, "Resource Points" Now the Underdog Bonus is granted by confronting total renown of both companies, rather than the deployed one Page 18, "Weapons" Removed Renown from special weapons Page 21, "End of the Campaign" Objective Points now grants 5 Renown each at the end of the campaign
Can't download on my phone (download fails, don't know why) but the concept sounds interesting [emoji3]
Really cool concept! I‘d love to try it out some time after the pandemic. Small note on balancing: Mordheim also was never balanced, so don’t worry too much about this and maybe just add a paragraph about the intention of the game?
Great idea! I'm aware that a game like this will never be truly balanced (as randomness is by definition unbalanced) and the focus of this game is mainly "let's see what happens". However my target is to build a sort of "balance" in the long run, to avoid snowballing effects of lucky players, and to provide different ways to achieve campaign victory. Adding a paragraph in the introduction is a great idea to set the mood of the players, and explaining this idea :)
As naturally the Combined Army players don't want to feel left out, there are issues... In N3, Morat = Veteran + Religious. So pretty much every Morat (even the Spec Ops) has Veteran, with a few gaining Courage. That makes the Rank Advancement chart pointless for them, and I assume there are some human troops that have a similar problem. I assume the Mordheimest way to deal with this would be to add a 'Leadership' skill table to roll on instead of making that sequence fixed. The skill table can result in randomly duplicating skills. Do you roll again, choose, or eat raspberries?
Well, the main point of the rank advancement is to know how much point the unit gains, as well as rolling on the advancement table. Both courage and Veteran are side-notes, in order to add staying power to more experienced troops. Morat (as well as many others units) already have them, so they have a little "advantage" compared to other troops. (i know, they payed for them in the army builder, but still ) As for the duplicate skill you keep reroll it, until a valid result is appliable. I'm going to update the document, thank you for noticing the missing explanation :)
Does "Sectorial" in these rules (as in "The first step is choosing one or two sectorials for the new mercenary company") describe only explicit Sectorial Armies, or does it include Vanilla and/or the disparate NA2 factions?
Explicitly Sectorial Armies. I felt Vanilla armies are too broad for a game like this, so I left them out. As for NA2 factions at the moment I would like to include only JSA and Spiral (as they have unique units and they're not already a merge of other armies). I'm going to add them in the next version :)
I like this, will probably try it out when corona-situation allows... I will add that at least 1 sectorial must be human. I can see shady humans "covertly/unofficial" using morats or other aliens as part of their mercenary force, but I find it much harder to believe that morats would be able to gather the contacts needed and be accepted as a force that are given contracts. Looking forward to examples of contracts and how you envision that!
Version 0.4 is out! See the second post for the release notes :) As for the contracts, I'm still working on them: I would like to create something original and far from the already seen missions. But it's not that easy, and I'm stuck a little.
It feels like you really should have mostly unsymmetrical missions for the contracts. Escort missions, assassination missions, demolition, hacking and intrusion and regular (maybe territorial) skirmishes. I have written quite a few narrative scenarios, so if you want some input... [emoji3] Or are you thinking about how to solve objectives, or how to choose contracts? Something like this, but with other dimensions for table and deployment zones? Making contact: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZO_YOC7_mMC7FsAvZiddBaSod2jkOcarOnXBX31meV4/edit?usp=drivesdk And my rules for civilians: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yneY6TC4oCz9k4ViwrzCponoTdiFClTYLCWIW_mog9I/edit?usp=drivesdk Rules for HVTs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k7u_vgbu_LU4Zk05TjeHw64avcacyC7apdnwHZVE_Nw/edit?usp=drivesdk (I also like your updates!) (And is it possible to build Spec-Ops in the N4 army builder?)
Thank you for the feedback, really appreciated :) At the moment I have several pieces already done, I'm just finding the right inspiration for keeping the missions interesting (deployment, rules and objectives), diverting from the normal ITS ones. The contracts I'm writing tend to be quite asymmetric, with diferent objectives and deployments. Few of them are already written (almost), for others I'm still evaluating the rules. 1. The Mole: a sleeper agent stole sensitive data from a PanO corp, and he's trying to flee in the crowd. Two mercenary companies are recruited (one from the corporation, one from the competitor) and they're trying to capture and escort the Mole back to their employer (first trying to figure which civilian is the mole) 2. Credit recovery: a creditor decided to recruit a mercenary company to "safely escort" the debtor back to the employer, with every riches found in his home. Problem is, the debtor is heavily protected by guards and turrets. And it seems another mercenary is here with the same object, from a different creditor. 3. The Heist: a company was payed to assault and clean up a vault, the other to defend it from the intrusion. 4. Teseum Vein: a small and quite insignificant Teseum vein was discovered in a no-man land. Two groups fight for the possession of the Vein, covering their workers during the mine attempt 5. Backstab! : after a completed job, the Company found their employer want them dead, all the evidences erased. So they have to fight their way in the field, surviving the mercenaries sent to kill them. 6. Deep Space Hijack: after a successfull boarding, the Company must make its way toward the engines and cockpit of the starship, fighting the mercenaries hired to defend it I hope to finish them soon :)
Version 0.5 is out! Sorry for the little delay, I had a very busy month, and I lost myself trying to figure how to draw contract maps. :D I added the first batch of contracts, that will surely need an heavy beta testing before being satisfied with them. For the next version I'm going to put more work towards contracts (adding at least a couple more of them) and a first draft o the Company Sheet necessary to track all the information during the campaign. Feedbacks are always welcome. If someone is going to test it, let me know and give me all your results (so I'll start to figure how to balance everything). Peace! <3
