Hmm... Honestly Booty and Metachem are some of my favourite abilities - narrative-wise. It's just adds a lot of whacky anime energy. I think we will try to if leaving them in and see what happens (of course with both metachem and booty boons not persisting after a contract). Another small thing. Is there any point in adding "the spec-ops point spent (only for the Captain)"? Since everybody gets 12 and you can't retire the dude, it's just everybody adding 12 and all the 12ves nullyfing each other at the end.[/QUOTE]
Well, while I agree those are fun skills in the baseline game, for the reasons you stated, when I thought how to adapt them in Mercenaries I found they're a bit.. off. Narratively speaking as you not dealing anymore with an unnamed mercenary you bought for the specific mission, but a named character you are going to evolve and create a story inside a group. Yeah, it could always be justifiable in a story to see you auth bounty hunter bring something unexpected each contract ( "Hey guys, you never would guess what I found walking here from home... it almost helped me forgot the HMG I broke yesterday - you know, the one I stole in a shop last month"), but I tried to recreate a more "intimate feeling" between the unit and his loadout, trying to put some weight on ponder equipment choices, rather than going full random (something that this game already has, a lot). However feel free to try another approach and use them as standard, let me know how does it works :) Are you talking about the Renown calculation? Fair point. I created it when I was thinkering on some advanced mechanics (renown comparison for skills/underdog mechanics, etc...) but now it's more a relic than something useful. Thank you for catching it, I'm going to remove the line on the next revision.
Hey there - just stumbled across this and damn, good job man! Looks like a blast! Only suggestion I would like to make is re-wording this (from page 11, Retreat!): "At the start of each round, if less than half units are in non-NULL state..." The double negative of "less than half" and "non-NULL state" had me doing mental gymnastics to figure out that you just meant if more than half of your troops are in a Null state. Really excited to try the system out. Infinity has always felt like it should have a mode for this scale of play!
Hey, a buddy of mine and I decided to get back into N4 after years away from N3 and found this a great way to ease back into it! We did have a few questions though for @Lareon : What are everyone's thoughts on starting with a company of 5 cheerleaders vs. a couple heavy hitters? I feel like having an order advantage with cheerleaders would be helpful early, but it means you're not really getting your snowballs rolling on the heavy hitters. Reading through the thread, the snowball effect is real (and intended) so maybe this is more of an interesting choice with no right answer? When creating a company, are we allowed to spend any of our initial 60 RP on equipment? The example given shows that "With the last 3 RP, Angus could buy something from the Equipment Table" on page 5, but the rules also state on apge 6 "In between contracts you can spend RP to purchase new options for your mercenaries." Since the first company creation isn't technically "in between" contracts, I wanted to verify. As a new player that's still trying to grasp base N4 and ITS13, I don't understand how Retreat works in Mercenaries. On page 11, Mercenaries 1.0 states "all Troopers who exit the game table via the widest side of their Deployment Zone are considered to have survived the battle and can be counted as Victory Points by their owner." I don't understand where Victory Points factor in anywhere? What happens if one side's models are entirely in NULL states? Given the way I understand "Healing and Recover" on page 12, I feel like there's a chance that a model stands back up on any turn. Some mission types still require button pushing and such, so even if I have free reign of the table it's not a given that I get all the OP's so do we have to play turns out without any reactive stuff from the opponent? Some of the Contract language is a little confusing. For example, Praxis Rampage gives Objective Points stating "2 OP if more experiments Alpha are brought in NULL state than the opponent". Does that mean I get 2OP if there are 3 experiments Alpha in NULL states and only 1 opponent model in NULL state? Or is it that I brought more into NULL states than my opponent? Similarly, The Mole mentions a CivEvac action. I had to search around to find the ITS rules, but it appears that CivEvac is a state and the action is Synchronize? Wanted to make sure in case we roll that mission. Also, I assume in Secure the Data that if someone carrying data pieces goes into a NULL state and drops their data pieces, anyone can pick them up (by moving into contact?) All in all, this is awesome work and we are floored with how well thought out it is! It perfectly suits the need you were targeting, and scratches a big itch for us, so thanks for all the hard work and we'll be sure to post some pictures as we can!
Hey @garagefridge ! I'm glad you're enjoying it! Based by the game I played and the feedback I received, at the moment it seems the two approaches are quite balanced. They provide two different advantages (early order spam vs chonky and/or elite units more effective for objectives or kills). I was really pleased to see there's not a clear answer for it, so both approaches are affordable. Yeah, you can spend the initial RP on equipment. The initial phase is considered a "downtime period" in which you can buy and equip mercenaries for your company, even if there's not a prior contract. I kept the original sentence from N4 rules for future contracts. At the moment no mission involves victory points (or, better, renown) for retreating troops, but it's an hook for the future. I agree it could be a bit confusing though, so I'm going to fixt the sentence to add more clarity.. Contract Annex, page 4: If, at the end of a round, all the deployed units of a player are in a NULL state (either unconscious or dead), the game ends. This rule is meant to give you some chance to recover (if you're playing second) and continue playing if you're able to heal some units before the end of both turns. But if at the end of the round a player is without units able to act, the game ends. Sorry, language barriers are sometime hard to overcome. I'm trying to improve the description where I can, so these feedbacks are always good to add clarity on my english :D In this specific context, it's a direct comparison between the downed Alphas of both players. So you have 2 OP if you kill/make unconscious more Alphas than the Alphas killed/unconscious by your opponent. True, I'm going to fix it (the Mole must be in CivEvac state through a synchronize action) Yes, that's correct. Going to fix it[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the quick replies! That definitely helps clarify. And apologies for nitpicking the wording, I totally understand the language barriers and just want to help clarify wherever I can, especially as a new player! We'll be looking to do a kickoff session soon so we'll keep you guys posted!
So, just to confirm, to use alien sectorials you're required to also select a Human sectorial (or Spiral). But you aren't actually required to take any of those models? Can we just have 3 Unidrons and a Nexus Operative saying "We're Ramah Task Force, honest guv"?
Yeah, that's about right. The alien limitation was a archaic rule that is still alive since the earlier versions of this ruleset. I'm going to remove it for the 1.1 so the Combined can form a mercenary company without this sort of limitations
Pog. Spoiler Ironically I'd probably run Morat/Spiral anyway and so don't benefit from it, but it's nice to have the option to do CA/CA, CA/Tohaa, or run one of the two with +1 WIP (like everyone else).
Hi there! @Perzan and the Infinity Global League just launched a full Mercenaries campaign on TTS. If you're interested, just grab the link and hop in: Mercenaries – Infinity Global League IGL Mercenaries Registration (google.com)
Might want to change the Registration survey link, it allows editing/viewing everyone's responses, etc. Think you need to find the sharing link.
So, a small personal thought about the injury system. When I first drafted this ruleset I wanted to recreate the feeling Mordheim had: injuries were much more brutal and permanent, and the entire system was designed with a "deal with it" mindset. In my original idea players had to be forced to build around the possibility of having units wrecked by multiple injuries: retiring them when too injured, or forcing the player to actively spend RP to keep them on a competitive level. in the following versions I toned down a lot the brutality of the injuries, and made them more viable to work with them. At the moment I feel I'm in sort of a middle ground: the injury system is not mean enough to force difficult decisions to the players, nor "easy" enough to be enjoyable in a more casual setting. And honestly I'm not really satisfied with it. My next plan is to focus the "default experience" on a more casual approach, so I will probably continue on the road of toning down the system to be more enjoyable in a casual setting, with less permanent and mean results. The 1.1 version will have cheaper recovery, and maybe some fixes to keep the injuries at a level of "minor annoyance", that can be fixed by spending a limited amount of resources. But in the meanwhile I want to develop a variation of the rules, with a more Mordheim-esque approach. More debilitating and permanent injuries, with an expensive recovery system. My idea is to add an additional layer of strategy, to bring the player to do difficult decision during the game. Cheap troops used as meat shield and injury-magnet, a viable retirement system (where a unit is retired because is in a too bad shape to be recovered), and generally I'm expecting to see the end of a campaign with a lot of injured troops, that try to balance the maluses with equipments and level-advancement. This will be part of a series of "optional rules" (like the ITS tournament options) that can be selected at the start of a campaign, in order to change the feeling of the game. Stay tuned!
Awesome! I'm in the process of rewriting the injury system for our upcoming campaign as well as I wanted something a bit more granular and punishing. It's tied in with a support staff module for leaving doctors/engineers/hackers undeployed for postgame recovery bonuses. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Funnily enough I was working on a similar mechanic (support staff to fill the roster that can provide bonuses for the game, and recovery rolls for doctors), but I consider it a sidestep on the injury system rather than a fix to the lethality I would like to reduce. Main changes I'm going to introduce is an auto-recovery roll for killed units (a PH-3 roll, as for initial draft) for assessing if the unit completely recovers or receive an injury. The injury table will be revised a bit to adapt this change (the "no injury" result will be removed) and the RP costs for recoveries will be lowered a bit, to increase their accessibility.
What made Mordheim injury rolls so great (at least for me) were two things: That you also got a small chance on good results (like getting frenzy or extra exp) and narrative results that were kinda fun (captures, or pit fight). That way this was not a straight up "how f*cked am I?" roll but was more exciting than that. When I toyed with tweaking the injury system myself I thought about stuff like gaining impetous (combat rage), sixth sense (paranoia), gaining or losing religious (near death experience) or some version of Mordhem's "captured" or "pit fight".
Version 1.1 is up! Read the release note in the second post of this thread, and grap your copy! So, there's a lot to unpack here. I received a ton of feedback in the past months, and I decided to bring few important changes in the base infrastructure of my ruleset. I'm pretty sure I'll end up breaking something, but I feel it was necessary to address few issues I encountered during the playtests. First of all the injury system was reworked a bit. Following the last thought I posted few days ago I decided to soften the injury impact in the game, to focus on a more causal and relaxing game (don't worry, Mordheim-like rules are coming soon). I decided to remove some of the luck factor in the injury and let the units roll their PH (actually PH-3) to see if they survive an injury. This is additionally mitigated by the new Support staff rule (see below) and should give the troop a good chance to survive unscathed. Then I decided to drastically reduce the cost of the services to provide an affordable (but still RP draining) way to resolve injuries. About how the injuries works I'm not really satisfied: flat maluses could work, but I feel they don't provide a really interesting experience in the game. So i thinkered a bit with the rules and the new "Battle Fury" injury is a way to test if I can add a bit of complexity on the system, without overloading too much the game. Then, the new support staff rule. My original design of the game envisioned a more dynamic team composition, with an extended roster to be able to store and use different units, in order to provide a more tactical approach when choosing who to bring on the field. However it didn't go as expected, as it's more efficent to create a multi-tool team without wasting precious RP on reserve. I thought a new "support" mechanic could help to solve a bit this situation, in which units not deployed are still able to provide bonuses after each match, trying to tempt the players to balance between the active units and the reserve. Finally, Immunity (Total) is back! But is not "Total" anymore :D
Hotfix! 1.1.1 is now out! It's a quick fix on Objective Point value: now they grant 4 RP per OP gained during a match (to offset the idle mechanics granted by Booty and Support Staff). And I fixed the personal development table, as I mistakenly added a duplicate skill.
Hello! The digital company sheet has been updated, thanks to Fyrael from IGL Discord! You can grab the new one from this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ouid=110588089012777278599&rtpof=true&sd=true The first post has been updated as well. Now the company sheet will automatically creates the unit templates for TTS matches. Just fill the fields, copy the template from the second page and post it on TTS!
