Tucker's Tactics For Agents

[Steve]

The thread in the Fantasy Hero forum on making kobolds more of a threat in Hero terms made me wonder how to make agents in a superhero setting more of a threat. I've read through the various VIPER books to get ideas, but I'm always eager to learn more.

 

What tactics have you used as a GM, or, if a player, found to be effective when used against your superhuman characters?

[pinecone]

One oldy but goody. Sqd delays, Grenadier tosses a grenade at the Hero, if the Hero dives, hose 'em down with Autofire. If not hopefully the grenade lowers their DCV anyway. (I like Flash, or x2 KB grenades for agents. NND Gas is OK as well)

[Houston GM]

Make the agents immune to their own grenades.

Example #1: The agents all carry smoke grenades (AoE darkness) and wear IR goggles.

Example #2: The agents all carry flash grenades (AoE flash) and flare compensating gogles (flash defense).

Example #3: The agents all carry gas grenades (AoE NND) and wear gas masks.

That way, a group of agents can blanket the battlefield with AoEs, but suffer no ill effects themselves.

 

 

Have a couple well-hidden sniper agents. They can sit at long range using find weakness and slowly pick off the heroes.

 

Give the agents some martial arts. I gave one set martial throw, martial dodge and martial block. Because the agents outnumbered the heroes, an individual agent could afford to waste an action making a hero waste an attack.

 

Coordinate attacks. Some of the agents will have to take defensive moves, but the rest can all coordinate on a single hero. That can easily overwhelm someone's defenses.

 

Choose your targets carefully. Pick the hero that appears to be the most effective against agents, and drop him first. Repeat.

 

Misdirection is a great strategy. The obvious agents are out front taking hostages and shooting at the heroes. The other group of agents is quietly accomplishing the real goal ... several miles away.

 

Really dirty evil nasty tricks:

Give your agents inobvious armor, acting skill and feign death. When hit, pretend to expire messily. This really messes with heroes who have codes vs. killing.

 

Even nastier:

Have the evil mastermind capture some normals, give them collar bombs, give them fake weapons with dead-man switches in the grip, and put them in costumes like your regular agents. If they're knocked out or disarmed, BOOM.

[esampson]

Remember that your agents are there for a job and that job is almost certainly not to fight the hero.

 

By this I don't mean that they aren't prepared to fight the hero. I just mean that there objective is almost never to engage a hero head on.

 

Usually agents are either there to steal something (or someone), provide extra firepower for some villain, or delay the hero while the villain does something.

 

In the first example it only takes a few agents to grab something (or someone) and make off with it. The rest of the agents should be using delaying tactics. When a hero tries to attack them they should block, dodge, or dive for cover as needed. Sure, they lose their next action, but it doesn't matter because they just caused the hero to use theirs (and all their buddies can still shoot). If the block or dodge succeeds thats an entire extra action that the hero has to take and when there's a ticking clock those actions are important. Most agents should probably have some martial arts skills. Not necessarily karate or kung-fu but just commando training style of martial arts. Spend 1 point so they can use it with their gun (not shooting but using the stock of the gun to strike, using the body to block, etc.) You're talking a +2 OCV and DCV bonus when they block. Even better, if they have Martial Strike then against a hero who has closed with them they will probably be attacking for around 8 dice of damage (Figuring 3d6 for Strength, +3d6 for using a rifle as a club, and +2d6 for Martial Strike) with a +2 to their DCV. Coming from an agent that's nothing to sneeze at. (One note; you should build the gun with a +3d6 HA since this isn't just an improvised weapon. Stick it in a multipower and it will probably cost 1 or 2 points).

 

In the second case have them widely spread out all over the place. This will give them overlapping fields of fire, protect them against AoEs, and cause problems for the hero since they have to spend time moving to each one. Have them set and brace, use scopes (PSL through a focus with a limitation that the user must set and/or brace), and take cover. A normal agent's DCV isn't that great so halving usually takes it from about a 5 to a 3. They lose two points but then can usually gain around 3/4 cover which is a -4 to OCV, so they are 2 points ahead. They should also be causing their opponent to take range penalties (unless the hero has some PSLs themself). With a rifle instead of a pistol (2 PSLs against range), Bracing (+2 OCV to offset range penalties), and a scope (another +2 PSLs only when set and/or braced) they can be shooting at a hero who is 60 meters away and their OCV will actually be a point higher than normal (+1 for set). It's going to take some time for most heroes to close that distance during which they are being attacked by the villain and the other agents.

 

This brings up one other point. Properly equip your agents. Don't just give them an 8d6 OAF blaster. If it's a rifle give it a few PSLs through the focus because rifles have better accuracy over distance than a pistol. Buy it a scope (more PSLs with additional limitations). On the other hand if the agents are going to need to be in close because their job is to delay give them carbines. 7d6 autofire, OCV bonus when using autofire to represent those extra bullets flying about, replace the scope with a laser scope (another OCV bonus) and give the gun the 'butt-strike' ability. Since their job is to slow down the hero give them flash grenades (and equip them with some flash defense) and smoke grenades (bonus points if they can see through the smoke).

 

This isn't even really 'super-gear'. This is all more or less what you might expect to see mundane paramilitary type people using. If you want to get fancier you can give them entangle grenades. Sure, the effect of the entangle will be fairly low but it is fairly easy for low OCV agents to hit higher DCV heroes with them and unless they are so weak that the hero breaks out with casual strength they will drop the targets DCV and can quite likely cost them an action as they have to break out.

 

If you want to be really mean to your heroes have the agents 'juice'. Half damage reduction PD and ED, only verses stun, fragile focus with 1 continuing charge that lasts several turns. Throw in a bit of extra presence with a limitation that it is only for defense. You would be surprised at how cheap that becomes, especially if you add in some side-effects when the drugs wear off. You end up with agents who are feeling no pain or fear. However they still take the same body they would so the heroes won't be free to absolutely unload on them with massive attacks (not as helpful in a campaign where the 'heroes' are unconcerned with how much injury they cause to agents, but in a more four-colored campaign it can definitely have an effect).

[Houston GM]

We're the good guys:

Give some of the agents disguises. Disguise some of them as a news crew. That way they can record the powers used by the heroes and study them later. They can interview the heroes. If the heroes break the law during the encounter, or if they say or do something stupid, the video can get leaked onto YouTube.

 

Immediately after the fight, the police can show up to take the captured agents to jail. Several minutes after they drive off, the real police can arrive on the scene. The look on the heroes faces when they realized they turned the captured agents over to disguised agents should be priceless.

 

It's even better if the agents disguised as reporters are still there with their cameras rolling....

 

Run away, run away, bravely run away:

As soon as the heroes arrive, the two dozen agents take off running in two dozen different directions. The heroes are faster, and they'll catch some of them, but most will get away. And chasing agents (especially after most of them leave the immediate area) takes a bunch of time. This works great if the agents were just a diversion for the group committing the actual crime.

 

If the agents need to get the stolen macguffin away from the scene, they can always disguise one of them as an injured bystander (with a real injury). Nobody searches the injured victims for contraband. Once the agent is at the hospital, he can slip the macguffin to an accomplice.

 

Breaking things:

This is an example of a wonderful diversion.

 

The heroes hear about an attack. When they arrive, they see a bunch of agents shooting at a building. Smoke is pouring out of the windows of the building. There are screams coming from inside the building. There are a couple burning cars in the parking lot.

 

Once the heroes get things sorted out, they'll find that the screams were coming from recordings played over speakers. The smoke in the building was generated by smoke machines. The guns were actually fakes that used special effects to make noise. The burning cars were cheap wrecks. The cars belong to the building owner ... who conveniently decides that he's not interested in pressing charges for trespassing or vandalism.

[Balabanto]

1) Coordinate attacks! Use that teamwork roll. Once a character is stunned, they'll think twice about fighting agents again.

 

2) L-shaped ambushes work wonders. Spread out, especially using Champions Complete, because. Area effect Entangle is the single most broken agent beater now that you can get 32m radius 3 PD 2 ED entangle for 50 points. Give your agents a "slippery field" that allows them +30 STR only vs. Entangles so that trick doesn't work.

 

3) No Range Modifier. Even a seemingly weak attack can be reasonably effective if the hero can't cross 400 meters in a single action phase.

 

4) Penetrating Low-Yield Drains: Sure, they don't seem like much individually, but a few points of DEX or DCV can often make a difference.

 

5) Mix and Match Weapons: That initial 8d6 blast might not seem so nasty, but after a few encounters, retool that blast with a few of the heroes vulnerabilities and watch the difference!

 

6) Martial Block or Martial Dodge: Fix that nasty speedster by eating his action after the first guy. He might miss if he tries to move by too many people.

[pinecone]

One concept I've used is a "Thug Master/ Clock King" style master trainer...

 

Follow the Plan! +2 Combat, UBO, x8+, Teamwork, UBO, x8+....

 

"I've made a study of you"... Cramming (KS: Target), AP for up to 60 active, Req. Int roll, only vs Targets you have a KS of (KS: The Sentinals, etc...)

 

"Trained by the Clock King"  AP for up to 40?, Cramming? Teamwork? Trained operative habitualy display a stylized clock emblem someplace, it helps them coordinate, and advertises the clock king's wares.

 

This could become a real "item" in a campaign..."The biker gang all have pins on their vests...it's looks like a smiley face" "Wait, now that you are closer...it's the face of a clock! (Dun, dun dun!)

 

"Glad to see you here hero...Just as planned!"

[Christopher R Taylor]

Teamwork and carefully planned ambushes can help a lot.  Instead of them showing up in a parking lot waiting to be beat to paste, have them use snipers and mines and crossfire.  Raise their OCV slightly so they don't miss as much and they can be pretty effective against even superheroes.  Especially effective is if they all target one person and take them down one at a time.

[esampson]

One concept I've used is a "Thug Master/ Clock King" style master trainer...

 

Follow the Plan! +2 Combat, UBO, x8+, Teamwork, UBO, x8+....

 

"I've made a study of you"... Cramming (KS: Target), AP for up to 60 active, Req. Int roll, only vs Targets you have a KS of (KS: The Sentinals, etc...)

 

"Trained by the Clock King"  AP for up to 40?, Cramming? Teamwork? Trained operative habitualy display a stylized clock emblem someplace, it helps them coordinate, and advertises the clock king's wares.

 

This could become a real "item" in a campaign..."The biker gang all have pins on their vests...it's looks like a smiley face" "Wait, now that you are closer...it's the face of a clock! (Dun, dun dun!)

 

"Glad to see you here hero...Just as planned!"

Interesting idea, though not quite how I would do it (I've actually used a somewhat similar concept in the past except that rather than being a super-villain training thugs it was an organization).

 

To be 'fair' the limitation 'only vs Targets you have a KS of (KS: The Sentinals, etc...)' shouldn't be worth very many points since the NPCs have Cramming and I assume that in the majority of cases they will have already 'crammed' for the proper heroes. That's a case of one of those 'non-limiting limitations' (or slightly limiting since you might occasionally have them fail to cram for one character or another for some reason).

 

Those are also probably some fairly pricey adders onto the agents. Granted in both cases you are talking about NPCs who don't really need to be point balanced, so in the end it doesn't really matter, but giving agents and thugs 'expensive' abilities or allowing them to apply limitations that players wouldn't really be allowed to take (although in the case of a player the limitation is more valid since a lot of the time a player won't know who to 'cram' for) just seems a little off to me.

 

In my case I just applied some packages to the people who had been trained. Thugs turning out to have teamwork, a few extra levels, and some basic martial arts manuevers would often throw the heroes off their stride, and then there was usually the intangible benefits of the training. Usually when I would GM regular thugs they would fight in a fairly straight-forward 'dumb' style. If they had a range weapon, they used it. If they didn't they would move straight towards the hero and attack. The thugs who had been trained, on the other hand, would take advantage of cover, try and surround the heroes so they could get bonuses for attacking from behind, would be more likely to concentrate their attacks on a hero (especially if the hero was a 'weak link' and there was good reason to believe that attacking said hero would throw the remaining heroes off balance as they protected the other person) and would generally fight much smarter.

 

Depending on your game even regular thugs can provide concerns for a hero when they 'fight smart'. It's one thing when you smash into the garage of the Alleged Perpetrators street gang and they all rush you. It is another when it turns out that they always keep a couple of guys stationed in the rafters with low-light goggles and hunting rifles (loaded with armor piercing bullets) and you discover that they've covered the window that you just jumped through with a couple of claymores (it can even be downright embarassing when you discover that those grimy windows you planned to jump through were actually bulletproof glass).

 

Of course your mileage may vary on this. If you are running 'Spider-man' style campaigns then well trained thugs with a plan can be a nightmare (if used sparringly. If thugs are like that all the time then the players will be ready for them). On the other hand if you are running a 'Thor' style of campaign than the best a well trained group of thugs can reasonably hope for is embarassing the hero by making it look like it's his fault when the warehouse explodes. Hidden snipers, bulletproof glass, and claymore mines to that kind of character won't really do anything other than cause him to blink in surprise.

[massey]

I wouldn't have agents be more dangerous.  I disagree with the idea of making kobolds into a threat.  That's why you have kobolds in the first place, they're weaklings that your PCs can mow through.  If you want a threat, bring in a real monster.

 

Likewise, Iron Man doesn't lose to ninjas.

 

I'm seeing a lot of advice here on "how do I sucker-punch the hero?" with a lot of gamey suggestions that seem out of genre to me.  If a hero barges into a group of agents, I don't have a problem with them coordinating attacks if it's thematically appropriate.  Batman at least should give lip service to the fact that he's diving into a room full of men.  He should pick a few off from the shadows, or do a big PRE attack to scare them all, something.  Agents can fight smart if it makes sense given the situation, but I don't think they should be built with a lot of extra levels just to screw over the hero.

[esampson]

While I agree that agents shouldn't be built with lots of levels simply to screw over the hero this isn't what I (at least) am referring to.

 

When you are putting agents onto the field they should be there for a reason, and by that I am not simply referring to them being there for an 'in game' reason. Running a bunch of agents/thugs means that the GM is pushing around an awful lot of 'pieces' in relation to the heroes. At the very least you are usually looking at about 2 1/2 agents for every hero and quite possibly more. When it becomes the agent's phase (and that happens pretty quickly since combats start on phase 12) you're looking at things slowing down a fair chunk for the players while the GM has to decide what to do for each agent, roll to hit, and quite possibly roll damage. Additionally there's all the bookkeeping that needs to be done for each agent to keep track of their stun, endurance, and any ammo they might have used (and I'm assuming you're playing in a campaign where you aren't having to really worry about the body of the agents). Given that a lot of the time agents will have similar but not identical stats and you are really looking at a modest amount of work on the part of the GM to keep track of things.

 

So why do this if they are simply there to be steamrollered with ease by the players every single time? If I want my players to feel good about themselves I have lots of ways to do this that won't require so much effort or have the negative aspects of 'combat boredom' (that feeling that occurs when you are waiting for your turn to do something but all the action is occuring between other players and NPCs).

 

For the most part agents exist for the same reason that NPC villains exist; to challenge the heroes. They shouldn't exist for the purpose of kicking in the hero's teeth (and if I gave the impression that's what I was suggesting be done with agents then I apologize) but by the same token they shouldn't just be there to be a barely perceptible speed bump to the heroes. It's just too much work running a group of them for that to happen and I think that most players will grow bored playing a game where they constantly win with ease over their opponents. Try running a game sometime where all the opponents are 40 point talented normals and you never have more than a 1 to 1 ration of opponents to characters and where there are no obstacles to counter the players' overwhelming advantage and see how long people enjoy it.

 

So with that said, agents need to provide (or increase in the case of agents supporting a villain) the challenge that players deal with. They shouldn't generally be deployed to 'smash the heroes' because that's not the goal (and if that is your goal as a GM you're doing something wrong. You've got all the power so there's no challenge in 'smashing the heroes'. Just throw Dr. Destroyer, Dark Seraph, and Mechanon at them all at once. Won't that be fun?) but to challenge the heroes they still need to be effective.

 

Even more than that they need to be effective within a certain 'build style'. It's easy to challenge the players by throwing and equal number of 400 point characters at them built with similar defenses, similar CVs, and similar DCs, but those aren't 'agents'. So the question is 'how do you make NPCs who shouldn't be as skillful as a well trained character, who do less damage than most characters, and who have lower defenses than your average PC and make them interesting?'.

 

For my group that occasionally requires shaking things up. The rare occasion where the Masked Marauder tries to burst in on the Alleged Perpetrators and finds out that not all gangs are equal means that the next time he has to take down a gang he will put a bit more thought into it than 'jump through window and start hitting people until they give up' and that will make the subsequent encounters between him and gang members much more interesting.

[Marcus Impudite]

The Sliding Scale of Security Agent Effectiveness:

 

At one end of the scale, you got the "mall cop" types, and at the other end, the elite security specialists. Typically, wealthier organizations can afford to employ better trained and equipped security personal, while those that aren't so wealthy might have to make do with the knuckleheads.

[pinecone]

I agree...Agents, by their nature are highly variable. Even within a large "super agent" based org, there should be differences between "hired for a job" and "elite" full time combat agents.

 

In one of the old suplimates there was an elite formation for Demon, the "Hellfire legion" (I think) that had magicly enhanced weapons, and lots of skills. I found that this became a "thing". When Demon brought in the legion, the heroes knew something Big was up.

 

To the reply above, Requiring a KS is a lim, though maybe not a big one, and the counter is classic comic book...switch oponites. If Clock soldier A has KS: Mustle master, then maybe Kid Speedster should be fighting him? I would likely let the Clockwork King have a wide ranging KS; The Team, because he is built as a Super. The concept is no powers, but that has nothing to do with what's on the sheet...

 

I see the build as a way to build a "trained to fight You" style foe. How you build is a matter of personal choice. I think I disagree with Massey, not entirely. Agents Can be speed bumps, that exist so the heroes can feel "super". But they may be the main opposition. And if they are, they should be built and played that way.

[esampson]

. . .To the reply above, Requiring a KS is a lim, though maybe not a big one, and the counter is classic comic book...switch oponites. If Clock soldier A has KS: Mustle master, then maybe Kid Speedster should be fighting him? I would likely let the Clockwork King have a wide ranging KS; The Team, because he is built as a Super. The concept is no powers, but that has nothing to do with what's on the sheet...

 

I see the build as a way to build a "trained to fight You" style foe. How you build is a matter of personal choice. I think I disagree with Massey, not entirely. Agents Can be speed bumps, that exist so the heroes can feel "super". But they may be the main opposition. And if they are, they should be built and played that way.

Switching opponents would work if the KS was limited to an individual, but in the example being given they were able cram the KS for the entire group. I would also point out that the proposed limitation isn't 'must make a KS roll' but simply 'must possess the KS'.

 

It's one of those funny edge cases, really. Yes, it is a limitation but the question is how often does the limitation apply? Limitations that apply too rarely don't count (power does not work during vernal equinoxes that coincide with a full moon mean that there is a brief period about once every 30 years where the power won't work, so that's not even a -1/4). If the agents are able to successfully cram the entire group for the vast majority of fights then again, it isn't really a limitation.

 

On the other hand, yes, if cramming is limited to individuals and the ability can be circumvented just by switching targets then it is a fairly substantial limitation. Likewise the cramming could extend to the entire group but since the GM assumes there's hero groups in the city beyond the PCs maybe the agents are only able to use it in 2 fights out of 3, at which point it is definitely a valid limitation as well.

 

It's just something that I saw and that set off warning flags. Again, it really doesn't matter anyway since agents don't technically have any point restrictions. The bigger problem is that if the players find out that the agents they are fighting are tough despite being built on a certain point total because they feel that the GM is doing something shady it can sour the relationship between GMs and players.

 

Ask yourself how you would feel if you were playing and you found out that the agents all had a -2 limitation on their equipment 'Only to affect the PCs'. The GM could argue that this is a substantial limitation since it means that their gear is useless against 99.9999999% of the population but I'll bet you would still feel that the GM was 'cheating', all of which is completely unnecessary since if the GM wants to give the agents gear that is somehow designed to specifically target the PCs he could just have them pay the full cost for it and then handle the 'Only against PCs' limitation through roleplay. I can almost guarantee that the players will be much more accepting of a 45 point '18d6 OAF Gun' that only affects the PCs because it was built using some special process that allows it to better target the PCs than a 15 point version of the same that has been loaded up with 'non-limiting limitations' (It only affects the PCs, it only works on one day out of the week, which is of course the day the agents attack, etc.)

[pinecone]

Well, sounds like some of this may be "style". I thought the example had Req an Int roll, but maybe I typed too fast. I will say this though, if a player needs to scutinise the agents char sheet to ensure "fairness". I'd be happier if he or she went elsewhere.

 

This reminds me of a boring gamer story, I ran a game at a con. The Heros had been bambozled into body guarding a renegade Morbane. (The renegade was planning a ritual that would almost certainly destroy the world, possibly the universe. Demon had deposited 220,000 dollars with Viper to eliminate the danger. Once the heroes got involved, Demon hit the panic button, and made several direct attacks. The renegade needed privacy, to set up the ritual, and wanted the heroes out of the way. Being satanicly proud, he was confident in his own abilitys to survive)

 

To get the heroes out of the way for a while, he used invisible Mind control on a cop, that did not like supers anyway (Telepathy) to "run them in" He figured that would give him an hour or two to himself.

 

One of the players decided to start a huge argument that that was totally out of character. I agreed that was totally weird, what is he doing? More argument, apparently it was us vs you time...???? The other players contined to play their characters, Argue with reality guy? I dunno. But I was done playing a game with him...

 

So I guess what I'm saying is there are no "wrong builds"...? If I want to buy AP, req a roll or no, defined as a "bat-clone" ability to exploit your weaknesses, I can spend my points any way I wish to.

 

Are you saying if I purchased AP without a limit, you'd be all "OK"....but with a limit it becomes "wrong". I'm thinking it comes down to "style".

[esampson]

Well, sounds like some of this may be "style". I thought the example had Req an Int roll, but maybe I typed too fast. I will say this though, if a player needs to scutinise the agents char sheet to ensure "fairness". I'd be happier if he or she went elsewhere.

 

This reminds me of a boring gamer story, I ran a game at a con. The Heros had been bambozled into body guarding a renegade Morbane. (The renegade was planning a ritual that would almost certainly destroy the world, possibly the universe. Demon had deposited 220,000 dollars with Viper to eliminate the danger. Once the heroes got involved, Demon hit the panic button, and made several direct attacks. The renegade needed privacy, to set up the ritual, and wanted the heroes out of the way. Being satanicly proud, he was confident in his own abilitys to survive)

 

To get the heroes out of the way for a while, he used invisible Mind control on a cop, that did not like supers anyway (Telepathy) to "run them in" He figured that would give him an hour or two to himself.

 

One of the players decided to start a huge argument that that was totally out of character. I agreed that was totally weird, what is he doing? More argument, apparently it was us vs you time...???? The other players contined to play their characters, Argue with reality guy? I dunno. But I was done playing a game with him...

 

So I guess what I'm saying is there are no "wrong builds"...? If I want to buy AP, req a roll or no, defined as a "bat-clone" ability to exploit your weaknesses, I can spend my points any way I wish to.

 

Are you saying if I purchased AP without a limit, you'd be all "OK"....but with a limit it becomes "wrong". I'm thinking it comes down to "style".

Quite definitely it is a 'style' issue.

[Prometheus]

I'm kind of with massey on this one. While I do think that heroes should have a healthy respect for agents, I just don't see them as something that should be mopping the floor with heroes, much less wrecking entire teams (and I admit to some hyperbole here). Agents typically have a mission and goals, and it should seldom--seldom, mind you--be sitting around in brigade strength deployments waiting for heroes to ambush. But that doesn't mean they can't come prepared to deal with heroes.

 

It's been mentioned already, but Teamwork can go a long way to making agents more effective. It's simple, and at 3 points (or 5, or even 7) it's dirt cheap. Even if this isn't a particularly militant group, it's likely its members have trained together; with the Multiple Attacker bonus of a Coordinated Attack, a group of five agents can bring a hero to -4 DCV, and have a better chance of Stunning. Match it with Autofire and a modest OCV, and you can create some pretty powerful synergies without going overboard.

[pinecone]

I agree, to a point...If you're hunted by Viper (11) they just might ship in a couple of platoons of top notch agents, and set you up for a fall...

 

The classic is the old "box canyon". You chase a few cowardly agents into a dead end...Just as planned! (the roof line suddenly grows dozens of heads, aiming rifles) If it fronts onto a empty warehouse they can even have armored vehicles, or combat robots hidden and ready for deployment...The heroes will most certainly win, but they will have to earn it. And the next time agents scatter, the heroes might be a little more careful in their persuit.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

The heroes will not most certainly win; in one campaign I had to take over on HeroCentral, a revamped/retooled Professor Muerte's legions - okay, four squads of four - caused serious problems for the PCs, so much so that the high-movement group that was going against the flyer agents was getting its ass pretty seriously kicked. IIRC, I utilized a MPow - immunity to their own weapon (and thus the weapons of their squadmates), judicious use of Autofire, AoE, and Flash attacks, and a willingness to retreat/displace the Turn after the appearance of superheroes.  It ... made for instructional reading, for me.

[pinecone]

Without the threat of failure, success means nothing. (IMHO) So, yes the heroes must be challenged, but they are freaking Super-heroes, if they get beat, they were acting like fools, and will hopefully learn from it. Just using your example, it sounds like the classic "switch foes" strategy was in serious need of use...

[Christopher R Taylor]

Ideally, agents can teach your players tactics; for example the box ambush described above; they're designed to wipe out anyone who moves in any direction except toward the ambush.  Players are often good at adopting things they've seen that work well or that they've had to face.

[BoloOfEarth]

Many years ago, while running a Campions campaign in 5th Edition rules, I wrote up some Mass Combat rules to keep from dragging out combat.  I considered a group of similarly-trained and similarly-equipped agents as a single "character" with higher STUN, BODY, OCV, and Damage than any one given agent, and lower DCV the larger the group.  The amount of those increases (or decreases) depended on the number of agents making up that group. 

 

So if you took a group of VIPER agents, each with 25 STUN, 10 BODY, 5 OCV (with levels), 4 DCV, and 8d6 EB, a five-man squad "character" would have 45 STUN, 16 BODY, 7 OCV, 3 DCV and do 10d6 damage.  If the hero is using individual-target attacks, his damage was reduced somewhat against the group "character", but AOEs did full damage even if part of the group was technically outside the area.  And as the group lost STUN, individual members would fall unconscious or injured, and the OCV and damage done per attack would drop.

 

For any given group, I'd also allow one individual to act separately (sometimes for better effect, sometimes not).  So a squad might have their grenadier throw a flash grenade, then everybody else fires their blasters at the blinded hero.  This allowed the agents to be semi-tactically minded, and also allowed for some interesting or amusing individual action.

 

With creative description of combat effects, everybody still gets the gist of what's happening, even though you're only making a few attack rolls.  (For instance, a GM might describe three separate group "character" attacks as: "VIPER's Alpha squad agents pepper MegaMan with blaster fire from the left side of the room, doing a total of 38 STUN and 12 BODY against his defenses.  As soon as Alpha squad pops up, the governors bodyguards open up on them with their pistols, taking down two of the Goons in Green.  Meanwhile, Bravo squad behind the overturned buffet table tries to take down Lightning Lass, Liberty Lad, and the bodyguards by tossing stun gas grenades all around them, doing a total of 20 STUN NND to all of them, as well as the governor.  And Mega Man's x-ray vision allows him to see one member of Bravo squad is crawling around the right side of the room, gas mask on and laser pistol in hand -- it looks like he's heading for the governor."

 

 

It really sped up combat a lot, and allowed me to run a mass VIPER attack on the local PRIMUS base (multiple agent squads on both sides, plus the PC heroes) in a relatively short amount of time.  It makes a group of agents something to be respected, at least until a hero has whittled it down with an attack or two.   

[BoloOfEarth]

Here's what I wrote up for Mass Combats.  Not everything was tested extensively, but the bulk of it worked okay for me.

MassCombat.pdf

[pinecone]

Very nice! I've only done something like that for Zombies. I sort of treated them as "swarms". First chance I get, I'll be trying this out.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'll take a look.  I like the idea of mass combat but no system I've tried so far really works well.