Alien Wars campaign help/talk

[Yesman]

Hiya, I'm working on the setup for an Alien Wars game in the very near future. I want to run some of my ideas past you guys and see if anything blatantly doesn't pass the 'smell test', if that's OK.

 

The game is set in the Xenovore offensive era and the player base is (so far) a mixed party of Marines and Scouts; but I'm trying to leave room for other branches and MOSes. The idea so far is to have the party be part of a Scout/Raider task group that is pushing weeks ahead of a battle group and often just behind the SF guys and Scouts doing Deep Recon. The missions of the task group are:

1. Scouting operations into unknown territory

2. Recon of enemy territory

3. Raiding operations behind the enemy lines.

4. Provide backup to SF, Ranger units, and TES Scouts.

 

This is what the Task Group looks like:

 

Ships in the Scout/Raider Task Group Caledonia

1 Light Cruiser: IBM Bellerophon

1 ECM/ECCM/Deep-Communications ship: IIS Tireseus

1 Supply/Support Frigate: ISM Philomelus

4 Scout/Raiders: IES Atlanta, IES Peleus, IES Meleager, IES Iolaus

-----------

7 ships

 

The SOP for the Task Group: The group jumps into a system, then the Cruiser, Comm. ship and Supply ship stay far back, hide, and act as a main HQ for the Raider Platoons. The Comm. ship does sensor recon. Light Cruiser basically is there to protect the Comm. and Supply ships in case something happens. The Raider ships then disperse into the system and do the scouting and raiding - reporting back to the Comm. ship as necessary. The Comm. ship then reports back to Fleet. Depending on the system the Raider ships may or may not disperse into groups or split up entirely. The task group is supplied to operate for 6 months at a time before returning to fleet.

 

This is what the Crew compliment of a Raider ship looks like.

 

Crew/Marine Compliment on the Scout/Raiders

68 man Platoon of UEN Marines (4 squads of 17 men)

6 man UEN Marine Command/Support Section

4 man UEN Medical/Lifesystems

13 man Ships Crew of TES Scouts (3 shifts of 4 men each + Captain)

5 man Fleet Liason detail (UEN Communications + UEN Command + UEN Tactical + 2 aids)

2 man Intelligence Liason (TIC field agent + aid)

17 man squad UEN Tactical on Weapons/Ship Defense detail

-------------

115 men.

 

The raider ships typically operate solo, but as mentioned above sometimes multiple platoons are sent to accomplish the same objective. They are equiped to operate for 2 months at a time without re-supply of some kind.

 

In space the Scout Captain runs the show, with input from the UEN Command officer from the Liason detail and TIC agent from the Intell detail. On the ground it's the UEN Marine Commander with input from the Scout Captain, and the UEN Tactical and TIC agent. In ship combat the UEN Tactical advises the Scout Captain.

 

The SOP on the ground is to: land, disperse the 4 squads of Marines with 1 assigned Scout each - usually supplied for 1 to 2 weeks, set up the ship as a field HQ with the UEN Tactical squad deployed for defense. If the planet is too 'hot' the ship drops the marines and takes off for orbit.

 

The ships are (for the most part) small trader vessels that have been weaponized well enough to take on non-millitary ships if need be. They are not uniform in construction or design.

 

Do the compositions of the Task Group, and Raider ships look Ok? I'm a little worried that I'm forgetting something or going overboard with something. Also, do you guys think that a FT Beowulf from Traveller would be large enough to accomodate the crew compliment, as well as supplies, support vehicles (i'm thinking either 4 18-man ground vehicles or 8 9-man, or possibly just one or two 10-man vehicles), etc.? Am I forgetting to think about anything?

[boomer]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

It looks good Man. I don't think you are forgetting anything. It's a good sized force (I remember our Space Marines had a battlecruiser cloaked in orbit around Earth) and I like your breakdown of troops. So are the squads going to have Specialists? My namesake Boomer is a Confed Marine but his specialty is hacking security systems, hacking computers, comlinks, re-programming scanners to pinpoint what the team is looking for, and Demolitions. Real Life Marines are all considered Riflemen even if they are Medics, etc. Looks good though. I like the potential for an ongoing campaign you've set up. Heck you can even do a BlackHawk Down scenario where the regular grunts have to go in and rescue the SF guys.

[Yesman]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

Thanks Boomer! I envision the Marines as not having specialties, at least in the sense that there is different MOSes for them to choose. A Marine is a Marine is a Marine.... Rather individuals in squads become known as the 'go to' guy for different situations. And eventually different squads develop reputations for having above average capabilities in different situations... etc. More of a retro WWII in space kind of feel, i think.

 

Blackhawk down was a definite inspiration for this game, and will be ripped off liberally.

 

One of the things that i'm a little concerned with is the number of men on the ships. It's turning out to be kind of a balancing act, on the one hand I want to develop a kind of Aliens atmosphere with just a few guys really knowing, and relying on each other, but on the other hand I want to play up that in this stage of the war there are a lot more people who have fled to the core than there are resources for them - hence retrofitting Far Traders to be Light Attack/Transport ships and filling them up with troops.

[boomer]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

It's turning out to be kind of a balancing act, on the one hand I want to develop a kind of Aliens atmosphere with just a few guys really knowing, and relying on each other,

 

 

This you can do by limiting your squad sizes....say 10 to a squad. Like Rico's Roughnecks...small squad but real close, almost a family.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

Smells like... Alien Wars.

 

*looks faint*

 

 

Sorry, I just never got behind that setting. However, overall, that aside, if you will, and other parenthetical remarks, nothing jumps out at me as being whack.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

I don't recall what Alien Wars says about unit sizes, but in real life, a typical rule of thumb is that a leader has 3-5 subordinates. Squads are usually broken down into two five-man teams. I suppose these squads could be made up of three or four teams rather than just two, but that's not usually how it breaks down in RL...maybe the junior NCOs in charge aren't generally considered ready to juggle that much, I don't know.

 

With that in mind, you might want to call each Raider ship's complement a company of two platoons and break those down into three squads each.

 

As far as ship size goes, you can go pretty small for the Raider ships as long as there's room to stretch out on the support ships at the end of the mission. You don't need enough support vehicles to carry everyone...they're infantry after all...and with a two week window of operations, they probably won't need more than a couple of days worth of supplies carried on vehicles at any given time. Give each Raider a couple of those general utility vehicles from Alien Wars and that should be enough.

[Yesman]

Re: Alien Wars campaign help/talk

 

Thanks guys!

 

Alien Wars recommended 10-20 man squads... As far as I know, the RL Marines break down into 3 4-man fireteams plus a sergeant, for a total of 13 per squad; with 3 squads plus a command section (4 man?) per platoon. I think the army is 2 4-man teams plus a sergeant for 9 per squad; and 4 squads per platoon plus command section (6 men?).

 

I think I might stick with 16 man squads, but possibly have one subdivision of squads before fireteam. It's bigger than what anybody uses now, but: hi-tech computers allow for better communication, the army and navy need to maximize ship load, and often it's one platoon per planet.... and I can always get smaller groups by splitting squads for suicide... er... special missions.