13  Skirmish

13.1 Battlespace

13.2 Battlespace Set-up

  • Default is for Players determine the proximity of their units before the battle, including:
    • To which of the Player’s other units is a given unit far, close, or present
    • Which of the positions in a given battlespace a unit starts
  • The proximity between units of opposing Players (or against the GM) is determined by the first unit to attach and the unit it is attacking
    • The Player whose unit was the first to attack in that scenario decides what the proximity is between that attacking unit and the defending unit
    • The proximity of other units are thus dependent on the proximity of those two units

A Player and the GM begin a skirmish scenario with three units each.

The Player makes all of their three units present to each other. One they place at the Defensive Advantage position, the second at Neutral, and the third at Offensive Advantage:

OA O N D DA
Player’s Location 1 U1 U2 U3

The GM makes two of their units Present at the Offensive Advantage and Defensive Advantage positions. The third unit they make Close and its Neutral position. 1. After a few rounds of reconning and evading, the GM’s Close unit reveals the Player’s unit at its Offensive Advantage position, and attacks it. - The GM decides that it attacked at Close range. Since all other unit locations are either Present or Close, all units are now either Present or Close:

This now means that all units could spend 2 APs to move into a Present position with any other unit. Remember that units carry their “position” to the new “location,” so, e.g., the unit in the Player’s Neutral position could spend 2 APs to move to the Neutral position in GM’s Loc. 1.

Note that melee rules would apply, so if Player’s unit at OA wanted to move to that occupied OA position in GM’s Loc. 1, it would cost 3 APs: 2 across locations and 1 for moving into melee. Moving out to an other location would take 4 APs (2 to disengage melee, 2 across locations).

A Player and the GM begin a skirmish scenario with three units each.

  1. The Player ambushes the GM’s units. They roll a 2 (against a 4° Ambush skill), allowing them to decide two of the GM’s unit’s positions to each other. The Player decides to use these two positions to be making one unit Far from both other units.
  2. The GM thus decides to make the remaining two units to be Present with each other, in OA and DA
  3. The Player attacks one of the Present units, making that third GM unit Far from everyone.

13.2.1 Location, Position, and Disposition1

Location

Moves between (adjacent) locations cost 2 AP.

This is an area of all the same terrain. When the terrain changes in some significant way, the location changes.

The size of locations varies greatly2, especially between rocky and void fights, but also within both. There is always a horizon in rocky fights and sometimes a lot of gravity or radiation in voids.

Position

Moves between (adjacent) positions cost 1 AP.

As noted below, I’m thinking there are usually five positions within each given location. They are always different points along a line (traveling between them always follows the same order), and often arranged around some axis, like offensive/defensive value of that position3.

Units that occupy the same position in the same location are, well, beside each other. Even relatively small area effects affect all units in the same local position.

Neutral Position

The neutral (usually middle) position is somewhat unique. It is a position of readiness to act or react to whatever happens.

  • If a unit spends an entire round in the neutral position, then it only costs 1 AP to move to any other local position the next round.

Disposition

This is the current state of the unit. This not only includes its local position, but also the number, flavor, location, etc. of its current APs, OPs, HPs, and DPs useable by the communicating unit. However, this doesn’t not include environmental information.

Allied units that share the same location also automatically share their dispositional information with each other.

Rolls of raw 1s on a recon roll also reveal the targeted unit’s position to the reconner.

13.3 Recon and Evasion

Weapons are not likely to get less lethal. Or have lower range. So4) in the future, best to try not to get shot. Preferably somewhere far away.

  • Units can have one of three levels of awareness about an other unit:
    1. Revealed: The target unit’s local position and available DPs are known to the reconning unit (and any alies local to that unit). The reconning unit can tell how APs are used, but not for what. (E.g., they know the target unit attacked, but not at whom.)
    2. Concealed: The target unit’s local position is known, but nothing else
    3. Fogged: Nothing is known about the unit, including its location (let alone position)
  • Units can “move” between awareness levels
    • Successful evasion rolls of any degree move that unit closer into the fog (or into it)
    • Successful recon rolls move the target unit closer to revealed.
  • Units can recon local positions (or units)
    • Successful rolls move all units in that local position closer to being revealed for the number of rounds equal to the degree of success.
    • Units revert to their previous level at the end of this duration
    • Additional recon rolls can extend this duration
  • Bloom levels of local positions are also added as a positive mod to recon rolls into that position (regardless of who caused that local position to bloom)

13.4 Typical Terrain

For both rocky and void fights.

Thinking:

  • Each unit occupies a battle space default comprised of 5 positions
  • The default environmental effect(s) of each position—and their usual proximity to each other—are:
Name and
Default Proximity		 Environmental Effect(s)
Offensive Advantage Attacks made from this position (including into that position) gain an automatic 2° increase
Offensive Attacks made from here gain a 1° increase
Neutral No terrain mods
Defensive Attacks into this position gain an automatic -1° mod
Defensive Advantage Attacks into at -2°
  • Units can spend 1 AP to move between positions
    • Except when moving from one end of the list to the other; this move default costs 2 AP
    • Evasion rolls made immediately after moving into a new position are made at +1°
  • The proximity of units’ battlespaces can be of 3 types:
    1. Far
      • Far units cannot share battlespaces with other far units
      • Communication with other non-Present units costs 1 AP
    2. Close
      • Units that are close to other units can spend 2 APs and move into an other close unit’s battlespace
      • Units start in the fog, but the unit whose space they were close to gets +1° on recon rolls made immediately (and immediately subsequently)
      • Communication with other non-Present units costs 1 AP
    3. Present
      • Units share the same battlespace
      • Melee rules apply for positions
      • Present friendly units automatically share intell
  • Battlespaces can be of different sizes for different scenarios
    • The range of direct-fire weapons in rocky terrains is set beforehand for each scenario. The default is that they can fire into adjacent positions but no further

13.5 Attacks

  • Attacks made with classical ballistic weapons automatically move that unit closer to being revealed

  • Recon rolls made on units right after they’ve attacked with a modern weapon are made at +1°

13.5.1 Surprise Attacks

  • Units can only surprise if they are currently fogged. By default, any attack made from the fog is a surprise attack.

  • Defending units cannot use any OPs when attacked by surprise. All other mods (e.b., DPs) still apply, though.

13.6 Defensive Positions

  • Units can invest APs into creating a stronger defense for themselves at their current local position.

  • There is no roll needed, spending an AP turns it into a Defense Point (increases the Defensive Position).

  • All positions have a maximum number of DPs that can be currently defending units there.

    • The default is 9
    • Points spent to increase the DPs for one unit do not transfer to an other until all units there has max DPs. After that point, APs can be spent to harden that position, making all units that enter it automatically start that many DPs
    • It is not unusual for stationary units or local positions to begin battle scenarios with DPs / hardening already

  • DPs serve as a first line of defense against attacks. Non-penetrating damage done to a unit is first deducted from any DPs there. After those are depleted, then frontline armor, etc. is deducted.

    • But yeah, raw 1s circumvent DPs as well.

  • DPs serve as a negative mod for any evasion rolls made in that local position.

  • When a unit moves to a new location, all DPs are erased; if that unit returns to that local position, it would have to start building them again.

13.6.1 Hardened Positions

  • The maximum number of DPs that can be hardened into a local position is usually much lower than the max number of individual DPs. I’m thinking the max is 3.

  • Hardened DPs are not removed unless attacked directly (in which case, they act like PPE). Instead, they are deducted from every attack into that position.

    • Attacks on a positions hardening are considered attacks on the environment, triggering, e.g., the responses of Anthropic locations and possibly subduing it.

  • Hardened DPs are deducted from any evasion rolls in addition to any individual DPs.

  1. And yes, it would be easier on everyone if I learned the correct military terms for this—and most of this. That is a pretty deep level into the lazy dungeon.↩︎

  2. And yeah, this complicates / attenuates the mechanics of including differently ranged weapons in because of that.↩︎

  3. I’ve toyed with adding more axes within a location, but am thinking of reserving that for void fights (and limiting it to 2 axes).↩︎

  4. Like I said somewhere else, but forget where,↩︎