Expanse 2.0 combat rules
Basic Rolls
Liaison Alicia wore light combat armour coloured white, her long blond hair done in a martial braid. Behind her the flickering screen of the tactical map added backdrop, slim coloured highlights running across the suits snowy exterior. "Alright, Listen" Her voice carried easily across the ranks of White Flame combat troops seated before her on the floor. "Today is your first time fighting beside NNU troops. I know you'll do well, but before you get your briefing, I wanted to address some media reports you might have heard: the ones asking why we're fighting so hard to protect primitive people like the NNU. Asking why they're really worth saving? Why don't we just evacuate them to the Expanse or upload them all." Alicia looked around the faces "The answer, beyond the fact we don't want to let the Quiet gobble up any more territory is simple: they're human, and humans don't like to abandon their homes. So we need to save them." She paused a moment, and every trooper felt as if the Liaison was looking at them personally: "Compared to the Quiet, humans are an endangered species, and primitive or not, we need to save everyone we can."
A basic unopposed roll is made when you're simply trying to perform a task without significant opposition. For instance, in the example above, Alicia is attempting to inspire her troops and raise their morale for the fight. None of her troops particularly object to this so they're not resisting. Other examples might be to spot something slightly less than obvious, or perform repairs on a damaged object.
Basic rolls are made by rolling a number of D10 equal to the relevant stat, with a success threshold usually of 6, but sometimes higher. For complex rolls higher numbers of successes will be needed.
Contested Rolls
Alicia looked slightly worried at Kyoko as the colonel took her over to the tactical planning table "Kyoko, what's bothering you?" The Liaison asked.
Kyoko blinked, opened her mouth to say nothing them smiled "Pretty redundant to claim nothing to you I guess." She frowned "I don't like this operation. Why are we deploying with the NNU? They're slower and worse than we are in every way, worse armed, and they can die if they screw up rather than just being restored from backup. They're just not safe down there. I hate the idea of taking them into combat."
Alicia smiled "You're very kind... but you're only thinking short term." She sighed "It's cruel, but we have to convince the NNU to accept uploading or they're all going to die. That means they need to work alongside us. Further it means they have to feel this is their victory with us as partners, not a war we fight for them. In the long term, our projections suggest it'll save lives"
Kyoko lowered her eyes, then nodded.
Sometimes you'll see contested dice rolls. This is when someone is actively resisting something, an argument is taking place or the like. In the scene above, Kyoko and Alicia are both attempting to convince one another, making opposed Charisma rolls. Alicia (Predictably given she's a liaison) wins the argument and convinces Kyoko to go ahead as planned, working alongside the NNU forces for this mission.
The system for opposed rolls is the same as a normal roll, except both parties roll. The higher party wins, unless the roll would normally be more difficult (for instance if Alicia had been trying to convince Kyoko to commit a war crime she would have needed to beat Kyoko's roll by at least two or three successes)
Three Type of Combat
"Well then Colonel." Alicia looked Kyoko over, then relaxed as she saw the officer was convinced "Take me through your plan?"
Kyoko nodded "Very well." and conjured a map in the pairs shared augmented reality space, showing the bombed out remains of the city of New Swindon. "Our mission is to Capture a Quiet AI cluster we have identified in this zone. This should give us valuable intelligence, and also severely hamper their command. The hedgehog containing the command node is garrisoned by approximately two battalions of Quiet, one mechanized infantry, one light infantry. In order to assault the hedgehog we'll first lure them out of position, then pin them down with artillery and air power while a second detachment assaults the node."
"Will we have enough air and artillery for that? I thought most of our airpower was in the Northern zone hunting ICBMs?" Alicia asked.
"It is, but we still have our organic gunships and artillery, plus there's plenty of local aircraft. The lure for this will be the British 20th Armoured Brigade here, at the Western Edge of the town. They'll move to bypass the city, using deception jammers to make it look like they're unprepared for battle and trying to sneak past towards the fighting to the North. In actuality they're prepared to turn and hold the Quiet with support of 5th Battalion, while we move to capture the node. We'll approach from the South" the map changed to show the southern flank of the defence "Which the Quiet seem mostly to be ignoring due to this large concrete wall and drainage canal which makes approach difficult. A team of British Engineers has snuck close, they'll blow the wall and then we'll airlift in a bridge to allow rapid crossing of the canal."
"Is it safe to entrust unaugmented locals with such an important task?" Alicia raised an eyebrow.
"I've got some of my best watching their backs, and I don't have any other combat engineers so they'll have to do." Kyoko sighed "We're also deploying Delta Company as a blocking force between the main Quiet force and us once the operation commences. When the bridge is set up our vanguard team will spearhead the assault on the compound. We'll link to the node and dive into it, downloading medusa fractals to the local Quiet network and hopefully neutralizing the remains of them without further need for physical combat."
"It sounds solid enough." Alicia smiled "I'm looking forward to a dive into a Quiet node."
"You'll be joining information warfare for this then Liaison?" Kyoko asked formally.
"Of course."
There are three different types of combat in the Expanse, and most tactical plans revolve around a successful combination of all three. While perhaps the beginnings of these types could be seen on battlefields of the 21st century, they are now almost universally practiced.
Physical
Physical is the most simple and recognizable form of combat. It includes shooting people, hitting and punching them. The attributes that primarily govern physical combat are Power and Control assisted by combat conditioning.
Electromagnetic
Electromagnetic Combat actually includes some things not in the electromagnetic spectrum. It's the art of high tech stealth, intrusion, jamming and spoofing. It's attributes are Smarts and Perception and it's assisted by Intrusion and Technology.
Psychological
Psychological Combat includes everything from persuasion and oratory to battlefield deception to brain hacking. It's primary attributes are Charisma and Integrity and it's assisted by Empathy, Diplomatic Conditioning and Technology.
Physical Combat
Oliver looked around, carefully watching his angle as his section moved in bounds down the street. They were in Indian Country now. The war had turned around far more quickly than he could have imagined it could have. A month ago it had looked like Wiltshire Colony would be lost completely to the Quiet, with NNU forces driven completely off one continent, and barely holding on the second. That had been before the Expanse had arrived though, their gunships and fighters had destroyed much of the Quiet's heavy equipment and their ships had achieved space superiority. Now they were landing significant ground forces. Oliver still wasn't sure how he felt about an army of transhuman girls doing most of the fighting, but it felt good that he might actually live through this.
The Royal Engineers were moving covertly down a street near the colony. The White Flame unit had sprayed their uniforms with some chemical which supposedly blocked the majority of Quiet scans and installed small heat sinks in them to bleed off the heat produced by the additional insulation. It helped, but Oliver hadn't survived this long by being bad at bypassing Dhampire remote sentries. As long as there were no living Dhampires around..."
Oliver had barely thought it when he heard "Contact! Contact Right! Second floor!" and then a wash of gunfire.
Initiative & Surprise
The first step in combat is initiative. In the engagement above both British troops and Quiet OP, saw one another, perhaps due to a lucky perception roll on the British side, so there's no surprise round. Surprise is usually determined by an opposed perception vs. control check to determine who sees who first. More of this can be found under electromagnetic combat.
If both sides see the other then initiative is rolled using the formula 1d10 +Control or Smarts. The winner acts first.
In this situation the Quiet have a control of 5, with a +5 initative specialization while the British Sappers have a Control of 2. To simplify things, we'll roll for both as groups. The British troops roll a 7, +2 for a total of 9. Meantime the Quiet roll a 3 +10 for a total of 13. They go first.
Basic Shooting
Laser beams and machine gun fire poured down from the dhampire observation post towards the platoon and Oliver saw at least one man go down, his combat armoured blasted through by the laser strike. Another fell, hit in the face by a machine gun round. The rest of the sappers returned fire, dust exploding up from the building, trying to track the rapidly moving dhampires within.
Shooting is done with control, vs. the targets control to dodge. Certain weapons may add bonuses to hit. On the defence, cover is the primary addition to
- Wide open (Flat Desert, empty corridors)
- +0 defence dice
- Normal Terrain (Normal open field, normal room)
- +1 defence dice
- Close terrain (A forest)
- +2 defence dice
- Heavy cover (Chest High Walls, ruined cities)
- +3 defence dice
- Expansive Cover (A specialist fighting position)
- +4 defence dice
In this situation, both sides have Heavy cover +3 to their defence dice. The Sappers are well trained marksmen with +2 rifle speciality, so 4 dice. The Quiet have a +1 specialization in their personal weapons so 6 dice. The British have 5 dice to defend with while the Quiet have 8.
In this situation both sides roll as groups to keep things simple (they're both mostly extras). The Quiet get 5 successes on six dice, while the Sappers gain 3 successes on 5 dice for defence. Because they're extras, that's 2 casualties.
Meantime, the British have an almost impossible task of hitting an opponent with 8 defence dice with 4 attack dice. They roll 3 successes, the Quiet 6. No chance in hell.
Hand to Hand
Oliver ducked back lower into the rubble, rounds spraying up dust all around him, laser beams channelling the dust "Get some fire down! Get some fire going down!" The return fire from his platoon didn't pick up much, the Quiet had them pinned.
"Hello Grey Zero-Six this is Bronze Zero Alpha. Contact! We are pinned down by enemy fire and cannot move! Need fire support now!" Fear jumbled his words, and he said them too fast.
"Grey Zero Alpha: say again, say again over?" Oliver took a deep breath and managed to repeat his transmission.
"Grey Zero Alpha, this is Grey Zero-Six I need a full contact report, I need your location over."
"Grey Zero-Six this is Zero Alpha. I am pinned down by highly effective enemy fire. I cannot look up! I cannot see where I am! I need fire support now!"
There was a pause then a new voice, a womans entered the transmission " Break, Grey Zero Alpha, this is Saturn One three. Friendlies at your six. Check your fire over."
"Roger o..." suddenly a dhampire was looming over Oliver. It must have snuck forward under its comrades fire. It stabbed its bayonet down towards his face and Oliver frantically rolled aside, swinging his gun up. The thing dodged back but the stone crumbled under it and Oliver managed to smash it hard in the face with his rifle butt.
Oliver is in a bad situation. His Power is 2 with +2 hand to hand combat speciality. The Quiet facing him has 5 in power, though no speciality. It stabs at him with a bayonet and the GM allows Oliver to add his speciality to control in order to get out of the way. He gets 4 successes, matching the Quiet's 4 and defending himself successfully.
He's lucky on the second roll two, rolling 4 dice to hit and getting 3 successes. The Quiet meantime botches, scoring no successes and a 1, and Oliver thwacks it in the face. It's still up and alive though, for now.
Special Manoeuvres
The dhampire stumbled backwards and Oliver saw it raise its weapon. He thanked his stars that the enemy seemed to have run out of grenades, or at least, weren't using them, but another part of his mind said it hadn't saved him for long...
But it had been long enough. The dhampire's front gained three holes and its back exploded as the rounds detonated inside. Oliver turned and saw a blur charging forward, somehow firing accurately at a full run. It landed next to him in his whole "Hello." It's English was strange, with a weird accent definitely female though, "Are you Lieutenant Chatman?"
"Uh, yeah. Who are you?"
"I'm Lieutenant Arin, Second and Seventeenth assault dragoons. Pleased to meet you." Oliver's helmet computer caught up, and the new software painted in an image of the bulky assault suit lying next to him. It was hard, angular it was difficult to imagine a person inside it. "We're you're backup."
Modern combat is more than just a contest of accuracy and fire. Various special maneuevers exist, even on the level of individuals and fire teams. Some are described here.