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Copyright 1997, i5ive communications inc.

February 21, 1997
Strategic Warfare
Does it belong in Rifts?

I am a great fan of board games like Axis & Allies and other strategy games that deal with war and I was wondering if someone could come up with a set of rules for Rifts to do the same sort of thing. I have a couple players that are building up empires and I am wondering if there could be an easier way of determining the outcome of large battles and sieges. Lately I have been having them fight little spot battles with only a few enemies and determining the battle using my common sense. I would like to find an easier way of doing this without actually having to roll initiative for twenty people.

During the mechanoid campaign I ran we had a huge final battle where Lestat gathered an army and chased down the bulk of the mechanoid army. I had a hard time roleplaying the battle due to the number of people involved. What I eventually had to do was write down what he had and what the mechanoids had, figure out how his strategy would affect the battle, throw in a few little fights for the player-characters and determine the outcome of the battle by dictating what happens without allowing the players to do much. I have found this solution to be a poor one. First, the players don't like not being able to control their destiny very well, Second, strategy in warfare makes very little diference in the battle and Third, the players almost never lose (I'm a softie.).

To solve this problem I plan to have the players group their troops in brigands and platoons and tell me how powerful each individual soldier is. That way I'll know what the general power rating of a group is. I'll assign an initiative modifire due to the size of the group and the slowest person, then I take damage of the weapons they're using and average them (to come out something like 40-50mdc), the average damage one of the soldiers can do will then be multiplied by the number of people in the group for damage purposes, I will then average all of the armor or MDC the whole group has and that will be the amount of MDC it takes to kill one soldier in that particular group. All of this info will be put on a card or a miniature that represents that group of soldiers. Cards will then get a speed rating based on the speed of the slowest member of that group. This will dictate how far that card can move in one round on a scale map that I will draw beforehand.

Players will be able to move their troops in any way they want to whatever end they create. If they get surrounded then the appropriate bonus applies to the enemy for attacking from behind. All of the old Rifts rules apply as if you were fighting with normal player-characters. The cards (assuming there are 100 soldiers in each) are just 100 times harder to kill and do 100 times as much damage.

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