will it fly?
I'm beginning to think the answer is yes. That's YES!
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| Up-armoured HMMWV, this one from MoI Emergency Response Unit |
I'm grateful to Le Duc for his recent after action report of Dragon Rampant. I have now obtained a copy of this from Amazon and I'm very glad I did.
Before it arrived I had reached some conclusions about units and vehicles that I think will solve the issues I was having defining them. DR has opened my eyes to some further opportunities for defining units as well as new areas such as the use of the DR leadership characteristics and spells (alright not quite spells but summoning up a drone strike is quite spooky!). From my point of view DR opens up wider horizons than LR, which was properly focussed on historical models. Its great so if you haven't got a copy, get one now!
Today's thoughts are around units:
Team: 6 SPs (DR influence!), six men with small arms, LMG and AT weapon. These can be elite Special Forces, Counter-terror troops, Police SWAT teams or terrorist cell, foreign fighters or Iranian Qods Force commandos. Don't forget Presidential body guards or Spetznaz. Special rules apply such as Fleet Footed, Invisible, Evade, Skirmish amongst others.
Squad: 12 SPs, up to 12 men with full range of small arms, LMG and AT weapons. Variable characteristics such as Army, Police Commandos (Emergency Response Units), Militia (tribal or PMF), Army of Adversity etc. Big range of capabilities and potential upgrades.
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| Iranian ZSU 23-2 |
Weapons team: 6 SPs, around 6 men with specialist weapons. These include HMG (.50 cal or Dushka), recoilless rifle (106mm or SPG9), AA gun (ZSU23-2), sniper and support. I'm thinking about some rules around "news gatherers" and potentially IED controllers or S-VEST teams. I see that DR has exploding rats, nuff said.
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| ISF special forces 2015 |
Vehicles: These are separate units and, like creatures in DR, have their own SP. Currently these look like:
- Light vehicles: 6 SPs, may be transports, technicals or VB-IEDs. May be ugraded with armour or weapons.
- Medium vehicles: 12 SPs, trucks, IED resistant vehicles of all types, APCs or large VB-IEDs. Options for upgrading.
- Heavy vehicles: Tanks, upgrades for professional crew etc. There will be limited definitions here since the usual reaction from anyone in the real world is "WTF...its a tank!" even if it isn't.
Lots more to do on this but it is looking very promising.
Great to see such positive progress sir.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I hadn't seen the difference between the two rulesets so clearly, only having tried DR (and thanks for the blog link) - but those unit characteristics you have pointed out for SpecFor etc. are inspired, and can be transplanted almost wholesale with a few choice name changes.
You can really see this working with Blackhawk Down (with small Delta units) and modern contractors for instance. I'm thinking there might be a Falklands scenario or two in there as well. There's also a perfect WWIII scenario from James Rouch's old 'Zone' books that I've been looking for a suitable ruleset for.
I think you have something worthy of getting finished and published here - or at least talking over with Dan Mersey (and I note that 'The Pikeman's Lament' C17th version doesn't have 'Rampant' in the title, so you can get away with a lot on the title :) )
Hi Duc, Thanks for the positive vibes on this one. I'm quite excited about this as it seems to be going together nicely.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to stay focussed tho and build the rules around my thought model which, at the moment, is Iraq. I need to make sure that it works. As you say, this approach has far wider application. I'm thinking that once it is brought together a wide variety of troop types can be designed with their own specific traits.
I'm not sure what Mr M will think of this but I'll do as you suggest and drop him a note.
Cheers
Jay