[X] My Assistant

[SkepticInc]

They gave stats to Great Dragons? Don't they know better? "If you stat it, they will kill it"? Is that what happened to Big D? Oh the humanity! Or more likely: Oh the draconity!

[kzt]

Loss is not necessarily dictated by vocal individuals refusing to accept what you identify as logcal. I would regard your position in that argument as winning because it makes coherent sense, rather than listening to a different section of the rules which would have unacceptable after-effects upon the rest of the world. Such as cheap, unstoppable magical SAM attacks. Or low-level mages being able to more effectively demolish old buildings than a demolitions team.

Well, that was me with the force 1 demo team. I was convinced that not only was it insane (I didn't argue that point) but that it was not what the rules said.

[Laodicea]

They gave stats to Great Dragons? Don't they know better? "If you stat it, they will kill it"? Is that what happened to Big D? Oh the humanity! Or more likely: Oh the draconity!

Not exactly. They said "great dragon = normal, non-great dragon, +10 to all stats." and also "They should always be major power brokers, and more powerful than any runner by far." Which, at 25 bod and 18 magic, they are.

Think about how a dragon would tactically fight a military. Lots of high power spirits, obviously. While those are being dealt with by the army, the dragon is taking out the threats to himself, personally, that is - the heavy artillery like vehicle mounted lasers, etc. You don't need wonky plot devices for it to make sense. Unless you're overpowering the military, or placing the dragon in situations the dragon would be far too smart to let happen, like having 5 heavy autocannons pointed at him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[SkepticInc]

Yea, but Body 25 is a number. People will find a way! I bet in the next ten or so posts, we see three ways to kill something with that Body.

I'll cheat and add the first one: Drop Bear. Fragger'd never see it coming. Probably what killed Dunkey.

[Yerameyahu]

I mean, how hard is it to get something that flies in range of a handful of long range vehicle weapons? You can't just invoke the Batman clause. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I say, set all their stats equal to 'More'.

[Laodicea]

Yea, but Body 25 is a number. People will find a way! I bet in the next ten or so posts, we see three ways to kill something with that Body.

I'll cheat and add the first one: Drop Bear. Fragger'd never see it coming. Probably what killed Dunkey.

Yeah, then think about its natural armor and all the the anchored deflection, armor, etc spells.

Yes, a great dragon is killable with those stats. Killable, until you think of its super-beyond-human intelligence. You literally cannot conceive of the ways in which it would act to outsmart anyone it went up against. It would have traps within traps within traps for 60 layers before you even saw it. And that's just its traps. It would have every contingency plan imaginable + more in place, all in its head at the same time. Unfortunately, a GM really can't think of all those things the way that a hyper-intelligent being can. So the GM is left with cheap tricks like "you just walked into an undetectable misted form of a drug that causes you to astrally project instantly and now all of your bodies are possessed by ally spirits of the Dragon."

The point is, just getting the Dragon in a position to be shot at by anything that can hurt it is hard.

Hint: use lasers.

[augmentin]

::Ducks in a feeble attempt to avoid the unavoidably forthcoming Ghostwalker rant::

Hey, maybe we can squeeze in some Horizon hatred, too?

Or, I can desperately try to wrestle this thread back on track: What about Sader Krupp's corp-military forces? If they bought H&K they should have some pretty serious toys to play with.

The top of my Christmas list is made by HK. Anyone that's had to maintain an M16A2 in field conditions can attest to the value of a weapon like this.

So, how about Sader Krupp? Shadorunner tail kickers? How come we never hear about their spec ops? What kind of military units would a dragon-owned corp deploy?

[toturi]

They gave stats to Great Dragons? Don't they know better? "If you stat it, they will kill it"? Is that what happened to Big D? Oh the humanity! Or more likely: Oh the draconity!

Of course, they did. If they didn't want you to kill it, they would not have given you the stats.

[MortVent]

So, how about Sader Krupp? Shadorunner tail kickers? How come we never hear about their spec ops? What kind of military units would a dragon-owned corp deploy?

they don't want the therapy bills being sent to them

[SkepticInc]

SK spec ops? They own H&K and BMW? I'm guessing they would have painfully expensive but fantastic weapons and gear. Betaware standard, to show the true German craftsmanship, and to make everyone else jealous.

[Minchandre]

But... But...

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years."

Check out the link. It also argues for the relevance of the Marine Corp going into the future.

From a dystopian magical cyberpunk future, I'd argue that in the age of diminishing nation-states, and considered from a financial perspective, the marine corp becomes more vital than ever.

The Marine Corps is 6% of DoD's budget, but

• 16% of the U.S.'s maneuver battalions,
• 15% of the U.S.'s attack aircraft, and
• 19% of the U.S.'s attack helicopters.

The average Marine costs $20,000 less than the next closest service man.

So yeah, Semper Fi, Teufelshunde.

One thing that people - including likely the people who wrote that article - forget is that the Marine Corps is able to get away with that because they've outsourced almost all of their logistics support to the Navy. The Marines are transported by Navy ships, healed by Navy doctors, and often enough fed by Navy cooks. Now, that's not to say that the Marines aren't effective - just that they're more expensive than they look. What percent of the Navy's operating costs can be laid at the feet of the Marine Corps?

[kzt]

SK spec ops? They own H&K and BMW? I'm guessing they would have painfully expensive but fantastic weapons and gear. Betaware standard, to show the true German craftsmanship, and to make everyone else jealous.

HK. Because you suck. And we hate you.

[D2F]

Ares is freakign scary and along with Aztech looks to be one of the biggest millitary powers in the 6th world. Firewatch is insane in its top level opertives. Their anti-bug teams train in space and are heavy initiated. We can only guess at possible rotation in the role. We also know they have a large number of THOR sats and a large nuke stockpile. As well as the abillity to depoly any where due to exterteritoral bases and sub-orbital tech.

Aztech has an entire country under it's self and as such in involved in alot of wars as of now. They will have lower perunit cost troops but they also have the jaguar guard a unit on the same lines as firewatch.

Actually, last I read the strongest compliment of ANY Corp was around the 2 batallion mark and that spot was held in tandem by Ares and S-K.
I haven't read Corp Guide, so my info might be outdated.

[Red_Cap]

How come we never hear about their spec ops?

Because they never leave anyone alive to talk about them?


And I've certainly enjoyed reading this thread as well. I'm a serving Army NCO (deployed to Iraq, no less), so while I have to scoff at the Marine pride being tossed around as a matter of course, I will say that they're hitting the nail on the head at least. I was a 19K (Abrams crewman) and now I'm a 35F (Intelligence Analyst). I work in one of those Tactical Operations Centers mentioned earlier, and let me explain to you -- in generalities -- what it looks like.

Butting against the wall of the building (made of wood inside of an armored hangar) is a large U-shaped desk area called The Pit. On one side is the S-2 (my job), with three computers outputting data on a total of seven screens and a secure phone. The far side is where the RTOs (that's Radio/Telephone Operators for the uninitiated) sit, beside which are two more computers and a four foot-tall stack of SINCGARS radios, a TACSAT satellite radio, a secure phone, and not one but two Blue Force Tracker (BFT) kits (run a search for FBCB2 and you can learn all about it). The middle section of the U has a further three computers (six screens total) and two secure phones for the Battle Captain -- sometimes a lieutenant, the one who actually controls combat operations since battalion commanders can't be micromanaging 24/7) and the Battle NCO (aka the BCPT's bitch). At the "top" of the U, bolted to the aforementioned wall, are a total of six wide-screen flat-panel displays (I like they're all LCDs, but I'm not sure). At any given time, two are displaying the master BFT map feeds, one has a a rolling SIGACT (that's Significant Activities) summary for the past 24 hours, one has map data from the Battle Captain's computer, and my two are showing live feeds from various and sundry UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). And that's not counting the three workstations behind the U, the S2 OIC (Officer In Charge)'s side office, and the S3 (Operations Officer)'s side office.

We are quite literally inundated with information on the modern battlefield, and I cannot imagine that the Sixth World would be any different. My unit (an aviation cavalry squadron) can watch its UH-60s deliver ground troops via air assault while the OH-58s fly top cover on our choice of two different full motion video UAV feeds, track the aircraft's position on the BFT, talk to them on the radio, send text messages to them (and receive replies, of course) via BFT, all the while talking to our next higher and adjacent headquarters on our choice of secure phone, radio, or encrypted chat programs. Hell, we even use Ventrilo here in Iraq for conducting meetings that don't require face-to-face interactions. So while ECM may be able to shut some parts of the network, I doubt that it could shut down ALL parts of the network. The military maintains entirely too many redundancies especially when it comes to communications. We even have an acronym describing the tiers for comms: PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) so that each unit knows exactly which comms systems it has available and which ones to use first.

[IKerensky]

That sound weird, because in SOX there are batallion sized groups fighting the Radwars...

I think Corpo strength should be at last one or two divisionnals units.

[D2F]

That sound weird, because in SOX there are batallion sized groups fighting the Radwars...

I think Corpo strength should be at last one or two divisionnals units.

If you have newer info, please share. My info is still from a 2nd Ed Sourcebook. I think one of the first Corp Guides. Maybe they increased their military force dramatically since then. I still don't see Corps, even the Megas with larger armies than Nations. It makes no sense from a Business perspective. Maybe with the sole exception of Aztechnology, as the line between Aztlan Military and Aztechnology Military is rather blurry.

[augmentin]

I agree. National defense is provided in a state of market failure, something the corps would abhor.

[Doc Chase]

Hint: use lasers.

That didn't actually work, canon points out. Absolutely fraggin' neat as it was.

[Stahlseele]

only because they did not use enough and stopped shooting too soon . .

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

HK. Because you suck. And we hate you.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) This blog sure made me laugh. I wonder; if the Germans are so tough, how did they lose WW2? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Rand]

Many modern SWAT teams are part time. For example, there in ONE full time SWAT team in the state of New Mexico. Many smaller, part time SWAT teams have limited training, limited access to training ammo, etc. The more effective and motivated teams train on their own and buy their own ammo. Lots of teams don't have people that motivated on them.

"Many" modern SWAT teams, but I believe that the ratio is still in favor of the average SWAT team member having more training time and probably more "action" time, as well, than the average soldier.

IIRC, the few hundred members of Delta Force shoot a million rounds a month in training.

Except that we aren't talking about the average Delta Forces guy, we are talking about the average soldier - which the Delta Force most assuredly is not. The book has examples of specops (Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts...) and they are PR 5+ not what the average soldier would be at PR 3, with some at 4 (at best).

Of course, in the Dystopian future, who knows. (The writers know, thats who! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif) )

As for all the "cool" gear: the military buys the stuff from the guys who came in with the lowest bid. That should tell you something about the gear.

[Kliko]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) This blog sure made me laugh. I wonder; if the Germans are so tough, how did they lose WW2? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Poor strategic decision making and suboptimal equipment logistics (many different panzer-versions etc., poor exchangeability of spare parts etc.). Their MG42 still rocks in various modern incarnations today.

[Stahlseele]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) This blog sure made me laugh. I wonder; if the Germans are so tough, how did they lose WW2? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

The hard russian Winter and the high Gas-Price . .

[Dumori]

Actually, last I read the strongest compliment of ANY Corp was around the 2 batallion mark and that spot was held in tandem by Ares and S-K.
I haven't read Corp Guide, so my info might be outdated.

Trust me Azetech has much more but it is a national army not a corporate one however they are the same enity. Ares and S-K are likely in that area in the millitary units. Arse has a lot more combat assets that just that though. Knight Errarnt is a PMC in effect. So I think Knight Erranrnt isn't coun't as Arse's millitay arm though it is. Imagen it as wnageling words and fileings likely due to a corporate court ruling on max army size.

[Doc Chase]

I thought Ares had more than 2 battallions stationed in Silicon Valley during the 60's alone.